Chapter 4.

 

    With the abomination I had created on me, I felt more secure, if not more comfortable. But comfort is not a prerequisite to adventuring or falling through a crack; in reality, to swim in a sea of chaos and to wind up in the desolate wilds of an alien planet. I decided I needed to get a better vantage to try and find which way I needed to travel.

 

The overhang that I had awoken in; turned out to be on a rocky hill; that I subsequently climbed to the top of. The view was impressive as far as hilltop views went. I got my bearings in this new world.

 

Using the sun as a guide, rise in the east, set in the west. To the north were mountains and like the general direction of my shadow indicated. More substantial forests were in that direction as well. The overhang was on the south side of the hill. It appeared that the river that now ran into the forest to the south had once run along the hill. Now the river came from the northeast and curved southwest into the woods.

    

The direction I thought was north looked like it would rise in elevation and thus get colder. There might be people or civilization in that direction, but the strong bet was south following the river. 

 

    

The woods and hill that I had appeared on seemed to be in the beginnings of the larger forest that stretched into the north, sprawling in every direction. 

 

"Well, a good idea of the area but no clear sign of people. Not that I particularly want to find people, but… should I try flying, no too risky right now. Don't want a giant bird, dragon, or something else to snatch me from the sky. Not to mention falling." I said out loud, pondering my options. 

 

    "Well, the river it is then," I said as I adjusted the top part of my onesie. 

 

    I made my way down the hill and toward the river I was going to try and follow. The walk was uneventful. The suit of woven metal, however, was providing small torture continually in my new existence. The hairs on my arms, legs, and everywhere else slipped between the weave and would pull every few seconds. The small twinging pains every few seconds soon had my mood falling. I had to find a way soon to line the inside of this abomination of armor.  

 

    One hour of small disgruntling torture later, I finally found the answer to my chafing and hair-pulling nightmare. I had moved a small distance away from the river, following a game trail. The trial ended in a clearing that was lush with grass and flowers. In that beautiful meadow was fifty or so fluffy white deer. Instead of the coarse brown hair of earth deer, these deer had what looked to be fluffy wool. I call them deer due to the males having majestic silver antlers and the females having small multi-colored ones. 

 

    They were beautiful, and the meadow had an extra air of peace and serenity about it. It was a shame I was going to have to kill some of these. I was hungry and needed something to help with my suit, but did I have to kill them. No, no, I didn't. 

    

Moving to the edge of the clearing, I prepared a new spell. I focused on blocking the major muscular nerves in the animal's bodies while leaving the rest of the autonomic nerves functioning. I cast a spell on the entire herd. I received two notifications.

 

[You have learned the spell: Paralysis: Base cost: 3.75 mana per 10 seconds. Level 1.]

 

[You have learned the spell: Mass Paralysis: Base cost: 7.5 mana per 10 seconds; area a 10-yard radius. Level 1. 

 

    The amount of mana regeneration I had was overkill for the area. With my mana regenerating at 11.5 per second, I could hold the fuzzy deer easily. I walked into the open and moved closer to the herd of frozen deer, a few had been outside the area of effect, and they bounded off into the woods. I could sense the fear building in the animals, and I felt sorry for them. I would have to be quick.

    

I linked a small thread of mana to each of the adult deer. I formed a new spell that would use a razor-sharp blade of air to cut away all of the wool along their body, without so much as nicking the skin. As I cast the spell, the voice notified me. 

 

[you have learned the spell: Shearing: Base cost: .1 mana per second, per target. Level 1.] 

    

The wool from the 35 deer gently floated down to the ground. With a wave of air mana, I gathered all the wool around me. My prize was all secured. I cast a [mass healing] on the animals and watched as the wool quickly regrew as if nothing had happened. That done, I released the deer from the paralyzes.

 

    They all bolted in different directions into the woods. I Reviewed my prize; I realized though it was a soft fluffy white, it was slightly dirty though, time for a new spell. 

