While Jacob led the trio towards the mountain in the horizon, there were constant complaints from Marsha about the walking, hiding under bushes and the lack of water. All of the complaints came within an hour into their journey, irritating Jacob to no end. Trent at least had the sense to quietly follow along and he even offered to fight alongside Jacob should the need arise, despite Jacob’s suspicion on the sudden change of heart.
After the 9th or 10th time, Marsha was complaining about her circumstances and how she should not be treated like this. Jacob finally decided to call for a break to stop himself from strangling Marsha or leaving her for dead. He doled out some small bites of food for the group’s rest, while he made his way up a nearby large tree covered with yellowed leaves with practiced ease this time.
Jacob got up to the crown of the tree and began to take in the surroundings with his eyes, even the sky above felt clearer to his eyes. It was a world of difference from what he used to see around him, he wished he could take a look at his friends with his new eyes so he could properly differentiate the new reality he was seeing. Before he had time to finish his scouting, rows of text appeared out of thin air for Jacob. Along with the text, came a suffusion of power that Jacob could not contain as he felt everything all at once. It felt like when he first had contact with essence, instead of slowing gathering it into his core, each and every single of his cells were directly infused with essence.
Unable to hold it in, Jacob let out a moan of delight from the influx of power. Luckily for him he was several metres above the group, so only Corym’s supernatural senses picked up the noise as he looked up in puzzlement. Jacob’s whole body shook while he was on top of the tree, to prevent himself from dropping to the ground in embarrassment he increased his initial grip on to the trunk of tree, causing his fingers to dig deep into the bark leaving bits and pieces to fall freely.
He held that position for a short while, before he was finally freed from the positive yet frightening influx of power. It rendered him unable to respond to any probably threats for a good minute or so from what Jacob could tell. Jacob quickly saw the reason as to why he received such a large boost. His eyes turned wide once he started reading the later half of the text.
Titles have been awarded to you
Giant Slayer For killing a regional overlord of a minor region during the tutorial. +40 Strength +20 Dexterity +20 Endurance +20 Vigor
Ambitious Warrior: For killing 2 regional overlords of a minor region during the tutorial. +60 Strength +40 Dexterity +30 Endurance +30 Vigor +20 Luck
David's Student: For killing an opponent 10 level above you +5 to All Stats
Against all Odds: For killing an opponent 20 levels above you +10 to All Stats
Overpowered: For killing an opponent 30 levels above you +20 to All Stats
Unchecked Monster: For killing an opponent 40 levels above you +30 to All Stats +10% to All Stats
Slayer of Goliaths For killing an opponent 50 levels above you +40 to all stats +20% to all stats
His mouth stood agape along with the wide opened eyes, that was a lot of stats the numerous titles gave him and from what he gathered with the two titles he had. All of the titles are applied at once, there was no need for Jacob to choose a single title. So he got to have his cake and eat it too, before he could even come to terms with the large increase. The hand he was using to hold on to the tree flexed a little and he instantly crushed the top of the tree. Causing both him and the crushed pieces to fall to the ground, the weightlessness instantly snapped Jacob out of his reverie as he drew essence out of his core. The essence almost flew out of his grasp as it shot throuhought his body fast as lightning, with his newly gained stats and the almost intuitive essence. Jacob righted himself in mid-air as best as he could manage.
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Corym hearing the cracks looked up to see brown chunks falling along with large shades of yellow falling from above, he quickly tried to warn his two new companions. While he got their attention shouting look up in his language, unlike Jacob. Marsha and Trent was not able to understand what he was saying, until Corym pointed upwards did the both of them looked up to see the very near and still dropping chunks caused by Jacob.
Instead of spending their time running away, the two of them chose to spend those precious few seconds screaming at the dropping pieces. Corym seeing the two of them screaming, ran over to push them out of the way of the falling pieces, taking one chunk of wood to his head and another one had enough energy to pierce through his arm and dug deep forcing Corym to the floor as more pieces of wood crashed down onto Corym and the floor surrounding him.
Jacob landed amidst some of the debris while he saw the entire incident happening crushing the wood underneath his feet, he quickly materialised Flowing Water from his ring and started cutting at the debris surrounding the wood elf making sure that the sword never touched the elf. As he cut and cut at the wood shoving pieces of it away from where he saw Corym fell, the elf was finally revealed lying face down with a large piece of wood stuck on to his right arm with the back of his head bleeding.
