Goal: More skills

While it's true that I have unlocked one new skill since the start of my experimentation. It would by no means hurt if I had a few more, right? I hope I have not just jinxed myself.

I begin the search for a new subject because the last one did not last for long, I swear its not my fault. I totally knew at the time that it would have been smarter to not kill him and instead reuse him, that sounds very wrong. But I totally was not an idiot, trust me.

So as I search, I do the only thing I can do, use my brain, though i'm fairly certain I lack one? My brain storming session begins producing results.

First off I have a liquid body, and what is one of the most over done skills for someone with a liquid body? climbing, or sticking to surfaces. Potato, potAto(lol, shut up, you know what I mean!). And a liquid body just happens to be good for those things.

So I begin to attempt to scale the wall, which immediately shows great results, as my body is able to spread out and sink into even the most minute cracks, ridges, and flaws in the surface, Allowing me to gain a solid purchase, wonderfull.

Though unfortunately these amazing results go to my head and I begin to scale higher until I reach the beginning of the celling.

Now a person possessing average levels of common sense may take it easy at that point, avoid the celling and stick to the walls for now until they get used to it.

But no, my glorious self does not have the time to be smart at this moment. so I immediately go forth and begin to attempt to cling on to the celling. I move farther and farther from the walls, towards the center of the roof of the cave.

To my delight so far everything seems to be going well despite not having a climbing skill, now you may see the gloriousness of this body I currently reside in. Then suddenly and unexpectedly(yeah right) I feel myself slip off the celling and begin to enter freefall.

As I fall I swiftly come up with something other then myself to cast the blame on. Damn-it gravity! How dare you sabotage my genius machinations! I see the rocky floor rushing towards me, luckily there are no stalagmites under me. I hope this does not hurt... To much.

You have taken 1 damage

well at least I did not get hurt much. It appears that I'm resistant to fall damage, as you would expect of a liquid body. If I took that Fall in my previous human body I would be lucky to walk(crawl) away with just a broken leg. In fact the only part of me that suffered any real damage due to this was my pride.

I get up and clamor up the wall again. Though it slows down my search I decide to make my way down the tunnel while clinging onto the wall. After that humiliation at the hands of gravity, I'm not going to try the celling again, for now.

After 30 some minutes of this a question enters my head. Earlier I learned the kinetic linking skill so easily. Why haven't I earned a climbing skill yet? Is there a reason? I can think of many possibilities. Could it be because in my past life I knew how to kinetic link, but was not very good at climbing? Is it arbitrarily, decide at random? Is it based on originality, or how common it is, because I bet alot of people have climbing skills and few, possibly no one else possess the kinetic linking skill.

Speaking of being the only one who has it, maybe it was easy because I created a skill that did not exist beforehand? So it rewarded me by unlocking it easily. Maybe people and certain races have affinities to different types of skills, but I would assume based on my natural climbing abilities muddling's possess without the need for practice, that I would have an affinity for climbing related skills. I see no reasonable way I could guess this one. Unlike how I guessed why earth spells would be so easy to learn, there are just to many reasonable options, I would have to get acess to outside sources if I want any hope of figuring this out.

Or I could become a hermit and spend 10's of years learning skills to collect enough data to come to a educated guess. Just to later enter society and find they have books on the topic with even more accurate information, then proceed to have a totally justified mental break down, and take a long walk off a short pier. Which is not ideal.

The part that really ticks me off about this is that this is such a useful piece of information to have if I want to get stronger, and all I have to go off is a pile of random crap-shoot guesses, with no simple way(that I can come up with) to confirm any one of them, or at least narrow it down.

I mean I guess the option that the system decides at random is less likely, at least I hope so, I don't love leaving things to luck. I mean I got killed in a random rouge landslide despite the risk of landslides being basically non-existent in that area, and despite the fact it could have happened at any time, but just happened to happen when I was there, even though I did nothing I can think of to provoke it. Hehe, maybe because of my earth affinity, the earth wanted to be one with me, and give me a big, bone crushing hug... That better not be the reason.

I hear a noise that sounds like dulled heavy footsteps up ahead. I release from the wall and drop to the floor... Intentionally this time. and flatten my self to the floor to minimize my profile, stealth 100. I see my target. It's a larg- wait large? Whats this?

It's a large bipedal humanoid with unusually long arms, and wide hands with blunt sausage like fingers. It dwarfs me, If at full height I assume I'm around 4ish feet, that means this thing towers over me around 7 foot and some inches tall.

