“I really don’t like snakes…” I whimpered as I noticed the pearlescent green liquid that dripped down its two front fangs.

The poisonous snake lunged towards me, causing me to stumble backwards and fall.

The snakes jaws snapped tight directly over me. The poison from its mouth dripped down and landed on my arm.

I almost started to panic when I felt the burning sensation. I would have rather been smacked repeatedly by the horned rabbits strike than feel this sensation any longer.

I rolled to the side in order to create some distance as the snake pulled back its head.

The snake’s speed was certainly a factor I had to take into consideration, but it wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle.

The poison on the other hand was an unknown factor. I didn’t know the toxicity…whether it was fast or slow acting. How much damage it would do on contact or whether it would simply burn me from the inside like it did to the outside of my skin.

I unsheathed my rapier and took a cautious pose. The snake seemed to be acting cautious as well.

It was wavering from side to side as it watched me. The look in its eye was almost…intelligent.

It was waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The moment I falter it would sink its fangs directly into my hide and poison me.

I kept the point of my rapier complete aligned with the snakes head. I wanted to try and stab it in the face when it lunged at me.

I inched myself closer to the python and the creature reared back its mighty head. Before I could even react it lunged forward.

Fumbling with the blade I simply jabbed it forward and hoped for a good result. The snake on the other hand didn’t think the blade was any sort of threat.

The blade went directly into the snake’s mouth and when it felt the sharp pain from the rapier piercing through the back of the snake’s neck…it clamped down.

The python’s fangs clamped down on my arm…while my arm and sword were still inside of it.

I screamed out in pain. The pythons fangs were just barely strong enough to pierce through my tough skin and the poison from its fangs mixed in with my blood.

Damaged Left Arm -9 HP. Poison Damage -5 HP every second for ten seconds

It was excruciating. It was like someone had taken a bottle of liquid fire and poured it into my veins…no even worse it was like magma. Really fucking hot magma.

I shook my arm, but the vigorous python seemed to have some sort of clamping mechanism, because my arm and sword were jammed down its throat.

The longer it latched itself to my arm the more damage I took from the creature. So I started to punch it wildly, but I wasn’t doing enough damage for it to release its jaw.

So I took my thumb and jammed it into one of the snake’s eyes. The snake responded by putting even more pressure into its bite.

The damage and especially the pain was getting to a point were I couldn’t take it anymore.

I plunged more fingers into its eye socket and ripped the eyeball of the snake completely out of its eye.

The sound was sickening and the feeling of the mushy innards almost made me empty out my stomach.

This was the first time I wished the game wasn’t so real.

The vigorous python unclamped its jaws for just a second and a second was all I needed. I ripped my arm out of its mouth along with my rapier.

I couldn’t wait for the python to recover so I switched the rapier to my off-hand proceeded to stab the under belly of the snake, while it was suffering from the shock of losing its eye.

It wasn’t long before the snake fell limp onto the ground. It was still alive, but it had taken so much damage from bleeding out that it was no longer able to move.

“Let me introduce you to my vigorous python…hahaha.” I started to feel the effects of the poison getting to my head.

I whipped out my ‘vigorous python’ and took a piss on the maimed snake. It wasn’t the most honorable thing to do, but I wanted to someone get back at it for causing me an excruciating amount of pain.

I walked over to the base of its head and proceeded to stomp on it until it finally died.

The body of the snake turned greyish in color and it dropped some loot next to it. This was the first time that I was able to receive loot from a monster.

The horned rabbits had surprisingly not dropped any loot at all, but their bodies hadn’t changed color and they didn’t vanish for a few hours after they were killed.

The reason for this was unknown to me. I had a theory that the horned rabbits were used in crafting or something like that, but I had no surefire answer.

I had few flashing blue icons on the side of my screen. Apparently the game had a system were the blue boxes wouldn’t pop up in your face if you were in the middle of battle.

The system made sense to me…if those boxes had popped up when I was fighting the horned rabbits or the vigorous python…I might have died.

Level Up +1

New Skill: Poison Resistance

Poison Resistance has a few traits in common with the skill Strong Will. Would you like to combine them?

I looked at the screen for a few seconds and read over the question. I didn’t know what would happen if I combined the skills. Would I get a completely new skill or would it simple add the effects of my current skills.

I went back and forth in my mind, but in the end the chance to create a new…hopefully more powerful skill was to much for me and I decided to click ‘Yes’.

For being the first person to merge two existing skills +5 Wis

Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:WillpowerNovice76%Willpower is an evolutionary skill that empowers the player against overwhelming odds, pressure, and harmful toxins. For every level the player gains +2 Strength and +2 Luck along with 1% increase in poison resistance.

I was incredibly excited about my new skill and I wanted to put it into action right away, but I had to recover for at least double the amount of time, because of all the damage I took from the python.

