Blessing And Curses, Leaving Clarke

After learning all of this, Basmon wanted to do one last thing in his training before hunting down some birds with Clarke. He needed to learn how to hit a moving target.

'System! Information on quest Shoot A Moving Target!'

<Quest: Shoot a moving target: Learn how to shoot a moving target and shoot a target while moving. (0/1) Reward: Skill: Homing Arrow>

'Wonderful! Just by the name 'Homing Arrow' seems to be quite powerful!' Basmon thought to himself, getting ready to do this quest. But first, he wanted to talk with Clarke.

'Clarke... About your revenge... Exactly how do you want to complete it?' Basmon asked, hoping he might have a plan, as Basmon had not formulated one yet.

"Oh... Yes. I do." Clarke responded, his personality changing completely, back to the broken old man. His entire aura changed. He went from a cheerful young boy back to the broken, old man.

'Oh... What is it?' Basmon asked, hoping it was a well-formulated plan.

"Yes. We become stronger, then destroy the house in front of Adams's very eyes. Kill his 'Father' in front of him. Make him regret everything. Crush the entire house... Then... I don't know." Clarke said, rage filling his voice, his hands shaking in anger.

'D***... That's dark.' Basmon thought, then told adam; 'Are you sure you want to become that strong? That will take a long time, much longer than I can stay with you... I'm afraid I cannot help you with that...'

"That's fine, Master...Just... Please help me with mana control, so I can do magic without a medium, like those mages in the royal tower... Please..." Clarke requested of Basmon, taking a strong shot of whiskey straight out of the flask he had.

'Wow... Didn't know he drank... I thought that was water...' Basmon said, supprised.

'Alright... I can agree to that. Come here.' Basmon commanded, then opened up the system shop. When he had ranked up to rank E, he had unlocked Blessings and Curses in the shop.

<Shop>

-Skills:

-Basic

-Blessing

-Curse

Basmon clicked on the Blessing tab, then looked through the blessings, looking for the correct one.

<Blessings:

-Health

-Strength

-Stability

After searching for a while, he gave up. He couldn't find the blessing. He was pretty sure he had seen it earlier.

He then decided to look through curses

<Curses>

-Vomit

-Weak

-Unlucky

-Switch

After searching through them for a bit, he found what he was looking for. The backstabbing curse in disguise, the Devil's Wish curse.

<Devils Wish: Exchange your soul for your greatest wish. Once completed, the devil will take your life. Cost: 100TP>

'Alright, Clarke... I will grant you that on one condition: Tell your son the truth... Give him 1 more chance. If he still fails, then just go ahead though. I must warn you though, the exchange is that once you complete your goal, you WILL die.' Basmon said, hoping Clarke would say no.

"Alright... That's fine with me." Clarke responded, shocking Basmon. 'Ugh... I don't want to spend all my TP on that, I only have 100...' He thought, wishing Clarke would change his mind. At least the curse could be used as many times as he wanted as long as both sides knew the conditions. 'Shop, Curses, Devils Wish' Basmon though, immediately opening up the curse.

<Curse: Devils Wish: Exchange your soul for your greatest wish. Once completed, the devil will take your life. Cost: 100TP>

'So expensive...' Basmon groaned internally, then bought it.

<Gained Skill: Curse: Devils Wish>

<First Curse ever, Hidden quest Completed: Reward: Skill: Curse: Medusas Head>

Basmon looked at the notification in shock. He had learned there were hidden quests to complete too and had gotten a new curse. 'System: Medusas Head Information!' Basmon commanded.

<Curse: Medusas Head: When activated, anyone who looks at your head will become petrified. Note: Breaks after 1 minute until upgraded, Can only be used while spectral body is summonsed. (80 Mana/Second)>

'Dang... So mana expensive!!! But it seems super good too, and in a large crowd that could be overpowered.' Basmon thought, happy with the free reward. He wanted to test the skill, but had nowhere to do it.

"Master?" Clarke asked, wondering what Basmon was doing.

'Hmm? Oh. Yes. Start thinking as hard as you can about your goal and your wish to be able to manipulate mana like the royal mages. If you don't, the skill will fail.' Basmon told him.

"Yes, sir." He said, sitting down and focussing on the 2 things.

Basmon then cast the curse. Behind Clarke, a large red silhouette of the devil appeared, 6 hours coming out of his head and 2 pairs of wings on his back. In its hand sat a glowing blue blob, and in the other glowing white blob. The devil then switched the items in his hands, and the blue item entered Clarke, and the white one the devil took, then faded away.

After about 1 minute, Clarke jumped up, and in his hand mana started to gather. In the center of his hand, a fireball formed, and he released it at the nearest rock. Sure enough, he could now use magic.

'Great job, Clarke... You will complete your revenge. Get stronger!' Basmon said, watching as Clarke left their camp, tears in Clarke's eyes. "Thank you, Master, for saving me and giving me this power... Goodbye..." Clarke said, leaving forever.

(Spoiler) (Authors Note: Clarke will come back later in the story)

After reflecting on his time with Clarke, Basmon went to finish some of his quests. After all, he needed to become stronger. A lot stronger. But first, he wanted to test his new skill, so he summonsed Spectral Body, waited for his mana to regenerate, and 10 minutes later went to look for an animal.

