Ch-21: Finally, some pants!

  Guilt, courtesy, nausea, fear, and many other feelings dwelled inside Tetsu. Yet none of them opposed him from eating the pile of slimy rock. Instead, they agreed with each other that he should in fact eat it gue. Courtesy and all that…

  Just because he ate every dead creature and rock, after the rhino tasted it first, doesn't mean he can eat rocks and level up. The first was him being cautious and using the rhino as his personal food tester and the second one was him being dumb and wanting to level by eating some rocks.

  "Hey! For all you know, that's how you level in this stupid game."

  To suppress his nausea, Tetsu lifts the surprisingly light pile of vomited rock and heads to the nearest pond.

  Yes, he decides to be polite and eat the...

  "Blech!"

  His stomach demanded it to be thoroughly washed before he could imagine further.

  Tetsu raises the pile higher and smashes it back into the puddle, sending water flying in all directions.

  The water flying toward the rhino gets evaporated before touching its body. Steam rises around the rhino, revealing a bubble of heat still present around its body.

  Tetsu thanked his overthinking mind for the first time. If it hadn't delayed him by the many useless scenarios, his hands would've melted down to the bone.

  "Cool skill."

  Tetsu moves the pile with little effort into the water. His fingers brush along its side and find a grove between the rock. He digs his fingers deeper and gets a proper grip. With his entire strength behind him, he pushes his legs up, pulling the pile of rocks.

  The rock, without following his lead, somehow dragged deeper into the puddle as it expanded. Tetsu now held a long rock with two huge holes in its center.

  "Huh!" His brain took a while to process until it clicked. "Is this a pant?"

[Ding! You have received a gift: crystal mold pants. A lower-level Quart: node for unknown reasons created this artifact and gifted it to you. No bond is required to bind these pants. Increment: Dex: +13. Flex: -7. Flash: -10. Stamina: -10. Fort: +20. Defense: +24. Level: Initiate. Rarity: Rare.]

Sage guides Tetsu to infuse the pants with his mana, binding it to him. He feels the influx of stats and smiles. Before he worked out the very simple math, another notification stabbed his joy in the back.

[Warning! Your flex, flash, and stamina have affected your fort. Calculating and adjusting the current stat.]

>Fort: -10<

"Well... of course!"

Tetsu wanted to stare the system to death. The system took it as prompt and opened his status screen.

"Funny!"

Name: Tetsü .K .Tenco. 

Race: Human {---} Level: 01 | Initiate |

Class: Forger & Tracer

Affinity: Rune Force

Bond: N/A

--*--*----*--*--

[STATUS]

Health Pool: 26/84

Mana Pool: 90/140

Fatigue: 38

-*--*----*--*--

[INDIVIDUAL STAT'S]

Dex: 19 :: Flex: -1 :: Flash: -4

Stamina: -3 :: Rex: 06 :: Fort: -4

-*--*----*--*--

Senses: 14 :: Regen: 10 :: Tork: 8

-*--*----*--*--

Will power: 40 :: Perception: 30 :: Intellect: 42

Luck: 07 

Free Points: 04

-*--*----*--*--

Titles--: Solitary Vanguard; Fanatic Rever; GlyphSage.

-*--*----*--*-

  This made his math so much simpler.

  "Who has minus stats?"

  By now, Tetsu should've been used to his shitty luck. But still, venting out is a good thing, so he scolded the system for a good ten minutes, the rhino for five, and himself for an hour.

  Later, he apologized to the rhino as it was a gift, and it's rude to yell at someone, even though their gift was useless to the highest degree. Next, he apologizes to the system, because you don't piss off entities that can erase your very existence or put you in an eternal slumber.

  'Fuck Tetsu.' He didn't have to apologize to himself.

  Turns out negative points meant faster raising fatigue, slower increasing health and mana pool, and as time passed, negative health points.

  Tetsu lost health just by wearing some pants.

  "Ever searched for an example to use over royally fucked people? That would be me."

  I have exceptional gear but not enough stats to use it right. It's kinda like a golden spoon that stabs me whenever I take a morsel.

  "Yeah, it turns out I am that lame!"

  Tetsu flares his hands slowly over the many diamonds and jewels embedded in his pants. These diamonds have undergone a much better and faster mode of crystallization. These were way more potent than any gem from Earth and that's without the high densities of mana.

  "Rich and lame… I can do rich and lame."

  A unique locking system replaced the dense mold at the knee. This mold joint was slimmer and movable. Tetsu unlocks the kneecap, turning the pants into shorts.

  "From no pants to the costliest pair ever." He turns to the rhino. "Thanks." He does a slight bow and his pants pins him down. "Can you help me more... please!"

  He only received an enormous sigh from the rhino.

  By shortening the pants, his stats didn't reduce. But when his inner sage told him how to deactivate the bond, he separated the lower half, and the shorts provided lesser stats. By comparison, lesser negative numbers.

  His senses also pointed in a vague direction to relocate his pants if he ever lost them. He didn't plan on losing them, yet this feature poked his curious mind out of some experiments.

   An hour went by as Tetsu managed to turn on his back. He took another hour to get on his knees and another hour to finally stand up.

  "Up-five." He cheers and falls right back.

  If Quartnodes knew human anatomy, perhaps she would have made him a nice helmet to protect his head or a chest plate to protect his heart. Instead, she made him some pants to protect his family jewels and from the look of it, Tetsu himself forgot about human anatomy.

  "I freaking love these pants. Privates and again private." He smiles.

  Tetsu limps closer to the rhino. He couldn't believe how unbelievably comfortable the pant's interiors were. It might be nakedness and hard floor nights talking, but oof! damn they were soft and with several pockets.

