Chương 29: Until the Dawn

We head back to the park and don't run into any monsters on the way. I guess that makes sense; we've destroyed three local generators, so there really isn't that much out and wandering around anymore. There might be some giants still wandering around, but we don't spy any of them on the way back to the park. We only have 5 hours left, so I'm not going to go out hunting any of them.

I'm going to stay right here and do my best to improve the various things I've gotten, and then try to see if I can get that last level of tracking before the end of the tutorial. I pull the insole out of my steel toed boots and put it into the boots of the wanderer, wanting to give myself a little bit of extra padding when I walk around. I also wrap the boots in straps of leather to try to hold them tighter to my calves and around the ankles, increasing the support that they give when I move with them on.

That and a few adjustments with my leather working tools and I improve the boots of the wanderer up to level 7, increasing the armor bonus to seven and making them better than the boots I had on before. I also tighten the string on the scout bow and smooth it out a little, adding some grip tape to the handle to make it easier to use and generally improving the shape of it, increasing it's level to 13, which in turn increases its damage to 40-48.

Finally, I lace some of the thin chain I got from the hardware store around my gloves, lacing the chain through the gaps between the chain links of the gloves and making them a bit more firm on my wrist, covering a bit more and providing a bit more protection. The gloves increase to level 6, which increases the strength bonus from 2 to 3. All of this crafting increases my armorer skill to 10, my bowyer skill to 2, and my smithing to 12. It also takes me about two hours.

With three hours left, I finally read the ability scroll for rapid shot. Rapid Shot. Uncommon Ability 1/10. Stamina cost: 25. Cooldown: 1 minute. Rapidly fire five arrows at the same target, dealing 500% maximum damage of a single shot. Right now, it's not that impressive. But presumably, the amount of damage will increase with each level, causing the rapid shot to do a lot more damage with the ability than without.

I mean, I can already fire five arrows at the same target and deal five times the damage of a single shot. But maybe not that rapidly. I test it out, and rapid shot is significantly faster than I shoot on my own. I practically load all five arrows at once and shoot them at the same time. When using the target, the fifth shot is in the air around when the first one hits the target. So that's a lot faster than I can normally shoot. So it's still good, even at this level, and will improve as the ability improves.

As I'm going through things, I notice that Sniper Shot has improved, now doing 330% damage, and that Camoflauge has also increased, allowing me to move at 55% of my normal speed. I don't know the math of how it works out with my new boots, but it's good to know that I can move faster than before while still maintaining stealth. That will be useful. I decide to use five of my magic crystals to advance ball of fire to the next level. I get a new spell that replaces that one: Fire bolt. Uncommon spell 5/10.

MP cost: 10. Casting time: 1 second. Cooldown: 1 second. Create a bolt of fire in your hand that can be thrown up to twice your willpower in feet and does 500% of your Awareness in fire damage if it hits an enemy. Your Spellcraft has increased to 14. That's a jump. Not a huge jump, but it went from 12 to 14. Makes my other bolt spell a little bit better too. Still not really worth using, but maybe it'll get better as I keep practicing with it.

Before I practice with any other spells, though, I need to increase my tracking. I follow Vinny back through his day, moving all around the park to see where he practiced his spells. Again, it's like I can see a ghostly version of him moving around, posing in different ways as he casts his spells. I can see the scorch marks he left on statues, and I can see the marks where he froze the ground with his ice based spells.

I can practically watch him as he practiced spell after spell, moving around and casting them faster and faster, contorting himself into odd positions to get off the spells like he was experimenting with how best to use the spells in combat. He's definitely a spellslinger, and seems to have focused his practice on that whole idea. Finally, it comes. Tracking level ten. And a qualification for Tracker. I immediately equip the class to see what it does.

I keep the agility for damage with ranged attacks, which is awesome. I also get improved efficiency and improvement for animal harvesting, alertness, bow, scrounge, sneak, survival, tracking, and trap making. Survival and trap making are new skill, so I should be able to get levels of those pretty quickly once we get started. I also get to keep the sneak attack bonus on ranged attacks, which is pretty impressive. I also unlock three new advanced classes. Class: Scout.

