MT Chapter 08 (Patreon)

I woke up the next day feeling surprisingly refreshed. I guess I needed that break more than I realized. I wiggled into the back of Aki and poked her a few times with my dick to try and wake her up but she didn’t budge. She wasn’t a heavy sleeper but I guess she was pretty worn out too from burning the candle at both ends. Surviving that fish attack was the last push I needed to reach level twenty five.

Name: Kai Ise

Race: Human

Age: 15 Years

Class: Monster tamer

Title: Deviant

EL: Low tier 1

Level: 08-25

Stats

Strength: 51-78

Agility: 46-71

Endurance: 49-74

Intellect: 93-130

Wisdom: 101-120

Skills

Monster taming 06-15 Intuition 07-11 Tactics 01-05 Monstrous 03-05 Forgotten knowledge 01 Axe specialization 07-14 Damage resilience 05-07 Astronomy magic 16-20 Enchanting 13-14 Light armor specialization 01-03 Stealth 04-11 Mace specialization 01-04 Pitching 02-03 Projectile deflection 01 Fatigue resistance 05-16 Sleight of hand 01 Sexual taming 10-20 Marathoner 09-11 Spell alteration 02-05

I was surprised by how rapidly my stats and skills increased. My level was reaching the same level I was in my previous life. My stats were already far different and higher than I remembered them being. I’d have to find a way to work projectile deflection and sleight of hand into my training regimen. I gained a new skill and subskill as well.

Swimming 01- Increases swimming speed and breath control.

Overwork- Can expend more fatigue than normal to empower physical abilities. Reaching zero fatigue will start to drain health instead of knocking you unconscious.

Swimming seemed like a letdown but I hoped I could get a good upgradable skill from it. It seemed like that was a high likelihood. Possibly a pirate themed skill or maybe one related to other physical skills. I was surprised it didn’t merge into marathoner but that might have not been a good thing. If it averaged the level every time it happened then I would have lost a lot of movement speed outside of water for tons inside. 

Aki left yesterday and came back with a few items. Two ten foot long sections of ropes, one was covered in blood. Some more bedding… It stunk like she used to so I’d have to wash that before we used it. She had two plates and the grand prize, she brought back a fucking iron pan. I went outside and started to kick the old fire pit before building it back up. As excited as I was to finally cook something I still had to wait for the fire to pick up. I looked at Aki’s stats.

Name: Aki

Race: Goblin

Age: 2 Years

Class: None

Title: None

EL: Mid tier

Level: 54-55

Stats

Strength: 153-154

Agility: 214-216

Endurance: 113-115

Intellect: 37-37

Wisdom: Locked

Climbing 08-10 Shield specialization 01-02 Starvation resistance 34-35 Running 30-31 Sneak 22-23 Dagger specialization 14-15 Alchemy 01

New skill!

Aphrodisiac secretion 01-08- Secrete a sweet smelling liquid from the pores on your body that sexually  excite the opposite sex

Ahh fuck… That aphrodisiac secretion wasn’t much of a surprise. Other than that not much changed with her. Well, at least compared to me. I knew from people complaining that raising a skill above thirty was a pain in the ass. It could take days of solely focusing on raising it to get a single level. Which made the starvation resistance leveling up stand out to me. This bitch was eating me out of house and home. I checked her subskills.

Iron stomach- Able to eat slightly toxic or inedible foods without consequence. Gain a buff to stats for overeating. 

Assassination- Times four multiplier to sneak attack damage with daggers and poison. 

Hmm. That iron stomach seemed to be fairly overpowered. She could probably eat the berries that gave me diarrhea with no ill effects. The first part made sense but the buff from overeating seemed like it should have been a different skill. I wasn’t sure how it worked but maybe her leveling it up in the future would change things.

The new pan I got from her gave me the idea. She could use it as a hand held shield to start leveling her shield specialization. It would also work as a weapon in a pinch. I’d be able to cook food as long as I could start a fire as well. It might have been about time to give up on unlocking some of the skills I was going for and rethink which ones I would need more.

First, no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t learn meditation or anything involving sitting still for too long. I probably had adhd and I could never sit still for long enough to fall into a trance. I had already ruled out any skills that required books. I wasn’t sure but the previous me barely had a first grade level of reading comprehension. When I could get a hold of a book I no doubtedly expected a reading based skill to pop up.

For strength, I don’t think I could gain a carrying skill now. I had spent too much time doing push-ups and lifting heavy things for one to not trigger, something else needed to be done to unlock them. If I broke my skills down based on the stat that guided them then most likely agility would be the biggest number. I stopped trying to gain new ones for now and just focused on leveling what I had until I could get a book with possible skills in it.

