Ending Tutorial

Midday roughly arrived and I still hadn’t even started to look for another fight. But I finished gathering up the potions I made. For safety sake, I made four healing potions and one of the other two. The item description didn’t really give me much to go on, just saying that it healed a small amount of health. I saw nothing about percentage, which meant that it could still be valuable to me. Percentage would be the worst at low levels.

I finished with a small snack I picked up from around the Markets. With my things packed up, it was starting to feel a little full. There was still some room, but it made me realize that if I was going to be gathering I would need something more practical. This wasn’t a game with infinite storage. I think I also wanted a belt or something for potions. I needed easier access to them in emergencies.

But for now, I needed to see what I could do with my changes. The stats I saw didn’t give me much clarity other than the casting time which was just a five percent reduction on all casts. The rest required me to find out in battle what the results were.

I rubbed my weapon in my hand. As part of the cleaning, I asked them to handle it as well. Given that I had to hold it, I wasn’t sure I want to be bludgeoning too many things with it if I’m going to be getting blood and guts over me.

The forest remained in view even as I went around during my gathering. It was expansive and the only place right now that seemed to have creatures. Part of it was that I was near the road I think. So most animals or beasts kept away.

In my approach, I realized that if I gave it some focus the weapon would orbit and float in my hand. If I needed to, I could swing away. Though I would save that for now. I had one spell and I was going to see how effective it would actually be. It would be what I’d be risking my life on right now.

Once I hit the edge of the forest, I applied the barrier spell to me for insurance. A faint glow of silver made my skin look slightly shiny almost like I got sprayed with glitter. I would at least know when it dropped.

A step inside the forest and the crunching under my feet left me a little unnerved. I knew it wasn’t that weird boar thing, but it still flashed bad memories all the same. It would just have to be something that I pushed through no matter how much fear gripped me. Standing still wasn’t going to be an answer.

Forcing myself forward, I lowered my hand down to my side as it was already getting tired. I kept my hand open and ready, but resting as I scanned around. There were no sounds other than my heavy breathing and footfalls. I would need to go deeper it seemed.

Minutes passed slowly, painfully filled with anxiety as I kept watch for anything. Something finally showed up, though it was a small little animal or rodent of some sort. It was already quickly moving, spotting me. So I didn’t see it too clearly, but sad as it was, a target was a target and I needed to learn. This might have been overkill, but I cast my spell.

It went down in a single strike. Though I wasn’t sure if that was because I increased my damage or it was just that weak. But I moved the corpse away so I didn’t forget about it. It probably wasn’t worth much, but I needed the coin.

There was a bit of ease in not running into another monster, but also a tragedy in murdering tiny wildlife. I had no intentions of going out and doing a mass hunt, but there were some good tests that taught me things I needed to know about casting that I didn’t want to learn against a dangerous target.

The first and important piece was that as long as I could follow it with my eyes the spell would land. It didn’t have to be perfect, but if I lost sight or looked away the spell would miss or be canceled depending on when in the cast it was. There was no penalty for moving around, so I didn’t need to fear that bit of game experience. And I didn’t find a distance yet on my spell, but I assumed there was one. Which meant that I should be able to get a few good hits on a monster if I can see it before it does me.

Checking my progress on leveling, the poor creatures I slaughtered gave me almost nothing for experience. It made sense, they were all killed with one Lunar Ray and didn’t try to fight back. I did my tests. It was time to look for trouble.

Thus far in the forest, I hadn’t crossed anything dangerous. Apparently, yesterday was bad luck. And now it was bad in a different way. Though I did keep to the edge of the forest. Since nothing large roamed the open fields, I felt some safety there to retreat. I might have needed to go deeper.

Staring into the gloom gave me nothing. Empty was good. But also bad. I had to step further in. Raising my hand a little, I carefully walked forward. The further in the ground became a little more bare, but I was still making a lot of noise. “Why can’t it just be out in the open?”

For having run into that Ungaust last time, I had little success in anything that looked like more of a threat. It started to feel like I was tempting fate, even though it was just the practical need to gain more experience. I couldn’t pick on the defenseless creatures.

Inside the forest I completely lost a sense of time, but I did eventually find something. It wasn’t the boar creature this time. There was a little bit of me that wanted some pay back, even though I did kill it. It definitely had a more threatening presence than the rabbit things I was playing with.

It was smaller than the boar-snake, but had eight legs. Though it wasn’t a spider, I didn’t think leg count made a spider. I could be wrong. It had a full animal body rather than an arachnid. More concerning was the tail was at least as long as its body looking like a meter long and had spikes. It could easily gore me again with that.

Just attacking something blind was probably a bad idea, but it was the first thing I found and I would be able to get the first strike. If I kept quiet I could get two free attacks before it could do anything. That would be a big advantage for me.

I reconfirmed my shield on me along with the Exchange. It still hadn’t noticed me at the far edge of my vision. I softly spoke out my spell remembering now that it was a Christmas tree of a light show. It didn’t create a lot of strong light, but it was a massive distraction. But I still got the first strike without it realizing anything and struck promptly again.

It took two more hits before it went down and stopped moving. Though there was no celebratory jiggle in my ears. “No level.” I went to look at the status and saw the level bars did move far more than the animals were making it, but still not enough to get a level. It had to be a far weaker threat. I was really out of my depth with the Ungaust. Whatever that thing was it was going to take a few more of them to just get to level 6 and far more for level 3 on my Astral Priest. If I could keep this up I’ll be able to get a few levels and start learning what to expect from this class.

The day was less productive than I wished, but I lived. Each day I defied that fate I was happy. I didn’t have a plan to go back to the King to rub it in his face if I survived a month or something. But there remained some anger still that made me want to march back to show how wrong they all were about me. Maybe get an apology or something, I don’t know. It sounded a little petty.

Today did prove useful. Though the capital was a little too busy for me. The thought of getting away to somewhere smaller had an appeal. Perhaps, I could level better on the road. Someone in the Hall probably could point me to a village or town I could visit. Fewer people will be a welcome change.

Yes, if I was stuck here in this world there was no reason to stay in the capital the whole time.