Chapter 14: The Feeling Of Dread

[Attempt 2/100]

The empty air of silence shook me as I opened my eyes; this unusual silence was so different to me.

The save that I've been staying in has kept me alive; for some weird reason there was a pond here and a plant next to it.

Couple days ago, when I first got here, I had thought that I shouldn't drink the water here since there was a chance of it being contaminated.

Afterwards I couldn't find any other way to get water properly; the snow had started to pour, making it hard to find any dry wood or any bodies of water that haven't been frozen solid.

Any attempt at melting snow was difficult; it was cold and brutal; I could feel myself dying of dehydration every minute. 

Eventually I was left without a choice as I drank the water; the water was clear and smooth, seemingly clear and pure.

I didn't know the reason behind this; perhaps it was due to the flowers or maybe something else. All I know is that this cave kept me alive.

But I couldn't put survival just in the cave; the journal that Riven had left behind worked wonders as well.

Information about this forest that I needed was on here; everything that he had learned from his decades of experience was packed here.

It was an invaluable tool for me; I didn't know what I would do without it. Every single day I would dedicate all my time to studying this book; this, along with the cave, allowed me to survive.

I do not know if Riven discovered this cave with the pond or he created the pond, but either way, the only reason I was alive was due to him.

Right now, all I could focus on was surviving until spring arrives; every day in this snow was a battle of survival. In order to survive, I had to look for food under the numerous feet of snow.

Every single time I went outside and tried to dig for snow, my entire body would be numb with pain, the icy feeling crawling up my skin like a leech.

It felt that every day I was purposely torturing myself in the snow, trying to find the ever-lightest food to eat, any wood that could be useful.

Any other time would be spent trying to interpret the journal that Riven had left behind, studying out of my mind.

It had been like this for the past few days: look for food, freeze, read, drink and eat, sleep, and repeat.

But recently I've been trying to figure out the reason why I was here. During my time with Riven, I had vaguely thought of it, but I didn't have much thought about it.

But now I was all alone; there was nobody else here except for me. The only person by myself is me. 

In order to summon this board-like thing in front of me, all I had to do was simply think of it within my mind, and it would happen.

The second I thought of it, it would pop up in front of me.

Race: Human 

Strength: 2 

Speed: 1 

Stamina: 1 

Intelligence: 23

Path: Time 

Aptitude: D 

Mana: 0

Path Rank: 0 

Path Progress 0/100 

Skills: [Heavenly Hourglass (EX)] 

Path Attributes: [Perception of Time (F)] 

Blessings: [Blessed by Fate] 

Curses: [Cured by Fate] [Curse of Chaos] 

Artifacts: ----- 

With the information from Riven Diary, I understood the basics of everything, but what I didn't understand was all the abnormalities in my stats.

I mean, what even is an EX skill in the first place? 

Even in Rivens diary, he had never mentioned a skill being above SSS, which was the highest. 

But right under my skills, it also had a path attribute; Riven didn't explain what this was, but it was at quite the low level.

I guess I had to figure this out along with everything else; nothing at the moment made sense, but I had to adapt to it.

Throwing skills and attributes aside, another thing that was unordinary was my intelligence; it was quite high, a log higher than the average person and a path master.

Although the most logical explanation for that was my time on Earth, although this world was different from the one I had previously lived in, a lot of the fundamental differences remained the same.

Aside from that, the main problem that I have right now is advancing to a Path Master. According to this journal, there are 2 main ways to achieve this.

Either a person helps you by giving you their mana, or you use the natural mana and runes from a runic material.

The first one was obviously out of the picture for now, with the aptitude I have, according to Riven's Journal. It won't do me much good.

My path is also a time path for some reason. Riven gave a list of the most common paths, and the time path wasn't mentioned there. So I'm assuming that finding these so-called "rustic materials" for the time path would be extremely difficult.

Right now, I'm at a standstill; I couldn't become a Path Master, and every day was getting worse than the last. 

It already took everything out of me to survive each day, if only I could become a Path Master and gain all these benefits that Riven had mentioned.

I could feel the cold feeling of dread freezing my body over. It felt like every single day that I was living was a decision of life or death.

If I got lost outside in the pure white snow, I would die. If I go out for too long, I will die. If I didn't find food, I would die.

But even still, something about this way of living affected me. But that didn't matter right now; I had to keep reading and take in more information; perhaps in the later pages, Riven might have another idea to allow me to advance to a Path Master.

Someday, when this all cleared out and the snow melted, I would go back to the old shack where me and Riven lived; perhaps that's the reason for this feeling in my heart.

But right now, those thoughts were useless; I had to focus.

.

.

The winds blew throughout the sky. In a grand bed lay a man with brown hair who had a chiseled face. His room was decorative and grand, clearly showing off his status.

A knock could be heard on a door as it woke him up.

"Viscount, your breakfast is ready." A voice said from behind the door, waking the Viscount up.

"Yes, just leave it on the table; I will come out when I get ready." The viscount replied in a cold voice, rubbing his eyes as he grabbed himself and hopped out of bed.

Half an hour later, the Viscount was finally ready and came outside in a grand aura; any person looking at him would instantly understand that this man was a high-standing noble.

The Viscount ate his breakfast before heading into his office, where he took care of multiple documents.

As he worked, a servant came and dropped off an array of letters filled with events, drama, and important political details.

Nothing really caught his eye; everything seemed to be fine until he found something interesting.

He scanned over the letter, mummering to himself as he read through it.

"The Duke of Veldoria..."

"It seems a person had stolen some important documents and burned his office down."

"Just who is this person?"

This news caught the Viscount off guard; he hadn't expected for this to happen. It had been quite peaceful within the country recently, but with this, there was sure to be conflicts happening.

But for now, the Viscount discarded this information; after all, this will not affect him all that much; what was more important was to spread his reputation and take care of the quests that he had ordered.

The political state in Meryl was very dangerous; spreading his reputation was extremely important; he had multiple enemies and had to be on guard at all times.

The Viscount was wary of this; at any moment one of his enemies could strike, so he had been extremely busy and tired recently.

But even then, the Viscount knew that this needed to be accomplished in order for the sake of his goals.