Hello everyone! Here's the second chapter and I'll try to keep a schedule of posting every Tuesday. There was so much more positive attention than I thought I would get and it blew me away. Thank you all for reading!
Chapter 2
+25 exp!
+25 exp!
+25 exp!
+25 exp!
Skill level up! Spinning Mana arrow level 2!
+25 exp!
+25 exp!
+25 exp!
+25 exp!
You've leveled up!
It continued this way till I had killed about forty more zombies, gaining another level for myself and five more for my spinning Mana arrow. Thanks to my buffs and my passives, I was regening my mana faster than I was using it.
Because of the discovery of the new dimension, I had completely forgotten about my newfound elemental magic. I stopped in the street and looked around, seeing that I had made my way towards the nearby park a few streets away from my house. I had cleared almost all the zombies that I could see, the ones that were left were too far away to notice me so I figured it was safe enough to experiment for now.
I created my a Mana sphere, and slowly started to add fire Mana to it. The sphere became bright red, with flames curling around the edges until it was completely engulfed.
Skill created!
Elemental Manipulation: lvl 1/100 1% exp (passive/active)
Active Cost: 100 mp/min
Current control: 1%
Types of Mana unlocked: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, Dark
Skill created!
Fireball: level 1 - 7% exp cost 65 Mana (active)
A burning hot sphere made of Mana. Does [Int] x 2 damage and causes [Burn] debuff, dealing [Int] damage over a ten second period. When thrown, explodes on impact , dealing AOE damage. Radius 25 feet.
Elemental effect menu added for skills!
I read that and paused before I opened my skills menu and scrolled down to spinning Mana arrow.
Spinning Mana arrow: level 7 40% exp cost 68 Mana (active)
A dense, spinning arrow made of Mana. Range 84 feet. Does [Int + Wis] x 2 damage.
When imbued with:
Earth: adds a hard shell on the outside of the arrow, adding [Int] impact damage. Shell deteriorates shortly after impact.
Air: arrows ignore wind resistance, vastly improving projectile speed and range. Can be made transparent.
Fire: adds [Burn] debuff, dealing [Int] damage over a ten second period. [Burn] debuff doesn't stack with itself, instead it resets the timer. Can ignite flammable objects.
Water: ignores water resistance, ideal for underwater combat. Adds a limited amount of mobility to move around obstacles. Can douse enemies or put out fires.
Light: does increased damage to undead or demonic beings. Large chance to add [Blind] debuff for ten seconds. Has [Purify] effect.
Dark: can travel through shadows. Does increased damage to beings of light.
I read the menu twice before I started to get a few ideas. First, I made a light arrow and tried to shroud it with dark Mana. As soon as I did, the dark Mana stared smothering the light, and the light burned away the dark. A mutual destruction.
(To make opposite elements coexist so easily, you'll need a higher level elemental Manipulation)
Huh. Thanks game. Haven't heard from you in a while.
(You're game is starting to pick up, so it's getting more fun to watch. I can throw in a few hints every now and then)
Good to know. Now, the game said that that is the easy way. Which should mean that there is a not so easy way. I sat and thought about it for a minute. If the light and dark fight as soon as they touch, maybe there is a way to keep them from touching. I formed an Earth she'll around the arrow, and compressed as much light as I could into the hollow center. When it felt close to bursting, I shrouded the whole thing in darkness, found the closest zombie with a clearly visible shadow, and sent the arrow through my own. The arrow shot through the air and disappeared through my shadow with the faintest of ripples, and flew out of the zombies own and impaled it through the back.
(73 + 80) x 2= 306
306 + 73 = 379 damage!
Almost instantly upon impact, the shadows dissipated, leaving the earthen arrow sticking through the waking corpse. About a second later, the shell started crumbling and the light burst out of the arrow in an explosive fashion.
Critical hit! (73) x 2 = 146 damage!
The zombie crumbled into nothing, leaving it's loot behind. All in all, it was more effective than I thought it would be.
New skill subtype added!
Shrouded light arrow added to spinning Mana arrow menu!
I swiped away the notification and focused on my next project. I created another Earth shell and filled it with pure oxygen. I knew this next part would be a little tricky because I didn't want it to explode while still in my hands, so I needed to find my target before the next step. I found my zombie not too far away, still within my arrows range, so I took aim and added the fire before quickly shooting the arrow. The flaming Earth arrow sailed through the air, slower than I would have liked, and lodged into the zombies hip. I would need to practice more with with the added weight. Just like last time, it took a second before the earthen part started to break down and the fire came into contact with the oxygen. The explosion was much larger than the one before.
