NOVEL WEB Ch.2 – Leveling Up
Leveling Up
Waking up, Damien's back felt sore. Ugh, did I sleep on the floor again? Why is there so many birds, too? Did I leave the patio door open? Slowly opening his eyes, he blinked a few times to adjust to his surroundings. He stood up, taking in the grasslands around him as the memories of the prior day flooded his mind.
Wait, where's Bluey? He couldn't see his slime companion hopping around anywhere. He quickly pulled up his status screen, and Bluey was in there, and at full health. Is it like...'excreting' somewhere? Do slimes even do that? Or maybe it got hungry and went to find some more food? “Bluey! Where are you?” he shouted.
There was no response.
Ugh...should I go looking? Or should I wait where it knows where I'm at? After some internal debate, he decided on the latter, and sat back down against the tree.
As time went on, he got more and more worried, constantly checking the status screen to make sure Bluey was still at full health (and noticed this time that he was also at full health, despite having been hurt the previous day).
After a while longer, he heard some ruffling coming towards him. Standing up quickly, he saw the telltale sign of blue bulging out over the long grass. “Bluey!” he cried, running over and wrapping his arms around it.
Bluey started wobbling in his arms, then spun and looked up at him. “Huwah?”
“Where did you go!? I was so worried-” Damien started, before seeing what was behind Bluey. His summon had apparently been killing more slimes, and had been pulling a stack of almost a dozen towards him.
Damien face flushed, embarrassed at himself, “Sorry...”
Bluey seemed confused as to what to do. “Huwah?” it repeated.
“Can you...can you just let me know before leaving next time? Even if you have to wake me up?” Damien said, trying to hide his embarrassment.
Bluey seemed to understand though, giving a 'Huwah!' and nudging the stack of slimes over towards him.
He was hungry, so he immediately grabbed one and started eating. I wonder how these would taste grilled, he thought as he munched on it.
Bluey had also grabbed one, slowly nibbling on it.
Damien picked up the rest of the stack, depositing it next to the tree, and the two of them sat down, working their way through the stack of slimes.
After finishing, Bluey hopped up and down, seemingly excited, “Huwaaaah!”
“Why are you so excited? Do you want to go train more?” Damien asked.
Bluey seemed to nod (or at least as much as a slime could nod). “Huwah.”
Damien nodded back, and Bluey started hopping away. Bluey must be able to sense enemies. Or maybe it can smell them? He looked down at Bluey, with it's distinct lack of nose. Yeah definitely not smelling, at least.
After a few minutes, they came upon more of the murder-rabbits from yesterday, this time four.
Bluey wasted no time, immediately hopping towards the closest one and squashing it.
Damien paid better attention this time, dodging out of the way as one attacked him. As the murder-rabbit turned towards him, he aimed a kick at it, but it dodged out of the way.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Bluey dueling with the other two. One of them got smacked by another hop-attack, but the other one bit Bluey. Bluey seemed to recoil a bit, but then turned and shoved the biting murder-rabbit away.
Damien lost track of what was going on with Bluey, though, as the murder-rabbit he had dodged was attacking again. This time, he waited until the murder-rabbit was in mid-air, and aimed the sole of his shoe at it. His foot connected, smacking the head of the murder-rabbit.
Finally, I did something!
Just as he was about to follow-up, Bluey squashed this murder-rabbit as well.
Damien relaxed. “Sheesh, Bluey, save some for me.”
Bluey looked at him. “Huwah!”
“Uh, wait, that was just a joke, you don't actually need to save any for me.”
Bluey blinked a couple times. “Huwah!”
Damien pulled up his status screen, and saw a red notification on his level. Did I level up!? Clicking on it, it said:
Damien leveled up
Summoner – Level 2
STR – 9
VIT – 13
MAG – 34
DEX – 12
Awesome! “I got a level Bluey!”
“Huwah!” Bluey replied, excitedly hopping around him.
Underneath his stats, it said:
New ability available for selection:
All abilities +3
MAG +7
Heal (summon)
Huh...I'm not sure what to pick. The 'all abilities' one could be good at a low level, especially since some gets transferred to Bluey. Upping Magic could me me specialize. And healing is basically never bad, right? Clicking on 'Heal (summon)' it read:
Learn Heal (summon) - Heals target for (100%) of your MAG. Only works on summons.
He looked over a Bluey, who as happily spinning in place. I gotta get the healing ability, right? I don't want to risk losing Bluey. Shaking that sad thought out of his head, he selected 'Heal (summon)'. He then went to check on Bluey, who didn't have any icon for leveling. It did however, show Bluey was missing a few HP.
Walking over, he put his hand on Bluey. “Uh...heal!”
Bluey was surprised as a green glow spread around him.
On the status screen, it showed Bluey back to full HP.
“Huwah!” Blue shouted, jumping into Damien's chest.
Damien petted it's head, “Haha, you're welcome.” Looking at his status screen again, he noticed the blue bar under his HP had gone down some. Clicking on it, it showed:
MP: 26/34
Makes sense. Guess I'll need to make sure I don't go overboard with healing when I don't need too. “Alright, let's keep going!”
