Another goblin made its way closer to the poisoned group, and it fell to its knees screaming as Madeline blinded it. Teresa kicked it in the chest, making it fall back as Jake stomped its head with his armored foot. The goblin’s head squelched, and another good stomp made sure it was dead.
Teresa was pretty sure everyone in the party had reached level 1 by now. Jake seemed far more willing to take a hit, and Teresa could tell due to her skill that his body just seemed to be more dense. It was like he had a lot more mass to him even though his size had not changed. If Teresa were to try and punch him without his armor on, she would probably really hurt her fist.
This was probably due to his Fortitude stat, which would be at 9 now. His strikes also seemed stronger, and he held back attacks using his shield with barely any bracing needed. If he had leveled, then it would explain his increased physical capabilities as his Fortitude would increase by 3 and his Strength and Vitality by 1. He had said he would put his unallocated point into Strength unless something came up and he had a reason not to, but if Teresa had to guess then he certainly did put that point into Strength.
Preston also seemed faster, and his sprint towards the Shaman would have probably been fast enough to qualify for the Olympics. He probably wouldn’t win any gold medals, but he could certainly at the very least compete. He had said he would put his unallocated point into Agility, bringing it up to 12. This was tied for the highest individual stat in the party with Sarah, who had a 12 in Perception.
Preston had already been pretty fast at the start of the Tutorial, though nothing abnormal. Now, he was able to make it to the Shaman in under 10 seconds while dodging and weaving between goblins. He was incredibly nimble, and would occasionally leave a quick cut on a goblin’s back or side whenever he got the chance.
At some point, Teresa couldn’t keep track of him anymore. Not because he was so fast, but because he was too far away for her bloodshot eyes to see. She was sure he would be fine, as the Shaman didn’t seem to have any melee capabilities.
Jake slammed the edge of his shield into a goblin, bludgeoning it as it tried in futility to cut through Jake’s armor with its dagger. Teresa heard the sound of another arrow hitting a goblin somewhere, and Madeline kept her sparks on full blast. Teresa could feel the poison in their lungs approach the end of its efficacy, and soon she would no longer be needed to keep healing the two. Otherwise, the fight seemed to have reached a turning point where the victors were obvious.
Teresa checked the quest screen and saw only three goblins remained, which dropped down to two as Jake crushed another goblin’s skull beneath his foot. The poisonous gas started to dissipate, likely due to Preston fighting the Shaman. Taking advantage of the moment, Teresa focused on the feeling in her eyes as it felt like they were on fire. Her eyes tried to produce tears but couldn’t, and they were drier than Teresa had ever felt before. For a moment, she reconsidered her whole stance on taking the chance to experience it fully in a relatively safe environment, because what if this led to permanent damage?
Eh, she’d figure it out.
She still couldn’t see well, but she was able to keep her eyes open well enough to fight in close combat if she needed to. Her performance would certainly be impacted, but she could make do against a single goblin again if she had to. Focusing on the magical aspect of the poison, she felt a bit of Mana seeping into her eyes. It wasn’t like the Mana she could channel through her body, but rather an altered kind of Mana like the restoration Mana her
Teresa was beginning to understand the very basics of Mana through observation and experience. Some skills converted pure Mana into a specific type of Mana affiliated with the skill, then utilized said Mana in some way. This much had been obvious for awhile, but feeling the poison on her eyes told Teresa that she could not absorb Mana into her Mana pool, or her stored Mana. When regenerating Mana between waves, she had found that she could kind of sense Mana being absorbed by her body as she regenerated her Mana, though some of it seemed to be produced somewhere within her.
If she really focused, she could speed up the rate that her body absorbed Mana, though it had an incredibly small effect on her regeneration rate. Attempting to do the same to the poison Mana didn’t just feel wrong, it felt impossible. It was like trying to fit a square through a circular hole, and while she had accidentally found that she could in fact bring the poisonous Mana into her body it did not go into wherever her Mana was stored, which she was now calling her “Mana pool”.
As a matter of fact, she couldn’t tell where her Mana was being stored at all. It felt like it was within her somewhere, but no matter how much she looked she could not find it. If anything, it seemed that the Mana just appeared within her when she tried to use it, and trying to absorb Mana into her Mana pool would make it disappear somewhere inside of her.
The Mana was still there, somewhere. She just didn’t know where, and the poison Mana refused to go there. Teresa decided she would experiment with it more between waves again, when she realized she had forgotten something.
