The young farmer felt the wind vanish from his lungs as his body was sent flying into the growing corn that he was just envying moments ago. The crunch of hard stalks mixed with the crack of something breaking blending together to create a mixture of pain. Ambrose momentarily felt his vision go black as his brain rattled in his skull like a seed in its shell.

The fledgling adult, for all his poor efforts, had proved to himself that maybe it was indeed better to stay away from the settlement. He felt a sick twist in his gut that wasn’t due to the damage inflicted upon him. He should have known that living near others would just cause trouble. It was just like in the Underground…

Ambrose felt a calloused hand shake him from his stupor.

“Ambrose, buddy, are you okay?!” The image of a facial tattoo in the shape of a tree with flowing roots and branches met his gaze. There were many other members of the collective that deigned to don themselves with tattoos during the character creation, but only one chose this particular ornament.

“Jerald,” the injured boy let out a wheeze that rattled his ribcage. He tried to suck in some air but it only left him gasping in agony.

“I need you to listen to me bud, I have a potion but I need you to swallow it. Can you do that for me?” Ambrose idly wondered who in the village was already making potions. A second later he gave a shaking nod of his head as his neck arched backward and his mouth opened. The liquid slid down his esophagus but left behind the taste of something bitter and unpleasant. The farmer felt himself gag but Jerald closed his mouth before Ambrose could vomit the concoction back up.

“As long as you keep the potion down it’ll heal most of your broken bones but you’ll have some nasty bruises tomorrow. Stay here and out of the way while we take care of this beast.” Jerald growled out the last of his words as he palmed the one-handed ax at his side. The shining steel curved blade glimmered the rays of sunlight while the treated darkened wood appeared to be unbreakable. The wheezing boy noticed another ax appear in his left hand as a red glow radiated out from his body. With a roar that rivaled the bear, Jerald lept into combat alongside the other settlement guards.

Ambrose, not one to stay lying on the ground, forced himself to his feet. His bones had not yet knit themselves back together, but Ambrose’s (Strength) and (Constitution) were both well above normal for his level. While that didn’t mean anything much, it did mean that the potion was having an easier time repairing his body than it would have if he simply had the default points in each attribute.

Ambrose didn’t know how many attribute points were given per level up, but he did know that it couldn’t be much. As this world would have already gone out of whack if he was able to carry trees that weighed hundreds of pounds all by himself and was given numerous points for simply going from level one to two. Since Ambrose only hunted small weaker animals, he only gained the respective amount of experience for them. His counter was sitting a mere two experience points away from a level up, but Ambrose’s goal had never been to mindlessly kill creatures to level up. The experience could be acquired from gaining levels and ranks in a person's skills. It wasn’t as much as slaughtering monsters, but it did let Ambrose nearly make it to the next level.

As a group of a half dozen warriors danced around the beast, peppering it with wounds, Ambrose and a few others watched mutely as the bear growled with fury. Its thick coarse brown fur was already dyed red from the blood outside its body, but splatters of the guards' lifeforce dotted the ground in paintings of gore. While none had died it was apparent that the beast was much more powerful than what the guards could handle. The teenager found himself curious as he channeled [Inspect] on a female donned in heavy armor wielding a two-handled warhammer made of dull iron metal.

[Astra Upes: Level 9 - Norse]

The [Inspect] skill had yet to break through to the (Apprentice) rank so it didn’t give much in the way of a detailed explanation. Higher ranks of the skill were said to give a detailed analysis on a wide variety of things, even down to the body’s condition of the person it had been used on. Perfect for those with the skillset of a medical professional. For the young man that had no skills as a doctor, he had to eyeball the current situation to the best of his abilities.

The warriors were in dire straights, that much was true. Jerald and a few others had activated their [Beserk] skill in an attempt to bridge the gap between levels but they were taking more deadly hits than they could dish out. The bear was fighting with such reckless abandon that it appeared to have the same skill as the raging warriors.

The battle created such noise that almost the entirety of the settlement had ventured out of the wooden gates to try to help. Arrows flew at the bear like flies buzzing around the dead, except only occasionally did the arrows managed to pierce the steel-like hide.

Ambrose felt foolish for leaving his primary weapon at his homestead, for all intents and purposes he was defenseless.

“Unless…” Ambrose quickly pulled up the flurry of words that described one of his spells, noting if his blossoming idea was possible.

[Spell Name: Earth Manipulation (Apprentice V)

Cost: 8 mana per second

Description: Shape the earth within a radius of 15 yards]

The cost had decreased as Ambrose grew more proficient and the radius had increased by a yard with each level. While Ambrose would have to get close it would still be feasible. Drawing a deep breath, the shaking boy took a step forward, then froze.

“What am I doing? I don’t know these people,” His thoughts felt like treacherous splinters of wood, digging into his brain. His heart reasoned that he didn’t need an excuse to save the struggling guards. While his brain argued that putting himself at risk wasn’t worth anything that could be gained from the exchange. As Ambrose’s internal thoughts tore himself asunder a cry of agony spread out from the warriors battling against the [Savage Brown Bear].

