One Last System

I was running through the forest.

Over the past month of presence in the camp, this place became my second home. In fact, I spent more time in the forest than I did in any other place.

Back at the camp, I would only sleep and train my base attacks. It was the forest where I would gather my true battle experience. And surprise surprise, as if this was some kind of shitty RPG game instead of a real-world, it seemed that killing the monsters proved to be beneficial to my growth as well.

I ran between the trees in search of prey. Even though my stone pouch was nearing the limit of how much it could hold, I continued to hunt through the forest.

There was no reason to finish my activities before the deadline. Even a single more monster hunted would mean both higher income, greater growth, and generally, efficient usage of my time.

I spotted a small opening in the treetops. In an instant, I took a quick stop, leaping towards the opening. In just a few jumps, I could take a good look at the sky and, most importantly, the position of the sun.

'I should still have some time,' I thought, jumping down and resuming my scouting activity.

Thanks to training hard and using a lot of the spoils that I got for myself, I was already in the better half of my current stage. If pressed, I could fill my personal gauges of skill before leaving for the sect...

But I didn't want to do it.

Back at the skyladder sect, I still brought way too much attention to myself. If I never revealed how quickly I could progress to Vaner, he would never have a reason to pay me much mind. And I still had yet to face the scars that his schemes left on my mental self.

Even a worth month of running around the forest and killing monsters didn't increase my courage to the point I could work those problems out.

Suddenly, all my thoughts stopped when my eyes drew towards a certain point.

'Just like he said, it's all about the experience,' I sighed, recalling Lucius' words about his sense.

I was still a way off matching his speed at traversing the forest, but I was improving. While still less efficient than my Overseer, I could already find out the paths through the forest without consciously doing so. I didn't need to look for monsters either, as my mind would alert me about their presence on its own.

Still, I slowed down my movements to get a closer look at the spot I noticed.

As expected, it was crawling with monsters. They were weak on their own, yet I would still require Lucius' help to deal with their numbers.

'It will be perfect for when we return,' I thought before heading towards one of the few registered clearings that we knew off in the forest. As it just so happened, it was also the site of battle I had with the bunnies, the place where that disaster of a monster appeared before.

'I wonder how long it will take him,' I thought, looking at the line of the trees as I rested my back against a random tree.

I was ready to give leg at any second if that monster from two weeks ago would show up, but I still used this moment to rest a little.

'Where are they...' I thought, reaching down towards my sacks, only to pull out a tough piece of smoked jerky.

Outside of the black bread that one could hammer down the nails with, this was the only portable food that we could get.

'We will really need to buy some ingredients,' I thought, looking back in the direction of the camp.

Even though we lived inside a bountiful forest, there was still a limit to how many varied foodstuffs we could get our hands-on.

'Lack of ingredients is also making it hard to level up my job,' I thought, pulling out the full view of my system.

BODY STATUS WINDOW

***

- Name: Arthur (Fian) Pendragon

- Age: 17

- Status: Slightly tired

- Hidden Status: Warmed-up

- Body Status: Paramortal

- Hidden Body Status: Apostle

***

PROGRESS STATUS WINDOW

***

- Body status: Mortal

- Growth status: Mana Assimilation/Body Reinforcement

- Body status modifier:

- Endurance:312/500

- Willpower: 300/500

***

Mana Assimilation (6 600/10 000)

[

Flesh assimilation (3 219/5 000)

Mind assimilation (2 646/4 000)

Soul assimilation (735/1 000)

]

***

Seeing the first window, I barely managed to hold my chuckle back.

After running through the forest for half of what's the day was worth, I was slightly exhausted?

'The strain of everything I'm doing and the intensity of my exercises is as good as running two marathons back to back if not worse.' My lips curved up in a satisfied smile. 'At least I can tell that my endurance is rising. Just like...'

My eyes gravitated towards the part of the system I was most concerned about.

'Not bad,' I thought, once again having no reason to think of my progress badly.

Sure, it was already a month since my last breakthrough. It was way more time than I normally needed to advance...

But right now, I wasn't just a cultivator standing on the first steps towards immortality. Right now, I was already at the seventh great rank. Rather than learning how to operate on small amounts of energy, I was striving to infuse mana into every last micrometer of my flesh.

