As soon as he decided, Alexander activated the skill |Run| and approached the river as fast as he could.
The fighting monsters quickly noticed his approach. The goblins were surprised, the kobolds became afraid, and the orc (Young) seemed to realize that its situation was not at all favorable.
When he was about 5m from the river, he began charging 2 |Minor Lightning| spells simultaneously, one in each hand. And when he was 2m away, he fired them.
The first spell was launched into the water, in the middle of the three groups. And the second was launched in the direction of the orc (Young).
When the first spell touched the water, Alexander felt an electric current invade his body. The same happened when the second one hit the orc (young) head, but less intensely, and accompanied by information.
[1 x {Goblin} Lv. 1 slain. – You received 25 XP points]
[1 x {Goblin} Lv. 2 slain. – You received 30 XP points]
[1 x {Goblin} Lv. 3 slain. – You received 40 XP points]
[1 x {Kobold} Lv. 1 slain. – You received 30 XP points]
[1 x {Kobold} Lv. 2 slain. – You received 40 XP points]
[1 x {Orc(Young)} Lv. 2 slain. – You received 50 XP points]
Ding!
[You leveled up. But due to the interference of the special skill |Attribute Control|, all your attribute increases upon leveling up were denied and converted into free attribute points.]
*[+7 free attribute points]*
*[+1 growth point]*
"I was careless," Alexander complained to himself. "I knew there was a possibility of suffering from part of the electricity by being in a river area, but I didn't imagine it would be of this intensity. Especially since I didn't enter the water and I'm wearing shoes."
"Mental note: be more careful when using electric spells!"
The electricity left his body sore and stiff, but even so, he forced himself to move so as not to stay there, risking being found by some monster that might come to investigate the delay of its companions.
Alexander then took some of the containers the monsters used to carry water and went to hide in the clearing. The kobolds' container was easy enough to carry with his current Strength attribute, but the orcs' one was hard to hold due to its size.
As soon as he reached the clearing, he sat down to rest and began checking his condition and HP. And it didn't take long to confirm that he only had some ruffled fur on the outside, as the real problem was inside.
Upon opening his status, Alexander discovered that those lightning bolts had taken almost ? of his HP, leaving him at (17/22). And that was because he wasn't the main target.
Realizing his situation wasn't very good, he decided to allocate his free attribute points right away.
After thinking a bit about how to distribute them, he decided to put them in a way to make his status more balanced, and put the rest into vitality.
[2 points added to Vitality]
[5 points added to Dexterity]
As soon as he allocated the points, Alexander felt his body change and was enveloped by a good feeling of becoming more powerful.
As good as the feeling was, it couldn't hide the pain throbbing throughout his body. So he used |Invigorate| to heal himself.
When the water touched his skin, Alexander felt an immense coolness. The pain decreased with each use of |Invigorate|, until it finally disappeared.
After confirming his HP was full and that he still had enough Mana, Stamina, and MP, he began to practice his |Mana Control|. But this time he could only practice for six minutes, as he was interrupted by an animalistic roar of anger coming from the direction of the river.
"It seems another orc finally came looking for its companion," Alexander conjectured. "It's better to go see what's happening after resting a bit, or I might end up being surprised when they come to this side."
After resting a bit, he walked carefully to the river while observing that everything seemed strangely normal. Upon reaching his observation point at the river, he noticed the calm was only maintained on his side, as a pair of orcs (Young) patrolled the other side.
"This complicates things. This patrol is clearly ostentatious and will scare off the other species," thought Alexander. But as soon as the orcs (Young) left, a goblin came out of the bushes, approached the river very quickly, took water, and went back.
A kobold did the same not long after, but Alexander noticed it was clearly more anxious than the goblin. So much so that it kept looking around, afraid of being surprised.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Interesting," thought Alexander, pleasantly surprised. "It seems the dynamic changed, but not much."
"The curious thing is that none of them seem to have the slightest intention of crossing the river. As if they knew there's nothing here... or were afraid of something that is, or appears, here." Upon reaching this line of reasoning, he decided to stop, afraid. "I hope it's not the latter, because that something wouldn't be me."
While thinking about his situation, Alexander decided to stay nearby and observe the situation at the river a bit longer. But since there wasn't always something to observe, he took the opportunity to continue increasing his proficiency in the skill |Mana Control|.
Since nothing noteworthy happened, he kept up the training. And after a few hours increasing his proficiency, he finally felt his control over mana change, or rather, improve.
Ding!
[|Mana Control (Beginner)| leveled up to |Mana Control (Intermediate)|]
Excited to have finally improved, Alexander wanted to see the changes the skill |Mana Control| had undergone, so he used |Appraise| on it.
*[|Mana Control (Intermediate)|: Allows you to sense, control, and guide mana flows for various types of purposes. Control Capacity: 1 to 10 mana. Cost: (1) stamina/minute and (1) MP/minute.]*
Satisfied with the improvement of his skill and seeing it was already getting dark, he stopped practicing and began preparing a spot where he could spend the night observing the movement at the river.
