Encounters and Magical Camping

Belnan followed the riverside southwest. If his map was accurate to scale, it would be a good week before he could reach the town of Rosewater. He traveled along the river till around midday then stopped to have some lunch. Calling forth his 'Item Box', he took out some smoked meat and a piece of Gombi Fruit.

Smoked Meat

Age: 2 Days

Meat from a Forest Rabbit. It has been smoked to perfection.

Gombi Fruit

Age: 1 Day

The Gombi Fruit is indigenous to the Northern Forests of the Rivea Empire. It is a sweet fruit that can also be used for wine making.

Sadly, the item box did not have a time stasis component to it, so food and items did degrade over time. With three days of food, it should be just enough to get to town saying he didn't get side tracked. Belnan pulled out a wooden pitcher of water, drank some, and refilled it in the nearby river. Putting the pitcher away, he was just about to restart his journey when he heard sounds of creatures nearby. They were four legged creatures from the sound of it. His eyes swept the nearby trees and was able to pick out four Green forest wolves. He had heard about them from his mother, but because they could not be eaten, she never brought these back to the camp. Only their fur, claws and teeth were worth using. Belnan identified them the second he could see them.

Dire Wolf x3

Size: Medium

Level: 80

Physical Energy: 14,400/14,400

Magical Energy: 1200/1200

Health: 3800/3800

Combat Skills: Claw, Bite

Large Dire Wolf x1

Size: Medium

Level: 120

Physical Energy: 21,600/21,600

Magical Energy: 1800/1800

Health: 4200/4200

Combat Skills: Claw, Bite

He drew his short sword and tried thinking of how he could fight them. Large magic would work, but it would tear up the forest and ruin any chance of harvesting anything from them. Though he hadn't fought any monsters since coming to Levander, he knew that these monsters could easily kill him if he wasn't careful. Magic Symbols flowed through his mind as he arranged them in combination. He gathered Space and Light motes around him. He stared at the Space symbol and Light symbol in his mind and smashed them together. He thought the top of the trees would be high enough for his purposes and passed this thought into the magical symbols. The motes wrapped his body as he lifted off the ground weightless.

Levitate

Type: Light Space Combination Magic

Tier: 5 Heroic

Mana Cost: 500 per 5 minutes

Range: up to 500 vertical yards

Description: Elevate target above the ground. Can be cast on self. Elevation can be changed at will during spell duration.

Belnan lifted off the ground about twenty yards till he reached the top of the trees. The wolves stopped charging in confusion as their prey was no longer on the ground.

<Belnan>

[Now, little wolves. You have chosen the wrong enemy here. I will be using you as a practice target. Let's try something basic first.]

Gathering Wind motes, Belnan channeled them through his mental wind symbol to his free hand. He pointed it at the three smaller confused wolves.

Wind Slice

Type: Wind Magic

Tier: 2 Adept

Mana Cost: 200 per slice / Max 3

Range: 20 Yards

Description: Creates up to three wind blades that are launched from the caster to up to three different targets. Success depends on the accuracy of the caster with ranged weapons. (Thrown)

With no way to see the wind blades, the wolves could only rely on their instincts which were screaming for them to run. As they tried to turn around the blades of wind slashed them on their sides. All three of them fell down on the ground as blood sprayed into the air. Thy didn't die amazingly but they looked to be in great pain.

<Belnan>

[Hmm. So one blade is not enough for a single wolf of this level. Let's see how we did. Identify]

Dire Wolf x3

Size: Medium

Level: 80

Physical Energy: 14,400/14,400

Magical Energy: 1200/1200

Health: 1800/3800

Combat Skills: Claw, Bite

<Belnan>

[So a Tier two wind spell can do about two thousand damage. I'm glad I'm getting to test something like this. Lets finish these three off and more on to the boss monster.]

Wind Slice

Before the three normal Dire Wolves could get very far, another trio of blades took slashed their necks. Belnan's status flashed like crazy as the prompts spammed his semi-transparent interface.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

.

.

.

