New World Day 8

Every time my consciousness returned even a little a new wave of pain tore through me and caused me to fall unconscious once more. I lost count of how many times I passed out, but by the time I could hold myself conscious for more than a few seconds, it was deep into the night. There was no light coming from within the garage itself, but just enough moonlight shone through the garage windows to illuminate the front of the garage. However, I had a terrible time trying to make out my surroundings. My eyes had so much dust stuck to them that they were red and sore. It felt like a bee had stung me in each eye. Did I pass out with my eyes wide open? I found myself blinking my eyes over and over again to try and get the dust out so that my blurry vision could come into focus. It took some time and some bloody tears, but everything came back into focus. I glanced at the mess I had made of the garage and couldn’t help but yell, “Shit!”

That wasn’t my best idea by a long shot. I should have watched their actions more before deciding that they were nocturnal. It was just dumb luck that I got away the first time with just a few burns. I knew that my only choice was to rely on my remaining food stash until I figured out a way to keep those three from showing up while I cooked my food.

My stomach started rumbling and growling in protest from the lack of food and water as I reprimanded myself. I forced myself to my feet so that I could fill my poor stomach with the two crayfish tails sitting on top of the ATV near me. I was rewarded with a giant burst of pain from my shoulder that nearly sent my tumbling back to the ground. I managed to stay on my feet by stumbling over to and leaning against the nearest ATV. I didn’t feel any blood pouring out of the wound on my shoulder, and when I looked down at my right hand I saw two gruesome scabs. One ran along the center of my palm to my thumb while the other went across all four of my fingers. The hand was stiff and slow to react to my thoughts. With my left arm incapacitated due to the wound on my shoulder and my right hand messed up from removing the scale, I could only bite at the crayfish tails with my mouth while pinning them to the seat of the ATV with my face. If anyone saw me eating this way it would no doubt remind them of a no hands pie eating contest. Of course once you added all of the blood and gore to the picture it was closer to a pie eating contest from hell.

Despite the difficulty eating, I devoured both of the tails in record time. The tails were just as delicious as before, but I wasn't in the mood to appreciate their taste this time. My wounds ached something fierce, and I needed to find something to take my mind off of them. In my current state, I couldn’t do any physical training or write in my journals which left my mana practice. I needed some water first though. I didn’t want to move anymore than I already had, but my throat was dry and cracked from dehydration. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get away from this blood soaked garage for awhile as well. The lumps of flesh that covered the shiny black scale were a particularly disturbing sight for me. I would need some light if I was going to go to one of the other rooms. I knew one of the lanterns was on the workshop bench. That would have to be my first stop. The moonlight that would spill into the hallway from the garage should be enough for me to find it and turn it on. I swayed back and forth as I walked over to the door to the workshop and twisted the doorknob with my right hand. The action sent a new surge of pain streaming up my arm and broke open both of the scabs on my hand. The pain buckled my legs and sent my body pitching forward into the door. As the door swung open, I gripped the door knob even harder like an idiot in an effort to use the door to keep my body upright. A second and far worse explosion of pain took my breath away and turned my legs and mind to jelly.

I awoke for what seemed like the thousandth time that night to find myself sprawled flat on concrete in the initial hallway of the workshop. Along with the crippling pain from my shoulder and hand, I now had a large bump on my head that matched my new throbbing headache. I almost turned myself over onto my back out of instinct before my mind cleared just enough for me to remember why that would be a terrible idea. That was an even worse idea than the stunt I pulled with the door. Instead, I slowly crawled forward on my knees and right forearm until I reached the workbench. With an extreme effort I put my right forearm on top of the workbench and pulled myself to my feet. I leaned against the workbench to keep from falling again, but I managed to stand up once again. The memory of what happened with the door knob was still fresh in mind so I used my mouth to carefully turn the knob that functioned as the on switch for the lantern. A bright light lit up almost the entire workshop. Now that I could see what I was doing, I wobbled over to the buckets of water next to the refrigerator and kneeled in front of them. I didn’t have the energy to open the refrigerator to get some bottled water out. I leaned my head into one of the buckets and slurped up as much water as I could. Once my thirst was satisfied, I crawled over to the door to the bedroom and carefully leaned against it. I pressed my right shoulder against it and hunched my left shoulder forward so that the wound on my back was left untouched. It was an uncomfortable position, but it was more dignified than just laying flat on the ground. I stayed like that for maybe a minute before I burst out yelling, “Who am I kidding! This is hell! Who cares about dignity at this point! Besides who is going to see me anyways!”

