Render and I spent the next few hours trying to make Charged Lightning Stride more viable for combat, since spending however long it took focusing solely on the Skill is likely to get me killed in most situations. Speaking of which, I had no clue just how long it took to get that one charge through because of both Fast Thinking and the fact that counting the seconds was perhaps the farthest thing from my mind at the time, but Render was apparently pretty good at accurately measuring time.
10 seconds.
That was how long I had to focus just to use the Skill a single time. Or at least, that was how long it took the first time. After just a single use the Skill reached Level 2, which reduced the time by nearly a full second according to Render, and a few minutes later it was Level 3. That, combined with a surprising amount of increases to my Stats, meant that I could get the first Stride done in just about 6 seconds.
It wasn’t until hours later, when the Skill reached Level 5, that I finally managed to finish the second Stride. Admittedly, I probably could have done it earlier, but I stopped trying after 30 seconds so that I wouldn’t be wasting my time on something that might not have been at all useful. Honestly, I couldn’t decide whether the effect of two Strides was disappointing or absolutely incredible.
Instead of adding to the same blast or multiplying the effect, it did another completely separate blast a second after the first. I won’t go into details, but I will say Woodhaven had their firewood stockpile was filled for quite some time by the time I was done experimenting.
But eventually the creeping darkness forced us to pause our experimentation for the night, and after saying goodnight to Render I returned to what I was internally calling my sleeping shack lit by the soft glow of my Magelight. As I walked, I took a few minutes to marvel at the unusual amount of Levels and Stats I’d gotten in just a few hours.
Robert Zeneki Lightning Adept 18 Level 24 Willpower 25 Wisdom 14 Strength 7 Agility 9
Path Skills Lightning Generator 19 Lightning Bolt 21 Lightning Cloak 11 Charge 16 Chain Lightning 5 Grand Skewer 3 Scorch Affinity
General Skills MAX Charged Lightning Stride
5 Breath Of Mana 9 Battle Meditation 3 Chain Lightning 8 Fast Thinkging 5
King Slayer
Scorch Affinity
If I’m not careful my physical Stats might overtake Wisdom. I’m not sure that my pride as a Mage would take it if that happens.
Jokes aside, this was a lot more progress than I would have expected. I even asked Render about it and they claimed that, whilst uncommon, increasing all of your Stats at once wasn’t entirely unheard. Although that apparently mostly only happened before or after some massive battle, and it was a little strange that this Necromancer actually counted as that.
It was difficult, sure, but I’d come out of it with basically just a few scratches. The kinds of fights that warrant so much growth are almost always close things, like the surviving within an inch of death kind of close, rather than passing out more from lack of sleep and stress than actual injuries.
Actually, these cuts aren’t as bad as I remember. Did someone give me a potion, or did they just heal that fast?
Deciding that I didn’t need to bother with that question, at least not just yet, I shrugged my shoulders and continued my walk. I didn’t bother to use Charged Lightning Stride (just calling that Stride from now on, that name’s too long), since it had been far too long since I was able to just peacefully walk through a forest.
It was nice, relaxing, and it also gave me a perfect chance to fully see the benefits of increasing a Stat for potentially the first time ever. The main Stats I’d been increasing before then were purely mental, which made it pretty difficult to figure out what’s changed, but now my higher Strength and Agility made themselves glaringly obvious.
The most obvious change was my walking speed, which the Evolution and Levels of Stride hadn’t changed at all. I was clearly moving quicker, though by exactly how much was hard to say. The second, and distinctly less obvious, change came from Strength.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I first thought that Strength only affected your ability to exert force, like punching and lifting things, but Render explained that it was much more varied than that. People often drew parallels between it and Willpower, and that was because they provide nearly identical bonuses, it’s just that one was mental and the other physical.
What I’m building to here is that it was less a strength increase, and more an overall physical power increase. My fortitude, my endurance, and my recovery would apparently all be slightly higher now. According to Render, an increase from 6 to 7 usually meant that I’d be able to run for roughly 15% longer, although this tended to be slightly different from person to person.
All this thinking about Stats reminded me of one other thing, Wisdom. I’d told Render that I thought my Wisdom would have prevented me from making such a dangerous and impulsive decision earlier in the day, and whilst I was repeatedly using Stride over and over, he explained the flaws in my understanding.
Whilst Strength and Willpower both increased a great variety of things, Wisdom did not. In fact, only two things experienced any measurable growth as far as Render had been able to find out. First, it allows for faster and more precise control of the mind, effectively letting you think more clearly and control Mana much more efficiently. Second, it improves thoughtful decision making. Basically, as long as I thought something through I’d be able to eventually come to a better decision than I would without it.
Well, I guess I should just get better at thinking things through then. Shouldn’t be too hard if I think about it.
But there was no time for that, as I’d already arrived at my sleeping shack and it was time for me to get some proper rest. I carefully made sure to lock the door and laid down to sleep, quickly drifting off for the first time in days.
