Around her, the ground was littered with the bodies of monstrous creatures, their twin tails limp. The gems on their foreheads, formerly vividly red, were now dull and lifeless.
"I had no particular plan on taking you bastards on, but since you've chosen this, let's do it," she declared, facing the remaining dog-like beasts.
Before it could react, she engaged the nearest creature, its eyes glinting with savage hunger. Channeling her SP and MP into a skill, she initiated [Wind Cutter], an innate skill she had unlocked upon choosing her class. Her hands sliced through the air, unleashing a blade of wind that left just a faintly visible trail as it reached one of the two remaining creatures in just a second.
With a miserable sound, the creature that didn’t have the time to evade the attack was sent flying back. The skill cut was strong, but not strong enough to bisect the creature; given her class, attacks that didn’t involve her fists and feet weren’t nearly as powerful as those that did. Set on finishing this quickly, she dashed toward the injured creature, which she recognized from the old days of spawn-cataloguing as a Greathund, a silvery-gray, dog-like animalistic monster often sighted in this neighborhood. She was halfway to the creature when the other remaining one lunged toward her, the gem on its forehead shining ever so vividly.
Having fought these creatures again and again in the past, she knew for a fact that the creature was activating its main skill. Anticipating what was coming next, she crossed her arms into an X and simultaneously activated two defense layers: [Shield Block] and [Lesser Body Damage Mitigation]. She had just activated these skills when a strange, yet unsurprising crimson explosion occurred before her, propelling her backward. While being sent reeling into the distance, and having prepared for this, her HP still went down a little. However, she wasn't too much injured; so little, in fact, that wasting no time, she recovered from the explosion and lunged at its author.
Amidst her charge, the creature's forehead gem glowed once again, ready to unleash yet another explosion. It must have understood, or at the very least felt, that they wouldn’t be able to physically overwhelm her, so it decided to instead focus on its magical offensive skill. She wasn’t going to let it do that.
Before it could unleash its skill, she reached it with her fist, which upon connecting with its head, shattered the stone and sent the creature flying toward and crashing against the other one. Both let out pitiful noises, but as pitiful as they sounded, they called no mercy in her heart. Closing in on them, she took a jump and, raising her leg and activating another skill: [Increased Delivery], she swung it down at them both.
The impact of her leg, powered by [Increased Delivery], descended like the hammer of judgment upon the two Greathunds. The earth beneath them trembled with the force of her strike, or at least it felt like it did. She was self-aware enough to know that at her current level, she couldn’t actually cause the earth to tremble.
[Level Up Interface]Experience requirement met.
Congratulations! You've Leveled Up!
Attribute Points Earned: 8『Expand』
As the dust settled, the silence of the glade was restored, the only sounds being her heavy breathing and the faint rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze. The gems on the creatures’ foreheads, once vivid red when they were filled with lethal intent, were now shattered pieces, their glow extinguished forever. Their bodies, unable to withstand such a blow, were crushed beneath the power; their blood, bones, flesh, and viscera pooled beneath her feet, their bodies becoming one with the soil they once prowled menacingly.
Walking out of the sticky puddle of blood she was standing in, she began wiping the blood off her body, only to quickly realize after a few attempts that it would be a complicated endeavor. "I should’ve been gentler; then I wouldn’t have gotten this dirty," she grumbled. But then, her eyes fell onto the notification in the virtual interface in the corner of her eye. "Well…" She wiped the grumbling expression off her face, "At least I leveled up from that, so I suppose that makes this worth it."
Walking up to where her clothes were, she retrieved them. Regardless of how disgraceful it was for a young lady like her to fight completely naked in the middle of the woods, it really was a good decision to remove them before the fight began because they would’ve been in shambles. Not that they were in particularly great shape in the first place; the clothes in question were a two-piece set tunic made of old, bleached fabric.
Making nothing of the corpses, she took her leave. She considered burning them, as from what she had been told, a stack of corpses could bring about, and sometimes, if the conditions were right, literally spawn undead monsters. But considering how few of them there were, and also not having the energy to do that today, she decided to leave them as they were. Animals would most likely feed on the corpses and do the cleaning for her. Taking her leave, she headed to a deeper place into the woods. After walking for about 20 minutes, she eventually arrived at a running brook, where she took a moment to kneel down and clean herself, washing the blood off her body.
