4 Level Ups And Feeding Grounds
[Dare To Dream]
|A Blessing bestowed by the Eternal Dream; grants ability to turn all dreams into Lucid dreams.
when asleep dreamer can imagine and experiment to create and combine skills at -300%- normal efficiency and can export or integrate skills upon waking
-"what one has dreamt can be made real, reality is just the strangest of dreams"|
*******
Now that I had determined my safety was not in doubt, I quickly skimmed over the system notifications, and boy did they make a girl happy! I hopped rather naturally over to the nest, not realizing until I had already sat down in it that, oh right, I was a bird, shouldn't moving be tricky?. and that begged the question, shouldn't I be a mess until I got used to being, well being a bird?
the answer though, was apparently not. I could feel, in a little corner of my mind, birdy instincts seemed to be working like a champion to make my new state of existence as natural as possible... well I won't complain about that huge problem being resolved. lets see what's changed with my stats. "Status."
|Status|
|Name - Emilia Eternal|
|Level 1|
|Species [Storm Petrel][Tier 0]|
|HP 10/10| |MP 0/0| |EXP 0/300|
|STR - 1|
|AGI - 8|
|INT - 6|
|-Skills-|
[Peck]
[Scratch]
[Winged Flight]
"That's more like it. no more death, and my stats are actually not zero. hey system, what do I get for Leveling up?"
|...User gains -1- Attribute point per Level. Point Allocation is defered to every -5- levels|
"So in other words I get five attribute points every five levels then? are there any other ways to gain attributes?"
|...User can gain also gain attribute points as a byproduct of actions or training|
"So training montage?"
While I didn't think it was feasible to spend a long time testing out how difficult it would be to gain stats, it was not a bad idea to at least try it. after a quick check out of the crack to see what our new home's condition was like, it would be training time. only after that would we move onto our next big crisis, food. there was no chance I could solve that first, for very simple reasons. I had no idea how to fight, and more importantly, how to fly and I wasn't sure my new instincts could handle it alone. so I would first take this opportunity to get a better handle on my abilities and have some questions answered at the same time, win-win.
Several cute little hops later, I was leaning out of the entrance to my nest and being blown away by the picturesque views. from what I could surmise, my nest was located 1/3rd of the way down a coastal cliffside, probably part of the cliffs I saw when I was floating carefree high in the sky before. Far beneath me was what I expected, massive white tipped waves crashed again the cliffside, after all, from where I was located not only could I see the waves crash in against the rock of the cliffs, I could feel it. I looked up and around some more, noticing first that it was nearing what on Earth would have been noon, and... something else that I hadn't been able to spot from my space-side seats, there was a moon! it was the wrong colour and way bigger than Earth's but, hey Moon! also to be a little more specific, it was around three times larger than earths- at least based on how much of the sky it took up, and was a glowing orangey-red. and really quite cool looking.
it was only a fair time later that my fascination with the brand new feature faded, and my eye drifted back to the cliffs above and around me, where I spotted some sparse number of birds flying around the cliffs, presumably traveling to and from their own cave nests. with the recon done, it was time to see how strong a single point of strength was.
A few more hops back into the nest and I was next to the wall at the deepest part of the cave. "slight problem, system, how do I use skills?"
|...Physical skills are activated through learned actions, refer to user memory for clarification. Magic and non-physical skills have either a mental or combination Mental and Somatic trigger based upon complexity and user proficiency|
"that- was almost snarky... okay maybe it's as simple as... " *peck* "... w-was that it? I literally just pecked at the wall though?"
|...Confirmed - skill successfully triggered|
"what a letdown... lets keep going then"
What followed could not, no matter how charitable one was, be called 'fighting' as she assaulted the cave wall with her teensy claws and beak. but... well there are no buts, she was ten minutes in and all she had to show for it was being sore all over... another ten minutes passed as she persevered, and her actions finally bore fruit as a some stone chipped off of the wall where she had focused her most 'vicious' pecks.
|Skill Level up| |[Peck] level 2|
"wait, what. that's not an attribute point? but I guess now I know skills have levels. hey system is this like some of those web novels that when a skill hits max level it evolves?"
|...Confirmed|
"sweet! so what does a skill leveling up do exactly?"
|...For Simpler Skills, a Skills Level reflects Users Mastery of the Skill. in the case that Mastery requires specific applications of Knowledge the System is authorized to grant the User relevant Data via Direct Transfer|
"So [Peck] and [Scratch] will level up as I get the hang of them then huh..." Emilia lost herself in thought as she preened her feathers absentmindedly. "I guess next I should confirm how hard it is have something recognized as a skill next?" "but what exactly?"
"an acrobatics skill? no. aerobatics? err, a roar skill? lets try it" *Rrrrrrrrrrrrr -squeak- rrrrrrrrrrr* "...what ungodly-cute noise did I just make? definitely not a roar skill." "I guess I should think about them while I grind my current skills."
|Skill Level Up|
|[Scratch] Level 2|
"wait, I'm forgetting something..."
|Skill Level Up|
|Skill Level Up|
"Appraisal!"
|You have gained a Skill [Appraisal]|
|... You have appraised a [Stone Wall] would you like a detailed breakdown of the walls constituent elements?|
"HAH! Thank you web novels, you've never let me down!" "wait system? why did you answer that, shouldn't there just be a bunch of pop-up text?"
|...User's System Privilege Level is [S Class]. System [Administrator] Rellis has previously defined each grade to grant System users access to more functions and include additional benefits not included in base function.|
|...One such benefit [S Class] Users have been granted is partial access to System's Database|
"does that mean I won't get any sarcastic 'this is a rock' answers?"
|...|
"Well, okay then. since it seems like that's a successful experiment, lets keep on training."
by the time she was finally too exhausted to continue, two hours had gone by and [Scratch] was maxed out at Level 5, whereas Peck had only Leveled up once. Emilia rested on her belly while panting and eventually managed to tell the system to evolve her skill.
|[Scratch] at Max Level - Evolve Skill?|
|[Scratch] has been Evolved and is now [Swipe]|
"alright, I guess it might be worth a nap before I try Flying for the first time." Emilia then moved into the nest and made herself comfortable, settling in as her eyes grew heavy and her heartbeat gently slowed. until finally she was asleep.
When she woke up she was sore all over, the bright side was that it didn't seem as though she had slept long. the entrance to her nest had the teensiest amount of light left creeping through. when she peeked outside at the sky she saw the sun almost completely disappeared into the horizon.
as she took stock of her body, stretching out her wings and ruffling her feathers, she let her mind drift a bit and thought about her old computer programmer job in her former life, she was thankful that by its nature it had helped her gain certain skill with regards to logical thinking and forward planning. but her real talent had been the intuitive leaps, parsing all of the variables and errors in her code using her hind brain. a weird skill that helped her by being able to make what could b called 'educated guesses' and to troubleshoot problems rapidly. her solutions were not always the best, and this method also didn't work too well if she lacked too much background information, but it did let her skip many steps and avoid a lot of pitfalls.
but what was important right now was what her body told her, and it was telling her that she was a very. hungry. bird...
well that and apparently her 'birdy instincts' believed hunting was best done under cover of darkness. her inner bird was proven correct when the sounds outside her nest changed and the sound of flapping wings temporarily overwhelmed the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs.
"Deep breathes, we knew this had to happen sometime. its time to spread our wings- leave the nest- fly to a bright future... I really hope this works..."
"Bird brain, I'm relying on you!" with that said I double-triple checked that I had nothing else I needed to remember, and told myself I couldn't copy the other birds if they got too far ahead of me. that helped. Then- I jumped...
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh"
*whoosh*
