《SoulBound》 Prologue Prologue A Prologue that is not a Prologue What is a Soul? A spirit or a spiritual part of any living being that which gave life to a shell which is the so called body. Is that it? Is that really what a soul is? A fuel or an energy which runs our body? No, not a fuel or an energy, rather a purpose or a will or an identity for the vessel or the body. That seems to be the correct answer for all I know. Like a car. The car is the vessel or the body.Thefuel is power. And the soul is the purpose for which the car is build for. Why build a car if its very existence doenst have any meaning? Yes, Soul is our very existence. Now what am I thinking in the last moment of my life. Shouldnt it be a flashback of our life? So stupid dying like this, so in this moment only my brain is working properly, my body won¡¯t respond to any of my commands anymore, oh well, and this stupid brain of mine, all it could think of is my stupid soul. I¡¯m not really a fan of religion, I attend church when I was young but stopped when I reach middle school, so if religion would be the base in which where my soul would go, then I¡¯m destined in hell. Oh I still don¡¯t want to die. Whats that light? No, no, no, no, don¡¯t go there yet, I know that light, wait a moment soul, don¡¯t be tempted to go in that light, whats this, the light is sucking me, hold on soul, don¡¯t be sucked in, there are still many things I want to do. ¡°Oh Ho! What do we have here?¡± somewhere there¡¯s this voice speaking. "Are you god?" ¡°No¡± replied the voice. "If you¡¯re not god, then who are you? Don¡¯t tell me your god¡¯s counterpart." No this is not happening, soul go in to the light right now. Faster! ¡°Hold on a moment, I can¡¯t understand you, you little shit. First you don¡¯t want to go in to the light and now you seems so eager to go.¡± "Let me go, let me go, please let me go. I don¡¯t want to stay in hell." I ask pleadingly to this voice who seems magically holding my soul in thin air. ¡°Who do you think I¡¯ am?!¡± shouted the voice. "Uhmm the devil?" ¡°YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SOUL DUNG!¡± shouted the voice who seems to blow my soul away in every words the voice said. "Then if you¡¯re not the devil to take my soul in hell, who are you?" I ask in a so very little tiny voice that tremble. Of course I¡¯m afraid of this voice, who wouldn¡¯t? ¡°Okay calm down me, let¡¯s just do our job and be over with this little pile of soul dung. Listen you maggot of a soul, for I will tell you this only once. First you stupid piece of plankton of a soul died, you heard me, you died you stupid little pea brain.¡± "I really died?"I know i died, stupid of me, but still, knowing it again thru other still gives you a blow. ¡°Second, I¡¯m not god or he¡¯s counterpart or whatever you call god in this world. I¡¯m a just a lowly messenger.¡± "So, he¡¯s an angel?" ¡°Oh no, I¡¯m not that handsome¡± the voice told with a hint of embarrassment. Why does I pictured him blushing on my mind? Oh I know, everybody has a weakness in flattery, this scary stupid voice has a weakness. "Most handsome voice that is pleasant to the ears, may I ask you something." ¡°Stop that! I am not that handsome. Maybe a little bit handsome¡± I thought I was going to die again when the voice told me to stop. So he really is weak to flattery, need to make this count. "Oh no, you are plentifull handsome already, can I call you Mr. Handsome?" ¡°Let me think¡± this stupid voice is playing hard to get. "Mr. Handsome seems suit you." I pushed The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Really?¡± the voice answered hastily. "Yes yes yes, really, it fits perfectly for you, like it was made for you."I eagerly replied ¡°Yes you are right, it was made for me. Bwahahaha! You seems like a nice guy, as a reward, I¡¯ll give you something after our talk, Bwahahaha! Now where were we?¡± "Mr. Handsome Voice, why are you here? Are you going to take me to hell?" ¡°Ho Ho Ho, I really am handsome, no I won¡¯t take you to hell, I¡¯m here to deliver a message and to hear your answer, now listen before you ask something again, your interrupting me. Here¡¯s the message, listen well. For the soul who clings dearly to life and does not pass on to the light, your god shall grant you a choice. First is to past in to the light to receive your judgment and second is to give you a second chance of life. That¡¯s the message, now choose.¡± "Wait a second, wait a second, that¡¯s all? No explanation?" ¡°Explanation is not part of the message, it¡¯s your choice.¡± The voice replied. This seems easy, there is always a catch. "Uhm Mr. Handsome, you know, you are like an angel to me." ¡°Ho ho ho, is that so?¡± "Really Mr. Handosme. Mr. Handsome can you please tell me what will happen if I choose any of this choices?" ¡°Tsk!, since this handsome me is so kind, I¡¯ll tell you somethings, but you must not tell it to anyone okay?¡± "Yes, yes, yes, I know that you really are kind and handsome, I promise I won¡¯t tell." ¡°Ho ho ho, then listen well, when you go in to the light, there you will be judge, judgement is based on your merits when you were alive, the judgement may be to go in paradise, in hell or to reincarnate in which your soul shall be cleansed then send it back in your world. The second which is the second life, what can I say about this isliterally a chance to have a second life, but not here in this world. That¡¯s all.¡± "But, but, bu¡­" ¡°No buts, I told you all I can, now decide now, for I don¡¯t have much time, there are still many soul to talk to.¡± So I¡¯am not the only soul that has been granted like this. I still don¡¯t want to pass on, there still many things I want to do. And besides, I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ll be judge to go on paradise or to reincarnate, 51:49 chance that I will go to hell, the second choice, if I¡¯ll have a second life, but not in this world, then where is it? Wait, isn¡¯t it much better to have a second life than be judge with uncertain result or maybe certain hell. Oh well, better to choose the second life even though I don¡¯t know where it will leads me. But why in another world? ¡°Are you done musing, I don¡¯t have the time to wait. If you¡¯re not done yet I will decide for you. And that decision is to throw you into to light and force you to pass on. Sorry soul, its standard procedure.¡± "Wait, wait, wait Mr. Handsome, I¡¯m already done choosing, ill choose the second one." I hastily answered. "But whi in another world?" I continued. ¡°Why in another world you asked, Soul is like a commodity for the gods, but this commodity is hard to come by, so other Gods buy or trade it to others Gods. Okay, then, where done talking and as I promised earlier I¡¯ll give you a reward for being honest with me being handsome. If you chose to pass on, ill reward you with a recommendation on the higher ups, I¡¯ll put a good talk on them about you so they can give you a much better chance when they¡¯ll decide. But since you chose the second one, ill reward you with a world that you¡¯ll like. So here we go! Good luck!¡± With that said, a flash of light blinded me, but that answer to my question just made me think of more questions, after a moment, I woke up, but I felt so cold and the surroundings are so dark, I felt like that I¡¯m in buried in ice. Maybe I really am buried in ice, I tried to move and feel my surroundings, and it hit me that I¡¯m really am buried in a soft like ice, maybe a snow, so I tried to dug myself out. After a minute of desperate struggle trying to extract myself being buried, finally I broke a part of my upper body out. It¡¯s not easy to dig myself out, my body feels so weak and fragile, but I succeeded even if only a part. What I saw first is pure darkness, what I heard first is a strong howling of wind and what I felt beside from being cold and buried, is the snowpelting me all over my unburied body, trying to bury me again. I thought that I was going to die again, what a waste of second chance, but then I saw a flicker of light in the distance, then I heard some shuffling of snow besides the howling of wind. I tried to speak and shout, but what came to my mouth is just a croak. I tried and tried again, calling for the flicker of light that seems going to pass where I¡¯ am by a couple of meters. I tried again, this time I succeeded calling the light, which I noticed that it was a lamp being carried by a person. ¡°H¡­e¡­l¡­p¡­¡± I heard my mouth said. It seems by some miracle the person carrying the lamp heard my desperate call. He shuffles hastily toward my way saying some inaudible words, when he was closer and I feel like safe, I lost my consciousness. Chapter 1: A New Beginning It is night time, and I¡¯ am working with one of my part time job which is a clerk in a convenience store. Nowadays, I¡¯m working diligently to save up some money to buy this new game console that I want. It¡¯s a virtual reality game that is first of its kind, the game was called something about road, which some mythical beast company released a few months ago. I¡¯m actually a game addict, but with my financial status, I can¡¯t just afford to buy it. I don¡¯t have my parents anymore since I was 13 and I grew up in the streets and the arcade shop, fighting here and there to survive. I¡¯m good at it, fighting that is, it happens almost every night. Since I don¡¯t have any parents to support me for 6 long years (I¡¯m 19 by the way) and since I grew up in the streets, I don¡¯t have the cash to buy the game console, that¡¯s why I¡¯m working with so many different part time jobs so I can save up. This is the first time I did this, for even if I call myself a game addict all I played was the games in the arcade and an online game titled about continent of something, forgot about that something, and I was good at it but I was always got killed by this player whose name is about grass, how I wish I killed him just one time, or we can just have a fist fight, since I¡¯m good at it. I¡¯m the king of the streets, zero lose on street fights, didn¡¯t mean to brag. Anywaw, I played different games in the arcades which my initial RMT is on the top of the list, so I guess I¡¯m quite good at games, but this virtual reality is different than any other game, so I must have it. With the money that was left by my parentsbefore they died, which most of it was stolen by my greedy nephews which they called themselves as guardian before they throw me away in to the streets, and the money that I will earn in my part time jobs I can buy it in a year. All I need is patience and hard work which I have an unlimited source. It¡¯s almost time to end my shift when I received a message on my phone, ¡°Come at the abandoned warehouse now, or your girlfriend will be killed¡±. It¡¯s one of my rival in the streets seeking some revenge, so I told my manager that I¡¯m ending my shift a bit earlier. Since my manager and I was close, he give me his permission to be out early. I headed immediately to the abandoned warehouse which is not quite far in the place I work at. It¡¯s just a 20 minute run. I arrived at the warehouse and shouted. ¡°RELEASE HER OR I¡¯LL KILL YOU ALL!¡± That was a cool line when you¡¯re barging in to save your girl, but what I heard is my rival, his goons and my girlfriend laughing. I didn¡¯t understand the situation, what I expected was my girlfriend being tied and some of his goon is surrounding her to threaten me. But my girlfriend instead of being tied was beside my rival laughing her heart out. I was confused. ¡°You call this gorilla of a man your boyfriend¡± My rival ask my girlfriend after he stop laughing. ¡°No he¡¯s not my boyfriend, he only thinks that way.¡± My girlfriend replied. ¡°WHO¡¯S YOUR CALLING A GORILLA?! DO YOU WANNA DIE! Wait what did you say Lisa?¡± I was aghast when my rival call the handsome me a gorilla but I was shocked when my girlfriendsays that I am not her boyfriend. ¡°I said that you are not my boyfriend, Jack here ask me to get close to you so he can have his revenge, and he paid me some money. Who wants to be your girlfriend? You walking mass of a muscle with a face of a buffoon?¡± Lisa explain like it was nothing. ¡°Me? A walking muscles, does my face really looks like a buffoon? Although I really have some large muscles which I train regularly, because girls love muscles right? And my face, even though it doesn¡¯t look like some idol, it still can be considered handsome.¡± I replied. But they just stare at me for a moment and started laughing again, much harder than the last one. ¡°Hahaha¡­ Oh I¡¯m dying from laughing so hard, is this how you¡¯re going to kill us? By making us laugh so hard.¡± Jack replied out of breathe after laughing. ¡°Let¡¯s stop this nonsense show and get on with it. Guys beat him senseless while his in shock.¡± Ten of Jack¡¯s goon startedwalking towards me, making a show that they will me beat me up senseless, making their knuckles and their neck crack. I, just standing there, thinking and digesting the conversation just now, realized that I was betrayed by that sweet little girl called Lisa. My tears started to flow making my eyes blurry. The first goon wind up his arm to punch me in the face, as he was about to punch me, I punched him first in the face, giving him a left straight, knocking him senseless on to the ground. The other goon stop on their track,while Jack and Lisa was making a dumbfounded face. ¡°Lisa, did you just betray me?¡± I ask while crying. Making some small hiccupping sound. Lisa who was snap back from being dumbfounded, started laughing again. ¡°Hahahaha¡­ hey Jack, hahaha¡­ this is hahaha¡­ the first time hahaha¡­ I saw a gorilla cry. hahaha¡± Lisa said to jack between laughing a fit, holding her stomach and with tear in her eyes. After she said that, the other guys started laughing again while the others was on their back rolling on the ground and holding their stomach laughing hard. ¡°Hahaha¡± ¡°Hahaha. I can¡¯t take this anymore¡± ¡°Hahaha. Please make him stop¡± The goons was saying while trying to hold their laugh. I was shocked at first, I thought that they were dumbfounded because I knocked senseless one of their ally, but they were all dumbfounded because they saw me cry. I snapped. In that moment, i was overcmed by rage, I charged at them and started punching while they were laughing hard. I won¡¯t tolerate this anymore, I startedknocking the daylight out of them. The goons that werelaughing so hard a few seconds ago, was now speechless and shocked when they saw me knocked out the one nearest to me and the next one after that. Then the reamaining goons started to realize what was happening and started to take some action. Thebrawlbegan, it¡¯s 10 to 1 when it started,but then it became 9 to 1 when they thought I was in dazed, and then became 7 to 1 when they were laughing hard. 7 to 1 is not much for me, I gaveanother one a hard punch and a kick,then it became 6 to 1 before they started ganging up on me, but still it was not enough. When they realize that they are not making a dent on me but only a scratch, they started picking up things to hit me. They didn¡¯t lose their courage because of their numbers, I began to accumulate some nasty hits from the things they picked up, one goon who picked up at pipe, got some lucky hit on my head which makes me a bit dizzy and open a woundthat kept bleeding, the blood started to flowover my eyewhich keeps me a bit distracted. The other wound was in my arms because I kept blocking the hits. Still they were not a match for me. After 10 minutes of brawl, I knocked them all senseless, all that was left to deal with is Jack and then with Lisa. ¡°Huff, huff, huff, so Jack you¡¯re up next.¡± I told jack while breathing hard. Jack and Lisa who was watching, was now dumbfounded again, but this time really dumfounded by what happened, not by me crying. Jack who was now scared shitless started running after I told him that he was next. Lisa who was also scared run after him. I followed after them, I need to teach them a lesson. They run outside the warehouse headingout of the street.Having a head start and me who was fatigue and wounded from the fight lag a dozen meter behind Lisa. But after a hundred meters I was just two arm¡¯s length behind Lisa. I can catch her for a few more steps. Jack who run faster reach the street first and crossed it already, Lisa and I who was a few meters behind Jack crossed the street half minute later after Jack crossed, we reach the middle of the street, when all of a sudden a truck appeared on the road approaching us fast. Lisa who saw the truck stopped on the middle of the road being shocked, then she looked my way then forced a smile, a smile that told ¡°is this how I¡¯m going to die¡±. This stupid me who saw that face, pulled her back the way we came from. Pushing her on the other side won¡¯t do, because the truck, even if it¡¯s late, already took an evasive maneuver toward to the opposite street to evade us, pushing herwont do a thing. Standing still will hit her, pushing her will still hit her. I didn¡¯t know what came at me, saving the girl who betrayed me, pulling her back made me to gather much more momentum. My running speed plus the pulling force added up making me unavailable to take a break and stop, I put myself directly where the truck swerve, directly in front of the truck and to take the grunt of a full impact. All I can do now is wait, and so I wait¡­ I was awoken abruptly, feeling a cold sweat. ¡°So it was just a dream¡± that was what I thought. I thought that it was real, and I thought that I really died, it was just a dream. I put my hand on my face, trying to wipe up the sweat, only tonotice that it¡¯s not my hand. ¡°WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH¡± I shouted, I don¡¯t understand what is happening, I¡¯m in a panic mode right now. I started to feel myself out,but this endevour is quite hard to achieve, my body or this bodydont respond or slow to respond in every commandmy brain sent. After some desperate struggle feeling up my body, I notice that somethings are missing in my body or in this body, I tried to sit up, barely managing it, then I started inspecting this body with my eyes (is it even my eyes?),seeing each and every part of this body that can be seen. There really is a huge part that are missing inthis body. A very huge difference in how I know my bodycompare to this body. This body is smooth and skinny, it has white complexion and skinny, this is so small and skinny, and the worst of all, this body is so freaking skinny. Where did all my muscles go?! Where did my lovely biceps and triceps go? My sweet and gentle pecs and abs did they elope together? My shoulders, my legs and even my back muscles, gone, gone, gone. All this body have is a skin. Oh muscles, why did you leave me, after all our sweet moments training together all you did is leave me alone. Oh muscles, why did you betrayed me, who lovingly put all the effort to nurture you and care for you all those years. I cried and cried and cried like never before in my life. I cried much harder than when the time I lose both of my parents, I even cried much harder when I confessed to my first love and she just dumped me with a face that looked so scared, i didnt even cried this hard when Lisa betrayed me, and I cried much harder than when that grass of a character in continent of something one-shot me after numerous times facing him. I cried till snot drip to my nose, I cried till there¡¯s no more tears that are flowing in my eyes and I cried till... ¡°SLAP¡± somebody hit me in the head so hard that I almost thought that this head will fly off this body. ¡°STOP CRYING YOU PIECE OF A WEAKLING MAGGOT!¡± someone shouted at my ear that so loud that it makes my head tingled. I looked to see where the source of the stupid voice who destroyed my moment feeling betrayed by my muscles. Then I noticed for the first time that the voice came from some old man, I stared at him with killing intent, I¡¯m thinking of killing him for destroying the moment. But then... ¡°SLAP¡± he hit me again to the head. ¡°Don¡¯t you ever look at me like that, you weakling Garret, is this how you treat your savior? You piece of weakling!¡± the old man said. ¡°Hey, old man who are you? Who are you to destroy a man¡¯s melancholy for being betrayed?¡± I told the old guy. ¡°SLAP¡± The old man hit me again in the head, I can¡¯t even react, and I can¡¯t even try to dodge or block the hit. ¡°You¡¯re asking me who I¡¯ am? You ungrateful weakling. Did you lose your mind, huh Garret, answer me.¡± The old man said. ¡°Look old man, I don¡¯t know you and stop calling me Garret, and don¡¯t you dare call me a weakling again or I¡¯ll kill you old man.¡± ¡°SLAP¡± The old man hit me again. ¡°Argggghhhhhhhhh! I said stop hitting me¡± I answered annoyed. ¡°SLAP¡± But the old man hit me again, the old man had a looked of being dumbfounded and hit me casually in the head like it seems normal to hit me. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Arggghhhh! I sai¡­.¡± I didn¡¯t even finish what I¡¯m saying. ¡°SLAP¡± The old man hit me again. I looked at him. ¡°SLAP¡± I looked at him again. ¡°SLAP¡±. I started to feelnumb in the head. So I looked at the old man but this time slowly turning my head in his direction.. ¡°SLAP¡±. What the????? Now I feel scared, first time in my life to feeling scared in some old man. I started to slowly sink my body lower and curled up like a ball, making my body small. After I successfully sink and curled my body, the old man started to speak again. ¡°Good, you¡¯re calm now. I know that this would be effective.¡± The old man nonchalantly said. ¡°WHO WOULD BE CALM WITH THA¡­.¡± ¡°SLAP¡± I was so shocked by what method he make others calm, that¡¯s why I started shouting again, I didn¡¯t even finish of what I¡¯m about to say, again. Arrggggggghhhh! I give up, I thought in my head. I just lie there meekly and bowed my head, showing submission. ¡°Now are you calm?¡± The old man ask. ¡°NOD¡±I just nodded slowly. ¡°Good, now we can start again. Can we start again?¡± ¡°NOD¡± I just nodded again. ¡°Good, good, are you okay?¡± ¡°SHAKES¡± Now I shakes my head eagerly. Who can be okay when some old man keep hitting you? ¡°Oh I understand, you¡¯re not okay, being buried in the snow just like that.¡± The old man said. ¡°SHAKE¡± I just shake my head again much eagerly than the last. No, no, no, being hit on the head repeatedly made me NOT okay. You stupid old man. I just thought that, don¡¯t want to say it out loud. ¡°Good, now were having a nice conversation.¡± I was about to react for what he said, when he raised his hand in a hitting position. I stopped and kept it to myself what I¡¯m about to say. ¡°We are having a nice conversation haven¡¯t we?¡± the old man ask, forcing me to answer yes with his tone, so I just nodded eagerly back and forth. ¡°NOD¡± ¡°NOD¡±. What a damn self-centered selfish old man. This kind of conversation makes me want to cry. I¡¯ve never been bullied before, so this is how it felt. ¡°Now Garret, did you lose your mind because of what happened to you?¡± the old man asked me. ¡°SHAKES¡± ¡°SHAKES¡± I just shakes my head faster. ¡°How can you not lose your mind Garret. You¡¯ve been missing for 2 months now, and then I found you with half your body deep in to the snow, and been in state of coma for 3 days, how can you not lose your mind in that situation.¡± ¡°SHAKES¡± ¡°SHAKES¡± ¡°SHAKES¡± I tried to open my mouth to talk but he raised his hand again, I winced at that gestures, it seems I¡¯ve been traumatized by that action, my body is immediately reacting by that single action of raising his hand. I waited to be hit while my mouth was still open. He seems to conceive that I also need to talk so we can have some decent conversation, not this one-sided hitting thing conversation. He sighed and lowers his hand, he gestures that I can speak now so I tried speaking. ¡°Uhm, who¡¯s Garret old man?¡± I asked him in a hushed tone. ¡°Sighh~, Garret, you are Garret, don¡¯t you remember, and I¡¯m not old man, I¡¯m Silan, Silan the Hunter if you don¡¯t remember.¡± The Old man replied. So, Silan is the Old man¡¯s name, and he¡¯s a hunter, first good information I got from this old man. ¡°Mr. Silan, I¡¯m not really Garret and I didn¡¯t lose my mind. I¡¯m Reiven, Reiven Marquiz Therin¡± I told the old man that I¡¯m not really Garret, but the old man didn¡¯t quite believe what I¡¯am saying so he just shakes his head in disbelief. ¡°Show me you¡¯re Status Window¡± He ordered. ¡°Huh?¡± I just reacted like he was not speaking in the same language. Then the old man immediately raised is hands up and I instinctively shield my head with both hands, but the hit didn¡¯t came. ¡°Sigh~, so you want to play like you don¡¯t know anything, okay, I¡¯ll play with you. Say Show Status Window to Silan.¡± He said, I just looked at him puzzled. ¡°Just say it, Hurry up¡± He said while gesturing that he will hit me with the hand that is still raised. ¡°Show Status Window to Silan¡± I just complied with my both of my hands still in my head. Then, something unbelievable happen, some strange opaque blue light that looks like an error or notice window on a computer screen floats up in front of the old man. I just stared wide eyed and mouth hanging on the floating windows. After some moment of being bewildered, I noticed that there are some more window that are floating in the periphery of my vision. I turned my head in the direction of the window to look at it, but the window followed in the same direction i turned, I slowly turn my head in the opposite direction and the window followed again, I turned and turned and turned and still turned my head from leftandright or up and down, and still the window continues to follow or rather, the window stayed on same place at periphery of my vision. I stopped moving my head, instead I move my eyes to look at the floating window, the floating window dodge my eyes, it floated a bit higher from where it was, giving me unobstructed view at where im looking. I followed the window with my eyes, but the window still kept evading as i tried to look at it. This stupid window is making me dizzy! I thought that if i caught this window, im gonna smash it to pieces. Then a strange thing happened, the window that I was chasing with my sight earlier, flew on his own at the center of my vision. Now I cansee clearly what the floating window has, it has something written on it. At first I dont understand what was written, but then it started to make sense. I didn¡¯t noticed it before, being busy crying about my muscles, and then this stupid conversation with this old man.How would I notice some floating window in the edge of my vision. I focus on it, and tried to read what was written.
You got a permanent status ¡°Soulbound¡±
You got a status ¡°Weakness¡±
You got a status ¡°Atrophy¡±
Soulbound
A permanent status receive by a person who died and its soul not from this world inhibit a body from this world who died and its soul has passed on from this world. You chose second chance when you died in your previously world. +50% to all Stat +20% to all Resistance Passive skills is 3 times more effective Active support skills is 2 times more effective Active attack and magic skills is 1.5 times more effective Cannot be removed unless you die.
Weakness
A status receivethru external source or when your body went thru extreme condition. -50% to all resistance You are likely to get sickness much more easily. Can be remove byexternal sourceor waiting till your body is naturally healed overtime
Atrophy
A status receive when you don¡¯t use your bodily function in a long duration. -90% to all stat You feel sluggish Can be removed by utilizing and exercising the body.
I was shocked from all that I read, is this some kind of a joke, is there a hidden cam somewhere, that¡¯s all my thoughts where running thru. I started to panic. If it¡¯s true, then, I really died back there, the dream was not a dream but a memory of my last moments. Why is this happening to me? My heart doesn¡¯t believe it, but for what I see, this room, Silan, this floating window, my skinny body, all of this, how can I deny what I see, hear, smell and feel. My mind keeps telling me that this is true, wait, wait, wait, maybe I didn¡¯t die back there, maybe somebody save me and then, and then, and then what?....... wait, ahh that¡¯s right, there¡¯s virtual reality, maybe I¡¯m in some kind of game, yes that¡¯s right, a game, what¡¯s the game called again, something about road. Wait, if I¡¯m in a game, how can I prove it? Ahh, there¡¯s an article that I read about that game, what is it again? Yes, that¡¯s right, it¡¯s about vital organs, and a game cannot reproduce that one vital part of the human body. That¡¯s right, I need to see my vital organs, wait, if I do that and this is real and not a game, then I will die if I pull out one of my vital parts, argghhhhh, is there a safe way confirm this, come on Reiven, think harder, think, think think¡­¡­ ahhh that¡¯s right, the heartbeat, games don¡¯t heart beat they don¡¯t have pulse. I slowly reach for my heart, feeling scared of what I ¡®am about to find out. As I put my hand on top of my chest, all hope that this was a game vanish, I have a heartbeat, this confirmed it. This is not a game but a reality, then at that moment, it all came back, I remember about the messenger who talked to me when I saw the light on my last moment, how can I forget that messenger. When I remembered my talk with the messenger, I calm down, all thoughts vanish and all I felt was acceptance, I was thankful for this second chance that they gave me and also for his reward, if what he says that this world is a world that I like is true, then, if what I¡¯m thinking what kind of world this is. Then I¡¯m in a world that has a game concempt as reality. At that time, I heard a soft tune in my head, then a new window appeared in my vision.
You learned a skill ¡°Calm Mind¡±
Calm Mind (Passive) Apprentice Grade 1 (0.00% to the next Grade)
The mental state of being free from agitation, excitement, or disturbance. Finding your inner center, you are able to focus more of your attention even in dire circumstances. Positively affect your other skills by 5% in this state. As this skill advances, you can achieve being calm much more easily.
