"Self-harm leveled up"
"Goddamn, it what do you have against me?" Jin muttered weakly.
He woke up and it looked like a new day has arrived.
"Did I sleep for a whole day?" He looked at the sky.
"Right you don't have to be Sherlock to figure that much" Learning from previous experience he didn't get up immediately.
"If only I had a health bar in this damn system" He lamented.
"So should I rest more or move on? If I eat sparingly, the food will be enough for two days" Counting his low weight he didn't need much to sustain himself.
"I wonder why self-harm leveled up so easily, is it a standard for every skill?" He noticed that self-harm leveled up again and now was at level seven. Trying to stand up made him feel groggy, so he decided to rest more. Taking his rations from the bag he thought of a big problem.
"How do I wash my ass after going to a toilet? God, please let there be some water magic in these books!" He forgot how hungry he was and took out the books. Opening the first book "Basic meditation" he started reading and soon was surprised to know, that basic elements did not need complicated spells to conjure, moreover conjuring basic elements aided meditation!
"I wonder what the meditation is for and how do I even meditate? Oh, I skipped a lot of pages" He noticed that some pages stuck together. It was obvious that these books were rarely in use and leather pages were stuck together for a long time. Books were not big, to begin with, and thick pages made it apparent that there was not much content. Never the less for Jin these books were more precious than gold.
Of course, the answers were written on the pages. Meditation is a skill for calming the mind. Jin had a strange smile.
"No way, Sherlock, maybe you will tell more?" he lampooned. He didn't know when it started, but all those years in loneliness made him speak out aloud habitually.
"Good boy!" He turned up the page. When the basics were – meditation calms once mind, the calm mind was pre-requirement for the second step of meditation which was nurturing of spirit and accumulation of mana. You absorb elements out of the air and use both for nurturing your spirit and transforming them into attribute less mana. Of course, you would lose a lot of elements when transforming them for attribute less mana, out of this problem pure element magicians have appeared, being masters of one element made the acquisition of mana less arduous and mana manipulation easier.
The cons were that they couldn't use other elements. The book stated that he could absorb any by imagining their clear associated picture in his mind. After reading he contemplated a bit, wondering if everything was way too easy.
"Huh? There is no mention of which elements do exist in this world. Is fire an element, or a process? Water is any liquid or only h2o? What is air? Darkness is the absence of light, or it has its own characteristics? Is there dualistic nature of light, or it exists just in a single condition? Why is there so little information?" He was getting more and more agitated.
"Am I too smart for my good? Or did I read too many novels?" Jin breathed deeply and calmed down.
"Ok let's start with imaging water first. Hm, we will proceed from the assumption that water is just water, ordinary h2o. Just water in a bowl. I have a lot of time, so I should succeed!" There were no requirements on posture in the book so he laid down comfortably.
"GOD DAMN IT! WHY IS IT SO HARD!" Several hours have passed but he couldn't even calm his mind, not talking about absorbing mana. Pictures of his previous world, faces of his friends, massacre he witnessed last night, pictures of his favorite porn model, "King of Bongo" song and lots of other useless staff came into his mind. Then he heard some loud rumbling and the earth shacked a bit. At first, he was scared stiff, but then he remembered – he didn't eat! The earth didn't shake – it was his body shaking, hunger didn't come alone, it brought cold.
"Guess I have to pause a bit" he took out one of the two wineskins and made a big gulp. Fluid descended along his throat reminding him – he didn't drink before passing out yesterday. The alcohol warmed him up a bit and he proceeded with his lunch, or whatever it was. He growled comfortably and had another go at wineskin. It looked like all the problems receded and everything was fine. Or so he tried to think. Soon he found out he was drunk and sleepy.
"Guess meditation is no go today, huh? Let's get some sleep then" The moment he finished speaking he started snoring, not a minute passed he changed his position and continued sleeping without issuing a sound – his snoring always woke him up, even when he was dead drunk.
Several hours passed in safety. The greenery around looked more vibrant, forest regained vitality after yesterday's events. There were sounds of insects, birds singing, animals growling – everything was screaming of life! Scorching summer sun hung high in the air gradually all sounds ceased, as if insects, birds, and animals had a siesta. Jin woke up thinking he was caught on fire. His mind groggy, light blinding him, he felt fried in the oven.
"This world sure hates me!" He looked up grudgingly.
"I have to move on, or I would be fried to death under this crazy sun!" Then a crazy idea popped up in his drunken and fried brain – Jin suddenly got up went for the bushes and lost consciousness again, but now he was laying in the shadow of the greenery. He comfortably curled up and was happily asleep.
And if it was mocking him the system issued notifications:
"Self-harm leveled up."
"Self-harm leveled up."