Two and a bit levels should only take another day or so if he pushed himself, from what he had been able to work out so far, experience gained was based on difficulty and contribution. Take the last fight for example, he had killed four of the Loobins directly as well as the sheep, while the two weakest of the Loobins had been killed off by the sheep, one of which Ambrose had absolutely assisted on by basically hand feeding it to the sheep. The real crux of the matter, was that the reason that both parties had been so easy to kill, was because of their opponent. The sheep's blood became a drug in its own right, turning the already weak Loobins into absolute fools. Conversely, the sheep was only easy to kill because the Loobin hunter group had dealt so much damage to it by ganging up on the must stronger creature in a surprise attack.

While being the last creature standing may have been all that mattered for survival purposes, it wasn’t nearly as good from a growth perspective. If he wanted to really earn his experience and increase his gains, Ambrose needed to actually fight for it.

This didn’t mean that Ambrose had to go in blasting, not that he had anything to blast with, it just meant that he had to be the reason the creatures were taking the damage. Even the first sheep was a poor example, while Ambrose had dealt many a blow, and breaking the creature’s leg had, eventually, caused its demise, much of the damage following was from the sheeps reaction, or lack there of, to the broken limb, its frenzy and mindless rage forcing it to push its body far beyond what it could handle was the sheep's true killer, and that madness was self inflicted.

Ambrose was greedy, and if he were honest with himself, a little suicidal. After all, why shouldn’t he push himself, dying absolutely sucked but either he would come back and the memory of the pain would just be removed by the system, or he wouldn’t come back again and he would no longer have anything to worry about, and Ambrose was okay with that.

These two factors merged and pushed a single repeating idea into his head, he should kill the camp he had started with to get to level ten, and he should do it in one fell swoop.

The only question was how. The options at his disposal were few, it wasn’t like he could simply run up to them and drop a fireball on the fuckers, to that he would need to kill his god, hoping that that would remove his cursed feat so he could learn the fire magic he allegedly had the Affinity for. Though if Ambrose could kill a god, he wouldn’t be struggling to deal with a group of Loobins that had yet to cross the first breakthrough.

Ambrose had only a single real method of direct combat, a second rather stupid method of combat involving Prism, and ingenuity. His initial thought had of course been to grind up the Somniferums he had picked to turn that into a powder, then sneak into the Loobin camp and sprinkle it all over their food pile, then simply walk in and kill them all with multiple single stabs to the core while they were enjoying the high.

This was still a good idea, but there were several issues, mainly he hadn’t actually seen the group eating or sleeping at their camp yet, the Loobins would simply eat while on the move or occasionally grab something from the food pile. Assuming Ambrose could make it into the centre of the camp, which was a pretty big task even against Loobins, he couldn’t ensure that the whole group would be poisoned all at once as the drug wore off pretty fast.

He sat on the bed pondering. He didn’t have money yet, so he could only rely on things he could get or make himself. The only other resources he knew about in the area was Loobin skin, which was plentiful and oddly stretchy, dungeonese sheep wool which was heavy, durable, and fire retardant, if it was like normal sheep, as well as the sheep's skin, and its flowers. He also knew about the wolfspider anticoagulant venom, though the predator was likely still several levels higher than the Loobins that he was currently hunting, not to mention a predator used to hunting, with the Skills to boot, so Ambrose wasn’t ready to count that as an available resource just yet. He was certain there had to be more hidden throughout the dungeon and even around the town but he would need to explore to find out the first, or ask around about the second.

The flowers seemed fairly similar to what Ambrose knew of the description of opium poppy seeds from home, likely being some mix of similar plants with some magic thrown in, to jack the effect up to eleven.

“Well opium back home was usually smoked as far as I know, the description didn’t mention anything about how the drug works or how it's most effective, I guess I should experiment with it to see if that’s a viable path.”

While mildly concerned about the mention of addictive effects, Ambrose figured that in small enough doses he likely wouldn’t have any issues. Taking only a small number of seeds, as well as his bag with him, Ambrose went outside town and followed the river up to get out of ear and eye shot.

Once he felt far enough away from any of the farmers working the fields, Ambrose found a nice smooth tree with which to assist his experiments.

“Okay this is pretty stupid, but wounds heal faster here than on Earth, and that was before all the Attribute increases.”

Not taking more time to delay, Ambrose looked at the tree with a disgruntled look on his face as he punched it. He recoiled in pain, shaking out the hand and judging the damage and pain he felt, noting it on a new pane of system glass.

“Alright, that's the control.” He grunted out through gritted teeth.

Not giving himself time to reconsider his clearly stupid plan, Ambrose shoved a couple of the small seeds against his teeth and crunched down. Ambrose had now witnessed that the effect when ingested only took a few moments to kick in, and counted to thirty feeling that it would be more than enough time to kick in.

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Once finished, he punched the tree in a new spot with his other hand.

“Ah fuck you, you stupid tree.” Ambrose growled at the tree. The tree didn’t respond.

Taking a deep breath, Ambrose ranked the damage to his hand as well as the pain he felt, before sitting down in meditation. The effect was fast acting for sure, but also didn’t last long in the case of the sheeps he had witnessed, though they had consumed multiple flowers, each likely having hundreds of seeds worth rather than the couple measly seeds the Ambrose had consumed, they also likely had a much higher metabolism, and probably a resistance to the effect on top. With all that in mind, Ambrose didn’t want to risk ruining his very scientific experiment on tree punching, so there he sat, enjoying the peace of nature but remaining alert to any sounds just in case something decided to sneak up on him.

