John decided that he would just call it a day here. He could return to school tomorrow but he wanted to experiment with that new skill he had just gotten. Therefore he left the school grounds to go somewhere less public.
Which would be a hard thing all things considered (The city was pretty big) if there hadn't been a protected forest area just outside the city. And as the school was located at the edge of the city it was a mere ten-minute walk. Only problem that could occur would be the rangers that patrolled these woods but he didn't plan to stay within sight for too long anyway.
John raised his hand and created an Instant Dungeon. He thought about a weak monster as did: Skeletons, Zombies, such things. The world became silent. With the Instant Dungeon created no gusts of wind touched these 'fake' trees to make their leaves whisper.
"Seems like it worked." John mumbled. His MP had jumped back to 45, consuming the little he had regenerated on the way here. He looked around. No enemies in sight. Starting to walk he continued walking. Nope, nothing, nothing at all.
2 EXP Gained.
'Wait what?' Confused his head whirled into every direction. Still nothing. He turned around and just as his foot hit the ground again the message opened again.
1 EXP Gained.
He looked down. Tiny little things crawled at the forest floor. They had the form of little pinecones with arms and legs, moving on all fours like toddlers. He used Observe on one that was rolling towards him.
Seedling Lvl 1
HP: 2 MP: 1
Tiny forest spirits that take hold of pinecones and other seeds. They are the baby stage of treants and don't possess power.
He had accidently killed two by stepping on them. Of course two EXP was measly but now that he knew what he was looking for he was practically jumping from one pinecone to the next. Each one gave 1-3 EXP and slowly he climbed towards his Level Up. Little numbers add up after all.
One drawback though: His physical condition wasn't the best and after ten minutes of running around it started to show. Moving got more difficult and after ten more minutes he sat down on a mossy stone, breathless. As he recovered a message popped up.
Achievement Unlocked: The Muscle of the Operation 1
You slightly trained your body. Finally going to use another piece of meat than your dick?
+1 END
"Fuck you." John gaspingly cursed the force that wrote these descriptions and wiped away the sweat from his forehead. That achievement was interesting. From the '1' at the end he guessed that it was repeatable. That made the hopping around here even more worthwhile, now he could farm minor EXP and the occasional Endurance Point.
As he recovered his stamina he had a worthwhile idea. Why not level Possession while he was resting? Not like he had anything better to do. He looked at a stone and used the skill. Now he looked at himself resting while looking at himself being a rock. It was weird.
He stayed as the rock for a minute and then went back to trampling seedlings. Than he sat down, became the rock again and so on until he was out of mana. The next break he ate and drank what he had brought in his inventory. It boosted his MP regeneration tremendously (a whooping 3 MP per minute more!) and helped him regain Stamina as well.
He continued that pattern and by the second depletion of his mana bar he had a few windows to look through.
Achievement Unlocked: The Muscle of the Operation 2
You slightly trained your body. Keep going and one day somebody might find you desirable!
+2 END
(Replaces the Muscle of the Operation 1)
Possession Lvl 2:
10 MP -> 9 MP Activation Cost
You may now slightly move the possessed object.
Achievement Unlocked: Seedling Stomper
Don't you feel sorry for the poor little things? I guess not.
Level Up! Congratulations you are now Level 4.
He pumped his fist. "Aw yeah, that is what I am talking about!" He exclaimed and had a look at his Status. The level up got him a whopping 5 Points to spend. Not bad at all especially when combined with the 2 Endurance he gained. Aside from the Seedling Stomper Achievement, which had no Bonus whatsoever, this has been really productive.
There was a new thing to think about now though.
The question was directly related to another one: What did he want to do with this new power? Strength was the obvious choice if he wanted to fight with his fists and close weaponry. Agility would help him become more stealthy and nimble. Endurance was a pretty good thing all around as not dying was a good thing, while Wisdom and Intellect would help his mana pool and regeneration, thus allowing him to use more skills. Charisma would help him get less hated and lastly Libido would probably allow him to jerk off all day.
That did sound pretty tempting but so did the thought of having the ability to use his abilities more often. Currently he created a skill whenever he did pretty much anything and the possibilities seemed endless. Also, the skills kept getting better if he used them. So what did he want to do?
He looked at his current skill list. His eyes fell on the three that he could use to define his style.
If he wanted to be a traditional mage surely Mana Power Attack was the way to go. The skill was costly at 10 MP so Intellect would be the best thing to raise. Sneaking on the other hand would put him into a more traditional rogue role, if he picked that he should raise Agility. Possession could make him some kind of Summoner in that he created minions to fight for him, of course these minions would also be himself so maybe Summoner wasn't the correct term, maybe Puppeteer was more fitting?
John nodded to himself. Yeah, that sounded good to him, a Puppeteer. Of course only one level worth of points wouldn't commit him into that direction but it seemed like a nice thing to work towards.
If he wanted to follow that direction the first thing he needed to do was level Possession. Currently the skill only allowed him to move slightly. To make levelling Possession more effective it would be best to have it run permanently. 'After all, if I have it running all the time I could do something else by the side as it levels on its own.' He thought and opened the status screen.
For higher mana regeneration, he would have to put his points into Wisdom. To have Possession run permanently he would need a regeneration rate of at least 6 Mana per Minute, as the skill costed 1 every 10 seconds. That was roughly 12 times what he currently had, so this was likely to be a long road.
'Well, we all have to start somewhere' he thought and put all of his five points into Wisdom. His Mana Regeneration went from 0,535 to 0,57, a marginal increase but an increase nonetheless. With that decision out of the way, he thought about what else he could need in the future. If he wanted to have disposable bodies fight for him maybe other kinds of minions would be helpful? He also needed some kind of defensive tools.
What he needed most of all however was a way to earn more Exp. Stomping these little Seedlings took a long ass time and it won't get better in the future. Sure, currently the Exp needed to get to the next level was still pretty small but traditionally games needed more and more Exp to keep the Level Machine going the higher a character got. It was safe to assume that he at the very least got a few more levels before the jumps between levels would get more difficult though.
John currently only knew two sources of Experience: Quests and Monster Farming. As he had no control over quests popping up Monster Farming was the more reliable one. He sighed, it seemed that Seedling stomping was still his best bet. With his current Stats trying to fight something that actually fought back seemed like suicide.
'What's with this game's entrance floor? It is way too steep!' John thought and mumbled a few curses before smiling slightly. Even though the entrance was pretty hard he still could put points wherever he wanted, a massive advantage to anybody else really.
He thought about the problems for five more minutes as he had to wait for enough mana to regenerate and then used 'Escape I.D.' (The system shortened Instant Dungeon to that). Afterwards he went home.