Instead of learning the ropes, I was already fusing this mysterious force into all parts of my existence.

But there was one more point that brought my attention up.

'The further I go, the greater the difference between the system's and the local name of the cultivation rank,' I thought, my curiosity tingling because of this realization.

I moved over my eyes towards the gauges of my skill. If I wanted, I could use the spare stones I had on myself to push for the breakthrough. I had enough resources to do so. But rather than trying to increase my power from cultivation alone, I had another ace in my sleeve.

Jobs Window

***

Cook - Level 13 6/14

Tailor - Level 16 7/17

Alchemist - Level 4 (3/5)

Arcane Weaponmaster  - [High-Class Job] - Level 3 (1/6)

Spearmaster - Novice level 7/20 (7/260)

***

My tailor and alchemists jobs didn't increase at all. Even though I recently obtained enough stones to play around with the alchemy, they were too precious to me to waste them just like that.

The cooking also didn't increase a lot, as there was a limit to how much I could reuse the same ingredients for the same, tasteless meals. After all, it would be strange if I went the extra mile for dinner if it was as good as its raw elements would be.

I could already see Arthur going on and on about how this is a waste of time, time that I could otherwise spend more efficiently.

And that's where my second ace laid.

Outside of increasing my cultivation, I kept on training as much as I could. At this point, I was still a novice, but I could feel an insane rate of improvement.

And if not from the novice rank of a spearmaster, it clearly came from the arcane weaponmaster class.

'It's progress increases along with the increases in my other class' level,' I thought, recalling this strange phenomenon.

Normally, by repeating some kind of move, I could practice an ability associated with it. But no matter how much I swung my spear, it only affected my novice spearmaster rank.

In the end, only by increasing it by two levels did I manage to gain a level in my arcane weaponmaster class. Four levels in the spearmanship later, my arcane rank reached the third level.

And the effects were astounding. So astounding that I basically wouldn't let go of my spear even while sleeping!

My cultivation was focused on synchronizing the mana with all the aspects of my existence. On the other hand, arcane rank allowed me to easily connect my drive to the spear, allowing me to get insight into how such fusion of mana should work.

On its own, the arcane weaponmastership used methods more advanced than what I could perform as a body reinforcement level cultivator!

"He is taking his time," I muttered, looking around the clearing and reaching to my stone pouch.

I managed to get four times the standard obligations and then some more. In order not to stall my growth, I now used a stone whenever I could, just to give my cultivation a bit of a boost.

"How is the haul?" Lucius asked, appearing beside me the second I closed my eyes to focus on cultivating. "Found any interesting spots for later?" he asked.

This was our new agreement. Instead of wasting time by hunting together, we would split up in the morning, remember all the good spots that required us to work together, and then raid them by the second round of hunting.

In this way, I could both improve at my own self-sufficient manner of hunting, something that I had to develop on my complete own while keeping up the good score of each day.

"Yeah," I nodded my head. "There is a good one..." I shook my head, "but I don't think we should go for it," I added.

"Huh?" Lucius shrugged. "Why is that?" he looked up at the clear sky. "We still have the rest of today to hunt," he pointed out his hand at the sun.

It was still high above the horizon.

"Because I don't want you to get injured again," I protested, pointing my finger at the man's face. "It's already a miracle that you managed to recover so much in just two weeks. There is no reason for risking it... And I can't risk it," I added.

Mia didn't receive her first batch of the sponsored stuff. That alone was bound to put a dent on her standing, effectively making her life far worse than it could have been.

My wish to reimburse her by proving way more than necessary was the sole reason why I worked so hard.

"That's a good point," Lucius admitted, lowering his hand at his abdomen. A huge, circular scar marked the area where he once lost a lot of flesh.

The skin of that part was still young and vulnerable, but thanks to the excessive amount of training and cultivation that Lucius did since his injury, he was perfectly capable of hunting.

But their journey towards the sect would start tonight. Any further injury could easily make it impossible for Lucius to travel.

And right now, that wasn't the risk that I was willing to take.

"Let's take a rest for the rest of the day, then," Lucius said, turning his face towards the camp. "We depart at midnight!"