306 + 153 AOE damage = 459 total damage!
The first explosion was limited to just the torso of the zombie, this one set the surrounding grass and trees on fire. I quickly found an issue with these new arrows as I was collecting my loot. It seemed like for each element I was adding to the skill, I was also adding 100 mp to the cost. So those two arrows cost almost 700 Mana together. They also took longer to cast. It takes a little less than a second to cast a regular arrow, but it took almost five seconds to cast the explosive arrow. That's not bad outside of combat, but in a fight a lot can happen in five seconds.
Explosive arrow added to spinning Mana arrow menu!
With my wisdom at 80, I regen 160 mp a minute. With meditation active, that triples to 480 a minute so it only takes about six minutes to fully recharge. I can keep my meditation and my mana reinforcement up indefinitely.
Alert! 50 zombies killed! Summoning boss monster!
Hmm. No, I don't think I'm ready yet. I raised my hand and tried to detstroy the ID.
(Can't exit dimension until the boss spawn is killed!)
Well that was my second choice.
A mini map popped up in the lower right corner of my vision, and it showed a large red dot with a skull in the center that wasn't too far from me. It'd probably be a good idea to get there before it's done spawning, maybe I can start making a plan.
I started running towards the red dot, meanwhile noticing that I didn't see any other zombies in the area. A few seconds later, I found out where they were. In the center of the park, all the zombies that were left were joining together into a giant fleshy blob. Quite gross, really.
I stood behind a nearby tree and focused on regaining as much Mana as I could. It only took about a minute more before the blob started to gain shape. Whereas a normal zombie is the size of a regular human, the form the boss took was easily twenty foot tall. It's legs and arms were as thick as tree trunks and it's torso was the size of your standard SUV. It was half rotted, but it was clearly a male, and I thanked whatever God was listening that it spawned with pants. No Titans here, thank you very much.
While it scanned the park, no doubt searching for me, I Observed it.
Legion Zombie
Level: 35
Exp gained: 1500
Hp: 12000
Mp: 0
Strength: 250
Dexterity: 25
Endurance: 150
Intelligence: 20
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 0
Luck: 0
Bio: A massive zombie formed by a gathering of zombies for self preservation.
Thoughts about you: Anger
Special perk: Amount of health is doubled
Well there goes my day. It still hasn't seen me yet, so I watched how it acted. It was very big, but it didn't move very fast. I guess that's what a low dexterity gives you. While I watched, it seemed to grow frustrated at not being able to find me because it swung it's massive arm into a nearby tree and uprooted the entire thing and flung it away. And that's what a crazy high strength will give you. I shrunk back behind the tree I was hiding behind, realizing that it didn't provide as much protection as I thought. Unfortunately that was all the free time I had, because I heard it roar, seemingly in triumph, before I felt thundering footsteps headed my way. I dashed as fast as I could away from the tree just in time for it to be pulled completely free from the ground.
I continued running as fast as I could, looking for the closest cluster of trees, hoping to at least slow him down. I managed to reach them right before he did, but I didn't get in far enough before turning around. I turned around in time to see him trying to push the trees down around me, but they were holding, even though I could tell they wouldn't for long.
My problem was that I couldn't run anywhere without him catching me. His steps were slow but they were huge. I suddenly had an idea. I spun up two arrows with light Mana and waited till he cleared the tree tops out of the way. I only had to wait a few seconds before with a roar that shook the ground, he swept the trees out of the way. I took careful aim and shot the arrows straight at his face. Both of the arrows hit and burst in two bright flashes of light but only one caused the [Blind] debuff, putting a red icon with an eye in it under his healthbar, but that was all I needed.
73+80=153 x 2 = 306 + (73x2) = 452!
2 arrows = 904!
Critical hit! X2 damage!
1808 total damage!
He let out a roar even louder than the last and brought his hands up to cover his eyes. I knew I only had ten seconds so I quickly cast two explosive arrows, one in each hand, and shot them right at his knees. It took longer than usual because I was dual casting, and I could see the debuff icon ticking down the seconds. My mind may have been calm because of Gamers mind, but my body was reacting as it should. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins and my heart going a mile a minute. Right before his debuff went away, both arrows exploded and blew apart his legs.
