Chương 11: Chapter Eleven: Trait

< The System has selected a Trait for you! > < You have gained the Trait: Thermal Resistance > I blink for a moment at the screen before my body heat drops like I was just thrust into an ice bath. Gasping for air, I abruptly tumble forward as the chains binding me finally break. Like a fish out of water, I flounder in the hole while my mind tries to catch up with the sharp drop in temperature.

The remnants of the metal are near my face so I can see that they are still red-hot, yet strangely I do not feel any warmth from them at all. I really hate the cold. I writhe there for almost a full minute before the cold of the night is pushed back once again and I feel the heat of my radiation flow through <Emit> and flood back into the goblin pit. I shakily rise as I feel the hot energy begin to seep into my body again. I hug my arms tightly together and rub my shoulders despite being fully warmed up already.

The phantom bite of the cold is just that goddamn horrible. As I acclimate to the new changes of my Trait, I look back at my notifications and am pleased to have yet another skill. I honestly didn't expect to get <Infuse> from trying to heat the chain directly, but I won't complain if the system wants to offer me some freebies. I don't know if skills should be this easy to get, but I am happy for the added bonus regardless. What I'm most interested in is my new trait.

I feel like the name Thermal Resistance speaks for itself, but I decided to ask anyway.

"Can I get details about my trait?" Nothing.

"Show information for Thermal Resistance." Nothing. The System Help Desk is once again proven to be useless. Fine then. I'll do it myself. I go to pick up one of the still-smoking links but grimace as I finally look at my hands. Perhaps I should be more specific; I mean what remains of my hands. My right hand is severely burned and looks like a bratwurst that was cooked for too long on an open grill. And when it comes to my left hand… Let's not talk about my left hand.

Looking around, I find the large loop that used to be my shackle and pick it up with my German sausage appendage. I activate <Infuse> properly for the first time and guide the heat emitting from my mutated mana straight into the shackle. The metal looks to gain a slightly red hue, but the radiation's flow peters out before I can go any farther. It looks like my attempts to melt the chain earlier took too much of the energy due to my poor technique. Once again, I find myself sitting at the bottom of the pit.

I haven't run out of the foreign energy until now, so I am unsure just how fast it regenerates. It should be linked to how fast my mana regenerates, but I also have yet to play around with mana enough to run empty. I look up through the grates and notice that the night is still pitch black. I also check my timer and realize that I still have a few hours before dawn. Snuggling deeper into the pit, I resign myself to a night of practicing <Mana Control> and <Polarize>.

I gain zero levels. This is unsurprising for <Polarize>, but I am fairly annoyed that <Mana Control> didn't level even once. Perhaps I was spoiled from the leveling spree I had earlier, but zero levels seems a bit stingy if you ask me. On the bright side, it's not like I learned nothing while I was sitting here. For one, I was able to move mana throughout my body fairly easily.

I can also force small spurts of mana out of my skin, but that has basically no utility from what I can tell other than draining my mana pool. It's still hard for me to sense my mana itself, but since the excess radiation was emptied out for a little while, it became easier to feel the mana. I'm not sure why, but the mana is significantly easier to deal with than the volatile radiation I usually produce, so I try to think of more uses for the malleable energy in my free time.

It's been a few hours now and the radiation is pouring from me once again through my steady application of <Emit>. I've had time to get a feel for how fast the production rate of the radiation is, so I have done my best to match my skill's output with the production speed. Now I have a steady stream of heat surrounding me which is quite nice in the cool air of the dirt pit, and I don't have to worry about running out of the thermal radiation. This novel is published on a different platform.

Support the original author by finding the official source. The time has also given me a better understanding of a few things about my skills in general. My hypothesis is that skills have large gaps in difficulty based on leveling thresholds. For example, most of my skills have reached level 5 fairly easily, but anything after that, it takes a lot longer to go up. <Mana Control> is a great example of this, as it leveled rapidly during my initial usage of the skill before screeching to a halt at level 5.

On the flip side, one might say that <Polarize> is in direct opposition to this theory since it still has yet to even hit level 2. I disagree with the fool who believes in this paper-thin line of reasoning. It is clear that <Polarize> is already at max level. Case closed. No, I will not elaborate. I push myself up and stand with my head only a couple feet below the metal grate. Dusting off my hospital gown diaper, I reach up to grab one of the bars with my right hand, as my left hand is still out of commission.

