Lloyd slammed down onto the branches, his bones rattling from the impact. The feeling of unstoppable power coursing through his veins dissipating as he ground to a halt. All the energy in his body was gone, he was utterly drained, and all he could do was pull himself along the branch towards the trunk before he collapsed.
Laid up against the trunk, Lloyds muscles finally gave out. leaving him effectively paralysed until his body could repair itself. This wasn’t of any concern though, Lloyd was currently engrossed in the notifications he had gotten as he flew above the crocodiles.
[Electrify (Inferior)] – the most basic of lightning attacks, shoot a barrage of electricity at your enemy from a short range.
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[Supercharge (Uncommon)] – Tap into most primal representation of lightning, releasing a storm of pure unadulterated energy upon your foes. Imbue your weapons, armour, and body with supercharged lightning energy giving it heightened speed, power and conductivity, releasing devastation upon your foes. Power is hidden within, let none survive the storm.
Lloyd could barely believe his eyes, an uncommon skill? He didn’t even know you could upgrade skills, let alone skip an entire rarity, he hadn’t even been intending for this to happen, he had just embraced what his body told him he could do.
This wasn’t the first time Lloyd had seen an uncommon skill, the first time was way back at his second skill selection, but that skill had been unsatisfactory to say the least. The skill ‘Arcane marble’ was one of the skills the system just handed out even if you didn’t deserve it, something to make you feel accomplished,
Arcane marble was essentially a carbon copy of the lightning marble he had used to kill the alpha compy, its uncommon rarity was entirely undeserved for something he could do without a skill. The premise had been good, but not uncommon rarity good, the idea of a lighting bomb was far better executed by plasma mines which was only common rarity.
This time however, the rarity was entirely deserved.
The sheer power that had been coursing through his body when he jumped from the swamp to the forest was incomparable to anything he’d felt before, and he was certain that it was caused by supercharge. It was similar to how he used his mana to temporarily infuse parts of his body with mana to exhibit more power, or how he had started to infuse his skills with electrify.
These factors had culminated in a skill perfect for infusing himself and his weapons with energy during fights. Supercharge was yet another skill perfect for his combat style, and somehow it still wasn’t the most impressive thing he’d just gained.
[Galactic talent] – be the first to create a skill in your galaxy. Across hundreds of worlds and trillions of people, you were the first to successfully create a new skill, truly putting you amongst the elite of the multiverse. + 10% all stats
How the fuck had he been the first? Lloyd had to admit, he did consider himself a bit above the rest of the flock, but not by much, he was just smart and decently athletic, not some super-genius of the world.
So why him? Out of an entire galaxy, out of trillions of individuals, only he had managed to create a skill so far. So many supremely talented people, yet it was him, some random seventeen-year-old kid, that beat them all to it.
This seemed far too good to be true, surely someone else must’ve done it before him, but… no, it said the first, not one of the first, the first. Getting over the shock of this revelation, Lloyd looked at the title again, this time mostly ignoring the description as he stared at the stat bonus.
Ten percent, to everything, that was absurd. His best title otherwise was uncommon artisan, which gave fifteen in all of his stats, while it was currently better than galactic talent, it would soon be overshadowed by the growth of his stats.
Lloyd had read about percentage multipliers in one of the books in the guildhall, but it only mentioned stat gains of 1-5% barely half of what he had just gotten, and most of the time those titles only affected one or two stats not all nine. This title was absolutely amazing, it was a miracle he gotten it, and it carried the effects of a miracle with it.
The boon to his power was much needed, as his leveling had once again slowed down. It seemed that around every five levels the exp barrier to level up rose higher and higher, hopefully this would stop soon, or he would quickly reach a wall.
This helpful stat influx would help him stand above similar levelled competition for a while, allowing him to push deeper into the centre of the island. As excited as Lloyd was to test out his new skill, he was unable to do so at the moment, since -unsurprisingly- his bodily paralysis hadn’t worn off in the five minutes it took to read his system notifications.
Unable to do anything else, Lloyd started circulating the miniscule amount of mana he was able to mobilise, and went over his status page.
status
Name: Lloyd Tethys
Race: Human (F) – lvl 15
Class: lightning mage – lvl 17
Profession: bestial craftsman – lvl 14
Health points (HP) 352/415
Mana points (MP) 78/455
Stamina points (SP) 113/310
Stats
Strength – 180
Agility – 101
Endurance – 124
Toughness – 112
Vitality – 166
Perception – 133
Intelligence – 182
Wisdom – 155
Willpower – 108
Lloyd had grown a lot in the last few days, he now had over one hundred points in all nine stats, and managed to push intelligence back to his highest stat -if only by a little. After the boost he gained from his latest title, things were much better and he had more confidence in unplanned encounters against powerful enemies now.