459 x 2 arrows = 918 damage!
Critical hits!
918 x 2 =1836 total damage!
Unfortunately I forgot about the area of effect damage from the arrows. It was only by my panicked action of throwing my mana out in front of me that saved me from over three hundred points of damage, which would have meant death.
Skill created!
Mana Shield: level 1 – 1% exp (active)
Cost: (X) mp
A simple shield made of Mana. Drains mp for each point of damage it absorbs. Breaks after (500) points of damage. Can block higher amounts of damage at higher levels.
The shield sprung up around me and blocked the wave of damage, but the heat that managed to get through still singed my hands. Before I could look at my hands to see how bad it was, the giant himself started falling to the ground. Sadly, he was falling towards me. I took the smart route and started running to the side instead of backwards. When he impacted with the ground, it took all I had not to fall over. I turned around and saw that I had cleared the danger zone by only a few feet, but I kept moving away to avoid his arms. I could see his stumps burning, and saw he had the [Burn] debuff. I kept backing up until I was ahead of him quite a ways and I sent two more explosive arrows at his shoulders.
918 x 2 =1836 total damage!
I was far enough away from these explosions bthat I didn't need to worry about the AOE damage. The last two arrows separated his arms from his torso and I saw he had a new debuff I haven't seen yet. I clicked on the icon.
[Crippled] debuff: movement restricted by 90%
Well that'll do it. I stayed back and started shooting arrows at his head with all the Mana I had. He was down to just above half health, so with all the critical hits I kept getting, it didn't take too long before he broke apart and dissolved into light.
1500 exp gained!
Zombie Dimension cleared!
50 basic zombies killed and 1 boss zombie killed!
Requirements met to unlock title Amateur Zombie Hunter
Title: Amateur Zombie Hunter
When equipped, deals 10% more damage to undead beings.
It was a hefty chunk of exp even if it wasn't enough to level up, but the title was nice. My student title had stopped working a while back when I passed sixty intelligence and wisdom. I walked forward and looked at the loot that dropped. I grabbed the money and put it into my inventory, bringing my 250 from the zombies before to just over one thousand. I grabbed all the bones that were scattered around and added them to the rest. What interested me though, were the items that were left.
One of the items, was a book. It was a deep purple color with a symbol that looked like a weird gate on the front. Observe told me it was a skill book.
Skill book detected! Would you like to learn the skill?
Who wouldn't? I clicked yes and the book dissolved into light and I had a new spell.
Skill learned!
Conjure familiar: Level 1 – 0% exp (active)
Cost: 100 mp
Summons a ghostly wolf to fight for you for (60) seconds. Different summons will be available at higher levels.
That'll help a lot, actually. I could already think of several ways to use this to my advantage. I stuck my hand out and cast the spell. A special blue wolf appeared in a swirl of blue energy and started walking around, wagging it's tail happily. I leaned down to pet it and it pressed it head against my hand. It felt weird, certainly furry, but cold also. After sixty seconds, the wolf faded out and I was mildly surprised to be sad that It was gone. I wonder if it'll be the same one every time I summon it. I cast it again, and it was clearly the same one by the way it was happy to be there. I'll just resummon it the entire time I'm in IDs. Maybe it'll increase the summon time at higher levels.
I picked up the last item that dropped. It was a small round jar, filled with a bright red liquid. I figured I already knew what it was, and an observe confirmed it.
Small health potion: heals ailments and 35% hp when drank.
I went ahead and popped the cork on it and drank it down, watching the skin on my scorched hands grow back. It was probably a waste to drink it now, but I couldn't exactly go home with obvious injuries like that. I'd have no good answer for it if Dad asked questions.
I recast my familiar spell and started walking home. Ive actually started to enjoy these walks at night. The red hue of the moon gives everything a creepy and somber vibe, but the lack of noise is refreshing. Knowing that I don't have to hide my power is liberating.
I got to my house and opened the door and trudged down the hall to my room. Right before I flipped down onto my bed, I destroyed the ID. The deep right light coming through the window turned into the soft orange light of sunrise. Before I could start to relax, I heard my name from down the hall along with being told that breakfast was ready. With a deep sigh I got up to change clothes and wash up.
Breakfast progressed like normal with the usual small talk. I wasn't sure how to feel about Tom, but he's not so bad. At least, his cooking isn't.