It was then while doing so that something strange happened. Well, it didn’t happen per se; instead, she just felt it. As to what it was that she felt was strange, she didn’t know, and even less did she know why she felt that way.
Putting a stop to what she was doing, she looked around. Everything looked normal, familiar; there seemed to be nothing suspicious. Having a few passive and active instincts-enhancing skills, she was very certain that the skills, while not completely bulletproof, had yet to fail her.
There was nothing around that could explain her strange reaction, yet her instincts told her something was off. Unable to figure it out, she resumed cleaning herself. Once finished, she put her clothes back on. Her business here was nearly complete, there was still one thing left: picking up what she had come to these woods for
Navigating the woods with the ease of an agile predator and the familiarity of one who has tread these paths for years, she found herself, after a brisk half-hour walk, arriving at a particular corner alive with color. Here, bushes laden with either violet, green, or blue berries stretched out before her. Without hesitation, she began to gather the berries, her focus primarily on the blue ones. While she couldn't name these fruits, as while they looked very much like berries they weren’t exactly the conventional berry one could find back in their world, she knew that these berry-like fruits turned from green when unripe to red, blue, or violet upon maturation. The color change seemed not to affect their taste, yet a certain person still preferred the blue ones over the others.
Lacking pockets in her tunic, she resorted to an unladylike method of gathering more berries, she raised the hem of her skirt to create an impromptu pouch. At that moment she couldn’t help but laugh self-deprecatingly at herself. After all that trouble, the cloth that she managed to spare from blood was now going to be stained with berry juice.
With her makeshift pouch brimming with berries, she set out from the woods, intent on leaving this secluded greenery behind. It wasn't long before she stepped out into a vast meadow under an expansive blue sky.
Ahead, a road stretched towards a distant city, nestled at the base of a large mountain range with snow-capped peaks. The road, once well-trodden by merchants and Handlers, had been abandoned years ago. It had been a quick route to the second nearest city but led through a monster-infested forest. The safer, albeit longer, path to the first nearest city had become the preferred route. Nature had since reclaimed the old road, and it now looked less traveled and overgrown.
Within this landscape stood an old wooden house, encircled by a wooden fence. It was the largest house of a once-thriving village that had sprung up along the frequently used road. When the road was abandoned, so was the village, its inhabitants moving away. But this house, maintained generation after generation, had withstood the test of time. The girl was the second latest born of her family to live in this old but resilient home.
She paused, staring at the house. Looking at the berries in her tunic, she examined their vibrant hues, staining the fabric with their juice. Casting her gaze toward the distant city, she felt a mix of nostalgia and melancholy.
As she pushed open the decrepit gate, a tired wooden creak echoed, and Bufford, the old family dog, came running to meet her.
"Hey there, Boy," she said softly, her voice sounding genuine. "You've been waiting for me, haven't you?"
Bufford wagged his tail, his eyes full of affection. She knelt down, attempting to pat his head, but her hands were full with the ends of her tunic, carrying the berries. Doing so, she accidentally let go of a side of her tunic, causing some of the berries to spill onto the ground. The dog sniffed at them curiously, and she gently patted his head to stop him from eating them.
"You shouldn’t eat those, I think," she said. "Besides, those aren’t for you, and I don’t think he would like to share, not even with you."
Standing up, she made her way to the door. As she did, she couldn’t help but feel like something was off, as if something had changed, but looking around, she saw nothing that could explain this impression. The surroundings were just as she remembered—the faraway city, the mountains, the house, and Bufford. Everything was perfect, yet something was undeniably off.
It was in that moment as she emitted that doubt, "It's a dream," she realized, her voice a whisper. "Again," I sighed, finally coming to realize who the girl she was living a day of was, it was that of a past persona of mine.
Having lived that dream dozens, if not hundreds, of times, standing by the doorstep, she waited for it to happen, her waking from this highly realistic recurrent nightmare And yet this time, it didn’t happen as it used to. She turned around looking for signs of the dreamscape breaking apart, which it usually does the moment she realizes that this world as a whole is a dream, but that didn’t happen. I looked around and everything was still standing.