Wow! I got some skill, how did I do that? As I was thinking of that, the old man started to talk again. ¡°Yo.. you¡¯re really not Garret, you¡¯re a Soulbound¡± the old man said while looking at the floating window in his front. I looked at him, then I showed a small smile. ¡°See, Mr. Silan, I already told you earlier that I¡¯m not Garret, you don¡¯t believe me.¡± I told him ¡°Oh, I believe it now.¡± The old man said while staring at me. ¡°Here take a look at your own status window¡± the old man continued. As I was trying to get closer to the old man to look for the status window. ¡°SLAP¡± I was hit again in the head, but this time, the hit was not hard, but seems like a reminder. ¡°You stupid little cur, say Show Status Window or just think about it showing, no need to say it out loud everytime¡± the old man told me while I¡¯m rubbing the part of my head that was hit. ¡°You learned a skill didn¡¯t you?¡± How did he know that? I thought. ¡°In your status, a buff or some sort showed up when it wasn¡¯t there the first time, Calm Mind isn¡¯t it, then it vanishes after I hit you.¡± The old man explained, seems my thought shows up in my face. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I don¡¯t know what that skill do, but maybe I have some vague idea, you¡¯re the only one who really knows what the skill do, unless you showed it to others.¡± He continued explaining. ¡°Go on now, try to look up your own status window.¡± Urging me move. ¡°Show Status Window¡± I said.
Status Window
Name Need to be registered
Title Errand Boy
Standings Commoner Grade 1
Status Soulbound, Weakness, Atrophy
Strength 20 (+10) (-27) Agility 70 (+35) (-95)
Dexterity 50 (+25) (-68) Constitution 30 (+15) (-41)
Intelligence 16 (+8) (-22) Wisdom 10 (+5) (-14)
Luck 10 (+5) (-14) Leadership 0 (+0) (-0)
Endurance 60 (+30) (-81) Fighting Spirit 0 (+0) (-0)
¡°What is this?! ERRAND BOY!¡± I shouted. Chapter 2: Like a Gamers life for me It¡¯s been a week since I awoke up in this new body. That day, old man Silan told me many things about this world, he explain it to me how this world works. First he told me that we are in the world of Gaia, and we are in the continent called Agesha, this place, where we at is almost in the boundary of the kingdom of Lumidla, which the reigning king ruled for over a thousand year, this is quite hard to digest, a king who ruled for over a thousand year, but the explanation will wait a little bit later, we are near in the village of Geran that is surrounded by mountainous range and a very dense forest. Old Silan¡¯s house is near the foot of the mountain for he lives alone, his dislike for a crowd is evident in the way he live. Now that the location has been explained, he next told me about its inhabitant. The decedent of this world is like the usual fantasy world, elves, dwarves, humans, and so forth. All the inhabitants of Gaia has a long life, in short, they don¡¯t just die of old age, don¡¯t get me wrong, they are not immortal, they can still die of old age but, it¡¯s quite hard for them to die like that, they¡¯re life span reach for thousands of year, so they mostly likely die of disease, sickness, death of blade, accident, and almost all of the harmful effect to the body, so it¡¯s much more likely they die in this causes than that of old age which is quite rare, for almost all the people that live here in this world has a warlike nature. Now, the other inhabitant of Gaia besides them is us Soulbounder. Which happen every 50,000 years and a few in between 50,000 years. Let me explain how I understand it. The normal inhabitants of this world, when they die, their souls leave their bodies behind, to reincarnate or to pass on or to go wherever the souls go. The bodies that was left behid never decomposed, no that is not the right term to use, maybe in stasis? So in short, the dead bodies became a shell for a soul from the other world to take over. You may think that, why not the local inhabitant take over the bodies, I dont know the answer, but from what i heard, a soul from the same world can¡¯t take overa different bodies from the same world when they die, unless its reincarnation or possesion. The bodies that was left behind, heal itself overtime, till it can¡¯t be a life threatening for the next soul that will inhabit the bodies, but not to the extent of a full body recovery. In short, if my present body has lost a leg or any other limb, it will not regenerate, if that is the case, I will be living in a body with a missing limb. Even if I¡¯m not luckiest, its a good thing thatmy present body has all its limb especially the third leg. For some other Soulbounder who is not as lucky as me, there was some cases in which some unlucky Soulbounder inhabit a charred body, the body healed itself but like I said, not in full recovery, which they walk like a charcoal. The luckiest Soulbounder, based on what old Silan told me based on their history, the Soulbounder inhabit a strong body like a warrior, and some, a body of a King or any other nobility. Which in some of them cuase a dire circumstances that resulted in war. A Soulbounder is quite unique in this world, they may be called the strongest being in this world, for a Soulbounder retains the skill and the stat of the body they inhabited, muscle memory maybe, plus the Soulbound stat that doubles up or maybe more or less depends on what the stat gives, old Silan said Soulbound stat differs from person to person. The Soulbound stat is what made us one of the strongest in this world. But it doesnt mean we are the strongest by default. Like me, I inhabited an errand boy, I may be a Soulbounder, but I''m the weakest Soulbounder out there, a goat can kill me with a headbut. A soul cannot inhabit a body with decapitated head, so the inhabitants of this world, if they don¡¯t want their families, comrades or others that they have a close relationship with, decapitate the head from the bodies, which even if other tries to attach it again to the body, the body won¡¯t heal it. There are also some cases in which fate do the act, like an unlucky fellow who died in some wilderness or left the body unsecured, in this situation, there are chances that the bodies can be ravage by others or devoured by some beast or wild animal, in which leads to a decapitate head. A body without a head, turns back to nature. That was the only method they can avoid being Soulbound. Now, old Silan told me why there is a Soulblounder like me in this world. Every 50,000 years, appear a high condensation of mana, that which everyone wants, even the gods. The gods chose some representative in this world which will do their bidding for they cannot interfere themselves. But there was a big catch here, if the representative isoriginally from this world got the high condensation mana, only half of the high mana condensation the gods will get, the other half return or absorb by Gaia, but if the representative is a soul not from this world they will get more than half of the high mana condensation. This mana condensation is like a food for them, a high class cuisine, and for the person whoacquiredthe mana get a boost in their own power and a reward if they offer it to a god, so it¡¯s a win win situation for both parties, so everybody wants to acquire it, but not everyone can get it. This event cause or ignite a war between kingdoms, for they want to appease or be rewarded by their own god. Soulbounder was summon for this purpose, they arrive years before the mana condense, or arrive much earlier, this will give them time to be prepared and be accustom to their new body before they venture off on this world. A Soulbounder can do anything they want, if they want to search for the mana or not, to take the mana for their own or offer it to god, and or to become stronger or just be lazy. But that is of course if they don¡¯t face any troublesome circumstances like being forced by the kingdom, since they were much more stronger than the inhabitants of this world, many kingdom has find a way for a Soulbonder to work for them, and that was forcing them to work for them before they became stronger. They search for the Soulbonder, not much in the open, when they found one, they corner the Soulbonder then negotiate with them, if not force them to work for them, if this two or other method didn¡¯t work the Soulbonder shall be killed before they became trouble for the kingdom, this is just a rumored though, as Silan told me. The other stuff old Silan told me is about how this world works, this world has its own detail and numerical value, much like in game. If someone had a high grade identify spell, they can almost identify everything, even a pebble just lying in the road has its own detail. They can know where it came from and for how long it was around, they may know if it had some value, for example, someone identify a large rock just by chance, and found nothing, then some other guy with a high grade identify, identified the same rock and it showed that it have a large diamond inside it, that guy would be rich. But who¡¯s stupid enough to identify every rock? Old Silan taught me some basic command and rule, like how to open other windows other than the status window. Like the skill window, resistance window, and other stuff like to show skill description. There was an unspoken rule, don¡¯t show your status to others, even those you trust, if they know how strong or how weak you are, it can be used against you. Next is how to gain skills, you may learn it from other person or you can learn it by yourself, like how I learned calm mind. In this world, every action I make has its own consequences, but what consequences is that, nobody knows, just wish that it is always for your own good. Next he explained about standings. Which now I¡¯m a Commoner Grade 1, standings is like a level in the game. And Commoner Grade 1 is Level 1, a noob in short. Standings is very important in this world, if you don¡¯t have any high standing, you won¡¯t just be accepted by anyone and be weaker than anyone. There are benefits when you upgrade standings, it boost up stats, and you can have a position of power in this world. Commoner Grade 6 can be a village guard and Commoner Grade 10 can be a village mayor. After Commoner Grade 10, it advances to Nobility Grade 1 which you can be a knight or a baron, the higher position in nobility can gain a much higher position in the kingdom, Nobility Grade 8 can be a king, after Nobility grade 10 is High Nobility Grade 1 which can be a High King, then High Nobility Grade 3 can be an Emperor and 5 can be a Saint. After High Nobility 10, nobody knows, because nobody still reach High Nobility 6, and there was only one emperor and two saints in all of Gaia¡¯s History. You can advance in standings by making some accomplishments in this world, which is not easy, the accomplishment must be recognize by the gods or by Gaia herself. And the last is how to register a name, I need to go to a temple, any temple with an altar, so I can register a name. I ask why this body doesn¡¯t have a name, old Silan told me that all body doesn¡¯t have a name, but the soul does. That¡¯s why, when Garret died, this bodies name has been erased in the status window. I need to reregister it to the temple so I can have a name, if not, any accomplishment I make won¡¯t be distinguish by this world. And I need to have an Identification Tablet, if I don¡¯t have it, I can¡¯t enter any large town or cities, and I can¡¯t take jobs or quest in the guilds which is quite also important in making some accomplishments. I can still use Garret¡¯s Identification tablet, but if I used it I can get caught and face a punishment which is a ban to take any job and quest in any guilds, which is bad. But I can still use it as a way to hide my identity as a Soulbond, so I will still keep it. To get an Identification Tablet, I must request it to the mage guild then go to a temple and drop a blood on the tablet. I must think this truly on how to get an Identification Tablet without them knowing that I¡¯am a Soulbond later. After old Silan¡¯s explaining, we had a little chat, I ask some few question for him to clarify and he answer it. After that he left the room and return bringing a bowl of soup and something to drink. He told me that after I ate to take a rest so I can regain my strength back immediately. Then he leave me alone for the day. After he left, I realize that I was hungry, I ate the soup, while trying to digest what he told me. At first I was happy, very happy, because I realize that my previous body didn¡¯t betray me, my body sacrifice itself to save my soul. I was crying again when I thought that, my precious body, so I decided in honor for my previous body¡¯s sacrifice, I must train this skinny body. I need to make a plan on how I will go on from now on. Old Silan told me that I have two months to decide on what to do, because it¡¯s still in middle of winter period in this place, my first plan was to rest so that my weakness buff will be gone, then exercise this body so I can also remove the atrophy stat. After that, I need to retrain this body, like how I train my previous life, every man needs a muscle to show. Then find someone who can teach me how to use weapons and make me stronger. That means I need to grind. I must live with a gamer mindset. Before I sleep I looked up what this body has for a skills.
Identify (Active) Apprentice Grade 9 (75.89% to the next grade)
Shows detail of an object The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.The higher the Grade of this skill, will have much more detail on the object that was identified
Running (Passive) Apprentice Grade 10 (10.11% to the next grade)
You run much faster and tire much slower +50% to running speed The Higher the Grade of this skill will make you run much faster and tire much slower
Hiding (Active) Apprentice Grade 8 (55.01% to the next grade)
You won¡¯t be found easier +50% blending in to the surroundings The higher the Grade of this skill will make you blend to the surroundings a little better
Tough Skin (Passive) Apprentice Grade 9 (20.20% to the next grade)
You won¡¯t feel much pain if you get hit +9% to Physical Defense The higher the Grade of this skill will make your Physical Defense much higher
Weight Reduce (Passive) Apprentice Grade 6 (35.53% to the next grade)
You feel that the weight you carries in your body is much lighter -10% to the original weight of the object you carries The higher the grade of this skill will have much more effect in the object you carry
Crafting (Passive) Apprentice Grade 4 (40.08% to the next grade)
A craft skill or a combination of craft skill to make a new product. +8% to all crafting skill The higher the grade of this skill affects much better to overall crafting skills
Smith Crafting (Passive) Apprentice Grade 3 (35.78% to the next grade)
To craft something new out of ores, with the use of fire, water and force Enhance the created item by 9% The higher the grade of this skill enhances the created item much better
Tailor Crafting (Passive) Apprentice Grade 2 (89.90% to the next grade)
To craft something new out of clothing materials or the like. Enhance the created item by 6% The higher the grade of this skill enhances the created item much better
Cook Crafting (Passive) Apprentice Grade 6 (64.45% to the next grade)
To create a food out of raw edible materials Enhance the created item by 12% The higher the grade of this skill enhances the created item much better
This is all the skill Garret learned plus the skill I learned earlier Calm Mind, the skill this body has learned show how he has been order around and how he was bullied a lot. So that¡¯s why he¡¯s title is Errand Boy. Sigh~¡­ I better put it in a good use. It¡¯s still a good thing, in a game, crafting skill will help you a lot. Well his skill are all in defensive type like tough skin. He must learned it while he was being beaten by others, poor guy. Now, to check this body¡¯s resistance.
Elemental Resistance
Fire 10 (+2) (-6) Water 10 (+2) (-6)
Earth 10 (+2) (-6) Wind 10 (+2) (-6)
Light 10 (+2) (-6) Dark 10 (+2) (-6)
After taking a look at my skills and resistance, I ended my day and took a rest. 3 days after that, my weakness status has gone, in that three days, I was so thankful to old Silan for taking care of me but also annoyed because he keeps slapping my head, he said it became a habit doing it to Garret. I better stay away from the other villagers at the moment. At that time I ask old Silan how Garret died in the middle of the snow and never been found for 2 months. He told me what the villagers said, that maybe Garret can¡¯t take it anymore the bullying done to him by the other people. Garret was an orphan of war, he was brought here when he was just 6 to be adopted by his aunt, but his aunt died 2 years later. Since then he became a target by other children who was a native in this village till he was 16 which is the age he also died. Since he has no relatives in this village, no one notice that he was missing except to those person who receive his help like the crafters and those that bullied him, no one cared much for him, so they just thought that he just left the village and never searched for him. What will happen if I return there with a stronger Garret body? Also on that third day, I started trying to move my body, since weakness stat was no more, my body doesn¡¯t feel that much tired, I tried to stand up first, after many rest and many tries I finally got myself to stand up without my hands supporting myself. After some quick rest, I repeatedly do standing and sitting up, so I can get used to it. Walking is still beyond my reach that day. In the succeeding days, I added some light stretching in my routine, and I gradually added some other routine if my body can take it. After a week, I started to walked, at first just inside the house, then if it¡¯s a clear weather, I walked outside the house, the route was just around the house because there¡¯s still a pile of snow in the surrounding place. I also started helping old Silan in some small chores like cleaning and cooking, I want to repay his kindness for taking care of me. Another week after that, atrophy stat was gone for good, now I was in my full strength, I started training my body like how I used to be that day. First thing in the morning I started running for about 10 kilometers, but just in the boundary of the place, I don¡¯t want to get lost, what more surprising was, when I was running I gain some stats and some experience in running skills. Theres a soft tune warning me inside my head then some window notifying me that I can some stat.
You gained 1 stat to Agility
You gained 1 stat to Endurance
You gained 1 stat to Constitution
When I finished running, I accumulated a total of 3 stat in Agility, 2 stat of Constitution and 5 stat to Endurance, which made me quite happy, oh this precious stat. After running I helped old Silan in preparing for breakfast. After we ate breakfast, I do some cleaning around the house and take some quick rest after that. I continued my training after some quick rest, which is calisthenics, push-ups, sit-ups, and some weight lifting. I gained some stats in strength, agility, dexterity, vitality, and endurance doing this things. I keep doing this for two more weeks except running when there¡¯s a bad weather, I also gained some level in running skill which leveled up to Journeyman Rank 1.
Running (Passive) Journeyman Grade 1 (0.11% to the next grade)
You run much faster and tire much slower +57% to running speed The Higher the Grade of this skill will make you run much faster and tire much slower
Aside from this, my cooking skills also got a level up and I gained so much stat. I also learned some new skill that help me a lot.
Training (Passive) Apprentice Grade 2 (63.70% to the next grade)
Your action of undertaking a course of exercise and other extraneous activity to prepare the body 2 times training more effective The higher the grade of this skill enhances the training much better
This skill is quite OP, when I train my body it boost much more stat that I can get, 1 stat every 100 push-ups or so that I do became 2 times more with this skill, but since I also have my Soulbound status that made every passive skill 3 times more effective, my training skill became 6 times more effective, so instead of getting just 1 stat every time I train it became 6 stat. with this skill I¡¯ll get stronger much faster than anyone. That¡¯s why they said that a Soulbound is much stronger than any other else in this world. ¡°Show Status Window¡±
Status Window
Name Need to be registered
Title Errand Boy
Standings Commoner Grade 1
Status Soulbound
Strength 83 (+41) Agility 98 (+49)
Dexterity 110 (+55) Constitution 88 (+44)
Intelligence 16 (+8) Wisdom 10 (+5)
Luck 10 (+5) Leadership 0 (+0)
Endurance 130 (+65) Fighting Spirit 0 (+0)
With this routine, I spend over a month in this world already, and I think it¡¯s time to learn something new. So that morning, after my morning run and were about to eat breakfast I talk to old man Silan. ¡°Mr. Silan, I have a favor to ask of you.¡± I said ¡°oh, and what is that? This is the first time you ask of me like this.¡± Old Silan replied ¡°Can you teach me your Skill?¡± Chapter 3 Chapter 3: Training and other things ¡°What skills are you talking about? Do you want to be a hunter?¡± Old Silan ask ¡°No, I don¡¯t want to be hunter, I want to learn how survive on my own.¡± I immediately said ¡°Is that so? I thought for once that you want to be a Hunter. I guess it¡¯s alright since I quite like you how you help me around the house.¡± ¡°No, no, no,¡± I immediately refuted old Silan. ¡°I help around the house because I want to repay your kindness to me, that¡¯s why I¡¯m asking this for a favor, I¡¯ll be in your debt again.¡± I said while bowing my head. ¡°Ho, Ho, Ho! What a nice kid, if Garret is like that, then I would surely help him, okay, since you asked nicely, I¡¯ll teach what I know, but remember, I¡¯m a strict teacher.¡± Old Silan said while being happy. ¡°OKAY! Thank you Mr. Silan¡± I enthusiastically said ¡°Now, before I teach you something, why do you want to learn?¡± old Silan asked me ¡°I want to learn how survive out there, I need to learn how to hunt, so I can have food.¡± I answered ¡°Your right about that, if you want to survive in this world, you must eat. Okay from now on follow my orders with no question ask, if I said jump you jump, I don''t even care if you jump out of the cliff, just do what I order you to do, now, wait for me outside after cleaning up.¡± Old Silan told me. After cleaning up the dishes, old Silan went up somewhere inside the house, I went outside and waited for him to come, half an hour he still doesn¡¯t comes out, he doesn¡¯t know why he¡¯s taking that long for him to come out. Its cold outside, even if the snow has started to melt, it¡¯s still winter, and the breeze brings chills down thru his bones. But he keeps waiting, he paced back and forth, after an hour he decided to enter the house and to look if there¡¯s something up. When he remembered what the old man told him earlier, ¡°Okay from now on follow my orders with no question ask, if I said jump you jump I don''t even care if you jump out of the cliff, just do what I order you to do, now, wait for me outside after cleaning up.¡± Why did he said it to me that way? He said to follow he¡¯s order form now own even if it¡¯s to jump out of a cliff, no question ask, if he order me to jump I jump, ahh he ordered me to wait. He must testing me. Now that he analyzed by the way old Silan said his words. He revoked his decision to go inside the house, instead, he just sit outside the door and lean his back on to the door. he waited for old Silan to come out, he waited for an hour more and still Old Silan doesn¡¯t come out, he watched the surroundings around the house, now that he noticed it, this house is surrounded with trees, even though they were covered with snow at the moment, you can still see how majestic they are. You can also tell that the snow added an innocent look about them. After about an hour of looking around, I ran out of things to do, I can¡¯t do my regular training outside the house, it will only get me seat then be a lot much colder afterwards, so I just sit there doing nothing. But then, I noticed my hand, it really is different than my previous body. It¡¯s still skinny, but now it¡¯s starting to shape up. My training has started to paying, it will take much time, but I have all the time I need, before it can be like my previous body, my previous body that¡¯s like a character from dragon ball, I¡¯m a fan of that anime, whose not? But this body is not like a character form dragon ball, it like out from the character of Noblesse, especially the face. This is quite an ugly face, it¡¯s not even had the ounce of being a manlier type of face, much more like girlier type of face, with a black color hair and length over my shoulders, I want to cut it, but old man Silan was against it, I don¡¯t know why, he may had his own reason that he doesn¡¯t want to tell me. My previous face that is so handsome. That every crook and cranny has a sign that says this is a man¡¯s face. Sigh~, I let out a deep breath just thinking of this, oh well nothing that I can do about this, maybe I¡¯ll put it some scars later so at least it can have a bit of a man¡¯s face. As I was mulling about my body and face, I didn¡¯t noticed that I waited again for another hour, but then I was surprised, because that soft tune that always warns me in my head if I learn something new or if I had gain another stat has sounded.
You learned a skill ¡°Patience¡±
Patience (Passive) Apprentice Grade 1 (0.00% to the next grade)
You have the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset Doubles up the effect of your action or when you strike at the right time The higher the grade of this skill enhances the effect of this skill much better
¡°Wow!¡± I was so shocked that I learned another useful skill and its passive, now im starting to like passive skill so much. With my Soulbound stat it became 6 times more effective. I don¡¯t know where I can use this skill but my gamer instinct told me that this one useful skill. Then at the time, old Silan decided to show up. He open the door where I was leaning my back making me fall backward. ¡°Really? You already learned that skill?¡± he asked me ¡°You know that I learned something new?¡± I asked back ¡°No, im just guessing with your reaction, so tell me, what did you learned, if my guess is correct, then finally we can start the training.¡± Old Silan told me. ¡°I learned Patience skill. Is this it?¡± I asked ¡°Yes that¡¯s it, I thought that I need to wait for another or two before you learned that skill, I guess I was wrong.¡± Old Silan said ¡°Huh? Youre planning for me to wait for that long?!¡± I asked shocked from what I heard ¡°That¡¯s not long for you Soulbounder, you guys learn fast, I ¡®am the one that was shocked, because you already learn that skill it takes about a week for normal guys to learn that skill and days for Soulbounder, but you, you only take hours to learn that skill, maybe you have a really long patience or something.¡± Old Silan explained. ¡°Really, so why do I need to learn this skill?¡± I asked ¡°Tsk, I thought you already learned the skill Patience, but here you are not waiting for me to tell you.¡± Old Silan refuted me ¡°Sorry¡± I said bowing my head ¡°Oh well, youngsters this day, anyway, this skill is really valuable in a hunter, my mater didn¡¯t teach me anything before I learn this skill. Every hunter needs its patience when stalking a deer, which sometimes takes days before you can track one, and you need a lot of patience to know when the right time to strike is. Miss that time and you miss the prey. That¡¯s how important that skill is.¡± Old Silan told me ¡°Thanks Mr. Silan¡± I said with sincerity ¡°Thanks for what?¡± Old Silan asked me ¡°Thanks for spending your time teaching me, I really appreciate it.¡± I said ¡°Hehehe, youre making me blush, anyway the real training start from now, here, come inside first I ave something to show you.¡± Old silan said. We enter the house, inside near the living room was an array of bows lined up about 15 of them, its looks the same yet not the same, they come in different shape and size, some are recurve bow and some are straight limb bow, how do I know this? Because I¡¯m quite a weapon maniac. The bows are made of wood in different kind of shades, some are light brown and some are with darker shade. ¡°I got all of this from my storage, they were my old bows, I made some of them some are given and some are bought. Choose one, you need an appropriate bow to use.¡± Old Silan told me and instructed me to choose one ¡°But try this first, maybe this is the one¡± Old Silan said as I was amazed and drooling while looking at different kinds of bow, he handed me the smallest size of straight limb bow. I took it from his hand. ¡°Try drawing it first.¡± Old Silan instructed me. I did whate asked me to do. I hold the bow to my left hand then hold it in position and as I was about to pull up the string, old Silan stopped me and fixed my position, instructing me how to use the bow, when he was done instructing me, I pulled the string, I pulled it easily making the bow bend much more, old Silan immediately stopped me. ¡°I guess I was wrong again, you almost break the bow.¡± He said ¡°I¡¯m sorry¡± I said ¡°No, it¡¯s not your fault that I chose wrongly. Here try this one.¡± He handed me another bow, I tried it like earlier, but this time it was not as easier as the other one, it¡¯s much heavier. ¡°Good, that¡¯s a 45 pound bow, the earlier one was 35 pound bow. I want to try it first so I can know your draw strength, but my guess was wrong, I forgot that you¡¯re not Garret anymore with a weak body and also I forgot that you are training yourself every day with that weird thing you do.¡± Old Silan explained. Does he say weird? So this guys doesn¡¯t know what kind of exercise I was doing? Anyway, I don¡¯t want to explain what kind of things I was doing, it will just make me weirder for him. ¡°Here, try this one, this is the heavier bow I had here other than the one I¡¯m using right now, it¡¯s a 100 pound bow, try drawing it.¡± He handed me another bow. So I tried it like the other two, but this time, it is a lot harder than the first two, I barely pull the string thru my cheeks. ¡°So you already had the strength to pull this kind of bow. Good, this will be much easier, now, you can already choose what kind of bow you want to use. Go on pick¡± he said. I looked at the different kind of bow that was lined up, and I choose the bow that he handed me last. It¡¯s a recurve bow with a black shade of wood. ¡°This one, I liked this one.¡± I said to the old man. ¡°So you chose a recurve bow other than the straight limb bow, okay, here carry this.¡± As he said that, old Silan started picking up different kinds of recurve bow, he got about 5 recurve bow and handed it to me. ¡°Come, follow me outside, we¡¯re going to start your training.¡± He instructed. I followed him outside, he was headed at the side of the house were there was shack. He asked me to put the bows in the side wall of the house away from the snow. Then he asked me help him to get some things inside the shack. What we got inside the shack was dozens of dozens of arrows in a quiver and some pole covered with straws, it¡¯s like a training dummy. He asked me to line up the training dummy in a straight line, after we are finished lining up the straw dummy, he walked away for about 15 meters from it and draw a line in the ground. He asked me to follow him where the bows is. ¡°Identify this bows.¡± He told me, I did what he asked me to do. ¡°Identify¡±
Simple Recurve Bow
A 55 pound recurve bow that was handmade by a skilled hunter.
Damage10-15Durability20/20
+5 to Dexterity
Recurve Bow
A 65 pound recurve bow that was handmade by a skilled hunter.
Damage15-20Durability25/25
+7 to Dexterity
Hunter¡¯s Recurve Bow
A 75 pound recurve bow that was handmade by a skilled hunter.
