Chapter 5 Test a Few Things
Klint to this point had put an even split into all of his attributes but until his two newest were caught up he was only going to put his essence into them. After his essence was channeled, he stood up and pulled on his new sword summoning it to his hand. "That is going to be Very useful." Klint started to do some practice work with his new sword. He never had any formal training just little practice with sticks as a kid but now he practiced strikes, thrusts and stances.
He did that for the next couple hours knowing he would need to keep this up every day from now on until the sword felt like it was part of his body. "Twelve minutes from the layer to here, how fast if I boost?" He banished his word and then flipped his mental switch for his essence with a burst of speed he was off.
Klint was moving fast, the walls almost a blur in his spirit sense and he made it to the hob' layer in six minutes. "So, it's a straight double." a moment later his pool ran out and he was overcome with fatigue, every muscle ached, and he fell to the ground. He reached for his water bottle in his backpack and took a drink, the fatigue lessened but didn't go away entirely, if he had to guess he would say sixty percent remained. he felt his ER start to speed up as the spring water began to work on it.
Klint made his way back to the spring not in any hurry as he was deep in thought about what the heck his mana can be used for. "I think I need to try and keep circulating it, if I can ever use it for anything I'm sure being able to control it won't hurt anything. I should try and move my essence around in the same way, who knows what I can use that for beyond boosting.
Klint got back to the spring and made a mental decision. "This is going to be my layer until I can figure out how to get home, if I can get home. I can do all my exploration from here going out farther and farther but returning here at night. This spring is a valuable tool I can utilize for practice and recovery."
Sitting down in meditation Klint started to visualize his mana pool and with a mental grip he started moving it to everywhere he could, moving his mana like this was like trying to drag a net through mud. He moved his mana into his eyes, and his spirit sight amplified tenfold. He would keep his mana active in his eyes for as long as he could. Next, he tried to take more mana and move it to his hand. It took several hours of this, but he finally got the faintest wisp to start out of his finger.
It looked like one of the tendrils of a plasma ball coming off of his fingers. Just moving hi mana didn't drain it except when he had it in his eyes and that was a small amount of draining almost covered by his natural regeneration. The tendril coming off of Klint's finger was almost doubling that amount. It wasn't going into anything just draining into the air.
After he felt like he hit wall he stopped moving his mana, he kept it in his eyes, but Klint wanted to focus on moving his essence if he could. With a hard mental tug, he moved his essence far easier than he thought possible. Where the mana was like pulling a net through mud this was like moving your hand through air. It was effortless. He sent some to his eyes and it seemed to mix with his mana. His spirit sense increased once more and expanded much farther. He was sure that if he took the blindfold off His normal vision would be similarly improved.
The drain that having essence in his eyes was a little more than his mana, but Klint thought that when he was able to get his ER as high as his mana regeneration then it would be similar in drainage. Next, he moved a small amount to his finger and saw it draining away. He then imagined it wrapping around his finger and being contained, a small black shell like the finger of a glove. The drain stopped as soon as his mental construct was filled. "Well, that's interesting."
With a thought he imagined another picture in his mind, one that covered his left hand up to the elbow then he sent the essence that way and watched it materialize into reality. It took most of his EP to form the gauntlet, he then punched the ground with it as hard as he could. The ground beneath his hand exploded sending ricks and dirt everywhere, it formed a crater two feet around and one foot deep. "Holy crap I was not expecting that!" Klint was trying to test the protection the gauntlet would provide him and what he discovered was way more intense.
The essence fell apart after the punch, but his hand was perfectly fine, once again he hit the ground again, but this time with no essence wrapped around his hand. Klint screamed out in pain as he broke his hand on the ground. "Holy Cosmo's, I didn't think it would go like that." Klint flipped his essence to his RP on and immediately started to heal his hand. He took out his water bottle and drank it down increasing his regeneration then he filled his bottle back up. "One more test before I take a nap." Klint grabbed his katan, keeping it in it' scabbard he wrapped the whole thing in essence and then pulled it into his spirit space.
He then pulled out both water bottles and set them aside, he ate a bit of jerky but didn't know why he hadn't really felt hungry at all since he arrived in this shadow realm. He put the jerky back and then wrapped the backpack in essence and banished it to his spirit storage. then he wrapped the water bottles one at a time and stored them individually in his storage power. Klint wanted them stored separately so he had quick access to them.
