Chapter 26

Mountain Man

The first thing I need to do is fix this leg of mine. Hobbling around on three legs in a small area is fine, but the loss of my mobility will kill me quick if I continue on like this. I try and use a minor heal. The spell worked and my HP increased, but no new leg. So I have now discovered one of the limitations of minor heal, it seems it cannot grow back missing body parts. Now I have to think, would an improved version of this spell accomplish what I want or should I create a new spell. I think I should create a new spell. I memorize the area so I can come back anytime and then teleport back to the tree house.

Once I reach the familiar surroundings of the tree house I relax just a little. This has become my safe haven and I appreciate it more now that I have had another close scare. If the beefalo’s aim had been slightly better or I had been slightly slower, I would have experienced another death. Even knowing that I can come back and would transfer into another virus is not much of a comfort. Today made me realize how lucky I was in my first death. It was quick and painless. I experience everything that happens before I die. Being trampled to death today might have scarred me mentally for a long time even though I can revive. What is even scarier is knowing that I have increased my strength so much and still can be caught by surprise so easily and almost killed.

I am really lacking some serious basic knowledge that most people on this planet are taught by their parents. I mean even now, knowing about the Windy Beefalo’s abilities I can come up with several much safer ways to deal with the earlier situation. The gap in my knowledge about common animals and abilities is what almost killed me. I think I will have to infiltrate society sooner than I thought just so I can gather knowledge about the plants, animals and environment before it can kill me.

The only thing holding me back from searching out a civilization right now is my lack of strength. I keep thinking I am strong, but every time I think that I run into something that is near my own level or higher. Normally this would not be a problem, but the creatures that are near my level are common ones or things that should be below intelligent species. There are very few stories where goblins are the pinnacle of strength. So when I see a goblin chief at level 70+ it makes me feel that I need to be at least level 100 before meeting others. A common grazing animal, or at least I think the beefalo is common, is near level 50. While not many people back on Earth can say they could win against a wild bull, at least they feel like they would have a chance. When you add magic into the mix it gets even more problematic to judge my strength and other creature’s strength.

I mean does having magic make the beefalo twice as strong or three times as strong. How do you even decide? Enough contemplation, I need to fix my body and then work on becoming stronger. First I need a regeneration spell. I start thinking about large wounds closing, missing limbs re-growing, and overall better health. I try and lock those images in my mind and try to infuse pink creation and green nature mana into it. It goes into the image quite easily.

You have created the spell Regeneration.

Inspect Regeneration.

Regeneration: A spell that the caster can cast on themselves or others to regenerate lost portions of the targets body. How quickly something regenerates is dependent on the size of the missing area and the amount of mana the caster imbues into the spell.

That is just what I need. I guess while I am at it I should try and create that acceleration magic also. I recreate the scene in my head of the charging beefalo and how they sped up, but I add a twist. I imagine myself also glowing orange but with yellow highlights and moving even faster than the charging beefalo in my image. I then bring orange wind and yellow lightning mana towards the image.

You have created the spell Lightning Steps.

Inspect Lightning Steps.

Lightning Steps: A spell that increases the targets speed and agility allowing for amazingly quick movement. Speed is increased 50% for each level of the spell that is mastered. Spell lasts for 10 minutes per spell level.

I feel like this spell is better than regular acceleration. It uses a fusion of lightning and wind mana and 50% is a very large increase. By the time I am done maxing it out at level ten, that would mean an increase of 500% to my base speed for 100 minutes. Let’s see that means if I run at a speed of 5 km/hr to start with and then caste Lightning Steps on myself I would be running 25 km/hr instead of 5. It even lasts for 100 minutes at that point. No battle lasts that long so this spell would allow me to dominate in speed across all types of situations. I cast regeneration on myself using almost ¾ of my MP, then hobble around and cook some dinner then head straight to bed. Healing while asleep will be the easiest.

In the morning I feel much better and look down to check and make sure everything is where it should be. Yep, I have all four legs back. That still sounds weird to me even though I have been in this body for some time now. It is hard to get over a lifetime of habits from Earth. I teleport back to the pits from the day before and start traveling south. Today is the day I am going to make it into the mountains. I can feel it. No more distracting things need to be done, I have food, I have magic, and I am close. Nothing can stop me now.

