"Attuning to an element is a difficult process that one should consider carefully before doing. While the benefits of using elemental energy rather than aspected mana are many; most notably among them more strength and easier manipulation of the element and its subsidiaries, one should not forget the downsides of attunement. Firstly, one requires a very high affinity and/or understanding of the desired element to even begin the process, meaning that it requires either extreme luck, wealth, or experience to even have the option available. Secondly, while attuning to the element improves your talent with that element and its subsidiaries, I.E. attuning to the metal element will improve talent and power towards gold aspected spells, it will reduce your talent towards all other elements. Lastly, without some very rare traits, a living creature no matter the race can only attune to one element, and it is functionally impossible to unattune to an element."
-Excerpt from Elements and you: A Mages guide to Elements and Mana Aspects
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With a spring in our steps and the rotting corpse of a giant mantis behind us, our group once again set off to find a dungeon, or at least some more low levelled monsters to kill. Thinking about it, I am being much more accepting of this whole situation than I reasonably should be, I mean just a few days ago I spent my time indoors doing very non physical activities, and yet here I am hiking for the second day in a row going from deathmatch to deathmatch like a psycho. Given, the fact that I had dreamed of almost exactly this happening probably helps, but still, I don't even feel slightly traumatized by the fights I have been in, and I turned some goblins into charcoal!
Then again, it's not like panicking and shutting down would help, so I'll just attribute it to a combination of my raised willpower and stress, and ignore the possibility of The System changing the way that I, and likely everyone else, think and react to violence. It's probably not like that anyway, I mean, if they were gonna change how people think anyway, then why would they bother forcibly keeping everyone calm during the introduction, plus humans were already known for how quickly we react to new situations.
With those happy thoughts coursing through my mind before being promptly ignored, I refocused on the surrounding trees, deciding that actually paying attention to my surroundings would be more helpful than worrying about things I can't change. And with my renewed focus, I noticed something about the surrounding forest that may be important.
"Hey... do the trees seem... thicker than they were?"(Mason)
"Hmm? in what way?"(Leo)
"Like, they are bigger, and there's less clearings."(Mason)
After that short exchange, everyone paused to examine the trees and compare them to our memories. As none of us had an appraisal skill, or a photographic memory, and the basic identify only worked on living creatures within 10 effective levels of you or basic equipment details, we had to figure out any differences without any system intelligence, which mostly involved Jason hugging a few trees until he was satisfied.
"Yeah, I don't know about the clearings, but these trees are definitely bigger."(Jason)
"You think it has something to do with the environment becoming more dangerous as we go farther thing? Should we turn back?(Jackson)
"No, we are still fairly close to where we started so it shouldn't be too bad yet, we should at least see what the creatures are first."(Leo)
After saying so, Leo once again started his march, with the rest of us following soon after. Being a bit more cautious than usual, our group's progress was slow, which turned out to be a wise decision when Jason stopped everyone and pointed of to the side, where we saw a deer with very pronounced antlers and a mossy green coat of fur eating some grass.
Deer - Level 5
As we tried to retreat in order to make a plan like usual, the deer's head snapped towards us, its natural instincts as a prey animal plus it's raised stats from its level making its awareness far higher than anything else we've come across so far. With no time for a real plan, we quickly fell into a previously agreed upon strategy of Leo taking the front with his shield up and the rest of us going behind nearby trees to engage once they are within range for me and Jason, and caught on the shield for Jackson, which was going to be within the next few seconds with the speed of this thing. The first part of the plan went of without a hitch thanks to the deer targeting Leo since he was the closest to it, but the second was doomed to failure as the deer was far faster than any of us could react to with any kind of accuracy, Jason barely even getting a card in his hand before the deer was right in front of Leo. Seemingly the same instant that Leo put up his shield, there was a loud crash as horn collided with metal.
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Just as I let out a breath of relief at his success in holding the deer back, I saw it rear back onto its hind legs and kick out towards him, Judging by the way he flew backwards like a cartoon character, it seemed as if the initial charge must've wiped out most or all of his stamina, the fact that despite not looking particularly injured he didn't get up made me think that it overdrew his stamina and knocked him out.
While I was still shocked at the lack of resistance that Leo was able to put up, I heard a scream that contained equal parts terror and anger as a spear emerged from a nearby tree and got the deer in the flank, the entire spearhead penetrating flesh but stopping at the wood. Letting out a roar that sounded somewhere between a goat and a tin can, the deer turned its head towards its most recent attacker, wrenching the spear from its flank in a spray of red in the process, and sending Jackson sprawling backwards, still on his feet but very unbalanced and unlikely to be able to react in the short term.
With the blood serving as an adequate wake up call, still half shocked I let the Lightning course through me in a way that it never had before, not only flowing around inside me but actually integrating and becoming a part of my body, and watched as the world slowed. With the seconds stretching into hours, I saw the deer tensing its still injured muscles as it reared up to attack Jackson, I saw a series of cards drifting through the air as they approached the deer's body, and I saw the terrified face of someone who knew death was coming and was not ready to go.
