Marcelina seemed actually genuinely curious and still a little bit taken aback that this small sheep snake creature was smarter than her, "Charles' brilliance isn't even a 20. It's only an 18. How is she so smart?"
Hearing that, Benedictus just looked at Emma, and he leaned down and gave her a little kiss on the forehead, "Looks like my Emma is a lot smarter than I thought. She's got the big brains."
"Bbbbbaaaa," Emma bleated in happy response. She licked his chin and smiled.
"Well, for now we'll have to put a pin in that. I need to test some stuff." He said as he stood back up and walked outside, taking his pistol and reloading it along the way.
He remembered the power up he got last night after choosing his Arcane Ancestry and the corpses of these creatures were still there. He wanted to use at least a couple of spells to gauge the overall difference in power. The best way to do that would be to compare them relatively to what he has already done in the past and see just how much of a difference there is. Curiously, Emma, Charles, and Marcelina went around to watch and see what happened.
After putting enough distance between everyone and himself, he pointed his gun towards a tree to test just how powerful the increase in force is when he uses Infuse Flame on his pistol. He pulled up his status screen at the same time to see what the new damage amounts are. When he had first checked it, there was a damage range of 6 to 24 that it would increase the potency of his bullets by. Looking at the status screen now, it said that the damage range was now 18 to 72.
It truly did mean it when it said that it would increase the base damage of his spells by triple the amount. He took note that it had not added to the base damage, his bonuses for damage dealt, which meant in actuality he was still doing far more with each shot.
Looking at the tree, he decided to just go ahead and shoot. Finally putting it to a test, he remained shocked by just how much of a difference in power it was. The bullet hit the tree with enough force that the resulting explosion blew the entire area of the trunk that it hit away, causing the tree to fall over. But it didn't just hit the first tree, it hit another tree behind it as well, doing the same thing to a slightly lesser degree.
Starring at the result, he definitely thought it was a noticeable increase in overall firepower. But to ensure that he didn't accidentally create a forest fire, he used his minor pyro manipulation to put out the flames caused by that shot. He also wanted to save the rest of the trees so he could build some more fortifications around the clearing.
He moved on to test another spell, walking up to the pit that the massive vinuu fell into which he had impaled to death. Seeing its corpse still impaled by all the stone spikes he made come out of the walls of the pit, put a smile on his face. Especially given how it roughed him up the previous night. He was going to take extra joy out of dealing with its body.
He wanted to see just how intense his flames had become. He stretched out his hand and just let the fire flow like a rushing torrent of flame. He could instantly tell the difference just by the sheer amount of heat he felt coming off of the flames as it incinerated the corpse.
He kept the flames going for about a minute and when he stopped, the creature had been burned down to its inner skeleton under all that chitin and flesh. He saw that it's skeletal structure was actually slightly different from that of a normal wolf, but almost all of its body was charred flesh at this point. He did notice something, however, in the pit inside its remains that stood out to him. Where it's heart should relatively be, based off of his assumption of its internal anatomy, was a large pearl about the size of a cantaloupe.
Snapping his fingers, the spikes that held up the skeleton of this creature receded back into the wall and disappeared entirely as if they were never there. He then raised the bottom of the pit, lifting the creature's corpse back to the surface. Taking his hand, he reached into the charred corpse and grabbed the pearl, stepping away from the body before recreating the pit it fell in.
He looked at the pearl and began to examine it, curious about what it might be. Suddenly, he got a system notification congratulating him on slaying an elite beast and claiming proof of his deed. It stated that he was the first human to slay an elite beast and by claiming it's soul core he would receive double the reward.
It explained further that soul cores could be exchanged in the ascension shop tab of his status screen for either currency, stat points, skill points, ability points, or a random item of equal quality to the core exchange. It noted that normally no one gains access to the ascension shop until reaching level 10, but upon being the first of his kind to slay an elite monster, he would be given the special privilege to gain access to the ascension shop early. Suddenly, his character sheet opened up and automatically took him to the ascension shop tab where it asked him if he wanted to exchange the soul core now or later.
