The Resolute Knight

“That monkey was one tough son of a bitch. Thank God she was enraged, whatever that meant, perhaps a barbarian class for monkeys?”

The following few days were quite worrying. Arthur only managed to get his human level up by 1 bringing it up to a nine, just by surviving, and his endurance up to a 1100 from that level which confirmed that Endurance was race related. No stat points although. Even then the progress was too slow for him. 1 week left and exactly seven levels to gain. If the past few days taught him something, levelling wasn’t easy. Finding something worth killing was as hard as killing the damn thing.

All he could hope for was the best, even the turtles he saw back then were a bit too easy for him. Those four days were spent trying to prefect his understanding of mana, which still hadn’t given him a skill, and try and figure out Knightly presence.

Both of those were going poorly to say the least. Mana cost efficiency was still to low and his experiments to try and push the mana out of his blade forcefully to let out some sort of badass aura slash (come on he just got magic, let him try and live a few childish fantasies).

The sheer inability of his ‘slash’ led him to try and figure out his sword more.

[Tutorial-issue (G grade) steel long sword {Inferior} Enchantments: None]

The long part probably helped with his Path of the Sword ability. The lack of enchantments was disheartening, he could even see a few chips at the edges near the tip.

“This sword might not be able to conduct mana at all. God above it might break soon enough.”

If it broke, he could always loot a sword from some Halfling swordsman.

All in all, Arthur was screwed and if he didn’t work on it, he might not survive the first two weeks of the tutorial at all. Speaking of surviving he wondered how the others might be doing.

“I haven’t seen Dad in a week. God I really fucking hope he’s not dead yet. Or even my coworkers, John, Lucy, or IT Martin”

Granted Arthur wasn’t sure if they were truly his friends. Friends were hard to make or classify after his college years. Even then, he still cared about them to a certain extent. Plus, his Dad was way too old to deal with all of this.

“All I can do is trust them. Trust and pray I suppose.”

Flexing his presence on some level 5 pig, he started thinking on the weird shit that has been happening during the tutorial.

‘First the Halfling Archer runs away instead of shooting me, then the massive System-approved badass that was that bruiser monkey. Unusual behaviour for a game NPC from the former, and the unidentifiability of the latter.’

Arthur gazed at his left hand looking at the green magic aura that was being expelled from it.

‘Hmmmm. Expels from the hand, but I can’t make it go into the sword. Perhaps idea’s solid but the tool sucks?’

Pondering on the new thought, Arthur made his way to the river. Stripping his shirt and unbuckling his sheath, he knelt at the bank to wash his face and upper-body.

Once again, Arthur got a bad feeling in his bones. He heard a faint scratching sound across the gravel

‘Scrip-scrap, Scrip-scrap’

Getting up in a hurry, Arthur looked back, only to see a back of a large, furry, black back

of some large animal duck to his left.

In an instant, something heavy collided with his flank. The force from the impact pushed him a couple feet back and left him staggered.

Rising up, he barely ducked on seeing the open jaws of the beast, who lunged at him in that moment. Swinging around he managed to finally identify this creature. What he saw did not comfort him, rather it brought terror to his bones.

[Level 12(G grade) Wind-blessed Wolf]

‘LEVEL 12’

Yeah, the mere sight of that number told him many things. One, even if windlassed was a common rarity class, which he doubted, the wolf surpassed his stats. Two this beast could outlast him; endurance was something he was relying on when it came to defeating slightly higher levelled opponents and this wolf completely outclassed him.

‘That monkey was enraged and couldn’t thin properly, that and a two-level difference caused a 500 health decrease along with basically 400 endurance.’

‘God help me I don’t even have a bloody weapon.’

Lunging backwards with a mana enhanced kick, he kept his eyes on the wolf. The wolf, proved that it didnt really matter if he kept his eyes on it. Its legs tensed and then I disappeared.

A brief gust of wind and then the beast appeared once more in front of him. It swung its claws and it ripped through his skin like a hot knife through butter. Arthur cried out in pain, as he tumbled through the ground, getting cuts across his back, chest and arms in addition to the claw attack from the wolf.

Getting back up, he dropped to the ground once again, successfully dodging another deadly swipe. Enhancing his fists he punched the wolf twice in the stomach. The wolf howled and turned into wind, reappearing quite far away, for Arthur at least.

Taking the opportunity, he sprinted towards his swords, sliding down to grab it. Turning back and raising his guard, he braced for impact, an impact which never came.

The blasted wolf had stayed back. Light blue and light green mana seeped from his fur, twirling all around him. The beast’s eyes glowed a sickly green and he sprinted towards him before turning to a fine green mist.

Arthur raised his sword but the attack came from behind, slicing it up.

“Fuck me, the bugger’s fas-”

Another scratch this time at his right leg. Brought down to one knee. Arthur barely had time to cry out before his sword arm was chomped on.

Glaring at the smug wolf, he used presence, slowing down the creature for a second. Punching the wolfs snout, he showed a bloody grin at the sudden cries of pain. Another punch, this time mana-enhanced. He compressed the entirety of the gathered mana in his right fist, forgoing the sword, and finally succeeded on ‘blasting’ the mana into the wolf. Immediately he felt far more drained than any of the previous punches.

