The village I was headed to, Saltrock apparently, was about as far south from Ironhold as you could get without passing through the Barren Lands. Since Ironhold was already in the lower half of the country, I’d only have to travel around a fifth of the length of a country.
Ha! Only a fifth. That’s further than I had to travel to get to Ironhold from Mantlemount. I guess having a movement Skill really skews your perspective.
If I used Lightning Steps as much as possible, which was probably for around 30 minutes of use and 30 minutes of recovery, I might be able to get there twice as fast. Which would shorten the journey to between one and two days. Probably.
Regardless of my questionably educated guess, I would be able to get there much faster and that’s all that mattered.
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The first day passed relatively uneventfully, however I noticed a couple of sudden jumps in speed that, after checking my Skills, I attributed to increases in the Skill’s level. Otherwise, I took several breaks when my legs inevitably failed to keep up with my Mana Pool (and when I had to eat and such), eventually deciding to set up my tent and go to sleep when I tripped over a rock and was only saved from a serious injury by a Breath Of Mana boosted Lightning Cloak.
Yes I neglected to test that before now, and yes I will tell you its effects. Admittedly, they were moderately underwhelming. Effectively, it seemed to push the ground away from me, causing me to float for a few seconds before gravity proved its superiority and slammed me into the hard packed dirt road.
One day Gravity would lose to my Lightning, one day.
If you ignored my slight blunder the night was quite peaceful, certainly more peaceful than my first night camping. Although I’m not sure that I’d really mind being attacked by some monster right now…
In the morning, I simply packed up my stuff and continued on my journey. By the time morning had passed I’d gained another level, though not in Lightning Steps. Instead, it was actually Lightning Cloak, which was probably helpful.
At the very least, the strain on my legs was noticeably lessened, which implied that Evolved Skills could be improved by levelling the skill I used to make them.
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Without owning a watch or something I couldn’t tell exactly, but I estimated (blindly guessed) that it was around three in the afternoon by the time I arrived at the village. It looked like my guess at how long it would take to arrive was actually right, although I’d forgotten about the fact that Lightning Steps would most likely level so it was technically based off of incorrect information, but I was willing to ignore the facts for another win under my belt.
As I neared the village I almost thought that everyone was inside, like they were on the Golem Job, but after looking around a little I realised that people were outside and working, working quite hard in fact. My eyes just seemed to gloss over them for some reason, and when I focused harder it was strangely difficult to figure out what they were feeling, like they weren’t making any particular expression.
Does someone have some kind of- I don’t know- an aura that keeps people hidden, maybe? Or they could just be keeping me from being able to look at people for some reason. How odd.
Before I could continue to ponder the situation, a man that seemed startlingly present rounded a corner and did a double take at my presence. He was wearing a simple brown tunic and white pants combo, with a darker brown vest open over the top, which didn’t seem like something that would make you stand out as much as he did, but I wasn’t a fashion expert so what would I know?
“Greetings Adventurer! Did someone finally take the Job we posted? It's been months by now, months! Was the pay too low, do you think? Giant Crabs aren’t too hard to kill, but they are difficult to transport, aren’t they?” I attempted to respond but the man completely barrelled over my attempt and pulled me along to walk with him, “So, a while back our best Fisherman was killed by a sea monster, a giant Lobster of all things, and ever since then we’ve been somewhat struggling for food. The rest of the able bodied people of the village stepped up to help take up the slack, but we still had to go into our reserves to get by. No one here has any experience in combat, so we obviously wouldn’t be able to take advantage of this, but there’s a Salt Pan just a little to the South East, nearby to the coast, and the thing’s full of Giant Crabs. This is where you come in, want you to hunt as many as you can, then bring them to us. We’ll use the meat to fill up our reserves, use it as bait, and eat it. I imagine all we need is roughly a hundred, so if you could get that much before you leave that'd be great. We’ve even set up a house you can stay in whilst you’re here, just over here,” The whole time he was speaking, I just nodded my head as though I was listening, but I really wasn’t. He spoke quickly and without much thought, like he wasn’t used to talking but still had absolute confidence in every word.
“Alright, cool. So, uhm, my name’s Rob, what’s yours?” He placed his palm on his head in a way that made it seem like he was trying to facepalm but didn’t quite know what it was.
“Of course, how rude of me. My name is Matthias Seamount. I’m what you could call the leader of this village.” He looked a little young for that to be honest, barely older than me, but I guess he could have recently gotten a really good leading Path or something. It’s not like it was any of my business anyway.
“Nice to meet you. Since you’re the leader, do you happen to know why the people here seem so strange?” Even right at that moment, I could look around and see two or three people with blurred faces and vacant looks, going about their days as though nothing was wrong.