He declined to exchange it now, choosing instead to look over the shop and see what he could learn. The first thing he clicked on was the currency part of the shop where it gave an explanation that the currency of the world was called godly gold or just gold by common shorthand. It explained that the currency was made normally, as most mortals often do, by exchanging work spent for monetary gain equivalent to the work done. However, payments were managed by several Gods of Wealth and Finance, meaning that mortals who tried to find loopholes to not pay people for their work could not cheat the system.
Because the monetary economy of the world was managed by actual Gods, it made it nearly impossible for most mortals to find a way to get wealthy through backhanded means. As almost all ideas were either blocked or uncovered instantly and penalized. It directly even stated that if he was caught trying to use an underhanded method to generate monetary wealth he could potentially lose all of his godly gold.
It also explains that godly gold could be a reward found in divine chests placed throughout the world or in pocket dimensions. It noted that this gold could also be something gained in exchange for soul cores. With the grade of the soul core determining the amount of godly gold exchanged. He could also gain this currency through selling and exchanging in the ascension shop as people buy whatever he sells.
With that understanding, he had initially been hopeful that he might have some starting gold to spend only to be let down. Currently, he had none of this currency which made sense. Instead, he chose to browse the ascension shop and see what it offered. Looking over the information, he saw that he could either look through items provided by other players or provided in the shop proper. He chose to look at the shop proper and see what was sold by default in the ascension shop.
He saw that all the items in the shop were supposedly made by different gods of different crafts and their followers. The quality would vary depending on who made it. Everything was categorized by the number of stars that it had. The highest number of stars possible seems to be 10. One-star items are essentially common things that normal mortals already know how to make. Two-star items are essentially high-quality items that are made by mortal people. Anything beyond that is something that would require centuries more of technological advancement to be able to replicate or border on the level of godly craftsmanship.
He saw some excellent items in the shop that compelled him to want to get some of them. The only problem was he lacked the money to purchase anything. He then went back to see about the soul core he had. He tried to see what quality it was. He expected it to be a one-star quality, but was surprised when it was actually a two-star quality.
He decided to go ahead and exchange it in the shop now that he had a better idea of what it offered. Part of him actually considered exchanging it for a random item, but the likely chance of it being something like high quality cookware was not worth it, at least at the moment. He decided instead to exchange it for currency. Then, upon confirming his choice, he had 500 godly gold deposited into his ascension shop account.
It was enough to get at least three one-star items or one two-star item. Despite him not wanting to waste a roll of the dice for an item on cookware, he used the money to actually purchase a set of common cookware listed in the shop as a one-star set for 100 gold. It also comes with basic utensils, plates, bowls, and cups to go with all the pots and pans and standard cooking utensils.
He then bought a bundle of stretch-to-fit men's clothing and hygiene essentials for 200 gold. He finished off his purchasing that he still had 200 gold left and could afford a month supply of rations and drinks for the exact amount. It was like an answer to his prayers about what to do with food, and he bought it without hesitation.
After confirming that he was done shopping, he went out of the ascension shop and back to his main character sheet page on his status screen. All the items he had purchased then appeared on the inventory part of his character sheet, and he clicked to access them. It created a portal that floated the items out of his pocket dimensional inventory space and placed them gently on the ground next to him.
Suddenly he heard Marcelina shout, "What the hell did you just do? Where did all of that stuff come from?"
He waved her over to help him carry it back to where they had their shelters. She quickly came over, and he explained everything about the ascension shop and what happened when he had taken the pearl-like sphere out of the chest of the corpse of the creature.
Over the next half hour, they moved everything over to where their shelters were, and he opened the rationed food crate and saw that it was essentially a bunch of civilian MRIs. Along with the food in the crate was about three cases of purified water. They seemed to be in bottles like what he was used to, but the amount in each case was roughly 30 bottles. This was definitely something in the shop for people trying to survive without having to live off of the land, but it was survival struggle food for sure.
In hindsight, now he was kind of upset he did not buy any seasonings or spices from the ascension shop despite seeing them. Some salt and pepper would go a long way if any of the meals that are preserved in the packets that he saw were like the MRIs he was used to. Nonetheless, he grabbed one and handed it to Marcelina and offered her a bottle of water.
