"Some think that all there is to power is just raising stats and acquiring new skills, without the need for regular training or other non-EXP granting activities. Those people are stupid and tend to die early. Don't be those people."

-Johnson 'Teach' Cobbler addressing a class of aspiring adventurers.

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Contrary to Jason's worries, and much to the relief as the rest of us, the clothes given by the tutorial seemed to have self cleaning and repair capabilities, so while we certainly looked and smelled gross after 3 days of no showers, our clothes were still in mostly pristine condition. However, it was quickly decided that before settling down and training, we should first find somewhere to wash ourselves, and hopefully get a drinking source better than berry or fruit juice.

With a short term goal in mind, we once again headed in the direction of the safe zone, as we already knew that our original direction didn't have any water, and we figured that the less hostile the environment, the more likely a source of clean water would be. We decided not to go in a straight line, however and instead went in more of a curved path so as to avoid straying too far from the safe zone, though without any pathfinding skills, system or otherwise, how well we held to that curve was highly debatable. After a few hours of walking around, we encountered a lone level one goblin, which was taken out by Jason with a single card, only giving him 50 exp, much to his and everyone else's disappointment.

Continuing our march, it was Jackson who heard the flowing of water first, and after an exited speedwalking session, our group came upon a small river about 5 meters wide and only about waist deep at its deepest. As one would expect from a world without pollution, the water was as clear as glass, with an unsurprising lack of fish, as the only animals that we have seen so far were goblins and that deer. As it was still around midday, we quickly set up a rotation to take a bath in the river while the others guard in two groups of two, of course we bathed with our underwear on, just in case of a sudden attack, since none of us wanted to risk fighting naked. The first group was me and Leo, and after cleaning myself as thoroughly as I could without soap or shampoo in the cold, but not freezing river, I felt tension that I didn't even know I had leave my body, as I felt the grime and gore accumulated over two days of strenuous activity finally dislodge from my skin. Silently swearing to never leave the proximity of river for the rest of the tutorial, me and Leo switched with Jason and Jackson, though we had yet to don our clothes since we were still wet. We stood guard in a sunny spot to dry off as quickly as possible, as trying to dry myself of with my lightning only resulted in a static shock that left me slightly warmer but still wet. While waiting to become dry enough to put our clothes back on we took stock of the surroundings. Like everywhere else near the safe zone, there were trees sparsely spread around, with little to no vegetation other than grass and berry bushes on the ground, and while there was no perfect clearing nearby, there was still enough space for our usual camp setup, seeing as it was just a campfire that we slept around.

Before long, Jackson and Jason came to join Leo in his shivering, while I just smugly looked on as I occasionally shocked myself for warmth, taking advantage of my resistance to the element. After we were all sufficiently dry and clothed, we went about making plans and preparations for how specifically we were going to train. For Jackson, he was just going to practice his thrusts and footwork on a tree, while Jason and Leo would work together by having Jason throw cards at Leo for him to practice shielding and activating his skill on time, meanwhile I would try to replicate what I had done against the deer and hopefully turn it into a skill. With everyone's plan decided, we all split up while remaining close enough to see each other just in case. We also decided to train for a minimum of five days, deciding whether or not to do more depending on how we do and feel afterwards. The time spent was both to increase our technical skill as well as to help us adjust mentally to the situation in a much more gradual way than just diving into combat.

While I had done it on instinct before, I could still vaguely remember the feeling when it was active, so I figured that if I replicated that then the skill would appear. When it was active, it felt like I had suffused Lightning throughout my whole body, making it flow through me like blood while at the same time stopping it from leaving my body or manifesting as actual lightning. My first attempt failed spectacularly as while I was able to make the energy suffuse through my body, just holding it there took most of my focus and trying to get it to move made it either shoot lightning bolts out of random body parts or make the whole thing dissipate.

Spending the remainder of the day and the entirety of the next one with barely any tangible results, it was not until the third day where I met with limited success. At first, I had tried suffusing the energy before moving it all at once, which did not work, but on day three I decided to start by making the energy flow before slowly adding to the volume until my whole body was encompassed. While it took a few seconds to build to the same level I felt during the fight, it still didn't have the desired effect, as while I could feel the energy moving all around my body, I did not get any faster nor did it cost any mana or stamina. Figuring that there was something I was missing, I tried to activate the Lightning in the same way I did when I shot it out as bolts by flexing my will.

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*ZAP*

After a totally manly scream that definitely didn't make everyone else laugh, and a thorough examination of myself to make sure I wasn't hurt, I did what any good scientist would do in this situation and tried again. And again. And again, until the third day ended, with no change other than the gut feeling that I was getting closer, weird looks from the others be damned.

