The next day, I found myself without my equipment, alone in the forest behind Decashear. I didn’t know how far Kelly had taken me from the city. All I had was a bow, three quivers of arrows, and a set of instructions. I was not allowed to activate my Stealth, or any of my status enhancement skills. At the same time, I had to survive long enough for all of my new skills to evolve once. Only when that was done would I be allowed to return to the city.
To make matters worse, she brought a black stone with us, which she said was a Resurrection Binding Stone. After handing it to me to inspect, she said that it was one of the key materials to build a city, because it caused the resurrection point of anyone who touched it to be set to the stone’s immediate vicinity. The only way to change it was to enter the influence of another stone.
In other words, if I died in the forest, I would not respawn back at the city. Instead, I would respawn at a small camp that Kelly made for herself. And she made it clear that she would be immediately kicking me out of the camp if I respawned there.
Aside from this, she didn’t tell me what types of monsters were in the forest, or what their level ranges were. Nor did she give me any food, and made me empty my inventory before we left. As soon as the sun rose, my training began, and I was left to wander the woods cautiously.
Although I couldn’t activate Stealth, I could still use Light Step to conceal my presence to a degree. It surely wouldn’t be enough to stop a monster from seeing me, but perhaps they wouldn’t hear me.
As I was thinking of that, I heard a twig crack in the distance, deep breaths accompanying the sound of footsteps. My body hid behind a tree, grabbing and nocking one of my arrows on the bow. When I turned to glance past the tree, I saw that there were a pair of large ogres. Without my status enhanced, there was no way that I could kill them, even if I used all of my available skills.
If I use Farsight, Detect Weakness, and my Ki Arrow, I might be able to land a critical hit on one of them. I thought to myself. That was, of course, assuming that I was able to accurately hit the location that Detect Weakness identified. In fact, using the skill, I could see six red spots on each of them. One spot was at the side of the neck, one at the heart, one at each knee, one in the stomach, and the last on their spine. However, these spots were dim, and seemed to frequently shift positions slightly. It would be hard to hit it, even if the ogre were standing still. Because of this, I allowed the two ogres to pass without making a move, determined to only attack if I found one alone.
The next time I detected another creature, it was a group of five goblins. Two of these goblins had rusted swords, one had a staff, one had a dagger, and the last carried a bow. Ogres were a problem, but I was confident in dealing with goblins, even if I didn’t have my best skills.
I’ve got to kill the archer and mage first, otherwise they’ll harass me from range. Taking a deep breath, I activated my Detect Weakness again, finding the fuzzy red spots on each of the goblins. Then, as they passed by where I was hiding behind a tree, I turned, activating Ki Arrow and Power Attack.
My target was the mage first, as I didn’t know what magic it might have. The distance between us was roughly ten meters, so I was confident in getting a headshot. Yellow and red energy wrapped around the arrow, bursting out and piercing straight through the head of the mage. The other four reacted quickly, turning to find the assailant.
Growling, I activated my Intimidate skill to force them to pause. While they hesitated, I nocked another arrow. They seemed to notice my actions at the last moment, the three melee goblins starting to charge in while I shot the archer. It tried to move to the side, but its reaction was delayed, and it ended up with the arrow piercing through its skull.
With the two ranged goblins dealt with, I stored my bow in my inventory, activating Reduced Earth. To my surprise, this was like Power Attack, but with movement. When I used it, it made my next step carry me further, like a fast jump.
Admittedly, this was disorienting, but the goblins were also not expecting me to charge at them with such speed. The first to react was the one with the dagger, who stabbed straight at me. I brought my hand up to catch the blade, thankful for the effects of Sturdy Hand.
I still felt the bite of the blade, due to my Stamina being so low at the moment, but it didn’t cut into me like it should have. Instead, I pulled the goblin closer and used Ki Palm, my hand gaining a yellow glow. Even without enhanced stats, a straight blow to the chest like this was enough to immediately kill the creature.
Sadly, doing so gave the other two time to strike, slashing at my arms in an attempt to save their friend. I couldn’t help but his in pain, feeling two long slashes on my arms. Even with my Set Bone skill, I couldn’t avoid the pain of my muscles being cut.
Glaring, I activated Power Attack and kicked at the first of the sword-wielding goblins, sending it crashing into a tree. After taking those two cuts, I couldn’t properly move my hands, guessing that they had cut deep into the muscle. The final goblin saw the fate of its friend, body shaking as it turned to run.
Lowering my stance, I activated Reduced Earth and Power Attack both, charging at the goblin and kneeing it in the back of the head. With that, my first fight in the forest was over, and I had to wait for five minutes for my muscles to heal. While waiting, I looted the five bodies, grunting when I received a grand total of one ear and one piece of tattered cloth.
Once my arms were recovered, I started to explore the full utility of my skills. Reduced Earth could either be used for short bursts of movement or large jumps. By using it, I was able to leap more than ten meters into the air to grab a branch, pulling myself up and onto it. Then, with Farsight, I was able to clearly make out groups acting in the distance, as if my vision was magnified.
