The screams resumed anew as the chapel doors opened although it was a lot lesser in intensity now, from what the Suzerain mentioned all monsters in the first part of the tutorial are Grade 1 monsters with a few skill mastered at most they look scary but should definitely be within Jacobs’ capability to handle. Jacob avoided the screams that are coupled with the tremors the giant tiger even if it was similar in Grade to Jacob had a massive height advantage, definitely not a good target to test his newfound power on. So he moved towards where the stone hands could be found testing the walls around the street he was on too, as he moved near the exit of the current street he is on. Jacob caught a swift movement on his peripheral vision he immediately pushed his legs off backwards and dodged the stone hand cleanly. He brought Flowing Water out in an upwards cut aiming for the wrist of the stone hand, it was slightly off kilter and the sword ended up sliding cleanly through the forearm instead.
Both sections just dropped to the ground, no fanfare sounded off to signify his victory. But Jacob could feel essence flowing into his core, monsters do not drop loot like in the games but they do have harvestable parts. Its just that Jacob currently do not have any backpacks to store parts of the stone hand in so he had to give up on the parts for now.
Jacob marveled at how sharp the sword given by the system is, the edge giving off a wicked glint while water is churning within as if asking for more to do. Jacob could only grasp the general gist of the stat buff granted by the sword which is +15 to strength +10 to vigor and +10 to mind as he could access his own status page. But not the actual details of the Flowing Sword, he might have to get an analyse skill somewhere but the System did not provide any shop to be seen currently.
However he took a moment to scan through the criteria to gain skills and properly master his innate ability.
[Skills]
Sword and Shield Mastery(Unavailable)
Sword Mastery(Unavailable)
Shield Mastery(Unavailable)
Squire Determination(Unavailable)
Swift Slash(Unavailable)
Blessing
Rousing Shout(Unavailable)
[Abilities]
Gifted Learner
Better together(Unavailable)
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For the mastery skills Jacob needed to kill atleast 500 enemies while wielding the specific weapon types. Some of the rest seems to be more difficult to parse.
Squire Determination(Unavailable)
Battle with the will to die (0/10)
Swift Slash(Unavailable)
As you learn to slash so shall you learn to do it expediently (0/1000)
Blessing
Feel the energy within and grant it to others (0/50)
Rousing Shout(Unavailable)
A mighty roar resounds through the field (0/200)
Some of the numbers seems a bit arbitrary, Jacob definitely would not be able to get through one of the skills to completion much less all of them within a week. He can focus on Sword Mastery and Swift Slash for now, the last 2 skills would need people for him to practice on to achieve anything respectable it seems. He knew a little bit of what he should do going in as the Suzerain did enlighten him about the gist of it, but he thought he would be able to blast through it regardless within the week. Seeing the numbers required he could not be more wrong, the knight did not give a roar or anything throughout the vision. Jacob could only wonder why. He moved over to the requirements for Abilities but they seem even more vague somehow. Jacob definitely could not risk roaring or anything of the like while in the tutorial unless it ran 0 risk of attracting the wrong crowd.
Gifted Learner
The Journey of a 100 miles begin with a single step (3/100)
Precious Memories (Unavailable)
The time spent is precious cherish them so that the taste of sea salt can be remembered fondly (0/3)
The system did buff it as mentioned but putting the reward further on the backend seems like a messed up way of rewarding to Jacob. He could not even access it now so what was the point of it being called a reward. He would not even know what has been buffed by the system. He released a pent up sigh and hefted the sword on his shoulder and begin looking for more stone hands to destroy whilst heading in the direction of the still setting suns. In the twilight the city looked even more desolate than ever, bringing with it cold wind chills.
Jacob was able to bring both Swift Slash up to 22 and Sword Mastery up to 23 however Squire Determination was sitting at a grand total of zero no matter what he tried. He gritted his teeth running like a madmen without a care for the stone hands emerging from the walls however after running back and swiftly slicing through them with clean dodges due to the speed at which he ran, Squire Determination sat at an impressive 0 still.
Jacob even took a hit to his chest but that did not increase Squire determination at all, he was not able to test whether further damage would activate the criteria to fulfill Squire Determination. Jacob was able to make it safely through the now considerably less dangerous city by avoiding the tremors the screams now had all but ended with the exception of a few here and there. It did not mean the teleported individuals were nearly wiped out of course, humans are capable of growth only the initial shock would have wiped out any sound reasoning. So the rest must have learned too either heading for the outskirts or being a lot more capable at stealth. Jacob cannot speak for the screams still happening now, they must have 0 will to live. However after managing to reach his destination, Jacob was able to collect enough essence to increase his level to 6 from the increase in his stats it seems that he gets 3 free points, +3 Strength, +3 Vigor, +2 Mind for each level. Seeing the stat distribution now was a hint of how Jacob should focus on distributing his free points, he kept the free points for now as he still did not have a better feel of how the stats affect him personally.
Jacob arrived at the place where he left the group. The group of course was nowhere to be seen they must have moved further into the forest, the group was not armed with Jacobs current knowledge so they must have thought it was safer than the city. However the further from their teleportation point, the further up the scale of the Grade 1 prowess the creatures were. An example would be the giant tiger, it currently sits at around low-mid Grade 1 however the apex predators in the forest would dismember the tiger with ease.
Calming down his trepidation Jacob thought of whether to help the strangers he know or the strangers he had yet to seen where the difficulty was a lot lesser. The image of the red hair beauty crept into his thoughts, a silly smile appeared on his face slight drool can be seen formed on the side of his mouth. With a cough and a wipe from his empty right hand he made his way into the now even more foreboding forest.