Progress: Agility 54/40, Alertness 9/10, Bow 19/20, Scrounge 8/10, Shield 3/5, Sneak 17/15, Survival 0/10, Tracking 10/15, Trap making 0/5. Class: Ranger. Progress: Agility 54/35, Awareness 24/30, Animal Harvesting 6/10, Alertness 9/10, Bow 19/20, Scrounge 8/10, Sneak 17/20, Survival 0/10, Tracking 10/20, Fletcher 2/5. Class: Spellsword. Progress: Strength 25/25, Agility 54/30, Presence 25/25. Alertness 9/15, Dodge 16/10, Meditation 8/10, Spellcraft 14/20, Sword 20/20, Spells known 5/8.

I can see how both of the first two might grow out of Tracker. And both of them are a long way away for me, but they both seem appealing. The last is one that I've been working towards, and will probably be the easiest for me to reach at this point. The hardest part of that one might be learning new spells. It depends on how easy it is to buy spells. We're going to be able to buy things. I have a bunch of money, and no idea what any of it is worth.

I think it's safe to say that silver is worth more than copper, and gold is worth more than silver. That seems to be pretty standard in fantasy games. But how much is a gold worth? I have 28 gold. Is that enough for me to buy a meal, or is it enough for me to buy a house? Right now, I have no way of knowing. I also don't know the exchange rate. The 110 silver might be worth 11 more gold, 1 more gold, or maybe not even worth one gold. I can't know that until I go to a shop and see what things cost.

The gems we took from the jewelry store might be worth a pile of gold, or they might be worth as much as any other pebble you pick up from the ground. I'm tempted to pick up a few things that are unlikely to exist in a quasi medieval world. Would they even know what to do with a piece of asphalt? Would it be valuable to them or just an oddity? I don't know. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. And to be honest, I'm not sure I care.

I'm going to learn survival, which I assume will include things how to make sure the animals I kill are safe to eat, how to get safe drinking water, and all that good stuff. I'll be able to survive in the wild by myself almost immediately. Which means I don't need to rely on money to get me through life. I don't have to play the game of economics and capitalism if I don't want to. And I really don't want to.

"What class are you going with?" El asks me. She's throwing her axes at a tree, trying to up her throwing ability before the tutorial runs out. I join her with my throwing knives, only seven of which survived the battle with the spiders.

"I just qualified for Tracker," I say.

"I've been working on it for a long time. How about you?"

"I was going with berserker, but I think I'm going to upgrade to battle rager. It reduces the amount of damage I take from each hit, and increases the amount of damage I do, but it lowers my defense."

"What's your defense at now?"

"65. You?"

"91," I say.

"But I took that exemplar of agility talent, which boosted my agility pretty high."

"Yeah, I did that with vigor," she says.

"Ashley did it with strength, I think. Her strength is sixty." No wonder she was crushing those spiders so easily. She's more than twice as strong as I am. Wow.

"Wait, you did that with vigor? How many hit points do you have?"

"2200." She says it while looking down, as if she's embarrassed.

"Holy shit," I say, honestly impressed.

"That's just incredible. That's three times as many as I have. And you have shell now?"

"See why I'm thinking battle rager?" she says.

"My defense will be lower, but I'll take less damage, and I have a huge pool to draw from. Only thing about it is the sensation."

"What do you mean?"

"It's not exactly pain. I mean, it is, but it's much more temporary, and much, just, less. Like it almost tickles. Sometimes it, um, feels kind of good." That's understandable.

"I think it's the way our brains are wired," I tell her.

"Pain is supposed to be a warning that your body is in danger, right? The pain tells you to stop doing something before you hurt yourself, or telling you that you have hurt yourself and not to make it worse."

"Right," she says.

"But if you think about it, we have hundreds of times more hit points than we used to. We can sustain damage on an incredible level. I could stab you with my sword literally a dozen times and you wouldn't be in any danger of dying. It would be annoying, but not potentially lethal. So our brain doesn't have to warn us about danger until much, much later. But it still has the sensation, the intensity, coming in from your nerves. Even before real damage is done, you still have the intense sensation."

"So?"

"So the brain only really understands two intense sensations. Pain is one of them. Pleasure is the other. Since you're not in pain, it makes sense that the brain is interpreting it as pleasure."

"But that's weird, right? I mean, it would be weird if I said it felt good when one of those wolves bit me and tried to tear up my leg. That would be weird."

"Weird, yeah," I say.

"But kind of understandable. And my entire point. Consciously, you know it's not pleasure, but your brain is telling you it isn't pain either. So instead, you're left with this weird in between, this sensation that you kinda like, that feels kinda good sometimes, because it's not intense enough to be pain yet, but it's still intense enough that your brain knows it shouldn't be ignored." She shakes her head.

