Alistair looked at the countdown: 2 minutes left. He put on the armor, grabbed the small backpack, and checked its contents. He found 3 Bottles and used [Identify] on them while looking them over. Unsurprisingly, they were described as health, mana, and stamina potions. He stored them in his backpack and strapped the buckler to his left arm. The shortsword rested in its scabbard on his hip, and the simple leather armor covered his torso, shoulders, and arms. Finally, he put on the leather boots, leaving his old shoes next to the couch. Taking one last glance across the room in case he overlooked an item or hint. He slightly nodded in acknowledgment that he was ready.
"That's it then. Do you have any last-minute advice?" Alistair asked, looking at the elderly gentleman.
"Don't die," the elderly man's apparition said with as little excitement as he could muster.
"Primo advice there," Alistair said in a snarky tone.
The elderly man just looked at him for a few seconds before saying.
"It is time. I wish you good luck on your path," Alistair was booted out of his own soulscape with the wave of the avatar's hand. After a short flash of darkness, he found himself standing in what looked to be a cave.
The cave was damp, and the only light source was slightly bioluminescent mushrooms. Alistair crouched down, pulling his shortsword quietly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Looking at the mushrooms, he tried to Identify them but only received [Bioluminescent Mushrooms] as a result. "Better not touch them. They might be poisonous or, worse, have harmful magic. They might even be radioactive… I guess that could be one way to receive superpowers, that, or super diarrhea," he mused.
A few minutes passed while Alistair stood still in a crouched position, listening for any sounds. He checked the cave roof but could only make out rock and tiny stalactites. Alistair could hear water dripping on the rock and an occasional rhythmic clicking sound. Finally, after some minutes, he felt confident that his dark vision was sufficient.
Alistair snuck slowly ahead, leaving the dead-end he found himself in behind, and followed the winding tunnel. He suddenly heard the clicking again, but this time much closer. Alistair slowly peaked around the nearby corner, seeing two Spider-like creatures meandering across the cave floor. While he did not have arachnophobia, he was not a fan, not at all.
"Ew, ew, ew, why does it have to be giant spiders?! And why do their legs look like blades??" Alistair questioned with a grimace.
He was not a big fan of Spiders and wished Enya was around. She liked those crawly things and had multiple exotic pets in her house. He could handle the lizards and Snakes but drew the line at Arachnids. Personally, he preferred Cats and Dogs. Alistair suddenly froze. What did happen to their family pets? Alistair and his whole family had pets at home, and they were all considered part of the family. Did they just all die? He'd had his cat for almost 12 years and loved her dearly. The thought of her being dead made tears well up in his eyes, and a clump formed in his throat. Alistair fought the tears down. Alistair did not know this was the case, as he forced himself to focus on the issues at hand.
After shooting the spiders a quick [Identify] [Naichevix - lvl 1] [Naichevix - lvl 2], a simmering fury grew within him, and he drew on it.
The Naichevix closer to him was at a higher level but had its back turned to him. If he could ambush it, he might have to deal only with one of the dog-sized freaks.
He could see some natural light on the other side of the small chamber. He was close to the exit and could run for it if things turned nasty. He gripped the shortsword tighter.
"I need to kill these things before they move," he concluded.
Dashing around the corner, he made an overhead swing to end the monster in one fluid motion. The Naichevix reacted a fraction of a second too late as it turned to face him, and to his surprise, the shortsword cut into the creature's center of mass, almost bisecting it. It let out a ghastly high-pitched scream as it died, and the moment it died, a pop-up appeared at the corner of his vision.
Notifications:
[Naichevix Level 2 has been slain]
Still, that little distraction was enough for the other Naichevix to leap at him, and he raised his shield arm to intercept it, but his mind was racing.
"These fucking things can jump?! WHY!" He yelled as he got goosebumps, and all his hair stood on end.
He managed to intercept the jumping critter with his buckler. Alistair had braced for the impact, but it was much less than he had expected.
Not skipping a beat, the screeching creature held on to his buckler and wrapped the rest of its many blade-like legs over it to lash out at Alistair. Reflexively, he smashed the buckler into the cave wall to his left before pulling back again to swipe the creature off his buckler with his shortsword.
It fell on the ground, squealing but not dead, as he stomped down on it repeatedly. "I'm doing my part!" he huffed as he continued to stomp down until the creature stopped moving.
A small chime was heard, and a feeling of power rushed through Alistair's body. Subconsciously, he viewed the visual pop-up that accompanied the chime as too distracting mid-fight, but he still wished to be informed when something died. Hence, the system adjusted it to an audio sound only as the window disappeared from the corner of his eyes.