Damage25-30Durability30/30
+10 to Dexterity +7 to Agility
Artisan¡¯s Recurve Bow
A 85 pound recurve bow that was made by a skilled Artisan from a Yew Wood
Damage35-45Durability40/40
+15 to Dexterity +10 to Agility
Recurve Bow of Elk
A 100 pound recurve bow that was made by a skilled bow maker from an Elk horn and a Black Yew Wood
Damage55-70Durability55/55
+25 to Dexterity +17 to Agility +1 grade to Bow Proficiency Skill
Wow, this is all a good bow, and I guess that some of it was made by old man Silan himself, I better asked him later to teach me how to make one. As I was finished inspecting all the bow, old man Silan started to instruct what im going to do. He first pick the weakest bow out of the five he already picked, and gave it to me, he told me to stand behind the line that he draw on the ground and face the straw dummy, he asked me to wear the quiver with arrow on it behind my back. He thought me how to draw an arrow in the quiver, frist the bow was facing downward as I draw an arrow with my right hand, then put it in the bow while it was facing downward, nock it to the string, then as I pulled the string, I move the bow upward till it was in the right shooting position and the string that I pulled touched my cheeks. He asked me to aim at the last straw dummy in the line and wait 3 second before I released the arrow. I did what he said and I missed big time. I was using just the 55 pound bow with a distance of more than 15 meters from the target, since I¡¯m standing in front of the straw dummy that was in the middle of the line. The one that I show was angled from my position since it was the farthest from my left side. My shot went wide and the arrow went off 10 meters behind the straw dummy impaling itself into the snow. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°Now good, repeat that till you shot 10 arrows in that straw dummy even if it misses, then move on the next and to the same till the last straw dummy.¡± Old man Silan said as if he didn¡¯t see how I embarrassed myself by missing it big time. ¡°How was that good? I didn¡¯t even graze it.¡± I said feeling down and embarrass. ¡°That was okay because it was your first time. If it hit the first time, I¡¯m the one who will be shocked and maybe kill of myself. Now don¡¯t be so down, and just practice till you hit it. Remember that everyone has come the same way as you, even me, I missed my first shot. Now do it again, and remember what I said. Wait 3 seconds before you release the arrow and 10 arrow per straw dummy. If you emptied the quiver just get some here then put it in the quiver, if you shot all the arrow, picked them up before continuing, you better picked them all up, not one bit missing even if it¡¯s broken or I¡¯ll kill you, remember that.¡± Old man Silan said ¡°Okay¡± I responded ¡°If you want to take a rest just rest, but remember to take care of the bow and arrows first so they won¡¯t lose durability in this weather. If you shot all the target without missing even one arrow, call me. I¡¯ll take this other bow first inside.¡± Old man Silan said, then he went inside the house with the other bows. I continued shooting the target, doing what old man Silan instructed me to do. Draw an arrow, nocked the arrow, pull and aim at the target, wait 3 second then released. I do it over and over again till it became a monotonous action for me, draw, nocked, aim, wait, and shot. After I depleted my arrows on both my quiver and the stock, I went out to get the arrows, not even one arrow hit the target but some graze it, it¡¯s still considered a miss. Finding arrows was much harder than shooting it there was about a hundred arrows lying there waiting to found and be picked up. After doing it sometimes, there was a message saying that I earned some stat.
You gained 6 stat to Dexterity
After some time again I gained another stat
You gained 6 stat to Endurance
From time to time I gained some stat in agility and endurance, rarely in strength and constitution, and much more frequently in dexterity. As I continued doing this monotonous action I gained a new skill.
You learned a skill ¡°Bow Proficiency¡±
Bow Proficiency (Passive)Apprentice Grade 1 (0.00 to the next grade)
You are more familiarize handling a bow +5% in bow damage You tire much slower when using a bow The higher the grade of this skill enhances your proficiency when using a bow
I did this 3 more times before lunch, I didn¡¯t even noticed that it was lunch time till old man Silan called for me. I cleaned up and headed inside. I was a little bit down when we were eating lunch and old man Silan didn¡¯t say anything, he must felt what I ¡®am feeling right now, I said sorry to him for not helping him making lunch, but he said it was okay and doing lunch is easy. So I just help me cleaning up the dishes, after cleaning up I rested a bit because my drawing shoulder started to get muscle pains, I massage it before continuing the practice, as I rest, I replay in my mind what I did, so I can do better later. After resting up, I went back outside to practice. This time I did much better than earlier, some of my arrows hit the target and mostly of them graze it and few are misses. I did it over and over again till the afternoon. I decided to clean up and continue my practice tomorrow. When I was finished, I help old man Silan to prepare some dinner, after dinner and cleaning dishes, I went to bed, I reviewed what I did all day then went to sleep. When I woke up the next day, I did my morning routine which is running, breakfast, and exercise, after that, I went to set up the straw dummies and started practicing again the whole day, then reviewed what I learned before going to sleep. I did this 3 more days till I got frustrated about losing arrow in my quiver and picking up to replenish it from time to time. So I decided to make a new quiver which hangs behind my waist with my tailoring skills. I remodeled one quiver so instead of having a belt that hang in my shoulder, it became a belt that hang in my waist and the arrows end was peeking out my right side. I did some adjustment so the arrows won¡¯t fall off even if I move. Now that I have two quivers, one behind my shoulder and the other one behind my waist. I can draw arrows now in two ways, one drawing behind my shoulder and the other one drawing at my side, but it was not easy drawing at my side and nocking it, so I practice a bit till I became proficient as drawing behind my back. As a way to escape boredom in this monotonous action, I tried interchanging which quiver I draw with and sometimes just drawing at one quiver at a time. Finally, on my fifth day, I shot all the target without missing one. I called for old man SIlan to show it to him. He was a bit impressed that I did it in only five days, then he adjust the distance of the line where I shoot at, he added 5 more meters so now the distance between me and the target is 20 meters. He told me to take a shot again and call for him when I hit all the target. It take me half the day before I can get all the target, I called old man Silan again to show that I can shot the target without missing, now he was impressed, not just with how I can hit the target, but also with my innovation with the quivers, he just didn¡¯t told me earlier so I won¡¯t have a big head, then he told me to help him move some of the targets. He put some of the targets a little farther than the other and some are like hiding behind the other target. After that he told me to practice again at the same distance as the last one. It took me 2 days to hit all the target without hitting the target that the other target was hiding behind. I showed it again to the old man Silan and this time he praised me. I felt proud to myself that day. Old man Silan took the bow that I¡¯m using and gave me the other bow, this time it was the 65 pound bow. He asked me to repeat the process I did as the first one. So I lined up the straw dummy again and take a shot from 15 meters, it was discomforting at first, my first shot just graze the target, old man Silan told me that was because I¡¯m using a more powerful bow than the first one I was accustomed with, I need to adjust myself so I can utilize the new bow like how I utilize the first one, it took me a few tries before I can hit the target dead-on. ¡°Mr. Silan can I ask why am I doing this? I can just use the strongest one to practice right?¡± I asked the old man ¡°Yes, you can use the strongest one right away I guess, but you won¡¯t get any stronger that way. Not physically but mentally. Imagine if you use the stronger bow right away and become accustomed to it for a long time, then one day it broke and you need to use a weaker one, what will happen?¡± He asked me ¡°Ahh, I guess I will miss a lot like earlier and it will take me a long time to adjust.¡± I said ¡°No, it will impossible for you to adjust, because you are already accustomed to a much powerful bow for a long time. Remember, there is no shortcut in getting powerful it will only lead to death. Now enough talking and more practicing.¡± Old man Silan finished our talk and went inside the house. I started practicing again, it took me 4 days to do what I can do on the previous bow, when I was able to do what I can do on the first bow, old man Silan change my bow again. It took me 3 weeks practicing with all the bow and learned another useful skill.
You learned a skill ¡°Focus¡±
Focus (Passive) Apprentice Grade 1 (0.00% to the next grade)
You had the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition Doubles up the effect of your action on the things you pursue The higher the grade of this skill enhances the effect of this skill much better
With that done, old man Silan gave me the Recurve Bow of Elk and the two quivers that I¡¯m using as a gift. I was happy and very thankful to old man Silan, I hug him to show my appreciation, and it felt like I had a father again. He gave me pat and told me some things. ¡°Now that you are proficient to the bow, I can start teaching you how to survive now. Here take this, it¡¯s my old hunting knife.¡± He handed me a small hunting knife, I receive it gratefully. ¡°Starting tomorrow, I will teach how to hunt and survive in the forest. Since it doesn¡¯t snow that much anymore and there¡¯s only a few more snow that has not yet melt, it¡¯s basically spring in a week¡¯s time. It¡¯s safe to say we can venture off just a little bit inside the forest, we can stay there for a week to hunt. So take a rest now and I will prepare what we will need tomorrow.¡± After old man Silan said that, he let me off. I went to my room with my gifts. I reviewed all the things I did this past few weeks and check my growth. I noticed that the training skills has its limits as well, I won¡¯t just gain some stats if I do the same amount of training or practice as I did, I must doubles up the amount of training or practice to gain some stat again or do a different kind of training to gain some stats. Some of the skills won¡¯t get much percent in gaining grade when they reach Journeyman stage, in all the weeks I did my running every morning, my running skill stay at the same Grade 1 with only half of its percent to reach the next grade. I need to ask this to old man Silan next time. ¡°Show Status Window¡±
Status Window
NameNeed to be registered
TitleErrand Boy
StandingsCommoner Grade 1
StatusSoulbound
Strength114 (+57)Agility 140 (+70)
Dexterity155 (+77)Constitution 105 (+52)
Intelligence16 (+8)Wisdom 10 (+5)
Luck10 (+5)Leadership 0 (+0)
Endurance181 (+90)Fighting Spirit 0 (+0)
Chapter 4 Chapter 4: My First Adventure and a Cat Next day, old man Silan wake me up much earlier than the usual time I wake up by my own. I don¡¯t know what this is all about, waking me up in almost in the middle of the night, then I remembered that the old man will bring to the forest to teach me how to hunt. I almost jump out of the bed being so excited at what will happen from now on. My first hunting, never thought that a day like this will come to my life. All I want in my previous life was to earn some money to buy that game console, and head off to play a game, but this, this is a real life hunting, who won¡¯t be excited on that prospect? I immediately fix myself up, I dressed up hurriedly and rushed off to the living room, which old man Silan was already waiting with two small pack, two water skin, a book, and a few camping gear, he was also holding his own bow and arrows, as I remembered that, I rushed back off to my room to get old man Silan¡¯s gifts the previous day, the bow and the quivers, and the old hunting knife. I rushed back to the living room after picking my things. ¡°Let¡¯s go Mr. Silan¡± I said while coming out ¡°What¡¯s the rushed?¡± Asked old man Silan ¡°You know, I¡¯m just excited for this day and the days to come.¡± I immediately said with a big wide smile on my face. ¡°Excited about what?¡± He said ¡°Hunting? You¡¯re going to teach me right?¡± I asked with anticipation ¡°Oh, I thought you¡¯re excited to die.¡± He replied ¡°DIE! ME?! DIEEEEE! WH¡­¡­¡­¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°Are you calm now?¡± old Silan asked me from above, I didn¡¯t know what just happened right now, I was lying in the floor face first. Why was I lying in floor? Then it hit me, my head started to hurt. That hitting in my head thing didn¡¯t happen this past few weeks that I already forgot about it. Now that I started to remember it again, I began to shudder, I forgot how scary old man SIlan is. I curled my body in the floor while holding my hurting head with both hands and nod. ¡°NOD¡± ¡°NOD¡± ¡°Good, now let me explain why you are so excited to die, First you rushed of forgetting your things which is not good, you must always be prepared, next, you are not prepared, look at what you wear, even though what you¡¯re wearing right now is okay around the house, it not okay inside the forest which is still full of snow. It will be freezing cold out there.¡± Old man Silan said ¡°But this all I have, this is all the things you gave me aside from the clothes Garret wear when he died is all I had.¡± I mumbled ¡°I know, but that is not the point, you must find a way to prepare yourself, even if it means you need to beg. I¡¯m here you just need to ask, but you didn¡¯t asked and tried to rush off being overly excited which was the cause you forgot to ask. It will get you killed someday, so better be it a lesson for you not to be overly excited. Do you understand?¡± he asked me, I just nodded still lying on the floor. ¡°Get up¡± he said, so I got up while rubbing my head. ¡°And the last reason why you are heading off to die is because you are not patient enough, you just comes here saying let¡¯s go Mr. Silan which is the sign of being overly excited. You didn¡¯t waited for me to explain some things to you. Do you know what to do once we headed out?¡± Old man Silan asked, ¡°SHAKES¡± ¡°SHAKES¡± I just shook my head feeling remorseful. ¡°Sorry Mr. Silan¡± I apologize sincerely ¡°Good that you understand, now let me explain first, here are some of my old cloak wear it after you equip your things, it would not hamper your arrows on the back of your shoulder when your drawing, I don¡¯t know about the one on your waist, so better try it first so you can adjust it or cope with it.¡± Old man Silan said while he handed me an Old Gray fur cloak. I started equipping my quivers first then put the old hunting knife sheath on my belt then REPLACEed the knife itself when it was secured. When I was done, I put on the cloak, it didn¡¯t really hamper the arrow behind my shoulder but the arrows behind my waist keeps poking out the cloak and making it unable to be closed on the middle, so I adjusted my quiver on the waist making it a bit in an angled position pointing upwards, this would unsettle a bit on the way how I draw an arrow from waist, need to practice a bit later so I can accustom to this small change, but at least I can now close my cloak to hide me from elements. I need to find a way to fixed this later on if I had time. As I finished equipping, old Silan started to explain again. ¡°Good, you better find a way later on to that, it may be a matter of life and death later. Next, here is a small pack, equip this also, then this your water skin, just hang it on your belt, now this book, I will give this to you, study it when we make camp, it¡¯s about herbs and plants, and its uses. It had some illustration of what herbs and plants look like and how to gather them, it also had a description if it¡¯s poisonous or can be used in medicinal purpose, if it¡¯s edible, and many other things. This is the only book that I had, and I¡¯m giving it to you, so take care of it. Cover it with this clothe so it won¡¯t get wet by moisture and put it on your pack, as we are on our way later, I will point some herb or plants to you, and teach you how will gather it and tell you it¡¯s uses, that book is just a guide for now, because some of the herbs and plant that was listed on it doesn¡¯t grow on winter season. Lastly, this camping gear, which is some cooking utensils and some blanket, we won¡¯t bring a tent with us, we will find a cave or a hallow tree to camp at. Much better this way so you may learn not to depend on a camping tent. I didn¡¯t say that it is wrong to depend on a camping tent, but I ¡®am teaching you right now not to depend on it, so later on, you will know what to do if you don¡¯t have one. Do you get all of it?¡± Old man Silan asked after he explained ¡°I get the gist of it, quite long actually.¡± I said honestly ¡°That¡¯s okay, I¡¯ll just remind it to you later, much better than you didn¡¯t understand anything. Now we are prepared, pick up your bow and lets go.¡± He ended our discussion there and head out, I followed old man Silan out of the house, he locks up the door after we got out of the house, then we headed into the woods. At first, we just walked quietly, old man Silan lead the way and I just followed behind me, our direction was mostly headed due east. I can¡¯t see what lay in front of us or around us because it¡¯s still dark, but I was familiar with this place if it¡¯s just this far from the house because I already took this route when I¡¯m running. After a few more hours of walking, the lay of the land started to became unknown to me, but old man Silan by the way how he walks, tells that he knows this place like the back of his hands. After a few more hours of walking and still our direction is still due east, the trees became denser, and even though the snow has started to melt, it¡¯s still a bit deep that our boots sink on to the snow, this place is still untouched by humans in this time of the year, and the place is to quite, no sounds of any sign of animals or beast, what you can only hear is our breath and the crunch of our boots digging into the snow. An hour later, the forest started to lighten up, it seems the sun has started rising up. I can now distinguish the trees and the path that we are heading. After a few minutes, old man Silan stopped abruptly and raised his hand in a gesture to make me stop on my tracks. ¡°Do you hear that?¡± he asked in a small voice. ¡°Hear what?¡± I asked But instead of answering me, old man Silan nocked an arrow to his bow and looked up into the trees, he was focusing his hearing in the sounds that he heard. Then in a swift movement, he pulled his arrow, aim then released, then what I heard next is a muffled ¡°THUD¡± then something falling and hitting the snow on the ground. ¡°Breakfast¡± old man Silan answered my previous question casually and with a hint of smile in his eyes. Then he headed out in to the direction where he shot at. It¡¯s about 15 meters away from where he take the shot, what lay there was a bird impaled by old man SIlan¡¯s arrow in the chest. ¡°How did you do that?!¡± I asked feeling shocked and amaze to the old man. ¡°Hohoho, are you that amazed at me, it shows in your face.¡± He said, so I fixed my expression and ask again. ¡°Of course with skills and years of practice. You didn¡¯t think did you that I just walk thru hear like I memorized the entire forest. Of course I didn¡¯t, even if I memorized the whole forest I would be lost out here because I can¡¯t see the way, it¡¯s still dark earlier and it just started to light up.¡± He said ¡°Then how did you do that?¡± I asked again ¡°You learned focus did you when you were training with the bow?¡± ¡°NOD¡± I nodded. ¡°I used Focused while walking, I focus on my senses, especially what I smell, heard, and felt, so I can have a keen hearing and a sharp sense of what I can felt, so I can stay alert, and with that also I can smell if I¡¯m about to hit a tree in front of me, since tress have a distinctive smell. Because of that, I heard this bird rustle atop of that tree and then used patience so I can strike at the right time. Do you understand? I¡¯m starting to teach you now on how to use your skills, so you better remember. Now help me unpluck this bird so we can start to cook it, I¡¯ll teach you the proper way of butchering things.¡± He said He thought me the right way to pluck feathers and how to proper butcher them, he said that I can use the feathers later on to make some arrows so I better hide it. Then he ask me to gather some woods to make a fire, he said I can pick any woods that was lying around since it¡¯s dry because of cold. He thought me how make fire in different ways, when the fire was going, he put a pot atop of it and put some snow inside the pot, we waited till the snow melt and started to boil, then he put the butchered bird meat, some salt, and some dried herbs he already carried. As we are waiting for the bird meat to be cooked, I reviewed what old man Silan said. I realize that I can use a passive skill that way, I don¡¯t need to activate it or chant some words for it work, and I just need to be aware of it and put myself in that state. This kind of passive skill is like an automatic buff, like calm mind, if I¡¯m in that state it would buff me up. So I better put myself into focus, and focus it on my senses. I closed my eyes and started focusing on my senses, something amazing happen in what I sense, at first it was just some hazy feeling, then it became distinct, I can now smell some things that I didn¡¯t smelt first, the forest smell quite refreshing, the smoke coming from the fire, and the bird meat that was getting cooked, it made me hungry, then I hear much clearer, I can hear some distinct rustle around us but I still can¡¯t pinpoint where it was coming from except from the movements old Silan was doing, my skin was tingling on what I felt, I can feel the clothe that I wear much clearer as if I just wear it right now, but there is a downside in this feeling, I felt much colder but it¡¯s still bearable, then I slowly opened my eyes, what I saw amazed me more, the world is full of color, like I never seen it before, I looked around our temporary campsite, I found myself looking in a new way on how to perceive the world, it was so beautiful. ¡°Good, you started to learn how to use your skills. Keep doing it till you learned a new skill ¡°Heighten Senses¡±. Old man Silan said ¡°Really? I can learn new skill by just doing this?¡± I asked ¡°Yes, it¡¯s a secret taught to me by my master, it took me a long time before I learned it.¡± He said ¡°Then why are teaching it to me?¡± I asked ¡°I don¡¯t know, I just felt like it, and it¡¯s not really that rare of a skill, many great warriors have that skill, I guess they learned it not knowing how, warriors honed their skills in a battlefield so maybe they learned it there, but what my master taught me is how to learn it by not putting my life in danger.¡± He explained ¡°Thank you Mr. Silan for teaching me, really, I¡¯m in your debt again and it¡¯s piling up fast.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, I¡¯m having fun teaching you. Let¡¯s eat.¡± He said handing me some wooden bowl and spoon. After we are done eating, we started cleaning the place, making sure the fire was dead so it won¡¯t make a wildfire, after making sure that everything was okay, we headed our way again. While traveling, I tried myself to always be in a state of focus, it was hard at first keeping myself into focus, from time to time I would lose focus because of being distracted, old man Silan said that I would get used to it in time, in which it will feel like its normal to be always on focus. As we went by, old Silan would point on something like herbs and plants, he would taught me what herb is that, how to gather it and explain its uses, he let me collect all the herbs we found while instructing so I can have some experience doing it. As the day goes by, old Silan abruptly stop again and asked if heard something. This time I also heard it, he let me hunt it this time, I focused on my senses, I closed my eyes and let my ears discern where it is, I found it 10 meters on the ground away from us, I draw an arrow and nocked it, I aimed then I shot, I hit it, it was a rabbit, my shot was almost a missed, I shot it near its legs, the rabbit was still alive when we get there, it cannot run because the arrow head pierced thru its body and was stuck deep into the snow, we killed it with the a hunting knife. After that, old Silan started to teach me how to skin a rabbit, so we can take its fur and use it for later, as he was teaching me how to skin, he was also scolding me because I almost missed the shot. He said I was not patient enough before I took the shot, the rabbit jump at the last second as I released the arrow making it miss a little where I aim at. As always, he said to make it a reminder so I won¡¯t forget next time. After we skinned the rabbit and butchered it, we pack it to be cooked later when we made camp, it was nearly in the afternoon so old man Silan decided that it was time to find a camp. He taught me how to search a decent campsite, he said we can find the tell-tale sign of a campsite, like a specific tree which is hollowed inside, it can be found where some of the old trees are. If we can¡¯t find one, then he will teach me how to build a temporary shelter out of branches and leaves. We didn¡¯t find one, so he taught me how to build a temporary shelter. It was a cut branches that intertwined together, then tied with a rope made from a tree barks or plants. It was decent enough that it will protects us from cold along with our blankets and cloak. Then we build a much larger bonfire than the earlier morning, he said that the burning coal later will keep us warm in the middle of the night, and it will keep off some beast out of our campsite. As we are preparing the dinner, which the rabbit and some herbs we found earlier he asked me something that keeps bothering him since we met. ¡°Hey Reiven, can I ask you something?¡± He asked quite serious ¡°Sure Mr. Silan, just ask.¡± I said ¡°Remember the first time you woke up on my house, I was wondering why you are crying so hard that day.¡± He said, I didn¡¯t answer his question right away, I thought it first how to answer his question. ¡°You don¡¯t need to answer if it¡¯s hard to tell, you¡¯re making a serious face that I never seen before, maybe it¡¯s really hard for you to tell it.¡± He said sounded so concern ¡°No, Mr. Silan, good thing you asked of it, I also need to share it with someone, it¡¯s quite weighing me down, and I¡¯m just thinking how to answer it.¡± I said ¡°Do you know how it felt like to be betrayed by your love one?¡± I asked seriously ¡°Yes, it¡¯s quite long ago, but I still felt its pain.¡± He answered solemnly ¡°Then it¡¯s easy for me to tell it to you because you understand what it felt like. That day, I felt really betrayed by my love one. It hurts so much that I felt like dying again that day, I remember the times we spent together, spending our happy days together, overcoming our hardships together, and then one day my loved one just vanishes without even saying goodbye, it tore my heart over and over again.¡± I started crying Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°¡°Sniff¡± ¡°Sniff¡± Yes, I know. ¡°Sniff¡± ¡°Sniff¡±¡± seems like old Silan really know how it felt like to be betrayed ¡°I felt so lost that day, so devastated, so depressed, so ruined, and so alone that brought me in utter despair.¡± I said while crying hard, old Silan also was not holding his tears back, he stands up and sat beside me. He put his arm behind my back and lend me his shoulder to cry on. ¡°Thanks Mr. Silan, that¡¯s how I felt that day at first, but as realized later on, when I thought about it deeply, I proved myself wrong. My loved one didn¡¯t betray me, my loved one sacrificed itself to save me, that¡¯s why I ¡®am here now. So don¡¯t cry too hard for me Mr. Silan¡± I said ¡°Good, good, that is a good thing that you are really not betrayed by your love one. Is she really that precious to you?¡± He asked ¡°She? That conniving son of a bitch, I¡¯m going to kill her if I ever saw her again!¡± I said so strongly that made old Silan surprised ¡°Wait, why are you going to kill her, I thought that you loved her so much, she even sacrificed herself for you.¡± He asked bewildered ¡°No! I¡¯m the one who sacrifice myself to save that stupid bitch¡¯s hide, and in the process my loved one sacrificed itself to save me. ¡°Sniff¡± ¡°Sniff¡±¡± I cried again ¡°Wait, who¡¯s your loved one once again? I don¡¯t quite get it right now, were talking about a girl right?¡± Old mas Silan asked ¡°My loved one? My loved one is the most sweetest, the most beautiful, the most amazing, and the most spectacular loved one in the whole world, I won¡¯t exchange it for anything else.¡± I said ¡°And ¡°WHO¡± is that loved one once again?¡± he asked emphazising the who ¡°My Muscles¡± I said lovingly ¡°You¡¯re what? I didn¡¯t clearly heard that, please say it again.¡± He asked ¡°My¡­ Muscles...¡± I said slowly emphasizing each word, then I flex my biceps to show him what I meant. ¡°Th¡­ that?¡± He asked bewildered while pointing my biceps. ¡°No, no, no, not this one, but my muscles from my prev¡­¡­..¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°WHAT THE!!!¡± I shouted but, I didn¡¯t anticipated what comes next. ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°YOU! ¡°SLAP¡± STUPID! ¡°SLAP¡± PIECE! ¡°SLAP¡± OF! ¡°SLAP¡± WORM! ¡°SLAP¡± DUNG! ¡°SLAP¡± RETURN! ¡°SLAP¡± MY! ¡°SLAP¡± TEARS! ¡°SLAP¡± BACK! ¡°SLAP¡± YOU! ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± ¡°SLAP¡± When I woke up in the morning, I felt puzzled, because I don¡¯t remember what time I fell asleep, actually, I don¡¯t quite remember what happen last night. There¡¯s something missing. When I asked old man Silan, he started crying, I don¡¯t know why he started to cry, aside from me being puzzled, my head aches, I told this to Mr. Silan, he said maybe because I slept in a wrong position, maybe he was right, so I didn¡¯t pursue it anymore, then I notice that I had a message, it was about one of my skill leveling up so I looked at it.
