Nathan sat up and smiled. He was sitting in the middle of a clearing in an oak forest.
Nathan stabbed his spikes into soft dirt and picked one of the many leaves off of the floor. Nathan rubbed the leaf between his pointer finger and thumb. The dry leaf crumbled to pieces and Nathan enjoyed the texture between his fingers.
“You know,” Nathan said to the hawk that had nested about thirty feet above his head, “I should’ve tried grabbing the manticore’s body. Maybe then it would have been teleported with me.” Nathan touched his spikes with his left hand. “These did, after all.”
Nathan stood up and wiggled the toes of his healed left foot. After grabbing his spikes out of the ground, Nathan looked up at the sky. Seems to be about midday. I should try to find shelter, or at least a hiding spot, before nightfall. If the levels of the Gauntlet get progressively harder, and the manticore was the first level, I don’t want whatever comes prowling at night to find me.
Nathan glanced up at the sky again, determined which direction was north, and set off towards it. He figured that if he was going to walk in a random direction, he had better walk in a nice round direction.
As Nathan traveled through the forest, he admired the wildlife.
Back in the Eternal City, almost all of the animal life was in the farms that were only there to fulfill the highborn and noble taste for meat. Nathan couldn’t remember the last time he had seen an animal that wasn't in a cage at the main market of his section of the slums.
At first the birds, and once a deer that he had attempted to watch, ran away because he was making too much noise. Nathan began attempting to walk quietly, and by the time evening came around, his Interface gave him an alert.
Alert
Congratulations: You have fulfilled the requirements for the Skill Basic Stealth(Tier 1)!
Would you like to Equip the Skill Basic Stealth(Tier 1) as one of your Active Skills? (The Skill can be transferred to your Skill reserve at any time at the cost of losing all levels within the Skills tier.)
Nathan affirmed.
Alert
The Skill Basic stealth (Tier 1) has been placed in one of your Active Skill slots. You have no Active Skill slots remaining.
Basic Stealth (Tier 1) Level 1: You instinctively know how to move quietly. Your movements create ten percent less noise if this Skill is activated. You create one percent less noise per level. The current noise reduction from this Skill is ten percent.
Path of the Grandmaster: Through extreme soul control and willpower you keep your soul core from aspecting to any type other than master. If you do an action that you have a minimum level of Skill in, part of your soul core will temporarily aspect to it. These will be quantified as Skills. Some Skills can allow you to ignore your attribute limit. The power of these Skills will be quantified as levels.
Type: Master
Secondary type: N/A
Skills:
Active Skills (Maximum five):
Intermediate Holbrich Spike Style(Tier 2) Level 6:You have practiced the Holbrich Spike Style forms for years and are very proficient with them. All movements that use the Holbrich Spike Style operate as if your Reflex, Endurance, and Strength were ten percent higher than they actually are. Each rank in an attribute increases the related capabilities by fifty percent. Each level in this Skill causes the power increase to go up by two percent. The current power increase from this Skill is twenty percent.
Basic Land Animal Tracking(Tier 1) Level 4: You instinctively know some of the signs to look for while tracking animals on dry land, and can learn about an animal by looking at its tracks. This effect scales with the level of the Skill.
Basic Running(Tier 1) level 3: You have some knowledge in how to pace yourself and what form to use when you run. For each level in this Skill you gain a one percent speed increase while running. The current speed bonus from this Skill is four percent.
Basic Improvised Crafting(Tier 1) Level 2: You gain a vague sense for what a material that you harvested personally could be used for in crafting. This effect scales with the level of the Skill.
Basic Stealth (Tier 1) Level 1: You instinctively know how to move quietly. Your movements create ten percent less noise if this Skill is activated. You create one percent less noise per level. The current noise reduction from this Skill is ten percent.
Skill reserve:
N/A
You have no free Active Skill slots remaining. Skills that you meet the requirements for will automatically go to your Skill reserve. (You may choose to replace Active Skills with Skills in your Skill reserve at the cost of removing all of the levels that you have in the current tier of a Skill.)
Nathan nodded appreciatively. If I level that enough, it's gonna become pretty useful.
////
The sun was just beginning to set when Nathan noticed something strange. He had been walking through the forest, working on his stealth skill, when he saw that there was a stain of blood up the trunk of one of the trees.
Inspecting the scene closer, Nathan noticed many hoof prints on and around the roots of the tree. When he used basic land animal tracking on the marks, a scene appeared in his mind.
A deer was walking along, eating shrubs and generally minding its own business, when something dropped down from the canopy onto the deer's back.
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The predator, Nathan's ability wasn’t sure what it was, sunk some kind of natural weapon, a claw or possibly a fang, into the deer. The deer staggered around for a few seconds, eventually collapsing at the base of the tree. The predator then dragged the deer up the tree that it had collapsed next to.
The whole thing had probably happened just before dawn, based on the color of the blood.
The strangest part about the whole thing was that both the predator and the prey had left no tracks that his ability could detect after the prey sprayed blood on the base of the tree.
Nathan grimaced, understanding the threat that the predator posed to him. If it drops down from a tree while I’m sleeping, I would have no way to defend myself in time. I can't die again, because this time, I doubt Knowledge is gonna resurrect me. Fuck you Knowledge.
