16 Drawing
Jim woke the next day, fully refreshed. He now had a very large number of skills to train and had to think about the most efficient way to do this, and sort out the priorities of which ones to focus on.
'Magic really gets my heart pumping, but it has almost no usage right now. My strength, toughness, and explosive power are good, but my actual technique in combat is nothing. I can't really use Detection yet, the skills related to mental functions should help with that, right? There's another problem...' Jim opened his wallet, a single 20 dollar bill was inside, he had no job, he could survive on the shop's grocery ability but if he wanted to keep water, gas, and electricity going he'd have to make some cash quick.
'I feel like it's easier to go outside these days, but talking to people is still...no, I just have to bite the bullet.' Going in for a job interview was too stressful, people staring at him and judging him while requiring eloquent speech was simply too high of a hurdle, his anxiety and paranoia had been reduced but were not gone. 'Let's choose something that requires less human interaction.' pondering and searching the web for a while, Jim decided on selling hand crafted goods, he could get tools through the shop and with the system the products would surely come out well.
'Let's go take a look.' Jim headed out to the local hobbyist store, he decided to get some string and beads, then grabbed a set of pencils and a stack of paper. The total was approx $13, handing over the cash he grabbed the change and bag and headed outside, every dollar was precious right now so he counted the bills before placing them in the wallet. 'Hm?' There should have been $6 and some coins, but he had ended up with $10, the cashier had give him back two fivers instead of a five and a one.
Jim turned around and headed back in the store, he handed back the five and exchanged it for a one, people were looking at him like he was an alien, it made him feel really uncomfortable. 'I just didn't want to cheat them, what's wrong with that?' He didn't think it was abnormal, if he was in the Cashier's shoes he wouldn't want someone making off with extra money, even if it was only a difference of $4 Jim's mind was churning thinking of getting reprimanded and accused of theft.
Bathing in unnecessary humiliation, Jim sped off back home. "Hah...can't I just stay indoors for the rest of my life? I hate this." He took a few minutes to calm down.
[Mental Endurance Level Up]
[Mental Endurance Has Reached Level 3]
He headed to his room and cleared off the computer desk, heading to an image sharing site he placed down a piece of paper and started drawing, pencil in hand. The result was absolutely terrible, jagged lines made a simple drawing of a human turn into a misshapen blob. 'Didn't my Dexterity reach superhuman levels? Why is my drawing still so terrible?'
Since middle school, Jim had been terrible at anything art related, his hands constantly trembled due to the ever-present anxiety and his handwriting was sloppy. It wasn't like he was astounding in elementary school in the first place, but the harder he tried the worse he got, even holding a ruler down and tracing along it would somehow end up with a bent jagged line.
Waiting for a moment, no notifications sounded. 'So this doesn't even count? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, let's do something simple.' Jim looked up a guide to drawing stick figures and tried to copy it exactly, activating Focus and very very slowly moving his hand, he finally finished one after several minutes.
[Steady Hands Skill Obtained]
[Drawing Skill Obtained]
[Art Skill Obtained]
'Okay, let's keep going' Jim filled up thirteen sheets of paper with his very basic scribbles, keeping Steady Hands active the entire time, he started doing the math on how long the 500 sheets of paper would last.
[Mathematics Skill Obtained]
[Steady Hands Level Up]
[Steady Hands Has Reached Level 2]
[Drawing Level Up]
[Drawing Has Reached Level 2]
'Even that?' Jim resumed drawing but activated Parallel Processing and Mathematics at the same time. Hours passed, Jim had consumed close to 150 sheets.
[Mathematics Level Up]
[Mathematics Has Reached Level 7]
[Steady Hands Level Up]
[Steady Hands Has Reached Level 5]
[Drawing Level Up]
[Drawing Has Reached Level 3]
Drawing seemed to have stopped progressing, he felt it was due to the simplistic material he was using. Standing up and stretching, Jim decided to practice some magic, he began casting Insect Repel Barrier. It still took nearly 7 minutes this time, but he didn't feel drained of mana, since the barrier covered the entire room he headed to the next room and casted again.
[Barrier Magic Level Up]
[Barrier Magic Has Reached Level 4]
[Verbal Casting Level Up]
[Verbal Casting Has Reached Level 3]
[Somatic Casting Level Up]
[Somatic Casting Has Reached Level 3]
[Magic Circle Level Up]
[Magic Circle Has Reached Level 5]
[Magic Mastery Level Up]
[Magic Mastery Has Reached Level 2]
[Mana Efficiency Level Up]
[Mana Efficiency Has Reached Level 3]
[Mana Battery Level Up]
[Mana Battery Has Reached Level 2]
Insect Repel Barrier's requirements for the chant and hand movements were rather simple, but the magic circle he had to create in his mind was far more complex than Flame's, he felt odd at first as he was able to place barriers in every room in the condo without feeling drained at all, but soon recalled gaining the Mana Battery skill, it must have increased his capacity by a lot.