“Shit! Make sure to leave one alive as a crawler!” Teresa yelled, remembering only two goblins were still alive. One of them was probably the Shaman, and she felt she didn’t have to state the obvious of not making the Shaman the crawler. It would be hard to rest between rounds with a living war crime shooting poisonous gas at you.
“Got it,” Came Jake's muffled reply as he slowly got his ability to speak back. He voluntarily stepped away from Teresa’s healing towards a blurry blob that Teresa assumed was one of the remaining goblins. A loud clang followed by a goblin’s panicked cry of pain came as Jake hit it in the head with his shield. He stomped down on the goblin’s knees, crushing them repeatedly. “I fucking hate Goblins.”
Teresa couldn’t blame him after he had gotten poisoned, and figured if need be she could heal the goblin just enough to stay alive for a bit. For a moment, she considered if she could just harm the goblin and then heal it repeatedly to grind experience for
She could morally justify killing these creatures in self defense, and even if she had to stretch it a bit she could justify crippling one to leave alive. It was survival of the fittest, and if the goblins had killed her then that would have been all there is to it.
Torturing a creature repeatedly just so she could slowly gain experience didn’t sit right with her, even if she couldn’t deny it was really tempting. Would one level up be that bad?
She shook her head, firmly deciding not to do it. Even if it would be really, really useful. She would heal it just enough to keep it alive as a crawler, but she wouldn’t torture it and experiment on the poor creature just for experience.
Just as she was thinking this, she got a very peculiar notification.
You Have Slain {Goblin Horde Shaman (F) (lv 9)}
Experience Granted
Level Up!
Teresa checked her notification screen, then checked again. She was pretty confident she did not at any point deal damage to the Shaman, so how could she have leveled up? On top of that, she had spent most of the fight healing people, so surely someone else should have gained enough experience from kills to reach level 2?
“Uh, I just leveled up.” Teresa said, confused. Seeing that the poison Mana was all gone and there was nothing left to really learn from her eyes burning, she used her skill to heal her injuries.
“What?” Preston asked, seeming confused only for a moment. “Well, I guess that actually makes sense. Kind of.”
“How so?” Teresa asked, genuinely unsure. Even if she got assisted kill experience from healing Jake and Madeline, that wasn’t what had given her the level.
It had been the miniboss, a monster she had not fought at all.
“I think it was these.” Preston said, holding the slip of fabric that had protected him from the poisonous gas attacks. “I don’t think I would have been able to get close to the guy if not for this, so maybe that’s what did it.”
“Okay, but that has so many holes to it.” Teresa responded. “If a blacksmith made a sword and someone went and killed something with that sword, would the blacksmith get a kill notification?”
“I don’t know, maybe. We don’t know the range on the notifications, so I guess it would make sense if the blacksmith was nearby or had just recently made the weapon? Then again I can see how that would make weapon forging an insanely lucrative field to the point of it being unreasonable. If you could mass produce weapons and get experience every time someone killed something with one of those weapons, you would probably barely need to work to level up at some point, or at the very least you would level far faster than any other field.” Preston responded.
“Plus I didn’t make the fabric of the robes, I just tore a piece off and handed it to you. It’s not like it’s a carefully crafted piece of equipment, it’s a rag made from my sleeve. It’s something I was just expecting to reattach to my robe once the fight was over.” Teresa continued. Really, it wouldn’t make sense for the rags to be what did it. But what else could explain why she had gotten the kill notification?
Teresa wasn’t too surprised by her level up, considering the amount she had healed that fight and the fact she had gotten quite a few kills had definitely provided a good chunk of experience. It was just the kill notification that was bothering her. She wasn’t complaining, but questioning these things could lead to incredibly valuable information. Whether it revealed a new way to gain experience or showed that apparently becoming a tailor was the best move she could make, it would at least reveal some tidbit about how the System worked.
“Maybe it’s just a System-fuckery thing.” Jake offered, shrugging. “Like what if it just makes a judgement call and decides that this counts? I mean I also got a kill notification.”
“I don’t know, that feels possible but that would also make a lot of things uncertain.” Teresa replied.
“At least it’s not detrimental, I’d just take the win and be happy with it to be honest with you.” Madeline said. Teresa just nodded, seeing the sense in that but still wanting to know why she had gotten the notification.
Still, at least she could check her improved stats now.
