2 Ch. 2 Grinding

Now I'm no expert on being a forest type of guy, so when I skinned the wolf, let's just say it looked like I needed some work and leave it at that. I found out my summons didn't need food, which was good because there wasn't a lot to eat when I finished butchering it. The worst part was it tasted gamey. I needed to figure out a way to find some garlic and get a frying pan. I read somewhere once that if you cook wild animal meat with garlic that the gamey taste would go away or at least help mollify it somewhat. Either way I had a little bit of meat left over, but not a lot. Apparently they were hungry too, even without needing to eat. Food needs satisfied for the moment, I needed to find a stream.

I decided to go through and pick my feat, there were three available to me.

Cost Reduction - Allows you to choose 1 type of monster, the cost of summoning this monster type is reduced by 1. Cost of summoning cannot be reduced lower than 1.

No Mana's Land - Allows you to summon one of your monsters at no Mana cost. This Feat can only be chosen once.

Affinity - Allows you to choose 1 type of monster, all monsters of this type gain double attribute points whenever they level. This also increases their Mana cost by the number of additional Attribute Points. This Feat is retroactive.

The two choices that stood out to me were Cost Reduction and Affinity. Cost Reduction would be good for my Goblin army, but Affinity would boost them farther than myself and my other monsters. Plus If I chose Affinity now, then I could choose Cost Reduction later, or at least I hoped I could. Either way I needed to get stronger and boosting my Goblins would be the best way to go. I checked over my choice and selected it, then realized it didn't count them as Runts, but Goblins. I wondered if this meant all Goblins were considered Runts, or if there were other Goblins I could turn into summons.

That wasn't a top priority to worry about right now, what I needed to focus on was a new line that appeared on my sheet just under spells.

Deck Size 24

As I looked at it the description came up.

Deck Size is the amount of monsters and spells one can have in their deck. The size of your deck is double your Mana.

This made a lot of sense to me. It would limit the amount of monsters and spells you had so you couldn't have hundreds of different cards without being an extremely high level. It also didn't affect me right now because I only had 9 monsters in my deck, so I used my points from Affinity to increase my Goblins' Attributes even more. Once all that was settled I decided it was time to find some water. "Does anybody know where to find some water nearby?" I asked my summons, the Goblins shook their heads along with everyone else except for Stalker, the first Forest Wolf I captured. He pointed his nose in the air, sniffed a few times and began to trot off in a direction.

It took a few minutes to get there, but we found a stream. It looked clean and clear, perfect for drinking. Dipping my head into the stream I relished the feel of the cool water on my face and drank until I felt better. Once that was taken care of I smiled. It was time to start getting stronger. I could hunt for food, use this stream for water and the forest around us would provide more monsters and Experience. It was time to grind.

I chose a random direction and headed off, making sure to keep track of where I was going by marking trees as I passed, so I could get back to the stream. We encountered another pack of Forest wolves, 6 in total this time. They were all level 3, which if my math added up and it usually did meant that we'd be getting 150 experience each wolf. My Goblins rushed 3 of the wolves while my Wolves and Jack rushed the other 3. The Goblins were merciless, hacking, smashing and slashing with a fury. Their improved stats made them a lot stronger, making it easy for them to take down the wolves. My wolves and Jack easily overcame the other three as well, each wolf taking on one of the other wolves while Jack slammed into them from the side, his antlers goring them all the way through. I added 2 of the wolves to my Deck and grabbed the carcasses of the other 4, dragging them to the stream.

I had my wolves and Goblins help me dig a hole big enough so the bodies of the wolves would all fit, and was about to bury them before I noticed that one of them had a shimmering in its belly. As my hand approached the shimmering, a message popped up.

YOU HAVE FOUND UNKNOWN RING.

A small golden ring appeared in my hand, I honestly had no idea how to even go about identifying the ring, when I focused on it I was given a message my inspect skill was too low. That threw me for a second, then I smiled and focused on the body of one of the wolves.

DEAD FOREST WOLF LEVEL 3

GIVES 150 EXP

SKILLS UNLOCKED

NEW SKILL GAINED INSPECT

Inspect - Allows the user to glean information by focusing on an object. Higher levels yield more information, as well as allowing identify for higher level items.

Skills are representations of knowledge that have been put into practice, either by hard work or by learning from others. Skills can be leveled through constant practice.

Focusing on the word Skills in my menu allowed me to see that description. "Haha, okay it is like a game. That might help with trying to skin and cut the wolves for food." I said to my monsters, who all ignored me like I was going mad. I sighed, I needed someone to talk to, but first I had to get stronger.

We continued to hunt for the rest of the day, coming across 10 deer as well as another 20 Goblin Runts. I took everything I could find from the Goblins, pocketing a few coppers and a silver. As well as a short sword from one that I gave to Gobra, who seemed pleased at the trade and a short spear from another that I gave to Gobtu, who was grinning as he began to spin it in the air. The deer didn't have anything special, so I brought them back to my spot by the stream. They gave only 10 experience each, which by looking at their low stats made sense. The Goblins gave a grand total of 700 experience, a few of them being level 2.

