Grandma’s Walking Stick(Bound Weapon) – This walking stick originally belonged to your grandmother. It is now bound to you, allowing you to always sense its location and wield it more easily. As a bound weapon, it will grow over time as you continue to advance
Abilities:
Staff Proficiency +3
Sense Location
Mana Conductivity
Samuel couldn’t say the description was the most impressive. Then again, it was a newbie weapon, all things considered. The fact that it would grow alongside him was good, but it was something he had already suspected.
Even though he already had his suspicions he still checked the individual abilities to confirm. Most of what he saw simply confirmed those suspicions.
[Staff Proficiency][Sense Location] [Mana Conductivity]
The final option was the most interesting one to him. The prospect of using mana through the stick appealed to him and confirmed that magic and mana now existed—something that still felt strange considering how ridiculous it would have sounded mere hours ago.
All in all, the stick was not a complete write-off, but still disappointing. He would have been much better off with an actual weapon.
Perhaps he should have killed the snake with a knife or something more suitable to be used as a weapon than a walking stick. It would not be much of an issue if he only had to face snakes and other small crawlers, but he doubted it would be that easy. The stick was sturdy enough, but it was still not the hardest wood.
Not to mention, it was a blunt weapon. Something he lacked the strength to utilise properly. Though even if he was strong enough, it was still inferior to a large hammer or a mace in that regard.
Regardless of that, he picked up the stick and traced his fingers across its length. There were strange symbols visible on its surface, a complicated series of shapes that were incomprehensible to him, yet clearly very well designed. He was certain they weren’t there before the binding.
He also noted that the stick seemed longer and somehow better suited to his hand. Many changes were subtle, but enough to be noticed in a few moments of inspection.
He stared at the changes with not a small amount of awe. He had already been healed of the poison by the system, which had been enough to convince him that this entire debacle was probably real. That, however, had been something intangible, even though it had been in his own body.
The stick was something else entirely. In his hands, he held irrevocable proof that the world had changed. He had no idea what the details were, but he had just witnessed an object change notably with no human tampering. He realised he could actually feel the stick at the back of his mind, a strange connection that told him where it was at all times.
Samuel thought back to his day and the completely unexpected turn it had taken. He thought about the uncertainty he currently faced and the fact that he was locked inside his house with no way to contact anyone.
He laughed.
So this was truly real.
When he was satisfied with his inspection, he turned his attention back to the system. He was about to check his status before the binding interrupted him. Apprehension seized him at what he might find, but he pushed that feeling aside.
he thought to the system, and a large screen imposed itself over his vision.
[STATUS]
Name: Samuel Chuwks
Race: [Human]
Level: 1
Authority: Very Low
Class: None
[Stats]
Strength: 8
Agility: 10
Vitality: 9
Endurance: 9
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 13
Psi: 4
Free Points: 3
[Skills]
Poison resistance - Level 2
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Staff Proficiency - Level 3
[Bonds]
Grandma’s Walking Stick
His status was quite empty, which was not much of a surprise. He was a newbie, after all.
Most of it was self-explanatory, like his current level and class.
The stats were also intuitive, though he still focused on them to get more information. The short explanation for each one mostly lined up with what he knew already.
All but one, at least.
Strength for his raw physical might, agility for his speed and reflexes, vitality for health and healing speed, while endurance governed his stamina. Intelligence and wisdom were a bit more esoteric, but they mostly governed mana capacity and magic power. They did increase how much information the brain could process at a time, but did little else to affect actual intelligence or wisdom.
Unlike the other basic stats, Psi was something Sam had not come across, something that made him curious. He focused on it and was rewarded with a brief definition.
Psi - The attribute of the mind. Measures user’s mental strength and ability to project will.
He squinted at the definition, trying to understand what it meant. He would have expected intelligence to be the stat that measured mental strength. The system described it as a measurement of mental processing power and magical strength. To see a new attribute that supposedly measured mental strength left him confused. What exactly was the difference between the two stats?
The confusion led him to check his phone’s offline dictionary, which finally gave him a clue. Psi was essentially another word for psychic powers, which referred to powers of the mind.
Psychic powers.
Once upon a time, teenage Sam had been obsessed with the concept, going as far as believing he could move things with his mind. It was a phase he was not particularly proud of, and was largely thankful it was over. Yet seeing the words in front of him reawakened a spark in him. More than the thought of punching through steel or casting miraculous spells, the ability to move things with his mind and project his thoughts without speaking brought out his inner child.
