*groan*
A single groan followed by a loud growl, these sounds reverberated but the owner of these sounds did not even register them in his mind, it was instead occupied with the pain of the mental and physical variety. He had just read [The book of Omnia] again to gain more levels in [Language: Nerodian] but the intense pain that hung over him made him dazed once again.
It was 5 days since his first blood, after killing 3 husks he sank into the fountain and simply spent his EXP on stats since having more SP was not necessary at the moment, there he found that the level requirement was 2,540 and that he gained 1470 EXP, after seeing these number he decided to dig through his brain about the actual formula of exp.
It took a while to remember and to confirm but the formula went ' (100 x LV)+( ( 2 + 1.5 ^ LV ) / LV ) ', this made leveling on later stages extremely hard, for example on LV 50 it would take 12,757,430 EXP to level up which was, surprisingly a feasible number, but because it was a very exponential growth the LV 51 would take 18,758,673 EXP.
All that math actually made him gain the [Calculation] skill, it simply made him easier to calculate stuff, he obviously needed to comprehend and know the variables to make use of the skill but it was nice since it made solving problems mentally a whole lot easier.
He simply solved the 1470 EXP from 3 husks and it resulted in 200 EXP each without the bonuses from titles, and for how much stats cost was much simpler. it was ' 200 + (50 x amount already bought) ', so it increased by 50 EXP each time you bought one, so Felix could only gain 4 stats in total and they all went into Strenght.
Felix also used [Appraisal] enough times for him to understand that the LV of the skill dictated how fast it was to activate against living things, so he deduced that evolving it would increase the amount of information shown.
After that Felix simply slept, he had nightmares about him stabbing through the flesh, the smell of iron entering his nostrils and the scenery of blood permeating his dreams, in the dream eventually he was stabbed and almost died, he had woken up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.
Felix was not fine mentally.
He had already stretched his mental capacity by being thrown into an unknown world, having experienced the worst pain in his life, living in the wilderness, having his knowledge of the fucking depressing city where he currently was inhabited by monsters that simply killed him on the game numbering in the hundreds AND having killed something that vaguely looked humanoid.
"... It's too much"
Felix's mind kept rewinding the sensation of the nerves in the spine giving out after being trusted with a spear, how different the textures felt depending on where he stabbed, it was carved into his trembling hands as he, in his delusion, kept seeing another human instead of a husk being stabbed while it begged or it's life.
"..."
The husk was not human, that was a fact, he knew this, and yet he still was left semi traumatized by killing them, he was trying to deny in his mind the reason to feel guilty, after all these monsters don't hesitate in attacking you if you as much as breath too close to them, and yet the overlapping image made him realize.
' ...I'm going to have to murder someone eventually '
It was basically a fact, that there were the heroes of the [Fifth Tragedy] that resided in the capital, they were still human but protected the capital of the unworthy souls that plague the premise, or in other words, the player.
He had to kill at least 4 of them in order to finish the game, so now he had to murder 4 people who are on the break of insanity but are very human after all.
He was sick, he was extremely tired and his mind was not going to solve its problem any time soon.
It took 2 whole days for him to calm down enough to continue his journey to the mausoleum, in there he found another 6 Husk, one of them was actually aggressive so he got to practice slashing a moving target, seeing the humanoid get its throat sliced and try to stop the bleeding with its hand was a hit that dealt mental damage to him but he persisted.
He found the tomb where the player spawned, it was still uncovered, In his paranoia, he decided to simply make sure that whatever was lurking in there was completely dead by severing its head, however, this caused the system to give him a new title.
[Grave Desecrator: The user was bold enough to desecrate a tomb, what a scumbag!
Passive: +4 Vitality
+2 Luck
-4 Intelligence
Active: +10 STA
- For those who decided to disrespect the dead ]
It was a title that made him disgusting at its implications, having the title was bad enough if someone could somehow read his status menu but what made him bulge his eyes out was that the title was relatively good which prompts the question.
' Why does it reward you? '
It felt horrible from a normal perspective, to be rewarded by doing something that bad, Felix was sure that there were other titles that were on principle bad but that still rewarded the user.
' So it is impartial? I don't think that would fly though.... '
However made the rewards from doing wicked acts is probably wicked themselves, taking into account that the system can read through your mind and can read and apply the information it means that however made it was wicked or maybe evil.
〈 [Prediction] went from LV4 → LV5 through skill usage 〉
"That does not answer my question well enough, but thank you none the less"
After a bit of thinking, Felix simply nodded and continued his exploring to search for one of the important items that he needed if he was going to survive for more than a month in the city, the Flask of water.
He found it after a bit of rummaging in one of the coffins that were exposed along the walls of the mausoleum, it was in the shape of a gourd and it was made of dark metal with some silver decorations in the shape of a tear, looking at it, apart from being made formal weird metal it was a common flask.