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I was dreaming again. I hadn’t dreamt very often since my Awakening, which isn’t something that I’d consciously thought about but still made the few times it happened feel that much more important.
This time, I found myself somewhere new. I was actually in one of the metal vehicles that I’d seen lining the paths and roads countless times, which on its own was quite unusual, but it was somehow moving.
Huh, didn’t know they did that. Weird.
I was sitting in a seat at the back, next to the left window, and the rest of the seats were empty. Which was to be expected, I had never once seen another person in these dreams, at least not a living one.
It was a unique experience to say the least, but I didn’t want to just sit down for the entire dream so I tried to stand up and leave. Emphasise on ‘tried’. There was something, a belt it looked like, locking me in place. I tried to pull at it, and then I tried to figure out how to unlock it, and then I made a final desperate attempt to pull at my Mana and burn it away with Lightning.
But something pressed a finger to my lips and the Mana didn’t come.
I tried to speak but my voice felt just as muffled as my magic, so instead I settled for glaring at whatever was sitting in the seat opposite me. It just grinned, its grin grew so wide on its almost human face that I couldn’t see anything else, and eventually I began to wonder if I’d ever even caught a glimpse of the rest of it.
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I woke up drenched in sweat to find that at some point I’d fallen off the bed, and as I untangled myself from the mess of blankets around me the last dregs of memories from the dream faded, leaving me with just the feeling of something being amiss, and an overwhelming desire to clean myself.
And so I did, taking some clothes with me. I didn't bother trying to find a bath or something and opted to simply rinse myself off in the river nearby. With my higher stats and, admittedly slower, Stride it didn’t take long to reach the nearest river. Quickly, so that I could get back to Woodhaven and continue my training with Render, I washed the sweat off of my body.
It was as I was getting out of the water to dry myself that I felt something brush against my ankle. Battle Meditation would have warned me if it was something dangerous, but nonetheless I panicked (not making any undignified sounds) and jumped out of the river onto the rocky bank to the side.
What in the hells was that?
I carefully looked into the water, slightly concerned about another Crab or some friend of He Who Emerges From The Depths, but was pleasantly surprised to see a Water Elemental emerge from the water and glance at me sheepishly.
“Oh, hey. What’s up?” It didn’t speak, it couldn’t as far as I was aware, but I got the sense that it didn’t just happen to brush past me.
“Do you need something?” I tried asking, in the hopes that it would have some way of conveying what it was doing here, but it simply stared at me.
In the few seconds that I simply stared back, I began to wonder if this was the same one as before, when I took that Job for the person that I now knew to be a Necromancer.
Oh, wait. Could that be why?
“Are you the Water Elemental that I… You know…” I hesitated to say the words, but they seemed to catch my meaning and anxiously nodded, “Right, sorry about that. I didn’t know it would be so bad. And, you weren’t just randomly attacking them, were you? Did you know that they were a Necromancer?”
They nodded, somehow conveying some amount of surprise that I figured it out,
“Yeah, that makes sense. I didn’t know at the time, but I actually took care of them. They’ll probably be spending the rest of their life in prison so you don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
They didn’t exactly have much of a face, but somehow they still managed to smile at me. As I smiled back, I turned to grab my fresh clothes, that I seriously should have put on already, and began to get dressed. By the time I was done I noticed that the Elemental was still there, only now they were holding a cup with some kind of see through gold-ish water inside.
Wait, that cup…
I looked down at the shore and saw that, as I’d suspected, my satchel was laying open and soggy on the rocks. It probably wouldn’t do too much damage, but I didn’t quite appreciate my stuff being taken without my permission.
“Hey, you can’t just mess with people’s stuff like that! What if it wasn’t waterproof?” But the Elemental didn’t seem to care in the slightest, they just held the cup closer towards me, “What is this? Do you want me to have it?” They nodded their approximation of a head, so I hesitantly took the cup and glanced inside at the liquid.
After an awkward few moments, the Elemental exasperatedly made a drinking motion, and I realised what it wanted me to do.
Is it a good idea to drink strange liquids from random Water Elementals?
No, probably not.
But when I thought about what I’d done to the poor thing, when it was only trying to fight back against a Necromancer in the only way it could, I felt a twinge of guilt that I wasn’t even willing to drink some random liquid even after what I’d done.
How bad could it really be?
I forced a smile onto my face and chugged the liquid as fast as I could, trying not to think about the consequences of doing something so stupid, but was surprised at the oddly familiar taste of it.
It was definitely diluted, but I was certain that I’d drank something similar to this before. Or maybe not drank, but felt?
You Have Received The Water Elemental’s Blessing
Choose A Stat To Increase Willpower Wisdom Strength Agility
Huh, I guess I should drink random stuff from strangers more often.
It goes without saying at this point, but I put the point in Willpower.