John lv25
Xp 2,500/3,974
Perks
Marksmen x2 Accuracy
Apprentice Channels x3MP, x3 Mag Dam, and x2 Processor
Apprentice Aura x3MR, x3 Mag Def, and x2 Ram
Hp 150/200
Hr 3.5/min
Mp 3364/3,364
Mr 34.5/min
Stats
Con 20
End 3.5
Str 4.3
Agl 8
Int 112.8
115
Per 57
Chr 2
Luk 1
Skills
Sneak 20
Pummel lv2
Kick lv1
Meditation lv55
Fire lv100
Fire II lv20
Fireball lv80
Mana Fibers lv20
Resist Poison lv100
Resist Poison II lv5
Running lv5
Skill Trees
Unique skills
Black Mage I 25/25
Eye of the Sun I 11/50
Black Mage II 1/50
I traveled east away from the raging flames. There was no longer a continuous xp gain, so the animals must have escaped. This was a firm lesson in grinding. Killing monsters was one thing, but passive xp was a something amazing. I needed to find a way to farm.
Now, that I was away from that stressful situation, I needed to find shelter and clothes. It was cold, when I wasn’t standing next to a fire. I was shivering the cold wind tried hard to blow out my campfire. I didn’t do well in the cold. Starting another forest fire wasn’t out of the question. I could use the xp.
What I really needed was shelter. I turned and stared at the smoke still rising from the spider’s nest. That was still an option. I could burn the area a little better to ensure the spiders were dead. From there, I could make a stone axe and other tools. I didn’t have the crafting skill yet. That could give me a serious boost in Int.
I didn’t return to the spider’s nest, instead I continued east. Stepping to the side, I grabbed a longer branch. If I was to be a mage, then I needed a staff to focus my power. With the long branch in hand, I began to funnel mana into it.
New skill
[Inspect lv1 – explore items with mana to gain greater understanding. 1% chance to gain insight. Cost 50Mp. +.02Wis, 0.2Per]
It was another wisdom based skill. I smiled like a shark and rapid cast inspect.
You have identified this item as Bodock tree branch.
You have identified Bodock tree branch
New skill
[Mold Wood lv1 – Due to aggressively identifying a tree branch you have gained enough understanding to manipulate the wood living and dead with magic. Cost 50Mp/min. 0.1Int]
What else are you hiding? One subskill couldn't be the limit. Stopping here wasn't an option. I wanted all this sticks sectrets.
You have identified Bodock tree branch
The branch was once a part of a massive sentient tree.
You have identified Bodock tree branch
Ancient humans once sacrificed conquered goblin tribes to the tree.
Currently human blood drenches the great tree.
You have identified Bodock tree branch
The blood from the goblins empowered the tree.
You have identified Bodock tree branch.
The tree was further east.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
In all honesty, I didn’t know what I was looking for. What did I know about magic? It was energy sure, but I wasn’t the smartest tool in the shed. I knew how to direct it and funnel it through mana fibers for critical hits.
There were smarter men than I in this galaxy. They were most likely thousands of times more powerful than me already. If I was to catch up, then what I needed to do, was aggressively hit even the most unlikely of areas of magic. Wood magic didn’t seem epic, but who knows it could be ok.
That’s why, I stood in the middle of the road for hours inspecting a random branch. It wasn’t about to surrender. It was about a promise of victory in the form of a stick.
After a few minutes of glaring at a stick and flooding it with mana, I had a revelation. The inspect skill had already increased to lv 20. Every hour without meditation, I could use Inspect 41 times an hour without losing Mp. With meditation, I could use the skill 263 times an hour. So, I began to meditate on the stick.
Through the night, I ate scavenged berries and fruit from nearby trees. Squirrels were easily pulled off trees with mana fiber. They supplied me with food and the beginnings of a loincloth. When my mana seemed to run low, I practiced kicking on nearby trees.
I had to admit that wasn’t much, but I reached lv20 in less than a day in kick. Pummel and running were leveling quickly as well. My camp was coming along well. Mold wood allowed me to bend nearby trees and form a basic hut. My loin cloth was complete, and the winter chill no longer froze my balls.
Still the final secrets of the stick alluded me. Was this stick placed here by some cruel god to torment me. Was the stick perhaps a demon. I didn’t truly know. I knew there was a skill called wood and obtaining it was worth the effort.
I was beginning to know the stick better than my own body. It was 9ft across and 4inches in diameter. Termites have eaten parts in it inadvertently helping me burrow my mana further into the object. The limb glowed with lines of blue energy. Every time, I used my skill more mana was left behind in the limb. Inspect reached lv55 after three days.