<Belnan>

[Ugh. That could be dangerous if I wasn't levitating. I will need to be careful in the future of level ups and ignore them in battle. The people of this world do not have this problem but for me, who god given status information and notifications, it could be an issue. I'm glad I ran into this problem now. Let's take a look at it after I finish this fight.]

The large dire wolf wasn't very smart, but it saw its children getting bloodied and yelping till they died. It howled loudly into the hair to try to intimidate and call for help.

<Belnan>

[I should try something a little more powerful on this guy.]

Gathering the wind motes again, Belnan hardened the wind symbol in his mind. He stared at the large dire wolf and commanded the wind.

Suffocate

Type: Wind Magic

Tier: 5 Heroic

Mana Cost: 500

Range: 50 Yards – Single Target – 50 minutes

Description: Command the air to not allow the target to breath. The air will expel from the lungs during attempts to take in air. All gasses will be pulled from the target's body and blood in 5 minutes.

This was truly some horrifying magic. If you were a wind mage, there were was to survive something like this, but to a wolf, there was not much to be done. The large dire wolf could no longer howl and immediately stopped. It's eyes grew big and its sides began to cave in as air was forcefully removed from its body. It started trying to pant air but failed. It fell after a few seconds and its throat was making sucking sounds as its check convulsed. Each convulsion stole more air from its body. It only took three minutes for it to die. It looked to Belnan to be a fairly painful affair.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

.

.

.

He started at the corpse for a minute after it stopped moving. That was a very brutal way to kill something. He shook his head realizing that if he never tried to use it, he would never know what he was capable of. The wolf would have killed him if it had the chance. He was in the military in his past life and had done his best over those years to remove these kinds of thoughts. This world is kill or be killed in the wilderness. Hardening his heart, he spoke.

<Belnan>

[Well, lets stay in the air for a bit more so I can safely look at my status. I have leveled up quite a few times, and this is definitely a first since my mother use to take care of all the killing for us.]

[Status]

*Denotes Change

Name: Belnan Whitmoor

Gender: M

Age: 10

Race: Half-Elven (High Elf)

Level: 72 (1 → 72)

Physical Energy: 3270/3270 (255 → 3270)

Magical Energy: 367200/367200 (5100 → 367200)

Health: 4120/4120 (3410 → 4120)

Strength 17

Dexterity 18

Constitution 17

Intelligence 17

Wisdom 17

Charisma 20

Occupation: Feral Child

Everyday Skills: Animal Handling 1, Riding 1, Housework 7, Cooking 6, Sailing 5, Survival 6, Swim 6, Etiquette 3, Healing 3, Fishing 3, Merchant 3

Combat Skills: Command 2, Martial Arts 2, Swordsmanship 4, Spearmanship 4, Archery 8, Throw 3

Magic Skills: Sense Magic 6, Fire Magic 1, Earth Magic 4, Wind Magic 6, Light Magic 5, Space Magic 5, Chantless Casting, Elemental Combination, Elemental Recombination

Spells:

Fire Magic → Flame

Earth Magic → Stone, Earth Break, Extract, Summon Earth Elemental

Wind Magic → Air, Wind Slice, Wind Armor, Summon Air Elemental, Suffocate, Air Burst

Light Magic → Light, Heal, Remove Poison, Cure Disease, Mass Heal

Space Magic → Float, Item Box, Blink, Space Lock, Dimensional Door

Combination Magic → Earth Wall, Sand, Stone Skin, Gust, Lightning, Tornado, Regeneration, Levitate

Recombination Magic → Trench, Crystal, Shield, Stone Spike, Gale, Virtue, Hurricane, Resurrection

Crafting Skills: Forestry 1, Forging 5, Carpentry 5, Herbalism 1 , Procuration 1, Bowcraft 1, Architecture 5, Forging 5, Materials Processing 5, Hunting 6, Gathering 6, Construction 5, Masonry 5

Resistance Skills: Sleep Resistance 8

Special Skills: Status, Language Comprehension, Darkvision, Keen Hearing 6, Acute Smell 4, Identify 8

