Besides, I needed to get more comfortable with casting Spells, anyway. The amount of time and effort it took to activate Noxious Grasp would be completely unacceptable in real combat. I wanted to get to the point where I could turn it on in a split second with a simple thought.
So, as I walked, I started occasionally casting Noxious Grasp. I'd only keep it active for about a second, and then I'd wait for my Mana to fully regenerate before casting it for a second more.
It took about three and a half minutes to regenerate 3 Mana, so I was doing this pretty frequently.
It took a lot more effort to keep turning it on and then back off again, as opposed to just letting it run for all fifty Mana and then waiting an hour for it to all come back, but I wanted to always have as much Mana pooled up as possible, just in case I was ever attacked.
So I walked, continuing my search for shelter.
After about an hour and a half, I started feeling a headache coming from the mental effort I was putting into the Spell. I'd run out of water, too, so the early-onset dehydration didn't help.
But the pain I felt was just a sign I was training well – if you didn't get tired while exercising, you weren't exercising right. I also saw a bunch of other small animals like the Wood Spirit that I tried to kill for XP. I only actually got a few of them, but some was better than none at all.
You have slain Level 1 Boarlet.
You have earned 4 XP. Your XP is 10.
You have slain Level 0 Dire Rabbit.
You have earned 2 XP. Your XP is 12.
You have slain Level 0 Fawn.
You have earned 3 XP. Your XP is 15.
You have slain Level 1 Seeker Owl.
You have earned 5 XP. Your XP is 20.
You have slain Level 1 Rabbit.
You have earned 3 XP. Your XP is 23.
I was really feeling the pain of having a Spell with quite literally zero range as I tried hunting these animals.
Of course, if I'd taken Firebolt, I wouldn't have been able to attack so many of them so frequently, but it definitely would've been easier to just point and fire than to worry about sneaking up on them, tackling them, keeping them restrained while I maintained contact, and not letting them slip away at any point during the process.
It was dark, though, and I had basically no visibility. And not just from the lack of light; my headache was getting bad enough that I could feel my vision getting spottier and spottier as time went on.
It was at the point where I pretty much went blind whenever I activated Noxious Grasp, not to mention the headache got bad enough that I couldn't focus on what I was seeing anyway.
I was really looking forward to taking a rest. I couldn't cast while sleeping, so it'd give me an actual break from the constant mental struggle of maintaining the Spell.
That said, I still couldn't find a good place for shelter, so I decided to settle for the next best thing.
Once I found a decent-sized tree, I gathered a few of the larger sticks littering the forest floor, leaned them up against the tree's trunk, then covered the whole structure with dead leaves to create a bit of insulation and hopefully hide me from anything looking for a snack. Once it was done, I sighed and took a step back, admiring my handiwork.
Yep. It looked like shit.
It was barely big enough to contain me even if I balled myself up as tightly as I could, it was already in the process of falling apart, and I was sure I'd be covered in dirt and leaves by the time half the night had passed. However, it was all I could do.
I was tired, my head hurt, and it was too dark to see anymore. So I maneuvered my way in as best I could, curled up into the fetal position so I could actually fit, and closed my eyes, my mental and physical exhaustion pulling to sleep surprisingly quickly.
I awoke with a start to the sound of snarling and gnashing, and quickly realized that one of my legs was poking out of the shelter.
Shit.
I yanked it back in, but I could see something moving around outside through the gaps in the leaves, sniffing at the pile of sticks I was hiding beneath and curiously pawing at the branches making up my walls.
I knew for a fact that once it realized I was in here, it'd attack. I took a breath. There was no way I was getting out of here without a fight. I shifted slightly to get a better look at what I was going to be dealing me.
Baring its teeth outside of my shelter was a large, green, semi-translucent wolf-like creature. I could see the drool leaking from its mouth as it pawed at my shelter once again, cautiously attempting to knock the sticks aside.
It glanced over the shelter, and for a split-second, its eyes met mine. In that moment, I felt myself fighting to keep the contents of my stomach inside my body, gagging as an intense feeling of nausea washed over me. It passed just as quickly as it came, though, leaving me shaking and sweating.
You have been inflicted with sickness. 12 damage. 6 Stamina drain.
Your Health is 98. Your Stamina is 57.
I had my suspicions, but after that, I knew exactly what this monster was. It was a Wood Wraith, one of the evolved forms of the Wood Spirit. They were larger, meaner, more carnivorous, and – most importantly – had a magical gaze attack that would overturn any victim's stomach – I'd just gotten a taste of it. All of that said, though, it was still not an incredibly high-Level monster.
Wood Spirits evolved into Wood Wraiths at Level 5, but Wood Wraiths evolved into a new form once they reached Level 10, so I knew this monster could only be in the high-single-digits.