The new chime sounded precisely like his phone notifications had. Shaking his head, he took a quick glance at the cave entrance.
With adrenalin rushing through his body, Alistair waited in his combat stance for any newcomers. Luckily, they never came.
After a few seconds, he felt the adrenalin draining out of his body as he checked his notifications.
Notifications: [Naichevix Level 1 has been slain] [Level 1 reached. Stat points allocated, free stat points available. Skill selection available]
Pulling up the stats tab revealed he gained another point in every stat and had one leftover stat point to assign. After looking at his scratched-up left arm, which had already stopped bleeding, he put his free point into the body stat to speed up the self-healing and reduce future damage until he had better means of healing himself.
He checked his status and noted that his mana was not drained during the fight. He had felt the concept of kinetics as the Naichevix jumped him.
He was sure it dispersed a good bit of the impact force reflexively. " Maybe my mana has regenerated itself due to a low cost, or perhaps it drew from my stamina pool instead? I will have to experiment with that," he mused.
With a thought, he pulled up the skill selection.
Skill Choices:
Tier:
Skill Name:
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Description:
[Rare]
Body Splitter Slash
Charge your weapon with a small amount of [SP] and unleash a slash strong enough to split your enemies apart.
[Common]
Appraisal
Imparts knowledge of materials and their related concepts when using identify by a small degree. Allows the user to recognize the value of objects & materials.
[Common]
Melee Proficiency
Increases the proficiency and accuracy by a small degree.
Imparts knowledge of the use of melee weapons.
[Common]
Stealth Proficiency
Increases the proficiency with the concept of stealth by a minor amount, allowing the user to stay hidden from sight & sound better.
So far, most of the skills on offer had been somewhat passive, so seeing an active skill was a welcome change. He noted how the Appraisal skill had been downgraded from rare to common, and the description had changed slightly. Alistair recalled it mentioning something called natural treasures in higher-tier iteration.
"Currently, I do not know when I will get my next skill choice. Stealth would be smart but not my preferred approach, and I'd rather have a way to defend myself and use at least one of the energy pools, so [Body Splitter Slash] is the obvious choice for now," he concluded as he picked the skill and felt some information entering his mind.
Looking at the critters on the ground, he doubted he could salvage anything from them and did not want to touch them.
His sword still had a lot of gunk, which he removed by swiping his blade and splattering the gunk over the floor. Alistair then slowly sneaked toward the cave exit, eventually reaching the cave's mouth. Some weak sunlight lightened up the entrance, and his eyes only needed a moment to adjust to the light outside. He found himself on an incline surrounded by trees, still throwing the occasional nervous glance behind. He could tell he was at the foot of an enormous mountain stretching to the sky. The mountain was seemingly endless from up close, as it was visible even through the high and thick canopy of trees surrounding him.
Feeling relatively safe, Alistair decided to remain in the cave and get a better feeling for the kinetic magic he had sensed earlier. His body had intuitively dispersed the kinetic energy upon the monster's attacks, and he spent a few hours punching and kicking the cave walls to get a better handle on the magic. Once he felt like he had tortured his toes and fists enough to the point where he could more reliably disperse the damage, he stopped waiting for the pain to pass. He then decided to explore a little to secure some food and water and continue to practice later.
As he wandered into the forest, he spotted a light clearing in the distance that gave him a better view of the mountain behind him. Once he arrived, the sheer enormity of the mountain left him slack-jawed. "Yeah, I am not climbing that," he decided and spun around, going downhill, hoping for a clearing or a tree that would be easier to climb than the pinewood trees surrounding him.
After walking for about 20 minutes, he finally reached a clearing. As luck would have it, multiple tall, strange-looking trees with dark purple bark and thick branches going from the bottom to the top littered the edge of the clearing.
Alistair wondered if the tree was dangerous, but after some consideration, he decided he could not be afraid of touching everything that wasn't 'normal'. After testing the footing a bit, he climbed one of the strange trees to the top.
Once he finally reached the top, he let his gaze wander. A beautiful vista of mountain valleys stretched downhill, and he could spot a big lake and what looked to be ruins; there were multiple massive mountains in the distance, but for the most part, he saw rolling hills and plains dotted with small forests and ruins or was it rock formations? It is way too far out to tell, and he suspected it would take him a few days to travel to reach the closest ruins surrounding a lonely hill with a prominent white structure on it. He also spotted some movements in the plains, which were hard to make out.
