“Okay, let’s spend these skill points and get back to safety quickly,” Brian said.

Jack bought: Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Lucas bought: Mana Generation: Rank 1

“I”ll decide what I get later when we’re safe. I have no idea what to get. And now that these skill points are so much harder to get, I’m not about to waste mine on something stupid like Enlarged Penis: Rank 1,” Brian said.

“Still worth it,” Lucas said.

They started marching back. Both Lucas and Jack knew they were supposed to focus on spotting dragonflies, but they couldn’t help it. Jack started messing around with his new mana manipulation skill. Ever since the other two had gotten theirs, he was excited to try it out for himself.

Lucas started messing around with the mana generating in his stomach.

When he manipulated it, it gave him a ticklish feeling.

Brian was also distracted, brainstorming what he could get with this skill point.

Their slow marching towards safety and fantasies were interrupted by a dragonfly appearing in the horizon.

They dropped the siege tower and started shooting.

They managed to kill it before it reached them.

“Is it only my dumb ass, or were you expecting to see a progress point in the challenge? It’s so weird when it finally disappears,” Jack said.

“I’ll be honest. I was kinda anticipating it,” Brian said.

“Not me. I never manage to hit shit. Maybe I should get some aiming skill,” Lucas said.

They started moving back to the safer Grasshopper zone in the same direction as where the dead dragonfly was.

“Oh, skill crystal!” Brian yelled out.

It was too dangerous to get out of the siege tower to harvest the crystal, so they had to awkwardly lift the siege tower over the dragonfly. And before they did that they shot it a few more times and waited a few minutes just to be sure the ugly thing was dead.

“God it’s ugly,” Lucas said.

“Maybe we could use this material for something? We really should be better at harvesting the monsters we kill,” Brian said.

“Fuck that. We can just buy shit with silk. Who cares,” Jack said.

“Good point,” Brian said.

Eventually they finally reached the Grasshopper zone.

“Finally! Fucking smells like shit in there,” Lucas said, pointing at the now discarded siege tower.

“Okay Jack, you wanna pop this crystal before we go to a safer spot for the healing?” Brian said.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

He crushed the bigger dragonfly yellow skill crystal in his hand. Yellow energy drifted into his arm.

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Specialized Mental Sacrifice Ritual Focus Borrow: Rank 1

Typography: Rank 1

Jack quickly ignored the knowledge his typography skill gave him and focused on the much more interesting sacrifice skill.

“Holy shit. I just got a kind of ritual uploaded to my brain. About 200 words. A lot of alien words and weird sounds and hand movements. I’m not sure what it does. Feels like reading gibberish,” Jack said.

“Interesting. But later. We gotta go,” Brian said.

And so they did a long and silent march towards the safer butterfly zone. Many times they almost ran into other hispanic gangs and evaded them thanks to Brian’s improved vision. It was also slowly starting to become night-time, which also helped them evade the hispanics.

Finally, they decided they were safe and set up camp and took a long break.

“Can you get that healing spell working now?” Lucas said.

“Bro, chill. I just sat down. The fuck,” Jack said.

“And I don’t have my fucking fingers. Get to it,” Lucas said.

“Jesus, okay,” Jack said.

I’m not even gonna get to test out this other ritual skill first.

Okay, how do I do this? The healing blueprint is memorized in my mind. Let me try to shape some mana first.

A lot of it is just pouring out of my core uncontrolled. A small and constant trickle.

It responds well to when I try to move it. That’s good. Okay. How do I do this? Should I try to take it all the way to my hand?

That’s too hard. Really hard. Every time I lose focus everything collapses.

Okay, let me try to shape it inside my stomach, close to my core. Okay–

“Fuck this is hard! Shut the fuck up! Stop moving! Every time you fucking move everything breaks apart!” Jack yelled.

“Take a chill pill,” Brian said.

Lucas and Brian stopped moving around.

Jack laid down with his back on the ground.

He started playing around with his mana instead of trying to shape it into the blueprint.

First he started spinning around the mana drifting out of his core. He managed to create a kind of string and just spin it in a small circle.

Okay, this is easier. This is enough for the outline.

Then he started working on the very intricate patterns. Many times he shaped it incorrectly inside, an odd symbol or weird line, and he had to redo it.

Lucas sighed and Jack lost focus and everything collapsed.

“Stop. Fucking. Moving!” Jack said.

After a few hours, Jack finally managed to make a very crude mana circle healing blueprint inside his stomach.

He silently walked over to Lucas, while focusing very hard on maintaining the circle.

Let’s see if this works…

///////

Jack:

Knife Fighting: Rank 1

Knife Fighting: Rank 2

Python (programming language): Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Sand to Glass Conversion Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Healing Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Origami: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Speed Counting: Rank 1

Enemy Weakness Identification: Rank 1

Poetry: Rank 2

Blueprint visualizer: Rank 1

Mana Sense: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Pool: Rank 1

Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Specialized Mental Sacrifice Ritual Focus Borrow: Rank 1

Typography: Rank 1

Brian:

Shield Defending: Rank 1

Marksmanship (pistol): Rank 1

Right Arm Increased Strength: Rank 1

Mana manipulation: Rank 1

Mana Sense: Rank 1

Enhanced Propriosense in Toes: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Flame Shield Dispel: Rank 1

Cryptography: Rank 1

Enemy Pattern Recognition: Rank 1

Airplane Pilot: Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Finnish: Rank 1

Lucas:

Insect Movement Control: Rank 1

Enlarged Penis: Rank 1

Mana sense: Rank 1

Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Surfing: Rank 1

Arithmetic: Rank 1

Chess: Rank 1

Human Interpersonal Non-verbal Bodily Social Behaviors Enhanced Perception: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Changing car tires: Rank 1

Water Mana Affinity: Rank 1

Walking: Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1