New World Day 9

  For the first time in what felt like an eternity I awoke not because of fear, pain, or my bladder, but instead because of my growling stomach. The lantern that lit up the surrounding area flickered from lack of power. I hadn’t had time to switch it off before I passed out the previous night. That combined with my rumbling stomach and stiff body meant that I had been out for quite awhile this time. Before I made any attempt to stand up, I glanced down at my right hand and saw that the two long cuts were much better now. They didn’t look completely healed yet. I clenched my fist and wiggled my fingers without popping them back open so that was good. I attempted to move my left arm next. A slight stab of pain shot through my body, but it was well within the range that I could handle now. Good! I was on the way to a complete recovery!

  Now that I had checked out my injuries, I extended both legs flat on the ground and started to stretch my body. Fifteen minutes later I felt loose enough that I used the workbench behind me to pull myself to my feet. I needed to check out a lot of things before I could make a plan for the day. I picked up the lantern and walked down the hall towards the garage. The door to the garage remained ajar, and not a single speck of light shone in the garage. That answered the question of if it was night or day. I was about to close the door and grab a late dinner when I heard growls and screams from just outside the garage door.

  I knew I should close the door and walk away, but my curiosity got the better of me. I was confident that the growls were from forest coyotes and the screams from goblins. Was the creature that left those larger footprints out there? I had to know. I put down the lantern with care and walked to the entrance of the garage. When I got to the doorway, I crouched down and waddled over to the nearest garage door window. Then I raised myself up enough to take a peek out the window. Dark clouds obscured the moon and made it very difficult to see anything through the window, but I saw a few dozen dark shapes moving in the moonless night. A little over half of them were squat and on four legs. Those would be the forest coyotes. The remainder of them had a small slightly hunched shape reminiscent of the goblins I fought before. All except one.

  The last form was twice the size of the other dark shapes. It was just a couple of inches shorter than me. The darkness hid the detailed features, but it looked like it had a physique larger than yet similar to the smaller goblins. I wanted to get as much information as I could about this creature. I continued to watch the brawl between the two sides. I should have stopped pushing my luck and went back to the workshop. I watched as the creature stood at the back of the goblin horde and presided over the fight. A few times throughout the fight it would raise an arm and bark out a command to the goblins who scrambled to fulfill its commands. The forest coyotes had the edge in numbers at the beginning, but the goblin's weapons and higher intelligence took their toll. The crunch of gravel and painful whines and screams echoed through the night. Blood no doubt stained the gravel, but the shadows of the night hid it from view. When the numbers of the pack dwindled to half, the largest one charged the creature. It darted through the ranks of goblins with astonishing speed and agility and launched itself at the creature. I thought the creature might be in danger, but the final result dropped my jaw in awe. When the forest coyote was about to slam into the creature, it snaked around the side of the lunging beast and slashed down with a long bladed weapon. The blow cut the forest coyote in two mid-lunge. The creature’s movements turned its face in my direction. As if it sensed my stare, it raised up its head and stared back in my direction. The sudden movement caught me unawares and I dropped down out of sight. I hoped and prayed the darkness hid me from the creature’s sight.

  I refused to stick around to see if it would come over and investigate the garage door. My time was better spent making preparations in case it did come for me. I held my breath, stole over to the middle ATV, and pulled the shotgun off of the seat. I felt safer now that I was armed, but not safe enough to stay in the garage. I stayed low and crept into the workshop hallway. I twisted the door knob and closed the door like a teenager sneaking back in after curfew. Not even a whisper escaped as I let go of the door knob. Perfect. Back in the hallway, I grabbed the lantern and ran to the bedroom door. I picked up some granola bars and a few bottles of water from the fridge before I ran into the bedroom. I sat on the loveseat in the middle of the room and checked over the shotgun in the flickering light of the lantern. Satisfied that the shotgun remained in working order, I cracked open the door to the garage and slipped in again. I used the seat of the Ranger to help me aim at the garage door and waited. I heard some faint barks and screeches still from outside, but the garage doors insulated me from much of the outside sound. Without warning, the noises disappeared. Here was the moment of truth. If the creature had seen me or my shape in the window then it might come to investigate. Minutes ticked by and sweat trickled down my brow. The sound of gravel crunching sent my mind into overdrive, but the sound grew fainter and fainter. They were walking away from the garage. Still, I didn’t dare to let my guard down. I pointed the shotgun at the door to the garage for over an hour before I let out a long sigh of relief and put the shotgun down. I guess it didn’t see me after all. Even so, what fearsome instincts to sense me watching it from all the way at the end of the driveway. That creature was someone to be wary of.

