Day 37

While Alice was logging, she finally got to observe the ‘monster sense’ component of {Sixth Sense} Perk in action. It quickly changed her opinion on the Perk, making her feel that it was very specialized, but incredibly useful. The moment a spidercrab walked within about 200 meters of her, she instantly noticed its mana. To her, it felt like a bright light had suddenly been turned on in the middle of the night. She could tell exactly where it was, and the spidercrab didn’t sense anything at all from her until it got much closer. She could even tell roughly how much mana the spidercrab had, although she didn’t know what to do with this information. She noticed, with some interest, that this spidercrab was also moving downstream for some reason. Perhaps Spidercrabs migrated downstream during the winter or something?

Either way, being able to tell the instant a spidercrab was nearby was incredibly useful. She was running a bit low on meat, and she still wanted to preserve her smoked fish as much as possible, so she moved to hunt down the spidercrab she had used as her test subject for her new Perk. With her growing stats and skills, hunting a lone spidercrab when she had the element of surprise was no longer a challenge, and so she simply walked up to it, held it down with kinetic magic, and stabbed it a few times. She only got a single level in [Explorer of Magic] from the fight, probably because she wasn’t really surviving a threatening encounter anymore. As a result [Survivor] got very little EXP. At least, that was her current guess for why the fight gave so few Status Screen related rewards.

Either way, it was good to know that the seemingly useless perk was pretty useful. It was just highly situational.

Day 39

Alice finally finished chopping down trees and building up the walls of her cave. Her shelter was finally complete, and was constructed of logs and sticks piled together. Alice hadn’t had a good way to make the logs stick to the ground properly, so she had ended up digging little holes to put the logs into, keeping them at least reasonably stable. However, there had been some gaps in between the log-based wall, so she had filled those in with rocks and sticks, making something that kept air and heat in reasonably well and blocked off monsters and animals. Even though it was far from perfect, Alice was still happy to improve her living conditions again.

Admittedly, her cave now looked like a beaver dam gone horribly wrong. However, it kept the cold out far better than before, and that was what mattered. She had a difficult time with smoke from her fires, since it didn’t leave the cave quite as easily now, but Alice could manually disperse it by temporarily opening a little chunk of the sticks near the top of her new wall with her Kinetic Magic to let out the smoke, so it wasn’t too big of a problem.

Her [Survivor] class jumped up two levels for the first time since it had reached level 25, reaching level 27 on the day she finished building her new set of walls. Alice grinned. Even though her levelling speed had dramatically slowed down after level 25, it was nice to know that big accomplishments would still reward her with a good amount of EXP.

* * *

Day 40

[Scholar] finally reached level 5, and Alice eagerly pored over the available perks.

Alice quickly grabbed {Improved memory}. The other two perks were kind of bland and unimpressive. She had always wished she had a photographic memory, and this seemed like a good way to get much closer to her dream. Besides, Alice felt that {Improved Memory} would probably help her level up some of her Skills more quickly than before. Language, for example, was something heavily reliant on learning and remembering the vocabulary of a new language. Alice didn’t know if {Improved Memory} would actually increase the levelling speed of her Language Skill, due to the fact that the System controlled most of her language learning, but it seemed worth a shot.

Day 43

Alice found two spidercrabs at once while collecting firewood. Alice could only form one tendril of magic at a time, so even though she could easily kill one spidercrab, she wasn’t really that confident in taking on two at once. Her physical stats were improving, but they were still seriously lacking, even if she no longer found herself out of breath after a light jog through the forest for a few minutes.

Alice was certain that fighting them head on would end poorly, but after thinking back to her first encounter with a spidercrab, she realized there was a way to exploit the low intelligence of the creatures. She first got near them, climbing up a tree. Then, she watched for a few minutes as they bashed themselves against the tree trunk, making sure that their behavior wasn’t significantly different from other spidercrabs she had seen. Then, finishing her observations, Alice began manipulating her spear with her Kinetic magic, trying to use her mana as a ‘third hand’ instead of as a sling to hurl objects. It proved far more difficult than she had expected to hold an object in midair without dropping it or throwing it. To do so, she needed to apply exactly enough kinetic energy to counteract gravity without adding any extra mana, or she would accidentally send the spear flying into the air. However, she managed to accomplish her goal after some trial and error, after which she tried stabbing one of the spidercrabs with the spear without losing control of her projectile.

