Leveling Up

Henry decided to take a rest and sat down on a tree to eat. Throughout the whole morning, he had gathered close to 100 herbs, and now that he had time, he began to go through them.

Henry observed the crowd gathering herbs as he ate. -"I shouldn't do this often; if I keep collecting all the herbs here, all those folks would be out of work." As Henry looked over the crowd, he noticed a tiny boy in shabby clothes staring at the leaf of bread he was chewing.

- "Do you want something to eat? I still have some of them." Henry took another loaf of bread and offered it to the boy.

The boy was skeptical at first, but his grumbling stomach eventually won him over, and he accepted the food Henry had offered him. Henry stood there watching as the boy devoured the bread in three bites and asked for more.

-" Are you an orphan?" Henry asked as he gave the boy another piece of bread

The boy shook his head as he wolfed down the second bread piece even faster than the first -"My father is ill and can't work, so I need to earn money to support my family."The child's eyes moistened as he mentioned his father.

-" Is he your only relative?" Henry pitied the boy, he too had gone through quite a bit when his family passed away, so he knew how the boy felt.

-"No, I have two sisters as well, one younger than me and the other older, but I have no idea where she is."

-" Don't know where she is? She was kidnaped!?" Henry was baffled by the bad luck of the child's family.

The boy bit his lips as he tried to hold back the incoming tears. " -" No, she and my father are both mages, so they usually go on missions together. However, my father was injured on one of them, so she had to join a group, but she never returned after this mission." The more the boy talked about his family, the sadder he became.

-"Didn't you get any news after that? What about the party she became a member of?" Henry was terrified about the story and sighed to himself, vowing never to do business with a shady guild.

-"We don't know what party he joined; my father wanted to ask around the guild, but due to his health he can't leave his bed."

Henry felt guilty as he looked at the boy, many people who couldn't make a living only had herb gathering in this area as a form of income, and Henry had almost gathered all the herbs in this area.

He was certain that almost everyone gathering herbs here had a difficult life, perhaps even more difficult than Henry's before the system, so he decided to only go harvest herbs deeper in the forest.

Herry gave the boy another two pieces of bread and prepared to leave, not before leaving 20 stalks of herb on the ground.

The child was so engrossed with his loaf of bread that he didn't see the herbs on the ground until Henry had gone. The youngster was overjoyed at first, but as he remembered how Henry had fed him, he resolved to look for him and give the man the herbs he had forgotten.

Henry was already on his way to the mountain when the kid began to look for him, this time he took a shortcut through the forest.

He took advantage of the time he spent walking there to organize his inventory. The system spatial space was almost full as he only had 150 inventory slots, and more than half of the items in his inventory were herbs of all kinds.

-" Should I level up the system?" The analyses of all first level herbs were done, leaving only the ones in the second level, which took way more time. " System I want to increase your level."

-' Please select the items to be used in the system leveling process.' Henry was perplexed as he examined his inventory; he had no idea what herb to choose.

-"System, use the herbs I have in excess, selecting the lowest graded possible." Henry intended to minimize the number of herbs he would lose since he wanted to get 100% mastery in all of them.

-' The system is arranging items... The organizing procedure is complete. Elephant Weed - Low Grade x8, Jade Weed - Low Grade x7, Mercy's Lily - Low Grade x5, Aphrush - Medium Grade x4.....' Henry nodded, looking at the list; he would only use 13 medium grade herbs in the leveling process.

What made him even happier was that he would only run out of six herbs, which he could easily find on his way to the mountain.

Henry felt his heart ache as he saw the number of herbs in his system storage begin to slowly dwindle, yet, he knew that this was worth it.

-" Congratulation! Your System is now level two" The leveling process only took half a minute, and Henry quickly opened his Character Index, he wondered where to put his points.

He was quite excited to finally become a real mage, but, the number of points he needed was too much. " Maybe I should invest a little in my other Attribute?"

Henry Flint | Magic Circle: Half-Step to First Circle | Body Cultivation Realm: No Cultivation Found | System Level: 2 | Attribute Points: 5.5 |

Mana: 12 | Power: 6 | Perception: 2

Aura: 0 | Agility: 8 | Luck: 1

Will: 9 | Endurance: 6 | Intelligence: 7

-" System, can you help me understand the attribute better?" Henry still had no idea what some of the Attributes did.

-' Attribute introduction module will being; Each point spent on the Mana Attribute will increase the Host mana reserves; Each point on the Aura Attribute will increase the Host aura density; Each point spent on the Will Attribute increase the Host soul strength; Each point spent on Power Attribute will increase the Host muscle power; Each point spent on Agility Attribute will increase the Host dexterity, speed, and overall agility;' Henry was astonished by the amount of information he was receiving, he was especially surprised by the effects Will, as he never heard of Soul Strenght in his life.

