[Chapter 30: Primitive armory]

Despite having put a literal magic circle inside of me, life returned to normal nigh-instantly. Now my focus returns to more mundane things like weapon training. Though it's not as interesting as integrating new magic structures, knowing how to fight in melee is undeniably important as well. Plus, I have some new weapons I want to start training in as well.

Back during my big fight with the goblins, I lost my weapons at the start. So, to at least lessen the danger of such scenarios I figure I should try and learn unarmed combat. Really this feels like something I should have learned earlier, but I'm learning it now, so no harm done. There isn't anyone to train with around here, so I'll just start by practicing how to throw punch.

So in the way I trained all my weapon skills back when they were at the beginning levels, I just repeated the same basic punch over and over again, no fancy tricks, just standing in place throwing out a punch till it was in grained into me. But the problem with this, is that the entire thing is so different from pretty much all my other skills that epistemology doesn't work on it, meaning its growth is very slow.

[Obtained skill]

[Basic unarmed proficiency| lv: 1]

[When unarmed damage is increased by 2% and crit chance is increased by 2%]

[Skill level increased]

[Basic unarmed proficiency| lv: 2]

[When unarmed damage is increased by 4% and crit chance is increased by 4%]

You know, looking back it took me several days just to get one skill level, but now getting two levels in less time seems slow to me. I'm just going to take it as me being an idiot back then who didn't know how to properly train.

Recently I started going out into goblin territory to hunt for game. Animals still come to drink from the stream, but I figure it's best to switch up the hunting area anyways, I think I remember hearing something about that being a strategy used by old hunters. Either way it made for some decent training.

[Skill level increased]

[Basic bow proficiency| lv: 9]

[When using a bow accuracy is increased by 9% damage by 9% and crit chance by 9%]

[Skill level increased]

[Basic bow proficiency| lv: 10]

[When using a bow accuracy is increased by 10% damage by 10% and crit chance by 10%]

[Skill level increased]

[Stealth| lv.3]

[18% decrease in presence while hiding]

[Skill level increased]

[Stealth| lv.4]

[24% decrease in presence while hiding]

[Skill level increased]

[Stealth| lv.5]

[30% decrease in presence while hiding]

Bow proficiency is almost at intermediate, but the real gains come from stealth. It's such a useful skill, but I haven't had time to really level it until recently, I should try to make more time for it in the future. And butchering all the game gave me a level as well.

[Skill level increased]

[Butchering| lv.4]

[Butchering speed increased by 80%]

Needing to know how to throw a good punch wasn’t my only failing during the goblin fight. At one point I was forced onto the back foot because I was unable to use magic mid-fight, I managed to come out fine, but it was in a big part to luck that I managed that without taking what could have been a nasty wound. That’s bad, luck is one of my weakest stats, I can’t rely on getting by like that again. It’s something that I would have gotten down eventually anyway, and enough stats might just flat out make it a non-issue, but fixing an obvious gap in my abilities as soon as possible would be for the best. I don’t plan to fight again anytime soon, but if the gnoll’s start hunting me down I don’t want to have a large amount of my capability to be unusable because despite knowing about the problem I left it be. I’ve seen far too many characters struggle when it counts because they did precisely that. If I can ward off any chance of such a thing happening with a little work, then it’s a small price to pay.

Lacking any opponents, baring the ones that want to kill me, I began performing exercises of running through stretches of the forest while attempting to simultaneously cast magic. I’d like to have used fire magic due to its great effectiveness at not being something you want in your face, but due to concerns for the forest I mainly used water magic, with a bit of earth magic as well. It was good training, not only for its intended purpose, but also for getting used to using mana with my new circle and moving through the forest while running. The latter was something I already had a decent amount of experience with, but that is just moving at a casual pace, if this is to truly be my home I must be able to move through the uneven and root filled ground with ease, plus so far I have mostly kept my fights to open stretches of ground, I don’t want to die because I was unable to get such a terrain and tripped on a root while in battle. Wonder if this will be good parkour training, that skill is pretty common in novels, further I wonder if there are skills for stuff like running? I can’t see why there shouldn’t be, I literally have a skill for grinding stuff with a mortar and pestle. I don’t have any skills like that but then again I never really tried to make my running better, plans for the future I guess.

[Skill level increased]

[Water magic| lv: 3]

[Control water magic with 30% efficiency]

I also thought it would be a good idea to learn some other weapons for reasons similar to the reasons for learning unarmed proficiency. Knowing how to use a large amount of weaponry will allow me to be more flexible in unexpected circumstances. Plus it means moar skills, which is always a good thing. The weapons I choose to train were knives, whip, and hammer to varying degrees of success.

[Obtained skill]

[Basic knife proficiency| lv: 1]

[When using a knife damage is increased by 1% crit chance by 1% crit damage by 1% and attack speed by 1%]

[Skill level increased]

[Basic knife proficiency| lv: 2]

[When using a knife damage is increased by 2% crit chance by 2% crit damage by 2% and attack speed by 2%]

[Skill level increased]

[Basic knife proficiency| lv: 3]

[When using a knife damage is increased by 3% crit chance by 3% crit damage by 3% and attack speed by 3%]

[Obtained skill]

[Basic whip proficiency| lv: 1]

[When using a whip crit chance is increased by 3% and crit damage is increased by 1%]

[Obtained skill]

[Basic hammer proficiency| lv: 1]

[When using a hammer damage is increased by 3% and crit damage by 1%]

[Skill level increased]

[Basic hammer proficiency| lv: 2]

[When using a hammer damage is increased by 6% and crit damage by 2%]

[Skill level increased]

[Basic hammer proficiency| lv: 3]

[When using a hammer damage is increased by 9% and crit damage by 3%]

[Skill level increased]

[Basic hammer proficiency| lv: 4]

[When using a hammer damage is increased by 12% and crit damage by 4%]

Hammer proficiency grew so high because it’s very similar to axe proficiency in that they’re both about taking a big weapon and swinging it down as hard as you can, with my weapon being just a big rock tied to a sturdy stick, as I grow stronger I will make a hammer using bigger rocks. Knife proficiency was taken because knives are easy to carry on oneself at all times, with me already having some to practice with, for now it’s just one knife but I plan on using two once I get good. And while whip proficiency, a weapon very different from any others I’ve used, may seem like a weird choice, but I do have a reason for picking it, because you see, whips are a gateway weapon to whip-swords and those are very cool.

I improved a lot of skills, begun plans for many more, I am happy.