Titles: Reincarnated, Apex of Magic, Spatial Awareness, Ultimate Door Stopper

Protections:

Protection of the Greater God of Life and Death, Cedona

Protection of the Greater God of Time and Space, Tearea

Protection of the Greater God of Magic, Iris

Notes:

3rd Child of Hubert Whitmoor (Father)

1st Child of Soliana Leovaris (Mother)

Great-Grandson of the Elven High King (Tornan Imperium)

Equipment:

Short Bow (Common)

Wooden Short Sword (Common)

Wooden Spear (Common)

Cloth Shirt (Common)

Forest Panther Leather Quiver / 20 Stone Arrows (Uncommon/Common)

Forest Panther Leather Pants (Uncommon)

Forest Panther Leather Shoes (Uncommon)

Star of Tornan Pendant (Mythical)

Elven Sword of the Wind (Heroic)*

Only a few things changed after the battle. Belnan rose to level seventy-two after killing the four wolves. This was huge since he was level one for the past ten years of near isolation with his mother. He wasn't sure if people just did not understand the correlation of leveling up and increase in their combat energies. He would have liked to think that his mother was just protecting him or giving him the time for his skills to grow instead of fighting in the forest. Ten years was not a long time to an elf, after all. This may just be how elves raise their children.

<Belnan>

[I can't figure all these issues out right now. It seems that leveling up has greatly affected my energies and health. My magic multiplier from the Goddess of magic's blessing has just shown how ridiculous it is. Exponential growth is very scary. I went from four digits to six for magic. Am I a magic battery now?]

With few exceptions for spells that can scale, most spells took about a hundred mana per tier of the spell to cast. Take the Wind Slice spell for example. To be cast it needed two hundred mana since its an adept tier two level spell. It could be scales to six hundred mana at its maximum for three blades. This is more than casting suffocate, a tier five spell, once. Regardless, of these costs in the multiples of hundreds per use, Belnan now had over three hundred and fifty thousand magical energy, or in this worlds terms, mana. Perhaps if he was in an all out war he might drain it. That is assuming he didn't level up from all the spell casting being used on his enemies. He didn't want to think about how to use mana effectively or things like that just yet. He just understood that for traveling purposes, he could handle quite the magic load now. It was reassuring the say the least.

Belnan canceled his levitate spell to go harvest the wolves. The three smaller ones were pretty torn up so he took just the claws and teeth. The larger one was in perfect condition having suffocated. He took extreme care getting the pelt, claws, and teeth from this as it would make for good cold weather clothing and smaller weapons.

Procuration has leveled up to rank 2

By the time he finished it was already getting dark out. He threw the materials into his item box. The dark was not an issue to those with elf blood as they had 'Darkvision'. Regardless, he did not want to wake up surrounded by monsters. Using 'Earth Break', he buried the carcasses of the wolves. He filled in the pit with 'Stone'.

Stone

Type: Earth Magic

Tier: 1 Novice

Mana: 100 per 10 cubic feet

Range: 20 Yards

Description: Creates a Soil and/or Stone within 10 feet of the caster. Shape may be change within 10 cubic feet per casters will. Material is created.

Earth Break

Type: Earth Magic

Tier: 2 Adept

Mana Cost: 200 per 10 cubic feet

Range: 20 Yards

Description: Creates a pit in the ground. This can be paid twice to create a maximum of 20 cubic foot deep pit. Material is destroyed.

These two spells he was very familiar with as he would use them after every meal to get rid of the scraps or after harvesting materials from monster carcasses his mother brought back to the camp. At level one, it would have been a huge burden if he didn't have Goddess Isis's blessing. Now that mattered even less at level seventy two.

<Belnan>

[Well its time to get some sleep.]

Using 'Stone', he created four walls and a ceiling around him. He remembered to put in a few air holes on the sides but it plunged him into darkness. This would block his scent to a good degree and provide shelter from the elements. He lit the dark space with 'Flame' in one hand while he used 'Item Box' to take out a Bedroll and pillow with the other. As it was the Spring, there was no need to go into extravagant heating methods.