Ambrose opened his lips in a silent gasp as he witnessed Jerald fly across the clearing. His chest had an open gap with three cavernous claw marks gorged from belly to collarbone. He landed amongst the twigs and rubble and was surrounded by a few women and men that dragged him away from the chaos.

Jerald, the only person to show Ambrose any form of unconditional kindness was now hanging onto life by a thread, dying only feet away from him. Something clicked between his heart and head and an agreement was struck. This beast had hurt his friend, and now he would hurt it.

Getting within the range of his spell to work was difficult. The monster had caused serious damage to him that Ambrose had yet to recover from. The initial blow had broken little but the airborne fall had multiplied the harm. The potion had alleviated some of the pain and injury but Ambrose wheezed as his lungs shifted within his chest. His femur was probably splintered too as he stumbled and fell within the first few feet of his perilous walk.

He groaned as he climbed to his feet once more, urging his body to listen to his commands. His staggering steps continued until he reached a distance where he could finally affect the ongoing battle. Straining his voice and coughing up flecks of blood, Ambrose yelled as he fell to the ground and pressed his hands into the yielding earth.

“[Earth Manipulation],” in less than a second the ground where the bear was going to take its next step disappeared. The beast stumbled as the solid soil collapsed underneath and it lost its balance. Ambrose capitalized on the sudden confusion as he clasped his hands together, visualizing the rocks and dirt to compact upon the right foremost leg of the monster. The earth churned with destruction as it bent to Ambrose’s will.

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While the stone wasn’t anything special and had taken less than a few seconds to form, it served to stop the bear for a small amount of time as the warriors dealt as much damage as possible. Since the sudden pitfall would eventually be escaped from, Ambrose went to work on slowly digging more potholes for the bear to trap itself in. Each time that the bear shattered the stone holding it down, it was soon trapped by yet another.

[Earth Manipulation] wasn’t a spell of actual power, more of a starting skill meant to attune oneself with the movement of magic. The god that helped Ambrose during the tutorial had described it in passing as a “crutch” or “training wheels” for more advanced spells like [Earthquake] or [Stone Arrow]. It was basic talk for saying that Ambrose’s spell had little in the way of actually dishing out damage for combat, something that he wasn’t aiming for in the first place.

It all boiled down to Ambrose only being a minor distraction in the battle while the guards were the ones slicing and cleaving into the raving bear. But the small inconvenience soon turned out to be the winning move as Ambrose ripped the loosened soil out from underneath the bear once more and shot the bits of stone into its eyes. It roared in irritation as its vision was temporarily disabled, but that was all that was needed for the finishing strike to be dealt.

With a mighty heave of a great ax, a burly man of at least 6’8’’ with muscles that rivaled that of a professional bodybuilder, cut through the neck of the [Savage Brown Bear], decapitating the unruly creature. For a moment all was silent even the birds and wind remained unmoving as they gave homage to the fierce battle that had just been fought. Then in an instant, it was all dashed as cries of worry rang out among the settlers as men and women rushed to take care of the wounded.

Ambrose felt a massive headache approaching as the short confrontation had drained almost all of his mana right from his system. It would fill back up quickly when he was out of combat, but at the moment it hurt like hell. He reached for a small cloth in his bag to wipe his damp forehead at the same time a young woman around his age came up from behind him. Startling him enough to drop the rag, which the lady deftly swept out of the air.

“My apologies, I was making sure that you were okay?” a flashing icon in the corner of his vision distracted Ambrose as the woman spoke. He gave only a small nod as he grasped the cloth and turned away, curious as to what the game system was about to inform him. His train of thought was interrupted when he felt the continued presence of the lady behind him. His increased attributes giving him a heads up from just the person’s breathing. Turning slowly, he made eye contact with her, feeling cautious as he did so.

Living away from people for almost two weeks had made Ambrose forget basic human courtesy. Although, it wasn’t like he had much to begin with. As he gestured for the lady to speak, she fumbled with her words before uttering out a clear sentence.

“Do you need any bandaging, I-I-I have the [First Aid] skill so I can perform an immediate treatment if you have any open wounds,” Ambrose would’ve sworn the woman got woozy at the sight of the state of his body. Gashes had opened across his chest when his bones had punctured his skin, dripping trails of dark blood. The bear had struck him good but the potion had taken care of the worst of it.

“No,” Ambrose said with a grunt. He cocked his head and touched his finger to his chin. Remembering the words to say after someone offers you something.

“Thank you though,” He grinned in pride while the woman scowled as she thought she was being mocked. With a deep frown, the short woman stomped away to treat the rest of the injured.

Ambrose was going to try to be a more social human being, but at the moment with his injuries and mana deprivation, it wasn’t going to be today.

With a mental tug at the flashing icon, he pulled up the prompts awaiting his eyes.

[Slain [Savage Brown Bear - Level 16]]

[Gained XP - 246 (Reduced due to small contribution and distribution among party combatants)]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

Besides the two level-ups, Ambrose had also finally breached the requirement for [Earth Manipulation] to reach (Journeyman). He pulled up his character sheet to get a reading on the current him since moving was unbearable for the moment. He collapsed onto the grass to rest his body.