And yet despite the outburst I couldn’t bring myself to lay on the ground. It would be too embarrassing. I guess I was stubborn that way. I never liked to embarrass myself in public and the lengths I went to ensured that I formed habits that carried over into my private life. It was an odd thing to be so stubborn about. Especially after all of the crazy things I had done over this past week. The world had gone to hell, but the fact that I held onto such a weird trait in such a situation sent a wave of comfort washing over me. The New World was filled with danger and death. When you studied and fought monsters day in and day out it would be all to easy to become a monster yourself. I thought it would be a gradual thing. Something unnoticed by the person in question. A bit more aggression here, a bit more violence there, and before you knew it you were indistinguishable from the very monsters you were trying to fight. The world had changed and was continuing to change all around me, but that didn’t mean that I had to abandon who I was before all of this began. On the contrary, I needed to hold onto those traits with every bit strength and stubbornness that I could muster. I needed to adapt, to get stronger and smarter, but I didn’t need to change the very core of who I was. Everyone changed over time in some ways, but there are some traits and ideals that if you let go of or changed then you would no longer be yourself anymore. Those were the things that I had to keep ahold of. Of course, it takes a certain self-awareness to know what kind of a person you are. A self-awareness that I found myself lacking. However, these terrible injuries had shone a bit of light on my inner self. Laughing aloud I yelled, “Hahahahah! I really am a stubborn bastard aren’t I. I can work with that. I can WORK WITH THAT! It’s time to put that damn stubbornness to work”

Quieting down, I calmed my mind and began to practice my mana control. My newfound insights made me determined to get the mana veins working, and I wasn’t going to stop training until I did. I had been trying for a few nights now to create them, but I found that no matter how long I made them they collapsed after a short period of time. I had focused my efforts on the method of creating and extending the basic veins, but tonight it was time to work on a method to make the veins permanent. I started by experimenting with the thickness and elasticity of the veins. One by one I created veins of various sizes and elasticity. I tested the elasticity by pushing significant amounts of mana through the incomplete veins to see how much they would bulge before breaking. I only stopped the tests when my entire mana lake was empty. I found that changes to the size and elasticity affected the ease of making the veins, but the alterations didn’t change the length of time that the veins existed.

My exhausted mana made it impossible to continue my experiments, and yet I refused to abandon my training so soon. I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t stop training until I got the mana veins working, but how was I supposed to continue without any mana to experiment with? That was when a thought struck me like a bolt of lightning. The mana stones! Could I use them to replenish my mana and continue my training? I was certain that it was mana inside of them, but how was I supposed to use them? Shoving those thoughts aside for a moment, I gathered my legs under me and pushed myself to my feet. I was unsteady on my feet, but I made it to the garage where my backpacks were sitting on the ATVs. I slipped my right arm through the one that had the mana stones in it and carried it back into the workshop with me. Once back in the workshop, I flipped over the bag on the big workbench. An assortment of items popped out of the backpack, but I only had eyes for the mana stones. There were four of them gleaming from the light of the lantern and their own inner glow.