Status:
Name: Teresa
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Race: Human (Earth)
Level: 2 (F) (3%)
Class: Healer lv 0 (F) (55%)
HP: (78/85)
Stamina: (67/85)
Mana: (11/112)
Strength: 7
Fortitude: 4
Endurance: 7
Vitality: 7
Agility: 5
Intelligence: 13
Wisdom: 9
Perception: 8
Unallocated Points: 1
}
}
A brief glance showed her Mana pool had grown, and she now had the highest individual stat in the group with Intelligence at 13. She could certainly feel the improvement, though it was not as great as when she had gotten her title with her last level. Her thoughts were clearer, and she was able to still clearly recall the talk about why she had gotten the kill notification.
Her thought process hadn’t changed at all, but she was just a little bit better at keeping information in her head. Their guesses had been something to do with the rag or the System intervening, so she would be on the lookout for similar situations in the future. For now, she wasn’t entirely sure about why she got the kill notification, but it was a mystery that she could dwell on for a while.
Also, her skills.
Holy shit.
“My
Teresa thought about why that might be and what she had done differently. She had healed other people a lot more this wave, that much was an obvious source of experience for her
Then again, Madeline had a similar level of progression on her
“Hey Madeline, what’s your
“What’s yours at?” Madeline asked, and Teresa shared her own screen. “Well shit, what’d you do? I want to level my
“I don’t know. All that was different was I used the staff to heal. I mean, I guess I also really thought about the Mana in the poison and tried to absorb it into my own Mana pool. Didn’t work though, I don’t think you can absorb Mana with a type into your Mana pool.” Teresa said. Madeline frowned.
“What do you mean the Mana in the poison? How would you absorb it anyways?” She asked,
“You know how you can absorb a bit of Mana to regenerate it faster? Teresa replied, seeing Madeline shake her head.
“No, well kind of. I can tell I’m absorbing something from my surroundings, but honestly it’s hard to tell if I actually feel anything or just think I do. The only time I really feel Mana is when I push it to my skill in my hands.” Madeline explained. “I haven’t really thought about the process of it too much, I’ve mostly just been getting used to making sure the Mana enters the skill and actually does stuff instead of just existing in my hand.”
“Well, I can kind of move my own Mana, but it requires me to absorb it first or be produced by me. I’m pretty sure we all produce our own Mana, and that’s where most of our Mana comes from. However, when you bring the Mana into your body, it just disappears but stays there at the same time. I figured it out by trying to put the extra Mana I absorbed into where I keep my own Mana, and then realized I don’t know where I keep my own Mana.” Teresa said, explaining her Mana pool. Madeline nodded, though clearly still a bit confused.
“What do you mean where you keep your own Mana, is it not just inside of you?” Madeline asked.
“Yeah, sure, but where is the Mana inside of me? I can get a general sense of where my own Mana is when I’m using it, but I’m not sure where it comes from. When I cast my
To Madeline it was just a tool provided by the System, something she can call on that was stored within her. To Teresa, it was like an extension of her body. Like she had gotten a sixth sense and could control something that only showed it was real when used with a skill. Either way, to both of them it was hard to tell what was Mana and what was just their imagination due to how minor the sensations were.
However, it seemed Teresa might get some benefit from thinking about it the other way around. Her thought process absorbing her Mana had given her an insight to where her Mana actually is, and she had found that she didn’t know. She decided she would begin trying to go about the other way around, and try to “summon” Mana in her body at various points to see where it comes from instead of trying to absorb it directly into her Mana pool.
She wasn’t positive she would get much use from this, but not everything had to be useful. Magic was real, and Teresa was curious. That alone was reason enough for her to keep trying to figure out how it worked.
Looking back at her stats, she started thinking about her unallocated point. Previously, she had put it in Intelligence for some short term gain, a decision she did not regret in retrospect. Now, there was far less need to rush. She had already completely healed the cut on her leg and healed her eyes, and the fight had just ended minutes ago. She really could pick whatever she wanted this time, and she decided to go over each option.
Strength would certainly be useful. If her punches or her kicks especially got a boost, she would be a force to be reckoned with. Fortitude would help tanking the wounds she received in battle, and it seemed injuries were quite frequent considering her determination to fight on the front lines without any skills to help aside from restoration magic. Preston’s
Needless to say, Teresa was pretty sure the Healer class was not designed to fight, making her wonder how a party was supposed to be able to make it through the Tutorial normally. Either this was a poorly designed Tutorial, or the System just had unreasonably high standards.
