Once I got used to walking again, I really got to enjoy my new stats. I spent the last day testing out my new and improved self. Some of them seem to be rather straight forward. With my increase in my strength stat, I now have more strength. I’m not sure if I quite have five times the strength of before. I’m definitely stronger, but I never tried to quantify it before so I don’t have any benchmarks. I can lift heavy things easier now though.
My motor control has gotten better as well. I noticed it most when I was writing. My numbers came out much neater and smother than before. I assume dexterity has something to do with that.
One of my favorite benefits from my increased stats is my increased stamina. Before I could get winded on short walk if I went too fast. Now I can do a light jog for a few minutes and be alright. Nothing extraordinary, but the improvement feels amazing and liberating. Not getting tired all the time just lets you do so much more.
That almost certainly came from the Endurance stat.
Then there are my five senses. The increase isn’t as pronounced as the strength or endurance stat, but I can still tell the difference. I can notice more birds and squirrels, I can hear better, and I can even taste food better. That one through me for a loop.
I was only a slight increase and it’s hard to describe. Pretty sure that all came from the perception stat. I can only imagine a chef that dumped most of his stats into perception would have an ungodly pallet.
I can think way clearer now, but I don’t know if that’s from the mind stat, fixing my body, or a bit of both. I’ll have to look into that with some points later.
The vitality, magic, and spirit stats are still a mystery to me. I don’t see any physical changes to me, but my health, mana, and stamina did go up. Now I don’t imagine magic and spirit affected my health or stamina stats, but you never know.
I can’t pull my stats up and check them, but if I remember right my health was thirty-five and stamina was eighty. I can worry about my twenty-five points of mana if I can get some mana related skills.
Now thirty-five points of health doesn’t sound like a lot. I can’t even try and hurt myself a bit to get a reference point of what one point is because I can’t see my stats. I am only level five so it makes sense that I don’t have a lot of health. I wonder if I get health based on level, my stats, or some combination of them.
The jump from twenty-seven stamina to eighty really surprised me though. It almost tripled. I’m going to have to spend my free stat points one at a time to figure out the relation of each.
Those are later problems though. Right now, I just need to keep in mind that I’m super under leveled than everything else in this world. Last night I asked dad what level everybody else was for comparison. He said the average person in tulip was in the low thirties. In lager towns or cities, it’s in the forties.
When I asked dad what level he is I found out he’s level 59! That’s almost double the average person in the village. He said that most of those levels were from when he served in the military. He fought several battles and even was sent out on hunting parties for magical beasts.
He only spoke vaguely of his time in the military. I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it so I didn’t pry. He did explain to me that the number of stat points you get per level change though. You start out gaining five points a level. Then every five level you gain one more point a level.
So, at level one you get five stat points a level. Then at level five you get six per level. At level ten you get seven points per level. Etc.
This means when you reach a high level you get many more points per level. So those with a higher level gain the same amount for one level as those of a lower level gain for a few levels. This makes the strength between levels slowly get bigger and bigger as you go higher.
It does get increasingly more and more difficult to level up. The amount of experience you need each level goes up each level as well. He also said that you get less experience for killing a lower level beast if you are higher levels than them. Apparently, it gets worse the bigger the gap in levels too. This means you can’t just keep killing squirrels to get to level one hundred.
Killing things aren’t the only way to level up though. When people level up their skills they can also gain experience. Similar to stat points per level they give more experience per level. Not all skills are equal apparently though. Common and easy skills like Cleaning and mathematics are easier to level, but also give less experience than harder skills like Sense Mana and Mana Manipulation.
He said they are divided into tiers. With Tier one being the lowest and easiest to get. He said that the most people only have tier one and two skills. Some people might have a tier three skill. People like craftsman and mages have skills like this.
Then tier four skills are rare. People with tier four skills are almost always high leveled and people of importance. Whether they are a renowned craftsman or warrior they are some of the best at what they do. Then you have tier five skills. Apparently only a few people have these skills in each country. They are very rare and usually very specific to the person that has them.