 

I focused my mana, pushing it out, and told it, guided it to remove all of the dirt and debris from the wool. [You have learned the spell: Clean: Base cost: 10 mana per square foot. Level 1.] Then, I focused on purging any small microbes or other things from the wool. [You have learned the spell: Purify: Base cost: 5.1 mana per square inch. Level 1.] The voice said.

 

    "I wish I had a way to analyze the items I had," I said. It turned out after trying to create a spell that would analyze an object and having it fail multiple times; that I figured anything like analyze would be an ability and not a spell. The most I could get was a general sense of the objects and materials but not their true value or how they interacted with the world. 

 

"Now, what to do with this wool? Sheered, cleaned, and purified. Now it needs to be spun into yarn, then woven." Spinning yarn is easy, just time-consuming. But with the industrial power of magic, I had high hopes for the lining of my onesie.

 

    New spell time, I suppose. I gathered the wool with a bit of focused air mana. Then I gently smushed and clumped the wool together. Then with a tug and spin at a corner of the wool, the spell formed. 

 

[You have learned the spell: Yarn spinning: Base cost: .1 mana per second of spinning, level 1.]

 

    I created a hundred large spools of the yarn that through the magic of the spell found itself spun down into thread. One pound of wool can make ten miles of yarn. Once that process was done, I reviewed what I knew about making cloth. A bunch of threads all in a row, four sets that alternate up and down. Then a shuttle with a spool of thread that moved back and forth. 

 

[You have created the spell: Weave: Base cost: 5 mana per 10 seconds of weaving. Level 1.] 

       

As my mana left my body as the new spell form and the notification whispered in my ear, a breath-taking process began. The spools of thread all organized themselves and began to weave a huge piece of cloth ten feet by hundreds of feet long. When the process was done, the cloth neatly folded itself and rolled up in front of me. A large bolt of the fuzzy deer cloth was ready for use. 

 

    I felt the material as I picked it up. The whole bundle was much lighter than I expected. It was soft, not silky, more like a fuzzy cashmere. Without a thought, I stripped, cleaned, and purified my onesie armor. Then I cut the cloth into appropriate shapes and fused them in spots to the inside of the armor. This only took about ten feet by ten feet of the new cloth. 

 

"I'm going to need a bag; hum, a bag of holding would be nice." I thought out loud.

 

      I quickly cut out a bag pattern and stitched it together with silver thread that I collected from the earth. The cost was minimal as the spool of silver thread one hundred feet long cost 45 mana to produce. It looked like a messenger bag and had a braided silver cord strap that I made with an additional one thousand eighty mana. A new notification appeared, at least a new type, the same soft female voice in my head, though. Kind of creepy when you're all alone.

 

[You have learned the skill: Tailoring: Novice. Create basic clothing and other items made from cloth.]

 

    "What, that's it for a cool new skill. Well, tailoring might not be cool, but it's useful at least. Well, at least my crotch, thanks to my tailoring efforts. I really need to find some people to talk to. Maybe I need a Wilson." I said. 

 

I focused my mana on the inside of the bag, searching for a way to make it bigger on the inside than the out. Soon I found it, or at least I thought I did. 

 

[You have learned the spell: Internal Dimensional Expansion: Base cost: 300 mana per cubic inch of extradimensional storage.]

 

[You have failed to cast The Spell: Internal Dimensional Expansion.] 

 

    "Shit, I guess no magic bag for me yet. What am I going to do with this cloth?" I said.

 

    I put back on my onesie fully and basked in the warm, soft fuzziness. The cloth felt amazing and had the added benefit of making the armor almost weightless. I leaped lightly through the fields with a bolt of cloth over my shoulder and a smile on my face. The soft fuzziness caressing my body. "This is awesome," I said, a wondrous joy filling me.

 

    "Magical world. No work. No welding, well, I'm sure I'll blacksmith at some point, but that's fun, not work. No more chafing and pinching and this cloth is almost erotic on my naked skin. Ahhhh."  

 

    I made my way quickly back to the river and began following it once more. Lightly leaping from rock to rock and around obstacles. I was moving at a swift jog, the bolt of cloth over my shoulders like a yoke, lifting me instead of weighing me down. The forest and peaceful meadows passed as I glided from the trees to rocks and through the air. 