Tough Skin (Passive) Apprentice Grade 10 (50.20% to the next grade)
You won¡¯t feel much pain if you get hit +10% to Physical Defense The higher the Grade of this skill will make your Physical Defense much higher
It didn¡¯t just level up, its experience also reach 50%, I was wondering why it leveled up this much, maybe sleeping in hard ground did leveled it up, ah so there¡¯s a shortcut how to level up this skill, I¡¯ll forgo comfort from now on. Anyway, we ate what¡¯s left of our dinner, I guess that I¡¯m not in the mood to eat last night, because there¡¯s still a lot of what¡¯s left in it. After that we cleaned up like last time, as we traveled, we did the same routine yesterday, old Silan pointing some things then teaching me what was it, reminding me sometimes of the things he said yesterday, so I won¡¯t forget it, also I kept focus all the time I can, reminding myself to get used to it. As the day progress, old Silan taught me something new, he taught me how to walk using the balls of my feet, so I step lightly and silently, this way I won¡¯t startle any prey I hunt and making less tracks for any pursuer to follow. It¡¯s quite hard to walk using this method because I¡¯m using every bit of my muscles. He also taught me what to step on and what to avoid to step on, like twigs, gravels, and dry leaves, because it made crunching sounds when you step on. Lastly he taught me how to clear my tracks, so it will be doubly hard to any pursuer to track me. He demonstrate it for me a few time, he really didn¡¯t make much of a sound and he doesn¡¯t leave much print into the snow. So I tried using it since that time. As midday approach we found an animal track, I didn¡¯t notice it at first because it was just a broken branch from a shrub, who would notice that, he started teaching me again, he taught me how to discern what kind of animal is it, he told me it was a doe, a female deer, I asked how he know that, he told me that was because in the ground near the broken branch has a distinct print in the snow, it was barely noticeable, but in the eyes of old Silan, it was a large billboard sign, aside from that he also told me how long the print was there based on the wound the shrub got, he said that we can manage to follow it and catch it. He also told me the difference between a female and a male based on their hind legs, so that¡¯s why he discern that it was a female. He taught me how to track it, this day was full of learning, first is the things I learned yesterday, reviewing and practicing it, then how to walk, next how to find tracks and how to distinguish them and lastly how to track it. I told old man Silan that I hope I can remember them all and not mix one from the other so I won¡¯t got myself confused. He just told me to remember and do what I can, he will just remind me later if I forgot something and correct me if I do something wrong. I was really grateful to old man Silan for parting his knowledge to me, so I need to do my hardest to repay him. As we follow the tracks, and I, doing my best to do what he taught me, we caught some small game along the way. Mostly rabbit and birds, we skinned and plucked them and butchered them, so we can store them in our packs. I asked old man Silan if it¡¯s okay to hoard ourselves with meat, he said that it was just okay, since the meat won¡¯t perish because of cold, and we can just smoke them later and store them in the house. He said that it would be bad if we hunt something that we won¡¯t eat and just hunt for the kill. But since we¡¯re not doing that, it was okay. We continued on till afternoon, he said that it was time for us to make camp, because it will lightly snow at night, he said that there was a tell-tale sign of clouds forming from the west heading east, so it was better to be prepared earlier than be trap by snow fall. We made our preparation like last night, after we finished preparing, he taught me how to make some snares and where to put them, he said that hunting is not just shooting arrows, it is also about trapping. We were done making snares and setting them up farther from the camp by night fall, as we are sitting around the fire waiting for our dinner to be cooked, he reviewed me on what I remember from the things he taught me. I answered most of them correctly and correct me when I was wrong, he was done reviewing me by the time our dinner was cooked, we ate our dinner and prepare to sleep, but he told me to bring out the book he gave me and try to read a few page from it before I sleep. As I was reading, it started to snow, it was the time that I decided to stop reading and get some sleep. As we woke up the next day, the snow has pile up a bit, so it was a little colder than yesterday because of the freshly made snow. We ate then cleaned up our campsite, we checked if we caught something our snare but there was none, then continued on before we lost the trail of the doe. Same as yesterday, I do the same routine and old man Silan helping me if I do something wrong. By midday, we found our doe, it was drinking in a small brook. Old Silan instructed me to walk silently and to follow his lead so we won¡¯t startle it. We creep out towards the doe very carefully, old man Silan steer us downwind so the doe wont smell that were incoming, when we were about 15 meters away from where the doe was, he gave me a sign to take a shot. I do what I was told, but this time, I did it carefully and thoughtfully, remembering what old Silan taught me, I waited till I felt that it was the right time to release the arrow. I waited till as if someone whisper in my ear, ¡°Release it¡±, I know that whisper was not from the old man, for I heard no sound other than my breathing and the beat of my heart, then I heard it again ¡°Release it¡± urging me to let go, so I heed it and let go, the arrow being released from fingers shot out from my bow as if lightning striking down towards the earth, I clearly heard how the arrow cuts thru the wind and I clearly saw how it fly true toward the target I aim at, the doe¡¯s eye. The doe, as if it felt that there was something wrong, raised up its head to look towards the direction which her instincts urge her and to check if the threat it felt was real, at that exact moment my arrow pierced thru into the eye, digging deeper, seeking the doe¡¯s brain and giving it a swift painless death, no more mercy killing needed, the doe stand still for a moment then it flops down onto the ground, dead. I didn¡¯t quite believe in what I saw I just did, I know that I can hit the doe, but never did I imagine that I made a one perfect hit. I looked at the old man, and saw in his face that said, he also didn¡¯t quite believe what just happen, the old man got his mouth hanging and stared wide eyed. He looked at me and show me a smile that I never seen before, it was a smile filled with pride and joy. He patted me in the shoulder and urge me to follow him toward the doe. We walk towards the doe, and I revel at how beautiful it was even dead, and since the hide came out unharmed, it will be much more high quality than being shot thru into the chest. Old man Silan helped me skinning the doe, he instructed me on how it will be done, for all I skinned was small game, this was different. After that, we butchered the doe, and store it in our packs, it was time to move on, old man Silan decided that we rest a little far off from the place because it took us almost the entire day skinning and cleaning the doe. We set up camp and started to cook some meat of the doe, he told me that tomorrow is the time to go back home. The same as yesterday, old man Silan reviewed me on what I learned and on what I remembered. After that I read a few more page on the book then went to sleep. The next day was a little uneventful, as we traveled our way back, but on a different route, we just did what we did the other day, except for tracking. The next day, old man Silan found something unusual, he found some marks of destruction around the forest, I asked him if it is quite safe, he said that it was okay, because the marks was a week old. The mark was a sign of battle from two different kind of beast he said, one a bear type beast of about 8 meters tall and the other one was a feline beast of about 4 meters tall. He taught me how to describe what happened based on marks. He said that the bear trespass the territory of the feline, which the feline didn¡¯t quite like and confront the bear, he explained me the fierce battle that happened around that area, how the feline wounded the bear making it retreat and how he told me that the feline was also wounded, some broken bones on the feline¡¯s body, because the feline¡¯s foot print has made a different depth onto the snow, he told me that it was about to die or already dead, so we better follow it, because it would surely have a nice fur. So we tracked it, we followed its track for the entire day, then decided to continue on the next day, so we made camp, but this time he told me that one of us must be awake to guard while the other one sleep, since we are in a dangerous territory. It never hurt to be vigilant and it make you dead to be careless, old man Silan took the first and the last shift and he gave me one shift. But nothing happened that night, so the next day, we move on again. As we near to our target, we heard a sound of roaring, we thought that it was directed towards us and made us stop on our tracks. We prepared ourselves if we encounter some attack, but the roar was not directed at us, the roar came from farther from us, and it was a roar of battle, I rushed off not thinking, I ran for about a 100 meters where the sound came from and came out from a clearing, what I saw was a one-sided match from a big black bear and a big white cat with a long tooth, the bear looks like a grizzly bear and the cat looks like a saber tooth tiger, the bear was clearly winning, not because of its size but because of its strength, but the bear was already wounded on its face, it has a 3 red lines starting from its forehead ending on its right cheek, the bears right eye was clearly useless but the wound was not recent, it has a sign that it had already healed a bit, aside from that wound, the bear has many different wounds on its body, many were healed and the others are recent wounds. The cat was clearly at a disadvantage position, aside from its limping leg, it had many laceration in different part of it¡¯s the body. The cat lunge at the bear, but it was a futile attempt, for its source of mobility was taken, the cat was countered with a full swipe from the bear, hitting the cat dead center on its chest, making it fly sideways for a few meters, the cat tried to get up but to no avail. The bear slowly walk towards the cat, but by how the bear walk, shows that the bear was on the last verge of its stamina, even so, the bear emits a powerful presence telling anyone who could see, that I will not lose this day. As the bear slowly approach the fallen cat, to deliver its final blow, something barge the bear¡¯s way from getting closer to the cat and delivering its final blow, it came from under the brush, rushing its way between the bear and the big cat. It was a small cat, an offspring maybe of the big cat that was lying behind, it growl threateningly towards the big black bear, telling it not to come anymore, but the bear seems unfazed and growl much more fiercer, the growl seems telling the small cat, not to barge his way or die. The big cat that was lying behind the small cat whimper a small growl towards the small cat, as if saying, run, leave me here. The small cat looks towards the bigger cat with a look of determination, as if saying, stay there, I will defend you. I don¡¯t speak beast language, but with their interaction and the actions they showed, anyone who saw them would understand what was they are saying, you doesn¡¯t need to hear what they say, because you can already feel it in your heart. That moment of interaction between them touch my soul. As the bear was getting impatient, it readied itself to strike the small cat, clearing it out of the way, I rushed again, but now, towards the small cat, the three beast seems surprise to the new intruder interfering their business, the bear recover first from its shock and change the trajectory of its swipe, now the swipe was aim at me, it surprised me a bit, but my determination was complete, I continued on, I dodge the swipe crouching then head on towards the small cat, grabbing it then rolled into the ground, I stopped in a crouched position, the small tiger was in my arms. The bear turn to look at me, it glared at me and showed its teeth then growled silently and threateningly, I felt so scared at that moment making me freeze in that spot, how stupid, am I going to die, I thought. Then the small cat growled again to the bear, waking me up from the terror that I felt, I felt envious towards the small cat, even if its enemy is 20 times bigger than it, it still had the courage to face it. I borrowed some courage and readied myself. Chapter 5 Chapter 5: Continuation and Decision As I readied myself, facing an almost impossible enemy for me and thinking that I have a death wish, oh well, I¡¯ll just prepare myself and be done with it. I let go of the cat, urging it to go back to its parent, the cat made a few step then looked back at me for a moment, its eyes has a glint of gratitude as it looks at me, then it bounded off towards the big cat. I looked back to face off my very first opponent in this world, I had a more than a hundred fights won in my record in the previous world, all fist fights and street fights, but this time, I won¡¯t be facing a human being, but an 8 meter bear with a large sharp claws, tough hard muscles, and a mouth full of dagger like teeth, I don¡¯t have much chances of winning, but the bear is already tired from its previous fight, all I need to do is to stay away from it and shot it from a distance. If I can¡¯t do that, one swipe from the bear, and I will surely die. The bear didn¡¯t move from its position since it glared and growled at me, as if it didn¡¯t know what was happening. As the bear was bewilder, I took this chance to calm my mind and body, and put myself into focus, it was hard calming and putting myself into focus, my heart was beating rapidly, but I manage it after a few tries. When all is calm and into a focus state, I stared at him with determination, then smile, I slowly grab my bow with my right hand from the quiver behind my back, and grip it hard, then suddenly I jumped back with all my might, draw an arrow as I jump, nock it when I landed then aim and then shot. First moves win, that¡¯s how I mostly won my fight. That was how the theory supposed to work, but as my arrow takes its destined flight toward the bear, the bear reacted to it by instinct, but it was a bit too late, the arrow only graze the bear on the side of its neck, it was not my intended target, the arrow greatly missed. There are many factors that I forgot to account that¡¯s why it missed, first, since this was not a fist fight I am accustomed with, second I¡¯m using a bow into the fight and not fist which is quite impossible with that kind of opponent, third, I don¡¯t know how to shoot an arrow while moving, and most of all, I don¡¯t know how to shoot a target that moves. At least it was not a waste shot, it still graze the bear which turns out very bad for me, the bear at first was shocked at what happened, then it was angered, the anger was clearly directed at me, the bear made a powerful roar that almost petrified me where I stand, but since I¡¯m already in a calm state, it didn¡¯t affect me that much. After the bear roar, it readied itself to lunge at me, but I didn¡¯t waited for it, I¡¯m already taking my next action, I move myself into the direction where the bear can¡¯t see me, I must always place myself to the bear¡¯s right side, for the bear¡¯s right eye was already useless, it is the bear¡¯s blind spot. I run sideways, always keeping myself to the bear¡¯s right side, I draw an arrow while I was running and nocked it to the bow, when it was nocked and ready I stopped to aim, then pulled the bow string while securing my aim, but that move was another one of my mistake, I took too long to aim, as I do that, the bear had already turned and was facing at me, as it saw me with its good left eye, it started to run immediately heading towards me, I was shocked for a moment on how quickly it reacted, I didn¡¯t expected it, I thought earlier that it was already on the verge of its last stamina, but where does its strength coming from? Then I realized that it¡¯s not the time for some idle thought, I need to expect the unexpected so I can keep myself alive, I released the tension of my bow and started moving again, running circle to my left, and onto the blind spot of the bear, as I circle around the bear, I tried shooting it, once, twice, I shot many times but to no avail, its hard shooting while moving, what¡¯s doubly hard is, the target was also moving, almost all my shot went wide, I got a few lucky shot but it didn¡¯t even put a scratch on the bear¡¯s fur, all I did was to anger it more, I need a plan or I will lose more of my arrows before I have a decent shot. I need to hit the bear on its soft spot, while running circle and playing a deadly game of tag with the bear, I¡¯m thinking of where I can hit the bear and how will I do it. But this running and thinking is so hard, that the bear almost had me a couple of times, I need to think fast, the bear is getting smarter by the second, instead of just turning around, the bear was swiping its claw into the ground while it turns, causing some snows and stone flying around like projectiles, it¡¯s not accurate but still quite dangerous, I need to make a wide berth first. As I ordered myself to keep moving or else I¡¯m going to die, I thought some kind of a plan, but the plan is risky as hell, the chances of me dying is 90%, oh hell with chances, I¡¯m going to die anyway if I don¡¯t do anything, first part of the plan is, I need to enrage it much further than this. I started to act the first part of my plan, which the risk percentage is 50%, first I count my arrows while moving forward, that¡¯s right, moving forward, I need to get closer to the bear but farther from its reach, a distance of about two arm¡¯s length of the bear, since I missed a lot when I shot it while moving, being much closer and being the bear so huge, it would be hard to miss when I shot it in that distance. 15 arrows left, 7 in my back and 8 in my waist, as I got closer I shot my first arrow from my waist quiver towards the bear, it missed, the bear who was momentarily shocked by the move that I made of instead of running circles I was headed towards him, was stopped for a moment, a moment which gain me the enough time to travel the distance that I need, I quickly draw an arrow from my back, nock, aim, pull then shot it, at that moment the bear that was already released from its momentarily shock, was already at mid lunge towards me, but what he met was not me but an arrow that luckily hit the bear onto the snout and stunning the bear for a bit, I dodge to my left since the bear was already at mid lunge, if I stay there, it would surely catch me, after my dodge, I draw another arrow from my waist then nock, aim, pull then shot it, this time hitting the bear who was stun into the tip of its ear, the bear roar angrily releasing him from being stun, then the bear turn with a swipe towards the place where I¡¯m supposed to be at, but I was not there anymore from the bears vision, for I must always be at the bears right side, when the bear turn to face where I¡¯m supposed to be at after I shot him, I must already be at his right side and shooting him. One wrong move and I will die, I repeat this process, always dodging to my left then take a shot, always moving towards my left then take a shot, and to circle always to my left then take a shot, I shot the bear to its right eye socket hoping it would pierced thru its brain, but that would be a bit impossible if you¡¯re taking the shot when the target was sideways, I shot the bear to its existing wound made by the previous fight hoping to pierced thru to its vital organ but to no avail, the muscles was too thick for me to penetrate, I shot the bear thru its mouth only to hit the bears teeth, and I shot towards its right ear only to graze it because of the bears height, making me to shot it in angle. I kept on, I move to the left then shot, dodge to the left then shot and circle to the left then shot. The bear who can only do but to turn to the right and swipe in empty air, or turn to the right and swipe into the ground making projectiles of debris which is easy to dodge, the bear was always turning to the right, turn after turn and always to the right and receiving arrows after arrows after arrows. The bear who was always turning right was now enrage like never before. But why always right? Because that was the second part of the plan, to make the bear to always turn to the right, aside from being always in its blind spot, there is one more purpose, a purpose that is the most vital part of the whole plan. I only had two arrows left, one in each quiver, first and second part of the plan is now complete, only the last part was left which has 90% chance of me dying. Time to execute the last part of the plan, as finished dodging to my left I jump back 3 times with all I had, putting myself trap with a large tree behind my back and a big block of stone in my left side, no way to run but to the front or to the right, which is now impossible, for the bear has already finished turning and already facing towards me, with its good left eye. The bear saw my predicament, the bear won¡¯t let its chance for its prey to escape again, the bear know that there was no escape for its prey, for if the prey tried to dodge to its right, all the bear needs to do is two powerful stride forward and to swipe its left claw, catching prey while dodging to the right, same if the prey tried to run forward, which would only lead to much faster death. As the bear stare at me while baring its teeth and releasing a quite threatening growl, that seems telling me that you¡¯re going to die now, I slowly knelt with my right leg, then unsheathe my hunting knife and stuck it into the snow, draw both my remaining arrows, one I bit with my teeth and the other one I nock into the bow, I inhaled deeply and released it slowly as I pulled my bow string into its full tension then hold my breath, I put myself into the state of a much deeper focus and waited. The bear was bewildered on what the prey was doing, it¡¯s not an action of a prey that was about to die, instinct told him that he needs to run now, but he was so enrage to the prey, that the bear didn¡¯t heed its instinct. The bear roared and rushed towards its prey. The bear roared so loud but it didn¡¯t affect me who was already into the deeper state of being focus, the bear started to move, it made a powerful stride with its left foot, then with its right foot, as the bear shift its weight to its right foot, it immediately give away, making the bear lose its balance and fall face first into the snow. The moment is nearly approaching, as I was in a deeper state of focus, I perceive things as if I was watching a slow motion video, I clearly saw all the details as the bear took it right step and how immediately fall into the ground, I also saw how the bear¡¯s face hit into the ground and how it bounce back a little, and then it settling down in a stop, how the bear open its left good eye with a puzzled expression at what happened, then look at me but what the bear saw, was an arrow head half a meters away from its face, and that arrow head was the last thing the bear saw. The bear was puzzled at what happened, all the bear know was getting his left foot a powerful step and then doing the same with its right foot, but as the bear shift all its weight to its right leg, all the bear saw in its vision was the ground flying up, what comes next was a sharp pain in its chest as if he was hit by a tree and then his head being rocked up and down a couple of times, and as the bear opens its left eye, to discern what happen and look for its prey, what he only saw was an arrow and then it became dark, after that, all that¡¯s was left was a very sharp pain in the left side of his face. I heard it again, ¡°Release it¡± I immediately do so, I clearly saw how the arrow fly out of the bow, and how it pierced thru the bear¡¯s eye digging almost half of it. But it was not the end yet, all living beings before their last breath show a death rattle, using all its last strength to move. With this kind of a huge body, it surely contain a large amount of spare strength to use for its final strike. I immediately throw my bow, grab the hunting knife that was stuck on the ground with my right hand and grip the arrow on my mouth with my left hand. I was not wrong, expect the unexpected, the bear lunge its open jaw forward trying to take a bit at me, I immediately pierced it with the arrow in my left hand, holding it back to the ground, then the left arm of the bear also lunge at me, trying to smash me with its palm, but what it met was my hunting knife, blocking it with a thrust, burrowing deep the hunting knifes blade into the flesh of the bears left palm, what I didn¡¯t anticipated was the bears right arm coming from above, because I expected that the block of stone would hamper any incoming attack to my left side, I was wrong, the attack was coming from above, this place that I chose as my final stand became really a trap, I chose this because I know the bear would not hesitate to attack me here, and being totally enrage, the bear would not think that there was a trap waiting for it and me being the bait, for the bear knows that there was no escape. Now it really became a trap for me, all I can do is to wait for the right arm to decent at me and take my life, but it didn¡¯t happen, what happened was the right arm was diverted by an arrow, I was bewildered where the arrow came from, I looked at the opposite direction of the arrow, and saw old man Silan holding his own bow looking at me. As I saw him all the tension on my body was released, I flop down onto the ground, like a puppet lost its string. But then, messages keeps popping up in front of me as I breathed hard.
You defeated a Carnivorous Black Bear!
For defeating a Carnivorous Black Bear that was known for its strength and fierce nature with a great odds against you. You gained: +25 to Strength +40 to Agility +35 to Dexterity +25 to Constitution +20 to Wisdom +20 to Luck +50 to Endurance +100 to Fighting Spirit
The Gods and Gaia has deemed you worthy because of your meritorious deed, you gained a new title ¡°Untouchable¡±
Untouchable
This title is awarded by the Gods and Gaia to a person who face an enemy with a great many odds against that person and defeating the enemy without even taking a single hit. Title Effect: Two times movement speed +50 to Agility +30 to Luck +30 Endurance +50 to Fighting Spirit
Doing a meritorious deed that pleases the God and Gaia, they deem that your title Errand Boy is not befitting to your stature. Title Errand Boy has been removed
The Gods and Gaia has deemed you worthy because of your meritorious deed, you gained a Simple Accomplishment ¡°Won Very First Fight¡±.
The Gods and Gaia has deemed you worthy because of your meritorious deed, you gained a Great Accomplishment ¡°Titled Untouchable¡±. You are now Commoner Grade 2
The Gods and Gaia has deemed you worthy because of your meritorious deed, you gained a Great Accomplishment ¡°Victorious Against All Odds¡±. You are now Commoner Grade 3
Commoner Grade 2
You can have a position not higher than a Citizen +5% to all stat +2 to all Resistance
Commoner Grade 3
You can have a position not higher than a Village Watch +10% to all stat +4 to all Resistance
You don¡¯t have a name, for not having a name, your accomplishments has not been distinguish and has been revoke. You are now Commoner Grade 1
Commoner Grade 1
You can now have a position not higher than a Beggar +0% to all stat +0 to all resistance
You gain a new grade to ¡°Calm Mind¡±
You gain a new grade to ¡°Patience¡±
You gain a new grade to ¡°Focus¡±
You gain a new grade to ¡°Bow Proficiency¡±
Calm Mind (Passive) Apprentice Grade 3 (2.10% to the next Grade)
The mental state of being free from agitation, excitement, or disturbance. Finding your inner center, you are able to focus more of your attention even in dire circumstances. Positively affect your other skills by 15% in this state. As this skill advances, you can achieve being calm much more easily.
Patience (Passive) Apprentice Grade 2 (0.03% to the next grade)
You have the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset Doubles up the effect of your action or when you strike at the right time The higher the grade of this skill enhances the effect of this skill much better
Focus (Passive) Apprentice Grade 4 (5.06% to the next grade)
You had the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.Doubles up the effect of your action on the things you pursue The higher the grade of this skill enhances the effect of this skill much better
Bow Proficiency (Passive) Apprentice Grade 7 (3.03 to the next grade)
You are more familiarize handling a bow +35% in bow damage You tire much slower when using a bow The higher the grade of this skill enhances your proficiency when using a bow
¡°HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!¡± I laugh so loud at what I saw ¡°THANK GODS AND GAIA! THE ERRAND BOY WAS GONE!¡± I shouted so loudly, I was so happy, much happier than my first birthday if I remember it. But I know that I was happy and no one can take that away from me. ¡°SLAP¡±. I¡­ I¡­ I was hit?!!! Me?!! The Untouchable has been hit. As I looked around to see who dare hit the Untouchable me, what I saw was Old Silan crouching beside me, I automatically curled my body and hug my head. ¡°Good, I thought you went crazy after the fight, get up there and look to your new friend.¡± He said. ¡°Uhm, Mr. Silan, won¡¯t you even ask if I am okay?¡± I asked warily, scared of being hit again. ¡°Says the person who rushed to his death alone, besides I know that you¡¯re okay, I watched the fight from the very beginning. Come on, let¡¯s talk later, it seems the mother doesn¡¯t have enough time.¡± He said I stand up on my feet bewildered what was he talking about, then I remembered the cat. I looked around and found them farther off from where we at. Old man Silan lead the way to where they are. As we approach the two cat, the small cat saw our approach then barge our way or barge old man Silan from getting closer. The small cat is still defending its parent. When the small cat saw me, the small cat immediately approach me and bite my cloak then pulled me towards the dying big cat. It seems telling me to do something for its parent. The big cat saw what the small cat did, and whimper a little, it¡¯s not a whimper of being threaten but a whimper of approval for me to come closer. I crouched beside the big cat and look up to old man Silan. ¡°Can¡¯t we do something for her?¡± I plead to the old man ¡°There¡¯s nothing more we can do, she broke her spine and already lose a lot of blood, if we had a healer we can save her, even if we manage to brought her to the town, she won¡¯t make it, she had a little time left.¡± Old man Silan explained ¡°Grooowwwwllll¡± Our attention was diverted to the big cat, I looked the big cat into the eyes, it seems want to say something to me but I can¡¯t understand what the big cat wants. The small cat walked towards the big cat head and lick it, but the big cat nudge the small cat towards me. The small cat keeps coming back to the big cats head, but the big cat keeps nudging the small cat. ¡°It seems that she wants you to take care her litter for her. That¡¯s a great honor to have.¡± Old man Silan said ¡°I will do all I can.¡± I said to the big cat as I look into her eyes. ¡°Groowwwllllll¡± ¡°Now lie down.¡± Old man Silan said ¡°Huh?¡± I asked bewildered ¡°I said lie down, this White Dagger Tiger will do a ritual so that little runt will know that you¡¯re the new mother.¡± He explained ¡°Me the new mother? What ritual?¡± I asked again ¡°If that little runt don¡¯t have someone to depend on, it will die in a week. Well if you don¡¯t want to, we can just kill it after the mother dies.¡± He said ¡°Kill it? No, we can¡¯t do that. But¡­.¡± I said hesitating ¡°Do you want to be a mother of that runt?¡± he asked ¡°No¡± I said weakly ¡°Do you want to kill it later so it won¡¯t die miserably when we leave it be?¡± he asked ¡°No¡± I answered stronger ¡°Then just be the mother!¡± he said ¡°But I don¡¯t know how to be a mother¡± I answer in a whisper ¡°Nah, you don¡¯t need to act as a mother, just think of the runt as a pet and that would be okay¡± He said ¡°Then why are you calling me mother?!¡± I asked surprised ¡°Because that would be the little runt would see you after the ritual, so do you want to do it or not?¡± he asked ¡°Okay, but what is the ritual?¡± I asked again ¡°Just lie down, the ritual can be done while standing, but this one doesn¡¯t have any strength left to stand, hurry up and just lie down.¡± He said hurriedly. ¡°Where would I lie down?¡± I asked ¡°Just lie down beside her feet, after you lie down, you must close your eyes till the ritual is finished. Hurry up! Before it became too late,¡± Old man explained and urging me to hurry I lie down just beside the big cat¡¯s feet and closed my eye. I heard some shuffling beside me, then all of a sudden, it rained, so the ritual is some kind of nature¡¯s blessing, but this rain is quite warm. As the rain began suddenly it also has ended suddenly.