Now that he had everything stored and didn't have to carry it around all the time Klint decided to get some sleep, he wasn't ready to go out during the night not knowing what may be out there lurking in the dark. After he woke up, he did some exercises including mana movement and sword play. Klint then formed the gauntlet over his hand then with another thought he pushed mana into the gauntlet.
Klint could feel it become more solid, and he once again hit the ground, the damage was the same as before but this time the gauntlet didn't fall apart. "With enough time I can form full armor, it should get faster the bigger my essence pool gets too. The last question for now is how long will it last without maintenance." Klint sent mana and essence to his eye's increasing his spirit sight.
Even though Klint was blindfolded he could tell it was still night time. but he could also tell the sun was about to come up. Klint thought of one more thing he wanted to try before leaving for the day to go and explore. Klint drank a full water bottle to increase the speed of his mana and essence regeneration and then making sure his water bottles were full he headed off.
Klint decided to walk the distance to let his resources restore and by the time he got there he formed a second gauntlet on his right hand and then sent mana into it. He walked to the back of the room where he had first seen the hob, he turned around, and then sat on the hobs throne of bones.
***
Emily has been travelling back to Virginia City for a week now, the distance seemed impossibly far from where she started. She knew that she would have gotten there fifteen times over by this point if she wasn't in this damn shadow realm. Although she did have to travel slower due to all the monsters around. Emily only felt comfortable taking out the lizards she came across and that's only because she could make crude spears out of tree branches.
Emily had no hope that he could kill the horny toads she came across and the scorpions. "Forget that! No way I'm trying to pierce the exoskeletons on those damn things, not when they almost break on the lizards scaly hide." She did think maybe she could take the snakes, but Emily hated snakes, so she didn't even want to try.
So, she was moving at a slower rate than what she knew she could, she felt grateful she hasn't come across any more goblins. "When I get stronger, I'm going to kill every goblin I come across for what they did to Nathan. Emily thought it was weird that he hasn't gotten hungry at all since she got to this place but that she still needed to sleep, thankfully she could find a spot that had good sight lines in all directions and sleep for only thirty or forty minutes at a time.
With her new senses she woke up instantly when a creature came to close, maybe a defense mechanism of this new environment. The night time was the worst, all kinds of horrible creatures came out at night, and she couldn't fight any of them. Spiders, cockroaches, earwigs, and possums. All of them super sized. Emily could avoid most of them and thought maybe she could take out the possums, but they had long blade like claws, and one slip up would see her dead. So, she ran from them. The spiders were the hardest to detect and almost get the drop on her nightly.
It was strange and Emily was trying to puzzle it out, she never saw any day creatures at night or night creatures at day. It was as if they disappeared and new creatures spawned, there was the golden hour just before sunrise and sunset where there were no monsters and that was when Emily made the most ground. She could run flat out for an hour without worry of encountering a monster. there were exceptions to this though as she was in a fight with a lizard at the beginning of sunset and that fight lasted all the way to into the dark.
Emily had been channeling the essence she got but it was slow going when she would only fight lizards. If only she had a weapon, she could take on more creatures and get strong enough to move freely. She had thought about trying to make a bow, she knew she could make arrows with a sharp flake of rock. But she had no confidence in making a string for a bow or shaping the bow correctly. Plus, it just felt wrong somehow. She really wanted a katana, as she had taken classes in kendo and was one of the better students in her class.
Emily was moving along swifty when she felt something from her new sense from right in front of her, she knew what this was. Scorpions like to pop out of the ground and ambush their prey, but Emily's reflexes and extra sense allowed her to avoid this. She jumped and the scorpion came out clawing right where she would have been. she landed and the scorpion turned to chase, luckily, she could get away from them if she got about thirty feet away the scorpion wouldn't try and chase.
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As Emily got to that range she stopped, the scorpion wasn't chasing her now and she was tired of running. Emily needed to get stronger. "I can't keep running." Emily had three crude spears with her. If she could pin it somehow and then ram one through the exoskeleton she could kill it. but how to pin it down. Maybe she could lob a big rock on it and bludgeon it? Emily just wished the bodies wouldn't turn into essence so she could harvest claws from these creatures. "No point in wishing for what can't happen."
