15 – Preparations, because this is not a game

Cal’Eer and Julian sat on the ground beside the small fire, where irregular planks of wood taken from the now broken table were slowly being consumed. Cal was looking through the mess of scrolls and pages, trying to pass time and maybe find something useful for later. Unfortunately most of what he saw was beyond his understanding, being either abstract science or obscure ritual diagrams. The communion of the two very different fields on the same scrolls was interesting and uncanny, the implications worrying.

Julian was aware of that too. Before setting down and making a fire he had peeked into the other room, the one beyond the heavy wooden door with metal beams thicker than an arm. What he saw made him whisper “boss room”, before closing back the door and stepping back in the side room. The reasoning was that he wanted to be as strong as possible before venturing there, and he had things he could to in that regard: level up, he had enough runes for one level, and try to absorb stats from the crystals he had stored in his ring, collected from the monsters he killed. He had a good stash to go through.

He pulled up his status, and thought about which stat to increase. His sword was clearly a STR weapon, while his guns were no doubt DEX based. Beyond that, both DEX and STR had potential to be very useful outside the mere scaling of the weapons, since he could make use of the increased capabilities in other ways in a fight. This was video game stuff, but only up to a certain degree, after which it also came to play the fact that in real life there are many ways to do things.

After some time, he decided to go with a point of DEX, so that he could deal more damage with the guns, be more accurate and also faster and nimbler in his movements.

Julian V. Terror.
Level: 11 -> 12
Class: null

VIGOR: 16
MIND: 10
ENDURANCE: 12
STRENGTH: 10
DEXTERITY: 10 -> 11
INTELLIGENCE: 10
FAITH: 10
ARCANE: 13

Runes: 4533 -> 613
Runes needed: 3920 -> 4592

Skills: Valuable Experience lv.2 – Seppuku lv.1 – Plant based Lifeform lv.1 – Crystal Cores lv.1 – Efficient Crystal Absorption lv.2 – Non-Euclidean Space lv.1 – Parry lv.1 – Dodge Rolls lv.1 –  Precision Morphing lv1

Sorceries:

Incantations:

Immediately he went to the skill selection, without skipping a beat. He was very much looking forward to it, feeling very confident he was going to get a good selection this time. He could not explain why he felt like that, beyond maybe his Arcane stat doing something behind the scenes.

Careful what you wish for, Julian. Now what do I do?

He mentally cursed his luck. It overdid things, and now he was presented with three very interesting choices all at the same time while having to choose only one.

If I select Sorceries, I won’t be able to do them due to lack of a Staff. If I select Freehand Magic, I won’t be able to do them due to lack of Sorceries skill. Fuck it, let’s go Appraisal.

His finger touched the third skill, and the menu disappeared. Immediately he went to try the new skill on the first think he saw.

>Revolver.
>Archaic human gun capable of shooting Steel or Lead bullets with a short range of fire and low accuracy. Magazine capacity: 6. Damage scaling: F DEX

A small amount of MP vanished as soon as the information was displayed which, considering his low Mind, meant that Julian had just used around 10% of his mana. However, since he was at a fire, the bar replenished immediately back to full.

>Iron Sword.
>System-issued base weapon for the Warrior class. Low durability remaining. Damage scales F with STR.

Julian frowned. The formatting seemed inconsistent with the Appraisal he did on the revolver. However, the skill did say ‘based on multiple factors’. Shaking his head, he decided to move on from the frivolous problem and tried to appraise the crystal he materialized from his storage ring.

>Unattuned F-rank Crystal.
>Crystalline core of a slain creature, obtained through a Skill. Impeccable purity. Commonly used in Cultivation to gain up to (+20) in any stat.

Oh. Julian was surprised. He could never have guessed just how useful these crystals were going to be. It must have been very visible on his face, because Cal soon asked him what was up.

“Seen anything interesting?”

“Oh yeah,” Julian replied. “You can say that.”

Cal pointed at the crystal in his hand. “Did you figure out what that does?”

“Yup. I’m going to try to use it now.”

“Okay,” Cal got up. “I’ll be over there then, chilling.”

He made a small mattress appear from the system shop and plopped down on it, and lazily began to read a book he found in the room while propped up on his elbows. Julian in the meantime took out all 16 crystals from his rings and set them down all around him in a semicircle. He closed his eyes and inhaled, trying to feel something.

There was a tingling sensation, and in the darkness of his mind’s eye he could see faint lights shining in the distance. They were like beacons in the mist, weak but visible at the horizon, and they were 16 just like the crystals. They surrounded him in roughly the same places where the crystals were in real life too.

Feeling confident, he tried to reach one of the lights. He began to walk in the sea of dark mist, one pace after the other in the oniric landscape made of unknown formless matter, but each step was harder then the previous. It was as if he was walking through quicksand, and he was sinking. He struggled, gritting his teeth while never letting the light in the distance leave his focused gaze. He kept going, drawing ever closer. It felt like an eternity, but the light grew larger, until finally he reached it.

He greedily extended a hand. His fingers burned as he touched the source of the light, a faint but scalding core of a miniature star, and his sizzling flesh gripped the source tight and he pulled it to him. There were many lights, miniature stars themselves but small like singularities in a dark sky within him. He gently guided the light of the crystal towards the strongest of his inner lights, the one representing Vigor.

He opened his eyes, checking his surroundings. Cal’Eer was asleep, and beside him the fire was reduced to a dwindling pile of small embers. A long time had passed, and checking his vitals he noticed that his Stamina was completely depleted, only now recovering, and his HP were low due to a long period with depleted Stamina. Quickly he went to grab more firewood, feeling the pangs of hunger and the muscle cramps paralyze him. His SP barely ticked up, and while his health was not depleting anymore he felt like he was only one step away from fainting.

He grabbed the first thing he found and threw it on the weak embers. The scroll ignited in an instant, lighting the rest of the fuel that soon was thrown on it and restoring the flames.

Julian breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his vitals replenished, and didn’t feel pain anymore. He finally looked at his status.

VIGOR: 16 (+1)

On the other side of the room, Cal woke up with a groan. The heat and light of the roaring fire had no doubt disturbed his rest, and he sold the mattress back to the system and went to sit beside Julian.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“Went well.” Julian said. “Next time please keep the fire alive while I’m out.”

Cal nodded yes. “Did you manage to cultivate?”

He looked at the crystals, and Julian followed his gaze until he saw one of the stones had turned to dust.

“How long was I out?” he asked.

“Don’t know.” Cal said. “It’s hard to tell. More than a couple hours for sure. Maybe four.”

“I see. I want to absorb the other crystals too.”

“What? Are you crazy? It’s going to take days!” Cal protested.

“Yeah. But that’s a boss room and I’m not going in just to die because I was underleveled.” Julian shot back.

“But you can respawn!” Cal insisted.

“Yeah, so? I don’t want to make the climb back here. And what do you think it’s going to happen to you if I die?” Julian said, and stared at his friend.

Cal squirmed in his place. “I… run?” he said, but his voice was not of someone who was convinced of what he said.

“You run.” Julian repeated. “And what if you can’t leave because the door closes behind us and doesn’t open again until we defeat the boss?”

Cal gulped. “Fine. But what am I supposed to do while I wait?”

“Here.” Julian tapped the air. “613 runes. That’s all I have. Have fun with the System shop, and don’t let the fire die. I’m going back in.”