  Tetsu makes and places a charcoal shard inside his pocket. He limps about and removes the charcoal shard to find it in pristine condition. Well, pristine for a charcoal orb with runes.

  The runes and charcoal orb stayed in perfect form. He throws the orb and watches smoke rise from a distance. After a bit of experimentation, he finds out he can only place four charcoal orbs in one pocket.

  He had seven, so that meant he could carry twenty-eight smoke bombs. Any more in one pocket and they rubbed against each other, smudging the runes and making them useless.

  The rhino must have gotten the idea to make pockets by seeing the clumsy human drop so many smoke bombs or his tendency to collect random objects. Any plant, stick, or feces he found interesting, he would pick it up and bring it along.

  "Humans are weird." She smiled for the first time as the human struggled to walk. "This should keep his hanging weakness safe and keep him still for a second." Her smile grew. "If he wants to store some smoke bombs or feces..." The idea disgusted her, but her pet was happy and not completely useless, so that made her smile.

  Tetsu's childish dream of weight training made him join in on her amusement.

  Finally, some progress. Some darn pants.

  Night rolled by while Tetsu's excitement kept him awake. He had pants! He wore a trillion-dollar pajamas to bed, how could he sleep? All night he saw his smoke bombs absorb the ash and smoke their campfire released. He patted himself for the genius idea and even got a surprise eyebrow from the rhino, which was worth more than the invention.

  Tetsu started his morning with some weight training. He left the lower half of the pants behind as he limped around in his shorts. Everyone knows you increase your weight as you get stronger.

  At times, he even went back to his birthday suit to recover from his fatigue. Even this time wasn't wasted, though. He either trained the other two powers or expanded his territory. With several smoke bombs, he made traps further inside the forest. Any approaching threat would raise a cloud of smoke and warn them beforehand.

  Tetsu showed the trap to the rhino and boasted about his genius invention. He tells her how it's triggered and how to stay vigilant while she approaches their safe house, to only step on one soon after.

  "See... KALF!" Tetsu coughs up smoke. "Don't do that."

  "Every time I think he's smart, he goes and does that." She scoffs, turns, and steps into a trap.

  The charcoal explodes, turning her baby pink shade into dirty grey. She shifts her gaze to Tetsu, which only makes him laugh harder.

    This is how Tetsu won his second battle: the rhino ran after him with murder in her eyes, while Tetsu stripped naked before he ran for his life.

  Two possibilities. One, the rhino catches him and pummels him to death, or two. Her funny eyes force him to laugh himself to death. Either way, Tetsu lost this round.

  These small moments made up for so many tiny holes in his heart. He knew these were temporary patches that time shall reclaim. Yet at this moment, he forgot all about his worries, the many possibilities, the tiny desires, and just lived in it, embracing every second.

  Making his way back to the first pair of artifacts he owns, Tetsu remembers his actual first artifact. "Where is my stick?"

   Rhino saw Tetsu pick up many sticks along their journey. Boys and their obsession with sticks. It made sense to her as boys were weak and needed a stick for protection. But this new stick Tetsu dug out from the ground was a rare artifact.

  "Did he obtain a new skill?" She wonders.

  The wooden stick makes her drool, but she controls herself and plans to use the human as her personal artifact finder. She didn't want to upset him by eating it right away. He was quite fragile, both outward and inward.

  "All I need is a mind affinity and a level." She bubbles in excitement. "And I know where to get one." She activates a skill and hops away.

  Unaware of the schemes being plotted against him, Tetsu makes plans of his own. With quick and more powerful info, he gets more details about the artifact.

  "Is that so..." He adjusts his power, changes his intent, and tries several approaches. "Of course... oh, nice... let's go."

  Way too many experiments flooded Tetsu's mind, with many more experiments already waiting their turn.

  Tetsu sits and makes a schedule to work on all of them at once. He and Kile used this technique when they were stuck between many questions while having only two heads to solve.

However, this technique wasn't one of their creation, but rather a taunt directed at Kile by his grandmother.

  It's such a rare phenomenon for Kile to get chewed out that Tetsu remembered his failures way more than his lessons.

  Bullies, teachers, and adults alike never got the upper hand on Kile. Except for one exceptional being, his grandmother. Senior R.A.Z.Z.

  She's one of those Indians who has a ridiculously long name, so she shortened it to sound more hip. Similar to Kile, she was way ahead of her time.

  Grandpa was a slave before the word slave was invented and she was a gangster before any gang dared claim that title. Guess brilliance runs in his family.

Even an eternity wouldn't be enough if Tetsu talked about Grandma. But to keep the story short, both Tetsu and Kile were stuck between many problems to solve. So, they did the usual by delegating their work and concentrating on what was urgent.

  Once Grandma got word of this, she taunted Kile. "For some self-proclaimed geniuses, you sure are dumb." She claims.

  Before Kile scrambled for a reply. She gave a simple and brilliant solution. Having the last word in, she did the obvious and stormed away. "So long, suckers."

  My victory over Kile was when I converted Grandma's taunt into this technique.

  "Take a break by breaking into another subject." Said Razz.

  In a simpler way, when you're stuck in maths, don't stop studying, but switch to science or history and get back to science once you have refueled your energy.

  We all have that one subject or one problem we can't solve. The simple solution is to renew your drive by diving into a similar subject you love and getting back to the roadblock once your drive is high.

  The reason I say a similar subject is that I know you would go play a game or scroll down a million reels in search of drive.

  Students can dive into another academic subject or second least favorite subject. Adults can try a fresh approach to the same problem, and old folks can start a new chapter or teach their old chapter to the young ones.

  Back in the present time, Tetsu's preparations were almost about to end. He had a vague road map planned in his head, Miss Razz's technique at the back of his hand, and the muse realm looming over him.

It was time to create an artifact.

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