Leaving the pantry, the trio kidnapped adventurers marched forward. With Mikella’s physical stats pretty high up, she was the main damage dealer and was now leading the group. Zeke felt guilty leaving her to it, but it was clear what his role was–he’s the mage of the group.
That meant his physical stats were piss poor, but he has one spell that could literally save their lives in a pinch.
Throughout the time they took to leave, his mana had already been recharged. The more he focused on it, the better he could feel how much Mana he had on him.
On the way to a hopeful exit of the castle, he practiced his spell multiple times. He realized that he can create the barrier however he wished, and he can even decrease the amount of mana put into the spell the more he practiced.
He first experimented only using a smidge of Mana, but it was useless as the barrier could barely function for a few seconds before it cracked and disappeared. It felt like the spell he was trying to conjure with the skill was too unstable with the lack of mana.
Still, it didn’t feel like it would also explode on his face if he overcharged it with mana–but that’d just be too stupid to try out at this point in time.
He practiced pouring in as little mana as possible until he knew for sure that the barrier was stabilized. But it was so small that only a rat would get stopped by it. Mikella went as far as breaking it with a lazy finger flick.
He glowered at her for doing so, but Mikella replied with a teasing grin, as though prompting him to say something about it. He didn’t want to admit it in this dangerous situation, but that was a pretty cute reaction.
He focused again on increasing the barrier’s limits, knowing exactly how much mana he can use and then save the rest for later. He finally know how to make it stabilized enough to exist, and strong enough to withstand a single longsword attack from Mikella.
But the more she attacked, the more the barrier started to crack and eventually break apart. Zeke didn’t feel any pain, which he was glad for. He also experimented on how much mana he can recover after each cast.
He then opted to practice only using the barest amount of mana he could spend.
Throughout the time he spent experimenting with his spell, a surprising notification came onto his vision.
> Barrier Craft Level Up! It is now Level 2.
>
> You have gained +1 INT from your skill.
> You have gained +2 SPI from your skill.
> General Skill learned: Mana Perception.
First off–He pumped his fist into the air for the leveling of his Barrier Craft skill. Now it felt a lot easier to conjure and pull up, and he even noticed that it decreased the amount of mana cost despite not even casting it yet.
Then the second skill made him tilt his head. He looked up his skill list to see for himself.
> Mana Perception (Uncommon), Level 1
> You are able to perceive the mana flow from within your body and the outside. Increases your senses towards mana and the control over your own. Each of these will increase according to the level of the skill and the current Spirit stat.
Of course, he told all this to Mikella as they continued walking along.
“Holy crap, what are you? You just keep getting new skills left and right. Share some with me, won’t you?”
Zeke grimaced as after getting a glare from Mikella. He had four skills already while she was riding alone. He tried to placate her, but apparently she can see right through him that he was excited about it, getting her to just have a frown on her face.
This kept going for the next two hours while traveling the halls. Of course, no matter how much he tried to experiment with the skill, there were no new notifications showing up compared to earlier.
But soon they faced a new challenge.
They spotted a knight that was walking around aimlessly. This time, it hadn’t shown up in front of them all of a sudden, so they studied it closely when they found it wandering by. Just like they noticed before, they don’t seem to be actually ‘there’.
They just wander about like the stalking ghosts. That knight, unfortunately, was in the way of their next trip downstairs through the spiral staircase at the other side of the pantry Turns out there were more than one spiral staircase.
They figured the only way to reach the exit is to get through to the bottom floor of the castle.
So, they made a plan to attack it, hiding themselves behind a large indent in the walls. Zeke didn’t realize but there was a statue resting at the indent. It creeped him out for a moment before realizing that these figures were just humanoid, but barely recognizable. He couldn’t even tell whether they were a man or a woman, but he was sure it was made in an image of a human person.
Putting that aside, Zeke and Mikella studied the knight’s movements. After seeing it standing still for a minute or so, it wandered about again in another random direction. However, it still hadn’t left the location they needed to pass through, so with a nod to each other, Mikella stepped forward slowly with her sword in hand.
She managed to get close enough behind that she pierced the knight from the back with a powerful thrust of the blade. It pierced through the metal armor, proving once again her amazing Strength attribute.
But the Arthurian Knight didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, it turned around despite getting hit in the back to deliver a strike at her. This time, it was wielding what looked like a long rapier, the speed almost flashing by as it managed to cut up her shoulder a bit.