Today is Friday, so I know today is test day. I wasn't worried, the material was super easy with a high intelligence. When I read the questions, the answers require the smallest effort on my part. What I was thinking about though, was what we would do over the weekend. Tom has stuck the the five days on, two days off schedule and I appreciate that. We typically do something like go to the lake nearby or to the park. Last weekend we went to the movies and saw the newest movie to come out. It was definitely a trip to see the matrix in theaters. Tom certainly enjoyed it, and I had a laugh when I quoted a line before it happened and watched his shocked reaction.
When we went to the study, I sat down in my usual chair but Tom didn't. He walked over to one of the bookshelves and searched for a moment before pulling out a brown leather book, just slightly smaller than the text books. He came over and placed it on the desk in front of me.
"We are going to study something different today. I know Friday is usually for tests, but you and I both know that you already know all the answers. So today, we are going to go garden."
I looked down and picked up the book he had put in front of me. It had a simple brown leather cover, but other than that it was plain. There were no words on the spine and nothing on the front or back cover. I opened the front cover and scrawled on the bottom corner was Tom's name. Flipping through the rest of the book, I saw that the rest of the pages were all handwritten in the same neat handwriting as the name on the first page. Flipping to a random page I found a detailed description of a raspberry plant, along with a very well done sketch. Flipping to the next page showed a calendar for when best to plant in the year, along with all the directions for caring for the plant.
"That's my person journal for when I went through my gardening phase. I've planted or taken care of more plants than I can possibly remember."
Flipping through the pages and seeing all the careful handwriting and detailed sketches, I believed him.
"You can keep the book to study later, for now let's go out back." He said.
We walked to a place along the far side of our house, where I could see bags of fertilizer and an assortment of tools.
"The first step to starting a garden is preparing the ground. We need to remove the top layer of grass and till the dirt to make it easier to work with." As he said this he handed me a pair of gloves.
"Gardening is a great hobby to get into, it can be relaxing and calming. As long as you can look past it feeling like a chore." He laughed and picked up a hoe and a rake, handing me the former. "The gloves will help protect against blisters on your hands. Put them on and then take the rake to start pulling the grass up. Try to get down far enough to get the root too."
He went on to show me where to start, telling me that too close to the house wouldn't be good because the rain rolling off the house could damage part of the garden. As he said this, he was looking off into the distance as gathering clouds that were getting ever closer and darker. I started like he showed me and he followed behind with the rake, pulling all the debris out of the way and into a pile. We didn't say much to each other, only the passing comment if I missed a spot, but it was nice. I could see what he meant about it being relaxing, but I could also see what he meant about looking past the feeling of it being like a chore. I could feel muscles that were previously unused growing sore. At least, until my healing factor kicked in a whisked the soreness away.
+1 Strength!
+1 Endurance!
Well that solves the feeling like a chore bit. Now it's grinding. We continued on till we had cleared a spot big enough for what we wanted to plant and we put out tools down. With the grumble of thunder growing closer, he picked up a pick and showed me how to till and loosen up the soil. We planted all kinds of things, watermelon, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, even some blueberries. I heard the alert ping but I ignored it for now. Afterwords he had me bring over a bag of fertilizer. I ripped open the top and started to pour it onto the soil and he showed me how to spread it evenly.
He sat back on his heels and tilted his head up to look at the sky. "I like this kind of fertilizer. It needs a bit more care than the regular kind, but this feeds as the plants get watered."
I sat back and looked over just in time to see a fat droplet of rain fall right in the middle of his forehead and roll down between his eyes and off the tip of his nose.
He turned to me and smiled, "And because we live here in Washington where it rains all the time, our plants are being fed all the time." He stood up and started towards the house, the rain starting to fall heavier around him. "Can you put that stuff away? I'm gonna go start lunch."
I gathered all the extra seeds in their packets and tossed them into my inventory by habit and picked up all the tools and ran them over to the shed and threw the fertilizer bags into the outside trash cans and ran inside.
I closed the front door behind me and took my shoes off and walked to my room to change into dryer clothes. When I walked into my room I pulled up the alert that I had gotten.
Skill created!
Gardening: level 1/10- 56% exp (passive)
Plants grown by you grow 10% faster and 10% larger than usual.
I won't ever complain about a free passive ability. I get why there are only ten levels though, I was gardening for several hours and I'm only halfway to the next level. It's gonna take a while to max out. But this also means I can get skills for other things too. I rushed through changing and ran back to the kitchen to see about helping with lunch.
