Chapter 7: Scorned woman
It's been three hours since he started to practice Mana control by trying to open the weird looking box, he made little progress but progress is progress, he can now at least lift one pin.
" Huff, this is hard to do with a large amount of Mana, but I'm getting better and better at it. " Ryo was determined to open this box and get the reward inside it.
Two more hours have passed and Ryo can now lift three more pins, it just needs two more to go and it will open. Ryo had found the fifth pin and lifted it, now it's just one more pin, he had been following a long path and he was confident that this was the right path but when he reach the end of the path it was just a dead end so his concentration got cut off, now he's going back to the beginning.
" Ahhh! Come-on it just needed one more pin to lift and I just had to fail it." Ryo said frustrated because of his bad luck.
[ You need to calm down master, you had it easy from the start, just think of this as a little challenge. ]
" Was it easy? I have to fight a level 10 raptor for God's sake! *Inhales* *exhale* But I get what you are trying to say. Life isn't just about a straight path, there are many turns and crossroads that I have to take, like this box. Those roads had given me some . . . unpleasant outcomes, but that didn't stop me and it never will. " Ryo once again determined to complete this challenging box, sat back down and meditated.
Another hour passed, and Ryo tried another approach of opening it. Instead of using one single strand of Mana, he uses multiple strands each time he comes across a crossroad but this is much more time consuming than using a single strand.
This might be a slow process but it is the most proficient way. Finding the last pin was tricky but he managed to find it in a crossroad, this pin was hard to spot because it was well hidden and he only managed to find it when the strands that hit dead end retracted to the name line and a strand went past it.
After so long of trying to find the last pin he finally found it and the box glowed before disappearing and strings of notification popped out.
[ You have received +50 stat points on intelligence. ]
[ You have received a purifying water
container( rare ) ]
[ You have received a dual wield dagger skill scroll( rare ) ]
[ You have received 10,000 Exp. ]
[ You have received 10,000 Kp. ]
[ You have leveled up. ]
[ You have leveled up. ]
[ You have leveled up. ]
[ Master, you now have at least 170 stat points, would you like to add them. ]
" Woah~, hahaha, I finally did it! " Ryo was jumping in joy when he finally opened the damn box.
" I also received a lot of exps, kps, and two items. Wait, it also gave me 50 stat points on intelligence. System, are there other ways to increase each individual stats. "
[ Yes master, you can increase a stat by either exercising or completing tasks that need to give certain stat points. ]
" Ohhh, is that so. What are these items anyway? Appraise. " Ryo used appraise and a panel popped out in front of him.
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Item: Dual wield dagger skill scroll( rare )
By accepting this skill your current basic dagger-skill will evolve to dual wield dagger-skill and removing the maximum level amount.
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[ Item: Purifying water container( rare )
lvl: 10
Rank: C+
Gallons: 0/20
This water container was made with a water stone purifying the water and space dust for more space than what it looks like. Just add Mana in the container and let the water stone do its magic.
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[ Would you like to learn dual wield dagger-skill? ]
[ Yes ] or [ No ]
" Ohhh, I can upgrade my skill, nice. " Ryo picked yes obviously.
[ Congratulations, your basic dagger-skill evolved to dual wield dagger-skill and the level limiter had been moved up. ] Ryo nodded in satisfaction because his maxed out skill can level up again.
" Ohhhh~, and I also have a space container for water. Hey system. "
[ Yes master? ]
" What is the difference between a stone and a crystal. " Ryo asked as he picked up the two items from the ground.
[ Ummm, the crystal is rarer and more valuable than the stone and shiny too, while the stone has no value on its own, but if you collect a bunch of them and sell it on the people who buys it, then you have some profits but not as much as selling a single crystal. ]
Ryo released a big sigh and pinch the middle of his nose, he needed to rephrase his questions.
" no system, what I meant was that, what is the difference between an elemental stone to an elemental crystal? I've been seeing this recently and I don't know the difference between them. " Ryo asked again, a bit frustrated.
[ Ohhh, why didn't you tell me sooner master. ]
Ryo let out a sigh to not waste any more of his patience.
[ Well, the difference between them is their elemental properties, for example the breeze stone and the wind crystal, you've read it already master that the breeze stone had only a piece of power from the wind crystal since the breeze stone and the other variants of it, is in the man-made side while the wind crystal is more of a natural resources. ]
" Is that so, you've mentioned that the stones are man-made and only contain a piece of power from the wind crystal, how is that possible? "
[ Elemental stones are made by a talented mage that specializes in making runes, these runes will then be used as containers for a smashed piece of an elemental crystal. Only the private royal blacksmith and royal mage can do this because they kept this a secret, but somehow an outside party manage to get this information and used this for their own benefits, and that's how the secret of making an elemental stone spread. ]
" Ohhh, but why would they make a watered down version of the elemental crystal? " Ryo asked even though he might know what it is.