He froze for a moment, and an expression passed across his face so fast that I could barely notice it, before he simply laughed and said, “Strange, you say? Aren’t you the odd one here?”
He’s not wrong.
“Ha, I guess so,” something about that response gave me an uneasy feeling, but I squashed it down and changed the subject, “Anyway, I think I’ll probably head to the salt pan as soon as I find out where I’ll be staying. May as well get started as soon as possible, you know?”
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“Well, that’s fortunate timing, because it’s right,” He paused mid sentence to double back and lead us towards a house that was right next to us, “here!” He opened the door and walked inside. I followed soon after, but thought I might have heard him whispering to someone or something before a door faintly clicked, “So, nice place isn’t it?”
It was a nice place. It was mostly a single room with a kitchen and a table in it, but off to the side was a door that probably led to the bedroom. Although, it was a little cluttered for my tastes. Every surface seemed to be covered by various nicknacks and memorabilia, like someone had brought everything they found interesting and put them on display.
“Yeah, I like it. Is the salt pan far then? I may as well get started.”
“Of course, of course. Like I said, just go South-West for 10 minutes or so and you can’t miss it. Although if you manage anyway then I’m not sure how you got all the way here! Ha!” Some people really don’t know how unfunny they are, I guess.
“Alright, thanks. I’ll just get to work then. Have a nice day.”
“You too, and make sure to bring back tons of Crabs!”
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As I walked through the village, my sense of unease gradually faded. I guess I was kind of overreacting about something that didn’t really matter all that much. So what if I couldn’t describe a single person that lived here aside from Matthias, why would I want to anyway?
So I left the village and activated Lightning Steps, arriving at a wide expanse of what looked like white stone.
This place looks kind of weird. Is this really all salt?
I was tempted to lick the ground just to see, but no. From what I’d heard, salt doesn’t actually taste good on its own.
Instead of getting on all fours and licking the ground, I turned off Lightning Steps and began to wander the salt pan manually in order to conserve my Mana. Maybe I could start using it once I figured out how much I’d need to kill one of these Crabs, but until then it was best to put my 6 Wisdom together and come up with a good idea.
After a few minutes of speed walking, I found my first Crab, and also got my first good look at one. It was actually surprisingly creepy, scuttling around on- I took a second to count them- like 10 legs. Its shell was a dull reddish orange, which became darker as it neared the giant pincers that it was raising above its head.
Wait, no, that’s blood. Gross.
This crab was probably slightly different from the rest of them. It had a number of deep gouges in its shell (or carapace?) that looked like battle scars, and one of its legs looked frailer and lighter than the rest for some reason.
Maybe it’s been in a fight recently? Probably not too recently, since the blood’s dried and all, but still probably not too long ago.
Not that this really affected me much, apart from not making it a good measure of the strength of the rest of these guys.
Whilst I was thinking the Crab seemed to finally notice me and, rather rudely, immediately scuttled towards me with its pincers open and ready to… pince, I guess.
I quickly Charged up a Lightning Bolt, breathing in deeply the whole time, before letting it fly at the Crab. The monster somehow looked visibly shocked, like it had expected something other than Lightning from me, and completely failed to dodge or block as the Bolt rammed straight into its face.
Its momentum was enough for it to fly forward a few metres, but it was too far away to reach me and so collapsed, dead.
Combat Cleared 1 Killer Crab [Level 13] Defeated
Reached Level 15
Choose A Path Skill Absorb Lightning Chain Lightning
“YES!” I didn’t even try to contain my jubilation, after months without a single level, I’d finally reached Level 15. Now I could choose a new Skill to add to my arsenal, although with the new possibility of Skill Evolutions the choice would be harder than ever.
Or easier, actually. What use is Absorb Lighting when I literally make it anyway. I’m taking Chain Lightning.
Skill [Chain Lightning] Chosen
Path Skills Lightning Generator 14 Lightning Bolt 12 Lightning Cloak 3 Charge 9 Chain Lightning 1
Choose A Stat To Increase Willpower Wisdom Strength Agility
At this point, I was seriously considering going all in on Willpower. Up until now, I’d hardly even thought about the actual tangible benefits of levelling up a stat, but it was pretty clear that Willpower meant more power, and Wisdom meant more control.
Eh, whatever. I won’t be smart enough to regret it anyway.
Robert Zeneki Lightning Adept 18 Level 15 Willpower
15 Wisdom
7 Strength
5 Agility
7
Path Skills Lightning Generator 14 Lightning Bolt 12 Lightning Cloak 3 Charge 9 Chain Lightning 1
General Skills MAX Lightning Steps 5 Breath Of Mana
3 Sense Danger
5 Channel Mana
7 Meditation
3
King Slayer
When did I get a point of Wisdom?
Remarkably, it didn’t go down from that.