After a slight pause, the system began to detail the Attributes again. -' Each point spent on Endurance Attribute will increase the Host stamina and constitution; Each point spent on Perception Attribute will increase the Host acuity and overall sensory capabilities; Each point spent on Luck Attribute will increase the Host mundane and heavenly luck; Each point spent on Intelligence Attribute will increase the Host mental capabilities and memorization speed.'

Henry let out a sigh as the system Attribute Introduction was finally over, and he was even more confused than before. -" I have a few more questions, Let's go first with luck, what does this mundane and heavenly luck mean?"

-' Heavenly luck affects everything that is considered above the human world, from the chance of breaking through a realm to the reduced risk in heavenly tribulations; mundane luck consists of everything in the human world, this affects the chance of finding a treasure, to your enemy slipping in battle.'

Henry was completely astonished by how good the Luck Attribute seemed, he even felt compelled to spend all his points on it, but, he knew that it was better to be a strong person who was unlucky than to be a lucky weakling.

-" And what about Soul strength?" This was the second thing Henry was most interested in it.

-' Soul Strength helps the Host in the creation of magic items and amplifies the power of your soul attacks.' Henry nodded as he heard the answer, he felt that the answer was kind vague but, it was enough to confirm that one could cultivate his soul and even use it as a form of attack.

-" Now the last thing, how much do I need to put on my Power, Agility, and Endurance to become a body cultivator?" Henry was somewhat interested in Body Cultivation, as it could be more useful in not only his defending himself, but, his future explorations.

-' A body cultivator at the peak of the first level of the Body Tempering Realm. generally was at least 50 points in each of the three attributes, but, for one to truly be considered a Body Cultivator one needs to have at least 50 points of Aura too.'

Henry grinned as he realized that being a body cultivator was even more expensive than becoming a real mage.

He felt bummed out, at first he thought that he would fly through all the cultivation realms in no time.

-"System, what are the requirements for feature leveling?" Henry was worried as even with the system, his cultivation progress was barely non-existent.

-' Furnace: Use the furnace ten times, current progress 1/10 - Furnace will now offer the host 20% of the treasure energy; Character Index: Reach the limit of points spent in one Attribute, current progress 12/100 - Host will now be able to distribute 200 Attribute points.' Henry was astonished to discover the Attribute restriction; he had assumed that the only barrier to breaking through circles would be the number of points he had spent, but now he had to consider the level of the character index feature as well.

-"System, if my Attributes are limited, won't I be unable to enter the second circle until I level the character index to level four or five?"

-' The limit only applies to Attributes earned through the system; Mana gained through cultivation will not be limited, and it is not recommended that the host relies only on the system for cultivation.'

-" But what about my Mana deficiency? Can I even cultivate properly?"

-' Since acquiring the system, Host is no longer affected by Mana Deficiency and now can cultivate normally.' Henry's eyes widened as he thought that he had misheard the system.

-" I can cultivate now?" Henry was in disbelief as he waited for the System confirmation.

-' Yes, Host can now cultivate normally.' Henry let out a scream of happiness, since discovering his Mana Deficiency, his life had gone downhill, and he never thought that he would be able to be free from it.

It took Henry quite some time to calm down, and only then the system continued to detail the requirements to upgrade the rest of the features.

-' Inventory: Hoard 200 treasures, current progress: 139/200 treasures hoarded Scanner: Use the scanner 20 times, current progress 0/20 - The scanner's radius will increase to 70 meters. Analysis Mechanism - Analyze 150 unique treasures, current progress 119/150 - Analysis Mechanism speed will be increased, and the host will be able to analyze two treasures at the same time, the Deep analysis sub-feature won't be affected. Map: Locate at least 200 treasures marked on the map, current progress 243/200 - Map will now be larger and the energy density visualizer will be more accurate.'

-" I can already level up the map, and the inventory, analysis mechanism, and scanner will be ready in no time; with the scanner's two-hour cooldown, it will only take two days if I use it every time the cooldown ends." Henry was happy with his overall progress. "The main issue is the furnace and the Character index; it will take at least two months to use the furnace ten times."

Henry sighed, his dream of rocketing through the early realms was shattered, but, he didn't let this get him down as he now could finally cultivate. -"It seems that I will need to put some work into my cultivation after all." Only now Henry noticed that the previously gray Furnace icon had returned to back normal.

He immediately checked and discovered that he could use the furnace again. -"Is something wrong with the system? Why has the furnace's cooldown time already ended?"

-' Leveling up the system reset all feature cooldowns.'

Henry was thrilled when he received the wonderful news. - "I need to reduce the downtime of the furnace, but which item should I use?" Henry immediately began to search for an item to sacrifice in the furnace.