Chapter 11: Potential
After the fight, Leon Grant didn't dare to linger. He took a brief rest, discarded his bloodied outer clothing, and remained in his stab-resistant vest. With his backpack slung over his shoulder and all his belongings in tow, he set off along the cracked asphalt road.
Staying in one place was out of the question. The corpses of six goblins lay in his wake, the stench of blood thick in the air, likely to attract more trouble. There could still be other goblins nearby, and Leon had already spent considerable energy during the battle. If another group appeared, he wasn't sure he'd survive the encounter.
Walking cautiously for half an hour, Leon found another decrepit building and slipped inside. After conducting a quick sweep for dangers, he settled in a room that was relatively clean. He cleared away some of the dust and debris before dropping onto his pack, utterly exhausted.
The recent battle replayed in his mind, sending shivers down his spine. It was only because he managed to ambush most of the goblins that he survived. If all six had charged him at once, he would have been in serious trouble.
Leon's thoughts returned to the fight. Specifically, the strange, faint light orbs he'd seen emerge from two of the goblins he killed.
"What were those things?" he wondered aloud.
After checking himself over, Leon found nothing unusual on his body.
Then, on a whim, he summoned his status panel.
Sure enough, there was a change.
Name: Leon Grant
Race: Human
Rank: 0th-Tier Apprentice
Strength: 1.3
Constitution: 1.1
Agility: 1.1
Spirit: 2.1
Mana: 21/21
Skill: Breath of Darkness Meditation
Potential Points: 2
Previously, his potential points had always been at zero, but now there were two.
"Did I get these points from killing those two goblins?" Leon wondered.
But why only two? He had killed six goblins in total—why didn't he get points from the others?
Curious, Leon attempted to allocate the potential points to his physical stats, such as strength, but found that he couldn't.
"Strange. What are these points for? And why can't I use them?"
Frustrated, Leon decided to set the mystery aside for now.
Hungry after the battle, Leon pulled out a ration bar and began to eat. He didn't eat too much—filling up after intense combat could make one sluggish or sleepy. He couldn't afford to drop his guard yet.
After resting for a while, he took position by the window, listening carefully for any sounds of movement outside.
With a flick of his hand, Leon summoned his arcane grimoire and resumed studying White Fang of Bone, a 0th-tier spell.
Suddenly, his status panel reappeared, and a new prompt appeared.
"Would you like to use potential points to accelerate learning?"
"What?!" Leon exclaimed. "I can use these points for spell learning?"
Without hesitation, he chose "yes."
The status panel vanished, and Leon focused entirely on his studies.
The effect was immediate. Concepts that had once been difficult and arcane now seemed clear as day. The runes and glyphs of the spell, which had once felt like puzzles, now came together with ease. It was like moving from struggling with calculus to breezing through basic arithmetic.
By the time the sun began to dip below the horizon, Leon snapped out of his trance.
The boost provided by the potential points had been exhausted, but the progress he made was astonishing.
Leon closed his eyes, visualizing the spell glyphs in his mind. Within moments, a sharp, tooth-like projectile made of bone materialized, hovering by his side.
White Fang of Bone—successfully cast.
With a flick of his will, the spell shot forward, cutting through the air with a high-pitched whistle.
"Thwack!"
The projectile embedded itself into the wall of a building thirty meters away, leaving a sizable crater.
Leon nodded in satisfaction. Though the spell didn't have tremendous range yet—his current spirit stat of 2.1 meant the maximum effective distance was just over fifty meters—it was still a significant improvement.
More importantly, Leon now had a ranged attack in his arsenal. If he'd had this ability during the earlier fight, he could have taken out the goblins from a safe distance.
Checking his status panel again, Leon confirmed the changes:
Name: Leon Grant
Mana: 18/21
Skill: Breath of Darkness Meditation
0th-Tier Spell: White Fang of Bone
Potential Points: 0
"The points are gone. But they're incredible," Leon murmured.
The lingering question remained: how could he reliably earn more potential points? The light orbs he saw earlier seemed to represent them, but why did only two goblins provide points while the others didn't?
"If I could get hundreds—no, thousands of potential points—I'd become unstoppable."
Leon sighed, knowing this was wishful thinking. He still needed to figure out the pattern behind earning these points.
His musings shifted to the practical applications of his new spell. Casting White Fang of Bone consumed three mana points per use, meaning he could currently cast it seven times before running out. However, the mental strain of casting spells wasn't overwhelming, at least not yet.
Before settling in for the night, Leon decided to test his newfound ability to use spirit for scanning. Concentrating, he extended his senses, probing the surrounding ruins for any signs of movement or hidden dangers.
This method, while effective, was not without its drawbacks. In just a few minutes, Leon's spirit stat dropped from 2.1 to 1.9. Sustained scanning would drain his reserves within half an hour, and regenerating spirit took far longer than regenerating mana.
Still, the ability was invaluable. Scanning the entire building with his mind was far more efficient than physically searching every corner.
Satisfied that the building was clear, Leon finally allowed himself to relax.
As he leaned back, staring at the darkening sky through the cracked window, one thought consumed him:
The path to power lay in mastering the unknown.
And he would do whatever it took to uncover its secrets.