An hour later I was sitting with Tom at the table, munching on the sandwiches we made to hold us over till the pot roast was done. It felt nice to be sitting after a little manual labor and a little cooking. Speaking of which, I got a new skill for.
Cooking: level 1 – 79% exp (passive)
Food and drink items made by you will taste 10% better than usual. Unlocks temporary stat enhancement at level 15.
Current food quality level: mediocre
I wasn't happy with the quality it gave me, but I knew I had to start somewhere.
We both finished our sandwiches about the same time, and after taking the plates to the kitchen Tom came back and sat back down. He leaned towards me slightly. "So. You haven't said anything about what you might want, but we both know your birthday is next week. Any ideas about what you might want? Is there something you want to do? A movie you want to see?"
I leaned back in my chair and pretended to think about it. In actuality, I was pretty surprised because I had no idea when my birthday was. I looked back at Tom and had an idea. "Do you even know how old I'll be?" I tried to play it off like I was just testing him. He laughed and said, "Of course I do. You'll be turning the big 1-3. Officially a teenager."
I nodded along with what he was saying. So I had guessed pretty close when I first got here. I had an answer for his question already, the book that the boss zombie dropped had given me a skill and I wanted to see if I could rapidly gain skills the same way. "I want to go to a bookstore. But now I have a question of my own."
He looked surprised at my answer but leaned back into his chair and waved his hand. "Sounds fair, a question for a question, go ahead and ask."
I tilted my head a little, trying to seem innocent, "How do we make money?"
He laughed and seemed relieved. "Oh that's an easy one. I started collecting books when I was younger, and developed quite a collection. So many actually that I even earned a nickname among my fellow collectors. They called me the librarian. After awhile I started selling some of my less collectable ones and eventually I opened a book store, and then another, and a third and fourth. Now they are all self ran and I don't have to oversee them anymore."
He got up to refill his glass and sat back down with a sigh and a he had a little smile on his face. "That's actually how I met your mother. She had heard about my collection of rare books and she came to see for herself. She loved magic, in all it's forms. Luckily, I was interested in just about anything rare so I had quite a bit on the subject. We grew close over our shared interests and fell in love. By this point all the shops were already self sufficient, so when she became pregnant we were able to settle down and see to raising you." His smile had turned slightly sad now, but before I could ask the obvious question, he turned to me. "Your mother might not be here now, but she does love you very much. She had to leave because her other family is having issues she needed to be around for. Shes special, just like you are."
He took a sip of his drink and I took advantage of the pause. "What do you mean by special?"
He set his cup down gently and looked at me like I was hiding a secret we both knew. I was a grown man in my last life, but that look made me feel like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar.
He laughed it off though and said, "Even I can see your growth. Your mom said this would happen about this time, a huge growth in a short period of time. Other than the usual puberty of course. You've grown taller and you're already smarter than I am. You may not know more, but your mind is certainly faster and better at retaining information. She said that when that happens, to give you something."
He got up from the table and went to his room and came back with another book, this one different than the last, he held it in one hand and something small and shiny in the other. The book was solid white, and only about an inch thick. Its binding was a material I couldn't place, but it was soft and smooth to the touch.
"Your mom is something special and she never hid anything from me, but I think I'll let her tell you about her side of the family." He slid a shiny coin across the table to me. I hadn't seen a coin like it before, so I observed it.
Golden Drachma:
The currency of ancient Greece
Well that's pretty neat. Not sure how it would help here though.
"She said there would be instructions in the book on how to use Iris messaging, but I'll just tell you how." He handed me the book and looked to me and said with a smile, "Now I know this is gonna sound strange, but youll have to call her from the bathroom."
I looked at him to see if he was serious. He may have been smiling, but he clearly meant it. "Youll need steam. It's the easiest way I've found to make it work. I've changed the lighting around so it's easier to make a rainbow. When you have a rainbow made, toss the coin into it and say, ""Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering."" You'll know it worked because you won't hear the coin hit the floor. Then, you have to ask for who you're trying to reach. Her name is Hecate." Suddenly everything fell into place. Greece, magic, all the crazy question marks filled in in my bio. With that, he left me alone and went to the kitchen. Well that explains it then. I knew the name of a goddess when I heard one. My mother here is the greek goddess of magic.
Quest complete!
+1000 exp
Level up!
1 random skill book awarded and added to inventory!
I swiped those notifications away and decided to look at the skill book later, I had a call to a goddess to make.