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[Skill-Eater] Chapter 21: Shelter
🕑 Added 2024-07-15 17:06:01 +0000 UTCNow that he had won his first true battle, followed by the best meal of his life, Edge stopped to inspect the clearing before he was ready to move on.
It didn’t take long. There wasn’t anything growing nearby other than moss and a few scattered ferns. The mana-seed must have been claiming the lion’s share of the available nutrients. It’s probably what created the clearing to begin with.
As for the beast, the weasel’s body held nothing of value beyond its meat and hide. Edge didn’t know how to harvest either. He had no way to cook the meat before it went bad anyhow. It meant that there was just one last thing he needed to do before he started searching for shelter. Spend his attribute points.
He took a few minutes reviewing his options before he was ready to choose. He’d been thinking the matter through while he made his way across the grasslands, pondering how he wanted to guide his development.
Edge couldn’t count on overcoming every opponent with deception alone. He’d been lucky that it had worked at all. He needed to obtain a form of strength that he could rely on, both now and in the future. But what kind of strength is best?
The more that he thought about it, the less sense it made to follow a physically focused build designed for basic cores.
Even if he put all his points into dexterity and vigor, it would take quite a few cycles before Edge had the stats to hold his own against anything tougher than the beast he’d just fought. Opponents that would only have basic and common skills. If he wanted to steal something better, he needed to take down more dangerous prey. To eliminate enemies well above his stage.
It would be impossible for most people, but Edge wasn’t most people anymore.
His situation with Skill-Eater was completely unique. He could acquire new skills faster than anyone else, and just as important, he could use twice as many. It completely changed the pros and cons of investing in energetic attributes early on.
In the end, Edge decided to break with conventional wisdom completely, although he planned to develop his physical attributes at some point.
Since his core was a skill specialist, it made sense to create a custom build centered around that advantage. To make the most of his magic early on and focus on his other attributes later.
Given how dependent he was on his skills to punch above his paygrade, and how many skills he could slot, having enough mana to keep them powered was critical. It was also vital that they had enough oomph to dish out real damage.
Thus, Edge decided to place one point into generation and the second into amplification. He planned to do the same thing every cycle for the foreseeable future.
He sat down and enjoyed the sensations that accompanied spending his points. His mind entered his core, offering him a front row view of his mana pores widening. The conduits coating his skill sockets becoming denser and more complex, able to draw in more magic from his reactor.
When the potentia’s work was done, he returned to his body and started scanning the surrounding terrain, ready to decide which way he should go. Should I head back out into the grasslands or deeper into the grove?
Although Edge had only explored the plains in person for a few days before the disaster, he knew this landscape well. It wasn’t the most popular location on the feed, but it had a rugged beauty that he’d always found appealing.
There were other low-stage biomes devoted to monster hunting, and those for hunts of a more sinister nature. There was one close to the frontier for exploring and dungeon-delving, and regions owned by the factions to use for their own purposes.
The Ivory Plains and the small settlement known as Puppet Town were a bit different. They had no connection with the factions and weren’t devoted to any specific aspect of the Prison World broadcasts. The plains were home to countless animals and beasts, but had few monsters, and modest natural resources.
They were one of the few places on Ord without any convicts or wardens. It was a biome for tourists who were simply trying to make it day to day. People hoping to survive long enough to rack up some royalties from their feeds. To have the adventure of a lifetime before they died and were banished to their old lives.
If they were fortunate, they’d have made more with their puppet than they would in a century otherwise. If their luck ran dry, they wouldn’t even cover the cost of the run, wasting the chance of a lifetime to drown in debt instead.
While everything had changed in the wake of the disaster, Edge’s knowledge of the region would still come in handy.
The Ivory Plains was a large biome. He had a good sense for the terrain in general, but by no means knew every nook and cranny. Hopefully, he would be able to make his way to one of the safer regions. Places where he could sleep in the trees or hole up in a cave. While such shelters were often claimed by one beast or another, he was hoping to find one that wasn’t in use.
Given his location and the time of day, he had two realistic options. He could either stay in the wooded area or start heading toward the Guide’s Fingers, where there were natural caverns all along the rock. Since he wasn’t sure that he could make it to the fingers before he lost the light, he decided to stay in the woods until morning.
He hadn’t spent much time in the Violet Groves before. It was a place where feathery purple leaves formed a gorgeous, ever-shifting canopy, contrasted against the blood red bark of their branches. Where ferns in a thousand shades of amethyst and ruby covered the forest floor.
What he did know was that the northeastern corner of the woods was quite a bit safer than the rest. His destination decided, Edge began walking, picking out a path between the endless ferns.
It was a fiercely beautiful land. Despite the seriousness of his situation, he came to a stop from time to time just to take it all in. To celebrate that despite the disaster and everything it entailed, he was standing on Ord, having an adventure of his own. That the moment he’d been dreaming of his entire life had arrived at last, albeit in a way that he never could have imagined.
He kept his guard up and tried to walk as quietly as he could, but he didn’t run into anything dangerous along the way. Eventually, as the shadows grew long with the end of day, Edge found what he was looking for. A tall tree growing where the biome’s magic was thin. An unlikely place to stumble onto the lair of a monster or powerful beast.
He’d picked out a trunk that looked easy to climb with no other trees nearby. That will do. He scouted the area as thoroughly as he could, finding no signs of predators nearby.
By now, the world was fading to grey. He walked back over to the trunk, picked out a series of handholds, and started to climb.
He realized that he was smiling. In spite of the danger he’d overcome, Edge had survived another day. Now it was time to rest up and try to survive the next.