My gaze fixed onto the door, I was about to reach onto it when I backed off warily by a few steps, causing the berries I was carrying to spill on the ground, retreating to the two-step stair leading to the house.
"What’s happening? I should be waking up now."
That’s right since this was a dream, and upon this dream dissolving, what should happen next is me waking up to reality. Racking my brain to figure out why it wasn’t what happened right, the only explanation I was able to come up with was that I am in a state where I wasn’t able to wake up. As I came to that conjecture, memories of what happened last in the real world came back to me. I remember stumbling upon the Frostfang One-eyed Serpent,
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
I remembered fighting it, being so cornered that I came up with the ultimate plan of jumping into the creature’s mouth. Could it be that I died there? No, that can’t be. Not only did I remember seeing the light after being engulfed in that creature’s mouth and then seeing those notifications, which meant that I won and made it out alive. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here; I wouldn’t be dreaming. "I," as in my soul or whatever it is reincarnating again and again, would have been sent elsewhere. So the only other alternative explanation I could come up with considering the fact that I don’t remember anything else after those notifications, was that I’m currently unconscious.
I’m dreaming, so obviously I’m asleep, but if I were just conventionally asleep, I would already be awake by now.
I looked at the dog making itself comfortable at my feet, even though I knew the sensation of the dog beneath me was just a figment of my imagination, it felt incredibly real, from the warmth of its fur brushing against my skin to the lively way it moved.
"It should be criminal for a nightmare to be this realistic," I muttered, pinching myself and feeling it hurt, but still not waking up, like it would in a movie.
Still not giving up, I raised my arm, clenched it into a fist, then hammered my leg, trying to wake myself up, as the idea of my body being unconscious out there, vulnerable to any attack from who knows, perhaps another monster, was quite uncomfortable.
Despite repeatedly hammering my leg I saw no result.
"Perhaps I should try making it more painful," I muttered, casting my eyes on a wooden staff I used to train with, stacked alongside a short wooden sword on the side of the veranda. "With my current monk strength, I should be able to break that wooden staff and sta... nah!"
Since the dream didn’t naturally dissolve to wake me, I reckoned that my only alternative was to either force myself to wake up, which would involve inflicting pain, or to wait for it to happen naturally. Not keen on feeling pain for something uncertain, I decided to wait.
I took a seat, patting the dog's head.
"…I’m done with being hurt for now. Later, perhaps."
To pass the time, which I wasn’t sure was going at the same speed as out there, I tried opening my system interface to see what my status was like, remembering that before losing consciousness I saw I leveled many times and even acquired some abilities, but for some reason, I wasn’t able to manifest the interface.
"Is there something that I’m doing wrong?" I began to question. Then, as if answering that question, the answer popped into my mind. I was indeed doing something wrong. Being a total amateur back then, I couldn’t just conjure the system interface with a thought like the current me can; I needed a keyword.
"Status Summon," I commanded, and a screen appeared before me.
---
[Liana’s Interface]Name: Liana
Level: 11
Race: Verdenkind
Class: Monk
Title: Blessed One
Experience: 90 / 8650
[Status]H.P: 163 / 180
M.P: 110 / 189
S.P: 230 / 340
Fatigue: 22%
Defense: 211
Offense: 245
[Skills]- Acrobatics: Level 4
- Chi Protection: Level 3
- Earth Manipulation: Level 3
- Elemental Infusion: Level 5
- Elemental Protection: Level 5
- Fire Manipulation: Level 4
- Lesser Body Damage Mitigation: Level 2
- Blessed Physique: Level 6
- Illusion Resistance: Level 2
- Lesser Regeneration: Level 2
- Yang Rapture: Level 5
- Power Strike: Level 4
- Yin Puncture: Level 6
- Martial Arts: Level 5
- Shield Block: Level 5
- Wind Cutter: Level 3
[Abilities]- Blessed Physique: Unlocked
- Peerless Physique: Locked
- Chi Shield: Unlocked
- Perfect Recall: Unlocked
『Expand』
---
At the sight of what was once my status, skills, and abilities, which looked nothing like that of the present me, I couldn’t help but chuckle in nostalgia.
