CHAPTER 9 PHYSICAL LIMITS/EMOTIONAL LIMITS
I returned to my inn paying the innkeeper a silver for another night and an extra for a bath and some food. While I soaked in the tub getting all the sweat, dirt, and grime off, I observed my new levels and skills that I had achieved.
[Sparking Blows] - Despite having the option to attack from range you would rather get yourself mutilated in CQC. Coat either yourself or a weapon you use in lightning. Reduce cost per level.
Ask and ye shall receive. Not that I had necessarily asked for anything, but this was definitely the route I wanted to go. I found it strange that some of my skills dealt increased damage per level but some didn’t have that written in there. I found it hard to believe they would be completely static on damage going forward. Something I’d have to ask Garrus about if he was up for talking.
[Thrust] - Deal a powerful thrust that has increased piercing capabilities. Increased piercing capability per level.
[Piercing Blows] - Let forth a flurry of 3 piercing blows to overwhelm your opponent's defenses. 1 extra thrust per two levels.
That was a new one. I was going to have to check my status, I’m sure these were being affected somehow once they actually got slotted in.
[Nature’s Touch] - Heal yourself or allies with the healing touch of nature. Increased health and reduced cost per level.
[Barrier] - A wall of pure force protects you from harm, mana is lost whenever the barrier is hit. Amount lost depends on the strength of the hit. Increased efficiency per level.
All in all those looked pretty good. Barrier gave me another good option for defense, I’d have to test how it worked to make sure I understood its intricacies. I’d also been putting off figuring out how to actually use some of my skills anyways.
I closed out my notifications and looked at my status sheet.
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 61
Class - [Shock Enthusiast] - Level 7
Ability - [Jolt]
Ability - [Shocking Grasp]
Ability - [Paralyzing Shock]
Ability - [Sparking Blows]
Ability -
Class - [Blade User] - Level 7
Ability - [Trained Physique - Passive]
Ability - [Slash]
Ability - [Parry]
Ability - [Thrust]
Ability - [Piercing Blows]
Class - [Blessed by Nature] - Level 5
Ability - [Natures Protection]
Ability - [Healing Blossom]
Ability - [Elements of Nature - Passive]
Ability - [Natural Selection]
Ability - [Nature’s Touch]
Ability - [Barrier]
Ability -
General Skills -
Identify - level 2
Status -
Vig - [113]
End - [88]
Str - [82]
Dex - [115]
Agi - [108]
Int - [103]
Wis - [97]
Health - 1130/1130
Stamina - 880/880
Mana - 970/970
Looking at the skills I could see that once they were slotted in they changed based on my current level. Piercing blows went from only 3 thrusts up to 6. One more level would get me another thrust on top of that as well. It was nice knowing that I wasn’t being gimped on my skills by getting them later.
I still had those damn ability points as well. What was I supposed to do with these? Well I didn’t feel a particular need to spend them right now. I felt strong enough considering I killed something 1 tier and 7 levels ahead. Granted I had a pretty busted setup going with an overpowered weapon.
I got out of the tub observing my body. This was the first time I properly looked at myself since becoming an elf. Hell, since coming to this world even. Back on Earth I hadn’t been in the best of shape. I had done sports in high-school and had been in great shape for a while after while I did Taekwondo. But once I stopped going to martial arts I had let myself go a bit and had gotten a little pudgy. Not really overweight, more just out of shape. But now I was extremely toned, muscular. It was strange, I hadn’t really worked for it but here I was with a 6 pack and biceps that I would’ve killed for again on Earth. It wasn’t overly muscular either in a gross fashion. You know all those body-builder types that have kind of disgusting looking physiques of muscle that’s in no way natural. This was tasteful, definitely my ideal figure if I could’ve chosen how I looked. Unfortunately there was no mirror here, so I couldn’t tell if I had gotten a glow up there as well.
I hadn’t been the most attractive person. I wasn’t ugly either, I was just average. A pretty forgettable face. Not that it had mattered since I had sat on my computer most of the time anyways.
I decided to stop being a narcissist and put my clothes on and went back to my room. Inside there was already a tray of soup with a small loaf of bread on the side. It wasn’t as good as what the elves had made me, but I felt like that might’ve been a slightly unfair comparison. It was still pretty good, better than what I considered I would get in a fantasy world.
While I sat there eating I considered what had happened in the burrows with the Mole. I laughed. That in itself wasn’t particularly strange. But it allowed me to find that itch that had been bothering me. Something I had felt wasn’t right. Magic. Something was affecting me subtly. Changing my personality away from fear to excitement. I had gone in there afraid, and after nearly dying and barely managing to kill one mole all of a sudden I threw caution to the wind against an opponent that could’ve killed me in one attack? That was definitely not like me.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Someone knocked on the door bringing me out of my inner monologue. I listened carefully using my new-found capabilities as an elf to determine who was on the other side. It was the innkeeper. I went and opened the door and put on a friendly smile despite the fact that I was annoyed he had come up here.
