《A Curious Bird》9. Cook
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"Quite a lot of frogs here."
From his vantage point from a branch, Aariv could see frogs after frogs hopping and croaking in the pond that Aariv had cleaned himself from blood in.
"Well, there are a lot of bugs here as well," Aariv said as he looked around. The part of the forest he was in was warm, moist, damp, and had a stream that led to a giant lake. There were a lot of bugs that flew around and floated in the water.
"However...Looking at their description..."
[Betelgeuse Pest Frog] - Lv. 10 - One of the few creatures that live in the Betelgeuse Forest that are not strong. They have little ways of attacking except for their long tongues and swarming and are quite weak. They are also common prey for other monsters. The only reason they are not extinct is that they reproduce rapidly. They are considered a pest by farmers because they destroy farm crops.
Stats:
[Strength]: 5
[Endurance]: 5
[Wisdom]: 2
[Agility]: 10
[SP]: 25
[Mana]: 15
"Yeah, that's why," Aariv said. He turns around and saw two reproducing. "Yep, definitely correct," He said deadpanning.
Aariv then focused on something that was in the frogs' description. "Betelgeuse Forest...Must be the forest I am in," Aariv said.
"'One of the few creatures that live in the Betelgeuse that are not strong' so mostly everything in here is super strong well, that I gathered when I saw all of that trolls, thunder cats, and chameleon pythons," He muttered.
He then heard croaking from beneath him.
Aariv looked down to see one of the frogs croaking and looking at him. He tries to use [Intimidate] to scare it away but the frog didn't even flinch.
"Croak," The frog croak. The frog then shot its tongue at Aariv.
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Aariv grabbed the tongue with his foot causing the frog to struggle and panic. Griping the tongue tightly, his talons cut into the frog's tongue causing the frog to croak in pain and struggle even more.
He then fires an ice arrow at the frog, killing it.
Defeated [Betelgeuse Pest Frog] - Lv. 10
Experience is awarded.
"Don't know why it didn't run away when I use [Intimidate]?" Aariv said. "Must be a skill." He then took flight.
....
...
..
Aariv flew through the forest as he grabbed a forest fox and snapped its neck, killing it.
Defeated [Forest Fox] - Lv. 10
Experience is awarded.
[Incognita] - Lv. 3 ---> [Incognita] - Lv. 4
Aariv landed on a branch, still carrying the dead fox, and was about to eat it when he pauses. "Am I really gonna eat this raw?" He asks himself.
He didn't know if he wanted to use fire magic since he might burn down the forest, but after thinking about it, it seemed silly because he could just use water magic to put out the fire.
"Might as well try," Aariv said. He concentrated and imagined fire. Willing mana to form fire, he felt heat and opened his eyes. He saw a small fire dancing on his left wing.
[Fire Magic Mastery] - Lv. 1 Acquired.
[Fire Manipulation] - Lv. 1 Acquired.
[Mana Manipulation] - Lv. 1 Acquired.
"Great...Wait, [Mana Manipulation]?" Aariv said. Doubling checking, Aariv opens up his stats.
Name: Aariv
Species: [Incognita] - Lv. 4
Skills:
[Peck] - Lvl. MAX
[Passive Skill: Flight] - Lvl. MAX [Passive Skill: Night Vision] - Lvl. MAX [Stealth] - Lvl. 12
[Appraisal] - MAX [Pain Resistance] - Lv. 9 [Peck] - Lv. 5
[Scratch] - Lv. 9 [Hypnosis] - Lv. 9 [Will] - Lv. 2
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[Ice Magic Mastery] - Lv. 1 [Ice Manipulation] - Lv. 6 [Forest Magic Mastery] - Lv. 2
[Forest Manipulation] - Lv. 5 [Earth Magic Mastery] - Lv. 4 [Earth Manipulation] - Lv. 7
[Water Magic Mastery] - Lv. 1 [Water Manipulation] - Lv. 8 [Wind Magic Mastery] - Lv. 5
[Wind Manipulation] - Lv. 8 [Ice Arrow] - Lv. 8 [Ice Claws] - Lv. 5
[Stone Claws] - Lv. 7 [Vine Whip] - Lv. 8 [Stone Spikes] - Lv. 7
[Stone Wall] - Lv. 3 [Ice Wall] - Lv. 3 [Barkskin] - Lv. 2
[Stoneskin] - Lv. 3 [Roots Strike] - Lv. 3 [Wood Wall] - Lv. 2
[Fog Create] - Lv. 2 [Water Bullet] - Lv. 8 [Wind Bullet] - Lv. MAX
[Gust] - Lv. 8 [Bubble] - Lv. 6 [Ice Spikes] - Lv. 7
[Passive Skill: Danger Sense] - Lv. 1 [Blood Mastery] - Lv. 1 [Blood Manipulation] - Lv. 2
[Blood Armor] - Lv. 2 [Mana Sight] - Lv. 1 [Fire Magic Mastery] - Lv. 1
[Fire Manipulation] - Lv. 1 [Mana Manipulation] - Lv. 2
Stats:
[Available Stat Points: [58]
[Strength]: 162
[Endurance]: 140
[Wisdom]: 212 (+35)
[Agility]: 193
[SP]: 232
[Mana]: 358
[Mana Manipulation] - Lv. 1 - Allows the user to manipulate mana. [Mana] cost: 15
"...Why the hell didn't I get this skill when I managed to make ice out of mana?" Aariv asked. He shook his head. "It must have a requirement that I didn't get when I got my other magic skills."
....
...
..
Somewhere unreachable by mortals, a being sighs.
"That should do it," The being said. Closing a screen that was in front of them, the being looked down.
"Such a pain connecting the system with these reincarnators," The being said. "Missing stats, and missing skills, and it's so hard to fix these problems," They complain.
"Why couldn't they inform me when they decided to reincarnate people into our world," The being continue complaining.
"Oh, well."
..
...
....
Aariv lit a fire on the ground by putting bunches of branches together and then using fire magic to light it up.
He then began to use his talons to skin the fox.
[Skinning] - Lv. 1 Acquired.
Aariv began to move more skillfully. He finished skinning the fox and moved the pelt next to the skinned body.
[Skinning] - Lv. 1 ---> [Skinning] - Lv. 2
He then begins cooking the fox over the fire.
[Cooking] - Lv. 1 Acquired.
When Aariv felt that the fox was done cooking, he took the cooked fox away from the fire and began eating it.
[Cooking] - Lv. 1 ---> [Cooking] - Lv. 2
"Taste weird," Aariv said. He then spotted a horned rabbit and killed it.
He skinned and cooks it.
[Cooking] - Lv. 2 ---> [Cooking] - Lv. 3
[Skinning] - Lv. 2 ---> [Skinning] - Lv. 3
Eating the cooked rabbit, Aariv was a bit happier. Sighing contentedly Aariv happily bit into the rabbit. "I didn't know I miss eating cooked food," He said.
Aariv then realized something. "Aren't frogs said to taste like chicken?"
Turning around, he flew back towards the stream.
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- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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