[Anomaly]

Waking up yet again, he slowly eased himself out of bed, squinting, for a few moments he felt like he was back home, outside of the game, seeing the mess of parts and prototypes in his room made him really feel at home, before the feeling of archs of lightning running through his veins caught up with him, the euphoric sense that mana had on his body driving him back into that same daily panic as he usually experienced, this time managing to contain it to just a shocked jolt forward, heavily breathing but far better than he usually was in the morning, he unhooked his robe off the door frame. Grabbing his now slightly shorter staff and getting ready to go out on another resource gathering expedition again… seeing as he’d likely gathered most of the resources he’d needed, he wanted to see if he could manage to gather a specific extra group of resources that’d really amplify the total power of his current planned items. Even if it would take a while to find a tailor who’d be willing to create his robes, he didn’t mind too much, after all, once this gear was finished, he was going to be even further along the progress curve when it came to his own personal power. Admittedly, with his current build, it wasn’t exactly going to be all that necessary to get powerful gear. If he wanted to farm boss loot, he could conscript fellow adventurers. And anything less than that he could likely find and fight on his own. Despite the considerable resource investment it’d take for some of the more powerful creatures.



Making sure to slide all of his prototypes into his inventory, he leaves his accommodations, marching on towards the forest yet again. The now decently well trodden path didn’t seem to regrow grass, as the earth was forcefully compacted to make it easier to walk. The path each day. The mine he was working on previously had been dug out a decent bit further. Going down far enough for the light to struggle to reach it at this point. Though it didn’t look good by any means, bare rock crudely ripped out of the ground with piles of chunked stone on the ground above wasn’t much of a nice sight, but it did have a possible future use, paving the path with something a little more comfortable than compacted dirt. But considering it was all rarity 0, the only other possible use would be to carve it into statues to sell for a slight profit, which, considering how you could easily acquire better resources that sold for a higher price? Wasn’t too much of an upside.



Though, the mine wasn’t his main goal today. Admittedly, a bit of mining was good exercise, and he wouldn’t mind continuing further along the mine just to get a little more exercise in. but he knew he’d get enough exercise with his main goal, that being, essences. Finding and slaying spirits for the essences they dropped was going to be a relatively difficult task, especially considering the fact that elementals didn’t leave any tracks, nor did they give any real tells to their presence or actions. Despite that, Wispy essence was far too useful for him to avoid the task. It was going to take a while to gather, being a R4 resource he was already preparing for a long day of searching, having mentally scheduled breaks to do other activities, though its not exactly as though said “other activities” were very fun either. After all, he had to find a divine creature in order to hopefully kill it for the Divine Essence it would drop. Killing a divine creature was already hard enough, but the drop chance for Divine Essence was apparently very low, too.



Not wanting to delay an excessive amount, he first laid out some of the scrap T0 rocks around the clearing to help avoid the fire he was going to be setting up from spreading, having already planned for multiple consecutive days of farming, he was entirely ready to camp out in the woods for the sake of not losing any efficiency when it came to resource gathering, even if there was always a risk of being attacked in his sleep. Resource gathering was just as important in his mind as survival was. Most of the information in his mind he had to lose wouldn’t be much of a loss to lose, especially since he’d planned on writing down the basic theory for many of the types of things he’d learned to make in the real world in books, as to preserve the knowledge for future generations. Assuming that they weren’t somehow rescued from the game before that became an issue that they’d have to plan ahead for.



Once the preparations were done, he headed out into the woods off the path he’d made through his consecutive visits, each footstep was relatively light despite his low agility thanks to his small frame and lack of heavy equipment, allowing him to relatively stealthily avoid many of the monsters that were in the woods. Giving a wide birth to anything that didn’t so much as resemble a spirit, fey or any of that line of creature. After all what use was fighting if there wasn’t going to be anything worthwhile in it for you? Especially when in all likelihood he was going to be spending days in the woods looking for his main goal anyway…



With the sheer length of time he’d be forced to stay in the woods for farming for a resource he barely needed anymore finally setting in, he sank back into his thoughts yet again…



“Why am i even grinding for resources like this?... i mean, theres always the constant fear of death erasing memories that we cherish for most of the adventurers, but i didnt exactly have a life that was all that exiting or memorable… i suppose, bringing technological advancement to this world could be one valid reason, but its not as though i actually care about that too much, at least, in the sense that i'm only doing it to make my life easier. Not to actually improve things for others out of a moral obligation…”



As he continues thinking, a faint hint of nature mana in the air gives him another thought. That perhaps he could trace the creatures he wanted to find and harvest via their mana? After all his race was naturally more attuned to mana itself than the others from what he knew of, and even if he would receive more physical injuries from the fights, its not as though he was at too much risk of death. Being specifically built to avoid having to fight properly had perks like that, being able to interrupt attacks with stuns made fighting far easier than it’d be otherwise.



Following this idea, he begins trying to trace the mana sources. All the while letting himself drift further into his thoughts, his mind racing at a thousand miles a minute…



“Though I guess the feeling of superiority that comes from having such high quality gear is one of the many reasons I may want to grind for it. Even if it attracts the wrong kind of attention from some of the less savory individuals, I could make use of myself and assist some of the others on the more dangerous aspects that this world has. After all, I doubt everyone is in the same position i am, where losing some memories isn't exactly that big of an issue for them…”


Word count: 1270

[Anomaly]

With natural mana being abundant, it was hard to track creatures through just the alternating levels alone. After all its not exactly as though there was a gauge for it in his menu’s, more like a vague feeling, like a scent that was actively fading away, or a touch that you can remember the feeling of. Sort of dulled, like it was behind a smokey glass window, definitely there, but hard to distinguish.