Any attempts at doing something else fled his mind as the possibility took hold of him. He would have little idea of where to start on magic, but the psi seemed a lot more straightforward.
There was no one around to attempt telepathy on, so he decided to try moving something with his mind. A part of him whispered to him how foolish he was being, like the delusional teenager he’d already outgrown. The memory of the stick transforming into something more surfaced in his mind, reminding him that the world had indeed changed. The supernatural was real, and he had seen it.
Perhaps predictably, his attempts at willing the empty plate in front of him to move achieved nothing. Screaming at it harder in his mind also did not do anything.
He went at it for a while, trying different ways to get it to move. Neither screaming nor pleading worked. Attempting to impose his will by force also achieved nothing, and the plate merely sat unresponsive, completely immovable despite his attempts.
Even trying to put his hands near the plate in case it was affected by range did nothing. After over half an hour of wasted attempts, he was about ready to give up. The prospect of psychic powers greatly appealed to him, but his efforts were simply making him feel foolish. He was also tired from everything that happened earlier. It was possible that he would get better results the next day when his mind was well-rested.
He was already on the bed, ready to shut his eyes, when an idea finally struck him. It felt obvious now, but perhaps he was just too excited to think of it earlier. A quick thought brought up his stats.
[Stats]
Strength: 8
Agility: 10
Vitality: 9
Endurance: 9
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 13
Psi: 4
Free Points: 3
For some reason, his psi stat was a lot lower than all the others. He was not sure why it was so, but perhaps it was why he found it hard to do anything with it. He looked at his free points and considered dumping them all into psi for a moment before dismissing the thought. He had no idea what he would achieve, so it was better to do it one at a time.
Bracing himself, he instructed the system to put one of his free points in the psi stat. After a few moments of anticipation, he realised there was no noticeable difference. Trying to do quick maths showed no noticeable increase in speed. Though he supposed that was the domain of intelligence.
With no way to know what was happening, he tried moving his phone with his mind. Once more, his attempts were fruitless. Pushing down the returning frustration, he focused on the free points once more, this time willing the remaining ones to his psi.
It was a little risky, but he wanted to see if there would be any noticeable difference this time. For a brief moment, nothing seemed to happen. There was no speeding up of his mind or any other dramatic effect.
When he focused though, he finally noticed a difference. It was not something he would have thought to check, but trying to focus his mind made it obvious.
Since he finished the binding process, the presence of Grandma’s Walking Stick never left his mind. It was, however, so vague that he almost doubted it was there sometimes. With his psi at seven points, though, it felt like the curtain blocking him from sensing it clearly was being lifted. It was still not particularly clear, even when he focused, but there was definitely an improvement.
The fact that he did not feel the improvement when he added the first point made him hopeful.
Unfortunately for him, that hope was quickly cut short when he tried to move the phone. As much as he focused, the device did not budge. Thankfully, he now had a lead.
The connection with his walking stick, blurry as it was, definitely existed. It took him a few minutes, but he was able to uncover a small part of what was happening.
For a brief moment, he managed to spot something connecting him to the stick. Whatever it was, something told him it was more than just psi, but that did not matter much. Whatever it was made of, psi was a major component, and he had just gotten a hint of how it worked. He was thankful for his free points because there was no way he would have been able to sense the connections with only four points of the stat.
He tried to replicate what he glimpsed, managing to do with psi after many failed attempts. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a waste, and he felt a large portion of his mental energy dissipate into nothingness. The lost psi immediately made him feel dizzy, and he soon realised the issue.
The use of psi he had seen was a mental connection, something he assumed was closer to telepathy than telekinesis. It likely only worked because the connection was made of more than just psi. To move the phone and not try to create a mental connection instead, he would need to wield it differently.
Perhaps it was somewhat similar to the way he could throw a punch with his strength and use it to catch something heavy. Both were valid applications of his strength but required different methods.
Despite his best efforts, he could already feel himself nodding off, and knew he would probably fall asleep before he succeeded. That didn’t stop him from trying though. If nothing else, he now had some idea of how to wield psi.
The mental energy was easy to get a feel for this time, and he clumsily grasped a chunk of it with his sleep-addled mind and sent it out in the direction of the phone.
That psi expenditure was finally enough to send him to the land of dreams. Just before he fell asleep, however, a small part of his brain idly wondered why his phone was no longer in front of him.