In this incarnation, just like most of my other incarnations, I had always been a Verdenkind that favored more MP-centric classes, ideally semi-hybrid classes like Monk. It was, in fact, this incarnation that birthed that fondness, being born with a single skill, [acrobatics] and two abilities, [Peerless Physique], [Perfect Recall]. Admittedly, the latter didn’t play any part in that fondness I developed for the monk class, but the former did, as the ability granted me access to an ability-granted skill that made my early days as Liana less hellish as I was warned and knew it would be—[Blessed Physique].
For ever-respawning entities like us, what can actually be frightening is less death but more like the early years that follow after death, infancy to the middle of childhood. I was particularly warned about the earlier part of the former, as what one experiences there can potentially lead a sane mind to complete madness.
Before I threw myself into this loop of death and rebirth, I, upon hearing these warnings, always thought, how horrifying can this actually be?
Well, having lived and died, gone through the process six times, I now understand these words best, it can indeed lead to madness.
Upon rebirth, what I most look forward to is getting out of this phase, and that skill Blessed Physique is ideal for that.
A shame, after my untimely death as Liana, in my subsequent lives, despite still vying for the monk class over any other classes, I never managed to acquire that power back. To tell the truth, even in this incarnation of mine as "Faye" before I considered Paladin or Mage as a class, as the Wei? hoped I would become, the class I was aiming for was Monk. But even then, well, I have to admit that from my failures, I’d learned my lessons.
While I was still somewhat hopeful to reacquire that ability-granted skill, I understood that Monk was not the way to go in this incarnation. Most of the skills I was born with and the skills and abilities I early on awakened made it clear that I was destined for a more MP-centric class, be it Mage or Sorcerer.
As for the other ability I was born with, it was the same, I never got it again. So much so that it made me wonder if the explanation for why I didn’t get it is that I couldn’t unlock skills and abilities that I already unlocked in a previous incarnation. But that couldn’t be true, since in the seven incarnations I lived through thus far, I’ve acquired the skill, [Identification] twice and the ability—[Lesser Regeneration] three times. So that couldn’t be true. So perhaps I simply wasn’t destined to reacquire [Perfect Recall], similar to [Peerless Physique].
Unlike with [Peerless Physique], I didn't dedicate much hope or effort to reacquiring [Perfect Recall]. In truth, I never actively sought to unlock it for a very self-explanatory reason.
After reminiscing for some minutes, I began experimenting with what were once my skills, to remember what it was like to be a monk, what it was to be Liana again. Having nothing better to do, it was the best thing I could think of to pass the time.
Eventually, came the time, the dream began to dissolve, one detail disappearing at a time. The last thing to break apart was my body, which was that of Liana the Monk.
***
I snapped out of the already very familiar dream I found myself immersed in upon passing out. The moment I did, I was assaulted by acute pain from all sides. My limbs ached like nothing I'd ever felt before, my muscles were numb, and my ribs—no, every bone in my body felt like I'd been thrown under a bus. With a mere thought, I summoned my system interface, checking my status.
"Woah! I'm pretty much still half-dead... Just how much time has gone by?" I muttered, looking up at the sky, which was now dark. This, along with the fact that my MP had recovered to above 30% of its full capacity, suggested I'd been out for at least several hours. Without exaggeration, I was in a truly miserable state, the worst I'd ever been in this incarnation.
I tried to stir myself up, but the numbness receded, allowing raw pain to shoot through my right arm. "Fuck," I hissed, writhing in pain. Glancing at my shoulder, I identified the cause of the intense pain. It came from a protrusion under the skin, around which the skin turned violet.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I muttered. At least it wasn't a broken bone sticking out, but a dislocated shoulder. I pushed myself to a sitting position using my left side, which hurt but not as badly as the other one. Bearing through the pain, I finally sat up and took in the gory spectacle surrounding me. Chunks, organs, blood, and fluids of all sorts were scattered around, making me feel a pang of pity for the snake monster. But I accepted that it was either me or the snake. It was almost me, but in the end, it was him.
I sighed, then glanced at my dislocated shoulder. I needed to fix the damage, or else my HP would never fully recover. Quickly coming up with a plan, I steeled my mind and mentally activated my ice magic, summoning a magic circle on the ground. An ice pillar rose to chest level. Using my left hand, I brought my right hand to rest onto the pillar. The tip of the pillar encased my wrist in ice. Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself mentally and had the pillar move to the right, dragging my arm and popping it back into place. I cursed everything under heaven as the pain shot through me.