[Name: Ambrose Jay

Race: Norse

Mana: 7

Level: 3

XP: 44

XP Needed To Level: 400

Attributes:

Intelligence: 20

Wisdom: 15

Dexterity: 15

Strength: 28

Constitution: 20

Unspent Stat Points: 4

Skills:

[Farming (Apprentice II)]

[Taming (Novice II)]

[Alchemy (Novice I)]

[Cold Resistance (Apprentice I)]

[Wilderness Survival (Apprentice II)]

[Cooking (Novice III)]

[Herbology (Novice V)]

[Physical Fitness (Apprentice III)]

[Identification (Novice IV)]

[Archery (Novice III)]

[Bowcraft (Novice I)]

[Leatherworking (Novice I)]

[Herb Growing (Novice I)]

[Wood Working (Novice IV)]

[Construction (Apprentice III)]

[Logging (Novice V)]

[Barter (Novice I)]

Spells:

[Earth Manipulation (Journeyman I)]

[Water Manipulation (Novice IV)]

Unspent Skill Points: 2]

He was most pleased with the two skill points that he had gained, they would allow him to pick up some basic skills like he had done during his character creation or they would let him level up his current ones. Although Ambrose could agree with the deity that doing something like that was wasteful. Why spend the precious skill points on doing what could be done with time and effort. It was much more resourceful to use the points to gain skills that were hard to come by. Maybe something that could help him make his house a little more modern? [Enchanting] seemed to be every lonely person’s dream. He would grow bored eventually and having small projects to work on would be fun, but he also already had the [Alchemy] skill that he was using sooo much of. He pushed the thought away and decided just to save the skill points for when he came up with an idea.

The attribute points were spent much easier as he dumped them all into (Wisdom) since the attribute directly related to how much mana he could store at one time. (Wisdom) handled the size of the bucket while (Intelligence) handled how fast the bucket filled up. With mana not regenerating during combat, Ambrose made the executive decision to instead always have more with him.

As Ambros fiddled around with his stats a little more, a familiar small figure entered the corner of his sight. His head craned upwards just an inch to find the halfling staring at eye level with him. It was a mystery why anyone would choose to be that short when the other race, Norsege, was just as choosable. Her high-pitched voice still carried the same enthusiasm that had once greeted him at the Floating Otter Inn.

“Hi, Ambrose! Mighty glad that you’re still alive, Jerald kept wanting to go and visit to make sure you were doing fine but we only have so many guards. And like you just saw, it is not like we’re exactly safe all the time,” Tina the olive-skinned halfling grinned with her pearly white teeth as she gestured towards the now butchered bear.

“I also heard from Gorel, the hunter that sold you some pelts, that you were fine and you had almost finished your house, which is impressive by yourself.” She continued on as Ambrose's face creased in doubt.

“You couldn’t spare a guard for a few hours to go and see if I was okay?” Ambrose understood her reasoning, especially after seeing the beast almost kill a few people, but it didn’t make the accidental snub any worse. Tina carried on talking more to herself than him, but Ambrose listened anyway.

“You never stop to think about just how hard it is to get anything started, even with our supernatural strength. Hells, Kega only just managed to plant her corn a few days ago so we’ve all been subsisting on whatever tries to attack us and the fish we manage to pull up from the ocean waves.” She eventually began to slow her words as she noticed that Ambrose was drifting off into his own headspace. She gave an exaggerated sigh, trying to catch his attention.

“Sorry for the ramble, I just can’t help myself. I originally thought I would be exploring the area and making maps, which I do, but I’ve taken on more of a leadership role than I originally thought. But enough of that, you didn’t come here to speak to me, what can I help you with?”

“I need permission to claim more land nearby my homestead. I successfully gathered my first harvest and now I want to expand so I can get more each week. I also want to speak with a blacksmith about getting some metal tools, and if anyone has been back to Bjora in the past weeks. I need someone that's able to transport large amounts of goods back and forth and buy any supplies I need so I don’t have to be away from my farm for too long.” Ambrose let out his own ramble as he verbally listed off a few more miscellaneous items off his list that he needed.

Tina nodded along as he spoke and when he finished she pondered for a moment before replying.

“Giving you more land is no problem, the land around the lake is big enough for dozens of farms to operate without getting in each other's way. From now on just claim what you need and if someone comes and complains just bring them to me.

“Secondly, you’re in luck as Astrid, our blacksmith, recently found an iron vein near the coastline and has been able to churn out a few basic iron tools to those that are willing to pay or barter.” She tapped her thigh rhythmically.

“The only problem is your request for a merchant or delivery person. There was a man that went back to Bjora a week back for a quest he received but he hasn’t been back since and I can only fear the worst,” a dark gloom settled on her face as she made direct eye contact with Ambrose. Her entire demeanor shifting from the once cheerful halfling to a woman who had too much responsibility on her shoulders. He wondered just how much had happened in the week and a half to cause such pressure to overwhelm her. His question was answered soon enough.

“Ambrose, be careful when you return. It seems like this second life which we all thought to be a “game” is a little more than that.” She swallowed a lump that clung to the inside of her throat.

“No one who has died has come back.”