It was a small graze, but Mikella winced as she jumped away, her longsword aiming right at the knight again. This time, the Knight didn’t seem slow somehow. It was as if the weapon itself changed its movements as it flashed forward with quick steps. Though clearly it still lacked precision as it swung wildly at her. The two fought on like this, dancing on the floor with their weapons aiming to take each other’s life.
The rapier nearly took her limbs apart, but Mikella seemed to adjust to her movements well as she dodged each one. Her body moved like water, almost impossibly so despite Zeke seeing the fight for himself. But soon, the rapier managed to hit her longsword upwards, blasting her stance away as her eyes widened to see the incoming rapier aiming straight for her throat.
With all the knowledge he had, Zeke summoned the barrier right between Mikella and the Knight’s weapon. After practicing a bit, he realized the distance could be as far as his vision could carry. He forced the barrier to appear using about 50% of its potency.
It took a good chunk off of his mana pool, but a barrier showed precisely in front of Mikella, stopping the rapier in place. He thanked his lucky stars that he practiced with Mikella beforehand, because it would’ve been a huge nightmare if the barrier broke after using half of it’s potency in one shot. If it could manage to withstand a single shot from Mikella’s high strength, then the Knight would never be able to break it through in the same time-span.
It was such a shock to the knight’s swing that it caused it to stumble backwards. Its already graceless movements showed even more as the metal made a clunk sound with each heavy footstep. That’s when Mikella stepped forward and annihilated the knight with a thrust straight through its helmet.
As one would expect, the moment the helmet was pierced, the knight’s armor soon collapsed to the ground. Seeing that the knight was down, Zeke tried to sense whatever experience was flowing to him by now.
Even though he only used one spell, it was enough as a strange energy, a warm wind, passed through his body. But it was so faint that if he hadn’t focused on it just now, he would’ve missed it. Unlike a complete level up or gaining an attribute point, gaining experience points that make up a level wasn’t as strong of a feeling as leveling up itself. Still, knowing that he could sense the experience points rising up within him, he could feel that he’s that much closer to reaching the cusp of his experience.
Just as Zeke taught her, Mikella put her hand out to the suit of armor, and just as before, the metal armor disappeared entirely as new items dropped to the ground. Zeke and Clara, who hid behind him as Mikella instructed, rushed forward to find Mikella digging through the items.
Only a sword dropped this time. However, it was nothing like the rapier that the Arthurian Knight used before.
The sword appeared like an average sword, neither long nor short. But just like the longsword or the axe, it had exquisite flourishing marks across the blade and a stylized silver rectangular guard and hilt. He didn’t sense any mana with his Mana Perception, so the markings were just for design alone.
As usual, Mikella picked up the sword in hand. She swung it down once, twice, then after a careful look at it, put it into her inventory.
“It feels a bit lighter than what I like, but it’s good when I want to strike fast,” Mikella said with a grin, putting the sword into her own pack which already had her longsword as well as a single fruit barrel. Zeke could only agree, her having the most experience in weapon fighting so far.
She also wore the grieves that dropped alongside with the spell book. Zeke thought it was only fair, and he even gave up his gauntlets to her. So far, she was able to move rather well despite wearing such heavy-looking armor pieces. Not to mention it was becoming of her along with the longsword in hand.
“Oh, right!” Mikella said, snapping her gauntleted fingers. “I just got a new skill!”
“Wait, for real?!” Zeke nearly shouted. He didn’t even realized how excited he was as he spoke. “What did you get?”
“It’s a General Skill,” Mikella said, then she paused before furrowing her brows tight.
He wondered what she was doing for a moment before all of a sudden–
Pop.
What looked like a super thin rectangular block of light appeared in front of her, widening Zeke’s eyes. Seeing his reaction, she smiled as she used her hand to gesture moving left and right.
The block of light followed her will, but she furrowed her brows the farther it got away from her before it disappeared again.
“Alright, makes sense that I can just push it farther than my field of vision,” Mikella nodded, then she put on a smug grin as she made the block appear again and shoved it right to Zeke’s face. “Catch!”
Zeke tried to do so, but it unfortunately was a wasted effort as his hands caught nothing but air. The block of light just appeared in front of him. He glared over at Mikella who was now laughing her ass off at the sight. His cheeks burned at the display, but he read the notification in front of him to put it aside.
> General Skill learned: Sword Mastery.
> Sword Mastery (Common), Level 1
> You become a part of your sword. When you wield any type of sword, your damage increases and your movements faster. Each of these will increase according to the level of the skill and the current Strength, Dexterity, and Endurance stat.
