When Darren came out of the tunnel carrying a sack and immediately collapsed right after, Naphaela was one of the people who were there panicking over Darren's battered body. After letting him rest for a bit and giving him some very light food and water, she walked Darren back to their home. Darren could stay in their house for a while, as her parents were out in other planets, cultivating in this time of the year.
When he next woke up, Darren was forced to groan in pain with every little movement. His siblings were quite scared for his well-being, but Naphaela was their to reassure them that their big brother was fine. To add, she was a good caretaker.
Knowing that he can't do much in his state, Darren used all his time to go through all of the system's available tutorials. Titles, terms, skills, quests, equipment, and inventory. It didn't take him too long to finish all of them, and he discovered a lot of functions that were beneficial to his growth.
First, was the Daily Quest. The function allowed him to go to a completely different world full of monsters that didn't exist in his world, and the monsters the same level as him would voluntarily head to his position until he leveled up once inside the Quest. Also upon level up, he can return to the real world.
Though he badly wanted to try and take the Quest, he didn't think he would be able to fight off a couple dozen slimes, no matter how weak they were. And because he was bored, he just played with the inventory system he had while Naph or anyone else was watching over him.
". . . Status." He muttered under his breath, prompting for his status panel to appear.
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◄[Status]►
LVL 2
EXP: 0%
HP: 275/275 (Fatigue III)
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SP: 50/50
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Status Points: 0
BRU15 [+]
DEX10 [+]
VIT 15 [+]
SPR10 [+]
TEN25 [+]
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He pinned his gaze on the status debuff [Fatigue] displayed in red text. It temporarily gave him various status debuffs that varied depending on the intensity of his fatigue. In this case, all of his physical stats were cut in half-- strength, speed, senses, pain tolerance-- everything. The weight of the debuff was apparent, as his every movement felt heavy and painful. Just clenching his fists was a chore.
But after all, it was just temporary. He was willing to crouch down so that he could jump higher afterwards-- he got 20 points of allocated stat points just from this ordeal. A five point increase in VIT and a 15-point increase in TEN.
Darren pursed his lips into a thin line, thinking that the 'Hidden Title' he got along with the title [Hard-Worker] was a huge bonus. [Tenacious] was a title that gave him a whopping 10-point increase in TEN.
Satisfied with his growth, Darren used his thoughts to control the system interface, heading to the [Active Skills] tab.
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◄[Active Skills]►
Skill Points: 0
►BRU
►Bash
►Tackle
►Battle Cry
►VIT
►Guard
►Parry
►Cure
►TEN
►Pokerface
►Wilful Strike
►Roar
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All the available active skills at the moment did simple, straightforward things, and based on what he learned from the system tutorials, the skills would only get better from here.
Next, he headed to the [Passive Skills] tab.
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◄[Passive Skills]►
Skill Points: 0
►BRU
►Violence
►Frenzy
►Vigor
►VIT
►Ironskin
►Steelsoul
►Recovery
►TEN
►Detachment
►Passion
►Charisma
►Hybrid Skills
►Vengance
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All the skills that were currently unlocked were Tier 1 skills, and they all cost 1 skill point to learn. To unlock more skills, Darren needed to meet two conditions: one, the root skills must be learned first; two, he needed to meet the stat requirement.
The reason why he only had skills falling into the BRU, VIT, and TEN categories was because they were the only stats that had 15 points or higher. If, for example, Darren raised his BRU to 30, he would unlock three more active skills under [Bash].
Next were the Hybrid skills. Hybrid Skills were skills that usually had special unlock requirements, and would always fall under two or more categories.
[Vengeance] was a skill that would only unlock once both VIT and TEN reached 15 points, and its effect was a mix of the two statuses.
▬▬▬Skill Details▬▬▬
Vengeance: When receiving damage, grants the user a small chance to increase BRU by a small amount for 5s
Costs 2 Skill Points
[Learn]
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At the doorknob of Darren's room door clicked, he subtly dismissed the system panels and looked at the person who entered the room: Naphaela, who was carrying a bowl of Roast-Beef stew.