Something else that I learned in the previous fight… Power Attack does not work well with arrows. Or rather, it works too well. Both arrows snapped from the force of the impact, rendering them unusable. Given my limited supply of arrows, this meant that I couldn’t keep using power Attack to deal with enemies.
At the same time, I realized a critical mistake that I had made in the last battle. I should have immediately applied Crystal Wall to my own body before attacking, as it would have provided at least some defense against their blades. Had I done so, I wouldn’t have suffered such injuries.
Looking back at my past fights, I had always attacked from stealth when I could, taking all the time that I needed to prepare myself for combat. Now that I couldn’t use my Stealth skill, I naturally felt apprehensive. Part of me considered ‘cheating’ at the test, but I had no way of knowing what skills Kelly might have. For all I knew, she could be standing right beside me with her own version of Stealth, and I would have no idea.
And so, I smacked my chest with one hand, preemptively activating Crystal Wall to offer me a solid layer of defense. It would take some work to get used to moving like this, but this was something I needed to do.
The next goblin group I found was a pack of four, similar to the first group but with only one swordsman. This time, I used Farsight while aiming my arrow, firing off a Ki Arrow at the weak point of the mage. To my surprise, the arrow accurately hit the weakness that I had identified, either through luck or a bonus provided by Farsight.
Additionally, because I didn’t use Power Attack, my arrow didn’t shatter on impact. When they noticed that I was shooting from above, the archer began to fire back at me, its arrows clinking off of my ruby armor. The other two, however, began to run.
Once I realized that the goblin archer wasn’t able to hurt me, I used Reduced Earth to lunge for the fleeing duo, separating their heads from their torsos with Sturdy Hand and Ki Palm. Only then did I turn around and deal with the archer. Maybe… maybe I would be able to take on ogres like this?
My loot from this pack of four? One single tattered cloth… I sighed, deciding that I needed to train my skills in between fights, not just in combat. Otherwise, I could be in this forest for weeks.
Without dropping my Crystal Wall, I began firing arrows at a tree, similar to when I originally trained my bow proficiency. Only, this time each arrow was fired with the Ki Arrow skill, and my aim was enhanced by Farsight. Because of this, I was able to confirm that Farsight truly did enhance my accuracy, so long as my target was close enough for me to clearly see it with the skill.
Furthermore, I learned that Ki Arrow actually reinforced the arrow as it was being fired, resulting in the arrow not breaking even when it hit a tree. If my Ki Arrow level were as high as my Power Attack level, it might even be able to withstand that much damage.
I trained like this for roughly ten minutes at a time, before being interrupted by patrolling goblins. One time, they even had a wolf with them, which I was lucky to have drop some meat as loot. However, it wasn’t until three hours later that I saw the ogres again, looking like the same duo as I had seen before.
Due to my training, several of my skills had advanced in level, including my Bow Weapon Proficiency, which was now sitting at level twenty. However, just to see if there were any fusions, I resolved not to evolve any of my skills until they had all reached the threshold.
The first ogre was shot by my Ki Arrow while I was hiding behind a tree, striking one of its weak points. The arrow dug into the side of its neck, causing blood to spurt out, but the ogre didn’t drop like the goblins had. Instead, I used Provoke on the ogres, batting my crystal chest with one hand and unequipping my bow.
The two large monsters charged in, and I spread my fingers out like claws, grinning back at them. My body rushed forward in the blink of an eye, and my hands swiped at their knees. One of them managed to jump to the side, but there was a dull crunch from the other as it collapsed with a wail of agony.
Having taken out the leg of one ogre, I turned my attention to the other, and decided to try something new. I activated Provoke, and then Intimidate, and then Provoke again, alternating the two skills as fast as I could. I was curious whether the skills would cancel each other out, or if there was some special effect that would be triggered. Certainly, there wasn’t anyone else able to rapidly alternate these skills like this.
The ogre paused, staring at me in mixed anger and hesitation, the two sides seemingly at war with each other. Soon, it let out a roar, swinging its arms wildly towards me. It struck the ground, trees, and even its friend as it tried to blindly attack in my general direction.
|
New Skill Acquired! Confuse (Martial – 7☆): Destabilize the target’s mind, causing random mental effects, ranging from Fear, Berserk, Stun, or Charm. Cannot confuse an already confused target. Requires a suitably high Intelligence to activate. Mana Burden: 0. Level: 1(0%) |
Huh. I blinked, realizing that a new skill was activated. Judging from how the ogre was reacting, it had entered a berserk state. I jumped back, watching as it tore apart its own ally in order to try to get to me. Every strike carried the familiar red tinge, similar to Power Attack, but I knew it wouldn’t be able to spam such a skill. Instead, it was likely burning through its mana rapidly to increase its stats as part of the berserk state.
Watching this, I kept using Reduced Earth to move away from its strikes. After roughly twenty seconds, the red glow faded, and its body dropped with heavy breaths. Although it wasn’t dead, the ogre was entirely without energy, allowing me to pepper it with arrows from short range.