After three hours of travel I have definitely reached the foot hills of the mountain range. The grass is under a meter, shrubs and even small trees are becoming a common sight. I should point out that when I say small trees I mean normal sized ones for Earth, but tiny compared to the jungle/forest I just came from. I have traveled about 50 kilometers in the last few hours. The greatest thing about my speed is that it is not my top speed. I have to travel at around what I would call 75% of my top speed so I can process everything, inspect and observe my surroundings to be safe. I wish I had this kind of speed and stamina back on Earth.

I decide to stop for lunch and make a quick decision on which way to go next. I have reached the start of my goal but now do I head towards the volcanoes or towards the non-smoking peaks. The regular mountains have a higher chance of something building a civilization in them so towards the volcanoes it is. After my decision I veer a little south west in my travel direction. In less than four hours I am at the base of the first smoking volcano. Now all I need to do is find my new temporary camp, and survey the area.

I have maybe two hours of daylight left, and while I can see in the dark with my infrared mana sight, I still have the habit of doing things in the light and sleeping in the dark. The area around me is a mix of grasses, shrubs, patches of trees, and bare rock from past lava flows. There has to be a cave or something I can use in the area as a base. I better get searching. Another hour goes by during the search and nothing really stands out to me as being a good place to make my new home. I wish I could just alter one of these smaller caves like I did the tree back in the forest.

Wait, what was that last thought? Alter the cave, stupid Mark. Again caught in the mentality of someone from Earth has slowed things down. I have elemental shaping. I CAN alter a cave to suit my needs. Man I could have been working on so many other things if I had just remembered this earlier. I quickly move back to the best small cave I remember. It is near a little creek, and is hidden back in a side canyon on the west side of the mountain. There is a small copse of trees and a meadow so I should be able to find resources and food nearby.

The next few hours are spent changing the cave to suit my needs and creating a door to keep things out. I expanded on the tree house idea and went with a long corridor back into the side of the mountain with a large room at the end. On each side of the corridor are two rooms for storage and experiments, bringing the total area up to 5 rooms. I went and knocked down a tree as base material and plant shaped a door to fit the front of the cave. The longest part of the whole build was using my elemental shaping to create hinges to hold the door. Moving large amounts of material is easy, fine delicate work takes a lot of concentration and effort.

I finally have a serviceable base in the mountains. It may even be more secure than my tree house. Only time will tell. One of my final tasks is going to be to create some light. I could use torches, but those have to be replaced often and don’t give off very good light. I want the light to be able to work on a couple of projects I have been thinking about. First off is weapon manufacture. I only have magic and my scythes for up close fighting. I think having some more options will keep me safer and hopefully let me blend in better. The other big one is tanning and leatherwork. I need to figure out crude clothes. I realized in my brief time as a grass goblin that I was luck goblins are primitive, because when I change into a new body, I am completely naked. It would be hard to blend in to a society if I approach a village in nothing but my birthday suit.

So first things first, I need light. I imagine a regular stone and then myself casting magic on it causing it to glow brightly. I particularly bring to mind that the glow lasts for several day and night cycles before finally losing its glow. I carefully brink some pink creation and white light mana towards my mental construct and am rewarded with the notification I was hoping for.

You have created the spell Glow.

Inspect Glow.

Glow: This spell when cast on an inorganic substance causes it to glow with a bright light that last 1 hour X the level of the caster.

That should work just fine. With my current level of 67 that means each one will last for almost three days before I have to re-cast the spell. I go around my little cave and make some alcoves with elemental shaping and then use my new glow spell on some rocks and place them up in the alcoves. I look around and decide that tomorrow I will explore and then make furniture. I need to know what is around the area and I have to find a new place to level up.

Everything I inspected on my way here slowly increased in level, and I know that definitely missed inspecting a lot of things. I saw giant versions of badgers, deer, and what looked like either a huge turtle or one of those armored dinosaurs you always see in a museum. The highest level belonged to a wandering Spotted Cave Bear. It registered as a whopping level 112. I avoided it and made a large detour when I saw its level. That may be my end goal animal for this area. Most of the rest were levels 60+. I do want to actually explore up the volcano tomorrow and see if there are anything like fire aligned animals or monsters like in stories from Earth. If they exist I assume they would be in a place where there is a lot of heat like a volcano. I guess I will find out in the morning.