Turning back, he looked over the forest to check the mountainside he found himself on but couldn't find any points of interest there. The sky was incredibly cloudy, and he hoped it would not rain because being stuck in wet clothing would be the cherry on top of this terrible day.
"Alright, priorities are food, water, and shelter, but I suspect being stationary is a poor idea… Those ruins are bound to have something interesting; that structure will probably provide some shelter." He mused.
From his vantage point, he spotted a small lake surrounded by a sparse forest in the plains ahead; deciding to head in that direction for now, he started to climb back down again.
But before he even made it halfway, he suddenly heard a whistling sound and wings flapping. Alarmed, he spun his head towards the noise to find a creature best described as a sickly green and brown colored pterodactyl with too many accessories and a barbed tail divebombing straight towards the tree [Yrthak - lvl ?].
Alistair just barely managed to grab one of the thick branches above him and pull his whole body up before the creature collided with the tree. Still, to his shock, magic seemed to envelop the beast's wings, crashing through the tree below him, causing the top half to topple down with him still hanging on it. "Shit!" he growled.
Alistair pushed himself off the trunk of the falling half, slamming into some of the branches and falling further down before managing to hold on to one of them. It took him a moment to orient himself before he spotted the creature. It was already on its return flight, so he dropped down again and caught one of the thicker branches below him. From there, the ground would be about three meters away.
The Yrthak let out a shriek as it passed by the tree above him, shortly followed by the crashing sound from the split tree finally hitting the ground. When Alistair reached about 1.5 meters above ground, the creature was almost upon him again, having somewhat stable footing on a massive tree branch; he had to make the call if he was to lash out or jump the rest of the way down.
Deciding discretion was the better part of valor. He jumped down the rest of the way, falling on his side and rolling off the dirt. His practice paid off as the impact was spread out and absorbed, lessening the damage he took. A quick glance over his status revealed that he had taken little to no damage so far. Alistair drew his sword and hurried into the forest, hoping to shake the creature off his tail, but the beast refused to be deterred and divebombed towards him in reckless abandon despite all the trees between himself and the beast.
With a snap decision, he positioned himself beside a thick boulder to his right. He turned around to face the menace that was chasing him.
"Fine, let's do this then." He thought as he charged his sword to unleash his first Body Splitter Slash. Alistair wished he had the chance to test it before it came to do or die, but beggars can't be choosers. "I gotta try and spread that impact into the ground because this is going to hurt a lot If I don't."
Straining his focus, feeling the adrenalin rush through his body as the creature headed right for him. It crashed and smashed right through the obstacles in between them, hurting it in the process but only slowing down a bit as it got lower to the ground and snapped at Alistair, who sidestepped to put the boulder between himself and the beak filled with sharp spikes before he lashed out at the creature's right wing which had just smashed into the rock bruising the wing and throwing the beast slightly off course.
The blade, humming with energy, collided with the wing of the Yrthak, which pulled back from the half-smashed boulder. Alistair still felt the impact rushing through his body as he tried to guide the kinetic energy into the ground below him. He was glad the environment had slowed down the dumb creature as pain wrecked through his body, starting in his arm, holding the blade, and flowing violently through his torso before flowing into the ground through his legs. Alistair heard a notification chime ring out as his blade cut halfway through the wing. He somehow managed to stand his ground, and the blade ripped a solid chunk off the wing as the ground beneath him cracked and gave way, causing him to stumble downhill as the beast crashed through a pine tree.
An ungodly screech left it as some of its bones audibly cracked, causing Alistair's eardrums to pop and blood to flow down the side of his face. As he caught himself, he glanced at his resource pools, which had been reduced to almost a third of his total, with the exception of his mana. Fighting through the pain, he spun around towards the badly injured Yrthak behind him. It was flailing on the ground, one of its wings clipped as it screamed its lungs out, but Alistair couldn't hear any of it. If he could hack off that barbed tail, he would create a blind spot to finish the creature.
His body was badly bruised, but with the adrenaline still pumping his body, he powered through and rushed down the hill. Alistair charged another Body Splitter Slash. The beast, still flailing in pain, reacted too late as Alistair cut its tail clean off, opening an artery and causing it to lose a lot of blood, the barbed tail twitching by itself on the forest floor as he started to stab the creature at the bottom end of its spine.
The beast tried to shake Alistair off and stand up, but its range of motion was too limited, and he kept stabbing and slashing at its now vulnerable backside. Alistair did not hear himself scream and kept hacking away at the creature. He did not stop even when he finally heard multiple notifications coming in.
Exhausted, he knelt beside the bleeding creature, taking in ragged breaths as the adrenaline slowly seeped out of him.