[Cozy Fantasy] [Farming LitRPG] The Chronicles of Emberstone Farm

Chapter 8 – Logic or Desire?

🙞❤︎🙜

The sun was shining brightly through the leaves of the trees, and the forest floor was covered in a blanket of soft, green moss and fallen leaves. The air was fresh, and it was a great day to start my archery practice.

The encounter with the Horned Rabbit had made me realize I should definitely practice a few combat skills. For close combat, newbies normally use a sword and shield. However, I decided it would be good to train archery as well, since attacking from a distance was safer than melee combat.

In the small clearing in front of my house, I set up a few hay bales from my inventory as my targets. A simple Wooden Shortbow was my weapon, and I had some iron-tipped arrows for ammunition.

As with most games, Adventure Incarnate had level requirements. At level 1 Archery, this was all I could wield.

The moment I lifted my bow, the combat screen appeared, and I could see the available basic skills in my Action Bar.

[Archery Skills:

Piercing Shot

Rapid Fire

Escape]

I had already checked out my current abilities, but this was going to be my first time to actually use them.

[Piercing Shot:

Imbue the arrow with your energy, allowing it to pierce through enemies. The shot is incredibly powerful and can often take down multiple foes with a single arrow.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The cooldown was quite long, but I could fire regular arrows without using an ability anyway. I will just have to rotate between regular archery, Piercing Shot, and Rapid Fire.

[Rapid Fire:

Fire a rapid succession of five arrows. This ability is great for taking down multiple targets quickly, or for taking down a single target with a lot of arrows.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The Escape ability sounded especially convenient, though I hoped I would never have to use it.

[Escape:

Enter a state of heightened awareness and move ten feet in any direction. Time seems to slow, and the player has increased movement speed and agility, allowing the player to dash away from enemies or hazards.

Cooldown: 30 seconds]

Obviously, my combat stats were pathetic since I had done no training at all, but it’s not like I would need to use a lot of force with the low-level wildlife in the forest. I would have to level up my strength, attack, and defense stats later on when I would have to fight more dangerous foes.

I mentally chose Piercing Shot, and my arms automatically lifted my bow, notched the arrow, and pulled the bowstring back in the proper posture. It’s a good thing that the System was guiding my body because I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I aimed at the center of the hay bale. I released the arrow and watched as it sank into the hay about 3 inches from the ground.

Then I stepped back and assessed my shot. Not bad, but not great either, since that hadn’t been where I was aiming. I’ll have to do better next time.

Once the cooldown period finished, I took another shot, and then another, enjoying the sight of the arrows sinking into the hay bale. I’d set up small targets at different distances, and I moved between them, enjoying the challenge of hitting each one.

As I shot the targets every five seconds, I could feel the tension melting away from my body. It was like I entered an unfamiliar state when I was shooting, and everything else just faded away. For a few moments, I was completely focused on the shot, and nothing else mattered.

For now, I focused on Piercing Shot since I wanted to master this most basic archery skill before moving on to Rapid Fire. During the cooldown period, I noticed my arrows had less force and were much less accurate. However, I couldn’t even feel any energy being used whenever I used Piercing Shot. Perhaps it was because the skill was weak?

To test out my hypothesis, I chose the Escape skill and my body quickly dashed 10 feet to my right as though I was sliding on ice. It felt as though I was using the wind to blow myself sideways in a controlled manner.

I felt…

Nothing.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100]

I glanced at my stats, but they didn’t reveal much.

“Mana points” or MP wasn’t a thing in Adventure Incarnate because players used stored magic inside spell stones, and archery skills didn’t use mana points, unlike in other games. Instead, “Energy” was used. Was energy the same thing as MP?

I had never questioned this while I was playing the game since it made sense in that context. Farming had to be limited because, otherwise, one could finish all the farming activities in one day. On the other hand, it would be ridiculously frustrating to limit combat similarly.

Well, perhaps one day I would understand it. I banished these thoughts from my mind and continued training. After about one hour, my arms started aching. I switched my drawing hand from my right hand to my left to see if it would help, but I was tired which made my accuracy even worse. Now I was only hitting the edges of the hay bales.

