I woke up in the morning and decided I wasn't going to eat the rest of the forest rat just yet, I planned on upgrading my dash skill and practising with my shadow magic today, so I didn't know if I would have enough time to go out and hunt something to eat. I leave my den and start contemplating the best way to upgrade my dash skill.
I have 80 mp, but I want to try and only use half, which means I can use my dash skill 8 times. hopefully that's enough of it to upgrade to level 2. I think it should be because I've been using dash quite a lot. The only annoying thing is that I will have to wait 10 minuets between each use. I could practice my shadow magic in-between, but I want to save my mp just incase 40 isn't enough.
My mp doesn't seem to regenerate unless I'm sleeping, so unless I want to take a midday nap, I can only use so much. Actually I wonder if there's an mp regeneration skill, It wasn't in the skill shop but I can only see skills I can afford, so it might just cost more.
I decide to get started right away, I'm just going to run up and down the clearing until it levels up. I haven't encountered any enemy's here since that petrifying lizard, so it seem relatively safe.
I activate dash and start running up and down the stream, making sure I stay in the clearing. Feeling the wind rush threw my fur feels amazing! Now my agility is finally in the double digits, i'm able to go a lot faster. I'm sure that if anyone say me now, thew would see a look of pure excitement on my face!
After 3 minutes, my dash skill wears off. Now I have to wait for my cooldown to end before I can use it again. Not wanting to just sit around doing nothing, I decide to go and start using my scratch skill on a tree. I don't know if it will level it up of if I can only level it up by using it in an enemy, but it can't hurt to try. I would do the same with my bite skill but I'm kind of scared of hurting my teeth, plus a tree isn't exactly an easy thing to bite.
As soon as the cooldown ended on dash I go straight back to running up and down. I repeat this cycle for about half and hour before,
[ding!]
[dash has levelled up to level 2!]
[ding!] [quest complete]
[5 start points and 50 skills received]
Finally! With this I can finally get a new skill! I already know what I'm going to get, with out even hesitating I open up the skill shop and select appraisal.
[appraisal]
[grants the user the ability to see basic information of any being/object of the same level or lower within the users field of vision]
[would you like to purchase appraisal for 100 skill points?]
[yes/no]
Yes!
[you have purchased appraisal level 1]
As soon as I confirm, a familiar warmth washes over me and I can feel a tingling sensation in me head as a sudden rush of information enters my brain. It feels similar to when I level up but doesn't at the same time.
I can't help but feel a hint of excitement. Appraisal is must have skill in any isekai, and nearly always ends up being useful. I start looking for something to test out my new skill on straight away, my eyes locking on to the berry on the bushes across the stream.
Appraisal!
[fungo berries]
Well it doesn't give me a description yet but at least I now know what them berries are called! It is only level 1, I'm sure that when it levels up it will give me a lot more information. I cant't say I'm not a little bit disappointed, when I read that it 'grants the user the ability to see basic information', I did hope that basic information was more than just a name but I did kind of expect this.
I'm going to use it on as many things as I can to try and get it to level up as quick as possible, but first it's time to practice my shadow magic.
Ive not long gain the ability to materialise my own shadows and I want to see what I can do with them. Before doing anything though, I put 3 of my stat point into intelligence and 2 into agility before I forget to spent them bringing my intelligence to 19 and my agility to 14. This brings my max mp to 95, meaning I still have 80 mp to practice with.
I bring up my status window before summoning a shadow. It takes a whopping 5 mp just to summon the shadow and then 1 mp every 3 seconds just to maintain it. Curious I dismiss the shadow I created and start controlling my own shadow. Yep, it only costs 1 mp every 3 seconds. It's still quite a good improvement compare to when my shadow magic was level 1 and cost 1 mp for every second, but as expected, summoning a shadow comes at a cost.
Having worked out the cost for using it, I again summon a shadow. I didn't notice before, but taking a closer look at it, it looks as if it's constantly moving. It isn't changing shape, but it's swirling around, maintaining the shape I want it to be. It reminds me a lot of rheoscopic fluid, giving it an almost mesmerising look.
The first thing a try is summoning another shadow, I want to see if I can summon more than 1 at once and if so, how many. I manage to summon 2, but as soon as I can't summon a third. as soon as I tried the other 2 both faded away. it looks like 2 is my limit for now but I suspect that will go up as the level of my shadow magic increases.
Next I try 'shooting' it. I goes about 10 meters before fading out of existence. I try shaping it into an arrow and shooting it a a tree, I want to see if I can cause any damage with it but it just hist the tree and stays there until I dismiss it, leaving no physical mark on the tree. It doesn't look like there's much point into shaping it as an arrow, its easier to just shoot it as a ball.
Now I try creating a large shadow on the floor, I manage to create one around 3 square meters. I try running across it and find that my speed is significantly slowed when I step in it. With this I should be able to slow down a small group, giving me a better chance of fighting them.
The last thing I want to find out is if I can use it for defence. For this I create a rectangle shadow shield. I jump straight into it, and although I don't stop me, I do pass threw it a lot slower than a should. I pick up a stone and throw it the best I can at the shield and watch as it visible slows down whilst passing threw the shield, but speeds back up to its normal speed once its paced threw.
So I can't really use it to block attacks, but I can use it to slow them down, giving me enough time to move out of the way. Unable to think of anything els to try I stop practising my shadow magic.
Noticing that is only midday and I still have more than half my mp left, I decide to go and eat the rest of the forest rat before setting out to find some live prey to test my new magic on.