Endurance was the one I was trying to get the most skills for. The build I was going for was about lasting power over everything else. I probably put as much effort into endurance training than all the other stats put together but for some reason endurance stayed level with the other stats. I had figured if I put more effort into that then I would see it increase at least slightly faster than the other stats but it didn’t.

Intellect and wisdom I had no idea how to raise or what skills I should be focusing on with them. I had started to play around with spell alteration but any time I thought of a new way I might be able to use it I felt the same feeling I did when I initially gained the skill. I didn’t want to risk my life just yet by pushing on those feelings yet. I had gotten good at hiding the light from my moonbeam spell so it was barely noticeable.

I knew from my teacher in town that it was possible to open up mana pathways in the body to strengthen all the magic you could use and provide significant buffs when you reached certain areas. Attempting to do that on my own was a surefire way to end up permanently crippled or brain damaged though.

I knew there were similar skills that I would be permanently locked out of if I started going down that road. Most people waited until mid tier to start working on them because it was so hard on your body. I put that thought aside for now, I’d need to learn from a good instructor to be safe. 

I poured in some acorn flour and let it cook down with the meat before adding in some water and turning it into gravy. I wish we had salt and pepper but in a pinch I added blood to flavor it. I give it a few tentative bites and I’m happy with the taste. It probably tastes bad but variety is the spice of food as well as life. Eating jerky for weeks would make anything taste better than it actually was.

I cool it down first before heading inside. I had no doubt Aki would jump up and devour it the second she smelled it and I was right. Coming in when it was finished but still almost boiling would have ended badly for her mouth. I swished my mouth out and poured some of the liquid in to clean the pan before boiling water and adding mint to flavor our drinking water.

One of the bigger focuses now will be to look for plants for cooking and leveling her alchemy. I really only knew plants that were similar to earth plants. If we could find something similar to aloe vera or… Well I don’t know what helpful plants look like. Maybe I should just grab a bunch of different looking ones and try having her make potions or poisons.

We made our way in a different direction than back towards the town or the goblins. I had wanted to go exploring for a while but hadn’t gotten the chance to. We encountered the wolf leader after about five hours of walking. He was surrounded by a half dozen weaker wolves. I could tell something was special about him then previous memories came flooding back. He was a monsterized animal.

Monsterized creatures were just that. Either through tough trials or outside materials like an ore vein for them to eat an animal could monsterize. Judging by their only being a single one it was most likely through leveling. If it was some type of herb or item that made them evolve I would see it in the others fur or size but they looked like normal wolves to me.

Towards the town was dense forest and towards the goblin was forest with some hills and mountains making it hard to see very far in the distance. Heading north there was nothing but green grassy fields. The second we left the tree we were hiding behind and tried to make our way around or attack they’d spot us immediately. I look at Aki to see if she wants to take this fight and I’m only met with a wolfish grin.

I take a better look at the monster wolf now. It’s easily twice the size of normal wolves with reddish orange fur. If I looked close enough I could see fire sparks fall from the wolf. If the ground was drier the wolf would have burned the forest to the ground but there was enough rain that it took more than just that to start a fire.

My main form of fighting magic would most likely do little to no damage and might actually heal it. As I was formulating a plan in my head Aki decided she waited long enough. I swear I heard her say. “Time's up, let's do this!”

She went sprinting at them. She managed to clear half the distance which surprised me before she was noticed. The wolf only gave a chuf to acknowledge she was heading towards him. He noticed me right after and glanced around with an intelligence I didn’t expect from a wolf. As if to say. “Just you two? Is there any more coming?” He spun all the way around looking every other direction.

Finally once he felt safe enough he started to prance out to meet us. You would expect the main wolf would let the normal wolves fight to weaken us but I think he didn’t see us as a big enough threat to warrant that action. As Aki got close she sped up and closed the gap fast enough to throw the wolf off guard. With a fluid motion she pulled her dagger out of the scabbard and hilted it into the wolf.

The force from the strike almost knocked him off his feet. He started to glow a much deeper red and before I could issue a warning Aki kicked off the wolf backflipping to safety as he erupted in flames. The wolf's fur broke out into a fire and chased her through the air before it dispersed from getting too far from the wolf. Without missing a beat she rushed back in.

