Chapter 18: Risk and Rewards

After Tide slumped to the ground unconscious, the sound of tumbling rocks stopped leaving the cave still and silent. From the pile of rocks slime and water flowed out through cracks seeping across the caves floor. Before this mixture could settle into a puddle on the floor, some of it began to gather next to the pile of rubble.

Soon the water separated from the slime and the water golem Tide made earlier reformed. It was much smaller now, most of the mana bestowed to it was used to spray the water and reform itself.

It was slightly confused; it had accomplished its task and didn’t know what to do. It looked over to its incapacitated master and made its way next to him awaiting its next command. It stood there for a couple of minutes before the remaining mana in the water was used up maintaining it form. When the mana was all gone the water golem collapsed.

Tide was shocked awake as fridged cave water was dumped on his head. Instinctively, Tide went to sit up, but a sharp pain in his chest stopped him. He took in a breath, before coughing blood up violently. As his torso shuddered more pain wracked his body. After clearing his airway Tide tilted his head up and saw a multiple system messages in front of him. Three were level ups. Another had much more to read, but he didn’t have the time. Instead, he quickly brought up his stat sheet.

Tide Blackwater

Lv: 12 (17%) [15 Stats Undistributed]

Class: Elementalist

Health: 21/350 (Regen 17/h)

Mana: 9/700 (Regen 70/h)

Stamina: 40/350 (Regen 35/h)

Vitality: 7

Strength: 5

Endurance: 7

Agility: 5

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 19

Control: 20

Affinities:

-Earth: 8%

-Water: 5%

-Fire 2%

He looked at his health and noticed that it was almost empty and the remainder of it was slipping away slowly. He quickly threw five more points into both Vitality and Endurance to help his recovery. Tide was still in a bad situation. Even if his health regenerated, it wouldn’t magically help move his bones into the correct places or heal punctured organs. At best it would keep him alive longer stuck in the cave with the only part of his body able to be used being his right arm.

If he didn’t find a way to get help or find a way to fix his broken bones he would be stuck in the cave. He still had food in his ring and probably could last for a decent bit, but eventually another monster would notice him.

Perhaps, he could wait for his mana to regenerate and summon a golem to force his bones back into there normal orientation. Then again thinking about how clumsy Pebble tended to be it might not be the best idea. Maybe he would just have the golem carry him back to the town to get healed, but that was also risky. He was also concerned for Onyx who didn’t seem to be able to move either. The only sign that the cub was still alive was a soft whimper that Tide could occasionally hear.

With no other options, Tide laid on the cold cave floor wait for his health and mana to fill back up. While he was doing so, he pulled back up the windows he had closed earlier in panic.

You have Defeated the Lv 13 Metal Slime Boss!

Congratulations you have completed the achievements “Slayer” and “Loner”.

For being the first to kill a boss monster in your town you have completed the achievement “Slayer” and you will be granted +2 for each stat.

For being the first Human to solo a boss monster you have completed the achievement “Loner” and will be granted the Gold Reward: Basic Dimensional Training Ticket as well as 5 undistributed stat points.

After reading the messages Tide closed the window. A ripple in space deposited a platinum chest in front of the pile of rubble that crushed the metal slime.

Tide mood became much more positive looking at the shinning chest. Perhaps the boss dropped a potion. A healing potion or mana recover potion would help his recovery greatly. The issue was that the chest was almost four feet away.

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Tide gritted his teeth and reached out with his good arm to pull himself closer. His teeth grinded against each other as his jaw clenched tightly in pain. His body protested the movement forcing him to stop a collect his breath. After another moment of rest, he reached out once again pulling himself another arm’s length. Only a couple more to go before he could reach the chest.

After ten minutes which felt like hours Tide managed to lean his torso up on the pile of rock next to the chest. He reached out and opened the chest squinting his eyes in pain as a celebratory bright light flashed revealing the contents within. Inside was a decently sized pile of silver and copper coins, a lightly glimmering metallic orb, and a slip of paper. Tide was saddened by the lack of a potion but began looking at the two items in the chest to distract himself from the pain.

System screens popped up for both as he reached out to touch them.

He knew that the slip of paper was most likely the training ticket mentioned in the message earlier, so he reached out to touch the mysterious metal orb first.

Metal Essence: A orb of condensed energy with the metallic properties used by monsters with metallic properties to. When used as a material and item made with it will gain an effect based on the orb’s essence.

It was a material item, great. To get any use out of it he would either need to find a player with crafting skills or pay a boat load to the NPCs in town to make something for him.