This failed, unfortunately. She launched the spear straight into one of the spidercrabs, but failed to control the speed well enough to retract the spear afterwards. The spear killed the first spidercrab, before lodging itself into the dirt. It was out of range of her mana tendrils, so Alice gave up on experimenting with her new idea.

With one of the two dealt with, Alice slid back down a few branches, getting the other spidercrab in range of her mana tendril, and then picked up the monster and slammed it into the ground. While it was stunned, she climbed down, pulled out her stone axe, and brained it.

In addition to the meat, she got enough levels in [Explorer of Magic] to level to 20 in one go, as well as push [Survivor] to 29. It seemed that her attempt at balancing her spear against gravity counted as ‘experimenting’ with magic, giving her a bunch of levels in her magic class, while killing two monsters at once for the first time gave her some levels in [Survivor]. Since [Explorer of Magic] reached level 20, she also had a new Perk slot. She looked over her options, and found one of the Perks a bit more interesting than what she was expecting.

The first Perk wasn’t that appealing, but it did indicate Alice was correct in her earlier assumption that living creatures seemed to resist external mana intrusion. If nothing else, having the System provide more confirmation for her theory was nice, although Alice wasn’t that interested in the Perk itself right now.

Interesting, but not that appealing. Although it does seem quite useful to improve my senses by a bit… Hmm…

Alice was still slightly interested in getting another seed, but she felt it was more important to develop her Kinetic Magic more. She didn’t have the time or training to pick up an entirely new magic seed yet, although eventually she wanted to for the sake of research purposes.

So 100% isn’t the maximum mana conversion ratio a seed can have. I had assumed it was, but now I’m incredibly curious. Alice had been wondering what ‘mana conversion ratio’ meant for a while. It showed up in several of the Perks she had been offered by [Explorer of Magic], but Alice had zero context for understanding what the term meant. The book she had been reading didn’t mention the term either, so Alice was excited at the prospect of finally figuring out what this term meant. Since the other Perks weren’t incredibly powerful, she decided that she would grab {Improved Seed} this time, just to learn some more. Besides, this Perk seemed built to improve a magic seed, and since Alice wanted to concentrate on developing her Kinetic Magic this Perk fit her interests perfectly.

The moment she got the perk, she could see it move into her status screen, similar to other perks. However, unlike other perks, it also had a little + symbol next to it. She concentrated on it for a moment, and it displayed a list of her magic seeds. Of course, Alice only had one magic seed right now. She selected her kinetic magic seed, and a moment later, the little percent symbol next to the seed she had formed suddenly increased to 110%.

She frowned, trying to feel out the differences. It took a moment, but after a few moments, Alice finally realized what was different.

Her mana pool was suddenly bigger. She also noticed that it was easier to push kinetic mana through her mana tendril, by a small but noticeable amount. If she was to keep comparing her mana tendril to a pipe and her mana to liquid she wanted to move around, this felt like she had expanded the pipe and lowered its viscosity, making it pass through her mana tendril more quickly and easily when she willed it to.

She manipulated the environment around a bit, trying to figure out how much more mana she had than before, before coming to a conclusion that it was around 10% higher. Seeing that, she had a new guess. Maybe her ‘mana pool’ for kinetic mana was her magic stat multiplied by her magic seed’s mana conversion ratio? If that was the case, it seemed to indicate every magic seed had its own, independent mana pool.

Alice suddenly wondered if she had made a mistake in passing up so many other magic seeds. If every seed had its own mana pool, picking up a new magic seed would increase the amount of time she could fight, as well as the amount of tricks she had in combat and the amount of mana she could spend on making herself more comfortable every day.

A moment later, though, she realized there was a significant problem with that idea. The higher the magic seed’s conversion ratio, the easier it was to manipulate that particular seed’s mana. In other words, the reverse would probably also be true. The lower the conversion ratio, the weaker her control of the seed would be, and the harder it would be to use the mana from it. If she formed a bunch of magic seeds left and right, while her maximum mana would increase by a fair margin, it would be too slow and difficult to use in an actual fight. Of course, if she found other ways to improve magic seeds, having more Magic seeds would obviously be better. However, due to the differences in how easy it was to manipulate mana within a seed based on its conversion ratio, focusing more on one particular seed was probably optimal for combat.

