Chương 9: Manual Transmission

Zander grabbed a squirrel carcass and relocated, distancing himself from the slaughter just in case the scent of blood drew in other predators. He planned to cook, but first, he wanted to address his status. He had leveled up twice in the chaos of the fight, after all. He mentally commanded the status screen to appear, and the red-tinted window flickered into existence. He focused on the metrics that mattered.

Name: Zander Edwards Level: 4 System Coins: 120 Unspent Stat points: 2 Stats Might: 15 Resilience: 20 Will: 30 The BloodForged Lord class was generous with Will, automatically granting him 5 points per level. His Will had skyrocketed from an initial 15 to 30 in just three levels. That likely explained the ease with which he'd stopped his own bleeding after the fight; his mind was exerting a massively increased control over his physiology.

But Will didn't help him punch harder without the agonizing two-minute transfer time of [Mind's Dominion]. And Will didn't stop squirrel teeth from piercing his skin. He looked at the 2 free stat points: one from level 3, and another from level 4. The fight had been messy. He had been overwhelmed by sheer numbers. His gauntlet was durable, but it was clumsy. He couldn't grab, he couldn't grapple effectively, and he couldn't use his knife while the skill was active.

If he was forced to fight with bludgeons fused to his arms, those instruments needed to inflict maximum damage with every hit. Plus, he hadn't forgotten his rule: prioritize Might while keeping Resilience no more than 5 points behind. He dumped both free stat points into Might, bringing it to 17. It wasn't a huge jump, but thanks to his bloodline merging the old Strength and Dexterity stats, each point here was worth two of the old System's points. He flexed his hand, imagining the muscle fibers knitting denser.

He didn't feel significantly different yet, but he knew the power was there. Now, back to food. He retrieved his knife from his bag. The squirrel was large, heavy with muscle. The butchering process, however, was far from the clean, automated looting he remembered hearing his coworkers discuss. The hide was tough, and the muscle beneath was dense. Resilience wasn't just a stat for humans, apparently. While working, Zander kept an eye on his Health.

When it reached full, he checked the timer on his phone: roughly 19 minutes. That was a solid six-minute improvement due to [Mind's Dominion] transfer into Resilience. Excellent. He continued working on the meat with grim determination, but his lack of experience quickly caught up with him. He drove the knife in too deep near the liver, applying too much of his new Might. Pop. A small, greenish sac burst under the blade.

Instantly, a pungent, acrid stench filled the air, overpowering the smell of raw iron and damp earth.

"Dammit," Zander hissed, recoiling. He tried to salvage it, cutting away the tainted sections, but the yellowish fluid had seeped into the abdominal cavity. He roasted a small scrap of the leg as a test, but one bite made him gag. The meat tasted like pure battery acid and bile. Even if his BloodForged trait protected him from toxins, it didn't turn off his taste buds. No way I'm eating this unless I have no other choice. He tossed the charred, ruined meat into the bushes with a growl of frustration.

A waste of level 5 beast meat.

"Lesson learned," he muttered, wiping his knife on a handful of leaves.

"Stats don't give you skills. I still have to know what I'm doing." He returned to the kill site to retrieve what looked like the second level 5 corpse; it was as big as the one he had just wasted. This time, he treated it like a surgical operation. He made shallow incisions, peeling back the skin with extreme care. When he reached the organs, he moved with agonizing slowness and made sure to remove everything. He wasn't leaving anything to chance.

He started a fire using his fire starter, feeding it dry leaves and twigs until he had a decent flame. He then skewered chunks of the squirrel meat on sticks and set them to roast. He took a bite of the meat as soon as it was charred on the outside. It was quite tough, but he ate it with gusto nevertheless. He was hungry. He ate the whole thing in minutes, but he wasn't satiated yet. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

He retrieved the last two squirrels, roasting and eating one of them before the gnawing hunger in his belly finally subsided. He stashed the final cooked squirrel in his bag for later. The sun began to dip below the tree line, casting long, jagged shadows through the dense canopy. Zander stamped out his fire and buried the remains. He had a choice to make: stay on the ground or sleep in the canopy again, but higher than before.

