The Way Ahead

Chapter 3: Revelations of Varying Fortune

Chapter 3: Revelations of Varying Fortune

Edwin woke up surprised, parched, and starving. Surprised because it was apparently sunset already? No wait. That was birdsong. Sunrise? Sheesh. He did not intend to sleep at all, really, let alone through the night. He supposed he continued to be fortunate that there werent predators here. Well, they hadnt found him yet, at least. That kind of fortune was not something he wanted to depend on, though. Especially when it came to sleeping out in the open.

Despite Edwins growing awareness of a twig digging into the space between his shoulder blades, he didnt get up immediately. Instead, he called up his status. While it didnt show numbers, he could still get a sense of how strong a given skill was, and it provided an actual sense of pride and accomplishment to tell in a quantifiable way how he was improving.

Status.

Name

Edwin

Age

Very Young

Race

Human?

Class

None

Attributes

None

Skills

Athletics

Basic Mana Sense

Breathing

Flexibility

Sleeping

Status

Visualization

Walking

Paths

CharLimitCanttalkmuchNocluewhathappenedDidmybesttohelpyouli

Daredevil

Explorer

Linguist

Lumberjack

Path Less Traveled

Realm Traveler

Way of the Empty Hand

World Traveler

He vaguely wondered how he was supposed to level up his status. Just summoning and dismissing it stopped leveling it relatively quickly, though he half-remembered it leveling yesterday before he fell asleep. Was that his effort to not see the notifications? It had only half worked and he needed to fight himself to not check them, even hanging perilously above certain death, but it was better than them hijacking his visual processes and attention every time. He casually tried to turn off notifications, but while he supposed there was no way to tell if it worked, it didnt feel like it had latched onto anything. Maybe he needed a higher level in his Status skill? How could he manage that? Could he edit his status?

Hmmm

Level Up! Status

Level Up! Status

Level Up! Status

Level Up! Status

About 10 minutes later, he had managed to hide his Skills, Paths, and Attributes, whatever they were. That left him with four categories, at least three of which were inaccurate.

Without information about how to get a class- was it level based? He didnt seem to have an overall level, just for his skills- that was probably accurate, but he was absolutely human. It didnt accept his insistence that he was just a human, but after another couple minutes of wrangling, which felt almost like haggling, he had gotten it to display Extraplanar Human as his race, and his age now actually showed 22. He got the vague sense of a clock clicking as he studied it, but he couldnt get any concrete measurement of how long he had been on Joriah.

Level Up! Status

Level Up! Status

Level Up! Status

Fixing his name, by contrast, was as simple as enunciating the thought that, My name is Edwin Maxlin.

Level Up! Status

Anyway, he was still starving, and so needed to find some kind of food. He had yet to see any plants which looked safe to eat, though he had admittedly not been looking all that closely, mainly focused on finding signs of water. Now that he had found water, though, he could probably trek up the riverbank and find some kind of fruit-bearing plant. With renewed determination, he continued his endless hike across the rough ground, tinkering slightly with his status on the way.

Level Up! Walking

Level Up! Status

Determination or not, though, it was still incredibly painful, and trying to stay close to the river to not get lost certainly doesnt make it any easier, he thought as he scrambled over a larger rock.

Level Up! Athletics

Level Up! Flexibility

This was probably a good rate? He was absolutely pushing himself, and if fiction had taught him anything, that most likely meant this would be a fast improvement speed. He still wished it were faster, though.

Hungry or not, it was much easier walking next to the river than wandering through the woods. At least now he could get water whenever he wanted. His exploration bore fruit (heh) less than a mile upstream as the river split slightly, the offshoot forming a slow-running pool. Next to the pool, there was an almost picture-perfect wild grove, lush green grass surrounding a handful of what looked to be fruit-bearing trees, and framed in by a massive boulder covered in black, stringy moss. Back on Earth, this would have been the target of countless photographers. The beauty of the place only made Edwin more suspicious. What kind of fruit grove in a fantasy world wouldnt be tended to by a dryad or something? Looking at the fruits, which bore a resemblance to a pear with the skin of a cherry, he was paradoxically relieved to see a few of them bore signs of being pecked on by birds. Wait, how could he see that so well at this distance?