After going over his status page, Lloyd was still unable to get up but he had regained some semblance of movement in his arm, which could now slightly twitch if he tried to. Since the mana circulation appeared to be working, Lloyd infused as much of his dwindling mana supply as he could spare.
Soon all that was left of the paralysis was a biting numbness across his body, which quickly dissipated once he started moving. Lloyd stretched out his arms as he looked down at the ground, the dense foliage blocked his full vision, but he was sure that the terrain was sloping upwards.
With the immense power withing his body after the boost from the title, Lloyd climbed down the trunk of the tree easier than ever, reaching the ground in seconds. The first thing he noticed was the difference in humidity, the air here was cool, and damp as opposed to the dry warmth of the forest on the other side of the swamp.
Perhaps this was only natural for somewhere so close to a swamp, but it wasn’t the hot muggy kind of humidity that usually came with a horde of mosquitoes. The air here was more akin to a field after heavy rain, which was odd considering it hadn’t rained since he got here.
Maybe it had rained while he was in the guildhall, but it seemed incredibly unlikely that its effects would have lasted so long afterwards. The reason for the sudden change in climate didn’t bother Lloyd to much, as it was a nice contrast to the hostile heat of the swamp.
What did bother him was how it effected the flora, with more water to go around the trees were more prominent than before, growing much closer together and letting less light through. The giant ferns and bushes that permeated the forest floor had only gotten larger, reaching multiple metres in the air, creating impenetrable walls of foliage.
This sudden abundance of places to hide meant ambushes were a much larger threat for him to worry about, but also that the enemies here would likely be much smaller than where he’d been so far. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but he would need to get used to fighting these kinds of creatures, as he had gotten used to the titanic reptiles that had controlled the islands regions so far.
With this theory in mind, Lloyd set off across the forest floor with Thunder bone gripped in his hand. Normally Lloyd would default to using his mana and skills for fighting, but after supercharging himself, his mana reserves were too low for anything more than a few mana bolts.
The forest was a jittering cacophony of clicks and screeches from insect and birds hidden throughout the underbrush and canopy. It was slightly unnerving, hearing sounds from all directions and being able to locate the source of none, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Lloyd slowly trekked through the forest, heading to where he thought the centre of the island would be, the terrain gradually sloping upwards as he went. All throughout his journey the pervasive clicking of insects followed him, growing louder and more invasive as he went.
After almost an hour trapped in this environment Lloyd had grown extremely paranoid, gripping his halberd as his eyes darted around nervously. As the sounds got louder, the direction they came from became clearer, but it was constantly fluctuating, never coming from the same place twice.
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He was very tempted to just start running in the direction where the sound was the quietest, but the last time he had done something like that the miscus had corralled him into an obvious trap. Having learnt from past experiences, Lloyd tried his hardest to block out the sounds and stick on a straight path, but it wasn’t easy.
Whenever he focused too hard on blocking out the sounds, he would suddenly find himself facing an entirely different direction than before, unable to recall turning. The inexplicable nature of how he kept turning around was very unnerving, but at least he could find some comfort in the fact he’d regenerated around half of his mana by now.
As Lloyd cleared the top of the hill he’d been climbing for the last half hour, he heard the sound of running water in the gully down below. This was a welcome surprise, as some nice cold water was just what Lloyd needed to help with his brutal headache after hours of mental torment from the unseen insects.
Stumbling down the steep hillside, Lloyd found himself next to a small lake of crystal-clear water surrounded by grasses that stretched far over his head. Lloyd knelt down next to the water, scooping up a mouthful in his hands and downing it without a second thought.
“Ohh, that so goo—”
Lloyd coughed violently as a pair of thick keratinous arms wrapped around him, pinning his outstretched arms against his face. In a gap between his arms Lloyd managed to spot a pair of black bear sized insects in front of him, likely working with whatever had just grabbed him.
Thinking fast, Lloyd summoned two mana bolts that struck the bugs in the back, distracting them long enough for him to struggle his way out of the other ones vice-like grip. Lloyd dove to the side, grabbing Thunder bone from the ground, he spun around and hastily blocked as one of the bugs leapt towards him.
A dozen or so mana bolts materialised behind him, slamming into the bugs face yet barely doing any real damage. The carapace covering their bodies was too thick for a regular mana bolt to pierce, and theirs were too small and numerous to be feasible targets.
The situation in the melee wasn’t going much better, as even Thunder bone struggled to puncture their exoskeleton at such close range. Behind the bug he was engaging, the other two had collected their senses and started rushing towards them.
Suddenly Lloyd realised something. This was the perfect situation to test out his new skill. Another bolt appeared in the sky, only one this time, but one should be all he would need. As supercharge was activated, the bolt gained a shimmering glow as it shot toward its target.
