Quill snapped awake with a ragged breath and instantly started coughing. The taste of foul meat still seemed to linger in his mouth despite the hope of the potions washing it away.
“I really am going to be tasting that rotten meat for weeks. I was joking when I thought that” He shuffled over to the bathroom and after finishing his business and drinking from the faucet he finally took a second to breathe.
“Wait…” He scrunched his face. Something felt off about him. Something felt different.
“I don’t really see anything different about you cutie. Just your normal adorable self” responded a feminine voice inside his head
“Are you sure? I feel like something is different. Like something has changed.” He couldn’t help but respond.
“I am an expert in all things you, and plus after checking you out for the 25th time in the past hour I can confidently and safely declare that you are indeed still you.”
“Well.. I guess if the expert says so.” He rubbed his face as he splashed some water on it to try and clear some of the fogged up brain. Still felt like something was different.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Though perhaps this change is because of your class level up. You should check that out! I am practically dying here to see it all laid out bare for me!”
Quill just rolled his eyes at the demands but still obliged with opening his screen which got a delightful giggle out of her as they stared at his status screen together.
Quill ERROR
Lvl: 5
Race: Human (G rank)
Class: Early Savage warrior
Body: 5.9
Mind: 3.1
Soul: ERROR
1 undistributed stat point
Buffs/ailments: Insanity (weak)
Skills: Dirty fighting (lvl 2), Dodge (lvl 2), pseudo energy manifestation (lvl 1), 1 Unspent skill choice
Achievements: Tutorial Forerunner, First step towards greatness
traits: ERROR (unique)
“Heh. Not bad. Could use some work but still not bad. Kinda expected your insanity to be a little higher though.”
“Why would you expect it to be higher?? I am completely sane!”
“Sweetie, you were literally trying to psych yourself up to kill yourself a little over a day ago.”
“Yeah well…. Whatever! At least it’s still weak. More importantly I should probably distribute my free point.” He focused on his status screen
“You should put the whole thing in mind.”
Quill paused for a second as he felt like it made more sense to put it in body given his class but before he could ask why she continued.
“It will help greatly with your skill that is called pseudo energy manifestation and that skill will likely be a mainstay for you. Plus the mind stat will help you process information quicker and make it easier for you react during battle on a more mental level”
Huh… Well in that case he kind of felt like an idiot for picking the class that seemed to focus on his physical body he thought to himself.
“Nah! You also needed your body to be stronger to use this skill too. Else you will start rupturing and potentially blowing yourself up if your body isn’t up to deal with the energy coursing through it.”
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“Well that is terrifying. Also please don’t read my mind without permission.”
“Don’t be talking crazy talk! I love your little mind so much! I want to see every single little thought that goes through it at all times!”
Quill rubbed his head as he placed the point into mind. He still couldn’t shake the feeling something was off but if she said everything was normal he saw no reason to not trust her.
“Alright, so I think the best plan right now is to just sit here and wait a bit. I still have some food which is good, I can hopefully survive maybe another week or so without worry if I only eat a little every day.”
He waited for a reply but none came. “Uh.. Hello?”
“Give it a minute.”
“Give what a min-” A screen suddenly popped in front of him followed by howls of laughter in his head.
You have received a quest!
“Even more rats!”
Those rats have had to come from somewhere right? Best to start exploring and find out where they came from and put an end to it!
Objective-Find and destroy the thing that is making the rats
Rewards upon completion- A storage ring (capacity small), 120 days worth of food and water. 2 health potions, 2 stamina potions, 2 mana potions, 2 cleansing potions.
Oh Come On! Did he really have to do this??
“Well you don’t HAVE too. But you SHOULD. Plus the food and water will make it so you don’t have to worry about dying from dehydration or hunger. All in all. Pretty good, even if you ignore the other rewards.”
“Also how did you know I was going to get a quest anyways!?”
“Eh, I know a little bit about the system. Best way to put it, the system likes to fuck around with people, and I think the system likes you so you are going to have some special attention.”
Quill let out a groan and slumped his shoulders. This was just his typical luck. So now he was going to have to kill a ton more rats and since they were no longer in his station, he was going to have to go through those tunnels to try and find them which meant running the risk of meeting those terrifying worm hand things.
“So before you even do anything. How about you check out your unspent skill hm? Perhaps it will be useful.”
Quill looked back at his status screen and mentally clicked on the unspent skill icon and another screen popped up in front of him.
Please choose your first class skill!
A list of a bunch of skills popped in front of him. About twenty in fact. And most were.. Well too put it lightly, just weren’t what he needed or something he could probably replicate with his pseudo energy manifestation skill. Like this one
Savage claws (Uncommon)
The savage warriors' nails turn into hardened claws, allowing him to rip and tear apart his opponents with relative ease, even being able to penetrate armour. By spending mana the savage warrior can increase the hardness of the claws as well as the length for a short time
There is something truly satisfying about tearing your enemies apart with your bare hands that you just can’t get with a weapon
Just didn’t seem that useful to someone like him. But there were a few that stood out too him and after some deliberation he finally settled on potentially two such skills
Enhanced senses (common)
The savage warriors' senses are enhanced, everything from taste, touch, sight, smell and hearing. The savage warrior is also able to control when he wants a certain sense enhanced.
Sometimes just being able to see or hear better can make a world of difference.
Enhanced toughness (common)
The savage warrior knows that the best way to survive is to just not die. This will strengthen an already powerful constitution allowing the savage warrior to survive even worse punishment
Let the enemy tire themselves out by trying to hurt you. Then when they collapse from exhaustion you can either kill them or point and laugh.
Honestly they weren’t particularly flashy and being of a common rarity did sort of bug him but they also were probably his best bet in surviving whatever was to come. Shame though, there were a couple of rare skills that seemed pretty cool and he was a little sad he had to pass them up, but if he were to take them it would only be because they were rare skills and not because they would help him survive.
“I think you are right with those two picks. Sadly you can only pick one. I’ll let you pick though, can’t be having you listening and obeying me all the time as much as I would love that” her voice responded and he could almost see her smug looking face with that last part. Her face… Her face. What was her face? What was her name? And her voice.. her voice, the voice wasn’t always-
“Hey hey hey! Don’t be getting distracted now! You got a lot of monsters still waiting to take a bite out of you. If you start fretting over every little thing you’ll wind up dead. Think about whatever that is later. Survival first.”
“Yeah…” He slapped his cheeks to help him wake up “Yeah, you are right. My bad, thanks for keeping me focused.”
“It’s what I do. Soooo, about that skill selection.”
“Right!” Quill refocused on the two skills he was going to choose from. And while the enhanced toughness was very very tempting. Especially with how close he will probably get to things that could easily tear him apart if able. He felt like he needed the enhanced sense for one specific reason.
The tunnels were very very dark. There was no way he was going to be able to see inside those tunnels if he didn’t have a light source which he didn’t. Even if he did, that was basically just announcing to every single monster that ‘Hey, here is a poor defenseless bastard just wandering around. Come and eat him’. It would just attract too much attention.
After only a few more seconds of hesitancy, he steeled his nerves and selected enhanced senses
Learned “enhanced senses (lvl 1)
Quill instantly noticed a difference. Everything looked sharper, more pronounced, details came into focus. The stale air of the break room almost felt more tight against his skin, the air smelled stronger of blood and his own body oder. He could hear the faint dripping of water from the bathroom with the faucet. And…. OH GOD THE TASTE OF THE ROTTEN FLESH WAS SO MUCH STRONGER!!
He heard her uproarious laughter in his head as he dove for the remaining food from the vending machine in a desperate attempt to get the damn taste out of his mouth.