Something was happening. My meditation skill allowed me to surpass my limit and continue to cast. A thought occurred to me, as I inspected the pathways my mana made through the wooden limb. Why not up the amount of mana?
I began to pool my mana. Charging a spell proved ineffectual. The spell wouldn’t stack instead it caused multiples of the same spell to cast at the same time. Mediation reached lv80 and inspect was lv90. Yet there were no new secrets that came from the staff. The limb had changed after the 30,000th cast. It had the designation staff and its glow was becoming distracting. There was a core at the center of the staff that pulled mana. The staff gave my mana pool a +100% Mr and +50% magic damage. It was impressive, but I was after the staff’s final secrets.
Every hour my casting had risen to the 500s. I was getting closer to something. Inspect had a 95% chance of success now. The final mystery of the staff must have been rarer than I thought. The sounds of wolves howling in the distance did nothing to distract me. The knowledge, I would surely gain from the staff was the more important than finding shelter. This was what RPGs were all about grinding to get those rare impossibly powerful skills.
Inspect reached lv100 and evolved to Inspect II. I was awarded a secondary skill, inspect area. Inspect II had an outrageous cost. 500Mp per cast was ridiculous. It was a good thing meditation was lv 98 now.
My inspection rate decreased to 90 per hour. I was forced to concede that perhaps I had contaminated my sample. I needed a pure source this mighty staff came from a great and powerful tree. If I was to learn the secrets of the stick, then I needed to reach the source.
This felt good it was like science. There was a Bodock tree with a few green goblins nailed to it on spikes further down the road. The night was lit by three moons, my perception let me move about easily.
I placed a hand on the ancient tree. Bodies littered the bark of the tree. They looked like dried out husks. Oh, the things this mighty tree must have witnessed.
“Hello, what are you doing touching me you pervert.” For a second I stared at the tree unsure if it had spoken or my mind finally snapped. The stick revealed this tree was intelligent but that didn’t mean it spoke.
I heard the words but knew they must be my imagination. Trees didn’t talk, and I had been meditating around a stick for the past week. I continued to rub the tree as I prepared to thrust my mana. Soon, I realized a single thrust wouldn’t be enough. Magic like this needed repetition. This was supposed to be science after all. I needed to complete multiple test.
“Hey guy, you’re not a damn dirty wood beetle, are you? Right, you’re a barely evolved monkey that has gotten a bit handsy. You see the bodies gutting from my stakes. That’s what I will do to you if you don’t get your hands off me.”
I almost responded. I shook my head at my own foolishness. Trees didn’t talk and if they did then they wouldn’t sound like a woman. I had wasted enough time it was time to get inspect this tree. Taking my mana, I forced it deep within the tree. My will reached her deepest depths and plunged repeatedly for her secrets. In other words, I was mind raping the tree. For a time, we were interwoven. There was no beginning or end to our existence. Whether we started as a seed or as a zygote we didn’t know. Eventually, the fire element of my mana disgusted her and we became separate.
“Oh, shit!”
The tree finally went silent. With that, I began to shift through the new information.
This tree connected to several trees in the forest. Though it started out as a simple sapling it quickly spread through the forest. Its vampire nature is an evolved trait. More than a few goblins sacrificed their enemies by impaling them on this tree’s many sharp spikes. After soaking up the blood of multiple sentients the tree evolved.
Vampirism wasn’t the tree’s limit. It developed other traits parasitism and necromancy. I pulled my hand from the trunk as the bodies in the tree began to move. This tree was lv400. There was no way I was staying and fighting this thing, fireballs or no. I turned and started running.
“Get back here you coward, finish what you started.”
I was already far away running east. The sound of insects was loud and clear. If I didn’t get more distance, then the trees parasitic insects would invade my body and turn me into a flesh puppet.
New skill
[Wood lv1 – This skill allows the user to conjure wood from mana. The physical and magical damage the wood is capable of is 1% Int. Cost 500Mp +1Int, +2Wis]
“Yes!”
I yelled out and didn’t care, even when the sound of flying insects drew ever closer. The information, from the tree was scattered at best. She was named Venus. There was a town built around a dungeon that still gave the ancient tree offerings. I wasn’t as alone as I had thought. There were other people on this world.
