I awoke that morning, brushing my body off. Sam had me covered in spiders. I don’t know how but I felt them crawling inside of me. He got them to go in my nose, my mouth, and that clock was back again. If I could hate someone more, I’d be surprised. One of these days, I might be able to fight back against what he was doing to me. I doubted it, though, since he was so much more powerful than I could ever hope to be with the way that he transported me or made me dream. I should’ve asked him how many days were in a year. However, I learned that a year is one rotation around the star. So, no, he didn’t give me the name of the star or how many days it took.

Before I got going for the day. I took the time while Blink was still sleeping on my chest to review who I was.

Name

Arn

HP

20

MP

40

Race

Wild Human Shaman(3)

SP

30

Defense

1

Primary Class: Enchanter*

Level: 0

Secondary Class: Linguist* (ancient languages)

Level: 0

Strength

15*

Intelligence

8

Vigor

14

Dexterity

14*

Willpower

11

Vitality

10

Wild Humans have a plus 3 to strength

Wild Humans have a plus 2 to dexterity

Wild Humans have a plus 2 to all survivalist and warrior class skills

Wild Humans have a negative 3 to all Language skills and can not start as the linguist class

Wild Humans have a negative 1 to all Magic class skills due to low intelligence and cannot start as a enchanter class because of linguist issues

Wild Humans are all illiterate

Skills

Level

Racial

Spear**

7 Locked

Survivalist**

7 Locked

Tracking**

6 Locked

Primitive Runes

10

Ritualistic spell casting

12

Ritualistic healing

9

Animal empathy

12

Plant empathy

10

Primary class

Enchanting

14

Script*

*

Ink making

14

Etching

16

Power imbuing

11

Socketing

1

Secondary Class

Ancient languages*

*

Non class skills

Hiking**

15

Climbing**

14

Primitive tool**

12

Natural Shelter**

8

Spear Fishing

16

Primitive cooking

14

Herbalism

11

Stone Knapping

10

Staff

15

Taekwondo

15

Running

12

Fitness Training

14

Tumbling

16

Rope making

17

Basket weaving

10

Primitive Tailoring

6

Traps

14

Conditioning

10

Escrama

2

Iaido

9

Nunchaku

5

Ki Focus

2

Swimming

6

Pole Fishing

2

Net Fighting

2

Mathematics

18

Throwing Knife

3

Paddling

9

Archery

4

Stone Construction

7

Snake handling

0

*due to Wild Human starting restrictions of being illiterate this skill can not advance until literate.

** Racial Bonus for Wild Human, effective levels of all Survivalist class and warrior class skills plus 2

Spells

Communication spells

Level

Mana usage

Beseech a greater knowledge**

1

50

**Once per day powered by sunlight

By properly activating this spell the user may once a day ask a single questions of Great and Mighty greeter Sam. This spell will only work for the lowly Arn.

Ritualistic spells

Level

Mana usage

Stone to dirt

1

20

Start fire

1

20

Call rain*

1

20

Growth

1

20

Lay to rest

1

40

Purify water

1

30

Glow

1

15

Fire fist

1

2-20

Fire Spells

Level

Mana Usage

Fire Fist

1

2-20

I then pulled up Blink. I wanted to see where she was. I'd no idea how she leveled or grew or if that was the same thing. I'd been trying to pay attention to her and see what was going on, but it seemed like whenever I checked, I missed what happened. I saw nothing that was telling me how it happened.

Name

Blink

HP

10

MP

25

Race

Ropola*

SP

42

Defense

2

Ropola are large chameleon type lizard. The eyes of the Ropola are some of the best as they can match their skin to whatever they see or have seen. Ropola have body sacks that they can fill to make them appear bigger and a thick boned head.

*Bonded: As a Bonded Ropola Blink will be able to grow, level and change faster. As the bond deepens so do the benefits to both sides.

Strength

12*

Dexterity

8**

Intelligence

5

Willpower

12

Stamina

14

Health

10***

*Strength is relative to size. As Ropola’s grow the negative modifier will be removed for DMG. Until young adult size or level 15 is reached DMG is figured at half total round down.

** Dexterity is relative to size. For all movement dexterity uses figure at 3 times normal. Once young adult size is reached all Movement Dexterity uses figure at 2 times normal.

*** Health is relative to size. Until young adult size or level 15 health points figured at half total round down.

Nature’s gifts

Scales

+2 defense

Claws

+2 Attack Slashing

Mouth

+3 Attack Impaling

Natural skills

Level

Pounce

5

Stealth

10

Tracking

12

Imitation

2

Skills

Pounce: The Hatchling at this stage acts like a cat, and from a high place pounces. This attack is Weight Divided by 5 plus claw damage.

