The Cave

12:05 AM - Cave?

Ares looked to his right and found a Mana Crystal, emitting a gentle white light. Two more items laid beside it, a rusted iron sword and a large sack.

Ares approached the three items, once he was close enough to bend down and pick them up, white text suddenly popped up in front of his eyes.

"What the hell?" Ares whispered, reading the text.

Rusted Iron Sword (trash)

Tiny Mana Crystal - Light Enchantment (rough)

Sack of food

*Well, I don't know what is going on, but I guess the first thing I should try and do is get out of this cave.*

Ares picked up the sword and Mana Crystal, then stood up and began to take a closer look at his surroundings. Suddenly, he heard a growl coming from behind him.

He turned and saw a small, green figure leaping towards him, with a club in his hand. Ares quickly leapt backwards, dodging the strike by inches.

Level 2 Goblin Clubber. HP 21/21

The goblin swung his club at Ares again, this time, Ares hopped back a little too late and the club grazed his knee.

-1HP

Ares lunged forward and stabbed with his sword. Luckily, he caught the goblin unprepared, and the blade pierced through his eye and came out the back of the goblin's head.

-21HP!

Ares released the sword and retched, this was the first time he killed a creature that so closely resembled a human.

Level Up! Level 2.

After leveling up, Ares' previously wounded knee shone with a yellow light and began to heal.

"What's going on? Why does this seem so similar to a game?" Ares whispered to himself after he recovered from the shock. The way that items had their names appear above them and the sudden notification that told him he leveled up reminded him of RPG game systems.

*Stats.* Ares thought, and a status window suddenly showed up in front of him.

Name: Ares

Age: 17

Level 2

Health: 30/30

Mana: 42/42

Strength: 8 [+]

Endurance: 7 [+]

Agility: 11 [+]

Intelligence: 14 [+]

Wisdom: 13 [+]

-View all stats-

5 Unused Stat Points

1 Unused Ability Point

Ares began to feel hopeful. *Maybe this is the power that I received from my Awakening? If I increase my strength with this, I can ensure that my family will never be picked on again!*

Ares looked at his stats and started to think about what he wanted to invest his attribute points into. From his experience in playing other RPGs, he knew it would be better to focus on only a couple of attributes instead of increasing everything evenly.

*My intelligence and wisdom are way above the rest of my stats, so I guess I should focus on that. If I invest in intelligence and wisdom, that means that I'd be focusing on improving my magical abilities, right? But how am I supposed to use magic?*

Ares opened his Ability Menu to see if there were any abilities that could help him with this problem. A wall of text appeared in front of him, and Ares found several abilities he was interested in.

Basic Mana Manipulation – 1Pt.

The very basics of sensing and controlling Mana. Allows the usage of beginner level Magic.

Meditation - 5Pts.

By gathering and absorbing Mana, your Mana capacity and control over Mana permanently increases. May be used alongside Body Tempering.

Body Tempering - 5Pts.

Permanently improve your physique by infusing Mana into your muscles. Speed, strength and endurance will be permanently increased, and your body will appear more fit. May be used alongside Meditation.

Soul Absorption - 500Pts.

Whenever you slay an enemy, rip out a piece of their soul and absorb it. Permanently increasing your attributes by a small percentage of your opponent's attributes.

Skill Absorption - 1000Pts.

Whenever you slay an enemy, rip out a piece of their soul and absorb it. You have a chance to steal an ability from them. If you already have that ability, you have a chance of improving the ability.

Ares immediately spent the ability point he acquired into Basic Mana Manipulation. Suddenly he felt a massive pain in his head as information began to flow in. He started to gain a basic understanding of what Mana was, and how to convert it to more useful forces.

After a couple of minutes of blinding pain Ares learnt the basics of Mana and Magic. This feat would have required months of training from weak Gifteds, but Ares was able to accomplish the same task in only a couple of minutes.

Skill Acquired! Basic Mana Manipulation – Level 1.

Ares looked around in a daze, his surroundings felt completely foreign to him now. The feeling was akin to a blind person seeing for the first time. Ares felt gentle currents of Mana blowing around him, he also felt a strange torrent of energy coming from his own body that he had never felt before.

So, this is Mana?

Along with learning the basics of manipulating Mana, he had also learned how to summon fire. Mana was simply a source of energy, and by gathering it in specific patterns, Mana could be used to perform a variety of tasks. In this instance, Ares had learned the method of summoning fire with Mana.

Ares closed his eyes and imagined a small flickering flame coming out from his index finger.

-1MP

Ares felt a heat coming from his fingertips and opened his eyes.

*It worked!*

A tiny flame danced gently above Ares' index finger. He imagined the flame becoming smaller and fading out of existence. Ares felt a great sense of euphoria for successfully using Magic for the first time, but he promptly calmed down. He knew that such a small flame wouldn't be of any help in a fight.

Ares, keeping his eyes open this time, looked down at his hand and imagined a small flame growing in the middle of his palm.

-1MP

The flame appeared, the same size as the one on his finger previously. This time however, Ares didn't make it disappear. Instead, he imagined the flame getting larger, while pouring Mana into his hand. The more Mana he poured in, the larger the fireball became.

-10MP

An orb of fire the size of a baseball was gently hovering above Ares' palm. He manipulated the Mana in his surroundings and made the fireball rotate around him.

Beads of sweat appeared on Ares' brow.

*This is way harder than I thought it'd be.*

After finishing one rotation, he couldn't maintain the shape of the fire and it slowly unravelled, the flame quickly burnt out and disappeared.

Ares collapsed to the ground, sweating and gasping for air.

Basic Mana Manipulation – Level 2.

+ Finer control over Mana acquired.

