3 Chapter 3 - The Awakening (3)

After the flash I was back on the ground, wheezing for air. The moment I came back I instantly casted heal on myself thrice. I pushed on the ground and managed to stand upright in one go. Due to the endurance increasing by three points my breathing stabilised rapidly. The injuries were also just barely healed, I could still feel a little bit of soreness but it didn't really put me at a disadvantage.

By then around two seconds had passed, I could see one of the goblins moving towards me. It seemed unarmed but was also level 2. I couldn't take risk of being complacent again and I took a step back and scooped up the spear just in time to meet its charge.

The spear stabbed out twice like lightning and pierced its stomach in succession. The goblin crouched down while trying to put back it's intestines back into its body. While the first goblin was incapacitated I turned my attention to the other three. They were all unarmed and Level 1, but I had learned my lesson and didn't slacken one bit and charged before they could surround me. I pierced the stomach of the one closest to me before any of them had any time to react. The stabbed goblin let out a screech which awoke the other two out of their daze, there were three dead goblins on the ground and another two wounded grievously. The fight went out of the remaining two and one them straight up fainted while the other one turned and ran into the jungle.

I quickly moved up to the fainted goblin and poked him full of holes to make sure he wasn't faking, then I finished off the other two. I could still hear the one who ran away moving, he seemed to be falling down continuously due to fear. I decided to pursue and attack him quickly if possible because he might alert more stronger goblins and they might start to hunt me down. I started to follow the sound of the goblin and soon caught up to him. When the goblin noticed that I was pursuing him, it became so afraid that its legs wavered and it soon enough tripped on its own feet again. I quickly finished it off and simultaneously leveled up.

Once I went back into the darkness I browsed through the newly unlocked skills and saw one which seemed like a necessary survival skill. It cost 2 skill points but I felt that it would keep me alive for longer.

Name : Eden Cunningham

Titles: None

Level : 2 to 3

Experience: 0/12

Race : Human

Class : None

Profession : None

Mana: 15 to 20 (Refills at 1.5 per minute)

Endurance - 9 to 10

Toughness - 2.5 to 3

Strength - 2.5 to 3

Agility - 3.5 to 4

Intelligence - 7 to 8

Dexterity - 4.5 to 5

Aura- 1 to 1.5

Skill Points : 0

-Level 1 Pole Weapon Mastery : Basic mastery in all pole or long armed weapons such as Staffs, Spears, Halberdiers and so on.

-Level 1 Buddha's Mind : Increases mental fortitude. Allows the mind to remain calm under duress and make split second decisions. Effectiveness gets amplified by Intelligence

-Level 1 Healing : Uses 5 mana to close and heal basic wounds and injuries. Can be cast on self and others.

-Level 1 Hunter: Uses 10 mana to activate for 5 minutes. Allows the caster to detect aura of other organisms up to 25 metres. Allows caster to retract aura and become undetectable if the caster doesn't move. Optionally, caster can also camouflage into the surroundings. Effectiveness gets amplified by Aura.

The Hunter skill was nearly perfect for my current surroundings. I could detect enemies beforehand, and accordingly decide to attack or retreat. I could also sneak up on them by using camouflage. No wonder it cost double the skill points. By my next level up my mana level and recovery would increase enough so that I could potentially have it active at all time. I was also able to determine that a level 1 goblin gave 1 EXP and a level 2 gave 2 EXP.

As I came back from the darkness, I noticed something glowing on the corpse of the goblin. After I picked up it up, the glowing stopped and a ring was revealed. There was a small hologram over the ring < Ring of Bhim : Strength +3, Dexterity +3> My base stats were sorely lacking in strength and this ring would help fix that and more dexterity is always better as it supported my spearmanship. After putting on the ring the description vanished. I felt a drastic change in my body as I could feel power surging underneath my skin. I spun my spear around and it moved like the wind. I had complete control over it.

I activated my Hunter Skill and scanned my surroundings. There were a few weaker Aura presences around me but they were all stationary and too far away to matter. I quickly made a beeline for the scene of previous fight to check for any more drops and also to retrieve the knife I had forgotten about. I needed a secondary weapon as I might get disarmed or the wooden spear might even break. Also as evident with the death struggle I had a few minutes ago, once someone is able to get into close quarters with me the spear would become useless.

After I reached the dead goblins and retrieved the knife from the eye socket of the unlucky creature, I looked around at the six naked corpses lying around full of holes. I made my way back towards the jungle. As I walked away from there, my hunter skill, which perhaps had a less than a minute to run out, indicated that a creature with an unfathomable Aura was approaching at breakneck speed towards me.

The Aura was so strong that I was rooted on the spot for a few precious seconds before my Buddha's Mind managed to free me. By then the creature was too close to me for me to run so I quickly recast Hunter and climbed up to the nearest tree. I activated both Concealment and Camouflage. The Aura was so overpowering that even when on the tree my legs were shaking. By the time the creature arrived underneath the tree I was hiding and my whole body had started involuntarily shaking in fear.

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