Ch. 8: Hunting

"I've got [Create Thread], right? I wonder…"

[Confirmed. Unique Skill Invoked.] [Basic Skill: Control Thread will be created for 60 MP].

[Confirmed. Unique Skill Invoked.] [Basic Skill: Thread Arts will be created for 20 MP.]

In novels I'd read, [Create Thread] and [Control Thread] were used in tandem to create the perfect weapon for an assassin.

I didn't know anything about swordsmanship, and martial arts felt like more of a fallback option to me than something that I should be relying on, so I needed an unconventional weapon, preferably one that couldn't be stolen from me in the midst of combat.

Using thread along with my various stealth skills sounded perfect to me, though I'd still eventually take the time to learn swordsmanship and martial arts.

Time to test it. [Thread].

I imagined thread shooting from my finger, and it worked. I was even able to wave it around as if it was an extension of my own body, but the moment that I grabbed it with my other hand, it broke. It was incredibly weak. Weaker than the slimes that I'd been killing, in fact.

This wasn't gonna be useful at the moment, but I could see it becoming a mainstay for me once I leveled it up. That was too far away in my opinion, though.

Let's fix it with a few skills.

[Confirmed. Basic Skill: Oscillation 60 MP]; [Basic Skill: Resistance Conferment 50 MP]; [Basic Skill: Harden 40 MP]; [Basic Skill: Strengthen 40 MP]. [Basic Skill: Weak Physical Resistance 20 MP]; [Blunt Resistance 10 MP]; [Slash Resistance 10 MP]; [Stab Resistance 10 MP]; [Fire Resistance 20 MP]; [Water Resistance 20 MP]; [Wind Resistance 20 MP]; [Earth Resistance 20 MP]; [Electricity Resistance 30 MP]; [Rot Resistance 20 MP].

[Oscillation] let me make the thread vibrate to increase its cutting power.

[Resistance Conferment] let me push my resistances onto the thread, so I got as many resistances as I could think of to maximize it.

[Harden] strengthened the outside of the thread, while [Strengthen] was for core strength. In fact, it upped my own Strength stat by about 20%. It didn't have a level, though.

Looking at my stats, I realized that I now had almost twenty different resistance skills. But more importantly…

[Thread].

I slapped my thread against a tree. It didn't cut through it, I didn't expect that, and it did break, but it left a huge mark on the tree. I tried again, this time wrapping the thread around a limb, high in the tree and reeling it in. I landed on the limb below it with little effort.

"It can already hold my weight. Awesome. Time to go hunting."

...

"Aroo..." The Alpha howled nervously. He could sense something was off. The woods felt... dark, like his entire pack was going to be annihilated at any second, but there was no enemy. He commanded his beta wolves to stay on high alert for the second time.

"ROARRR!!!!!" A loud roar reverberated through the forest, chilling the Alpha to his core. It was the war cry of the Blast Grizzly, a sonic wave that could bowl over trees in close proximity.

Blast Grizzlies only used their roar when they absolutely needed to. If a Blast Grizzly was using their voice, they'd almost certainly use it multiple times, but the woods fell silent after a single blast instead.

A moment later, one of the wolves at the edge of the pack gave a quick little 'yelp!' and disappeared. Next, there were two. Then another. And another three.

The alpha couldn't do anything more than watch as his pack was yanked up and out of sight one at a time. When they realized what was happening, the wolves tried to scatter, but they ran into some sort of invisible wall before they got too far, confusing them just long enough for their invisible attacker to pull them out of sight.

The alpha was the last. His entire pack died strung up in trees, not knowing what was happening.

...

"These small fries aren't going to help me too much, are they?" I'd killed several dozen Goblins, over a hundred slimes, a full pack of 23 wolves, and 2 Blast Grizzlies, and it'd helped my status quite a bit, but at this rate, my strength would eventually plateau. I couldn't allow that.

Grant Carr

Human

Level 23

Strength - 690 (828)

Dexterity - 520

Agility - 570

Endurance - 580

Intellect - 550

MP - 900 / 600 (900)

The boosts from the actual leveling had been pretty minimal, but Predate was level 3 now, so the boosts from it had shot up. With it, I'd managed to break 900 MP in my stockpile, increasing the amount of skills that I can create.

Unfortunately, the more specialized and useful the skill was, the more MP it cost to Create. For instance,

[Confirmed. Unique Skill Invoked.] [Unique Skill Immortality will be created for 1,000,000 MP.] [Error. Skill Creation Failed. Skill Mastery Too Low. Not enough MP].

Immortality wasn't the highest cost skill out there, either. There was a skill called [Omnipotence] that cost 5,000,000 MP.

Fortunately, if I managed to get Immortality, I'd have all the time in the world to get stronger and stronger, but even using the lower tier skills to extend my life, I'd never make it to a million at my current growth rate.

I needed to find stronger enemies, but I didn't know that much about this world. I honestly didn't even know where I was heading as I randomly walked west. I made the determination to enter the first town that I came across. And just in case...

[Confirmed. Unique Skill Invoked.] [Basic Skill Status Concealment will be created for 30 MP]. [Confirmed. Unique Skill Invoked.] [Basic Skill: Skill Concealment will be created for 30 MP].

And they didn't have levels, so I didn't have to worry about someone being able to see through them, unless that someone had an overwhelmingly higher status than mine. I honestly didn't see that happening, though, with how little one's status increased when they leveled up.