 

    I was free, almost floating as I moved. Without a care in the world, I enjoyed the ease of movement. The child-like wonder of floating almost like a balloon left a stupid grin plastered to my face. 

 

I was far too heedless in my movements. That's why as I leaped from a rock along the bank, around a tree, and onto a sand bar, I came face to face with a bear. 

 

    Well, not face to face, but close enough; what's the real difference between twenty feet (6m) and a bear. Well, bear thing. The bear was a loose general descriptor of a terrifying, large tooth, chomping death machine that was in front of me. 

 

    The dappled light dully reflected from the bear thing. The fur on its body was an ancient gray with an ashen glow that almost looked like steel. 

 

Its head whipped out of the stream and soft glowing red eyes locked on to me in a flash of shocked rage. With a low rumbling growl, it turned and charged at me within a second. I was caught completely off guard. Surprised by the size of the beast, its spiked tail. Why did a bear need a spiked tail?

 

    The beast moved with a fluid grace belied by its size. The space between us was far too small to give me but a few bare seconds to react. On earth, I'd be dead or mauled close to it. As adrenalin poured into my body, the new knowledge of magic I had gained screamed at me to fight. There was no running; there was no time.  

 

    Panicking, I poured 50 points of mana into the first spell I could think of [stone spike]. The mana rushed from my body, and with a crack like lightning-splitting stone, what I had instinctually envisioned tore from the ground. A field of glass spikes erupted from the sand in between the large beast and me. 

 

    I don't know what I expected to have happen. Maybe give me a few more moments to make my escape, or, or something. The glittering field of glass spikes that now covered most of the sand bar was not what I thought would happen. I had thought about producing the fastest, most powerful blast of stone spike I could. The creature twitched convulsed as the dozens of glass spikes piercing its body were colored a deep violet from its blood. One of the clear crystallin-looking spikes even protruded from the top of its head, having been thrust up under its muzzle. Then I received a flood of notifications.

 

[Congratulations you have killed a: level 23 Dofrian. Experience earned 5290] 

 

[ You have dealt damage to Dofrian. Critical damage dealt to brain. Critical damage dealt to heart. Critical damage dealt to liver, kidneys.] 

 

[You have leveled.]

 

With what sounded like a short sigh and an intake of breath, the soft whisper continued [You have leveled, you have leveled, you have leveled…] The whisper went on and on. Nineteen times. By the end, the soft, nice female voice had a clear tone of annoyance on the last, "you have leveled."

 

I needed to know what that thing was. I made my way around the spikes and got barely close enough to reach a hand and touch it. I used [analyze body] on the creature. My mana soon peeled away the layers of flesh in my mind's eye, and a general sense of the creature's internal makeup was revealed. It was made of some weird combination of steel and other elements. Its bones, claws, teeth, tendons, and fur were all made from the stuff. Its flesh, however, skin, organs, and blood were made of something else. The area around the places the glass had impaled was odd as if the wounds had begun healing momentarily then stopped. I realized as well I had probably picked the one form of attack that could have hurt this thing by Piercing it and in such great quantities.  

 

    "Well shit," I said out loud. "That's cool. Not too bad if I do say so myself." I said as if this was what I had intended from the start. I pulled up my stats and looked at how many points I had just accumulated from leveling. 76 attribute points, 19 ability points, 19 skill points, and 19 spell points. 

 

    "How to grow. I hated books when a character did not use their points. Who waits to use level upgrades? Though I can see part of the reason now. I don't really know what would be good, though I know I'm overpowered in one way, so I might as well capitalize on that. Min-max maybe. No..." 

 

    As I reviewed my options, I was hoping for a list I could choose from, but it looked like I was going to have no luck on that front. I had a few options, but I had not done enough yet to create really good options. I was going to have to find abilities and figure out some more skills before I could use those points. I was not going to use my points to level tailoring, no matter how useful it was. 

 

I could use the spell points I had, but as I reviewed the spells, I had created and learned a problem presented itself. Well, not so much a problem but more a general lack of need to really use the points yet. I was not bottlenecked anywhere. Most of the spells I had only cast a few times, and if the shuriken spell was an indication of leveling speed, it would be better to hold those points for later.  

