Day 10:
Tonight, I had a nightmare, a shadow chasing me through a corridor.
Not any corridor, but a beige colored one, with flickering lights that I would recognize anywhere, it was a corridor of my very own home.
The door seemed so far, I ran and ran, a ragged breath after another leaving my body, yet the door was still beyond my reach, I could feel the presence behind me.
It caught up to me, stopping me in my track, as if the whole word fell on my shoulders.
I turned and faced the human-shaped shadow and as I felt fear and doom, I woke up covered in sweat, my eyelids divorcing their partner at lightning speed.
I woke up, sweating like I had gone through the most grueling workout.
Silence overwhelming my senses, sweet silence.
I took a few moments to collect my bearing, to simply swim in the silence.
Indeed, I have begun to check every case in a fantasy-system fueled story, I just need a rival.
Good old nightmares, good friends of mine, still I can't shake the feeling that something is wrong.
But what can I possibly do about it but train and prepare myself for any worst-case scenario.
So, I did.
Stronger, smarter, greater by the minute it was filling the void inside me.
Unfortunately, I was the only one enjoying this, my father finally began spiraling down taking with him my mother.
I expected this, this whole catastrophe scenario suits me, but not them.
I debated with my sister and grandmother on how to appease this growing hysteria that according to me was due to the lack of social interaction, respect and the prestige my father was used to being showered with as I was offsetting him at every opportunity I got.
My trusted "counselors" convinced me against a more brutal and simple approach, just beat a till it does a backflip approach, they opted for a more calm and rational approach: discussion with the said ill patients but only if I agreed to be present in case my father turned berserk.
I agreed hoping he would turn berserk, thrashing him around sounds so exhilarating, without regret as I would be protecting my dear granny and little sister, sadly she read my thoughts and forbade me from throwing comments in the discussion.
Discuss they did.
Come to an agreement they did not.
Still, as the day passed by, I trained, meditated and went around looking for more food.
And as the night overcame the light of the day, my anxiety spiked, the feeling of dread coming back.
That night I slept with daggers held in my hand, probably should have done this on the very first day, but it is so uncomfortable.
Thankfully nothing happened, but sleep did not find me, I stopped chasing it and wandered around the building, checked on the goblins and their Guardian Spirit, talked a bit with the spirit that was becoming clearer to me as the days passed, I began seeing the outline of a spectral form with my own eyes and not my "magical" sense.
We talked about the monster's system, they too could train, gain stat points and have one more option: evolution.
But the requirements were covered in question marks.
Then I asked the spirit about how her meditation was progressing, as it ended up working, she was still stuck at level 1 of meditation, but her stats grew far more than me at level 2 as she had nothing better to do than meditate or "educate" her children.
Then I went out of building B, to the portal, checking the shop, the dread that had subdued suddenly spiked, I felt someone watching me, how? I don't know.
I simply knew.
I simply knew.
Indeed, like the spirit, some things I simply knew without any prior knowledge.
Interesting.
Maybe it is related to Perception?
Still that feeling quickly dissipated but not before leaving a trail of anger.
It was probably one of our neighbors, maybe the wife of the man I had butchered.
Fuck it, I am too tired, if I die, I die, I will probably remain as a vengeful ghost, I won't forgive my hellish childhood.
I did not experience any more "disturbances" in the Force, hahaha.
Goodnight and sweet dreams.
Bob.
Day 11:
Light as a feather, that's how I woke up after a blissful night of sleep, with daggers in my hands but beggars can't be choosers.
Thank God, that permanent sense of doom and dread did not follow me today.
The day went by in a similar fashion to the previous ones with one small rip in it.
My father's hysteria has worsened.
The moral thing to do would be to stop my training, put my ego aside and try to help him mend his shattered mind.
Morals of our society is one possible view of the world; my beliefs are a completely different view on it.
I can't let his mind break for so little.
I will not put myself aside, my ego as they call it.
I may lack many skills of my contemporaries, many abilities, but throughout my miserable life where I lost many skills, I did acquire a very small set of skills.
I do not like using those skills.
They are not simple skills; they were a requirement in my life.
I may not name them, but their very idea makes me sick, fills me with so much anger that even the system can feel it.
Rage level up!
But for the noblest of causes, for the mightiest belief, for my own selfish desire I will use one: Diplomacy.
I will say what he wants to hear, what he needs to hear for his mind to heal, but no more than that.
The acclaimed time of his mind's shattering is not yet upon us, I do not yet yield the power to achieve it, to mark his mind beyond death and time.
Therefore, the only thing I can do is heal him and in doing so help him.
Yet, at the end of the day I am enjoying myself, his pain will not be short and with this sullied intent I find solace every day.
