Plain of Grass

A cloaked figure sat on a fallen log near a small campfire in a small clearing, eating a roasted squirrel. As Dominic continued through the woods he approached the small clearing, his boisterous voice rang out.

"Go ahead and hand over everyth- oof!" as he was giving his patented speech to take everything this person had, he was struck in the face by a flying object. Grabbing his burning face, he looked down and saw a stick that was glowing with embers on one end.

"What the hell! You're dead now!" Dominic shouted as he turned his monstrous gaze towards the campfire. What he saw left him confused and nervous. The clearing was completely empty of anyone, the fallen log remained by the small fire, but no one sat on it any longer.

A cold chill ran down his spine as his eyes frantically searched for where the cloaked person went to. He assumed they were going to continue attacking him so he wanted to be able to defend himself. His fear was quickly overridden by his burning rage.

As Dominic continued his frantic search of the clearing, Kai was running through the woods away from him with his hood up and cloak billowing in the wind.

'Even in the Tower assholes are running around trying to bully people,' Kai sighed as he thought this, 'people are dying in the Tower from being too weak; instead of trying to improve themselves they're out in the woods trying to mug people for fucking squirrel meat!'

Kai had heard the big oaf tromping through the woods well before he made it to the clearing. He was sure any animal or creature in a five mile radius heard the loud cracking of sticks and leaves. Instead of running immediately, Kai finished roasting his squirrel to make sure it was just right. As soon as he heard the shouting, he grabbed a stick poking from the fire and sent it sailing directly at the man's head and ran.

Kai believed his bad luck had returned. When the Goddess led him through a portal to the First Floor, Kai ended up in a heavily wooded area. It was a forest that went on for miles, and he'd been running through it for the past 3 days.

Kai knew he wasn't strong and didn't want to risk fighting anything before he got his bearings, so he avoided any creatures or monsters he saw and swiftly traversed the forest. During the last few days not much had happened, but he had caught a few squirrels using his usual rat catching methods, which is what he'd been eating before he was rudely interrupted.

He planned to find a town or at least a few reasonable people and see if he could trade his squirrel hides for anything of use. He had almost nothing to his name besides his artifacts he'd received during his test. The only other things he owned were his basic clothes and boots along with his cloak and the meager possessions of his backpack.

Luckily the Goddess' restoration abilities extended to his possessions, so he was happy that his few belongings were now in a brand new condition instead of rags. Over the past few days he'd had time to go over the information he'd learned from the Goddess after his test and test a few things with his mana.

The Goddess had informed him once he entered the Tower of Life, he would be granted a "system" that would keep up with his status during his time in the tower, and could provide him information on himself, his equipment, and any abilities he learned.

The Goddess hadn't informed him much about the specifics of the system, just explaining he could look at it himself once he arrived on the First Floor. The only things she told him was to think "Status" and the system would initiate. As soon as she told him that, he attempted it, even going so far as to say it out loud, but nothing happened.

She had only laughed merrily and cleared his puzzlement at the lack of results by explaining that it wouldn't be granted until he walked through the portal to the First Floor.

When asked about where the portal was and how to get there, a waving soap bubble-like oval shimmered into existence beside Kai. Seeing the portal, he said bye to the Goddess and walked straight in without asking another question. He had been tired and just wanted to get into the Tower already, he didn't want another lecture about the place.

As Kai stumbled upon an unfathomably large tree, he espied a nook at it's base that was the perfect size for him to rest in. The alcove was quite small relative to the tree's size, it only extended about five feet into the base and was just as wide, but was tall enough for Kai to stand up in if necessary.

The tree was more than 300 feet (100m) tall and it's trunk was as large as a super market, so Kai's resting place wasn't very visible comparatively. Kai sat with his back against the inside wall and brought up his status page, when he willed it it could be quite extensive, or very specific. He decided to bring up the full page to go over it.