 

    Lastly, there were books and games that I played that required the person leveling to have the energy on hand to level. Like calories, and if you did not have enough, you could starve to death during the leveling process. Better to take things slow, as it is my first day in this world.

 

    I pulled up my status.

 

    Individual Statistical Analyses. 

 

Name: Eric Grayson.

Race: Human.

Level: 19. Experience to next level; three hundred out of one thousand.

 

Health: 100 percent.

Mana capacity: 100.

Mana regeneration: Error…Max [11.5 mana per second.] 

 

Attributes: 4 per level. 76/76

Strength: 10.

Body: 10.

Speed: 10. 

Dexterity: 10.

Mana capacity: 10.

Mana regeneration: 10.

Charisma: 10.

 

Affinities:

Arcane mana manipulation: 100 percent.

Earth: 100 percent.

Fire: 100 percent.

Air: 50 percent.

Water: 50 percent.

Life: 85 percent.

Death: 15 percent.

Light: 85 percent.

Shadow: 75 percent.

Space-time: 25 percent.

Summoning: 25 percent.

 

 

Abilities: 1 per level. 19/19.

 

Skills: 1 per level. 19/19.

 

Junk skills: [Breathing, walking, blinking, hand waving]

 

Spells: 1 per level. 19/19.

Arcane mana manipulation:

1. Fuse: Base cost: .1 mana per square inch of material to be atomically bonded. 

 

Fire: 

1. Candle flame: base cost: Error… 0.1 mana per minute. 
2. Metal shaping: Base cost: Error… 10 mana per second.

 

Earth:

1. Stone spike: Base cost: Error… .1 mana per inch of spike. Level 1.
2. Collect element: Base cost: N/A. Collect desired element from surrounding area. Level 1.
3. Fertilize soil: Base cost: .1 mana per cubic foot of fertilized soil. 

 

Air:

1. Shuriken wrath: Base cost: 42.5 mana. Level 1,2
2. Yarn spinning: Base cost: .1 mana per second of spinning, level one.
3. Weave: Base cost: 5 mana per 10 seconds of weaving. Level one.

 

Water:

1. Nutritious water: Base cost: 5 mana per oz of species-specific nutritious water.

 

Life: 

1. Analyze body: base cost: 3 mana a second. Level 1.
2. Focused healing: Base cost: 7.5 mana per second. Level 1.
3. Mass healing: Base cost: 12 mana per second, area a ten-yard radius.
4. Manipulate plant: Base cost: 4.5 mana per second of movement.
5. Rapid growth: Base cost: .1> <100 mana per second of growth depending on plant or animal complexity.
6. Invigorate: Base cost: 15 mana to boost usable cellular energy in target.

 

Space-time:

Internal Dimensional Expansion: Base cost: 300 mana per cubic inch of extradimensional storage.

 

I decided to try adding just one point to see what would happen. I placed one point into the body stat and waited. A few seconds passed with nothing. Then a warm tingle started at my toes and washed up through my body. It was itchy and hot, and I could feel my cells sort of shudder. It lasted maybe five minutes, then subsided. I was noticeably hungrier afterwords.

 

I was going to have to find something to eat soon. Then I thought about it, nutritious water. It made a liquid that was nutritious for multiple species of both plants and animals.

 

I reached out with my mana and cast the spell into my cupped hands. The spell only cost five mana per oz, so a full eight oz glass size cost forty mana. When I cast the spell, I thought about making a sweet, nutritious apple juice that could sustain me. 

 

    What I got was a runny sort of apple-flavored gelatin. It was sweet and drinkable. Well, slurpable. I cast the spell four more times until I felt full. It wasn't a great feeling, but it did give me that I just ate something healthy energy buzz. 

 

    I decided to allocate some more points. Now I was feeling pretty good just having drunk my fill. The one-point didn't seem like much. So, I would put five points into each of the physical stats. Strength, body, speed, and dexterity. I added the points and felt fine. Then the warm tingling came, followed by a wave of cramping.

 

    I blacked out.