Sitting up Adam prepared to wince as he put pressure on his injured leg. Instead he was astonished to find that his leg no longer hurt. He eased himself up onto his feet and looked through the tear in his trousers to see that the ragged puncture wound from the boar's tusk slowly knit over with fresh pink skin. Testing his injury Adam stood on his bad leg and found that the underlying muscles were also back to normal.

He had avoided even looking at his wrist, not wanting to know what damage had occurred there, praying in his head he brought his hand up off his chest into his line of sight. The deformed shape and pain on movement told him things were not right. Again, while he watched the bones straightened and fingers came back in line. This time he shut his eyes, not wanting to watch as the bones crunched over one another. In doing so he turned his focus to his inner energy and watched as a part he hadn't paid attention to pulsed down his arm towards the injury. When this stopped he opened his eyes to look at his wrist once more; it was back to normal. Rolling his wrist and moving his fingers confirmed that this injury had healed too.

He thought back to the first day when he had discovered his health and health regen which he had not fully understood at the time. After this first test he now understood it better. His health had been reduced to 20 from his max of 100. His greater understanding of the system told him that health was a buffer to the point he would fall unconscious from his injuries; like reducing stamina below zero would cause him to fall unconscious from fatigue. Any injury taken would be real and could affect his ability to fight and the energy inside him would spend his health to repair these injuries. In theory he instinctively realised that he could have done this at the time rather than wait until after the fight to heal. His health regen replaced this pool and like he had noticed before at max health any overspill just helped to keep him fit and healthy.

Adam put any further consideration to one side as he activated byproduct one last time on the Razorback before heading back to his camp.

He collected water and some hazelnuts for the piglet on his way back to camp. Once he was back he checked quickly on Kai to find the vermite's health had now increased to 12. Adam was surprised at the slow regen level of about 0.5 per hour. Checking his own health it was back to 25 already; the vermite were not the most resilient of creatures. It did seem like Kai was sleeping better now with less chaotic thoughts and dreams coming down the link to Adam. Knowing this he sat in his chair and checked the contents of his pack.

Having used byproducts thirteen times in total he had acquired ten boar hides; three tusk daggers; several metres of sinew string; eight small bone needles and a handful of bone arrowheads. Looking at his ripped trousers that had only made it one day after replacing them at the river Adam started a project using the items.

Notifications: You have created Boar Hide Trousers. You gain 10 exp New profession unlocked: Tailor

They were crude but serviceable trousers. Adam was quite proud as a first attempt. Plus there was the added bonus that he had unlocked a profession with his efforts. He had hoped this would happen, but never knew with the system until a task was completed. Using Inspect he checked over the trousers. Boar Hide Trousers - Defence +1, durability 5/5. Defence was a new concept. He concentrated and learnt that this added to the protection the trousers would give him if attacked. Pretty obvious but useful to clarify.

Adam pulled on the trousers and checked his stats which hadn't changed. There was a pleasing Defence of 1 shown confirming the depressing fact that up until now his defence must have been zero. He focused on the defence stat to see if there was additional information he could gain about this type of stat. All he could tell was that there were gaps there which meant his knowledge of the system was lacking. He could only try creating more items to see what appeared.

Excited about his progress he pulled up the entry for Tailor.

Profession: Tailor Profession Unlock Criteria Description Skills Tailor Create an item of clothing Creates clothes from appropriate materials Basic leatherworking Create five items to unlock: Repair clothes

Looking at the tattered old trousers and the ripped shirt from the night before Adam felt having a vermite to take up tailoring sooner rather than later would be a good idea.

Having completed his task Adam finally got round to collecting the exp from the quest to kill the Razorback. Adding the 150 to the 300 exp he already had gave him plenty to level both Creation and Discern to level 5. He felt the qualitative change as he did so. Something inside him seemed to harden and condense. He looked in to his core and all the energy that had previously filled his core was now pressed closer together. The space that it had been taking up was still there and as he watched the energy moved back out to its previous size.

Adam was not sure what had just happened; only that there was some significance. The only thing he could relate it to was that his followers could take up their second skill at level five; so there must be a change at this level for him too. Concentrating back at his core he could detect a slightly stronger signal from the deepest point in the centre but otherwise his energy was unchanged. What he could tell is that this was an improvement. Leaving the inner thoughts Adam turned to his characteristics and kept with his previous pattern of allocating one to vigor and fortitude and four to intellect and clarity.

God Class: Adam God Class (Hidden) - Level 5 (Secondary Classes not shown) Attribute Value Characteristic Value Health 38/100 Vitality 10 Health Regen 5/hour Recovery 10 Stamina 160/160 Vigor 16 Stamina Regen 16/hour Fortitude 16 Mana 29.7/31 Intellect 31 Mana Regen 4.4/hour Clarity 27 Skill Points (SP) 10/10 Perseverence 10 Skill Point Regen 1/hour Willpower 10 God Power (GP) 3/5 Unallocated Points 0 God Power Regen 5(10)/day* *max GP Regen cannot exceed GP

He considered changing the pattern after realising how low his health was when confronted but decided against this. Mana was becoming more necessary for almost everything he wanted to do. He had a basic grasp of fire mana; was working on metal and had three other elements to control after. Alongside this he needed mana to create any resources needed for the vermite. Lastly he needed mana to continue to explore and understand the system. If there was a way to raise his god power he would probably change to focus on that; but the number was limited by his level rather than characteristics.

He had now reduced the time to completely refill his mana to just over seven hours and maybe more importantly reduced the cost of Creation from 0.7 to 0.6mpps this would definitely have a positive impact on his limited mana. Realising his mana was almost full again Adam positioned wood and started a fire with his fire mana before settling into his chair to focus on developing the metal mana.

Adam wanted to say there was a difference to Elemental manipulation after he noticed his core alter with levelling. However, he couldn't distinguish any change as he pushed and pulled the mana along the channels in his right arm. As he did so he began to notice the pulling sensation was causing a distortion in the air beyond his hand. It was not a distortion that Adam could see; he could sense it in a different way that surpassed his normal senses.

When Adam moved his hand he noticed this distortion changed subtly. As he adjusted to this he noticed that the metal mana was responding to the pieces of raw ore that he had left sitting along the edge of the fire pit. He moved closer to the ores he could pick up slight differences between each. Concentrating harder he felt the metal mana from his hand interacting with the metal within the ore.

He picked up the pyrite and by pushing and pulling the metal mana through the ore he could sense the metal within moving back and forth. Rather than just using the channel to move the mana he focused instead on moving the metal itself. After several attempts the ore in his hand fell apart leaving a perfect sphere of pure iron in his hand. Pleased with the result Adam picked up the remaining ores one by one until he had small amounts of copper; tin and iron sat in front of him. Once he was done he was rewarded with a notification:

Elemental manipulation: basic metal manipulation complete