酷视

Chapter 4: Pressing the advantage

At the cost of reliving some of my most painful memories two more times, I managed to gain two more points. This time, however, I decided against dumping them into my endurance.

Turns out, it was the right choice.

Traveling to the areas where this strange effect was stronger took me well over two hours. It appeared close when I first noticed it... but on this strange plain, my vision was playing some weird tricks on me.

In the end, though, a depressing memory later, I was two points richer...

And now what?

\'I can\'t sense any thicker spots,\' I thought, looking around the plain as if my eyes could somehow help my guts.

And as if the heavens answered my call, I noticed it.

A spot where the light of some distant star fell in one, narrow column, giving rise to lush vegetation in the perfect, car-sized circle on the ground.

It was a mind-boggling distance away, making me wonder whether I could actually see something that far, thus putting the validity of this observation into question.

Regardless, even from what felt like several tens of miles, I could tell that even approaching that spot was a bad idea. If the power of the effect even in this thicker part of the plain could be compared to a mild rain, then that column of shiny, silver light?

That, over there, had the strength of a damn lightning!

"I guess I\'ve explored enough for today," I muttered under my nose as I gave up on the reckless idea of even trying to approach that spot. Knowing what I already learned, just getting there could take me several weeks.

And I was pretty sure that touching that light would simply fry my brain in hell I couldn\'t even imagine.

Jogging back to the line of the trees, I could feel the changes to my physique. Normally, I would have a hard time strolling a single mile at a hurried pace. But now?

Now, I ran like some sort of a comic character, through the depression-inducing air of the starlight plains. Quite noticeably, the closer I got to the trees, the easier it was to shelve my grief away and focus on the bright side of things.

I would struggle to run a mile, usually. But now, I was sprinting freely for what seemed like five times the distance.

My agility didn\'t change, making my sprint quite slow... But I wasn\'t tired at all, as if this kind of exercise was a daily thing for me!

"Now that I know how insane those points are... where do I put them?"

My gamer soul screamed at the very idea of dumping even more of this precious, quantified growth, into something as passive as endurance.

Sure, there were fun parts to playing a tank or utility character...

"This is all a gift, so I should enjoy it, shouldn\'t I?" I asked out loud, given how there was absolutely no one around. The short grass of the starlight plains ensured a perfect view of my surroundings, allowing me to shed away the worry about a potential attack.

This was a different world, after all. It would be unwise to apply the same, carefree mindset I had regarding wildlife and natural dangers that I brought from earth.

Who knew, maybe this planet has yet to fully fall under human control?

\'Or maybe there are no humans here to begin with?\' I continued to ponder while keeping up my hurried speed as I ran across the plain.

Soon enough, I reached the warm embrace of the trees\' shadows. This lack of light-shielded me from the influence of the plains\' effect, freeing my mind to make the final call.

"Now then," I slowed down and stopped before leaning forward and resting my hands on my knees to catch my breath.

At this point, I wasn\'t even surprised by how it took me much longer to return from where I went than it took me to get there. I saw enough wonders to accept how my common sense no longer applied. But there was one thing that I was familiar with... and pretty excited to mess out with a bit.

"Where should I add some points?"

In theory, I should recall what I\'ve learned during the math lesson and just calculate the hell out of it to find the most efficient leveling strategy...

But I couldn\'t do so with no information on how exactly those stats worked.

Raising my endurance by more than twice its initial level brought much more than just doubling my sustainability. And since I couldn\'t exactly measure the realistic change to my endurance, I was left guessing.

That\'s why, once again because I was supposed to just have fun, I simply followed the old and trusted belief of investing not in what I lacked, but in the areas I already had an advantage of.

Sure, it could be fun to be a jack of all trades... But in the real world, it simply pays better to be a master of one.

"Let\'s go with this, then," I chimed happily, willing for both my intelligence and my ability to grow by one point.

No matter the world, there was a limit to how much I could achieve with just strength. Quite frankly, my life so far hasn\'t given me any real experience on how to exploit the advantages of great power or speed. On the other hand, my wit was the one thing that held my dear aunt back from claiming all I could offer much sooner.

[Usable points: 2] > [Usable points: 0]

[Wisdom: 1] > [Wisdom: 2]

[Inteligence: 1.25] > [Inteligence: 2.25]

I took a deep breath... Only to fail to notice any change.

My senses didn\'t sharpen. My thoughts failed to accelerate. No unknown knowledge suddenly emerged in my mind, filling it with an understanding of the laws of gods and men of this world.

"Haaa..."

A long, disappointed sight later, I turned around and walked back, deeper into the trees. Once hidden from the plains, I swiped my hand, as if to reveal the gate between the two trees I was just staring at.

"I guess that\'s enough for the day."

There was no point overdoing things. As much as I hated to admit it, reliving all those painful memories wasn\'t all that easy. And while raising my endurance helped me to stave the mental pressure off... It still wore me down.

There was no sign that my ability to open the gate would go away any time soon. And so, rather than hurrying up too much and fucking up, I decided to take things easy and approach this gift with the care it deserved.

"Let\'s go home," I muttered, stepping towards the gate...

Only to slam face-first into an invisible wall that barred me entry.

[Time left until gate unlocks: 41 hours: 33 minutes]

I blinked my eyes a few times, struggling to come up with something to say.

Sadly, the timer that appeared on the invisible wall showed no intent of vanishing in a puff of smoke forming letters "prankd".

When the number of minutes decreased to just thirty-two, I realized that this barrier was real. So, I took a deep breath to calm myself down and looked deeper into the forest.

For now, I only considered it a safe zone that kept the effect of the plains away. But this place... It was an area all on its own, with all sorts of possible quirks, dangers, and opportunities.

My eyes moved up to the ever-present, semi-transparent window of my system.

Both my low physical and high mental stats came into my view. But most importantly... Even with my stats rising by entire four points, my level remained the same. And if this world was anything like the thousands of worlds I scoured in the worlds of games...

My hand instinctively moved towards a long, kitchen knife that I took with me for the sole sake of self-defense. In the run-down shack I had for an apartment, there was hardly anything handier to carry.

"I guess I will have to stay in this world a little bit longer..."