Considering the vast power the System had demonstrated so far, she assumed it was probably the latter.
Endurance would increase her Stamina, but that didn’t seem too useful for Teresa. She didn’t have any skills that used it, so the resource would drain just through her own physical activities. Jake and Preston’s Weapon Mastery skills both passively drained stamina, though only when in combat. That explained how Jake was able to walk around in full metal armor all day without getting tired.
Vitality would increase Teresa’s HP, but sounded good on paper but she wasn’t sure exactly how HP worked. In video games, when you take damage your HP drops, and when it reaches 0 you die. How did that work in real life? If someone stabbed Teresa in the brain, she would die instantly regardless of how much HP she had, wouldn’t she? She had lost a lot of blood when she got injured by the mosquitoes during the first wave, and her HP showed she had nearly died. Would increasing her HP just increase how much blood she has to bleed before dying?
Agility seemed like a top contender. She had seen how fast Preston had moved, being able to get out of this wave with the goblins without any serious injuries. Teresa would have to go around and heal everyone just in case there was something they were missing, but she was pretty sure he was uninjured despite being in the melee the whole time with only decent armor. If Fortitude would let her take a hit better, then Agility would prevent her from getting hit.
Not to mention, even outside of direct combat Agility would be useful for Teresa. If she had increased Agility, she would have been able to run to Madeline faster when she had been poisoned. It wouldn’t be a huge difference, but another fighter would have returned to the battlefield on their side just a little bit sooner.
Intelligence absolutely helped Teresa with making her
Perception would help Teresa’s senses sharpen, and that might be useful for detecting Mana and figuring out how it works. With a high enough Perception, she might be able to brute force her way into figuring out where her Mana comes from. Considering she didn’t have any imagined uses for this yet, however, was enough to cross it off for now. It also had a similar flaw to Wisdom and Intelligence.
Her Perception, Wisdom, and Intelligence would all increase with levels anyways. If she never put points into her other stats, they would all stay the same as she leveled. She might have over 100 Intelligence at some point, only to still have 4 Fortitude or 5 Agility if she didn’t put some unallocated points into those stats. While putting unallocated points into her class stats would certainly make her a healer to be reckoned with, she would also get completely left behind in any fights.
It was between Fortitude and Agility, and Teresa chose Agility. Being faster just provided so many benefits, so she figured she would put her unallocated point into Agility. This brought the stat up to 6, and she instantly felt much lighter on her feet. Putting a single point into the stat had provided a 20% increase due to how low it had been, and Teresa had never felt better.
She had gone into the Tutorial with a 4 in Agility, and now she had increased it to 6. Teresa had never been a fast person, partially thanks to her height. Now, her Agility was tied for second place in the party with Sarah’s. Meanwhile Preston’s Agility was equal to both Teresa and Sarah’s Agilities combined, but Teresa wasn’t worried or upset by that in any means. If anything, having a competent party was incredibly relieving, as she couldn’t imagine having to go through this Tutorial by herself. She wouldn’t have even made it past the first wave if everyone hadn’t pulled their own weight.
“Alright, I have a proposition.” Jake said, pacing slowly around the room as the last goblin crawled after him with broken legs. “I am unbelievably tired, and I think we should get some sleep.”
“I agree.” Madeline said, seeming relieved she wasn’t the only one. “We can all take turns walking the goblin, but I really want to get some rest.”
It wasn’t surprising that these two in particular wanted to sleep, as they were the ones most affected by the poison. Just because Teresa had kept them alive and their HP topped up didn’t mean the experience wasn’t horrible, and who wouldn’t be exhausted after that?
“I can take the first shift.” Teresa offered, deciding she wanted to dwell on some things a bit more before she went to sleep. She really wanted to at least start on her new exercise she had come up to try and figure out where her Mana was stored.
“Are you sure?” Preston asked, concerned. He eyed the creature crawling after Jake, and looked back at Teresa. “I’m not positive that’s a great idea man. Like, I’ve seen Goblin Slayer. Are you absolutely sure you want the first shift?”
Teresa herself had not seen Goblin Slayer, but she could clearly get what Preston implied he was worried about.
“Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure it just wants to kill us.” Teresa said, watching as the goblin slowly crawled after Jake with nothing but murderous intent in its eyes. Teresa picked up a discarded shortsword from one of the dead goblins, and smiled. “Besides, I’ll be armed.”
It was time to experiment with some Mana.