You got a permanent status ¡°Imprinted¡±
Imprinted
A permanent status receive by a person from a beast of nature. Imprint is a mark to impart a strong impression of being an antecedent of a weaker beast than the imprinter. Imprinter: White Dagger Tiger Can gather a brood not stronger than the imprinter Can be improve by a stronger imprinter Cannot be removed unless you die.
¡°Why are you not wet?¡± I asked old man Silan as I stand up and notice that he is not wet. ¡°Why would I be wet? You¡¯re the only one who was been imprinted.¡± He said ¡°Huh? Didn¡¯t it rain?¡± I asked ¡°It didn¡¯t rain, and stay away from me for a week will you.¡± He said ¡°Why will I¡­¡± ¡°Let¡¯s talk about that later, go and say some final words will you.¡± He said, stopping me mid-question and pointing at the cats beside us. I saw the small cat sitting beside the mother¡¯s head. The scene is quite solemn, the big cat was laboring her last breath. I crouched beside the small cat and lay my hand on the big cat¡¯s forehead. ¡°Please rest in peace knowing that I would taker of her? Him? Mr. Silan do you know what gender is this runt?¡± I asked, looking back at him ¡°Sigh~, don¡¯t know, inspect it later just finish that first.¡± He said while doing a face palm ¡°Okay¡± I looked back the dying tiger. ¡°I promise that I would take care of your brood, so please rest in peace.¡± I said while looking on its eyes. At then, the big cat released its final breathe and the small cat howl its grief. After a moment, we left the small cat alone to its vigil. We went back to where the body of the big bear, old man Silan wants to have a talk with me. He said that he purposely led me here when he saw the tracks of battle, the tracks was not a week old but only 2 days old when we found it, and he knows that there will be a final battle, because the bear is known to finish the battle it started, it will retreat once if beaten then return much stronger for it already gauge it opponents strength, he wanted to know how I will react in that kind of situation, if we suddenly barge in a deadly fight and be involved in it, but what he didn¡¯t expect was me running ahead then joining the fray. Honestly, I forgotten about old man Silan since that moment, I just remembered him again when he save my ass in that final moment. If I remembered him much earlier in the fight, I won¡¯t be having a hard time defeating it, he just pierced the right arm of a bear with one shot causing it to divert its trajectory which I couldn¡¯t do even in close range shot. How strong the old man really is? Then I remembered him saying that he was watching since the beginning, I asked him why he didn¡¯t helped from the start, he said that was my problem for jumping the fray without even consulting him, I was reprimanded, then he said that, he didn¡¯t saw me in danger ¡°yet¡±, and since the first purpose of coming here is to know what will I do, he just decided to watch first and interfere if necessary, he also added, ¡°I did save you right?¡± with emphasize, so I don¡¯t have any word to say to that. It was fault since the beginning then being save in the process. I told him that now I know how weak I was, but he countermanded what I said, he said that I was plenty strong already, a village guard which is commoner grade 6 cant defeat it in the same situation I had. He added that maybe it can if he¡¯s as cunning as me, but they would just pissed their pants off when they saw one bear, what¡¯s more with a tiger. Being plenty strong already with just under a months¡¯ time here is already a great accomplishment, even the Gods and Gaia recognize my strength, he said. I said maybe because I¡¯m a Soulbound but he countermanded it again, he said, it won¡¯t be enough to be just a Soulbound to defeat it, and the Soulbound status effect differs from Soulbound to Soulbound, what was needed to defeat it is the courage and the will to fight on even in dire circumstances that others don¡¯t have. And what he saw impressed him and praised me. I was grateful to him. This is the first time I heard that Soulbound status has different effect, I thought that it was predetermined in the beginning. But one thing I realized in here is that I lack the knowledge on how to fight, I told this to the old man and he didn¡¯t deny it. So he asked me what I¡¯m going to do now, I asked him if he can teach me how to fight, but he easily said he can¡¯t, because he¡¯s just a hunter not a fighter, but he knows someone who can teach me in the village, I told him I don¡¯t plan to show myself ¡°yet¡± in any town or city, maybe when I¡¯m a bit stronger, so it¡¯s out of a question, I asked him if he knows some vagabond that can teach me, he said that he¡¯s master has many friend that can teach me, but it¡¯s a month travel from here. I said that it was okay, then he asked me what will I do with my name not being register, I said that it was also okay for now I still don¡¯t mind being a commoner grade 1 for now I said. He asked me what will I do when the mana concentration form under a years¡¯ time from now, I said that I will decide on it later on what will I do, what¡¯s important now is to get stronger. I asked myself why I want to be stronger, then I remember my precious loved one sacrificing itself for my sake. That¡¯s right, I want to stronger for my muscles! FOR MUSCLE! Old man Silan asked what I want to do with the bear, I said I want it to be a spoil of war or battle, so I asked him if we can skinned it with its head intact, I want it to be made into a cloak, he asked me why not an armor, I said I don¡¯t want to look like some hairy beast, a man must have metal for an armor I said. I also if the bear¡¯s meat can be eaten, he said yes, but the problem would be carrying it, but old man Silan also solve this, we can just make some improvised litter and drag it onto the snow. Since its more than a thousand pound of meat, he said we can sell it onto the town and it would earn us some gold, since this kind of bear meat is kind of rare, it would fetch a high price. At that time, the small cat walks towards me and nuzzle its head on my leg, I was wondering why did it to that, then I remembered the ritual. That¡¯s right this cat thought me as a mother, oh well better just accept it. Now that were done and preparing to skinned the bear, I noticed that since the ritual, old man Silan doesn¡¯t come much closer to me, and he breaths thru the mouth when I was closer to him, since earlier we are talking in a distance that¡¯s not normal when having a conversation, and he keeps moving back when I was coming closer to him. I was wondering why he does that, because he doesn¡¯t do that gesture since after the fight, what change, I thought. I ask him if he had a spare clothe with him because I¡¯m wet and feeling cold, he said to just build a fire and dry myself on it. This is really weird. The small cat keeps following me where ever I go, I stared gathering firewood to build a large fire and the cat was always behind me, and it seems happy, your parent just died you know, speaking of which, I don¡¯t know what to call this cat, I was thinking of a name while gathering a firewood, but how can I know what to name her when I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s a boy or a girl. So I picked it up and inspect it, the cat is a she, now it will much easier to find a fitting name, as I gather firewood I keep thinking what appropriate name for my new cat, I decided to call her Misha, and she quite like it, so from now on, I will call you Misha, then at that time a warning tune came to my mind and a window message pop up in front of me.
Status Window
NameMisha
StatusBrood
Strength262Agility300
Dexterity289Constitution 250
Intelligence193Wisdom 124
Luck151Leadership 0
Endurance210Fighting Spirit 100
What the hell! I shouted in my mind, I was so shocked, this cat is much stronger than me! ¡°Show details for Status Brood¡±
Brood
A permanent status earned when the original parent of the beast choose another being to surrogate her/his offspring. Surrogate Mother : Imprintee (Name will show here when you already have a name) Cannot be removed unless you or the Status Holder die
¡°No special effect, just a status to tell whose the surrogate mother is, then Show Misha¡¯s Skill set¡±
Misha has not yet learned any skill
¡°You don¡¯t have any skill and yet you are stronger than me? Is that what you call inborn strength?¡± I asked Misha who seems not to understand any word I said. How strong would you become if I trained you, I thought. Anyway, I left it as that and continue finding some fire wood, Misha is still continuing to follow me, will you even follow me into the bathroom? I thought. I finished collecting firewood and return to the clearing, old man Silan has already started skinning the bear when I got back, I build a fire and started to dry myself. After I was dry, I started to helped the old man to skin the bear, but as I was approaching he told me to leave the skinning to him, and ordered me to build some litter instead, I followed his instruction and gather some strong wood to make a makeshift litter, it took me a couple of hours to finish the litter, when I returned dragging the litter, old man Silan was already hallway thru skinning, I approached him to help, but he told me to decide first what I¡¯m going to do to the body of Misha¡¯s mother, he told me to decide if I will skin it to get the fur and the meat, or I will just bury her. I asked old Silan if it¡¯s okay to skin it since it felt wrong to skin the mother of my new companion, he told me that it was okay, since that¡¯s how the nature works, especially in the wild, the offspring will just leave the corpse of their parents when they die, and some scavenger will just eat it. I was about to tell him my decision and come closer to help him when he stopped me, he said to think it thru for about another couple of hours, he told me to think it where the corpse of the cat was, then he shooed me away. I was bewildered by this action, there was nothing I can do if he doesn¡¯t want my help. So I just decided to think carefully what will I do to Misha¡¯s mother. I walk towards to the body of the big cat with Misha in tow. I stand beside the body of the big cat and observe what Misha¡¯s reaction would be, it seems Misha has already forgotten about her mother and was done grieving, because she¡¯s ignoring the body of her, as if the body is just another part of this scenery and nothing to do with her. Misha has move on I guess, so it doesn¡¯t matter to her on what will I do with her mother¡¯s body. But my morality dictates that it is bad to desecrate the body of my new companion, I looked down at Misha¡¯s mother and inspected it, it¡¯s quite big, it would be hard to bury it, and if I just bury her simply, some other animals would just dig her up, so if I decided to bury her, it must be deep. If I want to cremate the body, it must be a large fire, where would I find that enough wood, cut some trees? That would be bad also, and I might can¡¯t control the fire and cause a wild fire. As I inspected the body, I notice something strange into the ground beside the feet of Misha¡¯s mother, it was the place where I lie down, and it was clearly the exact place where I lie down, how can I tell? Because there was a mark of my body onto the snow, but what defines the mark was not the depression I made into the snow, but something like a chalk outline in the murder scene, the difference is, instead of a white outline, it was a yellowy outline into the snow. Then it hit me, warm rain, imprinting, and most of all, old man Silan keeping his distance. I decided! ¡°YOU WILL BE SKINNED!¡± I shouted Chapter 6 Chapter 6: Damn Skill Nearly Killed Me It¡¯s been more than a week since my fight with the black bear and Misha being my new companion, it took us 2 uneventful days getting back to old man Silan¡¯s house, no weaker beast, rabbits, and birds came near us, the reason being me who stink like a chicken coop or ammonia, even old man Silan didn¡¯t came closer to me, he said I must always stay 10 meters away from him and be always stay downwind from him, this gesture hurt me a lot, it makes me want to cry. Misha is the only one who wants to stay near me, and who seems to enjoy how I smell. The other problem aside from me who stink is, is me who stink like Misha¡¯s mother. Why does me who stink like Misha¡¯s mother is a problem, I asked old man Silan, he told me that other stronger beast like the bear, search for a new territory or expand the territory they already had, they will challenge other beast for a territory, like how the bear who challenge Misha¡¯s mother by trespassing her territory, and since me, who stink¡¯s like Misha¡¯s mother, will be a good target for a challenge, even if I don¡¯t own the territory. Misha was the rightfully owner of the territory which we abandoned, since she can¡¯t defend the territory on her own, she would die in a week if I didn¡¯t take her, good thing we left immediately after we skinned and butchered the bear and Misha¡¯s mother, which I regretted for a moment but decided that she deserves it for putting me in this circumstances, I just needed to stay alive for a week said the old man. I asked the old man if I can just take a bath to remove this awful smell, he said that even if I bathe multiple times, it won¡¯t go away, because there was mana of the imprinter mixed in it, that is how imprinting works, so even if somebody want to own a dragon and decided to take a bath in a dragon piss, all they can get is an awful lot of smell. So there was nothing I can do but to wait for my smell to revert back to its original smell. Then what will happen if I revert back to my own smell, wont Misha recognize me? I asked again the old man, he said that, that was why a week was needed, the smell would slowly diminishes by time, slowly making Misha accustomed to my original smell. And the most important question of all, why I didn¡¯t notice my smell change, I remembered that time was standing up and feeling wet, I didn¡¯t smell myself bad, I just ¡°saw¡± that I smelt bad from the way old man Silan treats me and my yellowy outline in the snow. Old man Silan said, he didn¡¯t know why, it just work that way, all he had was a theory, that the mana mixed in the piss bypass my sense of smell so that I can¡¯t smell it. Good thing if it works that way, because if I smell myself, there¡¯s a high chance that I would also stay away from myself. When we arrive home, I was about to enter the house when the old man shut the door, and shouted from the inside that I can stay in the shed till the smell wears off. Damn you Misha¡¯s mother. The old man also told me not to go far away from him, because there was some chances that some beast followed us even though we already left the territory, which rarely happen because they are smart enough to stay away from the signs of human habitat, but there¡¯s nothing wrong in being careful, so I heed his advice. How strong the old man really is? I thought again. I spend the rest of the day of my smelly week doing the same routine I did before going to hunt and added some of the skills I learned from the old man during the hunt.
Silent Step (Passive) Apprentice Grade 2 (39.90% to the next grade)
To run or walk lightly and silently. -10% to the sound you make while walking or running Steps become a little lighter that leaves barely a mark The Higher the Grade of this skill will make you step soundless, lighter, and tire much slower
Hunting (Passive) Apprentice Grade 4 (45.08% to the next grade)
A collection of skill that is use in the wild but can be also used anywhere. A means of survival You know the right way how to Skin You know the right way how to Butcher You know the right way how to Tan Enhance the item produce by 12% You know the right way how to Track Details shall now be added to Identify skill when related to this skill The higher the grade of this skill affects much better to overall hunting skills
Herbology Crafting (Passive) Apprentice Grade 2(10.01% to the next grade)
To craft something new out of herbs and plants, be it medicine, poison, food ingredients, or any other herbs and plants related. Enhance the created item by 6% You know the right way how to gather herbs and plants Details shall now be added to Identify skill when related to this skill The higher the grade of this skill affects much better to overall crafting skills
I learned herbology crafting on the way back, I learned silent step two days after we came back, and I learned hunting when old man Silan taught me how to tan the fur we got. He said I can learn the skills involve in the hunting skills separately, but it won¡¯t be much effective as I learned it as a whole. I asked old man Silan if I can use hiding skill plus Silent step skill as a combination so I can move while not being seen like stealth, he said I can use it but it won¡¯t turn into a skill like stealth and not as effective as the skill like stealth, because stealth is a three combination of skill, one is hiding, two is silent step and three is mana manipulation which I don¡¯t have. He explained that hiding is blending in the surrounding and not moving while stealth is the manipulation of mana so the surrounding will blend at you while you move. I asked him if he can teach me, but he said he can¡¯t, because he don¡¯t have mana manipulation skill, and even if he does, a full mage can only taught it. So I gave up, but at least I can use my two skill as a combination even if it¡¯s not as effective. I didn¡¯t add any fighting skill in my routine because it would be pointless to learn on my own. I need a proper teacher to learn how to fight properly, since I had this premonition that I will be fighting more on this world and fist fight and what I learn on my own won¡¯t do a thing when faced a proper fighter. Misha accompanied me in my training, which is what she mostly does, following and sticking to me. When I run around the house she accompanied me, when I go to sleep, she¡¯s beside me, and even taking a bath and privy, she was always there. Since she wants to stick closely to me, I decided to train her but purely in physical fitness and physical strength. I taught her some tricks like how to bite, catch, get, sit, roll, fetch, and some other simple command you can teach to a dog. Don¡¯t look at me like that, I know she¡¯s a cat, but I don¡¯t know how to teach her or help her to develop her skills, at least she¡¯s getting much stronger than before with all that training. The day when my smell revert back to its original smell finally came, old man Silan deemed it worthy for me to return to my bed. I was so happy that day, no more sleeping in that smelly hard shack. Old man Silan also deemed it safe that he won¡¯t need to guard me anymore, so he decided that he would go to the village the next day to sell some of the meat and fur we got, he also ask me what I want or if there¡¯s anything that I need so he can buy it in the village since he know I won¡¯t be coming with him. I told him that I need books, mostly about this world, beast, about places and peoples that live here, and some books that is useful for me, I also added some maps, clothes, and anything he sees fit that I need. He told me that don¡¯t expect anything about books, because it¡¯s just a village, unless some roaming merchant that comes to trade is present then maybe he can get some, I told him that anything is fine, then I asked if the tailor of the village has some skills, so he can make both of us some new cloak out the bear and Misha¡¯s mother fur. He said there was, and a great one at that, he asked me again if that¡¯s all I want with the fur and not some armor, because there will be a lot left, the bear fur alone can make 6 cloaks, I said again that I don¡¯t want any fur armor, it will make me look hairy, then make us two cloak each, one for winter and the other one for everyday use when it¡¯s not cold anymore, and if there¡¯s a leftover, you can decide what to do, I said. I asked where he would get the money, since all I want seems expensive, he said the meat alone would be enough to pay it with a lot of gold to spare, since it¡¯s more than a thousand pound of meat and came from two rare beast. After deciding what other things we need he said that he won¡¯t be back till three to four days later because it would take 2 days to travel back and forth and 1 or 2 days to sell and buy everything. Then me and Misha would be left alone here till old man Silan came back, I guess that would be ok since I don¡¯t smell anymore, I just hope nothing bad happen. The next day, old man Silan was prepared to leave, I asked him if he needs help dragging the litter of goods halfway to the village since its quite heavy. He said he can manage it, really? How strong you really are old man, I remembered laboring breath when I drag that litter a couple kilometers on the way back. He said his goodbye and some advice, then he left off, dragging the litter on to the snow. Misha and I watch the disappearing silhouette of the litter onto the distance. After that, we continued our day with the same routine we did this past few days. This is the first time I¡¯ve been alone in this world, alone I mean as human companion, since I¡¯m not totally alone because Misha is always tailing me. It¡¯s quite lonely without the old man, I missed him already. So to disperse this loneliness, I immersed myself in more training. Five days went by as I waited for the old man to comeback. He didn¡¯t comeback yesterday, so its means, he will be coming back later, the old man was a day late. And what will welcome him is me in a bad shape because of the skill I got three days after the day the old man left, when I got the skill I used it like no tomorrow not knowing any consequences that will happen while using it.
You learned a skill ¡°Immersion¡±
Immersion (Passive) Apprentice Grade 1 (50.20% to the next grade)
You delve too deeply in a particular activity. You are likely to forgot anything around you till you are done in that particular activity Adds one to the effect of your action you immersed in Doubles up the negative effect you receive when suddenly released from being immerse The higher the grade of this skill enhances the effect of this skill much better
This skill I learned is another skill like Focus, this time it¡¯s Immersion, it¡¯s a good skill to have, aside from it being passive which became 3 times more effective, when it is combined in Training skill which also a passive skill, it became 9 times more effective then add up with Focus that became 6 times more effective because its passive, the result became 54 times more effective, so I got 54 stat every time a message pops up to notify me. Same with training my bow proficiency and other skills but instead of grade, it adds up in the total experience I gain, if I gain 0.01% every 30 arrows I shot in my current grade of skill, it became 0.54%. This is so overpowered skill. But there was a downside that I neglected in it. Before I learned the skill, I was already immerse in training that I gradually forgot about Misha, at first I forgot to gave it food in the right time, then it became worse and worse after time. The reason I forgot about Misha, aside from being immersed myself in training, is because Misha has gradually gain independence since the smell wears off. At first she would be gone for an hour then came back sticking to me again which didn¡¯t happen the first week we are together, I don¡¯t know where she goes, since I didn¡¯t notice her missing at first, maybe she went off exploring the place or play around the house. After that she would be gone from time to time but she always came back after some time. I totally forgot her when I learned the skill, which was the third day after the day the old man left, which supposed to be the day he would return for its already the fifth day since he had left. Like I said, I used the skill like there¡¯s no tomorrow, which nearly became a no tomorrow for me ever again. This immersion skill doubles up the negative effect I receive, I don¡¯t quite understand what will I receive, so I disregard it. I used it continuously that I even forgot to eat, I don¡¯t even know what¡¯s happening around me since I was to immersed in shooting my bow, all I know is my skills, the bow, the arrow and the target. I didn¡¯t notice that Misha was sneaking up on me, I just notice her, when she was already tackling me from the left side which was my blind spot since I hold the bow with my left hand and draw with my right hand. I flew three meters from where I was, hitting the ground with my right shoulder and rolled two meters more, that was a good tackle, I lost consciousness for a couple of hours, I woke up dazed for a moment and hurting all over my body, I assessed the condition of my body, right shoulder dislocated, right foot sprained, bruises all over my body, and worst of all, I got cold.
You got a status ¡°Mild Case of Cold¡±
You got a status ¡°Dislocated¡±
You got a status ¡°Sprained¡±
Mild Case of Cold
A status receive by being sick or doing some stupid action that will led for being sick. -5% to all resistance -5% to all Stat You are likely to get worse when not treated immediately Can be remove by buffing recovery or waiting till your body is healed
Dislocated
A status receive when a hard blow to the joint has occured Dislocated parts cannot be used till it healed Dislocated: Right Shoulder Hurts a lot when the Dislocated parts are hit Can be remove by buffing recovery or waiting till your body is healed
Sprained
A status receive when the ligaments around the joint has been stretched too far Sprained parts can be used but hurts a lot till it healed Sprained: Right Ankle Hurts a lot when the Sprained parts are hit Can be remove by buffing recovery or waiting till your body is healed
I was wondering how I receive this injuries, when Misha growl beside me, then I remembered what happened and how I got this injuries, it was not Misha¡¯s fault but the skills fault, I don¡¯t want to blame myself for being immersed and I don¡¯t want to blame Misha because it¡¯s my fault for forgetting about her, so I blamed the skill, stupid skill. Because of the skill I got this terrible injuries, if I don¡¯t have the skill, even I put myself in immersion and Misha tackle me, I would be instantly released from my immersion and I won¡¯t forget to defend myself when I fall and only receive a minor scratch and bruise, but because of the skill which doubles the negative effect I receive when suddenly released from being immerse, it doubles my shocked when I was hit by Misha, making my stun state longer which led me to do nothing to defend my body when I fall and rolled into the ground. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. As I lie down there, Misha who sat beside me looks really worried, I pat her head my left hand that it was okay since it was the skills fault. I sat up slowly and cautiously, making sure that I don¡¯t move or used my sprained and dislocated parts, it hurts a lot even if I move it a little bit, but I need to move now or else, my cold gonna get worse, I search for my bow and found two meters away from me, I drag myself towards the bow using my left hand and the left side of my body, I feel like I¡¯m swimming into the snow using only the half of my body. I reached my bow and tuck it inside my quiver, there¡¯s still arrows scattered around the place, I didn¡¯t mind them because it¡¯s easy to make arrows than making a bow. I tried standing up but it was hard and a tiny movement sent pain in my head, so I asked Misha to bite my cloak and drag me towards the house good thing I taught her some tricks, as I reached inside the house, I asked Misha to fetch my pack, she bounded off inside the room and fetch my pack, she returned to me dragging the pack, in the pack was the herbs I collected, I chew some of the herbs so I can remedy my cold, this kind herb is serve when boiled, what can I do, I can¡¯t stand up to make some fire, so I just chewed it and hope for the best. I grind some of the herbs with my hunting into the floor using my left hand which is quite hard, I¡¯m not used in using my left arm, after grinding them, I gently applied them in my dislocated shoulder and sprained ankle, then I lie down onto the floor, don¡¯t have any strength left to go to the bed, and I was hoping old man Silan would be coming back today since its already the fourth day since he left. I woke up the next day feeling a little better, old man Silan didn¡¯t return yesterday, because if he is, I won¡¯t wake up in this kind of situation. Thanks for Misha sleeping beside me, I didn¡¯t felt quite cold even I slept onto the floor, I chewed again some herbs and reapplied some herbs on my now swollen and purple dislocated and sprained injuries, I was hungry and thirsty, and there was nothing to eat but raw meat in the storage, good for Misha she can eat raw, how about me? I¡¯m really hungry and felt weak, but there¡¯s no one to help me but Misha, so I decided I must act or die of hunger or thirst. I drag myself into the kitchen and ask Misha to fetch some meat into the storage for both of us, I was so thankful to myself that I taught Misha some tricks, so genius. As I reach the kitchen with so much difficulty, I immediately grab the water skin and drank hungrily, now thirst clenched hunger next, I said to myself. Misha return with some meat I patted her because of her job well done, she handed my share and started eating hers, I was so envious when Misha started munching her own meat, now what will I gonna do to this meat, it was hard to stand up when I thought of a great idea. ¡°Misha, breath fire to this meat now.¡± I said to Misha ¡°Raawwwrl?¡± Misha said while tilting her head. ¡°Stupid Misha, you don¡¯t know how to breath fire?!¡± I said aghast ¡°SLAP¡± I was shocked! Misha hit me with her paw, I immediately curled my body making it smaller. ¡°Misha scary¡± I said in a whisper, Misha ignore me and continued eating her meat. Damn that old man! Im sure he was behind this! He taught my cute little Misha how to do that, I didn¡¯t remember teaching her that. Hope you trip your foot, I prayed. Nothing to do but to endure my hunger, I just slept. I woke up, someone was shaking my body, I thought it was Misha, but it was the old man, thank the Gods and Gaia, the old man returned. I was barely conscious, I just said help to the old man. I woke up the next day in bed, all bandage up and feeling better, the old man came up to check on me when he noticed that I¡¯m awake already, he gave me some soup and water which I devoured in a second. He asked me what happen and I explained that some bad skill came up and beat me. He didn¡¯t quite believe me because he thinks I¡¯m becoming delusional. He gave me some strip of leather. I was bewildered why he gave me that. ¡°Bite it¡± said the old man ¡°Huh? Why?¡± I asked ¡°Just bite it, tightly okay then closed your eyes.¡± He ordered. So I bite the leather tightly and closed my eyes, then I heard some shuffling. Then the old man in one swift motion grab my right hand and pulled it fast. ¡°CRACK¡± I heard then ¡°ARRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH¡± I shouted while biting the leather ¡°Why ¡°Pant¡± Didn¡¯t ¡°Pant¡± you ¡°Pant¡± warn me ¡°Pant¡±¡± I said in between breath, with tears in my eyes, damn that hurts like hell!
