Chapter 8: Normal Standard
"So you can donate things to me?" Uhtred latched onto that first.
> Ascendant Favoured_One: Sure. But not until you reach Level 10.
Again. Another limiting rule, Uhtred thought in exasperation as he pressed:
"Okay. But what can you do right now?" He was getting impatient. A few more seconds of gaining nothing tangible and he was going to continue with his quest immediately.
> Ascendant Favoured_One: Right now? Nothing much besides offering you some general harmless knowledge. Most of the good stuff comes when you hit Level 10. The rules become slightly more accommodating, and you gain access to more System features.
> Ascendant Favoured_One: So if you ask me, I’d say get to Level 10 as quickly as possible.
"Fucking waste of—" Uhtred barely stifled the instinctive curse that escaped his mouth. He sighed deeply and began climbing down the tree without another word. He didn’t even want to think about the time he had just lost talking to this fellow, thinking this was a great opportunity.
Immediately his legs hit the ground, he went into full alert mode, scanning his surroundings with vigilant, but eager eyes. He wanted to make up for the time he had lost, so he was very hungry to kill something.
Without thinking too much, he headed for the previous site of his fight with the lizard. He jogged through the forest loudly, without trying to mask his presence or hide at all.
> Ascendant Favoured_One: What exactly is your quest?And aren’t you being too loud right now?
> Ascendant Favoured_One: Oh well, you’re a human anyway. The evolution potential of creatures on your planet is nothing special, so I guess your low level beasts are especially pathetic.
Tch. Is there no way to cut this guy’s feed off? Uhtred lamented internally. He had tried already, but there really was no option for it anywhere at all. No matter what he did, Ascendant Favoured One’s messages kept popping up within his view every time a new one came in.
"Hey man, can you please stop talking? I’m trying to focus here. A predator could jump at me at any moment, but your messages keep blocking my view."
> Ascendant Favoured_One: Just wave it away then... Or can you not? Oh wait! So Pathfinders don’t have System controls over their channels at the start?
> Ascendant Favoured_One: Keke! Interesting. You’ll have to wait till Level 10 then.
So he didn’t know that fact before, Uhtred filed away that knowledge internally. It seemed there were things about "Pathfinders" that were new even to Ascendant Favoured One.
Uhtred didn’t know Ascendant Favoured One’s exact level, but he was certain it was high. If someone like that was only finding out that Pathfinders couldn’t control their streams at the start, then perhaps Pathfinders like him were even more rare than he’d originally thought.
Uhtred couldn’t hold back his curiosity anymore. He decided to bite the gun and ask what Pathfinders truly were. But before he could, a sudden movement at the edge of his vision snapped him to attention.
The attack was properly timed and executed. Right from his blind spot, another dog-sized lizard cut through the knee-length grass and lunged at him with blistering speed, trying to take him by surprise.
But Uhtred simply pivoted mid-jog and deftly evaded.
So... slow.
That was the first thing Uhtred noticed. He hadn’t even urged any movement of his cosmic essence, yet his natural circulation had been enough to evade so easily that he actually did a double-take just to be sure he was facing the same kind of beast he’d fought minutes ago.
"Yeahh it’s the same beast, alright..." Uhtred muttered under his breath.
Which meant the difference between his Level 4 status and his Level 1 status was just that drastic.
The large lizard crashed into the side of a tree with its momentum, before tumbling to the ground and scrambling to its feet.
It shook its head in a daze, looking very surprised its attack hadn’t landed. Its eyes turned wary, and it went very still in hesitation, reassessing this "prey" that had so easily evaded its attack.
Oh? This one seems a bit more intelligent, Uhtred thought. It wasn’t like the last one that had continued to attack mindlessly before thinking to pause and reassess.
It has to be higher leveled, then, Uhtred’s eyes narrowed. The lizard seemed to have finished its analysis and had decided Uhtred was out of its league. It burst into a dash, heading in the opposite direction, trying to flee.
But Uhtred had noticed its intention before it even moved.
He was right behind it in a few rapid steps, bringing his fist down on the space between its neck and its spine. He knew how thick the lizard’s skin was, so he targeted a vital point, intending to hamper its agile movement with one strong blow.
His fist resounded with a loud thud. But unlike with the first lizard, Uhtred felt his fist connect more deeply. His hand still hurt like crazy, but this time he had caused more damage to the lizard than to himself.
The lizard let out a loud, pained hiss as it tumbled into a roll from the blow. Its legs went numb in an instant, and it was unable to move any further.
It couldn’t even do anything but snap its jaws menacingly as Uhtred approached to finish the kill.
He put his weight on the lizard’s back, grabbed its neck in the crook of one arm, then twisted with the other as sharply as he could, ending the creature’s life in one clean motion.
[Notice]
You have slain 1x {Brown Scaled Monitor Lizard - Level 6}
Trial Of First Blood: 2/10 complete
Time Left: {01:43:38}
Hmm, no titles this time, Uhtred noted as he stood from the lizard’s back and pulled the Beast Core Extraction Artifact from his trouser pocket. It had been a struggle to make the cup-sized device fit in there, but he’d made it work somehow.
He held it up against the lizard’s chest, and it immediately went to work, piercing through the skin and extracting the core safely.
> Ascendant Favoured_One: Hmph. You humans have it so easy. Look how weak your Level 3 beasts are. It even turned tail and tried to run away. And one blow was all it took to finish it off.
Level 3 beasts? Uhtred raised a brow slightly, noticing that point immediately. Did Ascendant Favoured One think his Quest required him to kill Level 3 beasts? Was that the normal standard?
