8 Abilities and Nostalgia

Chapter 8: Abilities and Nostalgia

The next evening Cherry was already waiting for him when he walked out of his log. As soon as he came out of there she smiled widely at him. "Morning Mercury! Where've you been?" 

The cat himself had a slight smile on his face seeing the girl again. He still felt he owed her somewhat for giving him an Ability point and a name, so he had an idea. After looking at her for a while, he disappeared inside the log, throwing the great Stag's hide into her face when coming out again.

"Hey!" she yelled out while laughing, "What do you think you're doing?" 

Mercury simply waited for a bit, seeing as she didn't realize the item yet. But when Cherry pulled it off her face while laughing, her smile disappeared into an expression of surprise.

"Is… is this what I think it is?" she asked while stunned. "No way. No way, no way, no way."

After a moment she peeled her eyes off the hide and glued them onto Mercury.

"Are you serious? You- did you actually fight that thing? And win? How…" In her shock the hide almost slipped out of her hands before she gripped it even more tightly. She kept staring at Mercury with wide open eyes while the man himself had a satisfied smile on his face. This was just about as great as beating the stag itself. After a while, Cherry shook her head and calmed her expression a little. "I'll be damned…" she whispered while pushing the pelt back towards Mercury, but he only shook his head and stepped back. He was telling her to keep it. Once more Cherry's eyes widened in astonishment.

"Seriously? Seriously seriously? Honest? Pinky promise?" She didn't exactly let up on her questions, so Mercury simply nodded his head again and again. He even held out his paw to her so she could make somewhat of a pinky promise. Jeez woman, calm down. But after a long time of confirming, Cherry gave him maybe the biggest smile he had ever seen, stretching from one ear to another. 

"Thank you so much, Mercury," she said happily. "You wouldn't believe how much this means to me."

At this he turned his head to the side. Why wouldn't he believe it? What did it mean? And so, after letting out a quiet sigh, Cherry spoke. 

"It's a Quest of mine, you see," she said, "to get the great Stag's hide. It's actually the only Sub Quest that's left before I can continue my Main Quest. What I'm saying is that this takes me a step closer to my personal goal, you know? Completing a Main Quest doesn't just give you good rewards, it's a symbol of your growth as a person and shows your personal dream. If you achieve your Main Quest, be it with or without help, it means you took another step forward. And with you giving me this, a unique item nonetheless, I'm able to move another step towards my future. Essentially, I was standing in front of a large wall on my way forward, because the stag is pretty wary of humans, and you just put a ladder in front of the wall, allowing me to easily climb over it. This is an incredible gift, Mercury. Thanks a thousand times!" Cherry ended her speech with the brightest smile resurfacing on her lips as she reached out to touch Mercury. For the first time, he actually didn't flinch back at all and instead let her touch him. It was a simple reason. She talked to him like a friend instead of a pet. There was no reason to shy away from her, not even a small one, and so, he let her pet his head a few times. It wasn't as though he found it incredible or bone-shakingly amazing, but it was nice. It was a gentle, comforting feeling that he couldn't quite get enough of, like warm summer rain. Pets were apparently pretty sick, who'd've thought. 

And just like that, Cherry carried the hide home after a short encounter. 

Mercury, on the other hand, had just started his night. While he did plan on resting for a while now, he also wanted to see where the Mother of spiders' territory was so he could start lightly hunting down her underlings. He also still needed to exercise and, with him now having quite some free time, he might even experiment with his mana again since the first time he tried meditating worked so well. He could also level-up his runecarving or try to increase his physical stats. In general, there were a lot of things he still had left to do. Well, given the nature of this world there was probably a lot more stuff that he had yet to explore and he also still hadn't created an army, so that was also something he would still have to act on. If he judged himself right now he wouldn't even be deserving of the 'M' in Mercury. No, he wasn't even close to what he wanted yet. He would turn this game into an RTS whether he wanted to or not. Almost like the church, which was forcefully dragged into the 21st century while fighting against it with all its (dwindling) power. Good times!

Anyways, back on track Mercury. Breakfast first, as any good day starts with a good meal!

[Killed a squirrel. Get: 15 Exp, 5 Gold.]

After eating a bit he already felt like an entirely new person. It was even better than the mice he usually ate, though that might have more to do with the lingering taste of victory in his mouth. He was basically like cat Caesar. He came, saw and conquered the fuck outta that stag. His references were spot on today, too. Seems like the sun of luck shone onto him for the first time. 

