It’d been a few days since the Store had disappeared from the main menu. It didn’t change anything in terms of Jack’s survival, though. He’d already learned how to get food and craft things by himself. He continued to explore the Sungrove, fighting monsters and discovering something new, gradually getting stronger and improving all his skills.
After he cleared out another cave, he found a treasure chest with something interesting inside—a Fire Magic talent book and a Fireball spell book. He learned the Fireball spell first. He got so excited that he immediately tried to use it. However, as it turned out, to be able to use the Fireball spell, he needed to learn the Fire Magic talent first. Which he did. This talent was Magic-based, so he then spent some of his Essence points to level up and allocated the skill point into the Magic attribute.
“So,” he said, “how do I cast a fireball?”
He gave a mental command to do so, but to his surprise, nothing happened. Perhaps I need to aim with my hand?
He stretched out his left arm, aiming for the wall on the opposite side of the cavern and repeated the mental command to cast a fireball. Immediately, his left hand burst into flames. For a second, he got scared, but he almost instantly realized he felt no pain. A fraction of a second later, a fireball materialized in front of his hand and flew forward. The magical projectile zipped across the cavern, illuminating it, and exploded when it crashed into the cave wall.
“Cool,” Jack said in amazement.
For the next several minutes, he just practiced casting fireballs, learning what he could do with the spell. He found out that when using both hands, he could cast two fireballs at once. He could aim them in the same direction or different ones. When holding hands next to each other, he could also cast a more powerful version of a regular fireball, which was bigger in size and exploded with greater force on impact.
He cast a couple more fireballs when he suddenly felt he was exhausted.
“Okay,” he said to himself. “Looks like magic consumes a lot of energy. Noted.”
He sat on the cave floor to rest for a little bit. When he put more skill points into his Magic attribute, he most likely wouldn’t get tired so quickly when casting spells. He also noticed that though he’d cast the Fireball spell a few times, his Fire Magic talent didn’t increase at all.
He thought that this talent most likely increased when the spell was used on enemies in actual battles.
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When he checked his stats, he saw that the Spells, Runes, and Enchantments section now contained the spell he’d just learned. Next to it was its level.
Fireball (Level 1)
He could put skill points into the spell to level it up and make it more powerful. He had enough Essence points to level up one more time. He put the skill point into the Fireball spell, and after he rested for a few more minutes, he tested out the spell again. This time, the fireball flew somewhat faster and exploded with noticeably more force than before. Excited, he cast another fireball and watched it explode when it hit the cave wall.
What surprised him was that now that his Fireball spell was somewhat stronger, using it tired him more than before. He cast only two fireballs and already felt so tired his legs could barely support his weight. He had to sit down again. He decided to postpone upgrading the spell for some time. The more powerful a spell was, the more energy it took from the caster. So he first needed to increase the Fire Magic talent and put a few more skills into the Magic attribute before upgrading the Fireball again. If he put a few more points into the spell without increasing the Magic attribute and the Fire Magic talent first, casting one fireball might tire him so much that he could probably even lose consciousness. It would be a disaster if it happened during a fight with monsters.
Having rested for almost an hour, he recovered some energy and left the cave. During one of the next days, he learned another magic talent called Healing Magic as well as a spell with the same name. He could now heal himself, and it was great. He no longer depended only on health potions to heal himself.
During one of the next days, Jack found a blueprint for a treehouse. That discovery excited him a great deal. After returning to the campsite, he summoned the crafting menu and selected the treehouse blueprint. The outline of the future house appeared before his eyes, but it was red-colored. He knew why. Since it was a treehouse, it couldn’t be placed on the ground. When he shifted his gaze to one of the enormous great trees, the house outline turned green.
The system allowed him to design the future treehouse however he wanted, and he had the freedom to position it at any desired height. He experimented with this feature for a little while, designing the future treehouse. If the future house was medium-sized, it could be attached to the great tree from one side. If the house was much larger, it could be built around the trunk of the great tree.
After giving it some thought, Jack decided to go for the large version of the treehouse. But it required a lot of wood and gold. He realized he would need to use most of his resources and money to build the treehouse he wanted. But it was totally worth it. So as he looked up at the trunk of the great tree, he mentally positioned the house outline at about the height of three stories and gave the system a command to build the house there. Immediately, the outline was replaced with an actual treehouse, and most of his resources such as logs and sticks disappeared. A huge amount of gold was taken from his account too, leaving him almost broke. But it was totally worth it.
Jack slowly walked around the great tree trunk, looking up at the treehouse that had been built around it. He couldn’t help but smile at his new home. There was one small problem with it, though.
“How the hell do I get up there?”