Next up he picked up the slip of paper and looked at its description.

Dimensional Training Ticket (Basic)- Tear to use!

Tide was dissatisfied with the lack luster description. It let him know almost nothing about what would happen if he tore the slip. Hell, the slip itself had more information printed on it. For some weird reason it looked like an advertising pamphlet designed to try to get someone to use it. There was an image of a muscular man flexing his arms, and a bunch of eye-catching statements all over the piece of paper.

Want to go to a challengers dream paradise? Look no further! By tearing this ticket, you will instantaneously be brought to the Dimensional training center where anything you could need to become more powerful will be waiting for. Need practice partners, new skills, or just a place to work out? Do we have you covered. This ticket gives you a guaranteed three-day time frame to do your all and become the best you possible. So, what are you waiting for Tear Now!

-M

Tide was surprised by the author of the ticket’s blurb. Another M was on this reward, just like his space ring. This confirmed Tide’s suspicion that Merdon was messing with or hand-picking Tide’s achievement rewards. Tide perhaps this was another way the mysterious mage was tipping the scales to favor Tide without the others noticing.

The space ring was a lucky and useful reward early on, that let him move around and travel quickly. Maybe Merdon selected this reward because it would help Tide out of his current situation.

Tide raised the ticket up to his face and bit down on it. Pulling upwards with his hand he tore the piece of paper. Tide felt a huge fluctuation of mana and was suddenly somewhere brand new. The floor he now laid on was a huge slab of white marble

In front of him was an old man in robes who was smiling and give Tide a big thumbs up! Behind him and were five large towers and a couple smaller buildings. Behind those the sky and horizon were just a blank white void seemingly empty.

“Great job, superb usage of the water elemental after figuring out the slime’s weakness! You know there was only a 32% chance of you winning that boss fight, but you did it. This event alone has shifted your fate and adjusted the systems parameters for you now….” Merdon continued to babble off technical and statistical blabber that Tide couldn’t make sense of. His body was broken, and his mind was tired from mana exhaustion. Now that he was out of direct danger his head went limp, as he fell into a deep sleep.

“Oh my, looks like I was getting a bit a head of myself” Merdon chuckled as he raised his hand towards Tide whose body began to float.

“Didn’t think we meet again so soon Tide” As Merdon said while walking into one of the smaller buildings. Tide floating body followed inside behind him.

When Tide woke up, he found himself naked on a cloth bed and looked up to see a gorgeous young woman standing next to him. Before he could do anything, the woman placed her hands on his broken shin and pushed it back it places. He let out a horrified scream as his bone shift back into place straightened out.

The woman didn’t react much and calmly looked up towards Tide before holding up her hand towards Tide’s face. Her palm began to glow with a golden hue as warm feeling rushed into Tide’s body pushing away the pain and letting him comfortable fall back asleep.

When he woke up again later, he saw that the woman was standing over his shoulder reaching her hand down towards his shoulder. He flinched away from the woman, as an imaginary pain shot out of his leg where the woman had manhandled his shin bone.

Blankly the woman looked up and made eye contact with Tide. The woman face was perfectly symmetrical and blond curls flowed from her head down her shoulders. She was almost able to give Alianda some competition for being the prettiest woman he had ever seen. The only issue tide found was that the woman’s eyes seemed to be dull and empty. Tide face blushed as he realized that he was currently exposed on the bed in front of here and use his good arm and hand to cover up his privates.

“I have finished resetting your bones and stopped the internal bleeding, there should be no more intense pain. Now, I simply need to do some muscle reconstruction around the effected areas.” The woman said plainly.

Tides embarrassment quickly died down as he realized the woman was an NPC. From the dull look and the scripted to the point speech he figured it out. He visibly relaxed and let the healer continue her work. Seeing that he was cooperating the woman once again raised her hand over his shoulder and another glow of gold light shine down onto his body. Soon an itching feeling began to occur as his muscles were sewn back together.

After the shoulder the woman worked on his abdominal muscles, and leg muscles. Once she was done with his treatment, she took a quick step back from the bed giving him more room.

“Treatment is finished now. You have made a full recovery. Please get dress and go outside to meet your instructor.” She calmly said before walking out of the room.

Tide sat up on the side of the bed and began to touch over the various parts of his body that were wounded making sure the NPC’s assessment was correct. After a making sure nothing was wrong, he stretches for a moment before pulling some clothes out of his storage ring and donning them.

He had some questions for his so-called “instructor” who was waiting for him outside.