Jasper sprinted toward the forest, the thought of the cool liquid running over his tongue and down his throat completely throwing caution to the wind as he pushed through the brush until he finally reached the riverbank. Thrusting his face into the water, he drank deeply from the flowing water. It stung his throat slightly, being just as poisonous as anything else on the surface of the world. His vitality fought it off though not even adding a single level to his poisoned status effect. Eventually, Jasper had to breathe again so he lifted his head out of the water gasping for breath. A notification popped up and let him know that he’d assuaged his thirst and even gained him another 14 points in vitality after finally reaching a neutral state of thirst.
Jasper felt a laugh burble up in his gut before it escaped his lips. He knew that it was risky to be so loud out in the open, but he was just so relieved. Once the laughing fit passed Jasper quickly set up his ambulance and brought all of his status effects back down to zero except for hunger. Hunger would never lower past level two no matter how much raw meat, or grass he ate. It was one of the quirks of the system that encouraged classed people to eat balanced meals.
After he finished checking his status effects, he yanked his tattered clothes off and sat down at the edge of the water. He started pulling water into his hands and pouring it over his body and hair. It wouldn’t get him completely clean, but it was still better than the filth and dried blood that coated different parts of his body. Once he was done scrubbing himself it was his clothes turn. Dropping off his remaining grenades and other supplies at the ambulance Jasper sighed looking at the tattered filthy clothes, wishing that he’d at least had time to pack some supplies before the magistrates’ guards had thrown him out of the city. Anger reached his face as he scrubbed his clothes on a stone.
“Freaking magistrate, freaking restricted classes. Why wouldn’t they put a list like that out? Why couldn’t they at least give me some supplies if they weren’t going to have the courage to kill me themselves!” Jasper continued to grumble angrily to himself as he scrubbed harder and harder only stopping to calm down when he put another tear in his pants by scrubbing too hard. He tossed his clothes off to the side and took a deep breath rubbing his hands down his face in frustration. He calmed himself and grabbed his clothes back up to wring them out before tossing them over a low-hanging branch to dry.
He decided that he’d continue his study on the different runes while he waited for his clothes to dry. He summoned his journal and tool belt and used the raptor claw to pry a piece of bark off of a nearby tree. He began etching the rune of growth onto the smooth surface on the back of the piece of wood. It was much easier to write it on the bark than it was on the stone so when he finished he received a notification that made him very excited.
NOTICE: You have crafted a good rune of growth. The tool that you have used has medial compatibility with the material used in this crafting. +1000 XP, +5 Magic, +5 Control, +3 Dexterity. Would you like to infuse magic into a good rune of growth? Y/N.
Part of Jasper wanted to immediately imbue it with magic to see what the differences would be. He only managed to stop himself because he remembered the train of thought he’d been considering back at his first campsite. “Why does the growth rune explode when I put magic in it? Why does the direction rune crumble after a while? What’s so different about my crafting than the ones on the ambulance?” He thought about it for a few minutes before he finally made the connection he was looking for.
The circle that surrounded all of the runes around the ambulance was the same thing that he channeled his magic through when he imbued his ambulance. It wasn’t just a solid circle like it looked to the eye instead it was groupings of different patterns layered on top of each other until it gave the appearance of a solid circle. Jasper hadn’t discovered all of those patterns, which is why he had only been able to unlock a couple of functions.
He felt slightly stupid for not having put it together before, but now he was going to try it. Making sure he put notes in his journal he began drawing the patterns that he could remember around the rune of growth. Because he didn’t have all of the patterns it didn’t look like a solid circle instead it was three rings of wavy lines, dots of different sizes, and what Jasper knew to be star constellations. When he was finished, he received a notification he hadn’t gotten before.
NOTICE: You have improved a good rune of growth by drawing a trash protective circle. Protective circles control the way magic interacts with runes. Without a protective circle, the crafter puts themselves at risk of runes not performing their function correctly, draining their magic completely, and possible death or injury. -H. + 200 XP, +1 Magic, +2 Control, +1 Creativity. Would you like to imbue a good rune of growth using a trash protective circle? Y/N.
Jasper had heard about changes to notifications before, they were extremely rare but sometimes one of the gods who created the system would take notice of someone and share some knowledge. “Thanks, H!” He spoke out loud knowing that he wouldn’t get a response. He made sure to write down the warning in his journal before continuing with his experiment. When he went into the white space this time his magic wasn’t jerked out of him painfully; instead, it worked very similarly to the way it worked with the ambulance. He moved his magic through the patterns carefully until both the circle and the rune were lit up.
When he was finished, he tossed the piece of wood away just in case it exploded like the stone had. To Jaspers's surprise and delight though it expanded and kept expanding until it became large enough for a single person to stand on. Once it reached its maximum growth and the rune lost power the piece of bark stayed the size it had stretched to. That was weird to Jasper because the ambulance would shrink back down as it lost power. He rubbed his temples with his fingers groaning about having another problem he’d need to figure out.