He considered staying on the ground since the surviving squirrel was at home in the canopy. Ultimately, he decided to climb even higher; there was no telling what larger beasts might roam the forest floor at night. His mind made up, he scaled a tree, climbing higher than he had on previous nights. However, he didn't attempt to sleep immediately; he had work to do first. His clothes were shredded. He had spares in his backpack, but he saw no point in changing.

He was covered in filth with no water source to wash it off. Besides, he was the only human in the forest, and fresh clothes would likely meet the same fate in the next fight. He took a moment to analyze his vitals. From what he gathered, Health was merely a representation of his regenerative capacity. If he were decapitated, he would die, regardless of a full Health. If he lost blood faster than he could regenerate it, his Health would drop to zero, and he would die.

He also made an observation about [Mind's Dominion]. When he moved Will to bolster other stats, it slowed down his Blood Well regeneration. That was to be expected. However, he noticed a vital detail: his Blood Well's capacity remained based on his total base Will, not his current reduced Will. Even when he drained his Will to boost his Might, the tank didn't shrink, and he didn't lose any accumulated blood.

That was a relief; spilling precious fuel every time he buffed himself would have been a significant drawback. Speaking of [Mind's Dominion], he had never tried to split the transfer between Might and Resilience, so he attempted it now. He put 6 Will points into Might, increasing it by 3, and the remaining 4 points into Resilience, increasing it by 2. He found he was able to transfer both simultaneously in the same two minutes. He was afraid that he would need 4 minutes total, 2 for each transfer.

Then he moved to [Scarlet Gauntlet]. He looked at his hands. In the dim light, they looked normal. But when he activated the skill, they became useless lumps. If his fingers were free to move, he would be able to hold his knife, grab a throat, or climb without dismissing his gauntlet. He closed his eyes and dismissed the skill. The blood crumbled away into dust. He activated the skill again, pushing his Will into the process.

He visualized the blood coating his fingers individually, like a glove, articulated and sharp. Focus. Don't let it merge. He felt the blood emerge. He tried to mentally build dams between his fingers to force the liquid to harden in isolation. The pressure was immense. It felt like trying to hold back a breaking dam with his thoughts alone. The blood wanted to pool. It wanted to be a single, solid mass. Harden now! He opened his eyes. The result was the same. A red, bulbous mitten.

"Dammit." He dismissed it.

"Again." He spent the next two hours in a cycle of frustration. Activate. Focus. Fail. Dismiss. Activate. Focus. Fail. Dismiss. His Blood Well drained steadily, regenerating slowly during the breaks, but the real cost was his patience. He wasn't making progress. In video games, if you use a skill a thousand times, it levels up. It evolves. Here, he felt like he was banging his head against a concrete wall. There was a fundamental resistance in the skill itself.

It wasn't just difficult; it felt impossible at his current level of understanding. Or perhaps he lacked the Will?

"Okay," Zander breathed, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"If I can't change the shape, can I speed up the transfer?" He switched to [Mind's Dominion]. He focused on transferring 10 points of Will to Might. He started the timer on his phone. He pushed the energy. He tried to force the flow, imagining it as a rushing river rather than a leaking tap. Done. He looked at the timer. 01: 58. Two seconds faster. After two hours of grinding. He slumped back against the tree trunk, the rough bark digging into his shoulder blade.

"It's a plateau," he realized. He wasn't going to be able to "skill" his way out of this. He wouldn't be instantly swapping stats mid-combo like a devil hunter. He was driving a tank with a manual transmission, and the gears were rusty. He looked at his hands again.

"I have to plan," he murmured.

"I can't always react. I have to set the terms." If [Mind's Dominion] took two minutes, he had to start the fight two minutes before the enemy saw him. If [Scarlet Gauntlet] made him unable to hold a weapon, he had to make sure his punches were deadlier than any knife. He opened the note app on his phone, the screen brightness turned all the way down. Day 3: Level 4 reached. Common Health Potion was useless, as expected. Skills are stubborn as ever. Also, squirrels suck! He saved the note.

Below him, the forest floor was pitch black. A howl echoed in the distance, something deeper and more resonant than the squirrels. Zander closed his eyes. He let the ambient hum of his pain-free existence lull him. He was stronger today than he was yesterday. That would have to be enough. One by one, he relaxed his muscles, trusting the rope to hold him, and tried to drift into sleep.