I had to push myself forwards instead of just watching the fight progress. The remaining wolves finally entered the fight. As much as I wanted to I knew my place wasn’t to fight the gigantic flaming wolf who could easily kill me. As if agreeing wholeheartedly the wolves moved further away from the fight between the two higher tiered creatures and started to move towards me.

I bashed one's head and all of them became suddenly wary. It yelped and jumped back, yep definitely stronger than the other wolves I fought. I swear I could see their faces all change to say. “Oh shit he’s actually going to fight back.” They slowly surrounded me. The wolves were bigger than the ones I met the first day, which made the monster wolf look even more monstrous in comparison. Ahh shit! My monstrous skill! I turned to the fight and used it on the wolf.

A jolt of power surged through me as I did so. That surge suddenly started to feel like a clenching in my chest. I thought to myself. “Mother fucker again?” I couldn’t move but at the same time the wolves weren’t sure what happened. If something that just put up a fight suddenly doubled over in pain and started shaking you might be wary to attack. I opened my stats because I couldn’t do anything else.

Trait gained

Flame attunement- Gain a boost to fire affinity to 25%. Upgrade fire magic to flame magic.

Fire affinity boosted from 34% to 59%

Notice! Fire attunement currently locked

Notice! Fire affinity above 50% fire magic unlocked automatically because of flame attunement.

Error! Contradicting elemental alignments inside body

Contacting an admin…

Processing…

Admin upgrades wind alignment to flare alignment

Admin removes fire alignment

Admin removes flame attunement

Skill gained!

Flare magic 01- Gain access to wind empowered fire magic. Upon reaching certain thresholds gain knowledge of new usable spells.

Instinctively I knew I could cast two new spells. Flame tracers and invigorate. Flame tracers was like the fire spell fire arrow except it fired three flaming bolts that sped to their targets faster than a normal flame arrow. The invigorate spell was a combination of the fire spell empower and air spell haste. It gave both a boost to strength and agility. 

The process had only taken a few seconds but by the time I came aware again the wolves had lost their wariness and one clamped down on my shoulder from behind. I flipped it over myself slamming the one approaching me from the front. I cast my new invigorate spell as another from my left latched on to my arm. Most would have cast a healing spell on themselves because they were hurt. That was a losing gamble, I’d get dogpiled like what happened with the goblins and get torn to pieces.

Invigorate made me feel different. Haste would increase your agility so I could move faster and empowered would do the same for strength so I could hit harder but there was something else. I could tell while the spell was active my mind would move faster than normal as well. Like watching something at .9 speed instead of 1 it didn’t make that much of a difference now but when creatures were fighting at speeds almost too fast for the human eye… This spell would be incredible for my survival in the future.

I got my axe up just as another wolf approached from the right side. At the same moment one approaches on the left and I strike it with my bat. I hadn’t had luck getting clean hits with the axe but the thud I heard from the bat let me know he was badly hurt. I spun around and struck my first killing blow at the wolf that lunged at my back.

I leapfrogged the corpse to get out of the encirclement. After that I turned towards them and backpetalled as I cast my new spell. The fire poured out of my hand and into three separate balls of flame. For a brief moment nothing happens. Then they fire out as fast as a bullet, each at a different wolf. Two instantly died while another was seriously injured. What an insanely strong spell!

A wave of pain struck me as I suddenly hit mana sickness. The spell had consumed most of my mana!? No, it was most likely a combination of both. I wasn’t sure why but the spells must be much more expensive than my constellation magic. The headache was enough to make me swoon. I wildly swung my weapon in front of me.

When I came to, none of us were left uninjured. Me mostly from myself while the two I struck with my axe and hit with the tracer were left. The pain was enough to make me vomit in my mouth and I quickly spit it out while staring down the wolves. One of them dove at my throat. I struck him but his momentum still knocked me off my feet.

For a moment I thought he was going to rip my throat out but the strike had knocked him unconscious or killed him. As I tried to get up the same problem with the goblin happened and since I was pinned I became easier to deal with. The one to my left came over and bit my hand while the one on my right attacked my unguarded feet.

I dropped my axe in the fall and he had my entire hand in his mouth. I thought I lost my hand but the pain as he pulled and yanked was too much to care at the moment. I tried clubbing him with my bat but at the angle he was I couldn’t get a swing with enough force to do damage on him. Three or so swings and my panicked brain calmed down enough for me to realize if I didn’t do something soon I was going to die.

I dropped my bat and jabbed a finger into the biting wolf's eye. He yelped in pain and fell back. With the moment of reprieve I grabbed my axe and swung at the wolf who managed to bite through the leather on my shoe. If he bit higher up instead of trying to dismember my foot I’d have bled out. Most of the damage was done to the shoe with only a few puncture marks from the teeth on my leg.