With my running skill I cut down one of the roads leading to the city. When active my running skill boosted my speed by 10%. Combined with my sneak skill and I was mostly undetected, as I made my way to Twin Star City. The place has been here for a hundred years. Adventurers, humans, goblins, dwarves, and elves journeyed there to enter the dungeon. They wouldn’t bat an eye if another adventurer moved in.
The sounds of biting insects died down. Either they couldn’t find me, or they were ordered not to. Either way, I thought I was home free.
Wolves touched down on the ground form nearby trees. They were so fast that even my eyes had trouble keeping up with them.
The pack was taken over by the parasitic wasps. Originally, the wasps were a parasitic insect that threatened to consume this world. Venus took control of them and bound the parasite to wasp hosts. It seemed the wasps jumped ship.
At the time, I didn’t know what happened. I was only able to see the attack coming because of my enhanced perception. When these parasites took over a new host they kept the traits of their former host. The wolves were no exception.
Claws scraped against my side as the wolves made a pass. They bit at me and dodged my kicks. They looked mangy fur was falling off them as they circled me.
My bloody wounds dripped in the cool night air. More scrapes of fur fell off the beast. My wounds wouldn't close, if I didn't get out of this fight. I spun and launched a barrage of fire balls.
The light from my spells lit up the night giving me a clear view of my attackers. Insectoid shells peaked out just under the fur. The wolves were shedding their skin to reveal much more dangerous creatures. I would like to say that I stayed and fought. I didn't, I concentrated fire in the direction of the city and took off running.
For a time, I thought I had made it. I couldn't hear them chasing me.
A few miles away from the city, I stood there frozen, as a wolf covered in an exoskeleton blocked my path. I turned right and continued to run. They were herding me. Just beyond that wolf would have been the city.
Infested Forest Wolf lv55
They are a mix of wasp and wolf. These creatures are insane with hunger. If they consume their fill, they will evolve into a much larger form. It is advised to stay far away from them.
That told me jack about what they can do in a fight. Another wolf began chasing me from behind. Mandibles didn’t fit right on a wolf’s snout. Another wolf kept me from turning left. I was forced to make another right.
I l was starting to feel woozy from blood loss. My wounds hadn't closed much in my escape. If I could find a place to hide and force them to come at me on my terms, then I could win.
I was going back towards Venus’s grove. My body was getting tired. There was no stamina to drain, but it did tire me to continue running for so long. I had planned to sleep tonight that possibility seemed so far away now. I was still too far away from the city to see any lights.
This was getting me nowhere. Who would I rather fight a bunch of wolves or a lv400 tree. The decision was simple.
I turned around on the incoming wolves. My staff was in hand. I didn’t know how well this would work, but I hoped I took at least one with me.
I opened my hands and launched a series of fire fed mana fibers. The fibers were smaller than the eye of a needle. When alight with fire mana they looked like tiny orange glow sticks.
Everything they touched burned. Mana fibers were little more than strings that transferred mana. I could spam them in the hundred with little trouble. They flexed like millions of tiny limbs. With my sight, I spun the fibers around me in a defensive position.
The fibers spun coating me in orange light. I looked like glowing mushroom from afar. The wolves either not sensing the danger or not caring charged mouths agape. The parasites had multiplied within the wolf’s new born parasites were ready to invade a new host.
My eyes were better than any normal humans. Levels were very important. They allowed a user to use a large amount of skill points. Skills like running and kick took hours to level up. Black mage didn’t level up at all. It seemed skill trees took skill points exclusively to level up.
Even a human or monster twice my level shouldn’t have eye sight as good as mine. My eyes of the sun skill at mark I, gave me 5 perception every lv. Even in the dark, I could see each one of the parasites. That begs the question, how did I react to them in time. The answer was simple. I had hundreds of tiny destructive hands that could do it for me. To call the small fibers of fire mark II limbs wasn’t correct. They looked more like hairs.
The fibers cut the tiny parasites apart. One fiber wasn’t enough to kill a wolf. My fire damage was around 400. When I hit a wolf with ten hairs the effect increased exponentually. When my hairs linger in the parasite and burned it. The wolf burst into flames and died.
My mana was drastically low after my first wolf kill. The other wolves watched me from a distance. I kept my spell up. I might have had half a minute left before I was bone dry.
Lights began to shine in the distance. It was the city guards. My fire mana hairs were so bright that it garnered attention. The wolves took another look at me before running off but not before one opened its mouth.
“You got away from me this time. If you ever leave the city, then I will find you. Don’t keep me waiting too long or I might venture in the city to find you myself.” Venus said.
The wolves backed away and returned to the forest.