But it had the property to preserve the water from the fountain, that water was somewhat special since it not only recovered wounds, mana and stamina, it also simply evaporated if you didn't have a special container like the Flask, so having the flask was godsent to have, this is actually the reason why HP and MP recovery is not very large, since it was intended to encourage the player to not wait and heal naturally.
"Well... this is good I think?"
Felix grabbed the flask, it came with a ' holster ' that was attachable to one's leg but Felix decided to modify it so it clung onto his belt, it was something not hard to do since the way it clung onto stuff resembled velcro. After that, he simply tested the water conservation function and he was pleased to see it worked fine.
The flask healed a total of 350 HP and MP, since he didn't need to drink the whole flask at once he simply could ration the water so it lasted all the way to the next checkpoint, or at least that is the theory behind it.
He sat in the fountain and checked his status again to see where he was, and then he spent his current EXP on some more stats.
Name: Felix Balch [Otherworlder] | LV: 22 [420/2,540] | Age: 22 | Race: Human (%95) | [Skill Menu (1 Sp)]
|Resources|
HP: 400/400 (0.33/min) | MP: 280/280 (0.33/min) | STA: 280/280 (3.8/min)
|Stats|
Strength: 38 (+7) | Dexterity: 37
Luck: 17 (+2) | Intelligence: 88 (-4)
Speed: 28 | Endurance: 23 [230/hr]
Vitality: 40 (+7) | Regeneration: 20 [20/hr ]
Arcane: 28 | Attunement: 20 [20/hr ]
[9 Total raised stats]
|Skills|
[Mental Fortitude LV3], [Meditation LV4], [Pain Resistance LV 6], [Prediction LV5], [Spear Novice LV5], [Fishing Novice LV3], [Swimming LV 6], [Faith LV2], [Training LV3], [Climbing LV1], [Roll LV2], [Poise LV1], [Riposte LV2], [Appraisal LV3], [Calculation LV2], [Language: (&¡#@$&¡ LVMAX) (@#$&¡?# LV9) (Nerodian LV4) ]
|Equpiment|
[Guest Cloak (%98)], [Guest Pants (%98)], [Guest Shirt (%99)], [Guest Boots (%97)], [Guest Ring of Feather Falling (%0)]
|Titles Earned|
[Otherworlder], [Arcane Survivor], [Forcibly Summoned Individual], [Spear User], [Believer], [Grave Dessecrator]
He put some more stats on Strength and Vitality since he believed that those were the correct choices, the other ones were a bit too inconsequential, Having more health and power should be prioritized in his opinion, he still hasn't really noticed anything with his body, like a sudden boost on strength or more vitality, but it could be attributed to literally dying of hunger a the moment.
"I know I won't die... but fuck me"
The fountain water has the property of simply regenerating your body, this is what actually makes it possible to even set foot in the capital alone for years without food or water, this, of course, was reflected in the game by not making the player eat or drink anything that didn't come from the fountain, but in real life, there was a little problem.
The water only regenerated the body.
The pain of constant hunger that was not able to be tolerated by many and went mad, the water regenerated the cells so they did not die from not having enough energy, but there simply was no satiation, nothing filled your stomach. But even this could be understandable to a certain degree, water will not fill your belly no matter how much you drink.
The problem laid in the fact that the water, did NOT quench thirst.
It was one of the most daunting things that Felix was experiencing, no matter how much water he drank, the feelings of dryness and the need for water were still there. Coupled with the fact that he was in a constant state where he felt complete starvation but was technically fine made his own body confused.
Felix was at his wit's end, but he had already chosen to be in this hellish place since he needed power, he obviously didn't need to finish the game but escaping this hell hole was more difficult than it would prove, Felix was not sure that in his current state he could safely climb down a wall without falling down.
These overwhelming feelings made him actually level up on [Pain resistance] from simply existing, [Mental Fortitude] from deciding to not try to run to the river, and [Meditation] from trying to be in peace while sleeping.
Felix sighed, he simply resigned himself and started working towards his next goal, obviously, his grand goal would be to exit this forsaken world. Nerodia was only one of many places son this world, and thanks to its need for conflict for it to be a good game, each of these places had some type of fuck up.
So he needed strength and power to be able to live for long enough and find a way out of this mess, so he started reading again to make his mind calm, meditate, and simply feel ' good enough ' to continue his journey, to end the first step that he has to take.
He hasn't beaten the tutorial yet.
[Calculation: Makes it easier to calculate results from basic operations]
[Language: Indicates the level of Proficiency in a certain language, the skill saves all known languages as long as the user can understand it to some degree]
[Nerodian: Language known from Nerodia]
[@#$&¡?: Language known from !@%&* &@%*]
[&¡#@$&¡: Language known from %&*!@@%$&]
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