  Satisfied I was safe, I walked back into the bedroom. Time to take care of my physical needs. I wolfed down the granola bars and bottles of water followed by using one bottle and a dirty old bucket for less hygienic purposes. What? I wasn’t going outside right now, and I couldn’t hold it any longer. I stashed the bottle and bucket in the corner of the garage for disposal once morning arrived. My physical body was in too bad of a shape to do any physical training and my mind needed a rest after the frantic night. That left my journals. I recorded my experiences in my journals and looked at what skills I might be able to purchase from the System. I had quite a few points to spend now. I wanted two types in particular. One was a type of healing skill for the Spirit. There wasn’t one before, but with my new stat I hoped one was available to purchase now. The cracks in my inner world were healing but at a snail’s pace. I worried that it might take weeks to heal at this rate. The second skill I desired was some type of footwork. My inability to dodge the python’s scale along with the smooth actions of the creature earlier tonight drove home how important footwork was to my survival. I had no idea how to train or learn footwork myself. Hence, I hoped the System had something for me.

  I commanded the System to list all of the new skills available to me, and an enormous list appeared in front of me. I wanted to record each skill in my journal, but there were far too many to write down at the moment. Time was precious after all. I ordered the System to narrow the skills down to healing skills and then to spiritual healing skills. The final list was much more manageable.

  One obvious choice sprang out from the small list. It was expensive, but its physical equivalent had saved my ass a multitude of times already. I didn’t hesitate at all and purchased the skill Basic Spirit Regeneration (Passive) (B) *. After purchasing the skill, I waited and sure enough power poured into my body from all around me. I was much more sensitive to mana after the experiences of the previous night, and the sheer amount flooding into my body was unreal. All of the mana from last night was just like a drop of water in the ocean compared to this. I was sure that there was more mana involved in the granting of this skill than the three resistance skills. Thinking it through it made sense. It took a lot more to purchase this skill than the resistance skills. I guessed that meant that the amount of energy required to grant a skill was determined at least in part by the cost of the skill. The process took five minutes this time, and like the previous two times it wasn’t painful. Just very very discomforting. The most similar experience I could think of would be if you were awake during a surgery and could feel the surgeon mucking around in your body with no pain but you could feel the movements in your body. Uncomfortable to say the least.

  I needed to shake off that feeling. I turned my attention to my inner world and noticed that the cracks dotting the darkness were already healing at a quicker rate. I was sure that as the skill leveled up that the rate would continue to increase. The only thing that I worried about was the drain on my mana regen. The physical regen skill took one mana a minute to maintain, and a quick peek at my Status showed that the spiritual version consumed mana at the same rate. I was surprised that it didn’t max out my current mana regeneration. Come to think of it, my mana regen didn’t used to be that high. In fact, I should have been at a negative. Was that the effect of the spirit stat? Hmmm. Best to find out.

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  I was right! It increased my mana regen and the size of my mana lake. Increasing my mana regen was at the top of my to do list. Replenishing my mana via mana stones was dangerous, and they were in short supply. I might need to use a few of my bonus points for my Spirit stat, but there was something else that I needed to figure out first. I noticed that my mana pool had increased by a significant amount after last night as well, but I wasn’t sure if that was caused by awakening the Spirit stat or by one of the mana related skills I gained last night. I called up the skill descriptions in order to find out.

  After viewing the explanations for my four new skills, it became clear that the increase in the size of my mana lake was due to both the Spirit stat and the Flexible Mana Lake skill. 20 points were from the skill which means that 8 were from the Spirit stat. That meant the Spirit stat increases my mana pool by 2 and my mana regen by a currently unknown amount for each point. Once I had recorded the information about my new stat and skills in my journals, I turned my attention to my new titles.

  Considering I had 4 points in Spirit and my mana regen increased by three full points, that meant that each point of Spirit increased my mana regen by .25. Not bad. Not bad at all. I scribbled down the new information about the Spirit stat and my new titles in my journal. I followed that up by writing down my experiences in creating and earning the various skills and titles before I turned my attention back to the System. There was just one more thing to do before I started training my mana again. I needed to find a good footwork skill!