And with the lighting coursing through my body I moved, watching the trees around me become a blur for a split-second as I closed the ten meters between me and the deer, moving my body faster than my eyes could process the surroundings, ignoring the intense pain of forcing my muscles to move much faster than they were meant to. And as I felt my body creak, and as I felt that mystical force inside me dwindle and sputter, I brought my staff down on the neck of the monster, barely feeling the resounding crunch as I broke its spine through its thick, corded neck before everything faded to black and I collapsed.
Returning to consciousness with a massive ache throughout my whole body, especially my head, the first thing I noted was how tired I was, now usually you can only be tired in a maximum two ways, but it seemed that I was a trailblazer as I was exhausted mentally, physically, and in a whole new unfamiliar way, that I assumed to be magically. The second thing I noticed was that there was no deer carcass around, but there was a snoring Leo. Letting out a sigh of relief at his distinctly not-deadness left me with barely enough oxygen for the hiss of pain as I moved my body. It felt like I had just had everything day at the gym, as even the slightest of movements caused aches to echo throughout my body, and even not moving made my whole body throb with my heartbeat, but luckily it seemed like an extreme case of soreness rather than broken bones.
As I slowly rose to a sitting position, moving as little as possible and taking quick breaths to minimize the pain, I heard some rustling from the nearby bushes, that sooned revealed Jason and Jackson, both looking stressed, but unhurt, who both became visibly relieved when they saw me awake and not screaming in pain.
"Well, that was a shitshow."(Mason)
"Really? I hadn't noticed."(Jason)
"A-are you okay?"(Jackson)
"Fuck no, even standing up would be a miracle for me right now."(Mason)
And while I probably could stand up if I really wanted to, the pain that it would cause made it so that I would not do so unless I was in imminent danger. Which I just might be, now that I think about it, since while I was not an expert on forests and trees this did not look like the same place we fought at, and there were no signs of the fight to prove me wrong.
"Where are we anyway? this isn't where we fought the deer."
"After you decided to take a nap, me and Jackson lugged the both of you back towards the starting zone, though we only walked for a few hours so we didn't actually cover that much distance. I blame Leo for being absurdly dense."(Jason)
As if by virtue of being talked about, Leo started to wake up, letting out a groan of pain reminiscent to my own as he sat up and winced at all of his muscles making their discontent with him known, plus whatever the feeling of overdrawing your stamina was, which I was only assuming was as unpleasant as me overdrawing my mana.
"Jesus Christ, I hope the next truck that hits me at least has the courtesy to isekai me."
"Weeb."(Jason)
"Weeb."(Mason)
Flipping both of us off, Leo slowly got to his feet before unsteadily walking to a nearby tree and leaned on it for support, giving a quick look around our surroundings before seeing his shield and sword by another tree and 'walking' over to reclaim them, using the new tree for support. Deciding to follow suit, I looked for my staff, only to find it next to me, and then used it like a cane to stand up, the few minutes that past since I woke up helping, but by no means removing, the soreness of my body.
"So, can I get a quick summary of what happened after I went out?"(Leo)
"Jackson charged, I threw cards, and Mason became the flash with performance issues."(Jason)
"..."(Mason)
"Seriously though, what was that? You damn near teleported with how fast you were moving."(Jason)
"No clue, I was still shocked from what happened to Leo, so I was mostly acting on instinct, but whatever it was doesn't have the most pleasant of after-effects."
As I said that I gestured to the general state of my body, wincing as I did so from the pain that moving my arm caused.
"Did we at least get an orb?"(Leo)
"You wish, we only got exp and our asses handed to us."(Jason)
Speaking of, I still hadn't checked my notifications since the fight and could feel the gentle nudge of the system telling me that I had an unread message.
Congratulations, you have defeated a level 5 Primal Deer and gained 150 EXP Congratulations, as a special reward for fighting a Rare monster for the first time, EXP has been doubled Congratulations, you have levelled up! You have 6 free points to assign
"All that for just 150 exp, I wouldn't even level without the bonus."(Mason)
"I got 200 before the bonus."(Leo)
"Same,"(Jason)
"I-I got 250."(Jackson)
After processing what everyone said, all of us except Jackson let out a swear as we realised the implications of why we got different amounts of exp. That and the fact that the deer had a different name in the kill message than when we identified it making all of us realize just how important an identification skill would be, and how much of a cheat it actually was that damn near every protagonist got one.
"Goddamnit, it's not like we weren't expecting this, but its still shit."(Leo)
"Nothing much we can do about it, but I say that we stay to some lower level areas for a bit, the system may have said that that was a rare creature, but we have 2 rare classes in our group alone, so I'd rather not risk it until we are at least level 5."(Mason)
While Leo and Jason voiced approval at my suggestion without hesitation, Jackson remained silent. And while Jackson was always a quiet guy, I had known him long enough to know when something was up, though with the look on his face a skilled monkey could probably guess as much.
"Hey man, are you okay?"(Mason)