This didn’t stop him however. Taking a huge gulp of air, as was necessary for mana recovery, he rained down another 3 punches down at the beast, revelling at its cries.

‘I can’t lose. Not now. Not again. I can’t be left behind again! I won’t be!’

Determination flowed through his very veins before

[You are out of mana, Status Mana Deficiency afflicted: Cannot use any mana (Even freeform) until 20 mana is gained.]

“NO”

Arthur screamed, his anger permeating through his very voice. He needed to gain more mana quickly. Raining down normal punches he increased his wisdom by 2. Though the total increased by 200, the required mana increased by 2 as well.

‘Fuck, Fuck, Fuck I refuse. I won’t allow myself to fail. I can’t. I will be known in this World. I Swear it. I SWEAR IIIITTTTT.’

In the middle of his mental rant Arthur got kicked straight in the stomach. Flying back he landed with a loud thud, skipping over the ground. The gravel of the riverbank cut scrapes across his back. After the final thud he felt a large object poke at his back. Getting back up and lifting it he found his sword once again.

[Damaged Tutorial-issue (G grade) steel long sword {Inferior} Enchantments: None]

“Go damn it, damaged? You little shit , I’m going to kill you so- hoh! - harrrd” Taking a deep breath with every other word, He glared balefully at the wolf.

[Health 800/1500]

[Endurance 400/1100]

[Mana 11/2000]

This was going to take a lot of work. Taking a deep breath and steadying himself, Arthur readied his blade into a thrusting position. The wolf still had not moved from its original position. The two beings met eyes, but neither sprang forward. On the contrary, the wolf had leaped back away from him.

Arthur kept on taking breaths, trying to gulp as much air as he could, both for recovering END. as well as Mana. He quickly came to realise that this method was too slow. Mana trickled into him at a snail’s pace.

‘Well, if you’re going to give time to spend then who am I to refuse?’

Arthur’s grey eyes, now no longer glowing green with mana, and the wolf’s amber eyes broke apart, as both of them silently and mutually agreed to recuperate… somehow.

Arthur focused on every aspect of his breathing. From the way mana flowed into his body to how it was absorbed. Eventually enough time passed when suddenly

Ping!

[Mana Recovery(Common) -- > Mana Recovery(Uncommon)]

[Your understanding of this primeval force has expanded, you now have the ability to passively recharge mana reserves via breathing through your nose]

“Fuck that lousy upgrade”, looking back at the wolf it seemed that most of its moves were healing already.

Arthur had recovered more than half of his mana already, most critical wounds healed and scarred. It seemed that the second bout was about to begin.

Both fighters tensed their muscles before springing towards each other.

Arthur’s sword met the wolf’s claws. A screeching sound could be heard across the riverside. Arthur chose to conserve mana this time, only using it to escape certain strikes and close distance

The wolf retained the liberal attitude about its seemingly never-ending mana reserves. It hopped, lunged, leaped and altogether dodged most of the attacks it couldn’t outright block.

The only cuts Arthur could make were shallow thrusts across the beast’s side. Each rebuffed attempt made him angrier; each attack was slopier than the rest. Finally-

SCHLINK!!

“AARGH”, Arthur cried out, closing his left eye due to an explosion of pain.

The Wind-Blessed one merely grinned a smug, toothy grin. Something in Arthur cracked. Blood roared inside his arteries. A pounding sound appeared in his ears, playing the tune of the drums of battle. The world burst into colour, shades of green permeated throughout.

Arthur felt his body become one with mana. Every small sand like molecule, these ‘magicules’, that were flooded throughout the metaphysical plane. He felt his skin interact with these particles. He felt how they rebuffed it.

No, that won’t do at all. He willed his skin to accept the free, formless mana present throughout the air and his body did as he commanded it to.

His soul established an unfettered connection to the hidden world around him. His mana recharged 3 times as quickly. Hi body glowed green and he was sure his eyes did too.

The Wind-Blessed Wolf continued to watch him, the amusement from maiming him still present, its eyes reflected intrigue. For a moment, Arthur could partially understand the beast. The empathy turned into anger, when he remembered why he could only see half of what he was used to.

“You wanted this right? You sick beast. Time for round three”

Whether or not the wolf ‘wanted’ this or not was up to debate but the young Knight was sure of one thing.

As he readied his blade, Arthur knew there was no fourth chance to survive, no fourth round, as of this moment.

It was to do or to die.

[Arthur Black]

[Race-(human (G grade)-level 9

Class-Knight (G grade)-level 8

Profession- N/A

Grade: - ‘G’ level 8

Strength-55 Intelligence-25

Agility-25 Widom-20

Vitality-75 Perception- 25

Will-20

Endurance-512/1000 Mana-1069/2000

(Health 800/1500)

Free points: 10

Skills:

Race: - Identify {Unique}, Language {Unique}, Star-Touched Generation {Unique}

Class: - Block {Common}, Slash {Common}, Parry {Common}, Counter {Common}, Chop {Common}, Path of the sword {Uncommon}, Battlefield Awareness {Common}, Knightly presence {Rare}

Profession: - N/A

]