Status Dislocated has been removed
You got a status ¡°Sprained¡±
Sprained
A status receive when the ligaments around the joint has been stretched too far Sprained parts can be used but hurts a lot till it healed Sprained: Right Shoulder, Right Ankle Hurts a lot when the Sprained parts are hit Can be remove by buffing recovery or waiting till your body is healed
¡°If I warn you, you might tense up when I pulled it, making it worse. Now rest up, well talk again later¡± He said. Tired with the exertion I made, I just slept and rest. I rested the rest of the day, waking up for a while to eat, drink, or to use the privy, the old man would support me when I went to the privy, I was so thankful and grateful to the old man but my debt is piling up so fast and I have no idea how to repay it. The next day I woke up, the Cold status was no more, but my body is still aching, so I just stayed in bed, I was worried at Misha at first but the old man was taking care of her, now I¡¯m more worried about myself. In the afternoon, old man Silan went to visit me in my room, with the things he bought, he told me that it took two days to buy and sell all the things he brought and to find what we need then he waited for another day for my clothes to be repaired to fit my size, that¡¯s why he was a day late, the cloaks would be finished in two weeks¡¯ time, since it was a rare material, the tailor wants to make the best out of it. He gave the clothes which is mostly dark green in colors, don¡¯t let a hunter choose for your fashion, and gave me some books, mostly crafting books like the basics of smith and tailor, since I have the skill but I don¡¯t know how to fully utilize it, there are some books about beast that roam the land, the books about people of Gaia and there language, and some history of this kingdom and other kingdom and this continent, there¡¯s about 20 books in total, I asked him why so many since it was a village, he said that there was a merchant in the village, too early in this of the year, but the right time for us. Some of the books where from the villagers who bargain for the meat. He also bought me a new boots, mostly for heavy traveling, since I plan to travel where his master is. He also bought me some leather armor, since the money won¡¯t be enough for a metal armor. After that we had some talk because I was curious. ¡°Mr. Silan why does some of my skill wont advance a grade?¡± I asked curiously ¡°It¡¯s easy to advance a skill till it reach to Journeyman, then it started to slow down from then on, and much harder when it reaches to Journeyman Grade 6. For example, I reach Master Grade 1 in my Focus skill from Journeyman Grade 6 within 15 years of continuous use.¡± He explained, I was shocked on what I heard, it will took me that long to level up my skill? Wait I have a short method but it was quite deadly and decided to seal it till I deemed it safe to use. Is I used my deadly skill, it will take me much shorter time than them, right? I asked myself, because I¡¯m not sure if it is the best method and if it will work. Better to thought it up later. ¡°Even if we are long lived people, few of us reach Master Grade and fewer reach the last stages of the Master Grade and none in the recent 300,000 years reach Grand Master Grade.¡± He continued I was speechless of what I heard, is that really that hard to level up the skills, then how about active skills, which is not like passive skills that can be used anytime. Speaking of active skills, why does I don¡¯t have one yet? I thought that I would be learning some active skills in bow since I trained it every day. ¡°Mr. Silan, why does I dint have any active skills?¡± I asked ¡°Like I said about stealth, you need mana manipulation skill so you can learn any active skill, and active skill is not like passive skill that you can learn by just action, you need imagination, mana manipulation, projection, and most of all to try over and over again till you gain the skill.¡± He explained ¡°Why so many and looks hard to do. Why?¡± I asked ¡°For example, the shot I used to pierce the bear¡¯s right arm was not physical strength alone, it was a skill called ¡°Piercing Shot¡± it was taught to me by my master, maybe I can pierce the bear¡¯s arm with just physical strength alone, but I don¡¯t want to gamble since it was a matter of life and death. He taught it like this, ill explained the gist of it, first I need to imagine that my arrow was coated by wind element, then project what I imagine to the physical arrow, to do that, I need mana manipulation, lastly, I do it over and over again till I learn the skill, by then I don¡¯t need to imagine, project, and manipulate, all I need to do is to think that I want to use the skill, some skills like the mages have need chanting not just thinking, simple skills like I have is activated just by thinking.¡± He explained ¡°You need to be cautious though when learning a skill, sometimes mana became uncontrollable during projection, if that happens your lucky if it just disperse, but when it exploded, you may lost a limb or worst your life. So it may be better to learn a skill from a master or someone who can teach their skill than to create a new one by your own. You better remember this before you try it on your own, especially now that you had gain a strong skill that can kill you.¡± He said it with force What the old man mean is, now that I have immersion skill, then try to create a skill while being immersed, there¡¯s a high chance that I can create a skill, but the downside is I may die if I got it wrong, but since I decided to seal it, and only use it if I deemed it safe to use. Oh well, since most of the things I want to know has been answered, I better use this chance to ask him some personal question, since I barely know the person who I owed so much debt. ¡°By the way Mr. Silan how old are you?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you know it¡¯s rude to ask someone¡¯s age? I don¡¯t remember, I stopped counting when I reached 300.¡± He said Isn¡¯t that answer only applicable to girls? Wait a minute, did he say 300? Wah! He¡¯s really damn old. I thought ¡°Wow, you look quite young at your age¡± I said ¡°Really? So that¡¯s why the village girls still wink at me.¡± He said murmuring, I heard that! ¡°Then Mr. Silan can you show me your stat? I want to know how strong you are. I know this is rude of me to ask, but I just want to have some guide on how strong I need to become, so I would be ready to face it.¡± I said ¡°If you put it that way, then it would be bad of me if I don¡¯t show you, you may think your strong enough and challenge someone leading to your death, then it would be my fault for not showing my stats to you.¡± He said ¡°Show status window except title, status, and additional stat to everyone in this room¡± he said
Status Window
NameSilan Ditent
TitleNA
StandingsNobility Grade 6
StatusNA
Strength2153 (+NA)Agility 3510 (+NA)
Dexterity3352 (+NA)Constitution 1968 (+NA)
Intelligence1674 (+NA)Wisdom 1300 (+NA)
Luck2200(NA)Leadership 952 (+NA)
Endurance3001 (+NA)Fighting Spirit 3952 (+NA)
I was so speechless, I¡¯m sure that my mouth is hanging right now and my eyes wide from I see. Dammit this old man! How can I achieve that? I don¡¯t want to grind all my life! Nobility Grade 6?! He can have a Nobility position. What accomplishment did he do to achieve that? I thought. ¡°Okay, I would be off now, take a rest, if you want anything just call for me.¡± He said and left me alone. It would take me two weeks to heal my ankle and a month for my shoulder to heal since it¡¯s been dislocated, said the old man, after he showed me his stat, I decided to double, no triple my efforts in training even in my bed, why in bed? Because I can¡¯t use a crutch, I can if I sprained my left ankle instead of my right. But since it was in the right, I can¡¯t put a crutch in my right shoulder because it¡¯s injured, using a crutch in the left would be pointless, it would only out balance me. I did some stretching in my lower part of the body so it won¡¯t turn weak for being disuse, and I do some weight lifting and some things that can increase the reflex of my left arm. I read the books old Silan brought when I take a rest, which gain me some intelligence and wisdom. I learn a lot of things thanks to the books, I have much more basic idea about this world now. Misha my cute cat, was being trained the old man! Damn you Misha, why did you betray me? I was praying to all the Gods and Gaia that please don¡¯t let the old man teach Misha anything that can traumatized me. I prayed every night which gain me some wisdom. Since they started training, I tried my very best to be kind to Misha, to the point that I almost spoiled her. I don¡¯t want to have a spoiled companion but I also don¡¯t want a companion who can traumatized me, this is quite a dilemma I got myself to. The old man told me that we would start traveling after my foot healed, there¡¯s no point waiting. The old man already plan everything, first we will go to the village but the old man will be the only one to enter to get our cloaks, get something, and buy a horse, me and Misha would bypass the village and meet him on the other side, then head on, that was the first part, the second part is just to travel. Damn preparation! But that was a long way off from now, I still need more than a week to heal. Chapter 7 Chapter 7: Travel and a Bandit We are now traveling towards the village, my foot healed 2 days ago, 2 days earlier than the old man¡¯s forecast that it would healed in about 2 weeks¡¯ time. That day, I just can¡¯t endure anymore being bed ridden, so I tried to stand up on my own, I was scared at first, but my frustration not doing any physical exertion has come on top than being scared, I stand up using my left foot first with the support of my left hand, for my right hand was on a sling. I was hopping with my left foot to regain my balance, when I was sure that I had my balance, I gingerly touch my right foot toes into the floor, to test if it will hurt, so far so good, it doesn¡¯t, I slowly put some weight on my toes, trying if it can support me or if it hurts when I put pressure on it, I grit my teeth to prepare if some pain would come, but all the pain I felt was all in my imagination, there¡¯s no actual pain occurring, so I bravely stuck my whole right foot into the floor awhile my center of gravity was leaning on the left part of my body, I slowly straighten up, trying to gauge if my right foot is up for the job, I smiled widely when my right foot can do its job, it still send some stabbing pain, or it was only in my head, I started walking, right foot first, doing it cautiously, when I made my first step I was about to jump for joy, when old man Silan saw me and warn me not to overdo it. Since that day, I started using both of my feet again, but not to the point of exertion, don¡¯t want to strain it and be bed ridden again. Now we are nearing the village, old man Silan told me that we are going to separate from here on, me and Misha will bypass the village while him getting some things on the village, I told the old man that I want something for myself, I told him that I need some kind of a weapon, since my right arm is quite useless till it heals, he asked me if I want some sword, but I said that my left arm is still not up for a sword, what my left arm need is something simple, not a close range weapon since fighting close range would be disadvantageous to me in my current state. So I ask if he can find me some throwing knives and many iron fillet, about 15-20 cm in length and ten times as thick as a needle. He asked me what was it, if it was like a knitting needle used in knitting wool, I said, something like that and I need many of it, lots of lots of it. He asked what I need it for, I said for throwing and speak no more. He agrees and head off. Misha and I bypass the village, I can see the village at a distance as we pass thru it. It¡¯s quite big for a village, they have woods for wall and wooden stake atop on it. I couldn¡¯t see any houses except the bigger ones because of the wall. I can see some people rounding atop the walls, must be village guard and watchmen. We arrive at the rendezvous point, which the old man decided for us, while we await for the old man, I noticed some big changes about Misha this past weeks, she¡¯s grown quite a lot, when I first met her, she was just the same height as my knees, now she has grown above my mid-thigh and she got quite longer too, her fur also became much thicker, her fangs has started to show even when her mouth is closed, she may be about 200 pounds heavy by now, and the training she done with the old man, hope it¡¯s not for tormenting me, made her look quite fierce but cute. What kind of training did the old man did for Misha? I wonder. We waited for about 3 hours before we saw old man Silan heading our way in the distance, he was riding a cart pulled by a horse. I thought that we will ride a horse, I was expecting that I will ride one, it¡¯s every man¡¯s dream to ride a horse like a cowboy. Anyway, as the old man arrive, the horse became wary and almost bolted away when the horse saw Misha, if the old man wasn¡¯t holding the reins maybe the horse has already return to the village, the old man calm the horse for a moment, Misha came near the horse making the horse whinnies and terrified, Misha eyed the horse then smelled it for a moment, she then snorted and walk away showing her disinterest towards the horse, making me sigh in relief, good thing Misha didn¡¯t pounce on the horse making it her lunch, the horse whose terrified earlier now became a little calm seeing Misha¡¯s reaction, the old man let us ride at the back of the cart, I put my pack in the corner of the cart where the old man¡¯s pack is and some other packs he got from the village, which he didn¡¯t told me what was inside it ¡°yet¡±. Then we head off for about a kilometer away from the town and stopped, he told us to get down or he told me to get down, since Misha seems enjoying herself in the back of the cart, licking herself, hope you got a fur ball, I thought. The old man get something in the cart then send me a gesture to follow him. We sat by the tree beside the road and show me things he brought. First was the thing I requested before he goes inside the village, it was a leather belt with throwing knives in it. 10 knives in the belt and 5 knives as spare. The knives was an inch wide, half centimeter thickness, and about 5 inch long, it doesn¡¯t have any handles, just an inch and a half grip, which was wrap with cloth or something like cloth, the knives has a simple shape, the knife is as flat as a plank from grip to the blade and is unbalance, not like the usual blades which where balance to have the center of gravity always be at the center, this throwing don¡¯t have that, the grip is much heavier than the point of the blade, it means that I need to hold the lighter part of the knife when thrown. Next is the knitting needle which was a lot of them, they are a single pointed type needle with a guard on the opposite side, the problem is they are not that pointed, need to sharpen them so it can be deadly. I also need to remove or lessen the guard so it won¡¯t wobble when I throw. I got this idea of throwing weapon when I was bed ridden and can¡¯t use my right hand. As I was thinking, throwing knife is nice, but they are some sort of consumables, like arrows. You can collect them after the fight, but sometimes when you missed or the target dodge it would be lost and cannot be found, or if you are in a rush you¡¯ll just leave it where you throw it. Since throwing knife is quite expensive, I need something cheap other than a throwing knife that can be thrown. I¡¯m a weapon maniac in the previous world, so I study a lot about weapons every time I can spare. Throwing needles is much easier to find and much cheaper than a throwing knife. You can just ask a blacksmith some iron rod or iron fillet, then cut it an appropriate size, sharpen the other point or sharpen both points, and there you have it, a throwing needles. The only problem is, they are not as deadly as throwing knife, the throwing knife is quite big, has weight, and sharpness than the needle, that even if you missed some vital target, it would be quite deadly wound. While the throwing needle needs good control and accuracy. Since it doesn¡¯t have much weight you need to hit some vital part to do some major damage. The only advantage the throwing needle had was, it¡¯s much easier to conceal than the throwing knife, and you can make excuses like, it¡¯s a knitting needle if it¡¯s been found. A great idea right? The next thing the old man showed me was a cloak, I already forgot about that. What he showed me was so beautiful that I immediately tried it on, the cloak is made in two parts that is fixed together, first the cape was made in full length, it¡¯s off shoulder that is barely hanging on my shoulder so that my quiver and arrows was sticking out and can be easily drawn while not being hampered, the cape has a small leather belt buckle at the edge that can be adjusted and be locked at the left side of my upper chest so the edges of the cape is lying on top of one another making an inverted ¡°V¡± shape down on my body, but the cape can still be fully closed because of how wide it is. The hood isn¡¯t any ordinary hood that can be found anywhere, it has a long tail hanging in the back in a ¡°V¡± like shape reaching past my lower spine, the hood that would cover my head was as wide as my shoulder and large, when I cover my head, it would also cover the quiver and arrows that was sticking out the cape and hiding them, and if anyone don¡¯t look closely enough, they won¡¯t notice that there was something on my back. The whole cloak was made in the black bear¡¯s fur with a trimmed black leather at the edges. There was only one cloak, I asked why there¡¯s only one cloak, because I was expecting that we would be getting two each, one that can be used in cold and wet weather and one in normal type weather like summer, and the cloak would be a nice gift for the old man for all the things he done for me, but he said he didn¡¯t need one, and the cloak was made to endure cold and can still be used on normal weather, because the maker was really skilled and the material was rare, it was imbued with mana while making it, and the process of making just one cloak took two weeks, that¡¯s why there¡¯s only one cloak. He said instead of cloak, he ask for a bed rolls instead on the rest of the bear fur which was made by the maker¡¯s assistant. And save Misha¡¯s mother fur for some other time. Aside from the cloak he also gave me a leather hooded mantle, it was also in black color to match the bear¡¯s fur. Now what I wear is my new tunic which is dark green, the hooded mantle, my belts, which is a normal belt where my waist quiver was attached and a small belt pouch, and the throwing knifes belt which holds, obviously, the throwing knives and lastly my new cloak covering my back quiver which hold my bow and arrows. I looked awesome, but there¡¯s one thing that is largely missing, MUSCLES! If I had my muscles I would looked so perfect. Anyway there¡¯s no crying over spilt milk, I just need to train hard so I can reunite with my precious muscle again.
Cloak of the Night Bear
A cloak made from a rare material by a skilled tailor. It was imbued with mana during the process of making it. It can endure any extreme cold and wet weather but not of extreme heat. Wearer will always feel refresh on normal weather condition.
Defense581Durability450/450
+50 to Strength +50 to Agility +40 to Dexterity +45 to Constitution +5 to Water, Wind, Earth, and Dark Resistance
Simple Throwing Knife
A simple throwing knife made from iron ore
Damage10-15Durability10/10
Knitting Needle
A tool for sewing wool or yarn
We were traveling for 2 weeks now, our direction, to the mountainous region of this kingdom, we are still using the roads while traveling, but this road is not commonly used, in this 2 weeks, nothing eventful happened, we would always take a rest stop before night came and prepared to make camp, at this time, I would practice my throwing skills with my left hand, even though I trained my left arm during my bed ridden days, it¡¯s still not as good as my dominant arm. As I do my practice throws, all of them would missed the target, which is a big tree trunk, with a large margin, so large that I lost two of my throwing knife in my first night of practice. I kept searching it for an hour then gave up. The next night I ask Misha to smell all of my throwing knife and to remember them. I started practicing again, after throwing all my knife and all of them missing, I told Misha ¡°Fetch¡± then she bounded off searching for my 13 knives, as I wait for her to find them and get back, I started sharpening the knitting needles, so I can transform them to a throwing needles. Misha seems to think that I¡¯m playing with her, good thing then, two birds in one stone. This were our itinerary for the whole two weeks, travel the whole day, make camp before night fall, doing our own things, dinner, doing our own things again, sleep, wake up, breakfast, pack up, and travel again. That was until last night, we are our at our last stock of meat, in short we¡¯re running out of meat, the snare we left before to sleep didn¡¯t catch anything or we catch something but somebody is getting at it first, for when we check for the snare every morning if it caught something, we arrive at it broken and blood around the snare, which seems the preys blood. We know who the suspect is, it seems Misha has been practicing how to hunt, her instinct has started kicking off. So the old man decided that he would go off tonight to hunt and would be back in the morning, and since I¡¯m still injured, I can¡¯t hunt so he asked me to just guard the cart and the horse with Misha. I woke up the next morning noticing that I¡¯m alone, the old man hasn¡¯t returned yet and Misha seems to be goofing around, I stand up to check if everything¡¯s alright, the horse who became accustomed to Misha¡¯s presence has been lazily munching some grass, the cart didn¡¯t change location and everything we left in the cart was still there. After checking I poke and blow the burning coals, the remainder of yesterday¡¯s fire back to life and added some more fire wood, I¡¯m planning to boil some water to make some tea. As I wait for my water to boil, I heard some rustling behind me, it seems the old man or Misha has returned. As I turned back to welcome them back, what I supposed to welcome was not any of them. Instead there was three unknown guys. The guy on the center was short and has a bulky build, he got a sword on his waist, and the sword doesn¡¯t have any good features and he had pack on his back. The guy on his right side is much taller than him by a head and skinny, he only had a dagger on his waist, and the guy on the left side was as tall as the guy on the right but fat, as fat as a cow with two huge front teeth and had a big axe on his back. They all wear a simple tattered tunic and cloak. There¡¯s a large sign about them saying that they are up to no good. ¡°I told you so Jim¡± said the fatty guy. ¡°Saw them yesternoon, look filthy rich from the distance, only two of em, one old man and this skinny bastard.¡± He continued ¡°Are you referring to me Monty?¡± Said the skinny guy ¡°No you dolt, I¡¯m referring to this guy.¡± Said the fatty, he looked at the skinny guy then point a finger at me. ¡°Oh, I thought you called me skinny, you know how I hate being called skinny. Wait did you call me a dolt?¡± asked the skinny guy. ¡°No, didn¡¯t call you a dolt, I called you stupid, stupid.¡± Replied the fat guy ¡°Kay, I also hate being called a dolt, stupid is okay though.¡± Said the skinny guy ¡°Enough! Shut up both of you!¡± Shouted the shorty, and they both shut their mouth. ¡°Monty didn¡¯t you said there was a dog with them?¡± he continued ¡°Aye, that¡¯s right, its white dog, and the old man wasn¡¯t with him, maybe he¡¯s with the dog.¡± Said the fatty. ¡°When I left them yesternoon to tell you what I found, they were still together. Hey where¡¯s the old man skinny?¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t see the old man yet Monty, dis would be my first time seeing him.¡± The skinny said ¡°I didn¡¯t asked you dolt! I asked the other skinny¡± said the fatty ¡°Oh sorry Monty, thought you we¡¯re asking me, wait, did you called me dolt just now?¡± asked the skinny guy ¡°I said enough you two! Shut up, let me do the talking¡± said the shorty ¡°Hey bastard, where¡¯s your companion?¡± the shorty asked me. I didn¡¯t answer him yet, I was thinking of what will I do. ¡°Are you guys lost?¡± I asked trying to get some time and trying to discern if my thought of who are they are true. ¡°I¡¯m the one who¡¯s asking the question! Bastard like you just need to answer.¡± Said the shorty Now I know what this is, this is so clich¨¦. I was expecting of a peaceful traveling, but what you want doesn¡¯t always go the way you want. Sigh~ better be over with this, this will be so very dangerous for me. Misha, old man, please save me. ¡°I don¡¯t know, oh Misha¡¯s not a dog.¡± I said then I quickly draw a throwing knife and hurled it toward them, it missed big time, what do you expect from a 2 weeks veteran of throwing, like my first fight with the bow and arrow, I don¡¯t know how hit while moving and I don¡¯t know how to hit a moving target. But unlike the bow and arrow, I only had 2 weeks of almost all-miss experience on throwing, I had a disadvantage of only having 3 usable limbs at the moment and worst of all, I had the disadvantage on numbers. 3 on 1 is a good odds if you¡¯re a part of the 3, but being on the side of 1 is sure way to die. I had the experience of fighting more than 10 people, but they were all normal human, in here, even a weak looking on the outside may be a really strong one on the inside. As my throwing knife miss, I was already running toward the forest, for I know it will miss, but it was just a distraction for me to have the time to escape. As they were shock at what I did, I was already three steps away from them, and when they recovered from their shock I was already 7 meters away from. The shorty recovered first. ¡°After him you fools!¡± he ordered the other two. The other two recovered from his voice and started chasing after me. The skinny was the fastest, he already had his dagger on his right hand. ¡°Never thought that we will be fooled by an injured person.¡± Said the fatty, who was just behind the skinny guy. I draw another throwing knife, looked back ward, stop for a moment and hurled it at them. Skinny being at front saw what I did and reacted first at the throwing knife. He dodge to the left, but the fatty being just right behind the skinny guy and being slow, didn¡¯t saw what I did and doesn¡¯t had enough time to react. The throwing knife hit him deadly on the throat, but he was not killed, because what hit him was not the blade but the opposite end of the blade. He choked and kneeled down coughing and seeking breath. At least I paralyzed one of them, I continued running, now the skinny guy has become careful on how to chase me. But this cause him to lose me in the forest. ¡°Jim I lost him and Dulin is on his knees coughing!¡± the skinny shouted ¡°Damn you both, do I need to do everything? Kill him before his companion comes back!¡± shouted back by the shorty When I hurled my throwing knife and hit the fatty, I ran as fast as I can, zigzagging trees to lose the skinny guy. I used all the skills I learned from the old man, using silent step while running to lighten my steps and lessen the sound I made, so the skinny guy can¡¯t just follow me. When I hit the fatty, the skinny guy became careful on how to follow me gaining me the time to lose him in the forest. Now I¡¯m hiding using my hiding skills. I can¡¯t hide for long, my first plan was to wait for the old man and Misha to comeback, but I can¡¯t say the definite time they will come back, and time is the thing I don¡¯t have right now. My second plan is to hold on till they come back, but that would be nearly impossible for me, being at a disadvantage with numbers, I don¡¯t know how long I can hold on and they may decide to take the horse and the cart and leave, which is good thing for me at the same time bad thing for us, since all the things we need in this travel was in the cart. So the only thing I can do is use my third plan, which is to face them, since one of them is down already but not for long till he recovers, I must take this chance to incapacitate another one of them or worst comes to worst, to kill them. