Chapter 5 – Big pig

As Jake was still basking in the feeling of his level-ups and post-battle euphoria, he opened his status window. The reverie of his colleagues was of little interest to him, as while he enjoyed the victory, he didn’t exactly view it as some monumental achievement. They were overgrown rodents… badgers are rodents, right? Probably not. Moving on.

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

Race: [Human (G) – lvl 1]

Class: [Archer – lvl 2]

Profession: N/A

Health Points (HP): 130/130

Mana Points (MP): 120/120

Stamina: 111/130

Stats

Strength: 13

Agility: 14

Endurance: 13

Vitality: 13

Toughness: 11

Wisdom: 12

Intelligence: 12

Perception: 18

Willpower: 10

Free points: 3

Titles

[Forerunner of the New World]

Thinking back, he hadn’t opened the window since the introduction. Not even to confirm his class or title. And it sure had grown. His agility alone had nearly doubled with the title and levels added together, going from 8 to 14. With Perception being the stat increased by 2 points per archer level, it had grown by an entire 8 points. And he could feel it. Sounds were clearer, his vision sharper than ever, save for when he focused on using Archers Eye.

It could be his imagination, but he felt like his perception was still increasing as he stood there, venting down. Either the new stats only applied their bonus gradually, or perhaps one simply needed time to get used to them. Got to experiment with it, he thought, as he smiled to himself.

Stats were truly a weird thing. During the fight, he had moved faster and been stronger than ever before at the level of an athlete in peak form, at least. Yet it had all felt so natural that he hadn’t even questioned it for a second. It was almost scary how easy it was to adapt to your body’s performance going through such huge changes.

Deciding to write it off as system-magic, he dismissed the status screen, finally noticing that everyone was either staring at him or the dead badgers.

“Thanks, Caroline,” Jacob said, as he gently pushed the now blushing Caroline away from him. Turning to the rest of them as he praised them. “Good job, everyone. Especially you, Jake.”

Jacob seemed back to normal again, the same passive smile and glint in his eyes as before. The tension after the fight had left everyone by now. On a side-note, Jake had entirely ‘ruined’ their carefully made plan by killing half of the beasts before the fight even began. The only beneficial part of the plan still applicable being what to do with the corpses after. They needed a source of food, so… badger meat. Yay?

Figuring out how to transport the badgers was a hassle, as no one wanted to pick up the dead and bloody animals. Especially not the one killed by Bertram and Theodore as it was a complete mess, filled with holes. They ended up only taking the two killed by Jake at the start of the fight, as they were the most whole. The carrying went to Ahmed, who felt bad for not contributing in the battle, and Dennis, who just seemed eager to help. No one even addressed or asked Jake to take anything. Not something he was going to complain about.

As they walked forward, still looking for any source of water, Jake checked his quiver and took note that he was down to 54 arrows, having fired 6 in the previous fight. Focusing on the quiver, he once again identified it:

[Enchanted Quiver (Common)] – A quiver enchanted with the ability to conjure [common] quality arrows when injected with mana.

Now I just have to figure out how to inject something with mana, he said to himself… only to figure out four seconds later that injecting something with mana was way easier than he had anticipated. He just had to hold it in his hands, and then think really hard about doing it. It was almost instinctual.

As the mana slowly left him, it felt a little weird, but not really uncomfortable. In the quiver, he saw arrows slowly appear, seemingly growing out of the sides of it. After half a minute or so, there were once again 60 arrows in the quiver. Trying to inject any more mana seemed to have no effect at all. Looking at his mana, he saw that he was down to 102/120.

So, three mana per arrow. Got it. Damn, this would have been useful back in the day, he thought to himself while admiring the magical quiver, before adding, or not, as I didn’t have mana…

He had considered recollecting the arrows, but there were several reasons not to. First of all, he would have to clean the arrows somehow before they were useful again. Secondly, their penetrative power would be reduced if already used once, if only by a little. Third… he could just magically conjure them. And if he started getting low on mana himself, he could just have one of the warriors fill it back up since they didn’t use their mana for anything else.

All of that was ignoring how time-consuming it would be to recollect the arrows when it only took seconds to conjure new ones.

As they kept walking, Jake quickly ended up at the front, walking beside Bertram. Bertram seemed to hesitate about something, but eventually opened his mouth,

“Jake… were you in the military or something? Or maybe you went hunting from time to time?” he eventually asked.

Jake was a bit taken aback, not expecting that kind of question. “No to both. But I did a lot of archery when I was younger, and still practice when I visit the old folks back home. Why are you asking?”

Jake was honestly confused. If he had to say so himself, he did decently in the last fight, but that was it.

“I just thought you handled yourself so well back there, nothing more,” Bertram said, not pressing further. Though he didn’t seem like the answer satisfied him whatsoever.

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