Forever

The morning after was rough. Salim didn’t want to get up, he just didn’t have the energy to move. All he wanted was to curl up in a warm bed and fall asleep until all his worries were drowned away by sleep. He knew that he had to get up, but it was still a monumental task as his limbs still weren’t responding to his demands.

Groaning loudly as he pushed himself up, he caught a beam of sunlight straight to his eye as a stray beam snuck past the canopy. Wincing as he squinted, he slowly came to, brushing off his exhaustion. Not wanting to waste time now that he was up, and the morning was still cool, Salim wiped the sleep from his eyes before realizing that he had several notifications waiting.

Have they been here all night? He wondered before beginning to read.

You have witnessed the true form of the moon.

Event has been Logged.

You have gained a Level!

You have gained the attention of the moon.

Major Event has been Logged.

You have gained a Level!

You have gained a Level!

Salim felt ill reading the message, the giant eyeball flashed in his mind, peering down at him. He hoped that it could be some strange natural phenomenon, but the level ups only seemed to confirm the worst possible answer. The idea that the moon was both a living thing and that he had caught its attention made his stomach churn in worry as he began to pick at the loose strands of hair on his head. He needed to find a cave or thick forest to hide in, but currently he was completely exposed in one of the worst possible environment for concealment.

Looking around out of worry, Salim could still only spot sparse trees and grass, lots of grass, which would be no help when hiding from celestial bodies. Pulling up his stat sheet, Salim pumped his [Resilience] along with his other physical stats to help with his immediate issue. He also had a small internal debate, thinking for a moment before deciding that [Depth] would be a worthwhile investment as well.

Lvl. 4

Stats

Confirm

Might: 10 (13)

-/+

Finesse: 10 (12)

-/+

Resilience: 15 (20)

-/+

Acuity: 12

-/+

Resolve: 14

-/+

Depth: 5 (10)

-/+

The pain was debilitating, three levels at once was almost too much to bear as he hunkered down, face scrunching as he did so. Feeling his muscles twist and harden under the skin, Salim had to take time to compose himself, trying not to yelp as his skin morphed. It was partially successful, as he was able to mostly contain himself, only letting out a small yelp, which he felt slightly proud of.

Joints popped as Salim stood and stretched arms and legs, preparing for a journey across the grasslands. Trying to get a move on before the sun began scorching his skin, Salim passed the time while walking by, messing with his core. Doubling his [Depth] seemed to have roughly doubled the capacity, but it was hard to tell since all the magic meditation stuff was new to him.

The increased size had an effect on his manipulation of moonlight in his core, now only half full he had more space to manipulate and twist the energy into the form he wanted. The strange thing was, his skills normally did their shaping outside the core, making the shapes even harder to observe, much less replicate. When Salim tried to do the same, it always ended with him dumping the moonlight into his body when he inevitably lost control. The whole process was painful and not at all worth it, but it did teach him to be more careful with his experiments going forward.

Throughout the time he was messing with the moonlight, he kept an eye out for danger, only able to spot blurs as small animals sprinted through the grass to get away from him. He knew that more dangerous creatures were probably hiding in the grass, but nothing jumped out at him, and he wanted to keep it that way. Feeling around on the ground for any obvious incline that might direct him towards water, he was out of luck, the ground was incredibly flat which made him wonder if he was walking in one giant circle. Stopping midday under a small, wiry tree to rest from the sun, Salim looked through his skill list to burn time while he caught his breath.

Skills

Energy Manipulation (Class)

Lvl. 8

Allows a finer touch with contained energy.

Energy Sight (Class)

Lvl. 3

Lets you see the unseen world.

Energy Toleration (Class)

Lvl. 4

Tolerate the stress of the unseen world.

He was happily surprised, his [Energy Manipulation] had gone up by quite a bit.

Maybe the levels are a quantifier for my ability to use the skill? Salim wasn’t sure what the metric was, or if they even did anything but seeing the numbers go up was entertaining. He was getting a lot better at moving his energy around, it no longer moved with the speed of molasses, but he still wasn’t sure if that was him improving better or the skill level going up. It didn’t bother him either way, since being able to do magic was cool enough, but it would have been nice to not have the ambiguity that the system seemed to be constantly shrouded in.