I called it quits after two hours. My arms felt like they were made of lead, and my shoulders ached from the effort of drawing the bowstring. Every muscle in my body felt like it had been worked to the point of exhaustion, and I could barely stand. All I wanted was to lie down and rest.

Wait…

Come to think of it, this was the way I felt when I ran out of energy while farming. “Energy” must mean stamina!

I wasn’t sure if I was right, but it made sense to me.

***

Even though I spent all of yesterday afternoon practicing my archery, I didn’t level up. In Adventure Incarnate, Archery leveled up only through actual combat, but I still thought that regular training was helpful because it made me feel more confident in my skills.

Today I decided to practice with my sword and shield. After finishing my morning chores on the farm, I set up two training dummies from my inventory and started hacking away with a wooden practice sword. I wasn’t sure whether I should use a two-handed sword or a sword and shield. However, all the sword skills were the same whether you use a one-handed or two-handed sword. I figured I could train with the shield later, but it was more important to practice my sword moves.

I started off by doing a few stretches before swinging my wooden sword a few times to get the feel of it before using any of the available sword abilities.

[Sword Skills:

Thrust

Slash

Blade Flurry]

The basic Thrust and Slash moves were quite easy to understand.

[Thrust:

Lunge forward with the energy-infused sword, dealing damage to an enemy. This ability can break through enemy shields or armor, dealing a large amount of damage.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

Thrust used the point of the sword, I knew that much from video games.

[Slash:

Swing an energy-infused sword in a powerful arc, dealing damage to an enemy. This ability has a small chance to knock back or stun the target.

Cooldown: 5 seconds]

The slash ability used the edge of the sword.

When I mentally chose a particular skill, my body automatically moved in the appropriate manner. Wooden practice sword in hand, I stepped in front of a training dummy and raised my weapon high above my head before bringing it down in a powerful arc. Then I step back a pace before lunging forward with the sword.

I spent a few minutes practicing each move. I lunged and slashed at the wooden dummies like a pro, but after only about ten moves, my arms were already starting to ache. No doubt I was using muscles that I didn’t normally use.

Since I was quickly tiring, I decided to try Blade Flurry at least once.

[Blade Flurry:

Slash the enemy with a flurry of quick and powerful strikes. This ability is often used as a finishing move, as it can deal a large amount of damage in a short period of time.

Cooldown: 30 seconds]

I dashed forward at great speed and struck a training dummy with great force using two diagonal slashes, then a horizontal slash, before finally finishing off with a rather flashy vertical slash.

Whoa! So that was a Blade Flurry.

With this, I was pretty confident that I could handle a Horned Rabbit. I don’t think I’ll even need a shield.

I put away my wooden training sword and took out an iron sword. It was heavier than the practice sword and much more tiring to use.

Once again, I gripped my sword tightly, feeling the weight of it in my hand. Taking a deep breath, I raised the sword above my head, then slashed it down in a wide arc. I felt the satisfying whoosh of the blade cutting through the air, and the resistance as it hit the target. I smiled in satisfaction when I saw the deep cut I’d made in the wood.

After a few minutes, I stepped back and took a break, letting my arms and shoulders rest. I took a few deep breaths and shook out my arms, then got back to work. I continued to slash the sword back and forth, feeling the muscles in my arms and shoulders burning with the effort.

This was a lot more difficult compared to archery.

While the strength of a ranged attack was dependent on the player’s Archery level, melee combat was different. There were two stats I had to level up for it: Strength and Attack. Strength, as the name implies, was simply the power behind a melee weapon’s strike while Attack was the weapon’s accuracy.

[Violet

Level 1

HP: 100/100

Str: 1/99

Att: 1/99

Arc: 1/99

Mag: 1/99]

I wasn’t sure whether I should focus on range or melee combat. My current puppet could do magic, but I would be able to get better ones later on that could do range and melee.

Actually, what I really wanted to do was to level up my magic stat first. I mean, what red-blooded human being from Earth wouldn’t want to learn magic? However, it didn’t really make sense for my current situation since Mr. Bear was a magician-type puppet. What if I encountered an enemy that was magic resistant?

Should I follow my desire or be logical about it?