“This is… incredible,” Zeke said in awe. “It makes sense that I didn’t get something like Axe Mastery. You really love that sword, don’t you?”
“I mean, it could be better,” Mikella shrugged. “I wish it was Uncommon or something. I feel like I got something super basic.”
Zeke shook his head. “Any skill, regardless of their rarity, can be valuable. Sure, it’s better if it was a higher rarity, but I definitely don’t want to get in the way of you when you hold that sword.”
Mikella flashed a cocky grin. “Guess you got a point. It’s all about the player's skill rather than how good the skill is to the game, right?”
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Zeke could only nod at that as the group went down the stairs, now available for everyone to go through. But when they reached the next floor down, what they saw made them lose faith in their upcoming future.
More hallways and more doors.
“We’re gonna be stuck in here forever, aren’t we?” Mikella said what they feared in their minds, leaving Zeke to leave a groan out for everyone to hear.
…..
Throughout the grind of searching every door for any available resources they can get and looking out for potential knights that would kill them, Mikella was exhausted.
Her body was weary, her mind was grinding itself to dust, and her eyes were starting to get blurry. Her hands were starting to grow calluses, her fingers reaching to the point of growing numb.
They fought two other knights so far during this process which felt like hours had passed.
One knight carried a longsword like her, and another carried an axe like Zeke’s. Their combo of interrupting their attacks with Zeke’s barrier and her thrusting attack took care of them rather easily. These knights, while horrifying to face, have a shared weakness of not having any coordination with their bodies.
Some apparently have experience, but just as she expected of a suit with nothing inside, the joints were locked up and the movements were slow and sluggish.
Once Mikella handled that information in her head, the rest came easy for her. One thrust through the head somehow disconnected disrupted the knight entirely. And sometimes just bashing them like crazy works just as well. They can’t exactly attack them if they don't have any limbs to attack with.
Still, the fighting was daunting. It wasn’t just the fights, it was the constant looking out for potential enemies that could do them in. If Zeke’s experiences taught her anything, this place would kill you in a heartbeat if you’re not careful.
During both fights, her skill Sword Mastery somewhat took over. It felt as though her body corrected her bad posture and stances. Now, it felt as though she was truly one with the sword. She definitely felt her thrusts and slashes were a lot sharper than before, fully utilizing her physical stats. She wondered if she would also get some more skills that help her fight better, or at the very least help her survive better.
She looked back while trudging forward, noticing Clara hiding behind Zeke as she ordered. Her eyes were teary, yet she never cried out in frustration and fear.
She always loved Clara for that. Her parents always thought it was strange for a child to not cry as much as she does, but Mikella never once found it disturbing. She never liked children that cried like mad, so it was a godsend that Clara isn’t the sort to panic and scream at a moment’s notice.
She did realize that it did cause her to not be so friendly with the other brats in her neighborhood, but at that point, Mikella just considered Clara as ‘above’ the children. It may sound elitist, but Mikella herself always carried a hint of elitism in her mind.
Being on top form of the gymnastics team and constantly training by herself was proof that others would only slow you down. That’s why she believed that Clara is her little sister, no matter what her two fathers say about her.
What surprised her, however, is how close Clara has gotten to Zeke. Zeke didn’t seem to notice as he seemed focused on making sure his barrier magic was on point while battling the knights. She even tugged on his pant leg with fervor, keeping up with Mikella’s order and hiding behind Zeke with all her might.
She never once got attached to someone other than herself and their mother, particularly a grown male adult. She never really liked the men around her, including their father. Then again, Mikella was the same, though she was more annoyed than scared at them.
So having Zeke around definitely eased her mind and helped her fight the upcoming battles.
Another knight went down, and eventually something terrible happened. One Arthurian Knight didn’t seem to carry any weapons, so Mikella figured it was one of those hand-to-hand combat fighters as she easily pierced the knight through the cuirass.
But she made a mistake. The knight somehow purposely had itself stabbed as it took out a knife from somewhere hidden and stabbed Mikella right in the gut.
Blood poured out like a river, and pain followed after.
She screamed loudly, pain shooting through her torso and up her entire body. The dagger was nothing as huge as a sword, but that didn’t matter at all to Mikella as she knelt down, unable to face the pain.
She put her hands together over the large bleeding wound to try and stop the flow. But she failed to realize that the knight wasn’t stopping and tried to stab her skull with a downward thrust.
