Kaelrin walked around for who knows how long, desperately searching for her sword, but all the while she had a thought gnawing at her mind like a parasite.
'What am I going to do once I find it?'
The thought plagued her and no matter how much she thought, she wasn't able to find any solution. In order to stop herself from going crazy from the question, she decided that she would cross that bridge when she got to it.
After she reached the place where she found the now deceased, she looked around for her sword.
At first, she had gone to just grab a weapon from one of the dead bodies, but the system refused to allow such a thing. Every time she touched one of the weapons, it felt like she was holding the sun in her hand and immediately had to drop the weapon from the pain.
When she finally reached her sword, she went to pick it up and found that she could lift it a little better than when she first got it.
That really confused her. 'How could I possibly be able to pick it up better now than before?' She searched her status window, looking for anything else that might've allowed her to raise the weapon.
At first, she thought it was her skill, Amplification, but that didn't make sense. The description said that the boost was only temporary, which means she has to activate it.
After a while, she had found what she was looking for.
[Weapon Mastery: 1/100]
This was the only other thing that was different from her status window. It seemed as though having a better mastery at the weapon made it easier to carry.
Though that made no sense at all, Kaelrin decided to run with it. This world seemed to be outside the constraints of human limits, so she decided not to worry about it.
With the help of her mastery, she was able to barely carry the sword enough for it to drag across the floor. Occasionally, she would attempt to swing the sword to work on mastery, but she never succeeded.
After a while of repeating walking, taking breaks, and trying to swing her sword, Kaelrin ran into a small plant. The flower was about chest height and had beautiful purple petals. She would have gone to admire it, maybe give it a sniff to see what it smelt like if she hadn't noticed the teeth lined in rows all around the petals, snapping furiously at her.
Kaelrin immediately took a few steps back as she trembled, her legs shaking vigorously. When she noticed that the plant wasn't following her, she stopped for a moment. She didn't know whether or not it was a trap, or if it was stuck somehow.
'Well, it's a plant Kaelrin. Of course it can't follow you outside of its reach,' she thought, chastising herself for being so idiotic. She thought that now would be a good time to attempt to defeat it, especially since she could run away without worries, if necessary.
"Amplification," she said while running as fast as she could towards the plant. She felt a surge in strength and saw her muscles bulge ever so slightly.
[Your Strength has been temporary boosted by 10%]
[Time remaining: 30 seconds]
She ignored the messages and lifted her greatsword as high as she could before swinging it downward on the plant, accidentally auto triggering her other skill, Downslash.
[Downslash activated]
[Damage dealt is 1.2x stronger]
[Multiplier dependent on intelligence stat and weapon mastery]
Kaelrin slammed her weapon down as hard as she could and blood squirted out of the plant, green and thick. The plant-monster let out a painful cry and snapped towards Kaelrin once more.
Kaelrin quickly dodged the incoming attack and noticed that there was only a small gash in the plant's head, only about a finger's width.
'Fine.' Kaelrin thought. 'If I can't kill it in one hit, I'll just keep attacking it until it's finally dead.'
She went forward for another attack, activating Downslash again, but that swing didn't kill the plant-beast either. She had missed the spot she was aiming for, the first slash mark, and created another one to the right of it. If she wanted to kill this thing, she needed to cut deeper into the pretty flower.
She tried a few more times to cut down into the plant, but every time she missed the mark. She quickly turned into a panic as she saw that her amplification skill only had a few seconds left and started jittering again.
'Oh no. I overestimated myself again and thought I could take this creature on. What if I can't kill it? What if I run out of energy and can't get away once the amplification skill runs off?'
"No. Calm down Kaelrin," she said to herself. "You can do this. Just focus and watch where you want the sword to go."
She took a deep breath and steeled herself. Then, she snapped her eyes open and yelled her best war cry as she swung down her blade with all her might.
This time, she knew that the sword went where she wanted it to go. It cleanly passed through the plant-beast like butter, and the flower was completely cut in half down to its roots. She immediately relaxed and fell to the floor, laying there for a moment and looking at the sheer numbers of panels that appeared before her.
[Amplification skill ended. Cooldown: 30 minutes]
[You'll be able to use your skill for longer the higher your intelligence stat]
[You defeated a (Lowest) Purple Snapper. You've gained 0.2 strength]
[You've defeated your first monster. You've obtained the skill: Identify]
[Identify: You are able to identify and living or non-living object depending on your intelligence stat.]
[You've begun to understand how to wield your weapon. You've gained 1 point Weapon Mastery]
Kaelrin smiled. A bright smile she had for the first time since waking up in the tower. She had grown. Her hard work, and maybe a little luck, had paid off and she got stronger cause of it.
However, noticing how much her skills needed intelligence, she needed to find out how to increase that best as possible in order to be able to fight stronger monsters.
Seeing how that was the lowest tier monster, she still had a long way to go before she could easily survive on this level. She decided to worry about all that later as she slowly closed her eyes and let herself drift off to sleep.