Well, after breakfast it was time for scouting. Luckily, this could easily be combined with his exercise.

[<Night Vision lv. 1> has levelled up!]

Ooooh, shiny! With <Night Vision> now on a higher level he could see his surroundings quite a bit more easily. This even made some colour return to the world that was usually dyed in shades of gray. He couldn't quite count the number though. Whatever. Moving on. 

He scanned the surroundings while lightly jogging through the undergrowth. Since the bear was to his left from the mountaintop's perspective and the stag on his right there were only two possible locations for the spiders. Either they were further down the mountain or they were on the other side, right? But since he had already seen one at his base it would be more likely for them to simply be further down, deeper in the forest, because otherwise they'd have to cross through the territory of either mister bear or mister stag, which would probably be a little difficult. So that's where Mercury started looking, and sure enough, he wasn't far off. The further down he walked the more spiderwebs he could see spanning in between the trees. He also heard less and less insects buzzing through the air, instead he saw bundles of eyes darting through the undergrowth a little further from him.

Yeah, no. Thanks, but no thanks, He wasn't dealing with that yet. Big nono. Scary. Not vibing. And thus, Mercury yeeted himself right the hell outta there, making sure to run full speed so he couldn't be followed. Only when the eerie silence disappeared and was replaced with the howling of the wind and the buzzing of insects did he feel at ease again. He never thought he'd actually be glad to hear that slight humming in the air since he really absolutely hated insects more than anything. Just fuck bugs and flies and wasps and especially mosquitos. Fuck fucking mosquitos. Those assholes. Those bastards. Those fiends. Those evil hellspawns. Oh how he hated them.

That day, Mercury Rainfall Starlight took a vow. He would exterminate them, every last one of those sons of bitches. He would wipe the species of those blood sucking, soul stealing, disease carrying assholes right off the world. Because then and only then would he be able to sleep in peace.

Back on track. When Mercury arrived back home he started going about his usual business. Well, maybe that wasn't quite right to say. His usual business would have been regular office work as a clerk. It would have been sitting in a chair from 9 to 5, sometimes an hour or two longer, and typing away endlessly, forever trapped in the monotony of reports and documents, a never ending stream of words and letters that seemed to flow his way until his mind numbed and he was swallowed into the depths of the same work, day in and day out, collapsing when he came home before waking up the next day, at the same time again, and overdosing on coffee, just so he could stay awake on the drive to work, before the cycle could repeat and repeat, over and over again. He wasn't a clerk, he was an office slave. 

But something about that stuck out. Right, he was an office slave. He was someone who was replaceable and could be swapped out at a moment's notice. But he wasn't that anymore. Now, he was a cat. One with levels and skills. With freedom, too. He wouldn't be forced to slave away for hours on end anymore, instead, he'd be able to do what he wanted. Because he wasn't the same anymore. He wasn't Steve the slave, wasting away until he had some free time, before spending that free time on almost nothing but sleep and the occasional game, leaving him near unable to pursue personal relationships. Now, he wasn't that anymore. He was now Mercury. Mercury Rainfall Starlight, to be exact. An existence destined to become king, destined to lead. Well, okay, maybe not destined, but definitely on the way to doing so!

Like that, Mercury shook off his distracting thoughts and went about his new daily routine. He started with a run and some hunting to fill his stomach. Then, he went to physical training, both running and tree-climbing, followed by some more hunting, then mana training. To him that was the most exciting part of the day, as nothing else could even hope to match the hot, prickling rush that mana gave him, but he still rigorously stuck to a physical exercise routine since he knew he needed to keep those stats up as well. What was the saying? "A healthy body holds a healthy mind" or something? Whatever, in any case, he currently couldn't use mana offensively so he quite simply had to rely on his physical stats for that. 

Anyhow, back to mana training. Steve didn't have any skills that would allow him to feel his mana, so he somehow had to figure it out on his own. He started off simply, by sitting on the ground in his log, closing his eyes and focusing, thinking back to what he felt the first time he tried it. He didn't use <Meditate> because it simply showed the effect without a process, and he wanted to adjust the process to achieve a different result. Simply put, he was aiming towards a new Skill, though he had yet to figure out what that Skill was. But after a while, he felt the same thing again. He felt something of a puddle inside his own body, how best to describe it…