Flame

Type: Fire Magic

Tier: 1 Novice

Mana Cost: 100 / minute

Range: Melee or Item

Description: Surrounds casters hand or item touched with normal red fire. Temperature range of 900-1800 F can be adjusted by caster. (Dark Red → Dull Red → Bright Cherry Red) Items coated in fire will be damaged if they are not resistant or immune to fire over time.

Item Box

Type: Space Magic

Tier: 2 Adept

Mana Cost: 200

Range: within 2 feet of caster

Description: Warps space to a create a portal to a small, personal 3rd dimensional area. Dimensions are 20 cubic feet. Portal maximum size is 2 ft diameter. (i.e. - things larger than 2 cu ft will not fit) Portal will last for 2 minutes or until dismissed. Portal will not damage conflicting items in space.

Belnan had tried out a few camping methods in the past with his magic and he called this one the "Stone Fort". It was a small ten cubic foot room but it was enough for two people and their gear. It could be created with a chimney box for heat as well but then it could only fit one and required more ventilation. This is a good alternative in the winter. The only downside was that he couldn't see the area around the shelter but if you are traveling it is good. It has a small footprint, is fairly safe being made of stone, and can be torn down fast with magic. Now that he had access to larger reserves of magic, he could get extravagant if he decided to invest the brain power to coming up with something larger.

<Belnan>

[If I ever do go adventuring, and have party members, it might not be a bad idea to come up with something more functional.]

With his architecture skill, he draw something up, and just use that for imagining how to create it with Earth magic a few times till he got a handle on the layout.

<Belnan>

[I do that as I travel. Its a good idea, however I don't have access to any spare paper or parchment. I will have to look into buying one or perhaps making it if necessary.]

He drifted off the sleep in the stone fort while thinking about all the things he could eventually do in the new world.

The following morning, he smashed down the stone fort with Earth magic. It was now just a square of flat dirt without grass. He went down to the river and splashed water on his face and drank a bit. He created a tub out of 'Stone'. The tub was raised two feet off the ground and the underside of the tub was about one inch think so that the heat of a fire underneath could transfer heat. He cut down a small tree with wind magic and stacked the wood underneath the stone tub. Using 'Flame', he lit it. Using a bucket out of his 'Item box', he filled the tub with water. It would have been good to learn Water magic, but his mother couldn't teach him it so he found other ways. It took about twenty minutes till he had some boiling water in the tub. He buried the fire in Earth magic to snuff it out and used some wind magic to cool the water a bit. Stripping down, he used the hot water and some animal soap scented with natural plants to soap up. Washing off the soap with the bucket, he got into the tub to soak. Sleeping on the ground can make one stiff, so a hot tub was just the thing.

After a half hour of soaking, he used the remaining hot water to wash his clothing. Being naked in the wood was a fairly normal thing to him now. He used wind magic to speed up the drying process, got changed and used Earth magic to smash the tub into the ground. He didn't care about the ashes or the water and just buried the whole thing in a pit which he then filled back up. He had a crazy thought that if he ended up living for thousands of years, the world could be full of buried stone tubs all over the world. The thought made him laugh as he pulled some more meat and fruit from his 'Item Box'. He ate while continuing down the river.

Belnan lived like this for a few more days and slowly made his way down the river. As he progressed, the trees gave way to shrubs and the shrubs gave way to rolling hills of grassland with sparse trees. As time passed, he saw homesteads in the distance as signs of civilization began to take over from nature. According to his map, the river was called the Dragon River as it originated in the mountains. He recalled the name of the river he had lived on for ten years as if it never mattered. He thought of it at the sight of the town in front of him.

It was a small town with 20 foot high walls around it which occupied both north and south sides of the river. There was a large gateway on the north side of the town with two huge steel reinforced wooden doors. To the sides of the entryway were guards in full chain mail armor with cloth tabards over them. The tabards had a symbol of a rose in red drawn in the center of the chest area. Those must be Rosewater's guards. In no hurry, Belnan made his way to the gate.