Chương 59: Chapter 60: Skills, Abilities, and Spells

Apparently, he ran away. I guess that was the thrashing charging sound I heard. He was breaking away in a panic and running for his life. Considering what happened to his companions, that was definitely the right decision. Even still, I don't let my guard down until I get the notification. You have defeated bandit warrior x6 and bandit sniper x6. You receive (15, 000+15, 000) 30, 000 experience. You have gained 2 levels. You are now level 23. You have 16 stat points to spend. Alertness increases to 21.

Dodge increases to 23. Sneak increases to 26. Sword increases to 28. Rapid Shot increases to level 2. The Rapid Shot increase means that it now does 550% the damage of one shot. That's good. And once again, I've got much higher skills and abilities than I should at level twenty three. Granted, I should be level thirty or thirty one by now, maybe even higher. But my stats are so much higher than they should be at this level. I don't want to die again, but Thrax really knows what he's doing.

There's definitely method to his madness. For the sixteen points I have, I decide to put two each into strength and agility, three into vigor, eight into presence, and one into willpower. That puts my hit points at 1265, my MP at 920 and my stamina at 1035. Those are pretty good pools for going forward. I also now have enough quests ready to turn in that I can afford to die without losing much. I'd rather gain at least seven more levels first, but I'm ready if it happens.

My stats will just keep getting higher, as will my skills. I'm not ready to set my spawn point somewhere near Thrax so he can just kill me again and again. For one thing, that would only help my stats, not my abilities or my skills. I need time to improve everything else in order for the deaths to really be worth it, for them to allow me to challenge this god slayer person, whoever they are.

I know Thrax will argue that I don't need more than a day or two between deaths, that the fights he takes me through to level me up should also level up my skills. And I'm not sure what would be a convincing counter argument. I just know that I'm not looking for Thrax right now, and I'm hoping he doesn't find me any time soon. I really want to make it to level thirty. I also want to qualify for those last classes. I need one more spell to qualify for spellsword; I can buy that back in town.

I need a level of fletcher and four levels of survival to qualify for both ranger and scout. Those I can get out here in the wilderness. First thing's first, though: I need to loot the bandits. Going through their pockets, I manage to find 61 gold, 72 silver, and 41 copper. I also collect their weapons and put them in my spatial bag. I notice that I have much less trouble stripping off their armor than I used to. Armor is valuable, and it's not like they're using it anymore.

It's just a matter of a few buckles and straps, and then I can peel the armor right off them. I leave the armor on if it was destroyed by the damage I did to them, but I get quite a few sets of leather armor out of the group of bandits, along with their swords and five bows. I also get a fair number of arrows from their quivers, adding their number to the ones I already have. I also find some resin glue, some fletching feathers, and even a few arrow heads in the pockets of the bandit snipers.

Then I start looking at trees, trying to find branches that are the right size and shape, that are straight enough to be used as arrow shafts. I spend about two hours, long enough for the bodies to start to really smell, making arrows. I'm getting relatively quick at making them, but it still takes me about ten minutes to make each arrow, and I only get ten of them complete before the smell makes me decide to keep moving down the road.

But those ten arrows are worth a level of fletching, which also qualifies me for the bowyer class. That's eighteen classes I've unlocked and qualified for. I wonder how many the god slayer is qualified for. I wonder what other classes I'm qualified for that I haven't checked on. I bet I'm qualified for a lot of them, they just haven't been offered to me. Maybe there's somewhere I can go to find out what else I'm qualified for. For now, though, I want more survival. Six is good. Ten would be better.

How do I gain survival? First, I hike deeper into the woods, until the road is a memory and I am unsullied by the trappings of civilization. Then I set to work finding a good place to build a camp. It's not going to get dark for another few hours, which gives me plenty of time to find the perfect spot. I find a small clearing not far from a stream. I brush away the grass that's grown there and build a fire pit, digging it deep so that the flames won't cast much light and draw attention.

I make sure that the wood I use to built the fire is as dry as possible, so that there won't be much smoke to give away my position. Then I begin building a shelter. I'm glad I still have the multitool from my old world, because I put its little saw to very effective use cutting a few limbs off of larger trees. I then spend time carefully stretching smaller ones into the frame I desire, tying them together with twine that I make by braiding the grass that I brushed away.

I lay the limbs that I cut off against the frame, making a leanto for myself, pointed at the fire pit. I then begin to create more amenities for camp, like a spit over the fire, a comfortable place to sit, and even some bedding for myself. Slowly but surely, I start to turn the little area into a campsite that is meant to be lived in for a lengthy stay, not just one night. I hang a clothes line, then start building the traps.

Some of the traps I build are just detection traps, like the one that causes a log to fall over when you trip the wire. But I also build a pit trap, sharpening sticks and putting them in the pit for something to fall over before covering the opening with a light covering of branches and leaves. That might catch some real food. I set a few rabbit snares, then check to see how my skills are doing. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Trap Making is up to seven.

That's great. How's survival doing? 8. That's still two points more than it was when I started all this. That's good. It's progress. What other survival skills are there? Shelter building is good. Fire building is good. Water purification. I know how to do that. You just need a pot. You boil the water and it kills everything impure inside it. You can also make filters with things like sand and charcoal that will clean out a lot of contaminants. I should boil some water from that creek.

I don't know if there's anything in that water, but better safe than sorry. As I wait for the water to boil, I try to think about where Elmspire is from here. I walked south down the road, but then I went west when I was leaving the road. So that means that Elmspire is northeast of me. My internal map confirms this, and I seem to instinctively know which way is which, and I can point to Elmspire from where I'm sitting. That's a survival skill too, isn't it? Orienteering?