She gladly took it, saying appreciatively, "Oh, thank you. Here I was thinking I would have to survive off of a bag of raisins in my purse for breakfast. You're so sweet."
"Well, considering that I'm the only one of the two of us currently that can access the ascension shop, I thought it made decent sense to try and work together if we are going to be living next to each other for some time. If we end up coming across more of those soul cores, until you reach level 10 hand them to me, so I can exchange them for cash or items that we can use. That way I can stay on top of whatever we might need until you can also access the shop," he replied, not really fully thinking about what exactly he was saying.
"Oh so it sounds like you plan on having me stick around for a little bit," she questioned curiously but helpful.
Realizing what he had said, he tries to make it not sound as odd as he believes it may have come across, "I don't trust you yet, but I don't see a reason to distrust you yet either. If you're willing to do the work, you can stay and I'll help you. I respect people that can pull their own weight and can follow instructions. If you're okay with that, then I'll make sure you don't go hungry and don't go cold."
Given how he sounded, she realized he might have gotten slightly flustered. Smiling, she simply replied, "Sounds like a deal."
He was about to say something else when he heard the sound of a big splash in the water. Looking over, he saw Emma trying to get fish out of the river again. He thought her wings might have slowed her down but instead they seem to help her swim better almost. He watched as in only half the time as yesterday she was able to catch four fish and brought them over.
He took note of the fact that her wings seemed to have a similar quality to those of duck feathers, as the water just fell off of them without really leaving much moisture behind. He then gave her a couple of pats on her head.
She looked at him while still holding the fish between her teeth, almost expecting something. He thought about it a little, and he asked her, "Do you want me to cook your food?"
In response, she mimicked what she had observed and nodded her head. He then took the fish and, like last night, put them all on sticks to cook over the fire. Reigniting the fire pit inside his cabin, he set her food to cook and decided to go ahead and try out one of the survival meals he had purchased. He grabbed a bottle of water in case he would need to wash down any nasty flavors that the food may have.
To his surprise, following the instructions on how to heat up the food in its package results in the food smelling quite delicious. It smelled better than any military rations that he had eaten in his entire time in the Bermudian military. By the time his food was ready for him to dig into, the fish was also ready for Emma to eat as well. Making sure to go ahead and take the fish off of the fire and remove the sticks, he let her go ahead and dig in. At the same time, he took a fork and started to eat what appeared to be macaroni and cheese with meatballs.
It looked odd, but he was delightfully surprised that it tasted incredible. He wasn't the only one either, as he heard a squeal of excitement through the open cabin door from Marcelina.
He could just faintly hear her talking to herself saying, "Why the hell is this so good? Who made this food? I wish there was more."
He walked out of the cabin and saw her through the open door of her makeshift sleeping spot. He told her, "Which one did you get? I basically got macaroni and cheese with meatballs, and it tastes amazing. You sound like you're over there having the best meal of your life."
"I got beef and broccoli with rice. I've had this exact meal like a dozen times in my life and this is some of the best I've ever tasted. Whoever made this needs to get a raise. This is delicious," she said as she walked out and they approached each other. She was clearly loving the flavors.
Benedictus actually also liked that kind of meal, so he made an offer as they were standing in front of each other holding their meals, "I'll let you try a bite of mine if I get to try a bite of yours. Sounds like a deal to you?"
"Sure," she got a fork full of meat, broccoli, and rice and offered it to him to take a bite of.
He accepted, taking the bite of food offered and being blown away by all of the delicious flavors. She watched as he reacted in a way that she understood fully. She knew that he was blown away by just how good it tasted.
Almost teasingly, she opened her mouth, waiting for him to offer her a bite. He got a fork full of nice cheesy macaroni with a juicy meatball and let her take a bite of it. Marcelina couldn't help but agree that his meal was also as equally delicious as hers. As she savored the flavors, Benedictus and her had a moment of realization.
They told each other at the exact same time the exact same thing, "We need to earn more gold. I need more of this."