The bolt effortlessly pierced the hide of the insect, but while it was certainly much more effective than a normal bolt, a small hole in the chest was not enough to put down one of these bugs. Luckily, that was just the first part of the skill.
A crackling spiral of lightning tore through the air after the bolt, ripping into the bugs back sending flesh and yellowy goo everywhere. The bug fell lifeless to the ground, twitching as the charred hole through its lungs crackled with lightning, leaving only the two behind it living.
Suddenly, the bugs began to violently rub their rough forearms against each other like masochistic violinists. Sparks shot off of their arms as a deafening chorus of clicks and cracks rang out.
Lloyd dropped his weapon on the ground, clamping his hands around his ears as he tried his best to block out the noises. All the while the bugs only moved closer rearing up their second sets of legs to strike while continuing the cacophony.
With few choices remaining, Lloyd took a risk and exposed himself to the noises as mana flooded into his arm, swelling with power as he swung forward. Lightning ricochet up through the bugs body, blasting it backward as he got another kill notification.
Now the only one left was thrown out of place by its comrade’s death, interrupting its noises and giving Lloyd the chance to grab Thunder bone and wind up a powerful swing. The halberds blade tore through the air, slamming into the side of the bugs head, killing it instantly.
Lloyd dropped to the ground, blood running from his ears as he began circulating mana through his head. The splitting pain remaining from the insect’s weird abilities quickly dissipated, leaving Lloyd to go over the situation.
While he wasn’t in all too much danger during the fight, he could still have been hurt pretty bad, or attracted something that might have actually posed a threat to him. In close combat, Lloyd struggle to do any hits strong enough to break through their carapace, but if he got some distance like he did at the end he could easily kill them with his blade.
His first attempt at supercharging a mana bolt had worked great, but it used almost a tenth of his mana reserves so he had felt it overkill to use three when he could spare his mana and kill them just the same. A useful fact he’d learnt while testing out his gear in the guildhall, was that any skills activated via an enchantment on a tool or item wouldn’t cost any mana unless infused with another skill.
This was why Lloyd had opted to use the thunderstrike enchantment from his bracers rather than supercharging his fist. It was a good way to save mana as he still only had a little less than half of his mana left after expending it all, so using as little as possible was imperative.
Why he hadn’t sought out the source of the incessant sounds earlier, he couldn’t be sure, but overall, he was happy with how he handled things. He had learnt from his mistakes by not following the path his enemies tried to guide him down the path they desired, and he had stayed calm and composed during the fight.
The aftermath of the fight was less ideal, two of the insects -which turned out to be katydids according to the kill notification- had taken sever damage, ruining the most valuable material. The third katydid, and the only one with a useable carcass, was both the smallest and weakest at level twelve, making its exoskeleton too weak to be useable for armour.
This was unfortunate, as aside from the lizard hide he got back in the miscus village, he hadn’t gotten any materials for armour making. The effects of this were becoming increasingly obvious, as his profession fell further and further behind his class in level.
If something wasn’t done about this soon, Lloyd would once again face the problem of have having physical stats too low for his level. For now, this wasn’t the case, but it was a very likely possibility if nothing changed.
From now on, Lloyd would have to be more careful with how he killed his enemies, so that he would have more material to work with. In theory this wasn’t too hard to pull off, but lightning wasn’t the gentlest element when used offensively, so it was quite the endeavour to kill smaller beasts without severely damaging the bodies.
While it would be problematic to try not to damage a creature that ambushed him like the katydids had, it was at least something to work towards. If he couldn’t kill beasts in a way that preserved their bodies, then being an armourer focusing on using the materials of the monsters he killed would be problematic.
As Lloyd contemplated the feasibility of this task, he swore violently as he attempted to scrub the goo from the bugs off of his armour.
“Fucking, stupid bugs. Why can’t they have normal blood, nasty little shits.”
Lloyd tried as best he could, but it was just unreasonably difficult to scrub hemolymph -bug blood- off of his armour. Its texture was stickier and more viscous, clinging onto his armour like its life depended on it.
While his armour would soon remove the putrid goo by itself, Lloyd couldn’t afford to attract unwanted attention with the smell of fresh blood all over him. With any luck, if he was more careful, then he could hide under the grass and leaves whilst he headed further inland.
If he was unluck, he would have to retreat and hunt some larger, weaker beasts to make better armour in preparation, but that seemed unlikely. Finally happy with how clean his armour was, Lloyd reequipped it and set off once again, sticking to the shadows as he walked.
Lloyd travelled in silence, giant ferns hanging over his head, casting an eerie verdant light on the ground below. His ears took in every sound, the forest feeling much more alive now that the incessant clicking of the katydids wasn’t plaguing his mind.