Nathan walked until the sun had set, but didn’t find anywhere that had cover that the predator wouldn’t be able to leverage against him for him to sleep under before it got dark. The lingering light from the already set sun was fading fast, so Nathan made an executive decision.
“Ah well,” Nathan muttered in resignation and annoyance, “I guess I’m gonna be pulling an all-nighter.” Nathan sighed and sat down in the center of a clearing. He had chosen to sit in the middle of a clearing so that if the predator could not, in fact, fly, it wouldn't have anything to drop down on him from.
Nathan decided that if he was going to stay up all night, he should be as alert as possible. He assumed a pose similar to his meditation pose, but instead of blocking out his physical perception and activating his soul perception, he strained his ears, blocked out his soul perception, and closed his eyes.
This way I should be able to hear any noises that the predator might be making.
////
By the end of the long, long night Nathan could hear the sound of a fly buzzing twenty or thirty feet away from him, but he still hadn’t heard any noises that the predator could have been making.
As an orange dawn crept over the horizon Nathan released his extreme concentration on his hearing. Apparently he had been ignoring his interface as well because an alert immediately sprung into his soul perception
Alert
Congratulations: You have fulfilled the requirements for the Skill Heightened Hearing(Tier 1)!
The Skill Heightened Hearing(Tier 1) has been automatically entered into your Skill reserve.
Skill reserve:
Heightened Hearing(Tier 1) Level 1: Your passive hearing is increased by fifty percent. This percentage goes up by five each level in the Skill. You gain a limited ability to pierce magical stealth effects. This effect scales with the level of the Skill.
“Damnit.” Nathan muttered, realizing that if he had put the Skill in an active slot when he had qualified for it, he probably would have gained a level in it. As the heightened hearing Skill was going to be extremely necessary to make sure that he didn’t get surprised and killed; by the predator, Nathan decided to replace one of his Active Skills with it.
My spike style is out of the question, and so are my tracking and running Skills because of their levels. That leaves my stealth and crafting Skills. Nathan paused and considered the decision for a moment, then made his choice. I’m gonna use the stealth Skill way more, and stealth more immediately affects my survival. Crafting is going to help me evade the predator a lot less than stealth will.
Alert
Your Skill Basic Improvised Crafting(Tier 1) has been removed from your active Skills. Basic Improvised Crafting(Tier 1) has lost a level.
Basic Improvised Crafting(Tier 1) Level 2 >> Basic Improvised Crafting(Tier 1) Level 1
Congratulations: The Skill Heightened Hearing(Tier 1) has been placed in one of your Active Skill slots. You have no Active Skill slots remaining.
Heightened Hearing(Tier 1) Level 1: Your passive hearing is increased by fifty percent. This percentage goes up by five each level in the Skill. The current passive hearing bonus is gift percent. You gain a limited ability to pierce magical stealth effects. This effect scales with the level of the Skill.
The interface began to show Nathan's path section, but Nathan decided to try something new.
Compact. Nathan ordered the Interface.
Alert
You have chosen compact mode.
Path of the Grandmaster
Type: Master
Secondary type: N/A
Skills:
Active Skills (Maximum five):
Intermediate Holbrich Spike Style(Tier 2) Level 6
Basic Land Animal Tracking(Tier 1) Level 4
Basic Running(Tier 1) level 3
Basic Stealth (Tier 1) Level 1
Heightened Hearing(Tier 1) Level 1
Skill reserve:
Basic Improvised Crafting(Tier 1) Level 1
Nathan nodded appreciatively. That's a lot easier to look at now. I wonder what else I could get the Interface to do? Nathan shook his head. There'll be time to mess with the Interface later. Right now I have to figure out how to sleep with one eye open.
Now that the sun was fully up, Nathan felt a lot better taking a nap. Still wouldn't hurt to have some precautions. Nathan, somewhat regretting the absence of his crafting Skill, rigid up an alarm system with some thorny vines as tripwires.
If anything pulled on one of the many vines that had strung through the trees and along the ground, a loop of vine around Nathan’s wrist would tighten and the thorns would stab him. This would wake him up, and he could be alert to face the threat. It wouldn't do anything against a flying creature, but Nathan hoped that his boosted hearing capabilities and decent perception attribute would wake him up before that happened.
Nathan was awakened three times during his two hour long nap. The first time a bird had landed on top of one of his tripwire vines. Nathan had jumped up, spikes hanging from the wrist loops he had made for them the previous day, fearing for his life. He checked each of the vines methodically, but when Nathan saw that it was just a bird, he had gone back to sleep.
The second time, an anguished bleating noise echoed between the trees, waking Nathan.
Nathan had jumped up a tree and saw that the birds had been startled from a copse of trees about two miles away. Damn, that was loud deer. It must've been injured and then ran away bleating. That means that whatever attacked it, wasn’t the mystery predator. I don’t think the mystery predator would have let its prey get away. Nathan went back to sleep, somewhat comforted.
The third time Nathan was smacked in the face by a now untaught vine, when something severed it and released the tension. Walking over and inspecting it in the midmorning light, Nathan, using his tracking ability, saw that the rope had been ripped at or possibly stabbed multiple times an hour or two before it had torn fully. It was probably just a branch rubbing against it.
Despite his internal reassurances, Nathan decided that he had slept enough and began his day. He could never be too careful, after all.