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. If it comes to kill them, I don¡¯t know if I can, for this would be my first time in killing another person. I won¡¯t know till I do it, I won¡¯t know what would be the outcome for myself if I do it. But one thing is I know for sure, that is, I would do anything to survive even if killing is the only solution for it, dying once is enough for me. As I hide, I fasten my right arm, because it hurts a lot when it sways a bit, but not too tight so I can immediately use it in dire situation, hope it doesn''t comes to that. I checked the things that is available for me to use, good thing I always equip my bow and quiver every time I woke up, even though I can¡¯t still use it in my current condition. I only got 11 throwing knives and a pouch of throwing needles, which I only had a few nights of practice, unlike the throwing knives which had a two weeks¡¯ worth of practice. And lastly my hunting knife. Now that I checked all the things that is available to me, I need to come up a plan and I need it fast. First I must not let them to regroup or to search for me in group, they must always be separated, for I won¡¯t stand a chance if they gang up on me. My first target would be skinny, from what I can judge by his stature, this skinny guy is fast, you can always tell by what weapon they are using, skinny uses a dagger which specialize in being fast, this skinny guy favor speed and close combat. And it seems skinny doesn¡¯t have any tracking ability. With my low level skill in tracking, he can¡¯t even find me. I¡¯m going to use some guerrilla tactics with skinny, and I must avoid to fight any of them in close combat. With that in my mind, I set to put my plan in motion. I first tried to get closer to skinny, then let myself shown to him. I need to separate him much farther from his other companion. I heard him said ¡°Found him Jim¡± then he started following me again, not far so he won¡¯t lose me but not near either to let him catch me. When I deemed it far enough, I hide, the skinny arrive at the place where I hide, then he searched the place. ¡°Come out you bastard, I know you are here.¡± The skinny said. He kept on searching the place, after a while, he stopped, it seems, he noticed my hiding place, I hold my breath and not letting any sound leak out from me. He approached slowly where I was hiding, he lunged at me dagger first when he was at striking distance, the dagger pierced thru at my hiding place, but what he hit was not actually me but my cloak, before I hide, I remove my cloak and set it up under the tree, then I hide a few meters beside my cloak. This is what they call misdirection, I let him see my cloak so he won¡¯t see me. Now skinny guy is right in front me, I sprung up behind him and stab him with my hunting knife, I stab him right under his right arm pit, the arm which he use to hold his dagger which he let go after I stabbed him. Since he was in stabbing position, it was the right time and the right moment. If this was a game, I would see the critical sign floating up in my head. For I know that what I did would result being a critical hit. Focus plus Patience skill combined together making a devastating blow. If I stabbed skinny sideways, I am sure my hunting knife would reach his heart. But I didn¡¯t stab sideways, I stabbed upward, now the blade of my hunting knife was protruding in front of skinny from his shoulder. He screamed so loud, I immediately slash my dagger downward, slicing the flesh of his armpit, then stab him 4 times in both of his thigh, 2 times in each thigh, making sure that he was incapacitate for good. He dropped to the ground face first screaming, when he was lying on the ground I immediately kneed him to the face, making him unconscious. I don¡¯t want him dying on me, they said that a panicked person with an open wound would die faster because their hearts beat faster which led their blood to also bleed faster. ¡°Oh I ¡®am not skinny, I¡¯m muscle deprived.¡± I said reminding him. I don¡¯t know if what I did was much brutal than immediately killing him, but one thing is for sure, if I can I don¡¯t want to kill a person yet, so instead of being undecided if I¡¯m going to kill someone, I decided to just wound them severely, making sure they won¡¯t cause trouble for me later. This way there is a chance that I can save them later after the fight or they would just die because of the wound before the fight ends. At least I made sure to myself that he won¡¯t be joining the others later on. If I didn¡¯t stab him in the thigh and just made him unconscious, there is a chance that later on in the middle of the fight that he would wake up and help the others, this way, even if he wake ups, he can¡¯t join the others. Brutal or not, to kill or not, I must ensure my survival first. This is my first priority. After I was sure that he was unconscious, I took his dagger from the ground and sheath it in my belt, I hurriedly searched his body for concealed weapon or anything that he has that can used against me, it was hard searching him for I only had one arm to use. What I found is a coin purse and another dagger from his belt, I immediately took them and hide the purse in my clothes and the dagger in my belt. I stand up, pick up my cloak and hide skinny¡¯s body with branches, so his companion won¡¯t find him immediately. I already heard the shorty¡¯s voice from a far, calling for skinny. His voice has a tone tinge with worry and fear. After I was done hiding skinny¡¯s body, I rushed away from him, my next target is the fatty, hoping he is still down for the count. I must made it sure that he won¡¯t be joining shorty later. So I round back towards where fatty was while making sure shorty won¡¯t find me. I arrive at the vicinity where I hit fatty, as I took a last turn to a tree to look if fatty was still kneeling at the same place, we were both surprised, for what I saw when I turn was fatty already standing, still retching and holding his throat while leaning in the tree. I was hoping that he was still on his knees so it can be easy to deal with him. Fatty was surprise because of my sudden appearance on the tree he was leaning on. I recover first from the shock of seeing each other, I immediately throw my cloak at him, covering his face, as he was covered, I immediately kick him in the stomach, he step back a few meters from the force of my kick and drop down to the ground butt first. I unsheathe my dagger and slash him at his right calf while he was rolling in pain, I don¡¯t want to stab him because I would also stab my cloak, it¡¯s not that I don¡¯t want to put a hole in it, but I¡¯m not sure if my dagger would pierced thru my cloak, I still don¡¯t know how defense stat work in this world. As I was about to take another slash at him, he kicked me away with his left foot, the kick didn¡¯t hit me but it made me unbalance, which gain him time to remove the cloak and stand up. He was standing but with great difficulty, his body was supported by only his left leg. Fatty draw his large axe but it made him more unbalance. ¡°I¡¯m going to kill you!¡± fatty said with anger in his voice ¡°Can you use that?¡± I asked which made him angrier than he already is, he tried charging at me which can be called as a snail charge, I waited for him to come near me, when he was at the striking distance of his axe, he swung it at me, which I easily avoided, he swung the axe diagonally from left to right going upward, I avoided it by dodging to my right, the momentum of his swing drag him to the right which led him to use his right injured leg to support his whole fatty weight causing him to scream in pain, I didn¡¯t let this chance go, I tackle him in his left side using my left shoulder, fatty immediately plummeted down towards the ground slamming his whole body. I recover myself after the tackle and rush towards the fallen fatty and kick him into his jaw making him unconscious. When I was sure that fatty is unconscious, I pick up his axe and throw it far away from him. I searched his whole fatty body like what I did with skinny, I only found a purse which I also hide inside my clothes. One more left, the shorty, I don¡¯t know how I would deal with him but I know I must act with cautious, although I defeated the other two easily, I can¡¯t judge the shorty on how he looks, rephrase that, I can¡¯t judge any being in this world by how they look. After searching fatty¡¯s body, I rush back where I came from, I didn¡¯t hide fatty¡¯s body like what I did with skinny, it would be pointless, aside from being shorty is the only one left, fatty¡¯s body is too big to drag and hide, so I didn¡¯t bother hiding it. I searched for shorty for a moment, while searching I was preparing something, so if worst comes to worst, I had a backup plan. I found shorty still searching for me or for skinny, he was shouting like ¡°Come out you bastard!¡± or ¡°Monty! Where the hell are you?!¡± that shouting was like a beacon for me to track him down, I observe him for a moment, he was holding his sword in both hand while looking around the place. By how shorty wield his sword tells me that he knows how to use it, so it won¡¯t be wise to fight him in close range, well I know that already since the beginning. This would be a hit and run. But first I need to know some things from him. ¡°Hey! Your companion is down already so why not just leave?¡± I shouted at him while hiding, he immediately turn where he suspects my voice were coming from. ¡°Come out you bastard or I will kill you¡± He shouted back. And why would I do that? You¡¯re already trying to kill me when we first met. Are you some kind of stupid? I thought to myself. I change location before shouting back to him. ¡°Why are you trying to kill me?¡± I shouted, he turn in different location trying to discern where my voice came from. ¡°Because I want to before taking your things, then I¡¯ll kill your companion and the dog, I heard that dog meat is good¡± He shouted back, still looking around the place trying to find me. I change my location again before continuing our conversation. ¡°Misha¡¯s not a dog, she¡¯s a cat and you can¡¯t kill the old man!¡± I shouted back, I change my location again. ¡°Are you a well-known bandit?¡± I shouted again. ¡°Not yet! But soon! We will be!¡± He shouted back, while still searching for me. ¡°Then why are you here, you won¡¯t be known if you are staying in this forest.¡± Changing my location and shouted back. ¡°And why would I be telling you that? Come out! You stupid bastard!¡± He shouted ¡°I¡¯m just curious on why a soon to be known bandit hiding in this forest¡± I shouted back, already in different location ¡°Curious eh? There¡¯s a saying curiosity killed the cat, since you¡¯re going to die anyway it would be okay for you to know then, we were hiding in this forest after stealing something and killing our former companion, we had a camp not far from here when you stupid bastards show yourself, it won¡¯t be nice if you accidentally found us, so we decided to accidentally kill you first before you accidentally found us and tell the soldiers, right?!¡± he said while still searching for me. I didn¡¯t answer back, I already know what I want to know. Now I don¡¯t have any more doubts and regrets about them and what I did to them. I sprung up from behind him and throw a throwing knife at him, but my throwing was block, when I sprung up from behind him, he immediately turn, he must notice or felt my presences causing him to turn back, he block my throwing knife with his sword, after my throw, I was already running and drawing another throwing knife, after he block my throwing knife, he immediately run after me. I was running circles around him throwing my throwing knife at him, shorty kept chasing after me and blocking what I throw at him. Shorty was gradually gaining distance at me and my throwing knife aside from its dwindling number has no effect on shorty. I decided to use my throwing needle even though I¡¯m not as proficient in it as my throwing knife. I draw many 5 throwing needles in my pouch and bit it on my mouth, then I draw a throwing knife, I stopped for a second and throw it to shorty, as usual, he block it, but after I throw my throwing knife at him I repeatedly throw my throwing needles, at distance of 5 meters, it would be impossible for me to miss shorty, even if shorty is short, I practice throwing at 15 meters distance, this is only 1/3 of that distance. Shorty was surprised at what I did, instead of running after I throw my throwing knife, I stand there throwing needles at him, his shock cause him to stop and be hit by my needles, not fatal though, I hit him 5 times, 3 stuck deep at him and 2 just bounce at him, it may be the other end hit him that¡¯s why it just bounce off. The first needle that stuck at him was at his shoulder, it was also the first needle I throw, the other two was at his arms, for he can¡¯t just parry it with his sword, he can¡¯t clearly see the needle coming because of its size and because the forest has only a dim lighting even though its already morning causing the needle to be nearly impossible to see. Unlike the throwing knife who got size which cause it to reflect more light than the needle making it easy for shorty to block or parry it. Shorty scream in pain and frustration from the wounds he receive, after throwing all 5 needles, I draw another throwing knife and hurled it at him, I aim it at his thigh, shorty who was still in pain and screaming notice the flying knife too late, the knife¡¯s blade buried itself deep into shorty¡¯s thigh making shorty scream much louder than before, while shorty was screaming I run away again, even though shorty has been wounded, I still think that I¡¯m no match to him at close range fight, so I ran and execute the plan, I turn around to see what shorty was doing, he was taking the needles and the knife at his body, then he reach for his pack trying to get something, I don¡¯t know what that is, maybe a healing item or something, I didn¡¯t see it clearly cause I¡¯m too far away already and already take a turn to my destination, after my turn I took a jump and continue running for about 5 meters when suddenly I heard a succeeding explosion from behind me, I turn around to look only to be hit by shockwave, when the shockwave hit me, I felt I was floating backward then I felt my body took a sudden plunge into the ground then my body rolled backward a few time and then took a sudden stop. I was lying on the ground, dazed at what happened, thinking what made me flying and rolling a half dozen meters to the ground. As I sit up to look for the source of my current situation, what I saw was shorty, a dozen meters away from me, standing at the place where I heard the succeeding explosion, standing at the place where a mini destruction litter the place and smoking, standing at the exact place where I took the turn. Shorty was standing there huffing heavy breathes, leaning on the tree with his left arm while holding his sword, his right hand was raised with open palm and pointing at my direction. There was something glowing at shorty¡¯s right hand, near his wrist that if I remember correctly, it was never there before. It may be the thing he took from his pack. ¡°Huff~ huff~ Never thought that I will be force to use this in a weakling like you!¡± He said while breathing heavily. I was still daze and didn¡¯t even understand a word that he said, but what I know was my instinct telling me that I¡¯m going to die if I didn¡¯t move. But my body is still unresponsive from my brains commands. I shake off my head to clear my mind. ¡°Huff~ I will kill you, then I will wait for that old man and that dog of yours and slaughter them¡± he said, he took a deep breath and now standing straight but still favoring his uninjured leg, he was not leaning anymore on the tree. ¡°You made me use this bracelet! This bracelet took a lot of mana if you don¡¯t have a mana manipulation skill! For that, I will turn you to ash!¡± he said shouting, he slowly took a step towards me, slowly limping as he approach me, and right hand raised palm first and still pointing at me. I shook again my head as I done so this past few moments, my mind is starting to clear of, as I shake my head, I saw Misha crouching and slowly approaching shorty from behind in his left, I don¡¯t know if it was my imagination because I¡¯m still daze, but I¡¯m hoping it was not, aside from Misha, I saw my bow into the ground with an arrow nock at it already. I remembered that I had a plan and prepared it earlier, now my mind is already clear from being dazed, I analyzed myself, I don¡¯t need to remove my right hand anymore from its sling anymore, it seems when I was flown away and rolled into the ground, it came off on its own and dangling at my side. Since the start I know I can¡¯t beat shorty without using my bow, that¡¯s why I prepared it earlier with one other thing before facing shorty. It¡¯s not impossible to use my right arm since it was not dislocated anymore and had already rested for 2 weeks, but since it was not totally healed, it will hurt a lot when I use it. All I need is willpower to endure pain so that I can draw my bow, hope I have that. I slowly took a knee, pick up my bow with an arrow already nock on it with my left hand and ordered my right hand to move. Shorty who noticed my action laugh so loud. ¡°HA! HA! HA! What can you do? It¡¯s futile to resist!¡± he said as he slowly limping towards me. ¡°Really?¡± I whispered to myself, as shorty took one more step, he stepped on the other thing I prepared earlier aside from bow. ¡°ARGGGGGGGGH!¡± Shorty shouted in pain. As shorty shouted, I immediately raised my bow while forcefully drawing it with my endure arm. ¡°Errrrgghhh¡± I scream in gritted teeth, enduring the pain as I draw my bow, I aim then I released. The arrow fly true, it was headed to shorty¡¯s right shoulder. Shorty saw what I did and dodge to his left, it was a bit too late, for the arrow only graze him at his shoulder, but that was not the purpose of my arrow, for I know that my injured arm can¡¯t hold it for long, if it was earlier and the explosion didn¡¯t occur, or didn¡¯t hit me, the arrows purpose would be to kill, for I will have the time to prepare myself to focus and draw the arrow. But now, the arrows purpose was for shorty to dodge to his left, because, if Misha was really there then what awaits shorty is not salvation but. Misha was really there, it was not imagination, as shorty was at his mid-dodge towards left, Misha was already at mid-air towards shorty, claw first, mouth open wide with fangs showing all around it. ¡°GRAAAAAWL!¡± Misha roared as she was at mid-air, then she hit shorty at the back, you can see shorty¡¯s disbelief at what was happening, first from my action, then at what he step at making him scream, which is my throwing needles I stuck into the ground at an angled so it won¡¯t just dug deeper when it was step on, this is the other thing I prepared aside from my bow, it was a plan as a distraction as I draw my bow, next is my arrow shot that graze him, and lastly the unknown force that was pushing him from behind. Misha and shorty rolled a few meters together towards me, then they come to a stop a few meters in front of me, shorty lying into the ground and Misha lunge at shorty putting a paw in his chest. ¡°Oh, Misha¡¯s not a dog, she¡¯s a cat.¡± I said to shorty¡¯s face, then Misha plunge her jaw at shorty¡¯s mouth and nose then gave it a powerful shake cracking his neck. ¡°What a lovely cat¡± I said. Chapter 8 Chapter 8: An Overheating Head I was knock unconscious for an hour after Misha save me, due to the fatigue from the ordeal I just faced. When I woke up, I was lying in the cart already patch up, Misha was beside me busily licking her paws. I looked around and saw that the old man has already returned, the old man saw that I was awake already so he approached me at the side of the cart and asked me what happened, I told him exactly what happened, but he already surmised what happened due to the tracks and marks the battle left around the field, he just want it to be confirmed by my own mouth. Then he told me what happened to the other bandits that I left alive, because I already know what happened to shorty, he was surely killed by Misha, for I heard the cracking noise his neck made before I lost consciousness, fatty died, he drowned in his own blood, the old man told me that fatty bit his own tongue severing it causing fatty to overly bleed and be drowned by his own blood, and also his jaw was dislocated, making this two the cause of his death, that means, I didn¡¯t know that I killed fatty when I kicked his jaw with all I had just to make him unconscious, but it led to fatty being killed. Skinny also died, but it was only partially my cause, skinny was bleeding to death, and with no healer around, even if we treat him with the available materials we had, he won¡¯t survive the night, so the old man do the necessary thing, he grant skinny a fast and painless death. The old man didn¡¯t condemn me or anything for what I had done, he understand that I did what I did for the sake of my own survival. Instead of condemning me, he praised me, then it hit, I killed a person, not just one, but two, and since I helped Misha kill shorty, then I became its accomplice, but since I was doing it even before Misha helped me, I was not just an accomplice, I¡¯m the main culprit of the shorty¡¯s death, or their deaths. I killed three person, a human being, even if that human being can be called evil, I still killed them, then for killing them, what kind of human being am I? The memories has begun to torment me, I became silent, I don¡¯t know for how long I became silent, I even forgot that the old man was just in front of me and Misha was beside me, till I saw him standing and holding my shoulder giving it a tight press and Misha was using my lap as a pillow as if she¡¯s comforting me. I didn¡¯t even notice that I¡¯m already in the state of self-loathing and I didn¡¯t even know that I¡¯m crying till I saw a blurry image of the old man that was in front of me, he looked at me into the eyes, his gaze kept hold on mine, even though we were both not speaking, his gaze told me something and his hands on my shoulder confirms what his eyes was telling me, that he knows what I¡¯m going thru right now, and that he is always there if I need him. ¡°It¡¯s a good thing that you felt that way, killing another person or another being may trouble any person, but what they turn out after doing the deed will define them. Some dwell on it for too long that they became mad, or they felt nothing anymore that they lose the boundary between right and wrong. And some, overcome it and they became a better person. Now the question is, what are you feeling right now? With that question, you can answer what kind of person you will become. To help you answer that question, examine yourself and your reason for killing, if it¡¯s just and if you¡¯ll do it again.¡± With that said, the old man left me alone with Misha to think. The old man left us heading to the forest after a few moment he was gone from my sight, I look at Misha who was lazily using my lap as a pillow and put my hand on her forehead, she purred as I stroke her fur. I examined myself and thought what the old man had said. Why did I cry and loathe myself, did I cry because I feel guilty for what I done, or did I cry for them, for the three person I killed? No, I cried not because of guilt, maybe a part of it, and most of all I didn¡¯t cry for the three person I killed, I cried for being weak. Did I loathe myself because I feel disgusted for what I done? Then if it¡¯s true, do I loathe my life? No, what I loathe is not the act of killing, instead I loathe myself for being weak, maybe if I ¡®am stronger, I can find a way or a method for defeating them without them getting killed. Am I being na?ve? I don¡¯t think so, they died because my first priority was to survive, being weak myself, there¡¯s no other choice but to do all I can do to survive, even if it led to killing. If I faced another situation like this, if it means to survive or to protect anyone I care about, and the only answer is to kill again, I will do it. Now I find my answer, I don¡¯t know for how long I was ruminating myself but it¡¯s time to tell the old man my answer. As I was about to stand up and find the old man, I suddenly notice the windows at the edge of my vision, it must be there since I pass out.
You defeated Three Bandits!
For defeating Three Bandits almost by your own. You gained: +15 to Strength +25 to Agility +30 to Dexterity +20 to Constitution +30 to Wisdom +10 to Luck +40 to Endurance +70 to Fighting Spirit
The Gods and Gaia has deemed you worthy because of your meritorious deed, you gained a Simple Accomplishment ¡°Number Odds¡±
You don¡¯t have a name, for not having a name, your accomplishments has not been distinguish and has been revoke.
You learned a skill ¡°Throwing Proficiency¡±
Throwing Proficiency (Passive) Apprentice Grade 1 (0.00% to the next grade)
You are more familiarize handling a Throwing Weapon +5% in Throwing Weapon damage You tire much slower when using a Throwing Weapon The higher the grade of this skill enhances your proficiency when using a Throwing Weapon
Finally, I learned the throwing skill, it took me a day or couple of days to learn the bow proficiency skill, but this throwing skill took almost 2 weeks. I ponder why I just only learned the skill just now, maybe because I had someone to teach me how to use the bow, unlike throwing skills, anyway, at least I already had the skill, it would be much easier to train it now. I left Misha on the cart then I searched for the old man inside the forest and found him about 20 meters away from our campsite, I approached him and notice that he was facing 3 dug pit and the bodies of the three bandit was beside each pit. ¡°So did you find your answer?¡± he asked me as I approach ¡°Yes¡± I said, I was now standing side by side with him and looking at the bodies and the pit beside them. ¡°And what is it?¡± he asked me again ¡°I did what I had to, although I said it, I still felt regret for what I did, it is wrong for anyone to take another one¡¯s life, but if it means for me to survive or to protect someone I care about, I won¡¯t hesitate to do it again, but if I can manage to avoid it or find another method instead of taking another one¡¯s life, I will do it. From now on, my first priority is my life and the life that I care about.¡± I said with resolved and determination. ¡°Good, you are on the right path, if you chose another path that leads to indiscriminate killing, I will kill you right here at this very moment and bury your body with them.¡± He said while pointing not far away where the 4th pit was. I was surprised that the old man has already made a decision to kill me if I chose the wrong path. Good thing I didn¡¯t, I breathed a sigh of relief. ¡°Life is not given for others to take, but only if it means for your own survival, like the predators in the wild, they kill to live, so they can eat and survive another day, but they don¡¯t just kill with impunity, for they know that if they kill all the things around them, soon they will follow and die. Remember this.¡± He said ¡°Thanks, Mr. Silan, I will never forget.¡± I said with sincerity. ¡°Now, let¡¯s move it behind us, for now, what do you want to do with the body?¡± he asked me ¡°Is there anything else aside from burying it?¡± I asked bewildered ¡°Yes, decide if you want to just bury it or decapitate it before burying¡± he said, ahh now I remember. ¡°Oh, please decapitate it, I don¡¯t want any Soulbounder like me be trap in this kind of person¡± I said ¡°If what you mean by person is the person personality, it won¡¯t be a problem, for the body doesn¡¯t hold the personality but the soul, but if what you meant of person is how they physically look like, I know what you meant, who would like to look at that face.¡± He said ¡°But isn¡¯t this a good thing for you?¡± he asked me ¡°How is it a good thing for me?¡± I asked ¡°This body is weak, let say you¡¯re a little bit stronger than this body, if someday this body became Soulbound, it would be in your advantage if you face him in the future.¡± He explained. If the old man said it like that, he does have a point, but. ¡°You have a point, but I don¡¯t want to see the person I killed again, it would be so awkward and I don¡¯t want to be blamed if he got a chance to know that I may be the cause that he got that body. Let¡¯s just decapitate it.¡± I said. We decapitate the body, it was a gruesome task, as if I was killing them again. I almost vomited but I held it. After that gruesome task, we bury the body and said some prayer. We head back to the cart, as we arrive at the cart, the old man took something in the cart and pass it to me. It was shorty¡¯s things, a pack, his sword and belt, and the thing he used against me, it was a bracelet. I identified it.
Bracelet of Thought
An Accessory that was once made and wear by a great Alchemist and Enchanter. It was made with a fragment from a high mana condensation and a pure fire element.
Instant Cast ¨C Wearer can cast any skill the wearer had by just calling the skill name out loud or just by whisper. The higher the grade skill may require a cool down. Cool down may vary depending on skill strength and grade. FireBolt (Active) Apprentice Grade 1 ¨C Skill Grade may be replaced if the wearer has the same skill but with a higher grade. May expend much more mana if the wearer doesn¡¯t have mana manipulation skill.
Damn that shorty! He had this OP item, where did he get this kind of item. He had this kind of item, but his sword is just normal, and all the pack had was some rope. Then I remembered the purse I got from the other two, I opened skinny¡¯s purse first, what I found was gold coins and a ring, then I did the same with fatty¡¯s purse and found out that it had the same content, except skinny had much more coin than fatty. I identified both rings, skinny¡¯s ring being first to be identified.
Ring of Goliath
An Accessory that was once made and wear by a great Alchemist and Enchanter. It was made with a fragment from a high mana condensation and a pure earth element.
Brute Force ¨C One action that require power can be strengthen by 5 times. May expend much more mana if the wearer doesn¡¯t have mana manipulation skill. Cooldown 5 seconds
Ring of Arion
An Accessory that was once made and wear by a great Alchemist and Enchanter. It was made with a fragment from a high mana condensation and a pure wind element.