Mercury imagined it as a picture, though this time it was different from before. It felt like there was a large space in his body, one where Mana could collect at the top and drop down into the puddle. It looked something like a cave, water dropping down from a single stalactite. His Mana was about as much as the puddle below him, not nearly filling the whole cave. But the cave was only the first limiter, there was a second one too. There was only a certain amount of water in the cave. If all of the water in the air had condensated and dropped down into the puddle, it obviously couldn't grow anymore. This factor was far more limiting than the overall cave size. Essentially, he was far from hitting the limit of mana his body could store, but he had already seen the limit of the mana already in his body. This limit could be relieved by absorbing mana from the outside, as he had done before, or by increasing Intelligence, which allowed more of the mana to become liquid. Intelligence was essentially a shortcut to greater mana. Wisdom increased the speed of mana condensation. Willpower... actually didn't interact with Mercury's mana, so he put it aside for now. The most important factors were Intelligence and Wisdom, the two that controlled his total mana and its regeneration. 

Regeneration was hard to increase, since he didn't exactly know how his mana was condensed and recycled to be useable again, though <Meditate> did help with that. His total mana could be increased on the other hand, but that wasn't what he was here to try. He was here to figure out what he could do with it.

With that in mind, Mercury started to try and interact with his mana. Of course, he couldn't exactly manifest in there and start splashing it around with his hands. Instead he tried to give it mental commands like "move" and "splash". It was interesting to see, since it seemed to somewhat do what he wanted, but the motions it went through were rather minor. He could feel something moving ever so slightly in his body, and he could visualize the puddle beginning to go through the motions he wanted it to, but other than that there was no reaction. Shouldn't a teacher come in at this point? Jeez. Whatever, he still had to focus. This was only the very first time he tried to handle mana, of course he wouldn't be perfect at it immediately. Luckily, that wasn't much of an issue since he had ample time to train in the forest. He would even be able to field test it while cutting down the spider army.

So, Mercury kept handling his mana, making it tilt slightly to one side, throw ripples on the puddle's surface and sometimes having some of it splash up a little, but after just about half an hour he had to stop. It actually wasn't because he was distracted, but because of his body. On one hand, his breathing had gotten heavy and rigid, on the other he had an absolutely splitting headache, and on the metaphorical third hand, every bit of his body felt sore to no end. So, Mercury forced his now heavy eyes open, which he soon sped up when he could see a notification in front of his face.

[Acquired the Ability <Mana Movement lv.1>!]

What? A new Skill? And a badass one too! Question is what it does.

[<Mana Movement>: An Ability that allows you to move your mana within your core.]

Core? Another fancy word, what's that?

[Core: The core, in this context, refers to the inner mana reservoir of a living being. The size of the core is determined by their physical power and their size, while the mana inside the core is determined by their Intelligence and magical prowess.]

So that cave he was imagining was called a core then. Interesting for sure. That aside, with him having gotten a new Skill he finally decided to call up the overview once more to get a picture of how his Skills were shaping up.

Skills:

Active: <Appraisal lv. 1>, <Beginner Runecarving lv. 3>, <Bloodlust lv. 1>, <Dash lv. 1>, <Sneak lv. 1>, <Throw lv. 7>

Passive: <Fall Damage Reduction lv. 2>,  <Language Comprehension lv. 4>, <Night Vision lv. 2>, <Quiet lv.1>

Both: <Meditate lv. 3>

Abilities: <Mana Movement lv.1>

Unique: <Shop lv. 1>

Stop. Wait a minute. What was that? "Abilities"? Was that something new? <Appraisal>, I think I might need your help again!

[Abilities: Abilities share a lot of similarities with Skills, however they carry some fundamental differences. They cannot be bought from the Skill shop and have to be acquired through training or revelations. Some of them cannot be levelled up through simple repetition and may require certain conditions to be met. They usually have a far lower level cap than Skills and remain stuck at said cap until they evolve. Unlike Skills, Abilities also need to be manually evolved, however, some Abilities can be evolved into different directions based on the person. It is possible to acquire other evolutions even if one has already been found, this may evoke synergistic benefits. Abilities need to be "manually" activated, their appearance in the Skill window is only to inform the individual of their progress compared to other individuals with the same or similar Abilities.]