Either way, it was a decision she could make again when she reached a higher level and saw her next round of perks. For now, she was just happy she had gotten so many levels from a single fight.

Day 53

Alice’s [Survivor] class reached level 30 while she was asleep. Alice wasn’t sure why. Her best guess was that perhaps something dangerous had prowled around the area while she was asleep, or perhaps [Survivor] just passively got a little bit of experience from her continued woodlands survival each day. She was extra cautious as she observed the area that day, but she didn’t find anything particularly new or deadly, and eventually decided her second theory was more likely.

She looked over the available perks, and felt a surge of surprise. After reaching level 25, the levelling speed of her class had slowed down dramatically. However, it appeared that the perks offered by her class also became far better.

In general, while the perks before level 30 had been incredibly valuable for her survival, they hadn’t interacted so directly with other parts of the system. They had mostly focused around knowledge, her physical abilities, and empowering her to create the tools she needed to survive in this foreign world. However, at this level, it seemed like a lot of perks gave significant bonuses to attributes, as well as some sort of improved senses. The perks also had more requirements in order to make them work. Before this, there was never a time where she had a perk that could be turned off if she didn’t meet certain conditions. Now, {Woman Versus the Wilds} hinted that after level 25, Perks with certain conditions attached to them might start appearing more frequently.

Alice thought closely about the perks for a while, before eventually choosing {Enhanced Training}. She wondered if she would eventually curse herself for being too greedy, but it seemed to have the most growth potential, and she was doing pretty well right now. She had food, water, shelter, and warmth, so she felt she could afford to plan for the future instead of only focusing on what she got the instant she picked the Perk.

Furthermore, the [Endurance] attribute also directly helped her survive colder temperatures, meaning that this stat would eventually provide an extra way to deal with the cold. [Endurance] was far  less useful than the {Born of Frost} when it came to dealing with temperatures, of course, but it also had a variety of other benefits, and {Enhanced Training} boosted all of her Stats. She also felt that whenever she found her way back to civilization, she wouldn’t have much use for {Born of Frost}, but {Enhanced Training} would prove its worth as time passed.

Day 60

Alice was growing increasingly tired of waiting for winter to end. It had only been a month since she had started counting the days, but she was lonely. Having a friend to talk to would make her ordeal in the wilds much more bearable. Her growing [Endurance] stat, along with {Extremophile}, enabled her to survive each day with increasing ease. So she gathered supplies, hunted a few spidercrabs from time to time, and trained and read her book. However, apart from that, there was nothing to do. She spent a good chunk of each day inside, reading her book over and over again. Illvarian language proficiency had nearly reached 100 now. It grew much faster than her other Skills, although Alice didn’t know whether that was the influence of {Improved Memory} or due to some other reason.

Life was increasingly boring.

She couldn’t wait for spring to come.

Day 70

Alice had finally reached a point where she could converse fluently in Illvarian. After winter ended, she would need to use this language nearly constantly, so reaching a high level of proficiency in the language made her feel much more secure about her post-winter plans.

Naturally, since there were no people and almost no animals in this region, she had a conversation with her newly found pet rock. She had named it ‘Taps’ because she liked the sound it made when she tapped it against the wall of her cave. It was a reminder that even though this world seemed dead and silent, there was still something here with her besides horrifying monsters.

She had even drawn a little face on the rock. She knew it wasn’t alive, but it was something to talk to.

Day 85

[Explorer of Magic] hit level 25 partway through her training routine. After some thought, she chose {Seeds of Magic} from the options she saw.

Compared to the other perks offered at the same level, it seemed rather impressive, even though the System had offered a 35% seed. Based off of what she had seen so far, it seemed harder to improve seeds that already existed compared to forming new ones, and Alice thought that a 25% improvement to her kinetic seed could be incredibly useful for combat down the line. The fact that, as far as she could tell, the perk would put her in some sort of meditative state related to kinetic energy, was, if anything, a plus at this point.

At least it was something to do.