Even facing high humidity from being near the river, nothing noteworthy happened.
Upon realizing this, Alexander went to look for a less humid place to lie down.
The next day things remained the same. He didn't sleep well and the orcs continued to be ostentatious to the other monsters, forcing them to stay in their caves most of the day.
"Thinking about it, maybe I can take advantage of this situation if it lasts a few more days," thought Alexander as he began to devise a plan.
After formulating his plan, he realized he would need a few things to put it into practice.
Having no other option or anything better to do, Alexander soon began to make the necessary preparations.
The first step was to take one of the containers obtained from the monsters and use it to test if it was viable to drink the water produced with |Invigorate|, which not only proved viable, but also very refreshing and energizing.
The second step was to look for a fallen tree branch that was strong, straight, and large, as he wanted to turn it into a wooden spear. Unfortunately for him, this wasn't possible, as the qualities he sought in a branch were almost impossible to find in fallen branches.
Even though he couldn't make the spear as he wanted, Alexander still managed to make a weapon much better than his current stake, as he now had a dagger to work the wood instead of just breaking it.
The third step was to spend the entire day hunting rabbits on his side of the grove to build a food stockpile, which, thanks to the orcs, he didn't have much worry doing.
After walking all over his side of the grove in search of rabbits, Alexander killed 24 of them. An amount he believed was all the rabbits on his side, as he couldn't find any more after that.
[24 x {Wild rabbits} slain. – You received 120 XP points]
Ding!
[|Ambush (Beginner)| leveled up to |Ambush (Intermediate)|]
Ding!
[You leveled up. But due to the interference of the special skill |Attribute Control|, all your attribute increases upon leveling up were denied and converted into free attribute points.]
*[+7 free attribute points]*
*[+1 growth point]*
Ignoring that he and his skill had leveled up, Alexander took advantage of the fact that he still had time before nightfall and used |Disassemble| to process the bodies of the hunted rabbits.
Ding!
[|Disassemble (Beginner)| leveled up to |Disassemble (Intermediate)|]
Seeing that another one of his skills had leveled up, he used |Appraise| to see what had improved in them after finishing Disassemble the rabbits. But he soon realized they hadn't changed much, just improved a bit in their own function.
The fourth step for him was to use the rabbit hides to create some equipment and improve some of the ones he already had.
After some trial and error, Alexander was able to create two rudimentary adjustable gloves with strings; improve his shoes, allowing his toes to protrude outward, giving him more traction; and coat the grip of his spear, thus preventing it from becoming too slippery.
The last, and most difficult, step was to try to use |Mana Control| to strengthen his body in the same way that |Invigorate| enhanced water.
"This should be possible," he conjectured. "Because every time I use the spell |Invigorate|, I feel my mana flow being divided into two parts. One is responsible for materializing the water, and the other for enhancing it with its respective special properties."
With this vague idea as a starting point, Alexander returned to the clearing, placed the things he had obtained to dry in the wind, sat near the tree where he slept, took a deep breath, and began to use |Mana Control|.
It didn't take long for him to feel a cold, but extremely pleasurable, flow emerge from some part of his body and begin to move according to his will.
Following his control, the flow acted similarly to the second part of the mana from the spell |Invigorate|, but using his body as a substitute for water.
Slowly, Alexander began to infuse mana into his body. But contrary to his progress, the mana flow under his control began to deplete rapidly.
Realizing this, he made another mana flow join the current one so as not to interrupt the process. And within five minutes, a notification sounded.
Ding!
[Attempt at body strengthening using mana identified. Do you wish to spend (1) growth point to learn the proficiency skill: |Magical Body Strengthening|?]
"Strange," thought Alexander. "I'm almost sure I failed at what I was trying, because it didn't seem complete to me. Its effect was at most a bit more intense than drinking the water created by |Invigorate|..."
"But good thing it worked," he said, not minding not having to do all the work, before answering the system: "Yes."
Ding!
[You acquired the proficiency skill: |Magical Body Strengthening|]
Happy it took less time than expected, Alexander received the information about his new skill and appraised it.
[|Magical Body Strengthening (Beginner)|: Uses mana to slightly strengthen the body for a certain period of time, thus increasing strength, agility, and dexterity. Cost: (5) mana and (5) MP. Duration: 5min.]
Getting everything he needed so quickly wasn't in his plans; after all, you never know when something unforeseen will happen. But being able to start his plan the next day left him very satisfied, as well as a bit anxious.
To end the day, Alexander gathered his things, roasted a piece of meat to eat, activated the skill |Magical Body Strengthening|, and went to place the meat he had obtained to dry by the fire like last time.
"I really failed when trying to create/learn this skill," Alexander concluded upon feeling it in use. "The sensation when using it is completely different from when I was trying on my own."
Thinking a bit, Alexander arrived at a conjecture: "This system must have helped me once again, which would also explain why I had to spend 1 growth point to learn it..."
"Thinking too much about this, at this moment, won't lead me anywhere or bring me any benefit," he pondered. "It's better to just accept it, finish what I have to do, and go to bed."