A barrier took place and Zeke rushed forward and struck the knight with his axe across the neck when it was stumbling backwards. The knight went down without a hitch, and Zeke immediately went to her side and pulled out a barrel of fruits to feed her.
Mikella didn’t hold back and ate four of the fruits. The taste was delicious, but her bleeding mouth and the pain were terrible. The two simple emotions mixed together to make an uncomfortable blend of time that seemed to flow by as her injury slowly reduced in size.
The pain seemed to lessen. She finally breathed as though a chokehold that was squeezing her insides finally let go, and the shooting burning pain finally ceased. It ached, obviously, but not as bad as before.
She realized that there was a notification after her healing process was done, and she figured it out what it was as she summoned the notification to the front of her vision.
> You have gained +1 DEX from your actions
>
> You have gained +1 END from your actions
>
> You have gained +1 VIT from your actions
> General Skill learned: Pain Resistance.
> General Skill learned: Meditation.
> Level up! You are now Level 3. You gain 2 free points (4 FP total).
She finally got the two General Skills Zeke learned, and she is level 3 now. Normally she would be ecstatic, but her recent experience with that knife utterly ruined it. She mentally took back her snide jealousy from earlier about Zeke having more skills than her. She would rather not learn Pain Resistance and Meditation by copying Zeke’s experiences.
She was lucky to gain that extra Vitality point and noticed that she had four free stats to spare. She immediately wanted to upgrade her Vitality, to see if she could recover from this wound faster.
But she shook herself off. She also realized that her stamina could be better too. If she’d move better, she could’ve avoided it. Boosting Vitality wasn’t the answer–she needed to get stronger, and she can’t get that through stat points.
She needed to learn how to fight better. She had the battle easily, but she failed to realize that just because the knight didn’t look like it knew what it was doing, she shouldn’t underestimate it. Sword Mastery only corrected her moves–it didn’t make her a better fighter.
And if it weren’t for Zeke’s timely interference, she would’ve died while screaming like a child after getting gutted with a knife. Then after that, the knight would go after Clara.
She was supposed to be the fighter of the group, with higher stats to boot. But she ended up crumbling like tissue paper after getting stabbed in the gut once with a dinky knife.
Granted, that knife was very sharp and a lot longer than it looked, but it was still a dinky knife.
Shame riddled her, grimacing at the fact that despite her training, Zeke handled the pain better than she could. He even went out of his way to fight the knight while still bleeding to death. With the pain, she can’t even imagine moving at all even during combat.
“Mikella, you okay?” Zeke asked, worry plastered over his face. “You’re looking pale.”
Zeke asked, clearly concerned about her physical state rather than the emotional whirlwind going through her. Before long, her arm were tugged by Clara to her side, crying out her name.
“Sissy! Sissy!” Clara cried. “You okay?”
Mikella’s shame and embarrassment were swept away by Clara’s tears, offering her a smile as she brushed her black hair as usual. “I’m fine. Sorry, I just need a moment…”
And she did take that moment. To let the scene sink into her mind, her thoughts and her feelings. Her emotions whirling around like a hurricane on top of the pain and exhilaration of fighting and leveling up.
After calming down, the two adults discussed their level ups. She explained about the two new General Skills she learned, and Zeke could only respond with a grimacing smile.
“Yeah… it’s not fun.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious,” Mikella snorted.
Just like what happened with her, Zeke also managed to make the block of light appear and shove it to her face. However, she was an adult, so she only read on without caring too much about his childish antics. She smiled deviously when she noticed that he frowned at her non-reaction, hidden behind by the block of light.
> Barrier Craft Level Up! It is now Level 3.
>
> You have gained +1 INT from your skill.
> You have gained +2 SPI from your skill.
Being an active spell, it made sense that Zeke’s Barrier Craft leveled up again. Apparently he realized that just making the barrier appear and reappear won’t count anymore. However, using it for its intended purpose did–blocking an attack from the knight.
He’s been getting better and better at it, and she was thankful that he took her advice to not make the barrier suddenly show up right near her face.
Not that she was complaining that he saved her life, but almost running into a wall whenever the knight just so happens to raise its arms every time would’ve been annoying.
After discussing a fair bit, they decided to use their free points whenever they could. Zeke decided to just increase his Spirit, considering that not only does it increase his Mana pool, his Barrier Craft also depended on the Spirit attribute as well. So it was a no brainer for him.
Wherever for Mikella, it became the worst decision of her life. She had four very important stats to consider.
She needed to fight better, but the only way to do that is by either increasing her damage or her speed. She also needs to last longer, and potentially survive fatal injuries should she make a mistake.