“Huwah!” Bluey said, hopping away.
They continued hunting down murder-rabbits during the morning, defeating several more without too much of an issue. Eventually, they came across another gathering of slimes.
“You want to have lunch, Bluey?”
“Huwah!” Bluey shouted, flattening the nearest slime.
Damien helped out as well, smacking a few slimes himself for good measure.
After dispatching the group, they sat down together (Bluey wobbling in his lap) and started snacking on the flattened slimes. While eating, Damien opened up his status screen and started looking through different menus to pass the time. Huh, these are interesting. 'Bestiary?' He clicked on that one, and it opened a list of enemies he'd encountered...all two of them.
The slimes were actually called 'Blue Slimes' and their entry even mentioned they were edible uncooked.
The rabbits were not called 'murder-rabbits' (that's what I'm going to keep calling them, though) but actually 'Sepillian rabbits'. They didn't say if they were edible or not, though. They probably should be if I cooked them, right? While eating the slimes was fine, he was hoping to expand the quality of their food before he got sick of eating them.
Back at the main screen, he noticed a sun and moon icon. Clicking on it, an icon of the sun appeared in the sky. Underneath, it read, 'Six hours, twenty-seven minutes to dusk'. So...is this the clock? I haven't seen any other, so...
Continuing looking through the status screen, he noticed a button that said 'Map'. Map!? So I can figure out where I'm at? He opened it up, and a map filled the screen, showing the immediate area. It had a little green icon where he was at. Zooming in, he also saw...a blue icon for Bluey. Damien slapped his forehead, So I could have just looked at this to find Bluey this morning. He sighed, Oh well, at least I know now. Zooming out on the map, he could see he seemed to be at the southern end of a continent. North of them was a small (relative to the continent) forest, and south was a bay that led out into an ocean, and east of them the grasslands wound on for a while until they hit a large city. But west of them, it looked like a small town wasn't too far away. He clicked on it, and a box appeared. Silaro. One day away! That's not too bad. He then noticed a carriage icon next to it. Below that was a person walking icon. Clicking on that, it changed to show five days away. What is this, a Maps app!? Oh...actually that is basically what this is. Well, Bluey and I can probably survive five days on slimes, right?
Before he could explore further, Bluey started wobbling in his lap, before jumping out.
“What? You wanna go train more?” he asked.
“Huwah!”
“Alright, you sense anything?”
“Huwah!” Bluey said again, before hopping away.
Their afternoon continued the same as the morning. Stopping only briefly at a stream to drink some water, they cleared out the countryside of the murder-rabbits and slimes. Damien started carrying the slimes using his tracksuit top as a bag (he had a white undershirt on underneath) to save for future meals. While it meant he couldn't help in combat, Bluey was smashing them with ease, and Damien could heal any small HP losses taken.
When it got dark out, they stopped and ate some of the slimes for dinner. While eating, he pulled up the status menu, and saw Bluey had the red notification icon again. Another level!? I guess we...well, Bluey defeated a lot today.
Clicking on it, Bluey's new stats read as:
Bluey leveled up
Slime – Level 3
STR – 25
VIT – 23
MAG – 17
DEX – 25
Nice! Combined with a bit extra from my level up as well, Bluey is getting pretty powerful...I think?
Underneath the 'STR +5' skill Bluey had chosen at level 2, it had:
New Ability Available
Do we get one every level? That's pretty awesome. Clicking on it, it opened up a menu of Elemental attunements. Ice, Fire, Lightning, Nature...sheesh there's a ton. I don't even... at the bottom was another 'Let summon choose' option. “Uh, Bluey, do you wanna choose your own again?”
“Huwah!” Bluey said, pulling up it's own status screen.
“I'll take that as a yes,” Damien replied, pressing the button.
After he did, Bluey looked at it's status screen again. And continued looking...for a while. Damien was about to say something, when suddenly Bluey hopped against it's own status screen.
On Damien's, it said:
'Lightning Attunement'. Unlocks access to Lightning skills.
New skill 'Lightning Enhancement' learned.
Lightning Enhancement? Damien looked over at Bluey, who had started glowing. After a moment, the glowing faded, and Bluey had a yellow streak along one side.
That...that's it!? I guess it's kinda cute.
Bluey seemed particularly excited however, spinning around before jumping up into Damien's arms.
“Yeah, you're cute, you're cute,” he said, petting Bluey's head while holding it, similar to what he'd done to Muffin in the past.
“Huwah!” Blue said, pressing into his chest.
Is...is it trying to hug me? Like, as much as it can without arms? Since there was a cool breeze, he grabbed his now-empty-of-slimes jacket and draped it over he and Bluey, laying in the grass.
Bluey spun around on his chest under the jacket, while Damien looked up at the stars. He also realized...there was three moons. Two seemed pretty close by (compared to his previous world's moon) and a third seemed farther away (or maybe was just smaller).
After a bit, Bluey seemed to have settled down, closing its eyes and peaking out under the jacket.
Damien smiled again looking at Bluey. I couldn't provide for Muffin, but hopefully I can make Bluey happy, at least.
With that thought in his head, he closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.