Realizing that they were on the same page, they stared at each other for a moment in silent acceptance and agreement. They appreciated each other's tasteful pallets, and he told her, "Let's make sure to finish eating and prepare to head out. I was planning on scouting out the surrounding area a lot more today. This also gives us an opportunity to level up. I don't know what your level is, but regardless, we're both going to need to get stronger if we plan on surviving. Definitely, if we plan on earning more soul cores to buy more of this food."
"Agreed. Give me like 10 minutes to finish this up and grab my knife," she nodded.
Both of them went back to eating their meals and finishing off their bottles of water. Grabbing their individual weapons and other equipment they think might be necessary for scouting the area or fighting wild animals, they make sure that they have all the things that they need. After about 15 minutes, they were both ready, and he actually told her, "Over the next few days I plan to get a better lay of the land and use my earth magic to essentially create a map of the forest as we go. At the same time, if we run into animals that plan on trying to attack us or eat us we're going to try and use them to level up. Can you handle that?"
"Of course. I wouldn't have agreed to this if I was afraid of fighting some wild beasts. Seeing how you handled that entire pack last night, I can definitely trust you to watch my back if I get outnumbered again," she said with optimism and pizzazz.
"Alright then. Let's head out," he said as he started making his way back into the woods. This time he wasn't alone as Marcelina, Charles, and Emma all came along.
5 days went by and there wasn't much that had happened outside of the mapping the woods and occasionally getting into fights with smaller wild groups of vinuu. Benedictus himself didn't gain much XP and was only able to gain 4 kills in that time. He was still 10 XP off of reaching level 5.
However, the majority of the kills were scored by Emma and Charles, who definitely seemed to be much more effective. Emma started learning how to fly while fighting and incorporated that into how she fought against the much larger, more terrifying vinuu. Charles, despite how he looked, was extremely agile, and his horns were strong enough to bludgeon most of the beasts that it fought to death in one or two hits. As a result, both of the animals ended up gaining about 3 levels each.
Marcelina actually made quite a bit of headway as she went from level one to level 3 in the course of that time. The free level up from scoring her first kill and the additional XP gained passively through helping in combat is primarily how she achieved it. It also helped Benedictus to discover that when fighting in groups, XP is rewarded based off of contribution to the battle. Every enemy that you personally killed gives you the full amount of XP, while everyone who assisted in fighting that enemy to help you kill them gets half as much XP.
All in all, it was useful information that would help them as time went on. They returned once more to where their shelters were along the river. 5 days of scouting had essentially given them a decent amount of information about the layout of the forest for everything within a roughly 3-mile circumference of their current base. Using his earth magic, Benedictus was able to update a stone tablet that he had been carrying around with an accurate depiction of the layout of the forest as they explored.
He was looking over that very tablet as they arrived back at their camp. He reviewed with her, "With that we can now be certain of at least two things. Currently, unless we suddenly learn otherwise, we are the only people in this forest. We haven't found any traces of any other people. Not even corpses that might have been the result of failing to win against some of the beasts. Which means that other people like us must have been randomly placed elsewhere on the planet, and we just so happen to be both placed here in the forest. Seeing where you started and where I started, it looks like we were both placed about roughly 3 miles away from each other at opposite ends along this river."
"It's sad to see that nobody else got sent here like us. Still, it does mean that we don't currently have to worry about anyone showing up in the middle of the night trying to attack us or rob us," she remarked.
He gave a nod and then informed her, "There is one area I would like to check out tomorrow. That cave we found had a lot of signs of vinuu. It might be a den for them. If that's so, it might be a good way to boost our levels and potentially find another soul core."
"I'm actually surprised that we haven't found another one of those things. You would think after getting into the habit of butchering every kill we make we would get lucky," she annoyingly noted, kind of upset about it. She had hoped that they would be more common.
He suggested and tried to reassure her, "It might just mean that they're only things you can find in elite monsters or boss monsters, like in some games. Although this world does have a lot of game-like qualities, it still follows a lot of the same principles of the real world. Hopefully, when we check out that cave tomorrow we might get lucky."
"Yeah I know. Anyway, let's eat. I want to try out that new idea you had," she said as she went to grab a pot.
