Sitting at the kitchen table, the next morning. I decided that I should write down spells or spell ideas in a notebook I bought yesterday, I guess you can call it a grimoire of sorts. That way, it'll give me a focus for the future and reduce the amount of floundering I'll be doing, hopefully.
I had a sip of the tea I made not that long ago. 'I've been here for a few days now, and I haven't once been in the garden.' I thought as I gazed out the window. I had some seeds that I collected and could grow my own supply of alchemy ingredients, they shouldn't take too long to grow as they were considered weeds and grew just as fast.
Stepping out into the garden, I saw that it was a decently sized garden with a small picket fence, fencing off from the neighbours.
A teenage girl was hanging washing up in the neighbouring garden to the left, and on my right, was an unkept empty garden.
The young lady noticed me and gave me a shy smile in response to my pleasant wave. After she picked up her empty wash basin, she hurried inside. I returned to surveying the garden, not minding her reaction, I remember how awkward teenagers can be as I used to be one myself.
'I don't know how fertile this soil is, but all I can do is try.' I picked up some soil and rubbed it between my fingers, not knowing what I was doing, but it felt like the right thing to do.
Normally, you would have to use gardening tools and a lot of hard work to till the land, but for someone who has magic, it was an easy endeavour. Using earth magic, I broke up the soil and made two lanes for each of the types of seeds I had. Placing the seeds in, I used magic to cover them and water them. All in all, it took a few minutes to do a job that would have taken much longer.
However, only when everything was said and done, did I notice the set of small eyes looking at me with wonder, coming from the window next door. I smiled at the small audience member and headed back inside.
Since it was still early in the day, I decided it was time to go hunt some monsters and level up a bit. Luckily, to the east of Novrad, just past the grassland was march land, a sunken, abandoned village, sat broken in the centre of it. It was the perfect place for multiple types of monsters to nest, and from what I can remember, a lot of lizards and amphibious monsters lived in the marshes. As for the village, a few zombies and plagued lizards spawn there.
If I were to prep properly, I would buy some holy water or something to apply to a weapon. But considering I'm not on a warrior's path, I'll have to make do with what magic I know.
Knowing my way around the town well, I was out of the city walls within half an hour and was already on the road towards my all-you-can-eat buffet of xp.
I soon arrived at an old wooden bridge that stretched over a small stream of brownish water. On the other side of the bridge, the direction I was heading, soon turned into marshlands which gave it a haunting feel.
As soon as I stepped foot onto the land, I sensed a strange tingling sensation all over my body and it felt slightly disgusting, like walking into a filthy room that makes your skin crawl. Unfortunately, that was a side effect of being mana sensitive, I was sensing the corruption that took over the area.
Staying on the road would be safe as it was used often on the way to the capital. So, I jumped off the road and into the murky marsh, luckily, I was wearing boots as I didn't feel like having my feet soaked in this fetid water.
Thankfully, it was like walking through a shallow puddle, but my speed had decreased a bit, so I had to make sure that I didn't attract too much attention.
I didn't know if it was because I was wading through the water, and the creatures here were more sensitive, or I was just lucky. But it took only ten minutes to find my first monster.
It was a lizard fisherman, a giant seven-foot lizard that can both walk upright on two legs or scurry across the ground on all fours. Its main prey was amphibious, fish-like monsters that also hunted in this area.
The lizard spotted me and gripped its crude spear, which it uses to hunt, in one hand. I took a combat stance as it started to creep towards me. These lizards are usually weak to energy attacks, but as I was in the water as well, it wasn't the best call, unless I wanted to be zapped as well.
It exploded with immense speed and lunged at me with its spear outstretched. I jumped back a step and sent a torrent of water exploding up in front of the lizard and spear. The pressure was enough to blow the spear away and stagger it a half step to the side.
Gripping the earth below, I forced an earth spike up into the exposed chest of the monster. However, it didn't puncture its thick scales and instead, it buckled under the blow.
'Judging by the amount of damage, I'll run out of mana before I manage to kill it.' I stood there calculating, as I watched the lizardman start to recover. 'I guess there is no choice then.'
The lizard took its eyes off me as it recovered its fallen spear. So, I raised a small wave of water and threw it over the lizard, it didn't have any force behind it and the lizard seemed to know that as it let the water wash over it. But I used the wave to block its eyesight and took the time to step onto some dry land and channel some lightning energy.
The wave washed over the lizard just in time for it to see the crackling energy building in my hands. Its eyes shot open wide, all lizards are born with an instinctual fear of thunder and lightning. For it to be right in front of it, here and now, it couldn't move in fear.
It didn't take even a second for the lightning to blow a huge chunk of flesh from the lizard, killing it before it could blink.
*Ping*
Seeing the XP amount, I was happy and thought I found the target for my hunt. But before I got lost in the idea, I approached the lizardman and picked through the corpse. The only thing worth harvesting was its magic crystal, which was the size of a large marble.
[Magic crystal]
A crystal that is made up of condensed magic, harvested from the corpse of a monster. Can be used in alchemy or rituals.
Popping the crystal in the inventory, I continued with my hunt, keeping in mind my mana consumption as I went.
Hours soon passed as I hunted any lizardmen I could find. Luckily, I knew where their hunting grounds were and could take multiple down with a single lightning bolt. And then, finally, I levelled up.
[Name: Cain]
Level: 4 → 5
Health: 380
Mana: 380 → 440
XP: 62/7030
Path of the Fledgling Arcanist
An Arcanist is someone who understands the secrets of the world and sees the fabric of reality. You, however, are just a child on this path. Comprehension of all magic increased by 50%. The cost of spells increased by 15%. Becomes hypersensitive to both magic and mana.
Strength: 10
Vitality: 12
Agility: 11
Intellect: 14 → 16
Mind: 16 → 18
Unspent stat points: 0
Like usual, I put the stats into increasing my magical abilities and felt like I could breathe more comfortably. I didn't know whether it was because of my mana sensitivity making me feel trapped in my own body, but every time my magic gets better, the freer I feel. I didn't know what that meant for the future, but I suppose that just meant I had to be patient.
Along with my new level up, I also got twenty-nine magic crystals, which meant I hunted that many lizardmen. If my magic wasn't affected by the environment which gave me a huge advantage, I wouldn't have believed I could hunt as many as I had done. But I was met with the problem of running constantly out of mana which made me feel like the living dead.
I decided that was the perfect excuse to have a break from feeling like my brain was melting, I took a late lunch and found a rare patch of dry ground to sit and eat. However, the pungent, damp air made everything taste slightly of rot and left an unpleasant taste in my mouth.