Then dad said that he doesn’t even know if any tier six skills even exist. There are some legends and fairytales about them, but he said those could also very easily be made up.
While higher tier skills greatly enable someone to level up faster and easier they aren’t required. Dad said that while you get an experience penalty for killing things below your level you can get a boost for killing something above your level. Very few people try and do this though. The change is only a little and it takes a lot of levels to change much. The risk of death is too much.
He said that people that try and only hunt beasts above their level do exist though. They are usually battle maniacs and best avoided. If I high level beasts appears and needs to be killed a large group of people will be formed to kill it.
I is nice to know that while the rules that govern this place are different, they do make some sense.
Now that a day has passed my body feels much more put together. I don’t have any more coordination problems and can move around just fine. Because of that I thought I’d give meditation a try. That’s how I found myself sitting here on my bed while dad when out to Charle’s. I figured with the curtains closed this would be the quietest and darkest place to try.
Dad said I needed to try and ignore my senses to find a new one. It’s easier to ignore a sound if it’s quiet, so this should help at least a little bit.
Once I get comfortable, I close my eyes and try to ignore my surroundings.
While it might sound simple it’s fairly hard to truly ignore everything. Closing my eyes in the dark room gets rid of all vision. Taste isn’t really a concern because I ignore that all the time anyway. This is my room so I’m used to the smell and don’t think about it most of the time. That just leaves hearing and touch.
Now that my eyes are closed it is much easier to be distracted by sounds. Anything from a bird call close to the house or my own shallow breathing can be heard. Then you have touch. If I sit absolutely still I can ignore it, but if I move at all it immediately jumps back into my mind.
Now I’m not super hyper or anything, but not moving a muscle for several minutes is not easy. Then you have the fact that doing absolutely nothing, seeing nothing, and trying not to hear anything is so boring.
While I can sit still for a minute or two my bored brain just latches onto anything, whether it’s a random sound or a muscle twitch.
Every second feels like minutes when you have absolutely nothing. I can see why most people would never get this skill. Very few people can do nothing at all.
While I can try for a little bit, I can only do nothing for so long.
Soon I decide to take a break from doing nothing. It’s hard work I tell you. I wasn’t able to sense anything different, so I imagine nothing has changed.
While dad told me it was guaranteed not to work on the first attempt, I can’t help but be disappointed. The stories I read in my past life all made it seem so easy.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
When those people get reincarnated, they either can already use magic or get the hang of it first try. So that means I’m not some once in a thousand-year magical genius, I guess.
Now that I think about it, that doesn’t sound too bad either. All those geniuses had fights to the death every day. The villain was always trying to kill them. Or everyone was jealous of their talent and trying to make them look bad. While I’m not sure exactly what I want out of this life, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go on a villain killing spree and save the world.
That just sounds way to heavy.
While I want to learn magic it’s not for the most powerful spells. I just think it would be cool. If I could learn to heal people like dad that would be even better. I don’t think I could save everyone, but if I could help those I know, it would be nice.
But before I can even think about healing spell, I need to sense my mana. I don’t plan on sitting in my room all day every day until I can do it. That would drive me literally insane. I will practice a little every day though. As long as I keep trying, I’m sure I can learn at least a little magic.
Just a little every day. Over time it’ll add up. Even if I don’t have a high affinity for magic, I could still learn some simple spells.
For now, though I think I’ll go for a walk. After trying to sit still for so long I could use some movement.
I grab some paper and leave a quick note for dad. He is so used to me needing him to look after me. If he got back and I was just gone he would probably start panicking. It will probably take him some time to not see me the same as I used to be.
I’m just heading out to walk around tulip anyways. I will probably run into him, but in case I don’t there is the note.