She first thought about increasing Strength for more power, obviously. But something told her that having more Strength won’t exactly help her.
Sure, she could one-shot knights, but what would happen if those knights hit her like with the dagger? Her Strength won’t matter at all if she died, or lost her limbs in a fight. That was also why she didn’t consider increasing Vitality.
That’d be the same as accepting those hits, like a guardian would in the games she played. She never intended on taking any hits, so Vitality was out–at least for now.
So finally there was Dexterity and Endurance to consider.
Endurance kept her going, but that also goes along with the concept of increasing Vitality. She would prefer to end the fight faster than making it keep going, bringing her back to the Strength attribute.
Then there was Dexterity. With that attribute, she felt that she got faster, nimbler, and more in depth with her balance. It felt like an all natural super attribute compared to the others honestly.
However, when she spoke about it to Zeke, he got confused. His Dexterity stat wasn’t exactly low, but he never felt faster or more in control of his body, which was odd.
Then Zeke made a theory that made more sense. It was possible that Mikella was faster by a large margin due to her attribute being at the higher ten, just like how Zeke can figure out this mana business with his Spirit attribute at ten.
“It’s possible that there are certain milestones for our attributes. It’ll make it stronger, helping us get better at what these attributes represent.”
Zeke seemed more into this than she was, so put it at the back burner. She decided to put points into Dexterity as that seemed more logical.
In other words, the faster she was, the better she could dodge. The faster she was, the faster she could damage and kill monsters. Simple as that.
The two points goes into Dexterity, one into Strength, and finally one into Endurance. This way, she can fight better, quicker, and longer than before. She could also just put all of them into Dexterity too, but both she and Zeke can agree that being a one-stat pony is too much of a risk in this world with no knowledge at hand.
Looking up at her status screen now proved just how much she increased.
> Name: Mikella Ashton
> Race: Human
> Novice: Level 3
> STR: 10
> DEX: 14
> INT: 5
> SPI: 5
> VIT: 8
> END: 10
> Free Points: 0
>
> General Skills:
> Sword Mastery (C), Level 1
> Pain Resistance (U), Level 1
> Meditation (C), Level 1
Seeing her stats now made her feel better about the upcoming battles. She learned how not to underestimate even the slightest hint of weakness in someone, and her physical stats increased some more.
What’s more, since her Strength and Endurance reached 10, she felt more power than ever before. She also felt so much energy that she swore she could go for days without sleep and still be perfectly fine. She told all this to Zeke to which he nodded, believing that it was due to the stats reaching ten as she expected.
He was still going to put all his points into Spirit until something else showed up, which Mikella can understand. Personally, all he needs to do is keep that barrier active to protect her sister. She can do all the dirty work of taking care of the monsters.
What was that word again? ‘Quid pro quo’? Something about something for something?
Putting that aside, she thought about her Vitality again. She received a point after getting stabbed in the gut like Zeke did, which was proven when he also gained a point in it as well.
So she thought about during the down time, she can just nick her skin with her sword. That way, she doesn’t have to be horrifically injured, and she can increase her Vitality attribute through her actions. Perhaps even increase the Pain Resistance skill she had on hand.
That way, she can use her Meditation to recover her wounds, and if worse comes to worse, she can just eat the fruits for recovery.
Perhaps that way she doesn’t have to worry about pouring her hard-earned free points in something that’s extremely vital. When she told that to Zeke, however, he offered another point of view.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We probably shouldn’t use up those fruits even if we have plenty. Second, you could keep cutting yourself all the time, but from what I’ve seen so far, you need to go farther than what we went through to get something. I don’t think you’ll gain an easy Vitality point if you don’t go all the way and try to, I don’t know, cut a finger off?”
Mikella shivered at that. The more she thought about it, the more sense he made. It was proven time and again that just getting hurt slightly never once raised a Vitality point, but a deeper wound or a heavy trauma would. She also recognized that the fruits were their only food source, so that was also completely out.
They still don’t know their way around the castle. They don’t know where the exit is. While her plan was good to up her Vitality in the low levels, or as they thought might be the low levels, it won’t be good in the long run. Before they knew it, Mikella would’ve eaten their entire food supply while having the highest Vitality stat so far, leaving them to starve.
How could she do that to Clara for her own increase in power? She immediately shelved that idea for now.
She let out a heavy breath. She always liked those exploits where one can increase a stat easily in game and become like a god amongst men, but unfortunately this game-like world is too realistic for that.