My breathing was heavy and the poisons effects were just about to leave my system. I decided to take a break and continue to work on training my meditation and mana related skills.

I contemplated the reasons why my last fight was so challenging, while I meditated. I was starting to become way to reliant on my sword skills and stats to kill my enemies.

I was completely ignoring my class besides the basic renewal buff that I reactivated every ten minutes.

I needed to come up with more songs or at least more ways to use my voice abilities in battle. I was to focused on fighting my enemies head to head.

The problem was that I didn’t know how I created my first song. Well I knew the process…I just didn’t know how to get a different result.

Did I have to sing different words or was it based upon the emotions I put into the song that decided the results. Maybe it was the amount of mana that I supplied.

There were so many unknown factors and I had no one to teach me at the moment. So I just had to experiment.

I started to meditate…the feel of the wind on my face and the sound of the grass bristling back and forth. The more I disconnected from everything else, but nature. The calmer and more relaxed I became.

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I could feel the mana cycling through my chest and my stomach and with a little coaxing I was able to draw it up to my throat.

The throat was responsible for all types of voice and song magic. It was almost the part of the seven pathways that was responsible for chanted magic.

I knew from previous RPG’s that bards could produce numerous different effects just by using the power of their voice or their instrument.

I decided to try and test out something that I had been thinking about for a while now.

“The sun. The sun. Is truly bright. Oh, how I wish. How I wish it was night. At night At night. When the humans doth sleep. The night owls will wander and the bugs will creep.”

I felt pretty proud of myself for being able to come up with something on the spur of the moment. My body felt incredibly weak…well weaker than it already was. The song that I had charged mana into had seemed to work.

New Subset Skill: Song of the Slumbering

I was so excited that I was able to create a new song on the first try that I let out a cry of joy.

My loud cry attracted a small group of horned rabbits to my location. I look up at them and immediately drew my rapier from its sheath.

“Fuck.” I mouth the word as I dodged the right. It was at full health I would have made short work of these three rabbits, but now that my health was barely up to half…I had to focus on dodging.

I dodged again when the second attack came and then the third. ‘Did I get faster’ I thought to myself as I easily evaded the rabbits attacks even in my wounded state.

It took about fifteen minutes for me to chisel away the last of the health of the three rabbits. I knew I could have done a better job if I wasn’t still recovering, but for some reason the process seemed to easy.

A light bulb went off in my head. “It couldn’t be…could it?” I opened my skill information list.

“Description: Song of the Slumbering.”

Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:Song of the SlumberingNovice13%Song of the Slumbering is a unique song that is used by the Trilushan Bards of the North.  Opponents ten levels or higher receive a 5% reduction in maneuverability. Opponents within ten levels receive a reduction in 10% maneuverability. And opponents that are below ten levels get put to sleep. Cost 200 Mana

My eyes widened when I saw the description. I wanted to create some sort of song that had the ability to put my enemies to sleep, but this is more than what I could have hoped for.

The amount of mana it drained was incredibly high. If I used this ability I would basically be out of mana, but if I trained my skills with the rapier more than I would fairly hard to defeat.

The skills didn’t have a radius or area of effect listed on it…so I would have to test it out. See how many enemies it affected and how far the range was. Maybe it would be the range of my voice.

This skill would allow me to cut down on the maneuverability of the agile creatures that I was hunting. It was time to go on a true killing spree.

I ran off deeper into the field screaming at the top of my lungs. “I HAVE THE POWER!”

Chapter 8: Status

Status WindowName:KaiAlignment:NuetralLevel:6Class:BardRace:CherubGender:MaleTitlesNoneFame:70Infamy:1000-Health:200 / 200Health Regen:1.5 / SecMana:250 / 250Mana Regen:2.0 / SecStamina:350 / 350Stamina Regen:4.0 / Sec-Strength:11 (+14)Agility:21Vitality:20Intelligence:22Wisdom:32Endurance:35Luck:0 (+14)-Attack:1-2Defense:15 (+24)Physical ResistancesSlashing:5 (+8)Piercing:5 (+8)Crushing:10 (+8)Elemental ResistancesFire:10%Water:10%Wind:10%Earth:10%Light:10%Darkness:10%

Skills/Abilities:

Spoiler :

Tough Skin: Novice Lvl 9 (12%)

Willpower: Novice Lvl 7 (6%)

Seven Pathways Meditation: Novice Lvl 4 (42%)

Mana Manipulation: Novice Lvl 5 (33%)

Voice Manipulation: Novice Lvl 2 (8%)

Song Manipulation: Novice Lvl 4 (28%)

-Song of Renewal: Novice Lvl 5 (24%)

-Song of the Slumbering: Novice Lvl 1 (3%)

Sword Mastery: Novice Lvl 2 (35%)

-Rapier Mastery: Novice Lvl 5 (21%)