After deciding on my purchase I leave the Adventurers guild after equipping my new set of daggers. I head back to The Flying Dragon.
I eat and talk with Hogan while having a few drinks, I try to pump Hogan for as much information as I can about the wilderness within a days travel from the city. From what I gather from him it seems as though the area within a days travel of the city is pretty safe, there shouldn't be to many large monster packs and all the beasts I'll see should be in the unranked category.
Beast are ranked by the same tiers as adventurers. with unranked being the lowest and SS being the highest. What determines their rank is how much energy is in side of their beast cores. The higher the concentration of energy inside of a beast core determines how high they are ranked. This is because the higher concentration of energy means that the beast has that much energy at their disposal to use during combat. It also means that they have that much more energy to put into their attacks because beasts have passive and active skills as well. The higher tier of beasts can have multiple passive and active skills.
After learning all i can from Hogan I decide to return to my room to check my supplies and make sure I am ready to enter the wilderness the next day. Luckily the spacial satchel I looted has all the supplies I'd need for about a weeks worth of time in the wilderness. It has travel rations which consists of dried meat and fruits, it also includes a rice like substance. The satchel also has a Green tiered spatial tent which is actually larger on the inside than the outside, the enchantment on the tent besides its spatial enchant is called Increased durability. Increased durability makes it so the tent can take an attack from a D ranked beast before getting destroyed. The satchel also contains a sleeping bag made from monster fur as well as a pillow. Lastly there's a spatial canteen inside that holds about a barrel full of water.
After looking everything over I lay down to rest so that I can feel refreshed for my first Job as an adventurer.
After waking up in the morning I grab breakfast at the bar then head out into the city. I stop by the Adventurers guild to get the only piece of equipment I am missing, which is a compass and map of the surrounding area. After having grabbed them for only a few silver I head towards the northern gate that leads to the wilderness.
The Job posting said that if I head northeast from the northern gate of the city then I will find the Macktosh trees in about a half a days travel. As soon as I enter the wilderness I start getting an itching feeling in the back of my mind. This is my premeditation passive telling me that danger lurks nearby.
I begin my travels and see a few unranked beasts but they are all herbivores and run away from me as I approach. As I travel I try using some of my active skills to get accustomed to them. The first one I try is Shadow Meld. After activating it I turn into a shadow and jump into the nearest shadow which is that of a tree. Getting used to being in the shadow world takes a little time because everything becomes black and white and my perspective is changed, the larger the shadow I enter the larger my perception is, almost as if I'm seeing the perspective of the tree itself.
After jumping from shadow to shadow for awhile I see that my Energy bar has been noticeably depleted. I definitely cant stay in the shadow world indefinitely. I do feel a lot better about using it in combat though. I was able to get a feel for the slight time delay I experience when coming in and out of shadow meld, which I knew would become a big factor when using it in combat.
After regaining my energy that I lost fooling with shadow meld I begin to try out my telekinesis ability. I realize that its a lot easier to use than I thought it would be. I could easily control both of my daggers with the ability while moving my body. I thought it would be more of a problem keeping track of things than it actually was. I realized after I tried moving some stones as well as my daggers with the ability that my limit right now is moving two things with my mind while also using my body was my limit, if I tried moving three things while moving my body I wouldn't be able to keep track of my body at all, I actually ended up tripping when I first tried it and nearly fell on my face. Keeping track of both of my daggers while maneuvering my body was basically as easy a breathing though. It made my realize that I should've bought two more daggers at the Adventurers guild that way I could've used two daggers in my hands while controlling the other two daggers with my mind. I resolved to purchase more daggers when I returned to the city. The best part about Telekinesis was how cost effective it was. It only cost me one energy to keep something floating indefinitely. With that one energy I could move my daggers at the same pace I walked without putting any more energy into the ability. Now if I wanted to make the daggers sink into the trunk of one of the trees it cost me about Twenty energy to sink the dagger up to the hilt into the trunk of a tree.When i used one-hundred energy the dagger blasted a clear whole through the tree. It seemed to cap out at about one-hundred though because i didn't notice a difference in damage once i tried using more than that.Still after testing out telekinesis i realized that it would be my main attacking ability because i didn't need to learn any fancy martial arts to use my telekinesis to punch holes into things.
