Cleo crashed against a tree, her Spearmanship skill giving her the intuition to angle her weapon upwards as she fell. The spear tip barely embedded itself into the shoulder of the attacking wolf, her weapon bending under the force. The wolf recoiled with a yowl, but the wound wasn’t overly deep.
She scrambled around the tree and got ready for another attack. The wolf growled at her with hatred, showing its teeth.
“Stop growling you fucker,” she hissed back. “Come at me already!”
Although she did say that, inside she was scared. Not necessarily of the wolf, but because it was going to make her do something she really wanted to avoid.
Rip it..
The wolf jumped at her and she barely held herself back from activating her skill.
Instead she crouched and thrust her spear forward.
Tear it…
She hit it straight in the underside, the spear penetrating much deeper than before, but at the same time the beast crashed into her, throwing her to the ground. A claw ripped open her shoulder as the beast thrashed around from pain.
Hurt it!
When the wolf managed to pin her down and brought its jaw close to her face, Cleo knew it was over.
She closed her eyes.
Then she activated Säon’s Wrath.
****
Jett didn’t have long after leaving Lukas and the confusing illusion behind to find a new source of essence. He had stumbled upon a woman wandering alone through the woods, which had netted him 2 essence after he had ambushed her, but he was still 6 Copper I essence short for the Swordsmanship skill upgrade.
Which meant he was now slightly in trouble.
Jett groaned internally as he dodged the bite of a wolf and nicked it with his dagger.
This regression is already kinda shit. I have more interesting things to do than get combat skills and fight stupid beasts.
Another wolf leaped at him and he barely rolled off to the side, just to jump up and vault over a third wolf also trying to bite him.
It was close to a miracle that he had survived three of them for so long already, but he was unsure if he could continue much longer.
The longer the fight lasted, the more he felt like just giving up and taking a gamble with another regression, even if he didn’t know if the System would still act the same or if the bugs would get worse.
He quickly spun around as another wolf tried to attack him from behind, piercing a little into its throat before the sword got ripped out again, leaving a red streak on the wolf’s fur. The wolf yowled and snapped at him, but he had already stepped to the side.
Fucking Copper II toughness. If I had a basic skill like Empowered Strike, I would have killed them a long time ago.
The upgraded Swordsmanship skill would also go a long way, even if it only gave a negligible improvement to strength.
But negligible at Copper II was still something, especially for any ungraded person and the wolves would have been much more injured by now if he had had it.
Jett breathed in deep, focusing his mind. If he wanted to survive this, he needed to be more precise. Even more so than he already was.
He concentrated on another incoming wolf, deciding to stab straight at it. The wolf swiftly dodged the dagger and went straight for his legs, its jaw opening wide. But he had gambled on exactly that, his other hand stabbing downward with his sword the moment it reached him.
It still managed to bite at his legs, sharp teeth embedding themselves into his left leg before his sword pierced into its neck, precisely, but also just barely, severing the nerves in its spinal cord.
Enemy slain! +2 Copper II essence.
He grimaced at the pain in his leg but nevertheless managed to quickly roll to the side and distance himself from one of the two other wolves which had tried to attack him.
Both of them slowed down and started circling him, more wary now that one of their companions was dead.
Jett likewise observed the one in front of him while he paid attention to any sounds coming from the one behind his back.
2 essence was quite lucky. I think I got it now.
A quiet shifting sound came from behind. He dropped his sword and used his dagger with both hands to stab towards his own face.
In the last moment he ducked, the dagger piercing through the wolf's mouth and into its head.
Enemy slain! +1 Copper II essence.
The momentum of the wolf made him fall forwards. He used the fall to grab his sword whilst simultaneously confirming a bunch of system prompts.
Do you want to convert Copper II essence to Copper I essence?
Warning: This process is irreversible!
Converted 3 Copper II essence to 6 Copper I essence.
Do you want to spend 10 Copper I essence to upgrade Swordsmanship to Copper II?
Skill Swordsmanship upgraded to Copper II!
The remaining wolf used his awkward position to its advantage and went straight for him, giving Jett too little time to react. Or would have given him too little time to react.
Swordsmanship - Passive - Copper II
No longer bound by the limits of your body, you now handle your weapon with more control and finesse than before.
Effect: Expand your instinctive knowledge and skill of the Sword, significantly improving your abilities against armed opponents and adding a minor improvement to your abilities against unarmed opponents and beasts.
New: When in a fight using a Sword, add a minor improvement in your reaction time and agility and a negligible improvement in strength.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Jett expertly deflected the bite and half jumped, half rolled over the wolf, his reduced reaction time and increased agility making him much more dexterous than before.
He smiled.
“You are so fucked,” he sneered at the attacking wolf, easily dodging and injuring it with his sword every time it went for him.
.
.
.
Enemy slain! +1 Copper II essence.
****
Another couple fights and some essence later, he finally managed to catch a breath.
He slumped against a tree, closing his eyes for a bit.
The second day was truly insidious, as it upped the difficulty compared to the first one by quite a bit. But in a way Jett saw it as necessary. If you weren’t good enough to survive until now, you sure as hell weren’t good enough to survive in Alyrra.
Still could have made things a little easier for me, he grumbled to himself.
Also, I’m fucking thirsty.
He did change his trajectory of going to the lake for now after his fight with Lukas, but it was everything but easy to push back his basic needs for this long. Everything would become easier once they increased their grades, but for now he was still just a mediocre human who needed to eat and drink like everyone else.
He should be able to endure until tomorrow when it rained, but he now kind of wished he had followed Lukas towards the lake after all.