Still cursing, I quickly opened my interface and browsed to the attribute section. I needed to raise my constitution attributes. With the latest level ups, I had amassed quite a few attribute points. Ten of my 46 available points went to constitution, bringing it to 22 and my maximum HP to 272. Instantly, I felt better, some bruises outright disappearing. The red under my skin receded as if I'd undergone days of healing in mere seconds.
For the past few days, I've never felt more stupid for being on a journey without a healing-related skill or ability. Recovering from injuries like a random peon isn't something I can afford in such a dangerous environment.
Sure, being a Highbreed, I, just like Verdenkind, benefit from a healing factor that makes us recover faster than your average peons, but it was still not enough. As I considered what else needed to be done other than hoping to make it past the pass alive and reaching the next city for me to find an artifact with healing attributes, a memory surfaced. A past version of me, faced with the same problem, had thought of it. I remembered having the idea of banking attribute points to then allocate them to Constitution, allowing for a sort of one-time healing trump card.
It seemed incredibly stupid at the time, and it still does, which is why whenever I leveled up and had the opportunity to bank some points, I immediately used them on attributes that needed them more instead of banking them, as that was the smart thing to do.
But now, with attribute points at my disposal and a pressing need to boost my Constitution, that seemingly foolish idea from nearly 40 years ago suddenly didn't seem so foolish after all.
Anyway, one might easily be baited to believe that HP is a numerical representation of your health, just like one might believe SP is a numerical representation of one’s Stamina. It’s not exactly right.
As one's level goes up, typically along with one's Defense Status, HP becomes less a representation of health and more like a barrier. This is why for low-defense classes like Sorcerer, at low levels, HP is can be considered very much a representation of their health, as they aren’t physically very far away from your average peon.
However, for classes like Barbarian, who start with high defense stats, HP primarily represents a virtual armor coating that minimizes damage. Even low-HP classes like Sorcerer and Mage have this "coat," but since they start with low HP and low defense, it only becomes substantial as they raise their level which translates to augmenting their status value such as HP and Defence. This shift usually happens much later, typically above level 25. At this point, with HP above 25 and defense above 20, a mere peon can't hope to take down a Sorcerer, even by surprise.
That said, just because HP becomes more representative of something other than health doesn't mean it stops reflecting health entirely. The last tenth of one's HP is usually a good representation of one's actual health. When you're down to these last percentages, you'll feel it, as the coat won't protect you much then, your HP will fully represent your physical state.
Standing up, I took a moment to assess my injuries. My body felt like it had been through a meat grinder, but the immediate danger seemed to have passed. I was covered in the snake's fluids and blood, my clothes were completely ragged, and I still had some bruises here and there. In other words, I was a mess, but that was something to rejoice about. I was alive.
Looking around, I searched for my staff of Impotence. I found it a few meters away, miraculously intact despite being crashed against by a giant ice splinter. That situation had put me in a very embarrassing position, but the staff looked almost as pristine as the day I was forced to give it the lame name Elspeth. I wondered just how skilled the creator was. If only my appraisal skill, which goes as far as to identify the creature and user of an artifact, didn't show the creator as Unidentifiable, I would have considered seeking them out to make me another artifact, ideally one that provided healing.
My stomach grumbled, reminding me of another pressing need. I began looking for my backpack, hoping to find some food. As I searched, I stumbled upon something that made me immediately reach for my waist. My wand, Misfortune, was usually holstered there, but right now it wasn’t. Retracting my gaze back to what I saw that made me reflexively reach for my wand holster I saw were shattered gems and bits of wood.
My identification skill confirmed they were indeed pieces of Misfortune.
Heaving a heavy sigh, I knelt down to carefully pick up the fragments and the broken pieces of the shaft. Despite being overshadowed by Impotence, Misfortune had been quite useful, easy to carry and wield. I planned on having it repaired. Continuing my search for the backpack, I eventually arrived at the spot where I had let go of it earlier.
Instead of my backpack, there was a large boulder, one that wasn’t there earlier, one probably sent flying by the Frostfang One-Eyed Serpent when it escaped from the collapsing galleries.
Sighing deeply, I muttered to myself, "I really should leave this place before I go insane."