The weather outside is nice. It’s just the beginning of spring right now so there is still a bit of a chill most days. Since it’s midday right now it’s comfortable, but it’ll start cooling off in a few hours.
As I walk towards tulip I take in my surrounding. The trees are still fairly bare, but I can see the new leaves starting to come in. I can see some birds fluttering about every now and then.
It’s so nice here. While my last life had plenty of amazing things, the nature was lacking. Whether it was for farming, housing, or industry most of the nature was forced to give way to man. This had some amazing results. Ridiculous advancements in technology. Anything from simple road building to advanced cancer medications to computer technology.
But because of bending nature to our will there was very little of it left. Here though it still exists in all its glory. This does come with some downsides though. No air conditioning, no showers, no indoor plumbing, and more. Someone might have made one of those things with magic, but not in Tulip.
A higher level might make the heat or cold nothing to worry about, but I can’t say I’m not going to miss the conveniences of my old life. I could try and make some of those technologies here, but that might not be the best idea if I don’t want to catch a lot of attention.
There are people here that can literally move mountains. I might attract the attention of someone I really want to avoid. I can sacrifice some convenience if it means avoiding all that.
Since I’m not going to be some genius making all these wildly successful inventions from my past life I need to figure out what I want to do.
Tulip is a small village. It has a healer in dad and a blacksmith I the village. It sounds like blacksmith isn’t high leveled, but most villages don’t have either blacksmith or a healer. This makes Tulip better than the other villages, but it’s still just a village.
Most people in Tulip are farmers. There are other people like the hunters, carpenters, weaver, and cobbler in the village though. The village is mostly self-sufficient. The few things the village needs it get from the city of Erant. This is usually through a merchant that comes through every two or three months. Apparently, it takes four or five days by cart to make it to Erant.
Before dad took care of me because I couldn’t do it myself, but now I can. If I can learn magic, I think I might want to learn to be a healer from him. Even if I don’t learn magic, he has a lot of books on mundane medicines. Those medicines aren’t anything like the medicines from my last life. More simple herbs than advanced chemical compounds.
Some plants can grow with magical properties. They show up nearby every now and then because the village is near the mountains of the wilderness. Most times they are ignored because people don’t know what they are though.
It could be some great healing herb, or just as easily a highly poisons magical version of poison ivy that burns the skin. Not worth the risk to most people.
If I don’t want to learn from dad, I could be a hunter, or apprentice under the carpenter, maybe even the blacksmith. I don’t think I would mind working with my hands. I could even be a farmer if I really wanted to.
While it looks like backbreaking work, I would do it if I needed to. Farmers are important, but I think I would like it more to be something of a healer like dad. Also, that sounds a little bit less hard labor.
As I’m contemplating my future career, I come close to the village head’s house. The tent that was next to the house is gone. Dad said that the mage and guards with the focus would have left by this morning. I can see the village head’s son, Bern, talking with one of the hunters, Roe.
Bern looks like he is in his twenties. He has the same short brown hair as his dad. Once the village head gives up his position Bern will take over the position. I like Bern. He is just as friendly as his dad.
I’m glad that the people in charge here seem to be good people. Most people with any sort of political power in my last life weren’t the best. Another positive Tulip has.
I want to go see the cities at some point, but I like it here for now. I don’t plan on living in the cities for now. Plenty of that in my last life. It would be nice to go check them out though.
There is also a whole new world to explore here. I could also go and see as much I can. I think I would be quite deadly right now though. I am only level five. I can think about stuff like that when I get to a higher level where it would be safer.
Bern sees me walking and waves me over. It only takes me a moment to join him and Roe.
“How are you feeling glim? I heard you screaming and was one of the people that helped carry you inside. Once you woke up dad was the only one to talk to you. Is it true that you are... better?”
Bern looks at me concerned. Like most of the people in Tulip he has always been rather nice to me. I think it was due to dad being the only healer in the village, but also like to think it’s because they are just good people.