I decided to keep both daggers floating in the air around my myself as I used Solid Energy to create a shield to be held in my right hand. I felt this would be the best way to keep myself safe for the time being. I could use my premeditation to anticipate an attack, then rely on my agility to intercept an attack with my shield while i used my telekinesis to punch a hole through my attacker. After having this figured out I truly began searching for the Macktosh trees.
After about a half a day of heading north-east I hadn't encountered any aggressive beasts. I did finally begin to see my first Macktosh trees though, they were kind of hard to miss with how big and red they were. Unfortunately after finding about Twenty of these trees I only managed to harvest five fruits from them, it was clear that the beasts in the area have been picking them clean.
After finding my twenty-first tree and picking my sixth fruit my premeditation kicked in warning me of an attack coming at me from above. I quickly raise my shield to intercept the attack coming for my head from above and feel a weight being absorbed by my shield as my energy reserves are dropped by one-hundred. I lower my shield and catch a glimpse of my attacker. It is a white bird with a red belly about the size of a full grown chicken back on earth. Its beak was long and pointed though like a wood pecker and had a vicious looking green tip to its beak.
The bird circles around again to attack me but this time I'm more aware of it and use my mind to move my daggers into its path, attempting to use the birds own speed to impale itself. The bird just rolled around the daggers though and continued attacking my head. I raise my shield again and lose another one-hundred energy as I block its second attack. This time though the bird seems a little dizzy from running into my shield head on as its flight away from me seems a bit wobbly and not nearly as graceful as before. With my blood pumping and fueled by my survival instincts I consume one-hundred energy to shoot one of my floating daggers at the wobbling bird I miss the first time but consume more energy to shoot my second dagger at it as its coming back at me for another attack. The second dagger hits its right wing and takes the wing clean off. This causes its flight to turn into a fall as it descends on to my waiting shield which it runs into before hitting the ground. It manages to let out a shrill shriek before it succumbs to its wound and dies of blood loss and shock.
My adrenaline is still pumping and I cannot believe that I survived unscathed from my first beast attack. As I calm myself down I realize that if I didn't have premeditation as a passive then I probably would've been killed the first time the bird attacked me. The thought sent a chill down my spine and made me glad that I picked the Ashura race who have such a broken passive skill.
Looking at the bird made me realize I should read up on the creatures I could encounter out here in the wilderness. The more information I have about what I'll be facing the more prepared I'll be to survive out in these unforgiving lands.
Since I don't know how to extract its beast core I store the corpse of the bird into my spatial satchel and continue looking for fruits.
About an hour later I find a Macktosh tree that is full of fruits the only problem is that there are three of those bird beasts feasting on them. If I can kill the three birds I'd be able to harvest enough fruit to complete my job. This line of thought made me think of a skill combination that I'd never thought of.
I quickly use shadow meld to meld into the trees shadow as my daggers stay floating in the same spot. It works! I can use my telekinesis and shadow meld at the same time! It appears that it uses up more energy though. It's costing me about one energy every second for each of my daggers, so that's two energy every second to keep them floating while in shadow meld.
Realizing that time is not on my side, I spend two-hundred energy to send each of my daggers towards a different target. Both daggers find flesh and take out a bird beast. The last one flys away from the tree startled by the sudden act of violence. Its flying around the top of the tree making it hard to pin down with my daggers so I decide to pop out of shadow meld to give it a target to focus on, which would make it easier to hit. Sure enough as soon as I pop out the bird makes a bee line towards me and slams into my shield. After it flys off after looking a little dizzy I pierce it through its back with a dagger and pin it to the ground.
I'm surprised that worked so well. Shadow Meld and telekinesis is an absolute broken combination. I know if I had to fight all three of those beasts while they were actually targeting me I'd probably have died with the amount of skill I currently posses.
After putting the beasts inside my spatial satchel I begin to pick the remaining fruits I need for the job. I actually decide to pick the whole tree clean since I'm assuming I can find somewhere to sell the surplus fruits for a little bit of coin.