Pushing himself up and starting to walk as the sun dipped, Salim slowly realized that there was something on the horizon. Shielding his eyes, he squinted, trying to make out the black splotch in the distance, but having no luck. Changing course, Salim made the decision to head towards whatever the distant object was, hoping to get a little further before nightfall.

The hike was slow-going, and while the speck on the horizon was growing by millimeters, the sun was falling fast. Needing to find a place to stay the night, Salim had to make due with some thick underbrush that could cover his body. Putting himself into position, he tried his best not to move, so the thicket wouldn’t irritate his skin as the rough leaves felt uncomfortable on his skin.

Night quickly came and as he tried to fall asleep he could see the soft moonlight sweep over his hiding place, he had no idea if the moon could see him, but he sure wasn’t willing to turn on [Energy Sight] to check. Worried, exhausted, and scared, Salim never realized he didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until, all he remembered was blinking and then being immediately accosted by morning sunlight. Bewildered by the turn of events, he gently crawled out of the bush and looked around to see if anything was different with his surroundings.

Finding nothing, he shrugged his shoulders, going about trying to hunt for bugs to eat while sucking on any wet leaves he could find. It was generally unpleasant, but the gross factor had dulled over the past week.

Or was it weeks? He was slowly losing track of time, it was hard for him to make a distinction on time when his days had been broken up by a void of sensory deprivation.

Half the day was what it took for him to make out the object in the distance, the green luster informing him that a large group of trees stood proudly on the horizon, it was a forest! It spread out in front as he grew closer, the verdant green of trees welcomed him as he made it half way, with only part of a day's journey to reach them. Having to stop for the night, Salim kept experimenting under the cover of foliage with the energy inside of him, making cubes, spheres, and any other sort of shape he could think of.

His experiments had left him running low in the tank, only the dregs once more remaining after a particularly painful mess-up where he managed to dump half of what he had left through his left leg. The failure had brought him a revelation after he was done cursing and wringing out his arm to try and shake the pain away.

Energy Manipulation has reached Max Level

Event has been Logged.

You have gained five stat points.

Apparently, [Energy Manipulation] maxed out at ten, which Salim couldn’t tell if anything was different about the skill, but he was happy for the extra stat points. He could assume from this that maxing out his other skills would get him a similar amount of points, which meant being a completionist gave tangible benefits. Getting an entire level's worth of points off of the skill was great, so he attempted to send the points to [Resilience].

Lvl. 4

Stats

Confirm

Might: 15

N/A

Finesse: 15

N/A

Resilience: 20

N/A

Acuity: 12 [15]

N/A

Resolve: 14 [16]

N/A

Depth: 10

N/A

Apparently he wasn’t allowed to assign the stat points, but he still had to confirm the change for some reason, most likely his own safety.

It would suck if I had a stat increase in the middle of running for my life, he mused. He still hissed after hitting confirm, though, no meditation prepared him for the sudden jolt of increased consciousness.

Salim wasn’t sure he would ever get fully used to the stat increases, especially since he was bound to go through the initial process all over again. While his body seemed to get used to subsequent changes, the initial ones were extremely jarring. His mind on the other hand seemed to struggle each time he upgraded the mental stats, it felt like his thought processes were warped to be faster and more efficient. It wasn’t a bad thing per se, but it made him feel like he was dissociating in the strangest way possible.

Whatever, the stats change me if it lets me survive the next night in this hell. Salim wasn’t sure whether he meant it or was just trying to calm himself.

The rest of the journey was thankfully uneventful, but unfortunately he had misjudged the distance, with the forest being farther away than Salim had initially expected. He was relieved to find a tree to sleep under right before nightfall since it was becoming harder for him to fall asleep with the looming threat of the moon, but with the added cover from the moon he made it work. While suffering from slight insomnia wasn’t too bad, most nights he was able to work himself to exhaustion, allowing him to fall asleep without realizing it. However, some nights he found himself staring out at the plains, feeling restless and more than a little helpless.

Avoiding moonlight was harder than he expected, though, and sometimes he could feel the energy flowing into him as a beam glanced off his body, as he twisted in his sleep. Thankfully, nothing seemed to come from the accidental brushes with the moon, but something seemed to be up with the energy itself. He hadn’t noticed it at first since he had no experience to speak of, but the oddities reared their head when he tried to collect some of the glowing sap from a tree he had rested under.