“Yes? How can I help?”
“Ah, I just wanted to check on you. Make sure the bath and the food was to your liking. After all, happy customers, happy life. Or so they say.” Martin, the innkeeper, had a jovial personality. He had short brown graying hair and was slowly going bald, with a pudgy nose and a bit of a potbelly coming on.
He had been an adventurer at one point and his level definitely reflected that at a respectable 353. After adventuring for many years and losing several too many party members through his time he decided to retire and run an inn instead. A pretty classic tale, but one I could respect. More so when the person whose story it was happened to be standing directly in front of you.
“It was wonderful Martin, thank you.” I gave him another smile, “But honestly I’m feeling pretty worn out, so I’m gonna get a bit of rest before tomorrow. Heading back out again, so I’ll need to be ready.” I didn’t want to be rude, but I didn’t want to keep talking either. So I tried to do my best to just end the conversation in a quick manner without seeming rude.
“Very good, very good. Alrighty then-- well if you need anything sir you know where to find me.” Martin flashed me a wink before heading on his way.
I closed my door letting out an exhausted sigh. Too much socializing today already and it was barely dusk. I went and tucked myself into the bed already feeling extremely tired. I passed out almost immediately.
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When I woke it was still dark out. I went ahead and got out of bed and readied myself for the day regardless. Figured I might as well go out and see if I could test the limits of my body before meeting up with Garrus and the others.
I managed to get myself together with my meager amount of possessions and exited my room. I left the key to my room behind the counter. I slowly closed the front door of the inn behind me as I left to make sure not to bother anyone. I looked down at my clothes. They were pretty filthy, I was gonna have to clean them at some point. For the meantime I just shrugged it off and started walking.
I went out the west gates since they were practically right next to the inn. The guild was on the west side of the city as well so it made things easy. Surprisingly the gates were open at night, although I was stopped by the guards on my way out. Once I let them know I was just going out to get some exercise they let me carry on.
I walked a short ways away from the walls of the city before setting my pack down. I had planned a number of exercises I wanted to do and was going to compare them with when I was at my physical peak as a human. The first I had planned was a 50-yard dash. This run was a pretty popular way for American Football players to compete with each other in training.
I had always been a pretty fast runner too. I had averaged 4.9 seconds on these sprints. Just breaking the 5 second barrier had been pretty rough, but I had worked pretty hard back then to pull it off.
I measured roughly 50 yards using my feet and used my sword to mark the finish line while using my pack to mark the starting line. I was probably off by a bit, but this would work well enough for what I wanted to do.
I took a runner's stance on the ground, placing my eyes on the finish line and then focusing on a patch of grass beyond it. A common problem people had is they slowed down towards the finish line, it was a human nature thing. But if you treated a point beyond that as the finish line you could combat that instinct to slow down before you should.
I took a deep breath. Then I launched forward. The world around me blurred as I pushed forward, putting everything I had into running. I blinked, something was wrong. I stopped and looked around before glancing behind me. I had passed the finish line and then carried on another 50 yards before I even knew what had happened.
“What.” I was flabbergasted. I had cleared the length of a football field in under 2 seconds. That was… nearly five times faster than I had been? Maybe? Math was hard. Come on INT do your thing. Make me smarter. Whatever. I walked back to my stuff while running a hand over my chin in thought and came to another brand new realization. I had no facial hair. I was perfectly baby butt smooth.
Huh. Strange, but I didn’t mind. I had never looked good with facial hair really since I couldn’t grow a lot of it to matter, so it just kind looked gross. I explored the rest of my face with my hands. It was incredibly smooth, like I had been moisturizing my face regularly. Every blemish was gone, including the mole I’d had on my chin my entire life. That was strange to feel, I kind of missed that mole now that I realized it was gone.
‘RIP Jerry, you’ll be missed.’ I sent off a quick prayer for my fallen mole before continuing on with my exercises.
And they all went about as expected. I was superhuman. I could easily lift hundreds of pounds, I could jump higher than my own height, I could see the texture of a leaf from 20 feet away, I could hear a squirrel climb a tree from 50 feet, I could smell all the odors of a forest. Yes, that did include the poop that was in the forest, no I don’t want to talk about it.
I spent a long time just accustoming myself to every movement I could make. One of my biggest flaws I’d had physically was my inflexibility. Even during Taekwondo I just couldn’t do some of the stretches other people did with ease. But now? I could bend over backwards and pull myself into a handstand before doing the splits and then hold it.
This was awesome, I loved it. I could control every little movement I did, coordination that would normally take weeks or months to learn I did on the first or second try.
I got so engrossed with my newfound physicality that I nearly missed meeting with Garrus and the others. Thanks to my newfound physicality I still made it before them.
