Jacob saw the uneasiness in the silver bird man’s eyes and tried for one last shot at diplomacy. He slowly let go of the hand holding the spear and moved backwards to indicate that he did not want violence. However, to his abject dismay the bird man plunged the spear forward once again at Jacob.
Forcing Jacob to swat the spear away with his essence infused left hand, successfully diverting the course of the spear away from him. Jacob’s right hand tightened around the hilt of the sword for a moment, it would be so easy if he just pushed his sword forward and end the life of the bird man. But he was not in danger yet, so he tried the peaceful method one more time.
‘I should have bought some knowledge about their customs too...’ Jacob lamented while he brought his sword up for the first time, he saw the silver bird man’s eyes finally started registering fear in his wholly black eyes. It was quivering as Jacob brought his sword down, luckily for the bird man the sword sliced clean through his spear while he was pulling it back.
The slightly lightened weight of the spear forced the bird man to stumble back a little. Jacob gathered himself for another round of miscommunication due to his inability to properly speak their language. He lowered Flowing Water to his side and opened his mouth to speak.
However, the silver bird man did not even bother to wait before he turned around, showed his back to Jacob after his stumble and sped off disappearing into the thicket. Jacob thought about chasing after the bird man, but he felt it was more trouble then he was worth until Jacob could fix the language barrier.
He ran his left hand over his hair in frustration, afterwards he waved his left hand over the broken half of the spear and kept it in his storage ring, before he set off in the opposite direction from where the bird man ran off in. Jacob walked for at least an hour before he was finally out of the tall grass, he was able to experiment with two of his new skills in the meantime. Jacob scratched his legs a little while he mulled over what he learned himself for the past hour.
The elemental skills certainly felt more different then the two that he had already unlocked, instead of just channeling his essence through the same set paths shown when he unlocked them. The elemental masteries requires more active participation from Jacob, after he channeled essence. While he was walking for the past hour, Jacob had to convert his essence to wood in real time, whilst extracting it from his core. In addition to the extraction and the conversion, Jacob had to shape the converted wood essence into the type of spell he wanted.
While the knowledge of a few spells came loaded inside of the knowledge influx he received from the system, he had not been able to practice it within the points redemption space. He was able to cast a spell that allows him to manipulate nearby wood base entities including the tall grass around him, giving him a much easier time moving through the grass. There was also a spell similar to the bolts cast by the kobold mages, but it directly plucks out any nearby wood materials from where Jacob channeled the spell with wood essence. Using the wood materials he had to manually shape the form he wants the materials to take, forming a small dagger took him as fast as 0.8 seconds but a long spear took him 2 seconds even after practice making large objects seemed slightly impractical for now.
Jacob had about the same amount of success with air, but he definitely had more fun. He formed a spell that was basically a portable hairdryer, and he used it to blow through his hair, made funny faces and another way to force the tall grass apart. There was a rather deadly version of air mastery that allowed Jacob to form a sharp slice of wind that easily cut apart the tall grass. So Jacob was able to improve his repertoire, if he was able to ambush an enemy or animals.
He did not hold much hope that he would be able to keep his concentration up to maintain three functions at the same time while he was in the midst of a battle. Jacob looked around the new surroundings, the enviroment was nothing like Jacob had seen back on Earth there were rolling green hills expanding all around with trees dotted here and there but in the horizon loomed a tall and imposing dark brown mountain.
Jacob tried to use analyse on the mountain, but no information came out. He used it on the tall grass and at least received some basic info on it, Jacob thought nothing of it as he could just be too far. His face grimaced a little as he remembered once again that he could have used analyse on the silver bird man so he would know the name of the bird man at the least.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
He also looked down at his own legs being covered by the black cloth from the sand nomads, he forgot to redeem even a rundown pants for himself to cover his legs with. Which was what he realised 2 minutes after his encounter with the silver bird man when his legs started itching from contact with the tall grass, which led him to make a concerted effort in learning how to shove the tall grass away either with air or moving the grass itself.
Jacob was slightly surprised no one ambushed him again during the hour as he made plenty of noise shoving the grass aside, his rumination was finally stopped as he saw 3 figures running down one of the hills. Following right behind them were a pack of green and brown wolves and surprisingly there were rabbits scurrying around underfoot also chasing the 3 figures.
