Peter was ecstatic, he had taken the first step on his road towards the mastering of magic. His status reflected his accomplishment, it now said that he had 10 out of 10 mana, with 0 automatic regeneration.

He got out of the cave as fast as he could and ran towards the nearest tree. The tree trunk was thick enough that two grown man couldn’t touch hands when they gave the tree a hug. It was the perfect training dummy, Peter activated Raw Mana Explosion and pointed.

There was a serious hole in the trunk one boom later. His skill, his mana explosion, had blasted a fist sized hole in the wood. The wood was scorched and he could see little ambers flying around.

The cost of the skill was however no joke, he had only 5 out of 10 mana remaining. It had taking him fifty percent of his hard earned mana to cast the skill, and as he had no regeneration he had to meditate for hours to get it back. Although the skill increased his survivability he could not rely on it. Only in emergencies should he us this skill.

Raul came back looking worried. In one hand he held a raccoon of some sorts and in the other he held various weird looking plants.

“Is there any chance that you could practice in silence? I could hear while I was 15 minutes away!”

Raul had a point so Peter began thinking. Could he practice his skill in silence? Could he alter the skill in someway so that the explosion was silent? He had a lot to check out, all the possibilities of his magic made him giddy.

But he had to focus, Raul had handed him the herbs. A delicate little plant with white flowers and lots of leaves passed as safe. Reddish moss passed as safe. A tiny unassuming green plant passed as absolutely unsafe. His danger sense was ringing, screaming inside of him to get away from the plant. Why had Raul picked this? It was so unassuming that it didn’t even look like a useful herb.

“Where did you find this plant Raul?”

Peter pointed a the green herb and asked his question.

“Found it surrounded by that blood moss, there was only one of it so it kinda struck me as peculiar.”

Peter really wished he could just see what the plant did, that his skill didn’t just say something about the danger, but also about what the herbs did. He knew only one way to discover the effects of a herb, and that was by eating it. No way he would eat this green plant though.

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Experimentation was king. Peter popped one of the white flowers inside of his mouth and swallowed it whole. He was pleasantly surprised.

Consumption of an unknown substance has caused:

Enhanced body-mind link.

This was incredibly useful to him at the moment, although he didn’t know how much it enhanced his body-mind coordination. Wait could he name stuff? Every time the blue boxes would say: ‘Consumption of an unknown substance’, but now he knew what it did. Following up on his hunch he focused on the white flowers and thought ‘Body flowers’. He did this for a solid minute before he looked once again at the blue box.

Consumption of an body flowers has caused:

Enhanced body-mind link.

His naming sense was shit, but it had worked. Once again he looked at the white flowers, and then he was baffled. Another blue box popped up.

Body flowers

Enhances body-mind link.

White flowers.

Rarity

Uncommon

Peter thanked the system, this was perfect. The smell of cooked raccoon hit his nostrils and Peter looked around. Right in front of him stood Raul with some cooked meat.

“You were somewhere else dude, you should have seen your face. Totally spaced out. Here’s some food though.”

He greedily accepted and then started talking to Raul, excitingly updating Raul about his discoveries. With a filled stomach they went to sleep inside their cozy cave.

Tomorrow would be a big day, tomorrow the monsters would come.