NEW SKILL: DIPLOMACY LEVEL 3
And so, my morning went by in an unprecedented way since the beginning of the Apocalypse, a merry mood in my family, one of simple joy, of innocence, of simple and disgusting foolishness.
It was hard maintaining the mask, uttering certain words felt worse than being stabbed by the goblins, but some acts, some words need to be heard and only I can do it, only I can do it.
Then I secluded myself in my room, I began meditating.
Again, those same enticing voices, angelic, devilish, chaotic, orderly, but one common thing, simply many.
Still, I delved amongst those voices in my mind akin to a fish swimming in the fish nor avoiding them nor nearing them simply going with the flow, and then I opened my eyes.
I glimpsed at our new reality.
I was staring at magic.
My eyes remained closed, I had opened a new sense and in doing so delved into what had become of our reality.
A reality of magic.
A reality that was different in its essence, and it was beautiful.
I was not looking at mana, at arcane energy or Qi arts.
No, I was met with Magic, what defied our previous reality laws.
I glimpsed.
I "saw" a great many things and a great nothing, colorful and not, vibrant and lifeless.
It brought me joy and wonder, as if I was a newborn discovering not the harshness of one's upbringing but the beauty of the natural and the human world.
All of this barely lasted less than a breath of my own.
Then, I was blind.
I was blinded not by light, but by a sea.
A sea of magic, magical it was, forms beyond any mortal, sights of worlds, elements, time, space, life in death and the death in life, of All that is, of happiness that is not...
Magnificence was in my mind.
I was not drowning but I could feel my mind scream, my body wailing as the tether that was connecting them began to strain.
And so, I opened my eyes, my pupils staring at a wall barely a meter in front of me, in my own dreaded room.
Only one thought overcame the constant rage and pain I felt.
Wonder like a little kid.
And greed like a senile old man.
I was in over my head in the Magic Department, but this was temporary.
Yesterday I did not even gaze upon magic.
Today, I nearly died in its immensity.
Maybe tomorrow I will delve into it.
And maybe one day I will master Magic.
And maybe one day, I will find my own salvation in magic.
Or I will die trying.
MANA SENSE LEVEL 1.
As euphoria filled my body, a smile blooming on my face as wide as it could as my eyes squinted.
And so, fate laughed at me, dread presented itself to me and delirium stood right behind my door, opened not by emissaries of death and chaos but by man, my progenitor.
"See, I told you I was right all along, look." As my father's words dared reach my ear, and as my brain began understanding this sonorous disturbance that was his words, as my eyes fell on him, I could feel hate, wrath brew inside myself, voices telling me to make him wail to see him suffer in the fire of man, my fire.
I smiled, not the previous genuine smile but one so devoid of any emotions that ice should have formed on it.
I had gazed upon the ineffable, upon a dimension beyond me but here I was stuck listening to this progenitor of mine.
Rage leveled up.
Diplomacy leveled up.
Cold-blooded leveled up.
I dismissed the notification, tricked myself into going with his current mood, I had already endured in the morning, I could probably endure it now, right?
As worlds of pain emerged around my father's image in my mind, he was still glowing in the actual material world by his radiant smile that had vanished ever since any sense of normality disappeared with the goblins.
Pain tolerance leveled up.
A few minutes passed, eons probably passed in my mind, I let a sigh, a sigh so deep I felt myself grow lighter, all the frustration in my body leaving my mind as I gaz…
Mana Sense Level 0.
Mana Sense Level 0!!!!!!!!!!
Rage leveled up.
Rage leveled up.
…
Blank.
My mind was blank.
I could not think for a whole minute, my mind simply unfocussed.
What?
No, why?!
Why did my mana sense go from level 1 to 0.
The only thing that happened between then and now was a few minutes of useless diplomacy.
It can't be simply because of a few minutes of not using the skill.
Right?
It can't be due to my father's disturbance.
Fuck it.
Fuck everything.
Everyone be damned.
If someone murders us in our sleep, so be it, worse scenarios ?
So be it.
I am sleeping and that is it.
Health 100/100
Mana Points 0/0
Strength 21,5
Intelligence 99
Endurance 23
Control 94
Speed 21,5
Perception 90
Dexterity 21,5
Mentality 107
Luck 5
Recovery 5
Stat Points 41
Coins 40
Meditation 4
Blade Mastery 1
Dagger Mastery 1
Cold-blooded 6
Combat Mastery 2
Staff Mastery 1
Blunt Mastery 1
Sneak 2
Bloodlust 3
Pain Tolerance 3
Physical Conditionning 2
Rage 5
Diplomacy 3