Although Taps didn’t seem to approve. Alice could tell from the way the inanimate object leaned against the wall. However, when Alice asked Taps what it thought she should pick for her Perks, it didn’t give her any good ideas at all. Since Taps was so picky and unhelpful, Alice didn’t talk to it for the rest of the day.

Then, Alice used the Perk on her kinetic seed.

When she used the {Seeds of Magic} perk, it felt like she had flashes of insight pouring into her mind, like iron filling a mold and patching up holes she hadn’t known were there before. These flashes of thought, however, weren’t strictly new to her. It was like she was back in her high school physics class, except with far fewer numbers involved and a much greater focus on the concept of kinetic energy itself. When pondering these topics, she could feel the ideas whirling around her brain getting engraved into her magic seed. As her magic seed changed, the heat inside of her chest grew stronger again for the first time in ages, shifting and changing as her magic seed improved. The perk worked slowly, but she could feel her mana pool improving over time, as well as her control over her magic.

[Scholar] levelled for the first time in weeks while pondering all of this information. Previously it had stopped at 7 once she had finished reading A Comparison of the Lesser Seeds and the Four Basic Magic Seeds. Alice quietly celebrated a bit with an extra serving of nuts that evening. She was getting quite sick of this food…

Day 95

The days were getting noticeably warmer. Alice was excited. Soon, she would be able to follow the river further. The book had washed down from upstream, and whatever had killed the guy she had seen earlier was hopefully gone by now. Be it monsters or [Bandits], Alice hoped that they had moved on after several months. And the fact that a corpse had come from upstream meant that there must be people if she headed in that direction.

Day 99

Alice was pretty sure that today was her birthday. She had lost track of time towards the beginning of her stay in this world, but she was still pretty sure that her birthday had either been a few days ago, or was today. The System still claimed that her age was 15, which puzzled her, but she figured that maybe the System was trying to track her age from the moment she had arrived in this world, counting the first day here as her 15^th birthday. It was a bit far fetched of an explanation, but she didn’t have any better ideas to go off of.

She quietly gave herself an extra serving of spidercrab soup, mixed with nuts, and celebrated her birthday alone in the forest, with no humans around for several kilometers in any direction. There was no cake, no parents and friends to talk to, and nothing to look forward to.

But on the bright side, Taps looked thrilled for her.

Day 105

It hadn’t snowed for a few days, and the deep blanket of white over the land was starting to disappear. She could now see sprouts of green poking up from beneath the snow, also heralding the arrival of spring. Just as she was deciding that she would leave within a few days, a terrifying roar sounded in the distance. It was loud, terrifying, and wholly unfamiliar to her. The spidercrabs did not make this sound – they hissed and screeched, and sometimes made her want to claw her ears out, but they never roared.

This roar was different. When she heard it, she felt like a firefly staring at the sun. It wasn’t close enough for {Sixth Sense} to pick up the monster – which, honestly, she was thankful for. She quaked, like a leaf in a hurricane, as the terrifying roar echoed across the forest, far away but not far enough. She had thought, several times, that she was incredibly unlucky for getting dropped into this world near the start of winter. However, she had forgotten one thing.

Winter was when several predators hibernated. And in a world filled with magic and monsters, the predators at the top of the food chain were terrifying indeed.

acaswell

So, I've been going back and forth on this for a while, and I want to know your opinions - do you guys want to see every single perk choice, or just the ones Alice picks? I have a list of perks for each class in my worldbuilding notes, and usually I pick the perks Alice qualifies for and show up to five perks at each choice. Do you guys want this trend to continue, or do you want to just see what perk Alice takes and skip the rest? 

Final chapter of the first arc tomorrow. Woo! After that, I'm going to take a few days off, and then I'll probably switch to either uploading once or twice a week. I was originally planning on doing one chapter a week, but you guys have mostly been pretty awesome, and I feel a lot better and more motivated about my writing than I used to, so I've been debating whether or not I can handle two a week. I'll think about it a little more, but I'm leaning towards trying it and seeing how I feel afterwards. Thank you all so much for taking the time to read my story! For those of you who have commented, rated the story, reviewed it, or sent private messages, an extra thank you! It makes me happy to know that people are enjoying my writing for the most part. :) Have a lovely day!