After I stopped running, I climbed atop a tree, conserving and recovering my stamina. Meanwhile, I looked at my status.
“Status”
[Skills: Dagger Arts Lv2, Mana Absorption Lv1, Mana Manipulation Lv1, Mana Sense Lv1, Spell Diagrams Lv1, Housework Lv 2, Aeris Language Lv2, Foraging Lv2, Life Magic Lv2, Sprint Lv2, Combat Sense Lv1, Appraisal Lv1]
There were two new skills and Dagger Arts had levelled up by 1. I knew that I’d fought far better than I normally could. The wolves were far weaker than me as well, so it wasn’t surprising. Now that I had gained Appraisal, I could learn a little more about my Status.
[Life Remembrance: Remembers a lifetime of memories. +5 All Stats]
[First of Earth: The first of Earth to experience something so magical. +20 All Stats]
[Being of Impossible Luck: You are impossibly lucky. +50 Luck]
[Omni-Utilization: You have many ways to use your skills.]
[Godly Comprehension(1/10): Your acquisition and learning of skills is unimaginable. +99 Int]
Well, that explains a lot. Plus, it’s only at a tenth of its full level. With this talent, I could reach the peak of the world.
I should think of skills I need and try learning them. I'm in the forest and it'll take me days if I walk to reach the road again. The more skills I have the better.
*****
After recovering my stamina, I had checked out my new skill, Combat Sense. It allowed me to increase my combat capabilities by using up 5 Sta/s and passively gave me a slight increase in combat. It was a very useful ability. Nothing has to be said about Appraisal.
Moving on, I’d encountered some more beasts, one of them being a group of goblins. I was way too deep in this forest if monsters showed up here. They weren’t much of a threat so far but it would be better to be safe than sorry.
Of course, I couldn’t leave my talents to waste. When I encountered some of the monsters, I ran and hid, gaining the Stealth skill. I also gathered the few herbs I could find, trying to level up Foraging. I also levelled Combat Sense up to 2, decreasing Stamina usage by 0.5
All the while, I used Appraisal on everything, levelling it up to 3. I managed to learn what Omni-Utilization does now. It allows me more freedom in using my skills. For example, I could use less stamina on Combat Sense’s active ability for a minimal effect of the skill. Currently, I was using 0.1 Sta/s so I had about 1/50 of the actual effect.
That was the general gist of it.
I had water. I could get it through Life Magic. As for food, I’ll need to remove some meat from monsters and use the herbs I’d managed to gather to mask the scent of blood.
I continued walking, foraging while searching for any signs of monster and being careful of my surroundings. As luck would have it, I managed to gain a new skill, Detection. The radius was defaulted to 1 meter but because of Omni-Utilization I could increase it up to 20 meters whilst sacrificing detail, otherwise I’d risk a headache.
Eventually, after an hour, I encountered a horned rabbit, perfect for eating. I would rather not eat any goblins. It was easy killing it, and Stealth only made it easier. After dismantling it, I washed the edible pieces with water and use Dry on them, rinse and repeat. In that endeavor, my Life Magic had risen to Lv3, giving me the knowledge of how to use the Clean spell.
A little tidbit of info, humans had developed ways to use spells efficiently. Those were spell diagrams. The only diagrams I knew were First Aid, Dry and Clean which were inherent knowledge of the Life Magic Skill. The only other ones I knew were from the public classes that were in my town. But with my previously low talent and stats, I could not memorise them properly.
I had still however learned Water Conjure, Ignite and a few other life spells by brute forcing my way with mana.
Everyone learned Life Magic, even the nobles. It was just too useful. Not only was it a bridge to many elements but it could also help in survival.
A few more Water Conjures and I had learned Water Magic Lv1. Once I’d gained it, I used Clean, easily taking off the blood. Every use of Water Conjure had taken 6 mana, and Clean had taken 3. Clean took 20 without a spell diagram. Spell diagrams were very useful. Water Conjure used to take 8 but Life Magic Lv2 took away 2. Now it only takes 1 mana because of Water Magic Lv1 and Life Magic Lv3. It can’t get any lower.
Moving far away, I prepared a little campfire, took some branches from a tree, Cleaned them and stuck them into the meat. Resting them around the campfire, I waited and looked over my Status. My health is still full, but my stamina regen is slowed because of the [Fatigue] debuff. It’s only natural, I'm only now eating lunch even though the sun’s setting. My mana has fallen below 950… I'm still amazed it’s 999. I should start learning more spells when I have the chance, it would be stupid to not use it.
Coating my finger with mana, I quickly drew a spell diagram used to gather mana. This was known to just about everyone, it wasn’t anything high-levelled and it was what let most commoners learn Mana Absorption.
I didn’t want to waste too much time, so as I let the meat roast, I practiced absorbing mana, temporarily increasing my mana regen and trying to level Mana Absorption. I mean, there's nothing better to do. I easily got it to level 3. Increasing the effect of mana regen by 4x the base regen. Along with the basic diagram I knew, it was a total of x8.
All thanks to Godly Comprehension. I could fix so many mistakes I made when absorbing mana.
Afterwards was Mana Manipulation, this was easy as well, but I could never practice it much, because of how much mana it wasted. Pretty much 5 mana/s. I have an extremely lousy technique when it comes to manipulation. Godly Comprehension yet again showed its skill, I was able to notice so many problems with my manipulation, enough to get to Lv3.
Mana Sense was the hardest, I was only able to level it up by 1.
No monsters came, even after all that. My dinner was ready and I knew it was gonna taste horrible. I mean, I have barely any spices, and all I've done is a simple roast. At the very least, all I've eaten is pretty much garbage for the past 10 years so I have some resistance to crappy food.
It did indeed taste horrible.
After eating, I climbed atop a high tree and rested my body. I was a light sleeper, so if any life enters Detection’s range then I’ll immediately wake up.
*****
Well, it would seem that my luck was not for show, considering I was able to sleep for so long.
Either way, I got up, jumped down from the tree and continued on my way.
A few days had passed and now…
“Finally…”
I’m back on the road.
The question is now, which way should I head? To the new town? Or to my home town?
Hmm~… Alright, I’ll keep on going to the new town. There shouldn’t be much of a difference between the distance to either.
------------------------------
[Class: Adventurer Lv8]
[Skills: Dagger Arts Lv4, Mana Absorption Lv4, Mana Manipulation Lv4, Mana Sense Lv4, Spell Diagrams Lv3, Housework Lv2, Aeris Language Lv2, Foraging Lv3, Life Magic Lv4, Sprint Lv3, Combat Sense Lv3, Appraisal Lv4, Detection Lv4, Stealth Lv3, Water Magic Lv3]