He gave a nod and looked at the slightly larger fire pit he had made outside the night before. He knew it was possible to make a more primitive stove from the bushcrafting videos he used to watch a lot of. He knew exactly how to recreate it, but last night he was so tired after all the scouting that he stopped after he made the outside fire pit for it.
Considering he had more than enough mana and uses of his geo manipulation left after today's scouting, he went ahead and finished manipulating the stone and metal to make it. Creating a mostly stone oven with a metal plate top that would be heated from the burning fire pit underneath to make a makeshift old-fashioned stove. Once it was ready Marcelina got water from the river and used the new purification ability that she had picked up. Immediately purifying it of any bacteria or microorganisms that might be harmful, leaving her with a pot of completely purified fresh water that she planned on using to help better heat up and rehydrate their survival meals.
"Which one are you trying today," she asked him as she set the pot on to the stove, and he used his pyro manipulation to ignite the wood.
"I had seen that there was a steak and gravy with mashed potatoes. I haven't had that in a while, so I'm looking forward to it," he answered as his stomach was starting to get a little hungry, and he couldn't wait to dig in.
She applauded the nice choice of meal and said, "I tried that a few days ago. Just like the rest of them, it was excellent. I think there's a couple more, so why don't we both have it tonight?"
"Sure," he quickly said.
At this point, he had become a lot more comfortable having Marcelina around. It helped that Emma also seemed to like her. Not only was Marcelina and Charles very helpful, but she was actually quite the sweetheart. Charles himself was also protective yet kind. He and Emma definitely did an amazing job keeping Ben and Marcy in high spirits. Plus they played together often, which was very cute to watch.
Once they started heating up their food, Ben looked at Marcelina, and he found himself actually smiling at her. He definitely thought that she was a beautiful lady, but he made sure to control himself. He didn't want any intrusive thoughts to ruin their current slowly growing companionship.
Although he did like what he saw. From her beautiful milk chocolate brown skin to her bright blue eyes. Her perfectly shaped nose was reminiscent of more European facial features and her stylish blue dreadlocks that matched the color of her eyes. Not to mention she was a naturally curvaceous woman, but despite being well-endowed with a voluptuous body, she was in very great shape. He was surprised when she started joining him in the mornings for his workouts, but happy to have someone to spot him.
Before he could think about it any longer, she caught him staring, and he looked away nervously. She definitely took note of the fact that he seemed to find her attractive. Especially since she was currently wearing a pair of the clothes that he had got for himself when he had bought that bundle of men's clothing. Although she did like the style of the baggy hoodie and sweatpants with comfortable sneakers that she was now sporting.
She also thought that he was a very handsome looking man. His face wasn't much to write home about, as he was pretty average in appearance in that regard, but she liked the rest a lot more. His dark tan skin complimented his long curly white hair that he often kept in a French braid. His bright red eyes made her think that he might be partially albino, but as far as he talked about it, that didn't seem to be the case, especially with his still dark complexion.
The main thing she liked to look at whenever she found herself staring at him was his physique. Sure, he wasn't 6 feet and built like a brick house, but he was close enough and that was just as attractive. His muscles might not be that large, but they have a definition to them that most bodybuilders lack. His physique definitely suited his fighting style, as it was light enough that he was still able to be somewhat agile and flexible in combat, but also beefy enough that when he hit an enemy it definitely would yelp in serious pain.
For her, she liked any man that took care of his body and had a great personality. Something that Ben seemed to have both of. Despite initially being somewhat cautious, he seems to have warmed up to her and, as a result, she has gotten to see just how kind he really is. Seemingly going out of his way at times to help her, even with the small things. She enjoyed how he tried to keep her motivated and encouraged her. His compliments always seemed to work well at making her smile.
She found herself enjoying his presence as well, only to be distracted until he tells her, "I think the water is done."
Looking at the pot she saw that the water was starting to boil a lot more than it needed to, and she quickly took it off the stove. While they soaked their packets of food in the hot water from the pot, she looked at him and asked, "Ben..... What's the plan after we finish getting a layout of the forest? Do you plan on just surviving here or do you plan on leaving at some point?"