The sap had flowed into his mouth, sitting there for a moment before slowly dissipating as it collided with the quicksilver in his core. Even when all the moonlight was mostly depleted, the sap would simply leak out even as Salim tried to grab a hold of it. There could have been an infinite number of reasons why it was occurring, but without a lot of experiments he didn’t have a clue, so he hypothesized that the two energies did not mix and left it at that.

Sucking on the grass and attempting to photosynthesize also provided no results. Both seemed to produce different colored energy, but no luck was had in collecting them, neither even reaching his core. He eventually concluded that they couldn’t be directly absorbed, which was most likely the case for the sunlight, but didn't discount that the moonlight could have changed something in his body.

Salim wasn’t leaning either way, although it was obvious moonlight had done something, even if it didn’t have to do with collecting the different energies. What he knew, though, was that the changes couldn't be ignored, his core was ached, even when seemingly empty of the moonlight, burning like it still had the silver substance running through it. His thoughts dwelled on the mysterious issues he was having as he continued his walk.

Eventually, the crops of trees became more prevalent, increasing in frequency as he got closer to the forest. The trees had a thicker canopy than the skimpy grassland flora and afforded Salim more room to hide at night, which would hopefully help his insomnia. The idea of the moon seeing him while he was sleeping horrified him and was one of the main factor for why he was struggling to fall asleep.

Reaching the edge of the forest was an even bigger relief, it was filled with audible life, birds chirping, bugs humming, and the leaves rustling in the wind. It was comforting when compared to the silence in the grasslands that was only broken by the wind blowing across the tall bushes. As Salim contemplated his unease in the grassland, he was startled by a box.

You have made a long journey to get to a forest while experimenting with the arcane.

Combination Event has been Logged.

You have gained a Level!

You have gained a Level!

You have gained a Level!

You have gained a Skill!

“AHKK-!” Salim cried out as a wave of memories hit him like a freight train. Tears started to flow down his cheeks as he was thrown back to memories of his childhood, college, work, bits and pieces of his entire life and the emotions he had felt in every moment hit him all at once.

What is going on?

Frantically trying to find an answer through the mental clamor, Salim pushed open his skill window, as he could only conclude the sensation was related to the new skill.

Skills

Energy Manipulation (Class)

Lvl. Max

Allows a finer touch with contained energy.

Energy Sight (Class)

Lvl. 4

Lets you see the unseen world.

Energy Toleration (Class)

Lvl. 7

Tolerate the stress of the unseen world.

Channelers Mind (Class)

Lvl. 1

Feel all knowledge related to channeling.

Panting as he looked at the window, Salim collected himself, breathing in a rhythmic pattern to calm himself, he started to feel more together, less strewn in the tide of emotions. Emotions had passed him like an ocean, and while the memories were still on the surface of his thoughts, they didn’t overwhelm him like they had in the beginning.

Trying to feel for the skill was difficult, similar to [Energy Toleration] it was more of a passive feature than an actual skill he could harness. The emotions he felt were echoes, going in and out of focus, difficult to hold onto. Trying to push the discordant emotions away, Salim pulled up his stat page to try and distracting himself with the pain from upgrading his stats.

Lvl. 7

Stats

Confirm

Might: 15

-/+

Finesse: 15

-/+

Resilience: 20 (25)

-/+

Acuity: 15 (20)

-/+

Resolve: 16 (20)

-/+

Depth:10 (11)

-/+

The relief after the initial headache and burn of pumping himself up was immense, although he didn’t cry out like he had when the skill was first given to him. Once he was done recovering, he noticed that the emotions were still there sitting in the corner of his mind, but could be regulated with improved ease as his new stats let him compartmentalize.

Being able to disconnect his mind from the skill's influence also had the side effect of letting him think about his current situation more logically. It immediately became apparent that he had been standing out in the open for an unknown amount of time as the sun slowly set, instilling the need to find shelter quickly.

Dashing into the woods, Salim looked for a canopy dense enough to completely obscure himself, the pale moon rising from the east.