When we got back to our spot with the deer, I set up a fire and began to try and cut up the wolves first. It was then that I realized I needed something other than the curved daggers I was using. I looked over to Zidane who had his 2 kitchen knives. Trading him my 2 daggers I went back to the task. It wasn't a huge difference, but the knives were straighter without that curve that kept getting in the way. It took half an hour to cut up the first wolf, butchering it less than I did last time. When I finished the third wolf I got a new notification.

NEW SKILL GAINED BUTCHER

Butcher - Allows the user to successfully skin and cut meat from dead animals. May also work on monsters. Higher skill levels increase quality of pelt as well as quality and quantity of meat.

I smiled as I read the message. I guess I had to have some kind of success and knowledge before it would allow me to gain the skill. When I set to the fourth wolf, I could feel what I had done wrong on the other wolves and although my actions weren't precise and perfect, I was able to skin it much easier. It took almost until the moon was in the middle of the sky, which I assumed was midnight, before I finished with the last deer. My Butcher skill was now at 4 and I was skinning and cutting the meat as well as a professional, or at least I thought it was a professional. I had all 20 deer pelts and the 4 wolf pelts laid out on rocks, after scraping the excess meat off and cleaning them in the stream. I didn't know how to tan them, but I remembered something about urine and water being mixed, hoping it would work I used three of the wolf hides and tied them together in a way that would hopefully have the least amount of leakage. Again I was no woodsman, but I had a sneaking suspicion this would work, what with magic being real and all.

I dipped my makeshift bag into the water and held it up to see a very slow drip coming from it. it dripped about once every 30 seconds, so it wasn't horrible. Then I let loose, filling it up a third of the way, then dipped it into the stream filling it up another third. Finally pushing the last wolf hide in the bag I set it in the hole. Once that was done I drank my fill from the stream, it was flowing enough I didn't have to worry about my urine being in my drinking water. Then I ate until I was full and laid down against Stalker, closing my eyes and falling asleep.

I woke up twice to relieve myself, keeping my makeshift bag full evenly between urine and water. I woke up the next morning to a notification.

NEW SKILL GAINED LEATHERWORKER

Leatherworker - Allows the user to tan hides and use those tanned hides to create all manner of leather items from the hides of animals. Higher levels yield better results.

I knew for a fact that you couldn't tan hides in one night, so my assumption was right. Magic made things a lot easier. I didn't use magic on it, but the magic in the world must work to speed things up and govern your skills. A few things I didn't know about leatherworking also seemed to pop into my mind, like information being downloaded directly into my brain. I knew I could use bones to make needles if I whittled them down enough and used the right bones, as well as using the outermost layer of animal intestines to make string. If I did it right I could fashion a true backpack as well as some new clothes. Mine were getting dirty and smelled awful, but I didn't feel like being naked. So I hunted again, mostly finding deer and one Spiked Bear that was level 5, adding it to my collection of cards. The deer no longer giving experience since I hit 5 levels above them. The Bear however netted me 400 experience.

Spike (Spiked Bear)

Level 5

Attack 15

Defence 16

Health 15

Mana 0

Exp 0/450

Cost 6

I named him Spike because well, it was hard to keep naming different creatures. He was huge, about 6 feet tall on all fours, a full ten foot tall when standing on his back legs and somewhere around 4 foot wide. He had spikes that looked like stalagmites made of hair covering his entire body. Thankfully my monsters were getting strong enough he didn't pose a problem for them. I had to return to camp a few times to create more containers so I could continue to tan hides as we hunted. Mine and my monsters levels kept increasing, except for the deer hunting of course. It seemed you didn't get experience for anything 5 levels below yours, which was fine because I wanted to hunt bigger game.

Day 3 after I gained Leatherworker I had finally finished my first set of clothes. I sighed as I looked at my gains over the last 3 days.

Richard

Level 9

Attack 10

Defense 15

Health 10

Mana 12

EXP 600/850

Card Transmutation

Feats

Affinity (Goblin)

Spells

Skills

Inspect 15

Butcher 12

Leatherworker 10

Deck Size 24

I was focusing on survivability mostly, even though none of the creatures I fought could get through my monsters to fight me, I knew eventually one would so I upped my defence to make it harder for them to hurt me. Wall and Spike were my big tanks, doing nothing but taking punishment while the rest I focused on being able to defend and attack. I hadn't found any huge monsters I liked enough to add to my deck, a few more wolves and mostly deer and Goblins, although the Goblins we found were higher levels than normal, even coming across a couple of level 5's. The presence of that many Goblins being in close proximity had me somewhat worried, because it had to mean they had some kind of nest or warren nearby. I hadn't found it yet, but I knew eventually I would run into it, hopefully I could take it by that time.

I looked at the set of leather clothes I had made and smiled, it looked good. Not like fashion show good, but it looked good enough for me to feel comfortable wearing it. I slid out of my old clothes, putting on the new ones, as soon as I laced up the boots I saw a notification.

OUTFIT BONUS OBTAINED

HUNTERS LEATHER ARMOR

Hunters Leather Armor - Made from the hides of multiple different monsters. Allows user to learn the skill Hunter.

NEW SKILL GAINED HUNTER

Hunter - Allows the user to learn the skills needed to track down animals and monsters. Higher levels will yield more information about what the hunter is tracking.

My eyes lit up as I read the notification, then another information download came and I had to laugh. I couldn't claim I wasn't a woodsman anymore, I was gaining all the skills necessary to survive in the woods.