If done from surprise it triples damage

Stealth: The Hatchling knows how to move without being seen or heard. As this develops they will even be able to disappear when being looked at.

Tracking: This skill lets the hatchling track something. At low levels tracking requires the proper area to track in and can easily be thrown. At higher levels the hatchling know the tricks to hide tracks as well as see tracks. This skill will help to identify what is being tracked.

Imitation: The ropola has learned to imitate its surrounding and the creatures in it. This skill lets it adjust its stealth from just hiding to appearing like creatures that it has seen.

As I was thinking over Blink’s significant development, I noticed that she was getting more intelligent. Not much, but that she had added points to that. I didn’t even know if she could pick what she added or just went with a set progression. She had also gained a skill.

Imitation: The ropola has learned to imitate its surroundings and the creatures in it. This skill lets it adjust its stealth from just hiding to appearing like creatures it has seen.

Blink chose to wake up and jump off of me at that point. Getting her weight off was felt good; the fact that she could and did put all her weight on one claw as she jumped, not so much.

After that, my morning started off much the same way as always; I just added in my new skills and spells. Now that I had the ritualistic spell for fire fist, I could start to level it without worrying about mana. I also saw that this combat spell had several patterns that I could follow. They were my katas, where my punches ended with a kiai.

This would help use the spell now there were lead-ups in this, but through the day, I was able to whittle it down so that the small cast only took 5 seconds of lead-in moves, the medium was sitting at 30 seconds, and it seemed like I would have to do a full minute of chained attacks to get the large cast. While it wasn’t impossible, it was doubtful that I’d be able to ramp up my attack so that I could get an extra 10 points of damage from a punch.

That afternoon my project was to do some woodworking as I needed to make a bokken to practice my sword skills. I also figured that I’d make some chucks to add in if I had the time. If I would cap out at level 15 for practice and 20 because I couldn’t level since I couldn’t read, then I wanted to have as many level 20 skills as I could.

If I couldn’t focus on an area of study, I’d focus on the breadth of study. So while I didn’t think that I was a jack of all trades in my old world, I was thinking here that might be something that I needed. After all, I kind of had to do everything right now as I was the entire human resources pool.

As I worked on my carving, I started to think through what I’d been doing. I knew that I’d been working on my skills straightforwardly, but I’d not been doing things that were different. I was working in the same way each day. I did my Katas on a smooth flat area like how I’d trained on Earth. The thing was, this world wasn’t Earth and not someplace that had roads and bars with flat ground. So I would need to change up where I trained. Same with my rock climbing, I knew where my handholds were. While using the same ones repeatedly did build muscle, and here at home, it was helpful because it would let me get up to the next level faster, it didn’t mean that overall it was a good thing.

The other thing that I’d forgotten was that I was using some of my skills in only one way. Like power imbuing. I was filling up a stone every day to feed my necklace, but it never said that I could only fill stones. Instead, it said I could fill items that would power them for the action I wanted.

Which meant that I might be able to fill my spear with mana and use it to add fire to a strike and not have to use my own mana to do it right then. This could give me some nice one-shot attacks. I also hadn’t tried to imbue power into my necklace. If I could do that directly, I might be able to feed it faster, which would let me get more socketed items and more chance for growth that way.

I also knew that I could have a ritualistic spell do the same thing as a standard spell. This was a critical link for me. I needed to figure out how to move the Ritualistic spells over to normal spells, and I needed to figure out what I did to make a new spell. If I could make new spells, I might could turn dirt to stone or perhaps even stone to water. I was sure that there were other things that I could figure out; I just needed to see what all I could do.

The only clue where I could start was how I did with a fire fist. I just needed to start trying to focus my Ki and move my mana as I did my Katas. I had several other strikes that came with a kiai, so I might could concentrate on those.

I spent the afternoon using the imbue skill to trigger into the necklace, or I should say that I tried to spend the afternoon doing that. I found out quickly that I could pass out when I tried to imbue something that I couldn’t fill. It took all of my mana and showed that it was over the need for a core. This meant that I could create two cores right then because the stone was easy to come by, and my blood wasn’t much.

I was both happy and angry at the same time. I was pleased that I found a way to make cores faster, but I was livid with myself that I’d wasted two months of work time making them the hard way because I didn’t think. Doing them this way should be a massive improvement for me, which meant that I needed to socket everything I could. I knew that the lean-to that I’d put a core into had marked improvements. I wanted to see what would happen if I put a core into everything.

It was getting late, so I went to make my request of Sam, only to find that I didn’t have the mana to kick the spell off because of imbuing the necklace. However, I did find out a fun fact. Even if you don’t have the mana, it will try to drain you, which meant that I passed out and didn’t even get to ask my question.

That night my dreams were troubled.