Liking the rock idea Emily started picking up rocks trying to find the biggest rock she could reasonably throw. Emily had gotten much stronger by this point, easily four times stronger than her old self's best. She saw a rock that came up to roughly her knee, experimentally she grabbed the rock and with all her might she heaved it up grunting with the effort. "This should work"
She started running at the scorpion building extra momentum for her throw, as she got within fifteen feet the scorpion turned to her and started rushing forward. Ten feet, eight feet, five feet! Emily threw the boulder like a shotput at point blank range, and it smashed the scorpion on the face and head, she threw it in a slightly downward angle so it would crush more than push and she felt the essence rush into her. she immediately channeled the essence, for a while now she had been putting more into speed so she could move faster and run away from fights she didn't want.
Now Emily felt it was time to split it evenly in the rest to bring them all back to even. she had long since been able to channel on the fly being unable to find a safe place to channel and rest, she would channel and then IF she came across a place, she could rest. All her time there would be for rest. Emily was so tired, rest being scarce, she could only hope there was a facsimile of a town left in Virginia City, somewhere she could fortify and make strategic strikes against monsters to gain more strength.
As the scorpion disappeared it left behind the usual quarter sized silver coins but something else too, this was the first time it was forming something other than coins. hoping beyond hope for a weapon she waited as the item slowly started taking shape. Bracers formed shortly after. "Bracers! Damn Bracers! I don't need bracers I need a damn weapon." Emily was obviously frustrated but took the bracers anyway. she felt immediately she could store them the same way she could the coins.
She did so and then she thought about them being equipped and instantly she was wearing them. "At least I know these monsters can drop something other than coins. It's only a matter of time until I get a weapon." She grabbed the coins and absently thought. "I left a lot of loot when I slayed all those goblins, I never had a chance to see what they dropped. Maybe I already had a weapon drop but missed it. Too late to go back now."
Emily started off again, night was coming soon, and she needed to rest before it was dark. Those monsters were too damn creepy to face without a weapon and she needed to be at her best to avoid them all. she went back and grabbed her crude spears from where she put them down and headed off again.
***
As Klint sat down he felt a shift in the cave, the throne underneath him changed from bone to a black obsidian and electric blue, then spreading out from the throne the whole cave started to change, the floors became smoother and the spring cavern disappeared completely only to reappear in the new throne room, but Klint felt he could change that if he wanted. The whole cave changed to what could only be described as a very small underground lair. It had an entry area and six larger rooms three on each side then a long corridor leading to the throne room.
But more than the physical changes Klint knew that this lair was his, it belonged to him, and he was connected to it. He knew that when he left, he could take it into his spirit space then he could redeploy it again in another cave. he knew he couldn't just redeploy it anywhere though and he felt the spring water would only be available if the new cave also had a spring with magic properties. If he wanted to keep the miracles of the spring water, he needed to figure out how to store a lot more of it.
If he could claim territories, he could only hope to find some kind of monster that claimed a castle for their own. He would find it and claim it for himself. "I would love to have a castle! It would probably let me deploy it anywhere too not just in caves." With visions of castles firmly in his mind Klint started for the exit of his new lair.
Klint had only thought about his son a few times he knew that his son would be okay with grandma and grandpa taking care of him but he still worried. What alarmed Klint even more is how much he enjoyed being in this shadow realm. It was like he was made to be here. He has never felt so alive as he had these last few days. Klint finally felt like he was in the world he belonged in, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to live in his old world after experiencing this new world. But he knew he needed to. His son needed him and so did his parents.
Getting those thoughts out of his head he decided he needed to focused on first things first, he need's strength and then he needs to figure out how to get home. If one thing was clear to Klint it was he needed to get stronger, he could feel where he needed to go but he felt deep down he wasn't nearly strong enough.
Klint was able to extend his essence armor all the way to his shoulders now and when it met with his shoulder pauldron it fused then copied and amplified them, making the small horns on them turn into slightly larger spikes, it didn't actually change the pauldrons but more like it projected them. Slowly Klint would form a full set of armor as his resources filled up. he wouldn't drink anymore spring water to make it happen faster though, it already would last another hour and a half which should give him most of his armor. No, he wanted to save the spring water for injury recovery.
"I'm going to stick with my plan of coming back here, the spring is too valuable to give up. If I find a new spring that does the same thing then I will come take this with me, but for now it's time to continue getting stronger." Klint took off headed for his home, he only traveled for minutes before he came across his first monster, it was another Horny toad. last time clint had to sneak attack one to kill it but this time he wanted to face it in a true fight.
