Chapter 5. Short Hike.

  The seventh day arrived auguring my one week anniversary, with both insight and knowledge on my hand I managed to wake up early enough to notice that dawn was marked with the 00:00 of the clock, taking that into consideration I began my routine with more enthusiasm than usual, that was until I remembered the shitty breakfast waiting for me, so as usual I took one Paleling Knife from my back to open the disgusting fruit and I almost gag when I discovered that the liquid looked yellowish, hurrying to do the door I flung that pestilent fruit and went to take another with a similar result, taking a last chance I took one of the Coco fruits I kept in the pouch and even if it was still bland It smelled a whole lot better, so I drank deep theorizing that food perhaps was better conserved in the pouch, after finally clearing the corner of the rotten food I began working out 20 minutes of crunches, 20 of sit-ups, 20 of pushups and I added 5 minutes of plank, which never felt as easy as it did at the moment.

  After yet another short trip to the beach I practice for minutes with my newly acquired blade skills for around 9 minutes when my arcana drained out, then I meditated recovering faster than ever, going straight back to grinding for the next 4 hours, when I was done the sun still held illuminating the beach behind the grey skies, the pause made me revisit the idea of exploring, and considering possibilities of optimizing my routine that’s what I did. A surprisingly short hike back and I was back at the cabin with the woods looming over behind.

  So far I have avoided exploration due to lack of interest and honestly fear of the unknown, with a plus the beach seemed more inviting, so with my catalyst poised to strike I began my trek, the sound of the waves began to recede and the pine like trees dimmed the surrounding light, I began to relax after a couple of minutes inside the forest, that was until I stopped at the contact of something against my staff causing me to jump back and raise it poised to attack, at the lack of something visible I squinted then looked to side to side, not noticing anything gave me pause maybe an invisible creature, but it didn’t made sense due to the lack of any attack or sound, that thought made me curse ignoring my perception stat. I started resuming my advance when again the invisible object impeded my pass, this time I didn’t back down and kept my staff in contact with the surface I pushed and while it gave a little push it was barely visible deciding to activate arcane blade with the staff to have better visibility revealed small ripples that moved along what looked to be a barrier, prodding it with the blade didn’t fare any better so I deactivated and touch the barrier with my bare hand feeling cool to the touch, deciding to go to the left i continued my exploration using the barrier to guide myself but it appeared to never end ,I keep walking for almost an hour when I finally desisted, I finally noticed that there were no Palelings, thinking that creatures only “spawned” at night and decided to return to the cabin. There was still light so I decided to top off my arcana and practice a bit more with the sword until dusk that arrived when the clock marked 12 hours left on the “day” that’s when the Palelings finally show up, the four creatures appearing from the tree line from a place already explored, theory confirmed I s took the advantage charging with the catalyst on the left and the arcane blade enveloping my right clashing with the closest creature, the bastard managed to catch my blade with his knife, whoever said knife didn’t have a pronounced guard letting my attack free to slide and bite flesh, the other creatures whoever didn’t waver two of them surrounding me, with my hand that held the catalyst I casted an arcane shot that managed to connect and I rolled into the recently free side covering myself on the mist that used to be a Paleling, after standing up quite fluidly I surveyed the area. There were still 2 monsters active and one maimed but according to my notifications still alive. I forced myself to not blast the other two and prepare for the next charge with a deep breath, the 2 healthy opponents advance until they were around 5 meters, that’s when they began sprinting so I angled myself in a sprint of my own, so that one would be behind the other, when the angle was right I lunged at creature skewering it, I deactivated the blade, dropped the catalyst and caught the last with my bare hands wrestling him to the ground a light bulb went on in my head, following through I let go of the creature’s unarmed arm and activated arcane blade ending him right there the glowing blade went right through his skull, finishing off the last one I noticed that my arcana was still half, taking the short walk to the cabin I finally began to unpack the lessons that today brought.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The fight made clear the fact that I could use two abilities at the same time, which was game changer, but not letting my ego get to big I redirected my thoughts to efficiency I still had to use an arcane shot, closing this compliment sandwich I inflated my ego back by thinking about how almost half of my arcana available, but not only that, my body itself was growing stronger the way I rolled and moved, considering the daily grind my body never felt better, the reason might be related to my attributes. Moving on to my discoveries of the pseudo-dungeon, it felt that this wasn’t such an open space and I resolved to test the limits on later days. Last order of the day I had my usual dinner, meditated a bit and tried to sleep without it.

  In the end I used the skill to fall asleep and my one week anniversary was celebrated by doing the same thing I’ve done so far, eating the damnable fruit, working out, and grinding for levels which came with the gift of reaching level 10 before the first hour. and to celebrate I continue with exploring the limits of this pseudo-dungeon, first I began testing the way into the sea, my intelligence telling me that instead of swimming I should simply use an arcane shot and see how far I reach. I followed through the idea imitating the legendary technique of a certain old man with a turtle shell on its back the single arcane shot soar through the waves for a couple of seconds and what my recently enhanced perception told me where around 80 meters it crashed and extinguished after meeting the expected barrier I did a second take experimenting with one shot and each hand which cause me to grin widely and some long forgotten juvenile phantasy, which was further reinforced by the fact that I could do the same with arcane blade. The rest of the day was uneventful except for the fact that my exploration told me that the pseudo-dungeon was a rectangle of around 12 Kilometers by 18 of breadth, my enhanced body, abilities, and mind helping to test the limit physically and calculating the proportions, With that out of the way I finished the day with yet another encounter with the group of Palelings. After that I returned to the cabin and dumped the free points. I looked at the status screen for the first time in a while looking at my progress so far.

  Name: Roberto B. (System enhanced Human)

  Level: 10

  Class: Mage

  Vitae: 130/130

  Arcana 35/35 (+2 Wood Catalyst)

  Strength 11

  Dexterity 11

  Endurance 11

  Intelligence 15

  Evocation 26 (Regeneration +20% percent Cloak of minor Arcana regeneration)

  Perception 10

  Affinities: (None)

  Abilities: Inspect (Tier 11 G), Regenerative Meditation (Tier 11 A), Arcane shot (Tier 11 A), Arcane blade (Tier 11 A)

  I felt proud of my progress and almost went to the last part of the routine when I remembered the book. Taking it out of my pouch I was glad to see new content.

  Regarding abilities III: There are 3 main categories of skills: those being activated, passive and general. Active skills need to be channeled and have a relatively limited duration.

  Passive skills for the most part don’t need to be activated and tend to work in the background boosting stats or abilities. Last but not least general abilities can be either activated or passive, a great example of it being the ability to identify, these abilities tend to be more oriented to navigating the word with rare exceptions.

  I savored each and every one of the letters, the information being as valuable as the brief entertainment. After re-reading most of the short book I went to my regular meditation induced sleep.