Despite that, he pushed onward. Not one to let difficulty dissuade him he continued the ever-lengthening march onward towards acquiring ever-greater loot. Though since he wasn’t hunting for unique drops, he had no idea if what he was doing was going to be fruitful at all, he considered recent events and assumed his luck was on the correct path….



Finally, he realises something, something that should’ve been utterly obvious to him since the start… drear bucks, and by extension. drear does were spirits, or at least, had the spirit tag. He’d been avoiding them because of his lack of a need for more of their hide without realising they may be the solution to his current problem… which was another reason he missed the real world. If he was with a team of people, specifically, like his co-workers, he wouldn’t have the issue of getting overly focussed on the wrong thing so often, after all if he had someone to help direct him once he got too focussed on one aspect of a project, he’d already have started hunting them by now, and not delaying by beating himself up over something he’d struggled to control.



For a long few minutes he sits there, reprimanding himself for his stupidity, before getting up and dusting off his cloak, finally ready to move on he marches forward. Stretching as he prepares to fight like his new, shiny gear depends on it, because in all truth, he wasn’t going to stop until he had what he wanted. Which meant his gear was less and less likely to get made if he delayed it any further…



Unlike last time, he decided to play it smart. He readied up his buffs as he came up behind the drear does, this small group wreathed in flames... likely an elemental variant of the usual drear doe. Targeting smaller groups than he did his first time, after all its not as though constantly fighting large hoards was good for him, although he was capable of doing it, getting outsmarted by beasts wasn’t ever a good feeling, and considering how fast they learned, he didn’t want to push it. Especially if there was a risk to his life, travelling this far back out would always be more inconvenient, so.



With a few seconds left, he rushed in, hitting the first drear doe with basic attacks until it started planting itself firmly in the ground, as its eyes started to lock onto his, he cast his first lightning spell of the fight, without missing a beat the stun stopped the bucks in their tracks, and thanks to their weakness, he continued attacking the first. Finishing it off with basic attacks. The reset cooldown didn’t mean much as the second came charging, though as there were only two this time, a sidestep was all he needed, placing his staff in the way of its legs as a charged attack made it stumble and fall, getting thrown by its own momentum into a tree, the thought occurred to him last time he was fighting the bucks, that in smaller scale fights like this, he may be able to take advantage of the fact that this world was more real than before by tripping his enemies rather than fighting fair, and of course, it seemed to work out for him, albeit with some major wrist pain from the bucks writing managing to throw his staff at an odd angle, causing his wrist to make a loud clicking noise that sounded far too violent to be healthy. Utilising the delay he’d immediately began a basic attack chain, finishing the second off in quick succession, only getting hit by one or two attacks as the buck wildly flails down on the ground beneath him…



With the first two dealt with, he moves on. Giving himself ample time for his mana to regenerate, and his skill cooldowns to finally count down to 0, he altered his fighting tactics this time, keeping to the same basic strategy, he tried to test just how well utilizing the environment to his benefit could work. Finding a decently cluster of three drear bucks, he rushed in with little hesitation, the second buck immediately hit him in the rib, but none of them used their gaze attack yet, which was an annoying sign. Continuing with his basic attacks he slowly backed off towards a tree.. Once there was no safe line for a charge ,one of them planted itself firmly in the ground, it began the process of using its gaze only to once again be interrupted by the sting of arching lightning, having taken enough basic attacks before that for the lightning coil to be the finishing blow.



Figuring he’d test it again, he continued with utilizing basic attacks, letting them get their hits in which dropped his health extremely quickly as he’d expected from his race, he broke line of sight partially again, once the path was obstructed, the two of them began the process of using their fear attack. It was their best move, yes. But it was slow, Jotting this down in his mind he looses another arch of lightning, the cooldown having been reset to zero by a pre-emptively cast Elemental Arithmetics.



Rushing back in to finish off a second, he mentally noted to start writing down a strategy guide to fighting the fauna of this world, a comprehensive guide to dealing with the threats this world had to offer was no doubt going to be quite the boon for the rest of the adventurers, there was no doubt in his mind he could make money off of it if he got a scribe to be the one to write and publish the resulting works…



The distraction of course managed to get him hit by the charge of the last drear doe, partially implaed on its horn he has his back slammed into a tree, getting pushed down below half his HP he frantically attacks, trying to get some distance again. Damaging himself in the process of making space between them brought him to about 48%, while not quite desperate, this was worse than when he’d fought the larger drear doe group. Mentally reprimanding himself again, he checked his cooldowns. Swearing once he realised he didn’t have an interrupt left, he backed off, not breaking the line for a direct charge, he waited. Once it leveled its antlers and began running he stepped to the side, taking advantage of the creatures momentum by tripping it and getting a good hit in on the back of its skull with the rear of his staff. Following it and repeatedly slamming it with his basic attacks as it got up off the ground. It began its fear gaze as soon as it got up, only to succumb to its injuries as it gets the attack off, causing anomaly to experience a few seconds of the stupid fear paralysis effect right as he began to relax…



The irritation getting to him, he picks up the drops from fighting the drear doe, before heading back to the small mine he’d dug out in the forest to set up camp and recover, alongside reviewing the loot he’d gathered so far.


Word count: 1260
total: 2530