A sigh of relief escaped his lips as the gate came into sight and he dashed through and out into the open field beyond the city. The breeze whipped his hair and the crispness to the air caused him to suck in large gulps. Being pressed in that crowd for so long meant he spent that entire time smelling dirty people and the city. Out here, it was clean air.
It didn’t take long for him to find animals on his path. His focus was the same as before. He found animals with fur and focused on nailing the counter attacks more than he did the initial two-hit combo. This all changed when he encountered a small bear.
The fights with the normal creatures were straightforward. The bear wasn’t much different. At first, the size of the animal worried him. Going from fighting a squirrel or a fox to a small bear was unnerving. The first round of combat quickly relieved his fears. It started exactly like all the others. Except it wasn’t.
Atlas dashed in and activated his two-hit combo. The first image showed up and he followed it. The motion felt smooth and natural. By the time the second hit came, he already knew where it would be. This strike was a quick thrust to the animal’s snout. The bear grunted as it fell backward.
You dealt 6 HP damage to Small Bear.
Knowing now was the perfect time, Atlas did something he’d never tried before. He stopped thinking. Instead of focusing so hard on the movement and watching the image, he just attacked and let his body take over. The moves had become commonplace. The swings targeted the same parts of the body when performed. Positional awareness could tell him where and how that strike would happen. His swing on the bear would hit the same place if the bear stood on its hind legs or if it was on all four. The only difference would be how he swung the staff to accomplish it.
Diving forward, he activated the two-hit attack and followed the natural feel of the motion. His staff felt like an extension of his body as it swung out and popped the bear in the side of the head. The vibration from the hit caused a tingling feeling in his fingers, but he immediately moved to the next attack by instinct. The resultant thrust hit perfectly on the snout and Atlas heard a light chime in the air. The notification that popped up startled him.
You dealt 6 HP damage to Small Bear.
Rejoice! You mastered Double Slash.
The new combo ability Triple Threat has been added to your skills.
The cheer that filled him by mastering the ability caused him to forget he was in a fight. The paw of the bear struck a solid blow across his chest and sent him tumbling backward.
Small bear dealt 10 HP damage to you with Swipe.
Kicking himself for getting distracted, he rose to his feet and charged in by activating his new Triple Threat ability. His staff swung in a low arc and caught the animal’s foot, causing it to stumble. The second swing reversed from the side and clipped it in the shoulder while the final blow was a two-handed strike directly to the top of the head. An audible crack echoed through the clearing as the bear fell to the ground and stopped moving.
You dealt 12 HP damage to Small Bear with Triple Threat.
Small Bear died.
You gained 25 experience.
The three-hit combo did far more damage than his old one. That extra hit, added with the bonus they seemed to give when completing the entire thing, meant his damage had just increased drastically. Now if I can get a suitable weapon, I’ll be set.
The day continued on and his grinding stayed the same. More times than not, he found himself just using the Double Slash attack with the assisted movement from his mastery. When using this, it felt like he was just watching a movie through virtual reality as his body adjusted to changes in movement.
Countering the abilities was the only aspect he needed to focus on. When he ran into the larger enemies, he used the three-hit combo instead. A pleasant side effect of the larger animals, such as the bear, was that they had two hides worth of skin on them. This helped speed up his grinding process even more.
The first item he made was the backpack. With this new piece slung over his back, it vastly improved his carrying capacity. Being able to take the skins and meat from the kills and quickly drop them into the bag was nice. It also meant he could fight a lot more before he needed to stop and craft items. Making the new bracers and jerkin were the next items on the list, and he immediately equipped the reinforced versions, dropping the standard versions into his bag.
The hours sped by and he continued his hunting. The farther he ventured from the city, the larger the animals became. With his new combo, this didn’t present a problem. Anytime he took too much damage, he just healed himself and continued fighting. Since mana regenerated on its own, he could afford to use it to fix his HP.
During his travel he found five different trees to harvest. They held thirty lengths of wood between all of them. A couple of them were smaller and only yielded four pieces, but two of the others were massive and he gathered much more from them.
Using those logs, he first turned all the lengths of wood into Rough Wood Logs and then used all 30 of the Rough Wood Logs to make 15 sets
