Chương 61: Slice of Life (3)

Rowan woke with a yawn. Stretching his arms, he opened his eyes, only to be entranced by the beauty of the night sky once more. He didn't know exactly how long he had been asleep, but the moons had all changed places. Still, the sky was beautiful. Back when he was in the tunnels with no way to properly tell time, he'd had to guess how long he slept. He still had to guess now, but with the night sky still above, it couldn't have been more than a few hours.

And yet, he felt fully rested, as if he'd gotten a full night's worth of sleep. Rowan shook his head. Despite all of his time spent in the Tutorial, sometimes, such seemingly simple things still made it hard for him to wrap his head around the fact that this was his life now. He had a class. He was a superhuman. He had to and probably would always have to fight for his survival. But, in the end, it didn't change one simple fact: now, he had power.

It wasn't much, not yet, but with the System, he had the potential to continue growing, to grasp even more strength. All so that he could define his own life. ` With a sigh, he checked the mana within him. It was almost full now, probably just a few hours away. But his mind was on something else. With how many times he'd leveled up [Mana Manipulation], he'd gotten a pretty good idea of how much practice or innovation it took to gain a level.

He'd pushed the skill to its limits immediately after defeating the broodmother and waking up in the stream, trying to do as much damage as possible with his limited reservoir. Even more, Rowan had pushed the skill even further than that just by playing with Cynthia. The amount of control and experimentation that creating and moving the butterfly and bird alone should've been enough to earn himself a level. But it hadn't.

The only reason he could think of for everything he'd done not eliciting a single level up in [Mana Manipulation] was that something about hitting level 20 in the skill made it harder to level up. Still, it didn't seem like there was anything he could do about it other than simply practicing more. And, while it was taking far longer than he'd expected to gain a level, he still thought that he was close. Taking a breath, he watched the glowing sky for a few more minutes before looking at his mana once more.

It was time to see if he could push through and finally gain the level. — Rowan let his head fall back onto the pillow in disappointment. He'd practiced for hours, improving his mastery in every aspect, and while he felt that he was even closer now, it still hadn't been quite enough. By now, the colors of the sky were dimming, several of the moons had continued on their orbit, moving to the other side of the planet, and the stars were beginning to disappear. Soon, it would be sunrise.

Stretching, Rowan shifted a bit. Then, he stood up, walking toward the camp. After a few moments, he saw Henry. He opened his mouth to call out a greeting, but before he could, he stopped himself. Henry was kneeling before the makeshift grave at the edge of the camp, back hunched as he stared at the spear. He watched for a few moments longer, but when the bald man continued to just sit there, staring at what Rowan assumed to be Isabella's grave, he turned away. He would come back later.

Until then, he would let the man mourn in peace. Once he'd made his way back to the clearing he'd slept in, he leaned against a tree and thought. He may have been too mentally tired to continue practicing his [Mana Manipulation], but that didn't mean he couldn't think about it. And there were lots of things he was still wondering about, but as he lay there, he remembered something. A while ago, back when he'd woken up after defeating the brood mother, he had been wondering about his dexterity stat.

He still had plenty of questions about how stats worked, but he felt that one was more prudent to figure out than any of the others. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Did he even need dexterity? The obvious answer was yes, assuming he wanted his speed to be able to keep up with everything else. But when he truly thought about it, he wasn't sure. All because of one stat: strength.

All it did was make him stronger, which, in turn, meant that he could hit things harder. But what about hitting the ground? When he pushed off of it to run, strength certainly played a great part in that, increasing his speed and the force he pushed off with. Or did it? What if strength didn't do anything about his running, and it was just dexterity? With the amount of power he had, pushing off of the ground in the forest should destroy the dirt beneath his feet.

So, with a sigh, he crawled out from beneath his blanket. It was disappointing to get out from beneath the warm and cozy covering, but the cold night air didn't affect him, anyway. He put down his bag of rations by a nearby tree, and, walking a few dozen yards away from the clearing he'd been sleeping in, he took a deep breath. Then, he ran. Rowan shot across the forest floor, moving faster than any human could have back on Earth.

It still felt underwhelming compared to the strength of his other stats, but with the speed he launched off the ground at, he should've still done something to the dirt. But he hadn't. Barely the slightest hint of damage had been done to the earth beneath him. There was a little indent where he pushed off from, and the leaves had been moved by the wind of his passing, but nothing more.

With a frown, he walked a few paces away before taking off running once more, this time no faster than he would've run before the Tutorial. After a few seconds, he turned and walked back to where he'd started, watching the ground with interest. Once he was there, he looked at the small indent he'd left on the forest floor. It was almost exactly the same as the previous one, even though he'd been moving nearly three times slower than before. Cursing to himself, he let out a breath. It just didn't make any sense!

If he wasn't using any more strength to move, then how was he running so fast? The only answer he could think of was that dexterity somehow just… magically increased his movement speed. It wasn't anything special compared to all of the other wonders that had come with the System, but for some reason, Rowan had thought there would be some kind of logical explanation behind what was happening. But why wasn't he using his strength stat for running?

Concentrating, he prepared himself once more, trying to use the much higher stat rather than dexterity. He took off running, but just like every time before, he just magically sped up, leaving no more damage to the ground than a normal human would've. It was frustrating, but he didn't give up, trying again and again. And each time, he failed just as miserably, sometimes even falling on his face while trying to force his body to use strength.

But trying to activate a specific stat wasn't like using a limb or even a muscle. After all, it wasn't a tangible thing. After the umpteenth failure, Rowan growled in frustration before stomping his foot down onto the forest floor. But after a few more seconds, he calmed down. Then, he looked to his feet. His leg was resting within a small crater created by the force of him stamping his foot down. Furrowing his eyebrows, Rowan stomped again, this time with more force.

It was as if a miniature explosion had gone off, albeit not as loud. Still, dirt was sent flying in every which direction as he slammed his limb into the ground. As he looked at the crater that had been left, his visage of frustration slowly morphed into a smile. He'd been beginning to lose hope, but perhaps he really could do it. Still smiling, he brought his feet together and, with a grunt of effort, he leaped straight into the air.

Even though he'd spent more than a month in the Tutorial, he didn't know how high he could jump; almost every second of that time had been spent in cramped tunnels that were rarely more than a dozen feet high. Even in those rare times when he wasn't in one of the small tunnels, he was just in a larger chamber, and during his time in them, he'd never really tested how high he could leap. So it came as quite a surprise when he shot upwards, seemingly defying gravity.

Air rushed past him as he soared upward, far higher than he'd ever imagined. But it was bound to come to an end eventually. Once he was almost ten yards up, he felt his momentum come to a stop, and then he plummeted back down. While he'd still been ascending, he'd entertained the idea that he might break through the forest canopy. Now, though, he knew that it wasn't possible, at least not yet. He hadn't used his full strength for the jump, so he could probably leap a bit higher, sure, but the trees here were tall.

His leap had peaked at barely half of the way up most of the trunks. While he could probably leap straight over some of the trees at the very edges of the forest, the camp was a bit further into the woods. The clearing he'd slept in was even deeper into the trees, and as he'd been running about, he'd moved even farther.

He landed with a thump, and his eyes widened as he realized he was growing farther from the camp than he was comfortable with; lest he lose track of it and end up wasting time looking for it, he decided to head back. But he still wanted to test out what he'd been building towards with his jump. Finding a path devoid of trees to the clearing he'd slept in took a bit, but once he had it, he readied himself. Then, imagining himself jumping horizontally instead of vertically, he exploded forward.