Coincidentally, the three figures were running right towards Jacob. Giving him plenty of time to prepare for the wolves, the clearly bloodthirsty rabbits and possibly the 3 figures. Jacob quickly went back and hid inside the tall grass while he maintained a decent view of the approaching figures.
While he was safely hidden, Jacob started drawing out essence from his core and converted it to wood as quickly as he could while he fueled the spell for weapon shaping with the converted essence. He quickly formed one wooden spear followed by another and than another until he accumulated 10, he quickly stopped once he felt his control over both the process of making the spears and the spears themselves loosening.
He held on tight to the 10 spears made with his mind, while he slowly crept to the edge of the tall grass and knelt down in wait for the still approaching figures. He really should have waited before he started crafting the wooden spears made from the tall grass, now he was wasting essence holding 10 of them as he silently urged the three figures to get closer so he could get a good look before he fired off the spears.
Whether he would fire the spear through them or around, Jacob would have to make the decision quickly. As the three figures finally got close enough for Jacob’s newly implanted eyes to clearly identify them as neither sand nomads nor those hard to communicate birds. Jacob quickly rushed out of his cover and shouted amidst the chasing howls from the wolves.
“GEEET DOWWN!” He mimed a throwing action with his hand as the 10 wooden spears floating behind him shot forward like 10 tightly wound ballista bolts launched by Jacob’s will, the three figures did not immediately react to Jacob’s warning but as soon as they saw the 10 wooden spears appearing along with Jacob they dived to the ground screaming.
A mere second after they dived to the ground, the 10 wooden spears cleared the air above the now sprawled figures and ran straight through multiple animals, howls and growls of pain erupted from both wolves and rabbits as they laid there impaled and some had holes larger than the size of an coconut.
The rabbits that got ran through by the spears exploded violently into mists of blood spraying any remaining visceral at its remaining companions, the wolves no longer bore any resemblance to what they looked like just a few seconds ago. Jacob was exhilarated by the amount of destruction he caused with just a few wooden spears the trouble he went through holding the forms of the spears were well worth it, given the results. Motes of light blue essence flew into Jacob’s body.
While the animals were disoriented, Jacob ran forward with his blood pumping hard the deep thrill of battle flooded his veins along with essence, powering each and every stride of Jacob’s. Allowing him to clear the distance, that his spears travelled in almost the same time. Before he reached the surviving wolves and rabbits, Jacob took Flowing Water out from his ring and prepared himself to swing it as soon as he closed the distance.
The remaining animals stood no chance against Jacob as he swung his sword through each and every animal that found to be alive with his eyes. With every cast of analyse, his eyes seemed to shimmer. Along with the essence leaving the body of whichever animal he killed, Jacob was able to eliminate the remnants with was now practiced ease.
Instead of bending down to start looking for whatever meat he could preserve for his meal, Jacob quickly turned around before the people he rescued could escape like the silver bird man did. Jacob held tight onto Flowing Water just in case the three figures turned out to be threats. Contrary to his intuition, the three figures he saved were still hunched over and quivering in fear. A thought came to his mind and he immediately blurted it out as he got closer to them.
“How did the lot of you survive the tutorial, if you guys can’t even kill these low level wolves and rabbits.” The three of them, seemed oblivious to Jacob’s words but their butts were pointed high up and towards Jacob as if they were asking to be kicked. He held in the urge to kick each of them as he realised one of them was not wearing anything close to what someone from Earth would wear, while the other two were wearing standard Earth clothings. One was wearing a simple blue t-shirt and black shorts similar to what a person would wear to be comfortable at home , the other one was wearing what seemed to be a beige crop-top with black yoga pants even though both their apparels looked slightly roughed up, there did not appear to be any wounds on them which piqued Jacob’s interest.
The odd one amongst the trio in front of him, a green and brown tunic on that looked similar to Jacob’s own light leather armour. The legs were also clad in brown and green leather that went all the way down to the ankles of the oddly dressed individual. Jacob’s eyes flashed thrice as he took in the info given by his analyse, including the names, levels and races. What Jacob would usually see on his own status screen, the only things missing were the Stats, Titles and Jobs.