“I’m feeling great! Now that I spent my stat points, I feel like a whole new person. My head is so much clearer now. I’m pretty sure that means I’m healed. With my boost in stats, I feel even better.”
Bern smiled at my reply. “That’s great. I remember when I turned fifteen and spent my stat points as well. It took me all day just to be able to walk again!”
Roe chuckled then turned to Bern. Roe is a rather quiet person and doesn’t talk too much, but he’s one of the best hunters in the village.
“If there’s nothing else Bern, I’ll be on my way. I have a few things I need to take care of.”
“No. Thank you for stopping by.”
With that Roe walked off.
“Is there anything wrong?” I asked Bern.
“No. He was just letting me know he found some raka tracks. Just a single lone raka and the tracks are very far from the village. So not a problem right now, but I will warn people about it anyway and let the other hunters know to be more wary.”
Well, that sounds like a good idea.
As I look over at his house, I get a question.
“Hey Bern, did anything happen yesterday after me and dad left?”
The mage didn’t seem in the best of moods when we left and he didn’t strike me as a nice person. Hopefully nothing happened.
Bern sighs before answering me.
“When you left father went inside to ask the mage if the focus was safe to use. A moment later the mage came out and told everyone that they could use that focus at their own risk. He said it looked fine, but he wasn’t responsible if anyone wound up like you or dead. He said they had until the end of the day to decide.”
“Wow. I’m sure that reassured a lot of people.”
“Most people heard about what happened to you. When the mage spoke about the chance of death no one wanted to use the focus. They may have to wait a year to use a focus again, but that’s better than death.”
“Did anyone blame me? I don’t know what happened, but I just used the focus like dad told me to.”
I feel bad for everyone who missed their chance to use the focus. I imagine some people would see it as my fault they couldn’t use it. They wouldn’t say anything to me directly because dad is the only healer here.
“While there were a few people who wanted to blame you, dad stopped that talk real quick. For one the mage said he couldn’t find anything wrong and two you were the one who was screaming and passed out from the pain. Who would do that just so the others couldn’t use the focus?”
“Besides, everyone knows you and your condition. No one really thought you were at fault. Just upset they lost their chance to use the focus for a whole nother year.”
That’s good news at least.
“Where’s Roth? I always see you with him when you’re out.”
“He went to check on Charle. Now that I’m better I can walk around myself.”
Bern still looked at me concerned. This is going to be the same for the rest of the village. They might have heard how I was healed, but it will still take some time for them change their view of me.
I tell Bern goodbye and continue my walk around tulip. A few people stop to talk to me. The conversation with each of them is similar to the one I had with Bern. Most of them want me to tell them what happened and if I’m really healed.
I don’t mind talking with them, but having the same conversation over and over again gets a bit tiring.
The village isn’t very big, so it doesn’t take me long to walk around most of it and soon I get to Charle’s house. It’s on the opposite side of tulip from ours, but it didn’t take long to get here. I spent more time answering questions and talking to people than walking here.
Charle is one of the many farmers in Tulip. His home is on the edge of one of the fields that the village shares. It’s a simple house with a small porch in the front.
When I get there dad is just leaving.
“Glim what are you doing over here? I thought you were going to try and learn to sense your mana.”
“I tried for a little bit, but it’s just so boring. I wanted to go for a quick walk, so I came over here to you. I wound up talking to people more than walking though.”
As we walk back to the house, I talk about all the people in the village and how my reaction to the focus worried them. Most people were really happy to hear that I was healed, thanking the gods and such.
I also told dad about my chat with Bern and the raka tracks Roe found. He didn’t seem worried about it which I took as a good sign.
Once we got back to the house I went back to my room to try and sense my mana again. Soon I’m back to fighting myself to be still.
Sigh. This is probably going to take forever. Even if I can sense my mana, I might wind up doing more of this to get better. Being a mage doesn’t seem quite so exciting anymore, but I’m not going to give up so easily.