"I still think it's weird," she says. Then she walks over to collect her thrown axes. I come join her to get my knives so we can reset.

"At least I have Shell now. It sucks that it's only twenty percent, though."

"It'll get stronger the more you use it," I tell her.

"Mine is up to eighty percent now."

"Do you think things like spells will keep being this easy to improve?" she asks, hurtling a throwing hatchet thirty feet to sink into the target. I throw a knife to land right next to it, and I see that my throwing has increased to 10.

"You mean once we're out of the tutorial level?" I purse my lips for a bit.

"I hadn't really considered that. I mean, it's definitely possible. But I'd think that the rules are going to stay pretty much the same as they have been here. I mean, that's the point of a tutorial, right? If you teach the rules in a tutorial, then immediately change them after the tutorial is over, then you don't have a tutorial, you have a playable demo. I think what we've seen so far is a lot of what we're going to end up with."

"I like the way you think," she says, throwing another axe.

"I hope you're right."

"Thanks," I say. I flick out my wrist and throw another knife, again landing right next to her hatchet. It's not easy at this distance.

"I think I'm going to go for battle rager," she says.

"There's another advanced class that comes off it called Blood Rager. That one might be too much for me. Just because a class is harder to get doesn't mean it's better, you know?"

"So far, that seems right. But I know Tracker kept most of the benefits of pathfinder, so it was like adding on to the class instead of replacing it." We go to collect our weapons again. El nods to herself, but doesn't say anything more to me. I guess I got her thinking, or she's just done with our conversation. I can't really be sure. It's less than an hour until dawn, and the sky is starting to lighten up. In two hours, the tutorial will officially end, and we'll get to see what comes next.

No more speculating, no more wondering. We'll get to experience it. I have a temptation to leave the park and find some last thing, like another treasure chest or some huge monster or something like that. But I think that's one of those temptations like when you stand at the edge of a cliff and want briefly to jump off, or when you're driving in traffic and get the brief urge to careen into a tree or something. Self destructive, intrusive, and thankfully fleeting.

Two hours is a lot of time, but it's not going to be enough time. I need to stay here and learn something, not go out there and risk having to do all of this over again. I mean, sure, there's a chance that since we've been in the park, we qualify as completing the tutorial. But I'm pretty sure the message said we weren't in the park, and it's too big of a risk. I mean, what guarantee do I even have that we'd get another three days? Maybe I'd have three days by myself.

I couldn't take on monsters by myself, not fast enough to be able to level back up to twenty two. Too big of a risk. What I can do, and what I decide to do, is work on my spells. I can shoot fire bolt fifty five times before having to meditate for a little while to recharge my MP. Fifty five is a lot of time to shoot a fire bolt at the same statue as before, at the same spot that I was trying to melt with the ball of flame. Fifty five times is a lot of time to hit it with fire, with a lot more damage from the fire.

My fire bolt does 120 damage now, which is a lot. In fact, it's more than I do with my bow or my sword. So the fire bolt is currently my greatest weapon. I can only shoot it fifty five times, but that's a lot of damage. That's a lot of uses of my greatest weapon. It's better than my bow, though the range is a bit shorter. It's better than my sword, though it will run out. But the more I use it, the better it'll get. The more I use it, the higher level the spell will get to.

After I've fired it off fifty five times, there's a glowing spot on the statue. My spellcraft has also increased to 16. Sadly, I haven't leveled up the spell yet. But I think that's a relatively low number of times to have cast it, so I'm not all that surprised. I close my eyes, focusing on the sounds around me and trying to feel the mana again. I listen carefully, trying to see if I can tell what everyone else is doing based purely on sound.

I'm far enough away that I know I won't be able to actually hear what they're actually doing, but the idea of it is enough to focus on. I can try to strain my ears, willing myself to hear the tiniest of sounds. I listen carefully, trying to hear the sound of El smashing her axes into a tree, the sound of Vinny's ice spears clanking off giant blue rooster statue, and the sound of Gigi and Ashley sparring in one of the clearings, trying to get those last little bits of shield and weapon skills.

I listen and pretend that I can hear all of those things, tell myself that those sounds are part of the mana flowing through the air. I can hear them moving, and I collect those sounds to myself, letting the sounds and the magic flow through my body. It takes me maybe ten minutes, but my MP fully refills itself. And my meditation and alertness both go up by one.