Cleaning myself in a small pond I felt refreshed, although a little woozy from the blood loss.
Next to the pond stood a small hill of carcasses all dead, I had killed all of the leeches that surrounded the pond and the few that inhabited it.
It turned out the leech or mirage leech, going by what the system called it, had brought me into the illusion, it was pretty apparent from the name.
How it trapped me in the illusion? I had no clue, my best guess was that after I stepped out of the cave a leech was nearby and ambushed me injecting me with some form of hallucinogenic venom.
Luckily the venom also warped my sense of time, as unlike what I thought was 9 days, less than an hour passed in real life, the reason I knew this, I checked the system.
______________
[Trial panel]
Duration: 13 days & 20:55:15
Objective: Survive
Final Reward: {Skill} or {Class}
______________
If I had checked the system while in the illusion I would have immediately recognized that something was wrong, however, it had never popped into my mind strangely enough, even the thought of the system had evaded me.
Thinking it was some kind of machination of the venom I decided to leave it, what did bother me though was that it took me so long to realize that the illusion was fake.
Sure I could attribute it to never having experienced such an occurrence, coming from a normal human society the notion itself warranted consideration into one's mental health.
In hindsight however there were a lot of things that didn't add up, and I should have seen through it much earlier.
Especially concerning was how well the illusion was made, although a human could see through it animals had no chance of escaping.
Their fate being a blood bag until death.
What did confuse me was what would have occurred had I died in the illusion, would that mean I died in real life? or would I have woken up?
The second option seemed unlikely to me with the first one making more sense, or the leech just continuing the illusion indefinitely until he had sucked all of my blood.
Dying to a leech, well that would have been a truly pathetic death, not that I would have minded much.
The positive thing about them was that they were extremely weak, their bodies being easily squashed with my strength even their speed was horrendous.
Even to regular people escaping from the leeches wouldn't have posed a significant risk, although maybe a bit challenging if you were overweight.
They must have put all their stats into intelligence…. wait, could monsters even distribute their stats? They clearly had levels but seeing that they were all pretty unintelligent I guessed not.
While the goblins were pretty smart they still didn't strike me as the brightest.
Feeling clean after stomping and slicing all those bugs, I now exited the pond, walking towards my clothes neatly aligned on the bank so they wouldn't get wet.
If I had to be honest swimming naked felt quite freeing.
"Should I visit nudist beaches after the trial? Probably not, too much of a hassle".
Drying myself off in the wind I put my clothes back on and continued my way towards the mountain, killing leeches along the way.
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Although I was a novice at the whip, wielding it came very natural to me, with me already having an 80% hit rate targeting leeches, it would have been even higher if they were slime's as their bodies had a larger surface area.
It was strange how easy it came to me, and as I practiced more against the endless horde that were blocking my path I began trying different moves.
I tried doing an overhead crack which was just hitting the leeches straight with the tip of the rope, although this didn't kill the leeches it sent them flying backwards for a couple of meters.
Because you had to gauge the exact distance it normally didn't work and I only hit 30% of the time.
The other move I tried was a slicing one where you would basically crack the whip downwards, this one was easier as you didn't have to be exact and would slice the leeches in half whenever you reached a good speed, if you didn't reach the correct speed it was like gently placing a rope on them.
I also tried a horizontal slash move, but with the leeches being small and close to the ground, I only managed to do it once, the others simply missing or hitting the ground first reducing the velocity.
Although I liked experimenting with the whip, I would never choose it as my main weapon, while good for keeping distance and certainly being fast, it couldn't efficiently kill anything except for small weak creatures.
Take the goblin for example I could hit it 50 times with a whip yet all it would cause would be some lacerations and bleeding, but if I stabbed it with a sword or punctured it with a spear 50 or even a dozen times it would almost certainly be dead.
Slicing through another leech that tried to sneak up on me, I stopped as a light festival happened around its body.
After the light show subsided I became surprised seeing a ring on the ground instead of a weapon.
The ring was black and smooth as if it was made of gleaming metal.
Bending over to pick it up, when I touched it I became surprised, not because of the ring itself but the system notification that followed.
[Congratulations you have acquired your first effect Item!]
[You can now access item's descriptions]
Confused by the message I looked at the ring again, and after focusing on the ring a screen popped up.
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[Item: Mind enforcer]
Rarity: E
Type: Ring
Description: Ring made from a Mirage leeches bone and leather. Ring contains a portion of the Mirage leeches spirit granting some resistance to mental attacks performed against the wearer.
Effect: Passively increases mental resistance by 3%.
—————
Holding the ring I could confirm that it felt much too light to be made of any metal, and the surface didn't feel smooth but rough, thankfully it didn't feel slimy like the leeches either.
That the ring could increase my resistance against mental attacks was quite bizarre and vague, but if it would help break out of illusions quicker, which I reckoned were also a type of mental attack, I welcomed it.
The only thing that bewildered me was that only now could I unlock the items descriptions even though I had already received an item, the slime whip, although the system did say it was because I had unlocked an effect item.
Checking the whip's description I realized why.
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[Item: Flagellators scourge]
Rarity: F
Type: Whip
Description: Whip made out of a condensed slime. Due to being made out of a slime, the whip is more flexible than regular whips.
Attack + 4
—————
So because the ring had an effect and the whip did not, it didn't count as an effect item. Even though the whip did increase attack by 4, it likely didn't count as an effect.
It made sense otherwise any mundane weapon could be counted as an effect item even my clothes….actually.
Thinking of the idea I quickly checked the description of the clothes I was wearing.
—————
[Item: Worn T-shirt]
Rarity: F-
Type: Garment
Description: A shirt with numerous holes and tears. Due to being in such a pathetic state provides virtually no protection.
Defense + 1
—————
—————
[Item: Worn Pants]
Rarity: F-
Type: Garment
Description: Pants with numerous holes and tears. Due to being in such a pathetic state provides virtually no protection.
Defense + 1
—————
—————
[Item: Old shoe]
Rarity: F-
Type: Garment
Description: A worn down shoe. Due to being in such a pathetic state provides virtually no protection.
Defense + 1
—————
Although I realized I should get new clothes, it was good to know that I could check the description of all the items I had.
I also found out that items of the same rarity could be further classified, with my clothes being F- rarity, while the whip was simply F.
From that information, I could deduce that there was likely an F+ too, which probably applied to all the other rarities as well.
What was interesting was that according to my status, I was also ranked as F, while the goblins were ranked E. Although I doubted that Items and system users followed the exact same classifications.
And from what I had seen until now, Items rarity classification was more about the strength and effects the Items had, while for system holders it only measured the person's progress in terms of Levels.
Just as I was about to further ponder I was interrupted by an loud noise.
"BAA BAAA"
… A sheep. Charging towards me was an infuriated sheep.