He did have the problem that more wolves would spawn near the lake and he had wanted to get more essence before they spawned in the first place, which was one reason he didn’t follow them.
Coupled with the fact that Lukas would probably tell Brett about him, which would prompt his group to attack on sight if they spotted him - they had always been quite aggressive against murderers - he had decided it was better if he went somewhere else instead.
Of course he could have made it work somehow, the lake was quite big after all and he could just sneak around it… but he needed to do something else anyways.
And that was to finally do what he had delayed so far, out of the necessity to survive.
Which was crafting.
The whole reason he even bothered to fight so much was so he could try and get a crafting alignment, to check if it was possible to do in the Tutorial.
And the next thing he had to do for that to happen, was to collect some ingredients. In other words, mana treasures. Many of them would have freshly spawned right after wolves appeared, many more powerful than the ones on the first day.
Annoyingly, the wolves, just like the boars, loved to eat them, as it would often enhance them or grant them skills. Which meant he couldn’t rest for too long.
With a groan, he pushed himself off the tree and picked up his weapons again.
He was almost at his destination and if he was lucky he already had all the fights standing between him and his crafting session behind him.
Quickly swiping his weapons clean on the wolf’s fur, he continued his journey north-west, slowly picking up speed again.
****
A red haze lifted itself off the world and she collapsed. Something soft and wet caught her fall.
Her mind felt numb, as if burned out, and her body pulsed with dull pain.
She blinked a few times, slow and lethargic, in an attempt to get a grip on reality.
It took her many tries before the muddled mush that was her mental state solidified enough so that she could form a coherent thought.
Fuck me…
A tiny spark of anger attempted to light up in her, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, her mind simply incapable of conjuring up any strong emotions right now.
She groaned and shifted her body, which resulted in a squelching sound from whatever she was lying on. Propping her head up a little, which resulted in more disgusting sounds, she finally realized what her soft pillow had been all this time.
If she could feel disgust right now, she would have vomited right there and then.
Instead, she slowly slipped her body off the wolf cadaver, the unholy amount of blood wetting everything aiding her descent.
After arriving on the hard ground, she lay there for a bit longer, before attempting to push herself up. Her first two attempts failed miserably, but on the third she finally managed to sit up.
Her eyes wandered around, taking in the sight before her.
Apart from the absolutely mutilated corpse she was currently sitting next to, there were two more wolf corpses she could spot and even a dead boar. All of them had wounds covering seemingly every inch of their body, almost no part of their fur unstained from the excess blood loss.
Did I do that? What the fuck.
She looked down on herself. Unsurprisingly, she was also covered from head to toe in blood, though she assumed most of that was not her own.Otherwise she would be dead by now.
I literally just took a bath…
She could feel irritation trying to push up from the depths of her mind but she immediately let go of the emotion, not allowing it to take root.
I had a feeling this skill would turn me mad eventually.
Taking in a deep breath, she tried to stay calm as the numbness in her mind slowly melted away and her emotions bubbled up again.
But emotions weren’t the only feelings that were getting stronger; the feeling of pain also slowly increased, only now making her aware of all the injuries covering her body.
And so she sat there on the ground, gritting her teeth, her eyes closed, trying to control the influx of emotion and pain and not letting it go haywire again. Not making her trigger the skill again.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, but eventually she managed to somewhat get a grip on herself and she opened her eyes to take a look at her Status screen.
STATUS
Name Cleo Harper Race
Human Grade
Ungraded Alignment Spear Quests Walking your Path III Essence
Copper I
1
Copper II 3
Skills [2/5]:
Säon’s Wrath̸̫̳͆ - ? - Copper II Spearmanship - Passive - Copper I
Her eyes instantly wandered to her active skill and what she saw made her freeze.
This… it got stronger? On its own? Or did I somehow do that?
The skill had somehow gotten upgraded to Copper II and some of the text looked slightly different than before. More readable. Though it didn’t really give her much new information. She didn’t even know how much an upgrade would change the skill, but she still felt like she was losing control.
It was clearly invading her mind, and with the skill getting stronger she would struggle even more to keep it cool.
Hmm... I also have another type of essence now... and less of Copper I than before? Maybe that's related to my skill upgrading.
Cleo closed the status window and struggled to her feet, looking around for her weapon. She found it embedded in another wolf, not the one closest to her.
Yeah, I’m not sure I even want to know what happened…
With some effort she pried the blood crusted weapon free of the corpse. It surprised her that the normal looking spear was still completely undamaged, not even becoming dull. At least not to a noticeable degree.
Just one more weird thing in this world.
She sighed and looked to where the sun was, trying to gauge the time.
It looked to be a few hours after noon, though she wasn’t too adept at using the sun for something like that. She really wished the System would just give them a clock.
Where the fuck even am I?
She wasn’t sure in which direction the lake was, which is where she preferably wanted to head back to.
Looking at one of the larger trees, she briefly contemplated climbing it to get an overview of the area, but she still felt too weak for that.
Hmm, I was slightly north-east to the lake before I encountered the first wolves. So maybe if I just walk south-west I will encounter it again? I can’t have been walking too far under the influence of the skill, right?
Making up her mind, she started trudging to where she thought the lake should be.
Just as she was passing the corpse of the boar, she remembered something else.
She opened her quest window.
Quest: Walking your Path III
Be a major contributor to the death of 9 opponents of equal or higher grade, using your aligned weapon [14/9].
Collect at least 3 Copper I essence [1/3].
Reward: Choose 1 from 3 aligned Copper I skills.