Klint summoned his new sword and charged in. The Horny toad saw him and jumped to the side causing Klint to overshoot. The Horny toad spun and hit Klint with its tail sending Klint flying. Klint flipped in the air righting himself and stabbed his sword in the ground, his feet then made contact, and he slide for 15 feet before he came to a stop the Horny toad was already on him and Klint dodged the bite that came for his head doing a shoulder dive and he rolled out then turned and swung his sword.
His sword bit deep into the Horny toad face causing blood to run freely but it wasn’t a serious wound and Klint could see it visibly healing. Klint smiled as he took a ready stance, the Horny toad looked at him and roared, or whatever noise a Horny toad would make. Then it jumped high into the air directly over Klint threatening to crush him with its massive weight. Klint banished his sword and crouched down then jumped straight up and punched the oversized Horny toad in the stomach. Klint could feel bones crunch as he made contact and this time it was the Horny toad’s turn to go flying.
Klint hit the Horny toad like he was lobbing a ball up in the air, the giant oversized lizard with horns came crashing down with an Earth shaking thud, it tried to get up but collapsed again immediately. The impact of the Horny toad was so severe it caused Klint to stammer back and focused on his balance. Even with all his new abilities it took almost everything he had to stay upright. The Horny toad turned to face Klint and shot its tongue out fifteen feet.
Klint shoulder dived away and summoned his sword back to his hands. “You want to play rough? I can play rough too.” The Horny toad was still struggling to get to its feet obviously hurt badly from Klint's punch and Klint capitalized on that to get to its side. He jumped on top of the Horny toad and plunged his sword through the creature's head killing it.
Klint channeled the essence he got from that all into essence regeneration and essence pool. He could feel them both swell to new levels, that one monster kill had brought both essence pool and essence regeneration level with all his other attributes. “Looks like I need to hunt more Horny toads.” Klint grabbed his silver and then noticed some of the essence hadn’t been consumed.
It swirled and condensed to form boots. They were boots that came halfway up his shins a little taller than his hiking boots. But these boots had scaled plates on them, and they matched his shoulder pauldrons by having small horns running down the front. He took off his hiking boots and wrapped them with essence then stored both sets of boots. Then he summoned the new boots onto his feet.
Klint could already feel the difference, these must have been the most well fit and comfortable boots he had ever worn. Klint felt a little lighter on his feet and he had supreme traction even in the loose dirt and gravel. Sending a bit of mana and essence to the gauntlet he punched the Horny toad with, he found it only took a little to top it off.
His stores had completely refilled at this point minus what he just used so he decided to add to his armor by covering his boots with the essence then sealing it with his mana. Once again, the essence fused with the boots then amplified and projected armor on top of it, to Klint's satisfaction the horns didn’t grow any bigger this time, but instead it added two more rows to either side of the horns giving him three rows total with four horns per row. The horns came straight out a quarter of an inch and then curved upwards making a menacing looking boot.
Especially now that it was wrapped in black essence, he was shaping up to look like a proper villain. Klint fixed his destination in his mind and started running. It took Klint several minutes to get the hang of running like this, his thighs and torso couldn’t keep up with his feet since they were not wrapped in essence yet. He’d have to fix that soon.
Klint came across a lizard fighting with a scorpion and he summoned his sword again. He didn’t even slow down as he approached, he took out the lizard before it knew he was there, and the scorpion didn’t fare any better but at least it tried to strike him as it was cleaved in half. Klint felt the essence hit but didn’t bother channeling it he could kill a lot more than that before his spirit was full.
“This power and speed is amazing! But why is this happening now? What caused it? Or has it always been here and I finally found the entrance?” Klint had lots of questions and no answers. He was glad he finally found a use for his mana but felt that this wasn’t its intended purpose, he felt like he should be able to cast spells or something.
Klint was covering a lot of ground, and he knew instinctually he was going in the right direction but with as fast as he was moving, he should have been to Virginia City long ago. Klint ran all day and killed 8 more lizards, 6 scorpions 12 snakes and two more Horny toads. None had given him any more drops other than silver coins. But his spirit was getting pretty full now and he decided to channel it.
He first made sure everything was even then he brought it all up at once. Then he felt something. Klint stopped running and looked for a spot he could meditate. He felt like he could reach a new level, like his spirit said OKAY I’m at the minimum level needed to undergo a change. “I need to hunt some more monsters and test a few things.” By the feel of the day in his spirit sense he could tell the sun was setting but unlike before he wanted to now face whatever creatures lurked in the shadows. He would show them who the real monster was.