Jacob stored his sword back again and quickly swept any remaining debris off of the wood elf but kept the large piece of wood in his arm, he channeled both Squire Determination and Blessing , for Squire Determination it was just a simple channel. But he wanted a water based blessing for the other skill and he did not have any prior experience before hand, so with a boosted endurance for Corym Jacob hoped that was enough time for him to do some experimentation.
Jacob first drew out his essence this time he drew out a large amount all at once so that he did not have to split up his concentration, drew out enough essence from his corethat he would be able to go for another round of fighting with the kobold horde. He converted the essence into water as fast as he could while he took out some black cloth from the ring and did a quick and tight wrap around Corym’s head to stop the immediate bleeding kneeling beside the elf as he did so.
Once Jacob finished tying a rough wrap around Corym, he was finally done with the conversion. However, despite Jacob’s effort Corym breath seemed to be getting shallower. Jacob quickly brought up the base cast for Blessing and injected the base with all the converted essence, it filled up the cast instantly. Jacob did not stop at it being filled, instead he kept pouring the converted essence into the cast, causing the form to change shape. As Jacob felt more and more essence into the cast not realising the cast was mutating in shape, he felt that he channeled enough water essence into the cast and slammed the still mutating Blessing into Corym.
While he did so, a new System text came out in front of him. But he immediately dismissed the text as he waited for Blessing to stabilise the wood elf, Jacob turned the elf so that he would be facing the sky as Jacob kept his position while he waited for the elf to recover. Sweat dripped from his forehead down onto the elf’s leather tunic, Jacob ignored his surrounding. Only focusing on the rise and fall of the elf’s chest as it slowly got back into rhythm, each breath getting stronger and stronger.
Only when the elf got back to a regular and steady rhythm did Jacob let out a held in breath, then he looked at Marsha and Trent. They were huddling together a small distance away from the impact area, Jacob wanted to shout at the two for only screaming when the incident happened causing Corym to push them out of the way and receiving what should have been their injuries instead.
But the root cause was Jacob, himself. So he closed his eyes and took three long breaths, before he could do anything rash. After the long breaths he carried Corym up and over, putting him in a fireman carry as he channeled essence througouht his body. Jacob walked over to the the two still hugging each other for comfort.
“The explosion I caused might have alerted the surrounding animals, help me carry Corym while we find another place to rest.” Jacob stood there and waited for the two to move, but the two just sat there unresponsive. Unable to resist, the constantly pushing anger. Jacob shouted at the two.
“Wake up you bloody idiots! If you wanna die, keep sitting there!” The shout got the two out of their daze as Trent and Marsha quickly got up on their feet. Jacob moved closer to Trent and he gestured at Corym who was still unconcious while slung over his shoulder. Trent finally did the first useful thing after Jacob had met him and took over the burden of carrying Corym. Jacob kept the channeling for Squire Determination and used two normal Blessing on Marsha and Trent.
Jacob’s ears perked up as what seemed to be more howling entered his ears, it sounded similar to what he heard from the wolf pack along with their little rabbit retinue was chasing after the trio. His eyes brightened a little at the thought of fighting again, but those thoughts was immediately interrupted by the still unconcious Corym right in front of him and his eyes darkened again.
“There are already somethings running over, most likely the wolves you saw before run in that direction and do not look back. If I find you guys and Corym is not with the both of you, consider your life forfeited.” As Jacob finished his warning while he pointed towards a direction away from the sounds he heard, the ground began vibrating. The two made pointless promises pertaining to Corym’s safety that Jacob just ignored. As he summoned Flowing Water from storage, he saw the two humans scurrying off to the best of their abilities down the hill with Corym slung over Trent’s shoulders.
Jacob made his way around the scattered pieces of leaves and branches towards the origin of the sound, while Jacob was running the ground started vibrating causing Jacob to waver a little from step to step. He finally got to take a look at what was causing the vibrations along with the never ending howling and shouts. There was a throng of wolves numbering at least two hundred and they were much larger in size then the herd Jacob had to deal with only an hour before. Jacob’s heart started beating faster and faster as the wolves ran over in his direction. Instead of feeling fear or trepidation, Jacob was feeling exhilaration from the sight. He finally had a chance to let loose by himself, ever since he slaughtered the sand nomads trying to save Brian, Riley and the two fiends. Jacob always felt a slight longing in his gut, now he might just be able to fill it in. Jacob filled his entire being with as much essence as he could handle, then he rushed to meet the approaching wolves with sword in hand.