After about 8 minutes, he found a bird sitting on a tree. He immediately distracted the bird by making noise, causing the bird to look at him. Basmon understood he only had 1 second to petrify the bird. 'Medusas Head'

Immediately, the glowing purple body changed. Snakes grew out of his bald head, slithering around disgustingly. The moment the bird saw this, his entire body turned to stone. The bird fell off the branch, falling backward onto the ground, dying.

<Quest advancement: Kill Flying Birds: 1/10>

'What? I think I found a way to cheat the system...' Basmon thought but ended up decided not to do it, as he genuinely needed to get stronger. He was extremely lucky this forest had almost no magical creatures, with just 2 competing with each other a lot farther in the forest.

Now, he needed to do the quest 'Quest: Shoot a moving target: Learn how to shoot a moving target and shoot a target while moving. (0/1) Reward: Skill: Homing Arrow'.

Basmon went to the training room and picked up the 2 books, one on shooting a moving target and the other on shooting a target while moving. After reading the first book, he found 2 different methods on how to shoot a moving target, and he could choose either one of them. The first was 'Sustained Lead' and the other was 'Pull Away'.

In Sustained lead, you follow the target while trying to keep the bow aimed about 5-7 inches ahead of it. Always keep the bow moving. Once you feel comfortable, release while making sure to keep that 5-7 (Hopefully 6) inch lead on the target.

In the second way, Pull Away, you had to find the target, aim at it directly, keep following it perfectly, and when you want to release, 'Pull Away' by quickly accelerating the bow and releasing.

After a bit of thinking, Basmon decided on Sustained lead, and started to practice it in the training area. The targets flew out of random holes, and Basmon had to shoot them down.

After about 9 hours, basmon had gotten down the basics of shooting a moving target. Now to complete this quest, he had to learn how to shoot a target while he himself was moving.

He learned that there was a difference in shooting to your left, right, and behind you while running in archery. He would not be learning how to shoot behind himself in basic archery, however. First, to your left. To do this, he had to practice walking and shooting first. Basmon aligned himself and the arrow-like he would usually, then he followed the target whilst he was moving and released. Sure enough, doing this much wasn't that hard. When he was to shoot, he wanted to be standing on his left foot. Then, he started to run while doing that. Left foot down, release. He also made sure his feet were aimed forward. Easy. Once he had gotten that down, he moved on to the next task.

The right side. How to shoot to the right side. This was a bit harder, but not insanely so. First, he needed to learn how to shoot standing still to the right. When shooting right, he had to point his feet towards the target, rotating his body towards the target, putting the bow in front of him and pulling back with his left hand, and releasing. Once he could do it naturally stationary, then he needed to do it while walking.

He would walk forward, turn his feet and rotate towards the target, and release. He also needed to make sure his entire body weight was still on his left foot. While walking, his left leg was aiming at the target, but his right foot would keep moving like nothing had changed. You also were looking more towards a 45-degree angle than a 90-degree angle. This looked weird, but that was how you shot a bow like that. Once he had gotten that, he needed to learn how to do it running.

While running, you had to shoot while in the air. You would never have the time to turn your feet and shoot. While mid-air, you have to be as stable and quick as possible, turning your body quickly. Before getting into that position, you had to set up your aiming, and draw, then you could do it in that split second of time.

After practicing this for a couple of hours, Basmon had gotten down the basics.

<Quest Complete: Shoot a moving target: Learn how to shoot a moving target and shoot a target while moving. (1/1) Reward: Skill: Homing Arrow>

<Gained Skill: Homing Arrow>

Basmon shook his fist, elated. 'System, information on Homing Arrow!'

<Homing Arrow: Homes an arrow in on a target. Does not guarantee a hit, just aids it. Cost 20 Mana. Once leveled up a lot, could become a guaranteed hit>

'Oh! That's such a convenient skill! How wonderful! So it just makes me a lot more likely to hit a target!' Basmon said, happily looking at the skill information. To test that, he aimed to the left of the target by about 12 degrees, released an arrow, and activated Homing Arrow. Sure enough, its path curved slightly, bullseye.

Basmon looked around in happiness, then left the training room. After all, he had some quests to complete. The first one he wanted to complete was the one about killing 10 birds. This one would probably be the easiest, and then once he was done with all of these quests he would rank up to D rank. At this point, he would get a lot more skills in the shop, and quests, but it would become progressively harder to rank up.

First, he needed to find the birds. This wasn't super hard, but it took him about 30 minutes to find a large enough flock. He found a lot of birds that looked similar to sparrows from his original world. Before he did that, however, he silently looked at them with invisibility, trying to learn more about it. Turns out, they just did normal bird stuff. Eat worms. Eat bugs. Gross stuff. He also learned that they had a large nest in one of the larger trees in the forest, with a randomly large egg in it. The others seemed a lot smaller in comparison.

After a bit of debating, Basmon decided to kill all the birds first, then inspect the nest.

***Author Note: 500 extra words because last chapter had 500 less words <3.