He looked at me with my shoe in his mouth right as I swung down burying the axe into his head. One attempt at pulling it out and I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I grabbed the bat and pointed it at the jumping dogs throat, if it was sharp it would have impaled him but since it was only a blunt instrument he only hung in the air from his mouth for long enough for me to stand up throwing the dog off of me.

Without any more fanfare I swung the bat connecting with the last living dog, killing it in a single strike. The adrenaline from the fight made me swing two more times to make sure he was dead. I felt brutalized. Taking a look at the damage huge chunks of flesh were missing from my arm and one of my fingers was almost bitten off. I cast a heal on myself and the wounds started closing up but it would take at least another four or five to become whole again.

I looked over at the fight between Aki and the fire wolf. Her skin was covered in welts from the fire and she had blood running down her hand. The wolf looked just as bad. The fire kept petering out before reigniting. The wolf favored one leg and the original wound that Aki inflicted had a coat of matted dried blood around it. The fight could go either way at this point, let’s skew the odds a little bit.

I looked for a rock a good size for throwing and found one with relative ease. I hucked the rock at the wolf. With its gigantic size and distraction from Aki it easily connected. Although it plinked off the wolf with almost no visible damage it was still enough for me to register as having dealt damage to it. That let Aki deal more damage because of my tactics skill and her pack tactics trait.

The damage wasn’t significant for large blows but if you were trying to whittle a strong monster down the little attacks would add up much quicker. Let’s say if she was hitting for on average ten to fifteen and the monster had seven built in armor the plus one from her trait and the extra % damage would quickly add up over a few dozen strikes. I had learned her pack tactics through monstrous before so I had the innate feeling that it would add an extra point to any damage up to an extra five points if five goblins struck the same target. That was why I had done so well against the goblins until a few of their attacks managed to land.

Tactics was percentage based. It would increase the damage by a percentage of whatever skill level I was at with it. At the moment it was only five percent but in the future we could be hitting enemies for twice the normal damage when it hit max level. That isn’t including any extra bit it gets from hitting level fifty or gaining a subskill. The monster only glanced in my direction before it realized I wasn’t a threat. It had no idea what I just did and Aki probably didn’t either.

I started to make my way away from the fighting because if the monster realized what I just did he’d be really pissed at me and I was probably about to go unconscious with my next plan. I didn’t want to be close when it realized the fight was over and there was no way for him to win. He might  have attacked me in a last ditch effort or just out of spite. I doubted the spite part was true but it’s hard to tell with monsters.

After putting some distance between us I cast invigorate on Aki and I feel the mana empty out of my body. Man, I wish I went unconscious. The splitting headache felt like someone tried to split my head open with my own axe. That plus they had two drills going through my ears trying to meet in the middle. That plus I smelt burning toast which wasn’t a good sign. Another pain in the back of my head as I collapse to the ground.

I turned my head to the side because the sky was too bright and intensified the pain. I could only deal with the pain until it went away. Several groans of pain followed by heavy lamaze style breathing and soon enough the pressure started to subside. Blood poured out of my nose and I could only plug it by pinching both sides. I leaned forward and wanted to see how the fight had progressed.

The wolf was on its last legs. He sported several more deep gashes while Aki looked in a similar position than before. The cut on his throat looked like it would be fatal even if he somehow killed her. I stood up and hobbled towards the fight. My steps were uneven from the lack of a shoe and I continued to switch between applying pressure to my nose or trying to stop the bleeding from my finger that still had a chunk missing.

The wolf was distracted for the final time as it noticed me and glanced out the corner of his eye. Aki lunged at it a final time coming in underneath the bite it launched as a last ditch effort and scored another strike right near the other wound. The monster didn’t die quickly. Over the course of the next minute Aki slowly circled it as it got weaker and weaker. Soon it couldn’t stand any longer. That was when she went in for the final blow.

In almost the same spot she originally struck the wolf she struck again. The spot was slightly closer to the front of the wolf, it didn’t occur to me until now but it looked like she was going for its heart with her first strike and the movement from the wolf was enough to change her strikes placement. It was a sobering experience to watch an animal die like that.

It just occurred to me how close we were to death. If any of those wolves attacked earlier when I unlocked the flare magic I would have been in trouble. At the same time if I didn’t unlock the flare magic and just easily killed the wolves then I might have done something different that led to the wolf retreating or attacking me. With tightrope precision we walked the balance of survival and I grew stronger from it.