Chapter 3: We're Not Alone

I guess there’s no better time to try and figure out how magic works.

From where I stood there was about seven wolves circling around me. I didn’t know if their cautious behavior was from running into adventurers. But I was glad that it gave me time to try my hardest not to panic.

Shit, I still don’t know how the magic system works in this world. If it’s some chanting or learned spells or just feeling the flow of magic. So this makes copying Ms. Gold’s stats absolutely useless in a combat situation right now. So I need to think. Think and try to figure out if there is some way I can make combat easier.

The wolves didn’t give me too much time to think and try to figure out a strategy before they all collectively jumped at me.

Reflect Shin.

“Freeze!”

The wolves froze mid air and dropped down to the ground like they had been toys this whole time.

I guess I’ll go and try to gamble on this idea even further.

Reflect Charlotte.

Focus. I’ve read plenty of light novels where the main protagonists learned magic from picturing what they wanted the magic to do. Focus. Imagine the ground collecting itself at certain points and rising up in spikes.

Once I had that picture in my head spikes rose up from the ground impaling the wolves as they tried to stand back up.

So from what I’ve learned is that I can copy the stats and abilities of any of my targets from any given location. Just as long as the ability saves them as a possible target. I’ve also learned that I can use magic by picturing what I want the element to do. Which could mean that if I have a large enough imagination and high enough stats I could do some crazy things. But I can’t help but wonder just how interesting my ability can get.

I walked up to one of the dead wolves and placed my hand on it.

Reflect.

Nothing. I guess I can’t just copy the stats of anything. I guess the ability would be way to broken if I could just copy the stats of any living creature. Sucks though, I wanted to know how I could use Poison Bite.

*ABILITY UNLOCKED*

*TRANSFER*

A new ability!? How the hell did I even unlock that in the first place? Is it because I tried to copy the stats of an animal I killed? If that's the case then it should work the same way as Reflective Base but with foes I killed. Allowing me to take abilities and make them my own.

Transfer.

*POISON BITE HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO RIN*

Name: Rin Hori

Title: God's Gamble

Class: None

Stats: (HP: 0) (Attack: 0) (Defense: 0) (Magical Potency: 0) (Magical Control: 0)

Abilities: Reflective Base, Transfer

Skills: Poison Bite

Oh, so it's considered a skill this time and not an ability. I wonder what differentiates the two of them. But that's a question to answer later since now I know I can steal skills. I wonder...

I made my way over to another wolf and used transfer again on it. Taking away Poison Bite from it.

*POISON BITE GREW TO LEVEL 2*

So I can raise the level of a skill instantly if I steal the same skill. Meaning there's five other wolves making it so I can raise the level to seven.

Which is exactly what I took the time to do. I walked around took the skill and pulled the screen back up to check if I can see a description for skills.

*POISON BITE LVL 7*

*DESCRIPTION: UPON USING THIS SKILL YOU CAN INJECT YOUR TARGET WITH A DEADLY POISON FROM YOUR CANINES. AT CURRENT LEVEL IT WILL TAKE TWO DAYS FOR YOUR TARGET TO DIE FROM POISON.*

So for skills I can see the description of how my skills work unlike my abilities. They'll even tell me information as specific as poison potency. Which is crazy since I think two days is a pretty quick time frame all things considered. I wonder by how much time it will shorten if I raise the level one more time.

I ran out of time to experiment from the looks of things. The sun sat a bit above the tree line meaning that it was getting close to sunset. Meaning the three of us should all be heading back to the others right about now.

I don't think anyone stopped to kill any of the rabbits so I think it would be smart if I dragged this wolf with me. Its not too big so it won't be too heavy for me to take back but it also means it won't feed us too well. A little food is better than no food I guess. But I think I over estimated how strong I am because this is wolf is insanely heavy.

Taking the wolf with me definitely slowed me down a significant amount. To where I didn't reach the class before it was slightly dark out.

"OH MY GOD! Rin are you okay? I know you like to be late all the time but you shouldn't worry me like this when we're in a strange place." Said Ms. Gold, running over to me the second she saw me.