“That’s the wrong attitude to have Jasper. The more you learn the higher your chances of survival after all right?” He said to himself while forcing a huge smile onto his face. It was a trick he’d heard about a while back that was said to trick yourself into thinking you’re happy. Jasper didn’t think it was working, but he continued the practice anyway. He decided to imbue the piece of bark a few more times to make it grow large enough to use as a wall.
Jasper did this a couple more times with different pieces of bark until he had enough bark to make a small lean-to. It tried to fall a couple of times until he finally got sick of it and just leaned them up against the trunk of a tree and sat down behind them. It wasn’t much but at least the tree coverage and his walls concealed him from the sight of monsters. It was the safest he’d felt since being dropped on this deathtrap of a planet. Jasper’s eyes fluttered lazily as he tried to fight back against the tide of exhaustion that had just hit him.
In the end, he lost though allowing sleep to take him promising that he’d get more done as soon as he woke up. So, there he was head leaned back against the tree trunk sitting up straight sleeping. The next thing Jasper knew there was a cracking sound close by. His eyes shot open, and in his panic, he almost knocked over one of his new walls. Through a space between his walls, he peered out attempting to see what it was that had made the sound that had woken him. The sun was still high so visibility was decent, but he couldn’t see any monsters yet.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Jasper was kicking himself for falling asleep in such a dangerous place, but he needed it. Over the last week he’d been stuck out here he’d only managed to get a significant amount of sleep when he’d passed out from pain or exhaustion. That kind of sleep isn’t very restful, so it made sense that he was so tired, but that was no excuse for not being careful. A couple more twigs snapped drawing Jasper’s attention over to a thicket of bushes only about ten feet away from his hiding space.
The bushes began to rustle, and Jasper held his breath hoping that he wouldn’t have to fight for his life again so soon. All of his weapons were a few feet away from where he’d dropped them off earlier, and he was fully naked. Neither of those points gave Jasper much hope of surviving another encounter with a monster. So, for now, he hid behind his makeshift walls and watched. What finally stepped out of the bushes was a large cat-like creature. It had two huge fangs that hung out of its jaws and a row of spikes protruding all the way down its spine.
The cat creature stopped at the riverbank lifting its head and sniffing the air. Jasper’s heart thudded loudly in his chest as he watched it hoping that the half-assed bath, he’d taken had been enough to get rid of his scent. The cat monster seemed to lose interest in whatever it was that it had smelled and approached the water. It lapped up the water with a tongue as big as Jasper’s head before pulling its head back up and padding happily back into the forest. Jasper still didn’t let out a large breath or move until the monster had been gone for at least five minutes. Finally, he moved one of the walls out of the way and stepped out immediately, going to pick up the bone club he’d dropped earlier. Then he scrambled to get his clothes on as quickly as he could. They didn’t offer any real protection, but Jasper felt more human by wearing clothes.
Jasper spent the rest of the day studying runes and discovered a rune of electricity, and using his new information about protective circles to improve the runes he knew. As he practiced, he decided to go ahead and try combining some runes like on the ambulance. He started with the runes of floating, direction, and control working on a hunch. He used the protective circle he’d been using encircling all three of the runes but as soon as he imbued it the protective circle caught on fire causing his crafting material to burn up.
Jasper made a note of it in his journal and decided to go at it in a different way. This time he wrote each of the runes slightly farther apart and gave each one of them its circle. It took far more time to craft it and he had to imbue each rune separately but by the end of it, he’d succeeded in making his first real runic item.
NOTICE: You have crafted a poor runic controllable floating piece of wood. +500 XP, +2 magic, +2 control, +4 Creativity. Would you like to name a runic controllable floating piece of wood? Y/N.
NOTICE: You have imbued poor runic controllable floating piece of wood with mana at 100% proficiency. +1000 XP. +10 Magic. +10 Control. +1.00% Imbue Runes skill.
Level Up! +1 All Stats.
Jasper leaped in excitement, thrusting his fists into the air, and happy that his hunch had been correct. The first thing he did next was of course play with his new toy. He moved the small piece of bark up and down then side to side with nothing but his mind. Then he pushed it away from himself in each direction. His excitement waned though when he realized that he couldn’t get the piece of bark to change speed.
He'd hoped to use these combinations of runes as a weapon, but it seemed that he still needed to work on it some more. But with this success, he knew for sure that one of the functions of the ambulance would be something that he could use to get around. He’d thought that would be the case, but he couldn’t know for sure what ancient people considered a vehicle. After all the vehicles used in the cities were things made of gears and computers that all ran on crystal energy.
