021: Smith

“Damn it!” Rain swore at the scraps of wood in front of him. He had been trying to light a fire for the last fifteen minutes using his flint and steel, but the damp wood refused to catch. It had rained overnight and the roof of the hut had been decidedly less than waterproof. He had slept poorly, and now he was cold, damp, and irritated.

What I need is some lighter fluid.

Tallheart was no help. He had disappeared somewhere before Rain had woken and wasn’t anywhere near the clearing. Rain, left to his own devices, had decided to get a fire going to dry himself out. He had been stymied by wet wood and his own inexperience with starting a fire. He had shaved off some splinters of wood with his knife, but the fire refused to catch no matter how many showers of sparks he had sent cascading over them.

He shivered and pulled his sodden blanket tighter around his shoulders. This wasn’t working. Sitting back on his heels, Rain resigned himself to a miserable morning. He would try to light the fire again a little later, once things had dried out a bit. To take his mind off how cold and damp he was, he pulled up his training overview from the day before.

Huh. Something isn’t adding up here. Intrinsic Clarity should have earned much more experience than that. It has been matching my overall experience from mana use… Oh! That must mean… skills.

Tracing his finger down his skill list, Rain stopped at intrinsic clarity. The skill showed 10/10, meaning it had hit maximum rank. Rain pulled up his notification log and searched it for anything new, but there was nothing. It seemed that there wasn’t an obvious bonus for reaching maximum rank on a skill.

What a fucking letdown. So it just caps out? No skill evolution or perk or anything? Lame. I’ll ask Tallheart about it when he gets back. He might know if there’s something I’m missing.

Rain considered his two free skill points. He had a few options for what to do with them. Right at this moment, immolate was looking pretty tempting. Based on the strength of refrigerate, it would go a long way towards helping get the fire going. He doubted that it would actually set anything on fire without leveling it up a bit first, but it would help dry out the firewood. He didn’t want to make a hasty decision, though. He already had refrigerate for offense. Unless he ran into an ice monster, he didn’t think immolate would be that much more effective at keeping him safe.

Velocity was another option. Being able to move faster would be a huge advantage for combat. The cost was a bit steep to use it for travel, but he might get there eventually if he kept investing in clarity. Rain wasn’t sure if the speed stat would just boost his physical body, or his mind as well.

Another question for Tallheart. Where the heck did he run off to?

Rain looked around the clearing, but there was no sign of the armored man. He glared back at the unlit firewood despondently. There didn’t seem to be any point in trying again yet. He kept his skills window open and pulled up his attributes and statistics as well. He dragged them around until he could see all three windows without them overlapping.

I have 10 free attribute points I could spend. I made it to 100 clarity like I said I would, but I kinda want to keep going. I want more mana too, but investing in regen is more economical with my class. If I can get more of these rings then I can probably get by without it. Tallheart said he was a smith… I wonder if he can make something like this.

Rain idly twisted the focus ring on his finger, considering.

One more question for him then. Still, I could just get a clarity ring and put the points in focus instead. Same thing, right? Focus boosts damage too, but that is only for refrigerate. None of my other skills have the (fcs) annotation. Humm. I might be better off just training refrigerate to rank it up. The damage boost from going up a rank is way higher than what ten points of focus would get me.

Rain stopped as he came to a sudden realization, then hit himself in the forehead.

I am just sitting here with full mana like an idiot. He groaned as he realized that he had missed out on a ton of experience the day before. With all of the activity surrounding the construction of the hut, he had forgotten to periodically use his skills. He resolved to do better today and switched to his detection aura. As much as he wanted to train refrigerate, he was already freezing. Adding a layer of ice to everything didn’t seem to be in his best interest.

He made sure he was seated securely and activated the skill, using aura focus, amplify, and extend to boost it. The world faded to black silence, but his menus remained visible in front of him. He noted that the mana cost for the skill with all of the boosts was almost 30mp/s by focusing on it on his status screen. He had chosen Tel as the object of his search, but there weren’t any within the range of the skill other than those in his pack. He let his mana drop down to zero before canceling the skill.

Crap, that may have been a bad idea. Rain admonished himself as light returned to the world. He hadn’t even considered that he would be left helpless if a monster attacked him while he was out of mana. There was a sudden noise behind him and he shouted in alarm, jumping to his feet at the imagined threat.

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“Good, you are awake.”

“Tallheart! Fuck! Don’t do that!”

The man chuckled with a bass rumble. “I was not being quiet. You should pay more attention.”

“I was using a skill that… never-mind. You have a point.”

“There are no monsters in this forest. That does not mean there is no danger.”

“No monsters?”

“No monsters. There are animals. And humans.”

“What… is a monster?” Rain asked a question that had been bothering him for a while now. He had seen normal animals he was familiar with, as well as some strange creatures like boar-rabbits. None of them had shown a health bar or a level indicator, though, unlike the Skiffun and the dark hounds.

Tallheart cocked his head and considered Rain for a moment before answering. Thankfully, he didn’t challenge him on his lack of knowledge.

“Monsters are not alive. They are not <something>, they come from nothing. In a higher rank area, there will be more. Stronger.”

“Not <something>? I don’t know that word.”

“Humm,” Tallheart considered. “When two animals <something>, you get more animals, after a while. The new animals are <something>. Monsters come from nothing.”