Partial Lightning State

Ellis squatted down and peered into the hole his foot had just made in the trap door below him. Using the light from his torch, he could see a small room that looked to be a little bit shorter than he was tall.

Damn, unfortunately, it's not a secret tunnel. Let's see what is down there though.

Ellis sighed and hung his head in gloom before he reached down and pulled the trap door open to get a better look. The trap door was dry rotted and fell apart as he opened it. Once he cleared the wood away he was able to look down into the small room. Inside were some small barrels laying sideways on shelves that were covered in cobwebs. The ground was covered in moss and looked to be damp. Littered around the floor were random rotten scraps of wood and other debris.

Huh, just some barrels? I was hoping for at least some hidden treasure.

Nothing interesting really stuck out to Ellis, but he hopped down into the cellar anyways and inspected the barrels. They were all quite small compared to what he imagined a normal-sized barrel would look like as he had never actually seen one in real life. The barrels were only about as tall as his knees and were about as wide as a watermelon. There were six barrels along the bottom of the shelf, but they were all rotted and falling apart. Along the top shelf, there were only four barrels. Two of the four barrels were partially rotted, and they were empty. The last two however were still in decent condition and it didn't look like the seals on them had been broken. Ellis carefully picked up one of the barrels from the small shelf and gently set it down upright in front of him. The barrel sloshed around as he moved it. He carefully opened the lid of the barrel and looked inside. It was full of dark red liquid.

"Ah! Potion!"

Excitement appeared on Ellis's face as he looked down at the red liquid. A sweet fruit like smell radiated up from the barrel, filling Ellis's nose with an inexplicable spicy warmth that was somewhat familiar.

Wait. This doesn't smell like a health potion.

Ellis frowned as he realized what the scent coming from the liquid smelled like.

This isn't health potion it's some sort of alcohol.

Upon closer inspection, he also found the liquid wasn't as vicious as potions were, further solidifying the fact that the liquid wasn't a potion. Using Identify Ellis confirmed that it was, in fact, not potion and was actually some sort of special wine.

[Thousand Year Radiant Berry Wine]

Wow, it's a thousand years old! But I guess Identify isn't going to give me any more information than its name though. Should I drink it to find out if it has any special effects? If it does anything at all. Hopefully, it's not poisonous.

Ellis sighed as he leaned down and wafted the wine smell into his nose suspiciously. It smelled fruity and ambrosial, almost like a fruit juice but with a very discernable alcohol smell after.

It doesn't smell like poison. But then again what does poison even smell like…

Ellis grabbed an empty waterskin from his bag and dipped it into the small barrel of wine to fill it up.

"Oh well, bottoms up."

He lifted the waterskin full of wine to his mouth and took a swig. The flavor was so strong and sweet that it hurt his taste buds for the first few seconds it touched his tongue. A subtle heat coursed through his body energizing him as he swallowed the wine. His senses relaxed slightly as the alcohol entered his system and loosened him up.

Ding!

Ellis looked at the box that had just popped up in his vision.

[10% increase to all stats]

[4 minutes 59 seconds remaining]

This wine has insane effects! 10% stat increase is huge. The only problem I see with it is that I already feel a bit tipsy. I don't really drink alcohol ever, so I don't know if it's really strong or I just have zero alcohol tolerance.

Ellis put the waterskin full of the wine into his bag. A small sip was enough to increase his stats by 10% and if he had anymore, he would probably get drunk, so he wasn't going to have any more. Ellis put the lid back on to the barrel and pressed it down to reseal it. He lifted both barrels out of the cellar and carried them to in front of the large bronze door. He figured he could just leave the barrels as he would be coming back here eventually anyway. He had a sneaking suspicion that this was where the exit to the dungeon was going to be.

Ok, well there isn't anything else I can do down here and I'm already on my last torch so I might as well head back.

Ellis made his way back up the wide staircase and to the brightly lit exit where he had come in from. The hole was pretty far up in the air but with Ellis's increased stats it didn't matter. He easily jumped up and grabbed the ledge from the hole above him before hoisting himself out. After pulling himself out, Ellis looked up and saw that some of the crystals were beginning to turn red.

It's close to the end of the day cycle so I should just stay here for the night. Ellis set up his bedroll on one of the large flat stone slabs. After completing his nightly routine, he laid down and drifted off to sleep.

He woke up as the crystals were shifting color. As he sat up, he suddenly remembered that he wanted to experiment with lightning so he decided to take a couple of hours and practice imbuing himself with lightning before continuing on his journey to the mountain. He got up from his bedroll and jumped up to the top of the largest rock around. He then began to focus on how he sent his anima into his halberd but into his whole body. He concentrated on sending anima throughout his whole body and then electrifying it. A huge surge of energy coursed through his entire body before it vanished almost immediately as he started to feel faint and fell to his knees.

"Haah… Haah…"

Ellis breathed out heavily as he tried to regain his breath. That less than a second of energy had sapped nearly all of his anima and immediately tired him out.

I don't have enough anima capacity to be able to enhance my body for more than a second and even if I did my body isn't strong enough to handle it.

An idea popped into Ellis's head. What if he just focused his anima into one part of his body. The strain shouldn't be as bad, and his anima would last longer. Ellis reached into his bag and crushed a couple of anima gems to regain his anima. He then focused his anima into his legs. Power surged through his legs as Ellis crouched down and jumped. The giant boulder beneath him gave in and cracked as his feet left it. Suddenly, he was ten meters in the air. After reaching that height he quickly fell back to the boulder below him. His enhanced legs were sturdy enough to easily allow him to land without hurting himself. After he landed, he canceled his electrified state and went back to normal.

Ding!

[Partial Lightning Enhancement]

Nice! A new skill! Based on the anima I lost from that I should be able to maintain Partial Lightning Enhancement for around thirty seconds. Let's test it a bit more.

Ellis hopped down from the rock and then electrified his arms. Electricity dazzled around them as he turned and punched the boulder he had been standing on.

Boom!

The giant rock was shattered as Ellis's electrified fist connected with it.

Not bad! I'll have to work on how long it lasts though.

Satisfied, Ellis gathered his things and started for the mountain again, keenly watching for any monsters so he can try out his new skill.

After a few hours, he came across a pack of monsters about thirty meters in front of him. Using Partial Lightning State, he sent anima to his legs. He sprinted to the pack of poor Horned Rabbit's and before they even realized it, he had plunged his halberd straight through one of the rabbit's chests. The other Horned Rabbits began their counterattack but were too slow. As soon as one would attack Ellis would dodge and be right behind it as it landed ready to plunge his halberd into it. It was a massacre. Ellis grinned as he sat down and cleaned the blood from his halberd.

Once I get better at controlling this, I can go back into the forest and hopefully be able to deal with whatever attacked me.