Darren took the effort to push himself up to a sitting position, his back against the soft headboard. His grunting made Naphaela purse her lips together as she walked towards the bedside table and chair. "You shouldn't move that much yet." She shook her head and placed down the bowl at the table, before sitting on the chair and crossing her arms.
". . . No, it doesn't hurt as much as before." Darren told the truth. His body was falling apart a few hours ago, but he certainly was feeling much better now. 'Probably because of the system,' he thought.
". . . Really?" Naphaela raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah."
Letting out a sigh, Naphaela just shrugged and said, "Okay then." She then handed Darren the bowl, "Here, eat."
Darren ate in silence until he finished his meal, with Naphaela just looking at Darren the whole ttime deep in thought. She was pulled out of her thoughts, however, when Darren suddenly asked, "How's your cultivation going? You wanted the ability of spiders right?"
Naphaela raised her eyebrows briefly, affirming, "Yeah. I'm cultivating my skin to have their properties."
"Can you show it to me?"
"Sure."
Naphaela brought the tips of her pointing fingers together and slowly pulled them apart, a fibrous white substance stuck between them. "It's not that strong and sticky yet, so it can be pretty messy. I can also make stuff stick to me, but it's not that strong either."
"I see," Darren nodded, "How many spider . . . flux cores have you absorbed?"
"Eight all in all."
"Wow."
"It's not that much."
"Y-Yeah, but well, shouldn't that be something amazing already?"
Naphaela took a deep breath, smiled, and nodded, "Yeah."
As for Darren, all he could do was smile wryly as he took his gaze away from his friend and pinned it to the enpty bowl resting in his hands. Naphaela's parents were talented cultivators, but at the same time, wonderful parents.
They carefully and lovingly raised Naphaela and her siblings, and they wanted them to decide their own paths. They didn't want to force Naphaela to cultivate seriously if she didn't want to, but the thing was: she wanted to.
She wanted to roam the worlds and soar the skies just like her parents. She wanted to live life happily and without much worry just like her parents. But she always couldn't help but compare herself to her talented mother and father.
Even though she really was a little better than most, she couldn't help but feel down everytime she remembered her parents as cultivators-- and she felt bad for it. She wanted to be contented, but she never fully was.
Playing with a white ball previously her silk in her hands, she smacked her lips and stood up, "Go rest some more, okay?"
Darren hummed and nodded as he watched Naphaela leave the room until she closed the door on herself.
After staring at the door for a few moments, wanting to make sure she suddenly wouldn't come back, Darren muttered under his breath, "Debuffs."
▬▬▬Debuffs▬▬▬
Fatigued III - Degrades in 2m and 33s
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Darren let out a deep sigh as he waited for the debuff [Fatigue III] become a weaker debuff, [Fatigue II], and when he did, he planned to take the daily quest since he guessed that he would be able to pretty much move with just a 25% decrease in physical stats.
▬▬▬Quest Details▬▬▬
Daily Quest
Suggested Minimum Level: 2
Requirements: Level Up
Monsters: Red Slime
[Accept]
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Darren took the effort to stand up from his bed before clicking on [Accept] and confirming his actions. And almost immediately, he found himself in the very same forest he was in yesterday. He tried looking for the weapon he used before and found it nowhere to be seen. Instead, an announcement rang in his head.
"Weapon acquired: Basic Knife."
His eyes went wide for a moment, before he quickly opened his inventory and found a knife icon in the top-left corner slot. He clicked on it, prompting a details panel to appear.
▬▬▬Item Details▬▬▬
LVL 1
Basic Knife
A basic knife.
[Retrieve] [Trash]
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'Can I bring this to my world now . . ?' Darren wondered as he caught a glimpse of a red slime appearing through a bush.
"The user is able to bring items through worlds now. Any item that is currently equipped and in the inventory will be brought. Other items will be left."
"I see," Darren nodded, before stretching various parts of his body to prepare for the slime slaughtering. "I should go level up."