I wonder what ranger is going to offer me that's different from tracker. It should, in theory, give me everything that tracker does and then something extra. But what? So far, tracker has given me a bonus to all the tracker skills, making them both better and easier to learn. It's also given me the thing where I add my agility to my ranged attacks, and the ability to do sneak attack damage when I'm either unseen or flanking my opponent.

I think there's something else that I unlock at level twenty five, but I can't remember what that is. Ranger should give me all of that, but something else too. I wonder what else. Honestly, I just hope it's not an animal companion. I've been thinking about that, and I don't know if I want to have an animal companion. Unless it respawns the same as I do, I don't want that kind of risk. It's one thing risking your own life. You know what might happen in a battle, and you know that you might end up losing.

But then you respawn. A companion would just die. And then it's like you don't have the perk at all. Either that or you start getting a long line of companions, all of whom eventually die at your side. Making being your companion a bit of a death sentence. If I go with Thrax and his plan, an animal companion might be able to stay with Thrax and wait for me to respawn, and not have to die with me every time. That might be worthwhile. But that's just delaying the inevitable.

What if we keep my companion alive for another fifty or a hundred deaths, and then it gets killed fighting the god slayer? It's still just as dead. No, having a companion animal only works if it respawns too. Maybe it'll be something related to magic. I'll learn spells from being a ranger, maybe. That would be pretty cool. It would also qualify me for spellsword. I've stayed with tracker all this time because I've been trying to get to ranger or scout.

I've been trying to qualify for those classes so that I could see what they were. I've been waiting to try out ranger. But maybe I won't like it. Maybe I'll end up going back to a lower ranked class, the way Hiram did. He was giving up on scout for his own reasons, but he didn't go back down to tracker. He went all the way back to pathfinder. Maybe there are benefits to the earlier classes when you're high enough level.

The water starts to boil, and I notice that one of the rocks around the fire ring is getting kind of hot. I then realize that if I needed to, I could drop a burning hot rock into a pot of water and probably flash boil it. That could be another way to purify the water. As I'm realizing this, my survival goes up to 9. So close now. I check my traps and find that I did, in fact, snare a rabbit. It's hanging from the tree that I built the snare out of, freshly dead.

I strip it of its fur and put it on the skewer, cooking it slowly over the fire. I use some seasoning, more rubbing salt over the body and then rubbing it down with a few leaves, but it makes a difference. My cooking goes up to 3, and I even get a 1% speed buff from the rabbit that lasts three hours. It's really not much, possibly not even a noticeable amount, but it does mean that I'm progressing. Someday, I'll be able to make things that produce significant buffs. If that's what I decide I want to do.

Right now, I'm wracking my brain trying to think of something else that would be practicing a skill like survival. I could carve stakes out of wood and pin down a tarp over the lean to that I've built. That'll stop the rain from getting in. It doesn't look like it's going to rain tonight, but this is supposed to be a camp for several days, even permanently. So adding the tarp might be a good idea. I can weave more rope out of the grass to tie the stakes down with. It's full dark by the time I finish.

I slip into my little bedding area and feel oddly comfortable. Maybe not entirely safe, but safe enough that I can doze off for an hour or two, keeping my ears and my nose out for anything coming nearby. The fire is still going, and this little bedding area that I've made is strangely comfortable. Peaceful. Relaxing. For a brief moment, I feel like there's nothing to pressure me. Nothing that forces me to go one way or another, nothing making me make a decision about my future. I can just enjoy the moment.

The darkness of the woods around me. The sound of the stream as it flows. It's all very peaceful. I wake up a little bit later. I estimate about three hours have passed. That might be all the sleep I get tonight, and it will have to be enough. I douse what's left of the fire, which barely qualifies as embers, and I start to move away from camp, looking for fresh trail sign. Shadow wolves. Barely a threat by themselves anymore, but the most likely to lead me to a spawning portal.

I follow the trail backwards, diligently putting distance between myself and the wolf I'm following, trying to get back to its point of origin. A shadow wolf is a basic rare monster. The most powerful ones I've seen were level 8. That means they have 400 hit points. That means I can one shot them with Sniper Shot. I think with bleed I can kill them in one shot even without an ability. Not a threat, but not worth much in the way of experience either.

Still, what they don't give in experience they might give in skill or ability points. And if I can find their generator, that's one fewer generators I have to find and destroy. Actually, I don't even need to destroy them. I just need to find them. Still; I'll destroy this one when I find it. There's something off about the tracks that I'm following. They seem a bit too deep, as if the shadow wolf was heavier, and by a pretty significant margin. This isn't just a fat shadow wolf.

This is a shadow wolf carrying something. They aren't intelligent enough to wear armor or anything like that. They aren't advanced enough to have packs that they carry or anything like that. And it's not carrying something in its mouth; the extra weight is distributed among the whole track, the whole set of paw prints. It's moving well, though; no awkwardness that would suggest that it's dragging something or has something draped over it. Whatever is on it fits there perfectly. Like a rider.

That would account for the weight, too. It's well distributed, like something is riding the shadow wolf. It wouldn't be as big as a human, unless it was a very small human or a child or something. It's not even big enough to be an elf. It's something small. If fantasy novels have taught me anything, it's goblins that ride the shadow wolves. Goblins might mean an outpost in the woods, which would complete another quest.

And maybe the goblins and the shadow wolves are both being generated together in two generators side by side. That would be fantastic. But I'll take what I can get.