I found myself staring at them with an unrelenting intensity. It was like I thought that if I stared at them long enough they would tell them how to use them. I tried to concentrate and command the mana to come out of them just as I commanded my own mana, but the mana within the stones didn’t even twitch. Could I eat them? Not directly of course. They were too large to swallow and hard as rocks. They would break my teeth if I tried to chew them. However, what if I ground them up into a dust and mixed the dust into some water like a protein shake? Would the mana stay in the dust or would it escape into the atmosphere like the System said happened to all living beings when they died? Only one way to find out, and it isn’t like I had an better ideas at the moment. How was I to crush them though? There was a nice hammer sitting on the pegs right in front of me, but I didn’t have a good hand to grasp it with. Eventually I came to the conclusion that there was only one way forward, but I needed to get everything except the stones ready first. I walked over to the shelves by the refrigerator and filled up four cups of water using my teeth and face. My face and hair were soaked by the time I was finished, but I got it done. I placed each of them on the workbench near the mana stones. Next I grabbed a small cast iron pan in the crook of my right elbow, brought it to the workbench, and pushed each of the four mana stones into the pan. Now for the final step.

Gritting my teeth, I reached out and grabbed the hammer with my right hand. Pain burned through my body, and beads of sweat streamed down my face. The pain threatened to overwhelm me just like when I opened the door with my right hand like an idiot, but I held on. I wasn’t sure how long I could handle it so I moved quickly and began smashing the mana stones with the hammer. Each blow conjured up a new inferno of pain that raged through my body. Blood flowed down the hammer to mix with the shattered stones. Yet still I held on. Nothing was going to stop me tonight. NOTHING! It took twenty agonizing blows to turn the stones and all of the resulting shards into powder, but I still wasn’t done. I dropped the blood stained hammer on the workbench and grabbed the pan. Holding the pan was worse than holding the hammer but better than hitting the stones with the hammer. My mind and will began to waver, but I was determined to finish the job. I raised the pan over the four cups and shook an equal portion of the dust and blood into each cup. In one swift motion I dropped the pan, picked up the first cup, and downed it in one gulp.

DISGUSTING! It was the absolute worst tasting thing I had ever drank in my life, but it did the job. I felt mana surging through my entire body. A lot of mana. Too much mana. Way too much mana. So much mana that I felt like I was about to explode…. Oh shit, did I just kill myself?

Title awarded! Extremely Stubborn Fool © **

Fool (B) * leveled up!

Risk Taker (B) * leveled up!

Repeated Risk Taker © * leveled up!

Repeated Risk Taker © * leveled up!

Stupid Fool © * leveled up!

Minor Regen (Passive) © * leveled up!

Basic Disease Resist (Passive) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Disease Resist (Passive) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Parasite Resist (Passive) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Parasite Resist (Passive) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Poison Resist (Passive) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Mana Control (B) * leveled up!

Basic Mana Control (B) * leveled up!

Basic Mana Control (B) * leveled up!

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: N/A

LVL: 4 3%

Job LVL: N/A 0%

Job Points:

N/A

N/A

Titles:

Survivor (B) LVL 4 95%

Fool (B) LVL 6 24%

Pack Killer (B) LVL 3 81%

Beast Killer (B) LVL 3 76%

Risk Taker (B) LVL 4 66%

Repeated Risk Taker © LVL 4 30%

Compassionate Fool © LVL 1 78%

Curious Fool © LVL 1 0%

Stupid Fool © LVL 2 88%

Extremely Stubborn Fool © LVL 1 92%

Title Points:

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7

Stats:

HP:

MP:

Mana Regen:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Bonus Points:

51/125

50/10

2 per min (-1.75)

12

9

7

12

Status Effects:

Regen, Disease Resist, Parasite Resist, Poison Resist, Bleeding x1

Skills:

Basic Axe Mastery (B) LVL 7 56%

Basic Gun Mastery (B) LVL 4 78%

Minor Regen (Passive) © LVL 2 11%

Basic Disease Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 5 26%

Basic Parasite Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 5 13%

Basic Poison Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 4 78%

Basic Mana Control (B) LVL 9 52%

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