[Status]

Name: Kai

Age: 15

Race: Human

Main Stats:

-Agility: 22 (12+10)

-Dexterity: 26 (16+10)

-Fortitude: 20 (5+15)

-Mana Capacity: 41 (1+40)

-Strength: 11 (6+5)

-Willpower: 67 (47+20)

[Equipment]

Tusk Blades - +5 Strength (Uncommon)

Squirrel Charm - +10 Dexterity +10 Agility (Epic)

Skull Charm - +15 Fortitude (Epic)

[Skills/Abilities]

Acrobatics: Novice Tier 4 (5%)

Cooking: Novice Tier 1 (38%)

Dagger Proficiency: Novice Tier 1 (2%)

Goddess' Blessing: Novice Tier 1 (1%)

Mana Cycling: Novice Tier 1 (1%)

Shadow Proficiency: Novice Tier 1 (0%)

Sleight of Hand: Novice Tier 9 (12%)

Survival Instincts: Advanced Tier 3 (79%)

Throwing Skills: Novice Tier 6 (66%)

Kai frowned looking at his Status. 'Why is it so cut and dry when it comes to the skills section? What even counts as a skill? Most of these just seem like characteristics, rather than skills and surely my Cooking should be higher than that... I've been roasting critters my whole life.'

Kai was intrigued seeing the skills he learned during his chaotic childhood translated into quantifiable numbers, but was trying to figure out why these specific skills were listed. 'Why is Cooking included, but my amazing Juggling skills aren't? This list seems weird, but looking at the typed of skills listed, maybe it's only including skills that pertain to fighting or survival?'

Kai pondered over these things. He was surprised some of his stats were so high as a baseline. His Willpower had an impressive baseline of 47, but what else could he expect from fighting for survival most every day of his life. He was pleased that his Agility and Dexterity were also above the average human standard of 10. His Strength and Fortitude however seemed abysmal, but he could only attribute that to constantly being near starvation.

He also noticed he had started with a Mana Capacity of 1, and it was boosted greatly by the Goddess' Blessing she gave him with the hell fire torment of Deified Mana. He was pleased to see that it would grow over time just as she said, it was included in his Skills/Abilities tab.

He finished off his roasted squirrel on a stick and walked to the edge of the woods to chuck it far into the woods. He didn't want to attract anything too close to his hiding spot. As Kai lay down wrapped in his cloak, Dominic was fuming with rage as he applied healing salve to a burn on his face.

"I'm gonna find you and kill you! I swear that I'll get revenge for your disrespect, you little whelp!" Dominic shouted from his gang's encampment in the woods. The other gang members around the camp shrank back into their tents hearing this shout. They knew nothing good would come their way if they got near the boss while he was pissed off.

Dominic was well and truly pissed off. He just wanted to rob some person who was stupid enough to enter into the woods he used as a base to teach them a lesson. He never thought they'd take the initiative and attack him first, who'd be so stupid?

Dominic had no clue who the person was that had hit him, but he wouldn't stop searching until he found them or he'd never live through his shame. Dominic was a prideful bandit and he couldn't take the slight of being attacked in his own domain. Dominic informed every member of his gang to keep an eye out of this mystery person and to bring them to Dominic alive. He didn't mention that they'd been the one to burn him of course, but everyone knew.

As the bandits spread through the forest under the occasional beams of moonlight through the canopy, they all hated that the boss had dragged them into this. But they knew if they went back to camp and slept like they all desired, the boss would beat them bloody. So the bandits raced through the forest, blinking the sleep from tired eyes as they went.

One bandit called Slim Jim just happened to head in the direction of Kai's tree. Slim Jim was wary of the forest, cold sweat ran down his back as jogged as lightly as he could over the detritus on the ground. He didn't want to make much noise and alert any of the monsters that lived in the forest.

Slim Jim knew he couldn't go back to camp for at least a few hours when the boss might have calmed down a bit. He jogged along, squinted eyes searching through the trees on either side of the trail for any sign of the person or a camp they might have set up.

He ran for a couple hours until he saw a large tree bigger than any he'd ever seen before.

"Woah, boy! That's a big tree right there," Slim Jim couldn't help but exclaim as he walked towards the tree with a sense of wonder on his face.

He wanted to see the tree up close and as he approached he saw a shadow flit at the corner of his vision. He turned his head and his vision instantly grew bright as he was punched in the eye.