By the middle of day four, I made a breakthrough and finally stopped zapping myself even though I felt the lightning activating in some way. And by the end of day four, when the world slowed down and I heard the blessed ding of the system-

Congratulations, You have learned the skill [Elemental Channeling]

Skill: [Elemental Channeling 1/10] Channel an attuned element through your body to augment it (Effects and cost vary on element and intensity -2% cost per second per level)

Quickly disabling the skill and letting out a whoop of success, I examined my resources to find that the few second that I had it active reduced my mana by 30 but left my stamina untouched. Further experimentation showed that the most basic level I was capable of cost 10 mana per second ,according to my counting with everything slowed down, whereas the stamina cost seemed wholly dependent on whether or not I was moving, but having the same 10 per second cost when I did. I also found out that it was impossible for me to do anything else with my lightning while I was buffed, though whether or not that was a rule of the skill or just a result of my low skill remained to be seen. I was also unable to reach anywhere near the same speed as against the deer and even without taking a lack of mana into consideration I could only hold the skill for a short time before my concentration broke.

Nevertheless, there was still one day and a bit before we decide whether to continue training or not, and since it took me almost 10 seconds to activate the skill and I could only hold it for five, I still had plenty left to do before I could reliably use it in a fight.

Once I had figured out to activate the skill, I spent the rest of day four and all of day five alternating between practicing keeping the skill up while focusing on other things until I was low on mana and stamina, and winding up the skill until right before it starts before stopping it to reduce the activation time. By the end of day 5, I had managed to reduce the cast time to 5 seconds, though it would still deactivate if I was surprised or hurt.

"Alright, whats everyones progress and do you want to train more. Starting with myself I got the skill I used against the deer and I feel like I do not need to train more to handle a fight like the one against the deer, though it would still be a struggle."(Mason)

"I got [Shield Proficiency], and also think its time to start levelling and get some gear."(Leo)

"I didn't get any new skills, but I levelled [Card Throwing], so I'm feeling pretty excited to test it out."

"I levelled [Spear Proficiency], and while I want to train more, I think we are probably ready to get going."

With a consensus reached, we started our trek, following the river away from the safe zone. As we moved along the river, the trees started to get sparser and sparser in a much more clear changing of biomes compared to where we met the deer, though it was still more similar to the spawn biome than not. Before long, we heard the telltale growling noise of goblins, though this group was wielding unsharpened sticks and a few rocks, as opposed to the unarmed ones we were used to.

Goblin - Level 2

Since there were only three of them and they were just level two, we quickly came to a consensus about fighting them using nods and hand signs. During our training spree, we acknowledged how dumb it was that we retreated to make a specific plan for every fight, so we instead made a group of somewhat specific plans that had hand signs to go along with each. The one we used now was one of my favorites, and I lovingly called it Shock and Awe.

The plan itself was simple, I start with a stun before everyone charges and finishes them off. It was very effective against small groups of low levels, but large groups cost too much mana and singular strong things are more likely to just shrug it off, or at least that is what our limited experience with both fighting and my skills told us.

Not wanting to repeat the experience of missing a goblin only for it to charge me, I made sure all of them were in my sight before focusing my intent so that the lightning would spread more when in contact with them, rather than accumulating on one, causing less damage but making sure I got the whole group. Then, I slowly approached them until I saw one of them snap their head up at me, and fired the lightning, investing about 100 mana into the attack to make sure it worked.

*KRAKOOM*

With a noise similar to the first time I unleashed all that I had, the goblins fell to the ground, unable to do anything but twitch. Without a second of hesitation, as no one knew how long they would be stunned for and didn't want to find out, Leo and Jackson charged from their positions while Jason through cards, each targeting a different goblin and aiming to kill with a single strike.

Congratulations, you have defeated a level 2 Goblin x3 and gained 150 EXP Congratulations, you have levelled up! You have 6 free points to assign

With the last bit of EXP that I needed to level fulfilled, I put 4 points into END and 2 into DEX, before going over to see if any loot orbs had dropped, which, to my mild surprise there had. It may have only been a common orb, but loot was loot and we only had 2 pieces of non standard gear between us so far, and since only Leo and Jackson didn't have anything, it was decided that it would go to one of them. After a heated rock-paper-scissors match, Leo crushed the orb and found himself holding a bundle of cloth, that turned out to be a sleeping bag.

"Huh, guess its not only equipment in those."(Jason)

"Honestly, I'm pretty happy with this, it may not get super cold at night but I certainly won't complain about a padded blanket to lie on."(Leo)

While underwhelming, Leo was right that it was useful, and saying that I was not a little jealous would be a lie, though stroking my bracelet did help to alleviate it a bit, and by the looks of it Jason was doing the same to his dagger, likely for the same reasons.