The skin on my fingers glow with a dull red heat as I fire up <Infuse> and begin warping the metal. It takes a few minutes for each bar to warm up enough for me to leverage my stats in BDY in order to bend them. The energy spent on each bar is also a decent chunk of my overall pool, but with my new trait the entire process is easy. < Infuse Lvl. 1 -> Infuse Lvl. 2 > Within a half hour I think I have bent enough of the grate to allow myself a tight exit. I pull myself up and wriggle through the opening.

Thankfully, I was smart enough to factor in my larger mass granted by my investments in BDY, so I get out without too much fanfare. The second I am free; I immediately throw myself away from the hole and jump into a nearby bush that I spotted while crawling out of the pit. The sky lacks any moon to provide light, but I can see streaks of dawn shining through the area and illuminating the small, hilly clearing that I find myself in.

While observing the various grates sitting throughout the clearing, I estimate there to be around twenty in my field of view. My grate is still glowing slightly with heat which could attract attention, but I ignore it and continue to take in the surroundings. In the end, I see no sign of any guards. I am positioned at the edge of the clearing, so after fully confirming no one is around, I emerge from my bush and start to creep along the perimeter of the wood line.

I make sure to pay special attention for any signs of traps or the like, as I don't want to pay for underestimating the goblins anymore. I make it a quarter of the way around the clearing before I spot an opening in the wood line that was hidden by the curve of the hill. It is hard to see, but there is a shack high in one of the trees near the opening that I assume is some kind of guard tower. I carefully scan the rest of the tree line but don't see any other shacks present in the clearing besides that one.

I find it odd that there is only one shack given the fact the trees are definitely not tall enough to allow them to see over the entire clearing with just the singular building. Filing that thought away, I continue to creep toward the shack in the same careful manner that was utilized earlier. Ten meters away: No sign of any traps or alarms still. Five meters: I hear the soft chirp of birds waking up. Two meters: Are there seriously no traps? I arrive at the base of the tree where the shack is located.

Even now, it seems that the goblins are more complacent than I gave them credit for, as there isn't even a monster stationed at the base of the shack. For a moment, I think the building might be abandoned too, but the next second I hear a small bump and a muffled grunt above me. Hugging the trunk of the tree, I circle around to the shoddy ladder that leads up to the shack. I take a quick peek at the opening and see a flickering light inside.

Using my hand, I test the ladder and feel a noticeable give in the wood despite me not putting my full weight on the rung. I don't trust the crappy construct to not make any noise if I was to start climbing, so I leave the ladder be and instead climb up onto the nearest branch I can find and continue to listen as close as I can to the noises above me. I quickly identify two sources of sound coming from the shack, but I can't be certain of the exact number.

There is a constant drone of breathing that is easily comparable to snoring, so I assume one is sleeping while the other takes the watch shift. Climbing down from my perch, I scan the area one more time before hiking up the path the shack is supposed to be guarding. I stick to the edges of the trail and move as fast as I can without making too much sound.

After several minutes of scouting, I find a fork in the trail and can clearly see that the path to the left has a distinct fall in elevation while the one to the right just heads toward more of the same woods. Does the left path lead to the valley I am supposed to be looking for? I suppress my excitement and instead begin my hike back toward the prison camp I came from. I learned what I needed to, and spotting a possible path to the valley is just a bonus.

When I arrive back at the clearing, I cut away from the path before arriving at the shack and do another loop around the camp to confirm that no other similar structures exist. By the time I'm done, the sun is almost completely above the tree line. I rush back to the base of the shack and once again confirm that both goblins are still inside. Even more delightfully, I hear two steady rhythms shake the small fort as it appears the second goblin fell asleep on the job.

Astounded by my windfall, I amend my plan slightly. As quietly as I can, I go to the opposite side of the tree that the ladder is on, and my hand glows a dull red as I activate <Infuse>. The woods on this floor are chock full of dead leaves, broken twigs, and other flammable items. When I had been making the campfire the day before, it only took a small flicker to catch the dry leaves and start a healthy fire.

Even after that, I had to forcefully suffocate the fire by burying it in dirt so as to not be tracked by the left over fire pit. I can feel the tree bark easily crinkle underneath my touch as it rapidly dries out any excess moisture in the wood. I make sure they are both sleeping one more time before I plunge my hand into a knot in the wood and activate <Infuse> at full blast directly into the tree.