+ Radius that Mana can be controlled increased. 0.3m -> 0.32m

+ All Magic effects increase in magnitude. 5% -> 6%

+ Mana capacity increases. 5% -> 6%

- Focus required to control Mana reduced.

Ares slowly stood back up once he caught his breath.

*One more thing to try before moving on.*

Ares once again created a fireball in his hand, he then sent a sudden burst of Mana to his palm, causing the fireball to shoot outwards.

-15MP

The fireball rapidly flew away from Ares' palm, striking a wall about twelve meters away from him, it burnt a round hole a couple of inches into the stone, before slowly losing its shape and disappearing.

Now that Ares knew he had a Status Menu, he was curious too see what other game-like abilities he had obtained.

*Inventory.* Ares thought.

An inventory screen showed up in front of him, Ares leaned down, grabbed the sack of food from the floor and inserted it into his inventory.

*Options.* An options menu showed up in front of Ares, on the menu screen was a gamma slider and a sound setting. Gamma, max.

The cave around him immediately brightened up and he could finally get a clear look at his surroundings. Ares stored the light-emitting Mana Crystal that he was holding into his inventory and walked over to the corpse of the goblin.

When he approached the corpse, a window popped up showing the objects that Ares could pick up from the goblin's corpse.

Goblin Clubber

Body:

1 Brain (Goblin)

2 Eyes (Goblin)

23 Small Teeth (Goblin)

...

Collect All

Inventory:

1 Wooden Club (Trash)

3 Copper Coins

1 Waterskin (Filled, clean water)

...

Collect All

Ares collected everything from the goblin's body, but two things particularly piqued his interest.

Tiny Mana Crystal (rough)

3 Copper Coins

Mana Crystals were rare items on Earth, and unlike batteries, the amount of energy that they could store remained consistent for billions of uses. A Mana Crystal only broke if an excessive amount of Mana was stored within it, or if it was dealt sufficient physical damage. Because of this, Mana Crystals were incredibly expensive, even the Mana Crystal that Ares was holding could be sold for around a hundred dollars.

Ares was also interested in the copper coins that dropped from the goblin. *Is this some sort of currency?* After briefly examining the coins, Ares deposited them into his inventory.

Behind him was a large pool of clear water, around 20 meters in diameter.

Beyond the pool was a solid rock wall, Ares peered down into the water, looking at his own reflection. Ares was tall and attractive, but because he had spent most of his childhood playing games, he had pale skin and he was rather skinny. Ares had short black hair and black eyes, resembling his father.

Ares turned around, he was in a very large room, the ceiling was filled with countless large stalactites. Directly to Ares' left, there was a small alcove about three meters above him. Ares could only move forward, there was a path gently sloping to the left about twenty meters ahead.

*I guess that's my only path forward, but before that, I need to recover.*

Ares sat down and focused on absorbing the Mana flowing around him.

12:48AM – Beside the Pond

Health: 30/30

Mana: 42/42

Ares, having fully replenished both his Health and Mana Points, decided it was time to proceed.

He walked straight ahead and stopped right before the cave began to turn left. Ares cautiously peered around the corner and scouted the area. He saw three goblin clubbers, each holding a torch and moving around aimlessly.

Ares picked up a rock from off the ground and threw it towards the goblin closest to himself, using Mana to amplify the rock's speed.

-1MP

The goblin made a grunt and looked towards the spot where Ares was hidden. The goblin scratched his head, then began to move closer.

-0HP

Ares backed off from the corner and listened intently to the sound of the goblin's footsteps. He then suddenly leaped out and accurately slashed at the goblin's head.

Level 2 Goblin Clubber. HP 22/23

Splat! The sword landed on the goblin's soft head, crushing the goblin's skull and killing the goblin instantly.

-22HP

"Agh!" The goblin let out a yelp right before he collapsed, alerting the other two goblins behind him.

Level 2 Goblin Clubber. HP 18/18

Level 1 Goblin Clubber. HP 16/16

"Rawr!" They let out a roar cry and began running towards the noise, with their clubs raised high.

Ares quickly gathered Mana to his hand and attempted to blast the stronger goblin's head with a fireball.

-15MP

*Fwoosh!* The fireball left Ares' palm and hit the goblin's thigh, causing the goblin to collapse.

-15HP

Ares then dashed forward, slashing at the other goblin's neck.

-16HP!

The goblin's head flew off his body, leaving a trail of blood in its path.

Ares walked forward and stopped right next to the goblin he had hit with his fireball. He raised his blade and thrust it downwards, piercing the goblin's head.

-3HP!

Ares collected all the loot that the goblins dropped, he had collected three more Tiny Mana Crystals, a spiked wooden club and a rough leather bracer. Ares opened his inventory and reached out a finger to click on the armor.

Leather Bracer (rough)

A crudely made piece of leather armor, provides some defence for attacks made against the forearm.

+3 Defence

Ares equipped the bracer, recovered his mana and continued forwards.

1:03AM – Cave

Ares examined the room in front of him, there were two paths, one that led to the left and one that led to the right.

Ares continued forward on the right path, meeting a group of two goblin clubbers and a goblin archer.

Ares initiated the fight by killing the goblin archer and a goblin clubber with fireballs. He then dashed forward and killed the last goblin with a slash of his blade.

This trend continued for another three hours, Ares would move forward, kill a group of goblins, rest for awhile and continue.

Through all these fights, Ares had gained two more levels. He also found another leather bracer and a leather helmet. While fighting, Ares had also gained a point of agility and a point of strength.

Ares suddenly stopped, there were two paths ahead of him once again. One that went directly to the left and another that gently curved to the left. But more surprisingly to Ares, he also saw a small wooden chest to his right.

Ares walked closer to the chest, slowly opening it using the tip of his sword. He was curious at what was inside, but he stayed on alert, worried that this was a trap.

The chest opened and a single item lay within it.

"This is…"