Jasper wanted to immediately begin working on unlocking more runes, but instead, he decided that he wanted to set up some defenses. He picked up all of his weapons, placing them in his pockets then looked for a better tree to set up under. It was time for him to get started living again not just surviving. The first step to that is to find a defendable place. It didn’t take too long to find a good place. He followed the river line until he came to a large cliff face with a waterfall pouring off of its ledge.
“This place is perfect!” Jasper exclaimed. The first thing he did was grab a bunch of large flat stones from the river and draw electricity runes on them. He placed them all around the area that he wanted to defend but didn’t imbue them yet. He theorized that he would later learn how to make runes hold power for longer because the ambulance lasted longer now than when he first started using it.
“Probably just need a higher control stat.” He was happy that his pen wrote extremely small in the journal because he still only had one page. Jasper had made notes about what each of his stats seemed to do. Strength, constitution, and dexterity he already knew all about, and magic was a pretty common stat as well, so he knew what it did as well. Control and creativity were two stats that he’d not heard much about because he’d never paid attention to common crafter classes. From what he could tell control raised his ability to use his magic and the things he crafted or imbued. Meanwhile, as his creativity rose, he started to make more connections regarding crafting.
Even the idea for the stone saw he’d made days ago had seemed to come out of nowhere. It wasn’t like he’d ever made any stone tools before. He looked forward to seeing what else he came up with so creativity was a must. He’d gotten the most creativity after he’d crafted something that he’d thought of and the highest control he’d gotten was after he’d imbued that same craft. Jasper decided that after he’d set up his camp, he’d spend more time experimenting with runic combinations, and making new “inventions.”
His goal for now was to be able to imbue his runic traps at any point in his camp if a monster came over. Jasper cleared any brush from the area and picked up any rocks and sticks so that he could use them for crafting later on. He sprinkled his grenades all over and kept only a few in his own pockets. After he finished with that, he made himself another stone saw but this time he added his new runic combination to it. If he could use it without having to put physical energy into it, then he’d get tired less often.
Using his growth rune, he made himself some more walls and used his saw to cut them into shapes that could lock together. In this way, he made himself a small square-shaped hut just large enough to stand up in and lay down in comfortably. Then he pulled out several bushes from the roots, finding it relatively easy with his new level of strength. He looked at his arms and noticed that despite not eating very well in the last several days he’d put on mass and his muscles looked pretty toned.
Shaking himself out of his self-appreciation he used the bushes to camouflage his new hut. He’d have to figure out something else to keep the camo from flying away on windy days, but for now, it would work. Walking over to the waterfall he took another deep pull of water appreciating the cool feeling in his mouth, it still stung but Jasper figured he’d get used to it. Pulling one of his grenades out of his pocket he imbued it and threw it into the water. A few seconds later three large fish came floating to the surface, and he had a new kill notification.
Reaching as far out as he could he grabbed the closest fish before it floated away then brought it back to the hut. Grabbing his raptor claw he used it to scrape all of the scales off of it only having trouble with a few stubborn ones that he had to pry off. Jasper then tore open the stomach of the fish and emptied all of the insides. Using the ambulance, he cleansed the fish and then activated one of his larger electricity runes to cook the fish. The fish flopped around as the rune popped and crackled burning the meat.
Jasper had to hold down the fish to keep it cooking evenly, getting some bad shocks for his trouble. His vitality was high enough to handle it though. Once it was cooked on both sides Jasper walked away with his new meal munching happily. It still didn’t taste very good, and the electricity had burned it, but he was still happy with it being the first cooked food he’d had in a week, and it did taste much better than the raw raptor meat he’d eaten.
The whole process of setting up his camp and cooking his meal had taken several hours and now the sun was beginning to set. Stepping over the electricity runes he’d set up within an arm’s length of his hut he crawled inside and sat down. His bone club sat in one corner of the hut and his new saw in a different one. Finally, he laid down happy with the progress he’d made that day. He had water, a food source, a camp, some defenses, and new information about rune crafting. Tomorrow would be the real start of the rest of his life, and he was excited. He closed his eyes and started to drift off.
“Wait.” He said sitting back up. “The rest of my life? Hell no! I still need to go back to the city and kick the hell out of the magistrate! I’m gonna get stronger. Strong enough that I can get my revenge, and no one can say anything about me living in the city again restricted class or not!” With his declaration, he laid back down on the hard ground and fell asleep. That night he dreamed of different things he might be able to do in the future using runes. There Jasper was fully clad in a suit of metal armor flying around and blasting monsters with lightning.
He dreamed of building towering cities of his own and using his powers to take back the surface of the world. Scenes of great hospitals that could save lives even in the worst situations, and automatic weaponry that could even take down dragons without anyone manning them flashed through his head. For one night he dreamed peacefully and dreams of adventure. The same kind he used to dream about as a kid.