Blink ¨C One action can be done much faster than a blink of an eye. May expend much more mana if the wearer doesn¡¯t have mana manipulation skill. Cooldown 1.5 seconds
DAMN! This guys, even though they are not that strong, with this type of equipment, I would be killed in an instant. Skinny who got Ring of Goliath which multiplied it strength by 5 times, if he stab me, I would surely have a whole much larger than my head. And fatty, if he instantly move behind me and swung that axe of his, I won¡¯t even know that I was already slice in two. This item complement them, fatty being slow, and skinny who lack strength, good thing they didn¡¯t had the chance to use it against me. The saying was right, don¡¯t let your guard down or you will be dead. Fatty and Skinny died underestimating me, if they wear it and use it from the start, I won¡¯t be alive right now. I showed the old man what I found, and asked him what it is and where did they found it, maybe he had some idea, he explained it to me that this kind of item was quite normal in a sense but also rare, normal because the people around 300 thousand years ago had the skill to make it or they found an item or material which was contaminated by fragments of high mana condensation, then was found or inherited by this era. Rare, because the people of this era, can¡¯t make as good as the people 300 thousand years ago, unless they found a much better material. In summation, high mana condensation isn¡¯t the only one that was sought when it form, high mana condensation scattered some fragments or the fragments that didn¡¯t made it to form can be found around the area where the formation occur. Many people who can¡¯t compete in searching the high mana condensation, content themselves by searching the fragment instead or the things that was contaminated by the fragments. Kingdoms, mage guild, rich merchant, and other rich buyer would vie for it. It would strengthen a kingdoms armory, or a mage spells, or a merchant would gain much richer, and or the rich buyer would do what he wants to do with it. So finding this kind of things is not like winning a lottery jackpot, its much like winning a bingo game every 10 rounds or so. Many strong people has this kind of item in their arsenal, especially when they are employed by a kingdom. But the bandits having this kind of item means, they ambushed someone, or they raid some tomb. And seeing the bandits strength first hand, means they didn¡¯t ambush anyone strong enough to have this kind of item, so there only one explanation, they accidentally found a tomb and raided it, in this case, this great alchemist and enchanter. I asked the old man to accompany me in the bandit¡¯s camp, maybe we can found more of this item. He told me that we can do it later, after we had some lunch, since it¡¯s already about time to eat. I didn¡¯t even noticed that all this thing just happen in a span of half a day, I almost felt it like forever. We prepared for lunch, the old man manage to catch some wolf and rabbit in his night hunt, so we cooked some of it. As we are eating I asked the old man how defense of an equipment work as I encounter a problem earlier when I was fighting fatty, if my dagger can punch thru my cloak when it was covering fatty. ¡°Listen well, all wearable things has its own defense, even an underpants, now, let¡¯s make an example out of your situation earlier, your cloak has a defense of 581 and durability of 450, now the dagger you used earlier has an attack of 5-10 right?¡± he asked me to confirm, I just nodded, he knows it because it was his old hunting knife that he gave me. ¡°Show me your stat window¡± he said ¡°After that, said add equipment stat¡± he continued ¡°Show Status Window to Mr. Silan¡± I said ¡°Add Equipment Stat¡± I followed
Status Window
NameNeed to be registered
TitleUntouchable
StandingsCommoner Grade 1
StatusSoulbound, Imprinted, Sprained
Strength162 (+81) (+50eq)Agility 281 (+140) (+67eq)
Dexterity243 (+121) (+40eq)Constitution 169 (+84) (+45eq)
Intelligence45 (+22) (+0eq)Wisdom 75 (+37) (+0eq)
Luck70 (+35) (+0eq)Leadership 0 (+0) (+0eq)
Endurance310 (+155) (+0eq)Fighting Spirit 220 (+110) (+0eq)
¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me the first time that it can be like this?¡± I asked bewildered ¡°Because what you wear or what you use doesn¡¯t had much stat or doesn¡¯t had any stat at all that can affect you¡¯re over all stat.¡± He explained. ¡°But since you are wearing something that can affect your overall stat, it became necessary to add it.¡± he continued ¡°Doesn¡¯t my Soulbound stat would affect it, so it would make a difference even if a little bit.¡± I said ¡°No, it doesn¡¯t, the thing you wear is with you not a part of you, so any stat boosting title or status won¡¯t affect any equipment you wear, unless it said specifically.¡± He explained again. ¡°Now were getting off topic, this is about defense, see here, your strength without the cloak is just 243, 1 strength adds up 0.5 to you damage, so the dagger you held which had 5-10 damage would become 126.5-131.5 damage, it means every strike you make, the damage would be between 126.5-131.5, being 126.5 the lowest and the other the highest you can make. You follow so far?¡± he asked me, I just nodded. ¡°Now your cloak has a defense of 581, this means that you need a total damage of 581 in one strike to null the defense of the cloak, or in your attack damage, you need to strike it 5 times so you can null its defense. Then you have to keep hitting it so it won¡¯t regain its defenses, but if you stopped hitting the armor for 5 seconds, the armor regain its defense again¡± He said ¡°Wait I didn¡¯t understand that, why 5 seconds? And what do you mean by 5 seconds?¡± I asked ¡°Because that¡¯s the fixed time of all equipment to regain its defense, unless it has a specific properties that lowers it.¡± He explained. ¡°It means that, if you manage to null the defense of any equipment your target wear, you can do some damage to the armor before the armor regain its defenses. While the armors defenses is null, this is your chance to either break it, destroy it, or just punch a hole on it so you can penetrate the wearer. But there are some warrior who wear multiple layer of armor, like knights, most knight like to wear 3 kinds of armor in their body, leather, chain mail, and a full body armor. This changes things.¡± He explained. I ponder this for a moment, what I understand from what he said is that, if I manage to null the armor, I need to continuously hit the armor and not let it be not hit in more than 5 seconds so it won¡¯t regain its defense, then what happen when it regain its defenses? And what about a knight having multiple layer of armor? ¡°Mr. Silan, what¡¯s this about breaking and stuff, and about a knight having multiple layer of armors.¡± I asked ¡°Uhm let¡¯s see. For example, you manage to null the armors defense, you focus on damaging the armor to destroy it, this is where durability enters, durability is the overall strength of the armor, the accumulated damage in every part of the armor adds up to the total damage to the durability of the armor, it takes 1/10th of you¡¯re total damage to lower the durability of any equipment unless it was made differently or you have a specific weapon which ignore this rule, let say you null the defenses of your cloak and want to make a hole in a specific part, in your case, 1/10th of 131.5 is 13, the durability of your cloak is 450, hitting it 34 times will, here comes ¡°Destroy¡±.¡± He said, emphasizing the word destroy then he continued on, on what he was saying. ¡°Hitting it 34 times while its defenses was nulled will destroy the cloak but in this case you just want to make a ¡°Hole¡± on it.¡± he said emphasizing the word hole. ¡°Hitting it in the same exact place a number of times will make a permanent hole on it till it was repaired, or if you can¡¯t, let say you only manage to hit it the exact same place 2 times and still not enough to make a hole, then your opponent manage to dodge you for 5 seconds or your just stupid enough not to manage to make a hit again on your opponent in 5 seconds then the cloak regain its defense again, you just need to null it again then hit it again in the same exact spot till you made a hole on it. Don¡¯t worry, even if you didn¡¯t manage to make a hole on it on the first try, the damage accumulated when the defenses was nulled will take a toll on the durability, so if you change your mind about the hole and decided to just destroy it, then you¡¯ll only need a little more hit to destroy it.¡± he said Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°It seems impossible for me to do it? Unless I had a super strong damage¡± I asked ¡°No, it is quite possible for everyone, it just hard to do, you just need to break the armor.¡± He said ¡°Huh?¡± I said puzzled ¡°Now ¡°Breaking¡±¡± He said emphasizing the word breaking. ¡°Breaking an armor is the easiest thing to do, the only thing you need to do is, hit some vital parts of the armor, for example a joint that holds it together, it would came apart instead of destroying or making a hole on it, that would be much easier. Now that we covered up about breaking, destroying, and making a hole, now it¡¯s time for multiple layered armor. You must first understand that 30% of the defense of the first armor you wear adds up to the next one. for example, your tunic that you are wearing right now has its own defense, weak but its till a defense, let¡¯s say what you wear had 100 defense, then you put a leather armor on top of it with a defense of 200, this figure is just for example, so it can be easy to understand. Now 30% of your tunic is 30, it will add up to the leather armor making it 230, then you wear a chainmail on top of leather armor that had 300 defense, the leather armor that has now 230 defense, 30% of it which is 69 will add up to 300 making it 369, then so on and so forth. Now let say you manage to punch a hole on the chainmail, then the leather armor appears which had a fresh 230 defense and durability, you need to null it and punch a hole on it so you can pierced thru it, then to the same on the cloth so you can hurt your opponent.¡± He said ¡°Huh? This is getting hard to understand by the minute.¡± I said ¡°What I mean is, a person wearing a multiple layered armor is hard to kill, because even if you manage to punch a hole in the first armor, he can just protect it all the time so you can¡¯t manage to penetrate the next one. Unless you destroy the first armor or break it so you can null the second one in any part that you want, not unlike with the first armor still on and only a hole to hit to null the second one. Do you understand?¡± he asked me ¡°Then it would take for forever.¡± I protested ¡°That¡¯s why I said it¡¯s quite possible, I didn¡¯t said it would be easy, or you could just hit some unprotected parts of your opponent, like the eye or the skin that doesn¡¯t have any protection. Like what you did with three bandits.¡± He said ¡°But that where constitution enter, skin is the main defense of the body, the defense came from constitution, 1 constitution is equal to 0.4 of your natural defense.¡± He continued ¡°Huh?¡± I said ¡°It¡¯s just the same as the equipment, but instead it became your skin, let¡¯s make an example of you again, so you had 253 of constitution, not including your stat gain by equipment, it means you had 101 of natural defense, since your attack can do 131.5 damage, it means it can cut you up since the damage exceeds 30 of your natural defense, if the attack was aim at your heart, it will pierced thru and ending your life. And since skin isn¡¯t an armor it doesn¡¯t have a 5 seconds to regain its defenses, it will remain wounded unless it was healed magically of course, and it doesn¡¯t have durability so the instant you are wounded means the defense of that part of the skin that was wounded was already gone.¡± He explained ¡°Argghh!¡±I screamed while holding my head. ¡°My head is starting to hurt.¡± I said to the old man, math is not my strong point, all this number only make my head hurts. ¡°Oh, I forgot to say, this is only the easy version, so you can understand it easily, damage is not affected by just strength alone, you must add the factor of speed, this is where agility enters, 1 agility is equal to 0.3 of maximum speed your body can make. Your total agility is 421 it became 126 of your maximum speed. Your damage of 131 can gain not exceeding of 126, it means that depending in the speed of your attack, you can gain an additional damage. Other stat also adds up, for example dexterity, even though dexterity affects your control in everything, especially your aim, it also affect your other attack and speed in a small way, every 1 of dexterity gain you 0.05 in attack and 0.1 in terms of speed. You got 253 dexterity not including your equipment stat, it means you got 12 additional attack damage and 25 on speed. Lastly, don¡¯t forget about skills and other stuff¡± he said nonchalantly, it seems he can sense my agony in numbers. ¡°ARGGGHHHH!¡± my head is starting to overheat. ¡°I told you in the very beginning, this world runs in numerical value.¡± He added the final blow. As we finished this bloody discussion, bloody for me, we also finished our food, then we rest for a bit after eating and started to prepare for our small incursion in the bandits camp. While preparing I ponder more about what the old man tried to explain to me earlier, it was a lot to take in. But as I thought about it and look at it in a different angle, it became much easier to understand. I thought of treating it like a game again, since I started to forgot that I¡¯m treating this world as a game since my fight with the bear, putting my life in danger made me start to realize that this is not a game, so I¡¯m going treat this as a game only in this aspect. I will treat all stats as a game, so it would be much easier to understand and other things aside from stat as real life, so I won¡¯t be careless and die, for there are no save points here. Game has a ton of HP, but in this world, I only have 1 HP. In a game if your avatar has been hit, your HP diminishes and leads to zero then you die, in here, if I¡¯m hit, my defense diminishes and leads to zero I die. It¡¯s much easier to understand if I think this way. Wait, in game, there¡¯s an HP bar so you can see if your opponent is taking some damage, in here there¡¯s no such thing as bar, or there is? I just don¡¯t know, I must ask this to the old man. I and the old man started heading out, we left Misha to guard the cart and the horse, hoping that she would do what she was ordered to, not lazing around, we can¡¯t do nothing about the cart, for the path the bandits took was not meant for a cart to travel, and since I don¡¯t want to be left out in looting the camp, err searching the camp rather, and the old man won¡¯t let me go on my own for there may be some unknown circumstances that may occur, there¡¯s no other choice but left Misha in charge of guarding the cart. We followed the trail left by the bandits, it was easy to follow because it seems the bandits doesn¡¯t know how to cover their tracks. Since it was easy to follow the tracks, it won¡¯t take too much of our attention finding it, it was my chance to ask the old man what was bothering me after I ponder about what he said earlier. ¡°Mr. Silan can I ask you something?¡± I asked, preempting the discussion ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± he answered ¡°it¡¯s about what you explained to me earlier, I was wondering how would I know if I did enough damage to penetrate an armor of the opponent, is there some kind of a skill?¡± I asked while we kept following the trail ¡°Oh, about that? If you¡¯re experienced enough of a warrior or a fighter or a mage, or a blacksmith or any crafter who made some armor, and or a merchant.¡± I was about to interrupt the old man when he immediately stopped me. ¡°Don¡¯t ask why a crafter or a merchant is included, you¡¯ll know enough later, you¡¯ll know by just feeling alone, I can¡¯t explain it clearer, they just know, same thing happened to me, when I accumulated a lot of experience in battle¡± I was about to ask a question of what battle he experience, when he stopped me again. ¡°Don¡¯t asked what experience they were because I won¡¯t answer and we will go off topic even if I answered it which is not, anyway, I just felt it that I did enough damage to penetrate it. Then after some more experience, I developed a gauge of some sort, just by looking at your opponent¡¯s armor, a gauge pops out in front of it that tells you how much damage you accumulated on the armor, then if you null its defenses, it changes to the armors durability that¡¯s for a greater warrior. Now the merchant, not specifically a merchant, but a merchant is more adept on it than any other person. Since a merchant¡¯s job was to appraised the goods he sell or buy, he has the experience to judge what kind of armor just by looking, especially a talented merchant. All merchant also had a skill ¡°Identify¡±, you also have it but a merchant has the advantage.¡± I was about to ask why when. ¡°Don¡¯t ask why, I¡¯ll tell you later.¡± It seems the old man know when will I interrupt him. Damn old man. ¡°When the skill Identify reach Journeyman Grade 6 or higher, he can do what an experience person in battle can do by just also looking, they develop their own gauge even if they didn¡¯t participate in any battle their whole life, and when they develop a much higher identify skill it became more detailed than any warrior can ever dream off. That¡¯s because of their job, they had appraise thousands of thousands of item they buy and sell, that¡¯s their advantage, to appraised numerous items advancing the grade of their Identify skill which a normal person don¡¯t had an access to. Most warriors nowadays try to learn identify skill from a skilled merchant and try to advance it in Journeyman Grade 6, but without access to numerous items to be appraised its extremely hard to do, they can always go to a market and appraised some items, but that would not be enough, unless they spend almost quarter of the years a skilled merchant had. Or they pay some merchant who had acquire some extremely rare items, which they can gain much more experience in advancing the skill than appraising other normal things lying around, which is not a cheap cost to pay, for a merchant who had some extremely rare item, only show it to a person they can trust or a person who would surely had the gold to buy it.¡± he said ¡°Same goes to the crafter, because their job is to make an armor, they had the experience to judge how much defense or the durability the armor has. And when they advance their skill, they develop their own gauge. But much more detailed than any warrior or merchant had, they said that they can tell where the weak point of any armor is, it¡¯s just a rumor though for they kept their secret tightly.¡± He said ending our discussion and continuing on the trail. As we followed the trail, I ponder again what the old man told me, all I did this day, aside from fighting the bandits, is pondering what knowledge the old man imparted me. To have this kind of gauge, what I need is to experience many battles, but since it is impossible for now, don¡¯t know in the future, it¡¯s out of the question, the other is to advance Identify skill or make thousands of armor, but since Identify is much possible than making thousands of armor, I¡¯ll go for advancing my Identify skill, and I need to start from now on if I want to have a gauge in the near future. After three hours of following the trail, we finally arrive near the place where the bandits make camp, we didn¡¯t directly go to the camp, and we need to act carefully from now on, for we didn¡¯t know if the bandits left some trap or there was another person we don¡¯t know about. The old man scout the place first and come back to me after a couple dozen minute saying it¡¯s all clear, then we headed directly at the camp since it was already confirmed safe. We looked around the camp and found many things, we found a heap of weapons in one spot, there are 3 swords, 1 bow and arrows and a lot of daggers, from the looks of the weapon the bandits doesn¡¯t seem to know how to care for it. the swords was the same quality as Shorty¡¯s sword, the bow was so much lower quality compared to mine at least we¡¯re having extra arrows, the daggers where the same quality as the sword and skinny¡¯s dagger. It seems this weapons was from their companions that they betrayed. We took them instead of being found by other bandits and use it for no good. The next thing we found was a 2 small bag, 1 bag was filled with jewels, gems, and gold, and the other was raw ores of silver and gold. The gems and jewels came in different sizes, the largest one has the size of my fist and the smallest one has the size of my fingernail. The old man said that I can sell them to a merchant or a mage guild or an enchanter, the smallest one can be sold for about 70 gold pieces and the largest can be sold for a staggering amount of 1 million gold, damn, I became rich in an instant. I said I will share it with him but it seems the old man was not interested in riches, I was wondering how can he not be interested in this kind of riches, unless he¡¯s some kind of a rich man himself, but I don¡¯t have any way to find out because the old man refuses to tell me anything about himself. The old man¡¯s mysteries has kept piling up on me. Anyway, the old man told me that the jewels where mainly use for enchanting, so it can be used as an accessories or in a wand for mages to augment their powers. The next thing we found was a 2 small chest, 1 chest was filled with books, 2 books in particular was a rare skill book, rare because when you read it, it disintegrate to ash and you instantly learn a new skill, not like reading a manual that you can only learn a skill if you 100% understand what you read and can do a successful practical application of what you read, as the old man explained. This book will let you learn the skill instantly even if you don¡¯t understand and don¡¯t do any practical application, you only need to read it, then poof, you have a skill, and not just that, based on how skilled the writer of the book was on the skill your about to learn, you can achieve a much higher grade of that skill. This means the skill I was about to learn will not start on Commoner Grade 1 but on much higher grade. This 2 skill book was Alchemy Craft and Enchant Craft, even though they are not combat skill book, they are still precious skill book which I can instantly learn. The other books was all basic manual for both skills. The second chest were filled with tools for alchemy, empty vials, crucible, weighing scale, different sizes of weights, mixing tools, and etc.. Aside from the tools, there was a small box filled with 6 ink bottles. The old man said, it was not ordinary ink, it was an ink made with a material that was contaminated by a fragment of high mana condensation, it was used for writing skill books like Alchemy Craft and Enchant Craft, with this 6 bottles can make 6 skill books, he said I can request someone to write me a skill book if he agrees, or pay someone to write their skill for me so I can learn it instantly. Or it can be used to write some magic scroll, which I won¡¯t be learning the skill, but I can use the skill by just reading it, of course it would turn to ash after use, the old man explained.
Ink of Power
Ink made with a material that was contaminated by a fragment of High Mana Condensation. Mainly use for writing a skill book of rare quality, magic scrolls, and runes. Can also be used to form a contract that magically bound both parties, powerful curses and anti-curses, talisman and such.
We deducted that this things were horded by the bandits in a tomb of an Alchemist that is also an Enchanter, or an Enchanter that is also an Alchemist, anyway, they just horded it in a tomb, then the three that I killed betrayed their companions and run and tried to hide here. Since we don¡¯t know where the tomb was, we can¡¯t return it, which is a good thing for me because I don¡¯t plan to return it, but if the old man told me to return it, I wouldn¡¯t have a choice but to do so. But since we don¡¯t know where to return it, it became mine instantly because, first I defeated the bandits which automatically made this items spoils of war or battle, and second the old man don¡¯t want any of it, he said I need it more than he needs it. With this item, I became rich in an instant, but I¡¯m not going to sell it, I¡¯m going to use them for my own item later on. We headed back to our previous camp after collecting the things, its already dark when we arrive at the camp, so we decided to stay for another night in this place, we check first if Misha was around the camp, or the horse was still alive and if the things in our cart was still intact. All things where present and where they should be, except for Misha who was lounging around the camp. We lighted our previous campfire then prepared dinner and then immediately went to sleep, for I was extremely tired from this day¡¯s activities. The next morning, we continued on our journey, but before we go, I headed back to the graves of the three bandits, I said some prayers not for them but for me, I prayed that in the future it won¡¯t come for me to take another person¡¯s life if necessary. I realized that taking another person¡¯s life also takes a part of yourself. For I already became a different kind of person from the person I was few days ago. After praying, I said goodbye to the first persons I killed and walk away. We spent traveling the entire day, we did the same routine as we did this last few weeks, except for me, I added some time to practice my new items, the bracelets and the rings, the old man told me that if I¡¯m going to use it, I better familiarize myself on how to efficiently use it and to know their limits, so I won¡¯t die because of them. I practiced using the bracelet first, I can shot 41 fireballs before I fall from exhaustion, the old man told me that I exhausted my mana pool and need to take a rest, over using it may lead me to faint or worst to die, he told me that when I gain a mana manipulation skill, I can also gain a window gauge at the edge of my vision on how much mana I have. But since I don¡¯t have mana manipulation skill, all mana related detail is a blank for me, especially how much mana one fireball cost. The next thing I tried was the Ring of Arion, as I use it, I feel like I was teleporting, I would be in another place in an instant in just a command from my thought, the limit was 10 meters around me, it was hard at first, I would teleport more or less from where I want to be, sometimes I would hit a tree or blink 1 meter above the ground making me instantly claim back by gravity then falling hard to the ground, other than teleporting or blinking, I can fling a punch or a kick or any one movement I make seems like I didn¡¯t move at all, I tried that with the old man, thinking I get my revenge from the all hit I took from him, but instead of hitting him, I was hit instead, I can believe it, he was much faster than a blink of an eye? Since that day, I didn¡¯t try it to him anymore and stopped thinking about revenge. I thought that I¡¯m already an OP character in this world, but what the old man showed me told me not. After almost mastering the Ring of Arion, I practiced Ring of Goliath next, it was much easier than the Ring of Arion, since it was all about strength, I tried punching a tree with a normal punch and all I did was scratch it and hurt my left hand, so I decided to wrap it first with sturdy leathers to soften the impact to my knuckles before trying the ring. When that was done, I tried it again to the tree, but this time with the rings ability behind it. The tree was gauge one and a half knuckle deep, it was an eye opener, why, because it hurts a lot, the old man check my knuckles for me and told me it was fine, just a few bruises, he said it was a good thing that I used my brain before punching the tree. I thought that I really use my brain, because I decided to punch a boulder first, but change my mind to a tree instead of a boulder. I averted a large disaster. After that, I decided to use a weapon instead, I tried to do a normal slash of a dagger to the tree, and I sliced it for about 1 cm deep, then tried it again with the rings power behind it, the slash was 6 times deeper, then I tried combining it with the Ring of Arion, the result was over a quarter deep into the tree. I was shocked because the tree was two people wide while hand in hand around the tree. If I¡¯m a bit stronger, maybe I can even cut it with just one slash. This training was added to my routine while traveling and resting, aside from practicing my throwing and other skills. I didn¡¯t used the skill books I got, because I don¡¯t have enough time to practice it, with all the things I¡¯m doing now, adding another thing will just hamper the growth of the other skills, so I decided that I¡¯ll use it when I had the time to practice it. I did this routine for almost two weeks, till we finally arrived at our destination. Comments & Suggestion Hi to all First i want to thank you guys for having the patience to read my very first fanfic, actually not the very first but the very first posted. this is actually my second work, the first work will be the continuation of this fanfic, if i ever finish this. i hope so. i posted this topic because i want to hear what you guys think, and maybe you will have some suggestion for me. i cannot promise that i will use it, but at least it would be a consideration. Chapter 9 Preview Hello, First of all, i want to say sorry for not posting chapter 9, actually not completely posting chapter 9. due to various reason, i didnt manage to finish chapter 9, first reason is, im flying out of the country today to work, so this past few weeks, most of it was spend preparing my documents and things to carry, and the second reason which im most ashamed of is, ive been engrossed reading "Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo" the whole vol. 1-6, im really sorry, :boworpushups: , as an apology, i will post some part that i finished in a spoiler, for those who want to read it even thought its not finished yet, then feel free to do so, but if you can still be patient with me, i promise to post the whole chapter by this week to come. (i hope so :?: ) again im really sorry Spoiler : Chapter 9:Cannot be shown cause it will spoil the whole chapter. 3 days before we reach our destination, I felt that I can already use my right hand, so to confirm my feelings, I looked at my stat and noticed that the sprained stat where gone. I told this the old man and he told me that why don¡¯t I try it, so I tried it, it hurts a bit but still, the main point is, I can use my right hand already! I don¡¯t want to get over excited and strained my right arm causing it to be in sling again, so I do some stretches making my right arm be familiarize again to movements. Then the night the same day my right arm recovered, I started practicing my bow again, oh how I missed my bow so much. How I nock the arrow, pulled the string, breathing in and out while keeping the tension of the string on my check, then the moment I released it, as the arrow fly thru the bow like lightning released from heaven, how the vibrating sound of the string reaches my ear as it fixed its position still, and most of all, how the arrow zoom into the air then plunging deep into the target. Oh, how I miss this feeling so much. Since that day, I added training my bow when I practice. Now, here we are, standing atop of a small hill, facing a town, not just a town, it¡¯s a ruin of a town, you heard me, a ruin. Capital R u i n. RUIN! Damn! What am I going to do in this ruin? Build it so I can train? Train what? My architectural skill? Damn! Damn! Damn! I want to be an engineer, not an architect, wait, what engineer do I want again, damn engineering courses, too many to choose from, oh and I hate math, on a second thought, I don¡¯t want to be an engineer I¡¯ll just go for uhmmm¡­ ¡°You¡¯re not here for the ruins, you¡¯re here because of what¡¯s in the ruins¡± the voice said from beside me, and it¡¯s from the old man, who else would be with me in this archeological site except for the old man. It seems he noticed that I¡¯m making weird faces and thinking that I¡¯ve been con. ¡°Wait, did you say what? Isn¡¯t it who you¡¯re supposed to be saying, since it supposed to teach me how to fight?¡± I asked bewildered ¡°You have a point there, but what is the more appropriate word, for they are not human or any races anymore in this world, or you can say they do not belong in this world anymore?¡± he said ¡°WHAT?! ARE THEY GHOS¡­¡± ¡°SLAP!¡± I didn¡¯t finished what I¡¯m about to say, because, because, because, I just slowly crouch where I was standing and cover my head for protection. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± I said weakly ¡°Anyway, they are not ghost.¡± He said ¡°Good they are not ghost, I¡¯m quite scared of ghost. Are they some kind of a spirit?¡± I ask excited, already forgetting that I was been hit earlier. ¡°Don¡¯t call them Spirit, because when the spirit heard what you just said, they would take it as an insult and be mad at you. You don¡¯t want them as an enemy, anyway, they are¡­ it¡¯s hard to explain, you can just call them as immaterial, bodiless, formless, or incorporeal for they are like that, when they were living, they chose to become like that instead of dying, I don¡¯t know why they chose to become like that so don¡¯t ask me.¡± This old man had the ability to anticipate me, he seems to know when will I interrupt him when he was talking, am I that obvious? I thought ¡°Anyway, it¡¯s not because I didn¡¯t even tried to ask, that¡¯s why I don¡¯t know, I tried many times, but they don¡¯t tell their reason to anyone who didn¡¯t finished their training.¡± I immediately jump backward and interrupted what he was about to say next. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°You didn¡¯t finished your training? And yet, you¡¯re that strong? Where do I sign up?¡± I asked excitedly. It seems the old man didn¡¯t anticipated this. Hahaha, I¡¯m getting genius by the moment. ¡°Do that again and I¡¯ll kill you.¡± He casually said, I felt scared and threaten at that moment. I was sweating cold marbles when he said that. I took a step forward placing myself beside him again. Then¡­ ¡°SLAP¡± I was, you know, then I was about to ask why he did that, but when I looked at him, I just slowly crouch and protect my head again. Then I heard a snicker behind me, I looked back and saw Misha, lying on her belly on all four, except her two front paw was covering her snout. Wait, am I imagining things or seeing things, for Misha was doing something like giggling motion. Right, she was giggling, wait a minute, does she understand what was happening? Or this devil beside me taught my cute Misha something evil like this. Oh gods, I can see my future already. ¡°Anyway, I didn¡¯t finished the training because I can¡¯t do it, but because, oh I forgot I was not supposed to tell, and anyway, you¡¯ll know soon enough if you reach the last stages of the training.¡± He said explaining. You just don¡¯t want to tell that you failed, making excuses. Stupid old man! ¡°SLAP¡± he hit me while I was crouching. ¡°I know what you are thinking right now.¡± He said. I was about to refute but decided not to, my head is already hurting, and I think I can¡¯t take any more damage this day. ¡°Good, back to the topic, they chose to be like that because they had their own reason, let¡¯s just put it like that. Not anyone can become like them, it¡¯s not like if you think you want to be one you¡¯ll become one, the gods must grant it to you, so expect all of them to be strong or strong in their living life, for the gods only grant something if you offer them something in return and that something must be a High mana condensation or almost equal to it.¡± he said, I stand up amaze at what he said. Then I remember all the hitting the old man did to me, it made me scared, did the old man learned it from them? Am I going to hell? ¡°Then they can hurt me much stronger than what you are doing?¡± I asked scared ¡°When did I ever hurt you?¡± he asked puzzled, then he tilt his head, he seems thinking something. ¡°That¡¯s right, I didn¡¯t hurt you because if I did, I can remember when.¡± He said with finality. Damn he didn¡¯t even gave me a chance to refute! ¡°Anyway, if you¡¯re thinking that you¡¯re going to get hurt out there, let me ease your mind a ¡°little bit¡±, they can¡¯t hurt you themselves ¡°most of the time¡±¡± he said, emphasizing two phrase that scared me. ¡°What I mean is, they really can¡¯t hurt you unless they decided to, for they incur some sort of punishment to themselves if they do so. I¡¯m telling you this so you won¡¯t be complacent in front of them thinking that they can¡¯t hurt you most of the time, if they decided it was worth it to be punished just to hurt you then you¡¯re on your way to hell.¡± He said threateningly ¡°You will know other details about them as the time goes by accompanying them, that is if you pass the trials to be trained by them.¡± He continued. ¡°What? There is a trial? What is it?¡± I asked ¡°About the trial, I can¡¯t tell you anything about it, for if you know even a single bit, they won¡¯t teach you, all you need to know is the requirement, first must not be over 70 years old which you pass, and second must not be higher than Commoner Grade 4, which you also pass and with flying colors.¡± He said with sarcasm ¡°Then what are we waiting for? Let¡¯s go!¡± I said excitedly, then I walk forward with a grin on my face, but. ¡°Hold on Reiven, you will be going there alone.¡± The old man said, calling me with my previous name, this is the second time he said my name. The first time he called my name, was the moment he deemed he was asking something serious, using my name again seems to bring another serious matter. this post will be deleted or edited when i post the whole chapter. again im really sorry, hope you can find in you to forgive me. reighn