Ms. Gold was definitely the last person I expected to be worried about me. Though I don't entirely hate this new reaction. However, I do hate myself for having that thought.

"Sorry. Some wolves showed up and gave me some trouble while I was out exploring." I responded.

"Wolves? We didn't find anything besides rabbits and berries." Shin pointed over to a piece of bark they had been using as a plate.

There was a large assortment of berries that seem to be untouched. I guess they were smart enough not to risk eating anything because it could be poisonous. But Ms. Gold has Appraising Eye so she could see if they were poisonous or not.

"Yeah some spawned in with the same purple light that sent us here like in a game. I was only able to kill one by getting lucky and brought it back with me." I said pulling the wolf over to the berries.

"You have the lowest stats of us all, how did someone like you manage to kill a wolf that big?" Shiro said as he approached me.

Shit. Don't tell me that Shiro is catching on to me right now. I mean if anyone is going to catch my bluff then it would be this smart ass.

"Like I told you, I got lucky. Plus I didn't think any of you would stop to kill some rabbits so I brought it back thinking we could use it as food." I responded standing my ground.

"Then maybe I could be useful here, Ms. Gold put on a fire earlier with some magic or something. And I'm pretty good at cooking. I go hunting sometimes with my dad so I know how to skin and stuff too." Said Sakura as she stood up from the group.

Wow. Sakura actually being useful. What a new world we live in now.

I'm guessing it was a smart play to move the attention over to another pressing issue like our hunger. Since Shiro has backed off on questioning me about my kill now because of that. Thinking back I'm pretty lucky I only brought the one back with me because any more than that and Shiro would be on that shit.

As everyone watched Sakura skin and cook the wolf the whole class fell silent. They were all probably waiting for it to be done to finally eat something.

I decided to sit further away from the fire and everyone else since I'm not too big of a fun of the warmth. But it also gave me a chance to observe, recollect, and strategize on my next move.

"You're being far more cautious than you usually are." Shin said while coming over to sit next to me.

"Can you really blame me? We're in another world with stats and abilities with our classmates. Who just love to freak out and make things worse. So I feel like if I say the wrong thing or tell them more than they need to know then we could all be screwed." I responded.

"Is that the reason why you have some cool ability you haven't shared with anyone. Which is what you used to kill off the wolves. And also the way you said that makes it sound like you also found something interesting while exploring." Shin said since no one was paying attention to us.

"Information for information?" I asked with a sigh that he found me out.

"Sounds like a deal."

"Alright. I didn't get too far out but we aren't safe in this area at all. I found something wrapped around a tree branch that I was able to get the system to identify as an adventurer's marker. Or whatever the exact term for it was." I explained.

"Hey, that's great. That means that there are people close and we can be rescued." Shin said, sitting up at the thought.

"That's if they get to us first. Remember the first word of the name. Adventurer. That means that there is something in this forest worth adventurers to come in and hunt. Meaning we are in the middle of an insanely dangerous place." I said expanding on the information.

"That's fair. So we're going to need to set up a night watch system to be safe." Shin suggested.

"Yeah but it needs to be just us or the others who figured out just how dangerous it is here." I said agreeing with him.

"That'll work for the time being. However that makes this thing even more interesting." Shin said pulling something out of his pocket.

Shin pulls out a small orb from his pocket about the size of a pebble. Almost looking like a ruby but it was too vibrant and far too circular to be natural.

"So I was thinking you can use your secret thingy to figure out what this is." Shin said.

Reflect Charlotte.

Orb of Magical Influence.

Item Description: An item that can be used to channel magical energy through to influence the makeup of a spell. Changing aspects such as element, density, control, speed, etc.

So whoever has this item on them allows them have an influence of magic. Though I don't know how useful it is since I think any strong mage can do all of that on their own without one. Unless this is for low level mages who don't have enough stats in Magical Control. Now that's far more feasible but that means that whoever was using this either dropped it or was killed by something stronger than them.