It has hairy arms and a barrel shaped chest and slight potbelly, both coated with more hair. It has a wide hairless head(just about the only place it does not have hair) with a sqaushed face and a pig like nose, the eyes while on the small side are not tiny, it has orange irises, it's ears are small and rounded. It's wide mouth has 2 small yellowed tusks coming out of it.

As for its legs, they are ever so slightly short, and they are thick with feet that resemble an elephant's more then a human's, probably to support its formidable bulk.

It wears little clothes, a long fur loincloth, waistband adorned with a large bulging leather pouch at the left hip, and a assorted dangling display of hanging teeth and claws line the rest of the belt, no doubt salvaged from it's quarry, then used to crudly construct this macabre display of blatant cruelty, and apparent hunting prowess. As if to say "fuck with me and find out" to all beings in the vincinity. It also is wearing what appear to be a pair of boots made out of sewn patchwork hides of various colors and textures.

It carries in its right hand a club about 3 feet long and made of what appears to be a log as stout as it's owner. With a thined part at one end, wrapped repeatedly in a wide strip of hide to serve as the handle, it even has a knob of wood to serve as a basic pommel, to help prevent the club from slipping from his hand. They even went through the work to whittle off all the bark, parts of it appear to have been hardened over a fire. Though still primitive by modern standards, this clearly displays a level of intelligence that surpasses a Monke, impressive.

And no, it is not simply loot taken from adventures with the misfortune to run into this thing, most of the stuff is simply to big to fit or be usable on a human.

At a glance I can tell that this is no doubt the strongest thing I have run into in this world, excluding the guardian of the exit of this massive cave system.

Now a question remans what do I do now? I'm sure if I fought this thing and won I would level up many times and get much stronger, emphasis on won.

While I have gotten to the point where gremlins and big bats pose me little problem, there closer to a inconvenience then a threat. I have no doubt at all that this thing can kill me.

Is the risk worth it? Is it even possible for me to beat this thing? Can I just avoid it, it has yet to spot me. Maybe I could beat it? I slink back into the shadows behind a nearby rock to give myself time to think.

It is currently facing it's back to me, that is good. Still if I'm serious about intending to challenge this thing I must come up with a plan, and a good one at that. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.". Wait that's not good... I was misremembering it, he actually said "Plan because plans always work.". Yes that's better.

I take in the surrounding terrain. I notice that the height of the celling above me is lower then the height of the celling above him. After awhile of thinking, I settle on a plan. And prepare to jump into action and put it to the test, here's the results of me using my amazing plan.

Step 1: I find a pebble and pick it up.

Step 2: I silently slink out from behind the ultimate hiding place(rock).

Step 3: I prepare earthen projectile spell, pre-aim it at the middle of the back of his head.

Step 4: drop pebble.

Step 5: when he jerks around to locate the source of said noise fire at his face. Discombobulate.

Step 6: he is now mostly blinded, enraged, and dazed from the impact he's now move towards where he saw me.

Step 7: I stay where I am and prepare another earthen Projectile spell, this is a risky move but the potential pay off can't be ignored.

Step 8: in his confused and mostly blinded state he goes in for a massive, destructive overhead swing aimed at me, big mistake, because the celling has been dropping in height as he made his way towards me, a important detail he missed in his haste. His club smacks the celling with a crack! And he stumbles back, thrown off balance by the recoil of his foolish strike.

Step 9: magic to the face, discombobulate.

Step 10: he roars as he clutches his face with his left hand. His face is now a bloody pulp his nose caved in. He steps toward me, trying to close the distance.

Step 11: but I expected this and used lesser earth magic to raise a ridge from the ground in front of his feet.

Step 12: he trips and falls face foward, at this point if I don't move he will fall on me, so I quickly side step out of the way, revealing the linch pin of my plan, the most hidden of my many great machinations.

Step 2.5 ^: hidden from sight by my own body, right behind me I use my earth manipulation to make a sturdy compressed stone spike just over 3ish feet tall.

Step 13: I watch the him get impaled through the chest, the tip of the spike is now sticking out the monsters back, unfortunately the spike appears to have missed the spine and the heart.

Step 14: I immediately climb up onto it's back, and move to the area between it's shoulder blades.

Step 15: I prepare another earthen Projectile.

Step 16: I release the projectile into the base of the skull where the spine meets the neck, discombobulate.

Step 17: I draw my knife from myself and use my kinetic linking skill to boost my power as I lay into the back of it's neck.

Step 18: it's roars are slowly getting weaker until it's becomes silent.

Step 19: flawless victory!

You have gained the skill

Parallel mind lvl 1

There, now I have explained my plan! Now that you have seen it you surely agree that there is no conceivable way this could go wrong.