After carefully reading through the description Mercury did so a second time. This Ability stuff was a little convoluted, but essentially they were a somewhat rare type of Skill in his mind. For now evolution seemed to still be a little further ahead, so there wasn't much need to mind that. He simply had to be able to better move his mana and the Ability would increase in level, no? So that would be his goal for now, though right then he stopped with mana training, since his head still hurt and he was still sore. Instead, he focused on his Skills again, relentlessly trying to increase his proficiency with <Throw>. In the end, when dawn came around, Mercury went to sleep without having made an incredible amount of progress. Well, it was just the first day, so the battle was really just about to begin…

When Mercury opened his eyes again the next night it was foggy out again. Well, foggy was actually putting it nicely this time. It wasn't just foggy or misty, it was straight up white outside. The kind of fog that's thick enough to make you think that three-dimensional space was bullshit because everything is straight up white. Needless to say running and scouting were off the table since hitting a tree didn't quite fit his fancy. Instead he could try to improve both <Mana Movement> and <Throw> which he did, at least until the former gave him a migraine and the latter left him panting exhaustedly. By then half the night had passed, but unfortunately there was not a single sign of the fog letting up, leaving Mercury stuck again. 

In simple terms: he was bored.

For the first time since he entered this world, he had absolutely fuck all to do. There wasn't anything he could do outside, he couldn't focus on anything inside and he was fully out of Sp. So, with nothing better to do, Steve started tabbing through menus. He read through his Status again, did another double take on his Skills, checked out the Shop to see what incredible new upgrades he could afford (he found a potion that restored 20 Hp for 300 Gold and a 250 Exp pill he would soon be able to afford for 500 Gold) and finally opened up the Skill shop again, slowly reading through every Skill there was. This was actually the most interesting part. 

First off, he found a new detail about <Beginner Beastmaster>, which was fairly frustrating. The <Beastmaster> Skill was only one part of what he expected it to be. He could only figure that out after seeing the other Skills, those being <Tame>, <Store Familiar>, <Familiar Growth>, <Familiar Skilling> and <Familiar Intellect>. Yeah, it wasn't just one simple Skill, though he could get all of them neatly packaged within the <Beast Army> Skill, for the low, low price of uh… 1.500 Skill points. Yup. That would make the animal-control skills more expensive than necromancy, actually, which would be weird, right? So the same restrictions applied to it, of course, making the full necromancer package cost a whopping 6.000 Skill points. Luckily he wasn't drinking any tea, since it would've been spit out for sure. Mercury let out a deep sigh instead. First, his Shop was bullshit, and now the Skill shop was as well. Damn it.

When he later on found <Skill Point Generation> Mercury would have spit his tea out again. It cost 500 points but he bought it without hesitation. It would be worth it for sure, right? Right?

[<Skill Point Generation>: This Skill will automatically produce Skill points for its user. The rate of production increases with Skill level. Current production: 1 point per "month".]

Eh? Mercury tilted its head to the side as his eyes went blank, all life having been sucked out of them. Ah. This was it again. Once more the system had tempted and played him. It felt just about as frustrating as getting rickrolled, but with all the funny parts removed. Then and there, one could see Mercury's soul leave his body as the realization that he had just wasted five level's worth of points hit him. 

Just doing the maths, it would take over 41 years to get all the points back. He was a cat. His lifespan probably wasn't even long enough for that. 

Well, after that slap in the face browsing the Skill shop was far less fun. Of course there were amazing Skills that would allow for incredible effects, especially magic-related ones were appealing, but after blasting most of his points just now they were all far out of his reach. Thus, the Skill shop was closed again under great frustration and an hour of cursing it began. 

After venting his frustration with the shitty system for a while, complaining about the stupidly expensive Skills and items in both shops, the stupid single-slotted inventory and the dumb quests asking him, a level 9 kitten, to take down wolves and bears. If this were a game, it sure would be frustrating as fuck. Jeez. If only he could like… do something to distract himself, I dunno, maybe take a shower or watch some videos online. Scrolling through some memes would be a 10/10 occupation right now. Or cute animal pictures. Those were always amazing, without fail. Heck, he'd even take a newspaper or a novel right now. 

But unfortunately, there was nothing like that. He was stuck being bored. For the first time he really started missing his home. He wanted to be able to lay down on the couch, occasionally text back to Jeff or Dave or Julia. He wanted to laze around and comfortably do nothing. Hey, wait just one second. 'Comfortably do nothing'. Didn't he have the perfect opportunity now? He did, huh. He wasn't even forced to think about anything in particular, though of course there were things on his mind. He could start coming up with strategies for wolfey and mister bear and he could-

Just like that, Mercury zoned out, letting his thoughts drift with his eyes closed until he was far removed from reality. Then, unbeknownst to him, a small pop-up appeared.

[Acquired the Skill <Daydream lv.1> through a specific action.]