Magnus couldn’t believe his eyes. As he stepped out of the tunnel an enormous cave unveiled itself before him. He stood on a cliff about 20 meters high, a small stream sprung up from the wall near him and turned into a roaring waterfall falling into the decently sized forest down below. A small lake could be seen partially hidden by the thick foliage. The trail of what he thought was mana snaked up on the ceiling and connected to a big yellow crystal. Numerous other mana trails were connected to the crystal, probably leading into other tunnels. The crystal radiated a warm, comforting energy.
After he was done taking in the view, Magnus slowly walked to the spring, kneeled, submerged his head underwater, and drank a few mouthfuls. I was the best water he ever had, better than a glass of cold water at night. Feeling more refreshed than he felt for a long time, he sat down against the cave wall.
„What now? “Magnus asked himself while looking over the underground forest.
His main goal was still to get onto the surface, but who knew what awaited him there? For all he knows it might be even worse than down here. And what was even going on? He didn’t even have time to think about that. The last day was only struggle, pain, and spiders and he had no time to stop. Whatever the System was changed him and maybe even the whole world. The spiders down here probably weren’t the strongest monsters around. He had to get stronger to survive.
Either way, he couldn’t do that by sitting around and enjoying the view. Magnus sat up, walked over to the cliff edge, and looked down below. There didn’t seem to be any way to get down without climbing. Thankfully he had some experience with that. His dad was a very active person. He often roped Magnus into his activities as well. Climbing, fishing, hunting, nothing was off the table. When Magnus went on his first hunt his father gifted him the knife that saved him multiple times now.
What’s in the past is in the past. No point in reminiscing right now, first he needed to find shelter. Preferably close to the stream or lake, so he was close to water. Well, he had to get down first without breaking his back. He began to plan out his path of descent. The trees reached up about halfway to the cliff, so he had something to break his fall if he lost his grip. Magnus breathed out and prepared himself to climb down.
He sat down on the edge above a protrusion big enough for one of his feet and put the knife still in his hand into one of his jacket’s inner pockets. With a bit of luck, he wouldn’t stab himself again if he fell. Lying down and flipping over onto his belly, he held on to a rock and slowly descended, carefully searching for a foothold with his feet.
A few minutes later and about halfway down the cliff, Magnus was starting to lose his breath. Though there was definitely an improvement to his stamina, without his improved Endurance he guessed he would have lasted only as half as long without a break. After resting for a while, he prepared to descend again when suddenly a crack sounded from his handhold and a few loose rocks tumbled down onto the ground. Tensing his whole body, he waited half a minute not moving and barely breathing. Breathing out, feeling relieved when he was sure the handhold would hold, he felt his foothold give out with a crack and he started quickly falling into the trees below.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Cursing and closing his eyes, to prepare himself for the impact. Branches cracked under his body as he kept trying to blindly reach for one to stop his fall. Try as he might Magnus continued to fall until suddenly, he bounced up and down, as if caught in a net. Slowly cracking open his eyes, he looked around and saw what he had fallen into. It was a spiderweb. Just as he thought he finally ran away from them they showed up again.
Looking down, Magnus figured he could survive the 3-meter fall. Struggling to get free, he felt the web vibrate. Realizing that that was precisely what the spider that set up the web wanted he stopped thrashing and slowly tried to unstick his arm from the web to reach for the knife in his pocket and cut himself free. Pulling his hand as hard as he could, he felt the strands of spider silk give out and he freed his arm. It was not done as secretly as he hoped for and he felt a vibration. Not from him this time but from somewhere else, somewhere close.
Craning his Magnus used [Identify] on a smaller but bulkier spider cautiously crawling towards him.
[Cave Webspinner – Tier 0] – Level 7
Slowly moving his hand into his pocket, he gripped the knife and prepared to strike. The spider in an uncharacteristically smart move, approached from his still immobilized left-hand side. Cautious to not approach too close to his free-to-move right arm, the spider tried to bite him into his left shoulder. Expecting a flare of pain Magnus braced. It could barely penetrate and whatever poison managed to get hold in his blood even with his high Endurance and [Poison Resistance] was quickly cleansed by his Vitality. Seemed like this spider didn’t put too many points into Strength. Wait do monsters even have the same Stats? Though Magnus enjoyed thinking about the System and getting venom pumped into him, it was time to end this.
Magnus stabbed quickly with his enhanced Agility into the spider’s head to kill it. At least he tried to. It penetrated barely deeper than the spider did with its bite. Seemed like he didn’t put too many points into Strength either. Well, if it doesn’t work the first time try again and again. The spider not feeling threatened by Magnus’ pathetic attacks, continued to pump venom, hoping to kill him before he managed to reach its brain. A few stabs later Magnus remembered his new Skill and activated [Vicious Blow]. A very faint tiredness settled into his right arm as he stabbed with his Skill. The difference was instantly obvious as the stab finally managed to penetrate deeper than an inch. By the time he was done stabbing his hand felt so numb, as if he spent a whole day lifting weights. But even that had a benefit Magnus thought as he read the new notification.
[Vicious Blow is now Level 2.]
With the spider dead and hopefully none lying in wait, Magnus started to cut the thickest line. He hoped that by cutting the one that holds the web all together it would come crumbling down. When he was about halfway done the strand snapped and as expected he started falling down the second time today. He protected his head with his arm so he didn’t snap his neck and a short while later he came to a rough halt as he hit the ground with his back down.
Grunting in pain but not feeling worse than he did after the fight with the tree spiders Magnus stood up and dusted off his clothes. Hearing the stream not far away from his landing spot he started walking at a slow pace.