He waited for what he estimated to be ten whole minutes before rising to his feet once more. He certainly didn’t feel any effects now, but could see how effective the drug was, having immediately lost his cool at the tree, which he had attacked, after just a few seeds. That alone was an interesting discovery, it seemed that Strength of Mind affected how resistant you could be to emotional damage, which would explain why the Loobins were so quick to flee. Ambrose created another user note in the system, tracking his list of known or strongly believed effects of the different Attributes.

Now for his other test, it was obvious that turning the seeds into a powder would increase how quickly they affected something so Ambrose didn’t want to risk himself testing that. Instead it was time for the smoke test.

First he crushed a few seeds into a powder and stored it in a small container he had been given. Now far better at making fires due to his Cooking Skill it wasn’t hard for Ambrose to gather the spark he needed to burn the powder.

Dropping some sparks into the powder, it quickly began smouldering and smoking. The smoke was thick and heavy and gathered in the bottom of the container in a pretty light blue colour.

“Well at least I know it will stay around rather than floating away immediately.”

Nose to container, Ambrose inhaled.

He once more began counting to thirty, and once again striking the tree, a third time in a third position. The effect was far more dramatic with splinters of wood shooting off as Ambrose hit the tree sideways rather than directly front on like originally planned.

He was disappointed in himself for failing to strike the tree properly and had to hold back his thoughts of trying again, and made note of the pain and damage to his hand. His feat of eldritch origin seemed to fight back against the drug when Ambrose saw his bloody knuckles, chasing away the effects that had allowed him to inflict so much damage to both himself and the tree, as well as ignore the pain that had come with it.

Ambrose dropped to his knees clutching his throbbing hand as blood trickled down, the tree had gotten its revenge.

Ambrose didn’t return to the town until his wounds were cleaned and no longer bleeding, embarrassed and not wanting to explain the reason he had suffered such damage while walking around the outskirts of town.

Back in his room, unquestioned, Ambrose went over the note he had made during his experiments.

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USER CREATED NOTE

Control: Pain 5. Damage to self 1. Damage to tree 1

Ingestion: Pain 3. Damage to self 2. Damage to tree 2

Smoke: Pain 0. Damage to self 6. Damage to tree 5

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The results of his experiment were fruitful, it was very clear that the smoke would have a greater effect than anticipated, though the duration was a possible worry, not knowing how long the effect would last since he had snapped out of the effect due to his emotional damage resistance.

Learning that the feat he had gained from his mind breaking seemed to have some small amount of will was mildly worrying, but seeing as it had helped him, it could only be a good thing, or so Ambrose told himself, ignoring the thought in the back of his mind that whispered the possibility that a small eldritch being was living inside his head somewhere, just waiting for a chance to try and take over.

Ambrose briefly considered testing the effectiveness of turning the seeds into a tea but seeing as the only thing he had seen the Loobins drinking was blood and only during combat at that, such a test didn’t seem prudent right now.

Ambrose now knew the best method to disperse his poison to the Loobins when a thought popped in for a visit and began to undermine his plans. The Loobins might not breathe. He already knew they didn’t have lungs but had he ever seen them show a need for air? Thinking back he had seen them produce sounds that suggested that they did take in air, not to mention their core contained some form of gases though it was very clearly not normal air.

“Okay no this should be fine, the core acts as all the organs, purifying what it takes in and turns it into power and blood, their blood looks mostly the same as mine so surely that means it's oxygenated right? They have gases inside them, and they utilise oxygen. Wait no, I am overcomplicating this, they clearly consume anything that enters their mouths, and they always scream at me in either fear or anger when they spot me so that means some of the smoke should get in. Yeah this is fine.”

While less certain about his plan actually working now, Ambrose had nothing better. It was time to find a delivery method, how was he to get the smoke into the Loobin camp. The idea came to him easy, and while he didn’t have the required methods to create a proper version, a prototype would work fine with the time to prepare for the fight, though it wasn't something he could store for later use.

Ambrose used the remaining daylight working on his prototype, and by the time he had finished, started from scratch multiple times, and finished once again, he had finally added his first real crafting Skill to his repertoire, though it wasn’t the one he had originally planned for, when he had spent all his money acquiring tools.

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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE MANIFESTED NEW SKILLS

You have gained the Skill Herbalism at Level 3 (Common): The plant world has innumerable effects and uses, most people seek out the ones that heal you, you focused on the ones that make you high instead.

* Increased understanding of the effects of plants when using Herbalism Abilities.

* Increased understanding of how to best process a plant to gain the desired effects.

You have gained the Skill Powder Making at Level 2 (Uncommon): Distil the effects of something into a powder form that can then be used to improve other creations, or for its own effect.

* Increased understanding of the effects of a powder while using it as a crafting ingredient.

* Improved quality of items created with powders as an ingredient.

You have gained the Skill Bomb Making at Level 2 (Uncommon): Those who cannot fireball, firebomb.

* Increased understanding of how to create bombs.

* Increased understanding of how to create parts related to bombs.

* Improved quality of bombs created with Bomb Making Abilities.

By gaining these Skills you have gained the following Abilities.

* Harvest Plant (Herbalism)

* Maintain Plant (Herbalism)

* Process Plant (Herbalism)

* Create Powder (Powder Making)

* Create Bomb (Bomb Making)

* Create Parts (Bomb Making)

Your new Skills have also affected the following Abilities in some way.

* Assess(Assessing, Perception, Herbalism)

* Inspect (Inspecting, Perception, Herbalism)

* Identify (Identifying, Perception, Herbalism)

* Create Recipe (Cooking, Bomb Making)

* Deconstruct Recipe (Cooking, Perception, Bomb Making)

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An evil smile covered Ambrose's face, it was time to go killing once more.