He shouted and tried to see who was attacking him, but instantly choked out a grunt as his throat was punched. He fell to the ground wheezing through his injured wind pipe. He finally saw a small figure wrapped in a cloak standing above him.

"Pleeeea.. Pleeeaash.." He gasped out through the agony in his throat. He closed his eyes as he continued to gasp out a plea every few breaths. He curled in on himself trying to ward off any blows that might come his way.

He lay there for what must have been an hour, weeping and wheezing, before he opened his eyes. No one was near him any longer and he thanked all the gods above for being spared. He closed his eyes and didn't move until one of the other gang members found him the next morning.

As the sun rose, Kai could finally see an end to the forest he'd been running through for days. He saw an open plan ahead with no scenery other than tall swaying grass for what seemed like miles. The grass was about two feet high near the forest and extended to the horizon.

'This place doesn't look any better than the forest, but hopefully it won't have any more of those asshole bandits. I don't see a single rock or tree, not to mention a town at all!' Kai was feeling depressed after leaving the forest. He'd been running through the tall grass for a few hours with the sun beaming heat down on him from above.

He'd expected to have to fend off some creatures in the grass, but he hadn't seen a single one so far. His hood was down and his wavy black hair flowed with the wind. His hair had been restored with the rest of him, and was no longer hopelessly tangled and it shone with a bright luster in the sunlight.

'I've definitely gotta figure out that Goddess' cleaning spell. That thing is amazing. By the time I make it to the top of the Tower of Life, if I haven't figured it out, that's gonna have to be my wish.'

Kai's mind wandered as his annoyance at his situation turned into boredom. As he ran he thought about uses for mana. He had already learned that he could push the mana and cycle it in a certain way to get different results within his body. He was able to renew his energy a slight bit and gained increased speed if he cycled it to his legs but with his current level of control, it didn't seem smooth at all.

Kai continued practicing this technique the entire time he ran until the sun finally fell from the sky. Before it was completely dark, Kai cleared out a wide stretch of the tall grass to use as a clearing to rest in. He didn't want to sleep so openly, but he didn't have the luxury of cover right now, he still hadn't seen much across the plain of tall grass and it was getting taller in places as well.

Before he set up his clearing he had seen something on the horizon and estimated he'd find something in another few miles, but he didn't want to try his luck running there at night. He still hadn't seen a single creature during his trek and that greatly worried him. He assumed the creatures may be nocturnal.

As he lightly rested using his backpack as a pillow, he shot up hearing a howl in the distance. He had been asleep for more than a couple of hours as he looked to the moon to check where it was in the sky. He decided to go ahead and unsheathe his Tusk Blades from the basic dual sheath the Goddess had provided him that crossed his chest from both shoulders, ending near his waist like gun holsters.

He sat vigilantly scanning his surroundings. He didn't have any cover to protect his rear, so he put his pack back on so he'd at least have some sort of meager protection if he was randomly attacked in his back.

The howls continued to sound out, it sounded like there were at least two creatures communicating a far distance from each other. Kai tightened his grip on his blades as he heard the sound getting closer.

He could see grass rustling ahead, the grass had gotten a fair bit taller as he crossed the plane and was standing about 4 feet tall around his clearing. A creature that looked like a coyote leapt from the grass into his clearing, it stood a little over 3 feet tall and had gleaming black eyes above it's snarling mouth.

The coyote snarled at him and immediately leapt towards him. It was fast, but Kai simply moved to the slide and sliced both daggers down it's slide. The beast whimpered as it's side was torn to shreds, exposing its ribs to the night air.

Kai didn't give the beast a second to recover and quickly stabbed both daggers directly through either side of the coyote's neck. The beast let out another low whine and slumped to the ground. Kai quickly wiped off his blades and stood, scanning the surroundings diligently.

He heard the rustle of the grass and saw the grass begin to sway. Four more coyotes entered the clearing from various directions. Every one of the beasts saw the dead body that Kai was standing over and all of them were snarling with a fierce hatred.

'A Goddess' Blessing, was it? I feel more like I've been cursed!' Kai shouted in his mind as he reversed the grip of his left handed blade and prepared to fend off the beasts.