When alone like this, the forest was quite peaceful the familiar sounds of animals all around him as leaves fell in the wind. The system however, seemed hellbent on reminding him he wasn’t safe here, as the silence was interrupted by deep guttural roars as a fight broke out nearby.
Eager to see some of the other beasts within this region of the forest, Lloyd crouched down and made his way over to where he heard the fight coming from. Barely pulling apart two giant blades of grass, Lloyd peered into the clearing, careful to remain unseen.
In the clearing dirt and leaf litter was thrown in all directions as two opponents duked it out on the forest floor. On one side was a spider with legs as thick as lampposts halfway inside a silk filled burrow lines with bones. On the other side was a five metre long lizard with five others that were smaller and appeared to be its children.
The spider was at a clear disadvantage, too slow to land a bite on the lizard which had already torn off two of its legs. All that the spider had going for it was the small lizard wrapped up in silk between its feet, but that was likely more of a con as it was only giving the lizard motivation.
In a lightning quick motion, the lizard dove forward, its body coiling around the spider’s head as it dug its jaws into the beast’s neck. Desperately trying to get the lizard off its vulnerable neck, the spider temporarily exposed itself to more damage as it leant forward and grabbed the lizard’s tail.
The lizard was too preoccupied with trying to kill the spider to notice that something was wrong. Before Lloyd even registered what he was looking at, the spider’s dagger-like fangs had penetrated the lizard’s tail, pumping it full of venom.
In moments, the lizards tail withered and decayed, a black rot spreading outwards from the spider’s fangs. All of a sudden, things weren’t looking so good for the lizard, and with its defenceless children behind it Lloyd felt a moral obligation to help it as best he could.
Trying not to blow his cover, Lloyd summoned a mana bolt on the other side of the spider from where he was, supercharging it and launching it before the spider noticed it. The shot towards the spider heading straight for its head, but at the last second it turned to the left, not dodging the mana bolt but negating some of the damage.
Instead of having its head pierced by the bolt, the spider instead received it to its dark brown abdomen, the lighting aftershock tearing a several inch thick hole directly through the it, splashing yellow blood everywhere. The spider screeched in fury letting the lizard get fully onto its back, but by now it was far too late.
The lizard’s tail was definitely compromised, as the venom had almost reached its wais— where the fuck had its tail gone?
Without any sign of the venom, the lizard’s tail had been severed almost perfectly smooth, blood clots already forming where its tail should have been. What had happened? Had he accidentally severed it with the supercharged mana bolt? Or, wait… no was it?
Droptail skink -lvl 15
He should have known, those little buggers had always been fast, why else would it have paid no attention when the spider bit its tail? It was all just a distraction, a ploy to make the spider think it had the advantage when it was really in dire straits.
At a speed visible to the naked eye, Lloyd could only stare as the lizard’s tail started to regrow like it was a retractable claw. Now unable to retaliate, the spider could only writhe in pain as the lizard severed the tendons in its neck, finally putting it out of its misery.
As soon as the spider fell, the lizards pushed it to the side and pulled its baby from the rubble clawing at the silken cocoon trying to free it. The net of silk fell limp on the ground, the baby crawling out shaken but undamaged, crawling under its mother’s belly.
The lizard let out a strange chirping sound, looking around the clearing and chirping again, its children running over from the foliage. As the babies dug into the spider the parent didn’t join them, keeping its head high in a constant vigil as it scanned the area for threats.
Its head swivelled across the entire area, pausing on occasion but moving on without acting, until it reached Lloyd. Its gaze sat for a few full seconds, squinting towards him, before moving on, hesitantly.
As the lizard averted its gaze, Lloyd let the grass fall back into place as he got up and started walking away. The grass covered him as he strolled through the maze like paths left by earlier animals, it truly was fascinating to watch these oversized monsters.
Even if they didn’t understand him, he felt there was intelligence behind some of them, not just the miscus had this effect, but the lizard too. Lloyd was certain that the skink had seen him but chosen to ignore him, feeling that he wasn’t a threat to its children, it left him alone under the condition that he moved on.
Maybe he was overthinking things, maybe the skink just hadn’t noticed him, but he didn’t truly believe that it hadn’t. looking into its eyes was like making eye contact with a crow or elephant, you knew the intelligence was there, you just couldn’t properly communicate.
While he could have made a move against them, even just to steal the spider carcass, he didn’t. He left it out of respect for the lizard, for how it had put itself in harms way for its child, and how its main goal was to simply raise them.
Lloyd had felt the connection, or at least he thought he did. Maybe not maybe he was overthinking things, the system addling his perception of other creatures.
No matter the truth, it didn’t matter right now. He was still stuck on this island, and he had a long way to go, so with adventure in mind, Lloyd started marching up the hill.