[ Because of an ongoing war and the shortage of natural resources of elemental crystals, they do this since it's much cheaper than ordering large amounts of resources in the neighborhood kingdoms. Plus you can make five to six stones in one crystal. ]
" An ongoing war, this might be bad fo- " just when he was mumbling to himself he was cut off by the system.
[ Oh you don't have to worry about the ongoing war since it already finished a hundred years ago and all the known kingdoms united for a common cause. But there relationship with each other are a bit fragile and any shown hostility with each other can start another war. ]
Ryo looked at the panel with a look of confusion because this information is already outdated and it will not help him if he somehow comes in contact with someone not in the human kingdom. They might even be hostile with the human race, well, he's not exactly human but he still needs to keep a low profile for the time being.
" Wha-, this information is already outdated! How can it help me, I want something that is currently new. "
[ *pout* Hmp! But the information I give you is very helpful and knowing the past is important before the present and future. Hmp! Good bye for now, ungrateful master. ] The system then shut up after that, leaving Ryo dumbstruck.
" Did. Did you just pout?! Oi! *sigh* and she's gone. " Ryo scratches the back of his head trying to make sense of this.
He then grabbed the electric dagger that was sitting beside him and started to force his Mana into the dagger along with controlling his mana to shape the blade.
Thanks to his efforts to control his Mana, he managed to at least shape it to the right form but you can still see some mistakes.
' Damn! It's still not right, I'll just practice to shape it right. ' he stopped forcing his Mana into the dagger turning it off, he then forced his Mana into the dagger again and tried to shape it, he repeated this until he could correctly shape the dagger.
After hours of repeating this process again And again he finally made a huge progress, the electric edge was now near perfect, its blade was just a bit curved but it was hard to notice it.
' heh, at least it's now shaped like a dagger. ' Ryo stood up from his position and walked towards the tree that he failed to cut, he stretched his arm to the side, in a quick motion he swung the dagger and cut the tree down and the dagger didn't explode like last time.
Ryo breathed a sigh of relief that the dagger didn't explode, after turning off the dagger he felt a bit light-headed and sat down to rest.
" 'Huff' 'huff', it looks like that practice took a lot of me, heh, just a bit more and I will master this. " Ryo laid down with a content smile, he then opened the stat panel to check where he would mostly put the stacked up stat points.
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Name: Ryo Masashi
Race: humanoid
Sex: Male
Age: 16
lvl: 32
Exp: 3,100/3,200
Sp: 170
Kp: 29,400
Hp: 3,300/3,300
Mp: 100/2,100
Str: 330
Vit: 360
Agi: 380
Dex: 360
Int: 230
[ Skills° ] [ Tasks ] [ Shop ]
{ Dual wield dagger-skills( passive ) lvl: 1 }
{ Rapid slash lvl: 10 }
{ Rapid stab lvl: 10 }
{ Skinning lvl: 8 }
{ Basic hand to hand combat lvl: 10( max ) }
{ Cooking lvl: 6 }
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' Yikes, I burned through my Mana, I think I'll add some to the intelligence stats even if it adds more difficulty to control my Mana, this will save me in the long run if I keep using this dagger. Heh, I'm now this strong huh, for just a week I'm already this strong but I won't be cocky, there are still much stronger opponents in the future, I'll just keep a low profile for now. ' Ryo raised his hand and added all of the stat points on intelligence, this might be bad thing but his already like the current strongest person in the forest and if there is an opponent he can't beat then he'll just swallow his pride and run away to face it next time when he's much more stronger.
After adding all of the stat points on intelligence, he felt a significant amount of changes in his surroundings, his senses were sharper than before, he could see a better bit clearer, also his hearing.
He could hear the river water gushing down the river lane. He was awestruck at this, he couldn't really feel the changes of his heightened senses when he leveled up because of the sensation of his strength growing it nullified it, but now he could feel it.
" Woah, this is awesome! I didn't know the intelligence stat could also heightened my senses. " Ryo then walked towards the sound of water rushing.
He reached the river and walked closer to the shore. He knelt down and took out the water container he received. He wanted to test the purification ability of this water container.
He opened the cap and dunk it in the water while adding Mana into the container, the water container glowed a dim blue light.
He then took it out of the water after filling it to the brim, he peeked inside and could see clean water. He put the opening of the water bottle and then took a sip of the water.
He was doubtful at first but when he tasted the fresh and cool water, it got rid of it.
" Damn! This will help me a lot. Thank you system. " Ryo thanked the system silently but it was still heard by it. The system wanted to come out and say 'you're welcome, master', but she was still mad like a woman scorned, so she refused.
Ryo only smiled and shook his head because he knew that the system was listening but didn't come out because she was still mad. Ryo placed the water container back to the space ring before walking back to his makeshift camp. He was hungry since it was almost sunset and he mostly trained the whole day and didn't eat.
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I hope that you liked the chapter, if you did please leave a star or put it in your library please and thank you, I'll see you in the next chapter.
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