Level Up! Seeing

Ah, that was how. Did his skills really provide that much of a benefit already? Hed need to reevaluate how much his skills were actually helping, if their effects were that subtle. Still, animal damage made it seem less likely that there was some supernatural force tending to the tree, though why the lower-hanging ones hadnt been eaten by animals escaped him. Nonetheless, he approached it with caution, Hello? he asked the clearing, Is it alright if I take some fruit? I havent eaten in three days. When there was no response forthcoming, he picked up a couple of rocks from the shore and carefully ventured forwards, tossing the stones at the tree in case it were a mimic or something. Nothing happened as it clattered off the trunk, nor as it struck and knocked off a leaf. As his final test, he threw one as hard as he could at one of the fruits and promptly missed. It took him a good half-dozen stones before one finally connected, making the pear-thing explode into a shower of juice, and providing yet another bonus.

You have unlocked the Throwing Weapons skill!

Accept skill? Y/N

Well, that seemed to confirm his suspicion about skills being tied to actually accomplishing something. Also that he had indeed managed to hide the first level-up notification, very nice. Still needed further testing, though. No need to fall into the Black Swan Fallacy, or whatever that was called. Not sure why he had gotten Throwing Weapons, though. Was it like Athletics? Was there no Climbing skill, or Rock Throwing skill? Was there an even more generic Ranged Weapons skill, and why hadnt he gotten that one?

Further testing required. It was practically a mantra at this point, and he couldnt wait to find time to actually test everything. He accepted the skill as he hesitantly picked one of the lower-hanging fruits from the tree, withdrawing quickly with his prize.

Throwing Weapons

The most basic and most advanced form of human weaponry: Throw a rock at it

Thrown objects are more effective

Increased accuracy per level

Interesting skill, he mused as he bit into the fruit. It tasted sublime, though that may just have been a result of how hungry he was. There seemed to be small seeds embedded into the flesh of the fruit, which helped him be just a touch more relieved with the thought that it probably wasnt poisonous, I wonder if theres a poison resistance skill. Maybe if I get poisoned Ill unlock it?

His first fruit was gone in seconds. As was the second and third. By the time he got to his fourth, he was beginning to slow down. He wondered how nutritious these fruits were, or if they were just tasty. Probably provided lots of fiber, and a frown crossed his face as he hoped the biochemistry of the fruit was close enough to what he was used to for his metabolism to work with it. It tasted slightly tangy- was it citric? He might need a better source of protein, but this should work for now. He paused as three notifications appeared- the first was an offered skill, which he quickly accepted.

Nutrition

Because eating all the food in the world isn't always a good thing

Food is more nutritious

Increased health of food per level.

That was unhelpfully vague. Did it affect food he ate? Food he made? Was it his food that was more healthy? Did it just let him extract more calories and nutrients from things he ate? It was probably the most vague skill he had gotten, though the next two notifications were significantly more interesting.

Congratulations! For demonstrating highly advanced knowledge pertaining to the functioning of the body on its most basic level, you have unlocked the Micro-Biomancer Path!

Congratulations! For demonstrating extremely advanced knowledge pertaining to the makeup of physical matter, you have unlocked the Physical Alchemist Path!

There were some interesting things to take note of with this revelation. For one, apparently musing about chirality and vitamins was demonstrating highly advanced knowledge, which implied unfortunate things about the technology of the world. Not that he really expected an advanced magitech society, but it would have been a nice surprise. Secondly, alchemy. Hopefully, that meant what he thought it did- namely, science without pesky things like physical laws holding him back- and not just chemistry sans the scientific method. He would need a word with whatever ran the magic on this planet if it were the latter. Still, with no real knowledge of what Paths were or how to use them, it would have to be put to the side for the time being. In the meantime, he was going to focus on his food.

Five cherry-pears (Perrys? Chears?) later, he was finally feeling full. It might not be sustainable in the long term, depending on what exactly Nutrition and Survival did and how strong they were, but it would keep him alive for the time being. Food and water now taken care of; Edwins next goal was to find some kind of shelter. Ideally it would be a cave, though he might be able to make some form of lean-to if he found a downed tree and enough thick branches to form a structure.

As he left the grove, he began to climb the boulder, finding much to his surprise that the black moss was just patches amongst a similar moss, only stone-grey and completely covering the rock. It was so thick, in fact, that he couldnt even see the bare stone. It also felt weird, really coarse. It wasnt like any moss he had ever seen or heard of before. And was it moving? What was this stuff?

You have unlocked the Identify skill!

Accept Skill? Y/N

Perfect.

Identify

Because sometimes you just dont know what you have

Learn about your target

Increased range per level.

Oh cool, just what he needed. Did it work on plants? He focused on trying to examine the moss, flexing the same mental muscle he used to call up his Status.

Level Up! Identify

Mature Giant Stonehide Bear

Oh.