'Flame now?' He headed out back again and cast flame, he felt like the casting had shaved off a few seconds, but couldn't be sure.
[Fire Magic Level Up]
[Fire Magic Has Reached Level 4]
[Spellcasting Level Up]
[Spellcasting Has Reached Level 4]
[Verbal Casting Level Up]
[Verbal Casting Has Reched Level 8]
[Somatic Casting Level Up]
[Somatic Casting Has Reached Level 8]
[Magic Circle Level Up]
[Magic Circle Has Reached Level 7]
[Magic Mastery Has Leveled Up]
[Magic Mastery Has Reached Level 5]
[Mana Efficiency Level Up]
[Mana Efficiency Has Reached Level 6]
[Mana Battery Level Up]
[Mana Battery Has Reached Level 3]
Hours of casting without rest had greatly improved his skill, he could cast Flame in under a minute now, and the Flame itself was no longer puny, it reached the size of a basketball and the flames were more intense, the speed it shot out at was still embarrassingly slow though. Jim had ended up burning all the grass and weeds growing in the back to ash, the ground was slightly scorched and there was a burnt smell lingering in the air. He decided to head back in and resume drawing.
[Mathematics Level Up]
[Mathematics Level Max]
[Mathematics Derivation Skill - Mechanized Brain Obtained]
[Congratulations Host, Host Has Achieved Maximum Level In A Skill, Skill Max Gift Pack x 1 Awarded]
[Steady Hands Level Up]
[Steady Hands Level Max]
[Steady Hands Derivation Skill - Quick Fingers Obtained]
[Congratulations Host, Host Has Achieved Maximum Level In A Skill, Skill Max Gift Pack x 1 Awarded]
[Drawing Level Up]
[Drawing Has Reached Level 8]
[Art Level Up]
[Art Has Reached Level 3]
Suddenly, it was like something in his brain shattered apart, but it wasn't painful, Jim felt like a heavy weight was suddenly ripped away, his mind was quick, sharp, he could vividly recall memories from long ago as though he was currently experiencing it. His mental arithmetic had reached an astounding level, multiplying 8 or 9 digit numbers would be completed instantly, he had to take out a calculator to confirm he wasn't imagining things. The only problem was that Mechanized Brain was already at max level, he wanted this improvement to continue, a mind that could grasp anything and everything was invaluable.
Testing out Quick Fingers, he could move his hands and digits at a speed fast enough they were like a blur with great accuracy, he decided to put it to the test and draw further. Something that took him half an hour before was completed in an instant, he had to put in extra effort to control his strength as the high speeds caused the paper to rip, upon getting used to it he consumed the entire stack of paper in the blink of an eye.
[Drawing Level Up]
[Drawing Level Max]
[Drawing Derivation Skill - Mystic Portrait Obtained]
[Congratulations Host, Host Has Achieved Maximum Level In A Skill, Skill Max Gift Pack x 1 Awarded]
[Art Level Up]
[Art Has Reached Level 6]
'Mystic Portrait? What does that do?' Jim decided to challenge himself and draw without copying an image from the internet, he recalled a time as a child when he went camping with his father, standing at the edge of a cliff and watching the sunset, the landscape was covered in a brilliant golden glow. When he finished recollecting the scene, he noticed the drawing had completed, but he hadn't touched pencil to paper yet, the drawing was incredibly realistic and had even been fully colored, furthermore it had a strange allure to it, like staring at it brought you to the place and allowed you to feel like you were actually there.
'This...can I sell this?' Jim decided against it, it was drawn on paper after all, the quality of the product was high but the medium was just a sheet of paper, if he wanted something he could sell he'd have to put it on canvas.
'Let's shift gears.' Jim cleared the desk again and placed the string and beads on it, the beads were simple things of varying colors, but didn't have a hole to put the string through. Jim got these type on purpose, he wanted to familiarize himself with tools. Entering the shop, he suddenly noticed there was a new category, [Spells], he put off getting the drill for now and decided to check out the listings.
[Flare]
[Creates Explosion And Condenses It On Target, Extremely High Damage]
[Price - 2,000,000]
[Mass Healing]
[Envelops Surroundings In Dense Magic Energy, Heals All Friendly Living Beings In Range]
[Price - 5,000,000]
[Clean]
[Basic Spell, Removes Dirt, Stains, Grime, Etc.]
[Price - 10]
[Ice Spike]
[Forms A Pointed Shard Of Ice, Good Damage]
[Price - 2,000]
Jim decided on grabbing some low priced spells, He bought Clean for 10, Deodorant for 100, Spark for 50, Light Orb for 75, Create Fire for 15, Create Water for 25, Create Soil for 40, and Small Gust for 70. Heading to the Tools menu, he started browsing for what he needed.