I walked into the guild, it was already relatively full of people despite the relative early hours. I guess it wasn’t really all that early in this world. Then again I viewed anything before 3 PM as early with my terrible sleep schedule on Earth. I strode in more confidently than I felt and claimed a table out of the way on the restaurant side while waiting for the Earth Raiders.
While I waited I could hear every word spoken, I even noticed a couple of people talking but couldn’t hear what they were saying. Must’ve been a type of magic.
“Yeah, so anyways after Kalt went after him-”
“Dude, I’m really starting to get annoyed with Melissa. She gets on my case about everything-”
“Yeah over there, the elf. He was here two days ago, he’s the one that brought the tags in.”
Talking about me eh? My ears twitched as I tried to focus on only the one conversation.
“Yeah, based on his description he claimed the Sentinels of Discord did it.”
“And how do we know he wasn’t the one that killed them?”
“Dude have you even identified him? He was level 1 at the time, now he’s level 7. I checked him as he walked by.”
I managed to narrow down the conversation to two roguish looking guys sitting by the entrance, they weren’t even glancing around but I had the feeling they had a pretty good grasp of their surroundings so I made sure not to look directly at them. A barmaid came by and I ordered something mild. My taste was also enhanced so I didn’t want to drink something that was too heavy on the taste factor.
“He could be using illusion magic to hide his levels.”
“Not likely I would’ve noticed that kind of magic if he was using it.”
“Then what? You’re saying you actually believe the Sentinels did it?”
“All I’m saying is he’s the one who came across them, I’m not vouching for his words.”
Their conversation meandered on from there, mainly they just talked about the new gossip going around like old house wives washing clothes at a river.
I didn’t have to wait much longer for the Earth Raiders to show up, I raised my hand to show them where I was seated. I saw Garrus gesture in my direction and the group came up to my table. I gestured for them to have a seat but they continued to stay standing, I looked at all of them as they did. Garrus was still impassive, George seemed a bit embarrassed, Karif seemed to be extremely entertained, Penny… Looked downright ashamed.
I raised an eyebrow before looking back to Garrus who then proceeded to give Penny a gentle nudge. Karif cast a spell right before Penny took a step forward. Probably to make sure no one could listen in, but I had no idea what this was about.
“Umm… Alex… I umm…” Her face was practically on fire with how flushed she was, “IwantedtoapologizewhatIsaidwasrudeanduncalledfor.” She said everything in a rush, words practically jumping over each other and she finished with a bow at the end.
Huh? I stopped and slowly processed her words. She wanted to apologize for being rude?
“I don’t know that I understand what you’re apologizing for?” I said it more as a question, trying to think back but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what she meant. She had a fiery personality for sure, but nothing had seemed overly aggressive for her type. Hell I was particularly aggressive with my friends back on Earth sometimes, all in good fun of course.
“I think,” Garrus was the one who spoke next, “She’s talking about the part where you had divulged your secret to us about being a world jumper and wanting to keep it a secret, at that point you were asking us to keep it a secret and she threatened to beat you for looking at her. At the time she probably thought you had a more direct hand in Tony’s death rather than the fact that you were more just worried because you were in an unfamiliar environment.”
I kept an eyebrow raised at them, Garrus seemed slightly embarrassed for Penny, who still had her head bowed. Perfect form, 90 degrees at the waist.
I slowly started chuckling before outright laughing. Garrus' eyes went wide while I laughed. After a short while I managed to calm down and wiped a tear out of my eyes, “Oh man. That’s hilarious. Penny that didn’t bother me in the slightest, I didn’t even remember it past that very moment. I just tacked that up as part of your personality. Hell with some of my friends back from where I was from, what you did wouldn’t even register on the scales with them. Please stop bowing though, it makes me feel uncomfortable. Most people don’t bow when apologizing where I’m from.”
I stood up as she came up from her bow, she still struggled to look me in the face but I figured she would get over it with time. “We don’t bow, but we do hug.” I gave her one, she stiffened up almost instantly before returning the gesture. Karif busted out laughing next, “Oh this is amazing, you’re never living this one down Penny.” He had a massive shit eating grin on his face.
I released Penny shortly after gesturing to them to have a seat, “I’m sure that’s not the only thing you came to talk about?”
Garrus had a big smile on his face as well.
“You’re right about that laddy, and thanks for being kind to her. She has an uppity temperament and doesn’t always think her actions through.”
I waved my hand dismissively, “It’s nothing, I’d rather put it behind us as well and move on to another topic. For both my sake, and hers.”
Garrus, give a cheeky smile to her as he sat across from me along with George and Karif. Leaving the only spot left for Penny directly next to me. Ah, how cruel Garrus was. I could hear Penny’s heart thundering in her chest as she was forced to sit next to me.
“So what else did you have?”