As Victoria woke the sunlight was peaking into the cave telling her it was already almost midday as she lazily stretched while she wondered why Mars hadn"t woken her earlier"is Mars still sleeping?"
finis.h.i.+ng her morning stretchers she looked around in the cave for Mars she cleaned her fur licking it with her cat-like tongue admiring the new orange red spider web pattern that had appeared on her smooth black fur for a few minutes
"is he not in the cave?"
having looked around the cave while doing her morning clean up she closed her eyes and focused her constantly moving mana into the 2 pale horns on the top of her head, and after a few seconds she knew where Mars was
"he is outside the cave? maybe he wants to play?"
as Victoria came to the conclusion that Mars had laid an ambush outside of the cave waiting for her, she stopped using mana to sense his position and swung her fluffy tail slightly from side to side
"then let"s play"
moving slowly and silently with her body close to the ground she approached the entrance to the cave and stopped just before she walked into the sunlight that was s.h.i.+ning into the cave while her ears was twitching slightly not missing the slightest sound
"Mars is not hiding besides the cave entrance"
not having heard the heartbeat she had become so familiar with over the last 3 days, she slipped into her own shadow before it swiftly moved up the side of the cave wall and onto the ceiling of the cave towards the entrance of the cave stopping just before it hit the light form the outside as Victoria peaked her head out form the shadow and looked outside scanning the numerous tree stubs outside the cave with sharp eyes that had a hit of childlike playfulness in them
"i don"t see him just outside either"
not having spotted Mars she jumped out from her shadow elegantly turning her body mid air before she landed both silently and elegantly on the ground
"maybe he is hiding behind the stumps?"
as Victoria stepped out of the cave she moved in between the stumps while fully alert with her surroundings as her ears twitched and she sniffed the air a few times before she caught the smell of the prey was hunting and moved towards the smell
"there he is"
she sppoted her prey lying a little away from the edge of the cleared area on his back with his towards her
"...that"s not a very good ambush"
feeling dispirited by Mars that seemed like he had fallen asleep outside after having done whatever Victoria was a little annoyed and almost gave up her hunt before she remembered
"wait Mars is smart... so maybe this is a plan to get me to let down my guard"
convincing herself that Mars had a master plan she could not even begin to imagine Victoria observed her prey for some time while swing her fluffy tail from side to side before she felt the time was right to move
"slowly..."
the closer she got to him the lower her body got to the ground until she stopped a few meters in front of his head and observed him
"...is he really sleeping?"
now less than 5 meter away could see his chest slowly raising and lowering at a steady rate while he was laying with his eyes closed slightly snoring
"..."
feeling like a idiot Victoria directed her rage at Mars while giving up her hunt and standing up she walked up to him and focused for a second on sending mana into her horns as she sent him a telepathic message
"Mars... wake up"
being able to hear her own message Victoria got in an even fouler mood because she was bad at using her horns for telepathic messages resulting at slightly broken speech with long pauses between words
*snore*
*snap*
hearing the response to her carefully crafted message was his snoring only getting louder Victoria"s eyes turned cold and she gave him a good whack on the side of his face with her paw
after being roughly woken up by Victoria a slightly confused Mars sat on a stump while he rubbed his sore cheek
"...i wonder what that was about"
tilting his head Mars though for a some time if he did something wrong and eventually decided to leave the sulking Victoria alone in the cave to cool down for some time
"...well the question now is what use theses puppies for"
looking at the 10 remaining stealth acid spider cores that glinted softly in the sunlight Mars thought for some time before deciding on a plan and ate 6 of the cores before commanding his skill
"level up my cla.s.s"
feeling the energy drain and the warm current spreading he adjusted his condition for a little while before eating the last 4 cores and opening his status
"status"
Name: Mars
Age: 0 (vessel 5220)
Race: Half-dragon human
t.i.tles: [Living G.o.d of energy] [Conquer of Salen] [Tyrant King] [5000 year prisoner] [Man that fell from the sky] [Contracted]
Cla.s.s: [Energy]
Cla.s.s level: 14
Status points:
Strength [23/1000] Const.i.tution [29/2000] (up) Dexterity [20/1500]
Intelligence [19/600] Wisdom [22/900] (up) Charisma [12/50] (up)
Active skills: [Dragon-flame magic lv 5] [Swordsmans.h.i.+p lv 4] [Shadow magic lv 2]
Cla.s.s skills: [Energy: absorption] [Energy storage: 800/1200] [Energy: discharge]
[Energy: upgrade shop] [Energy: information] [Energy: restoration] (new) [Energy: healing] (new) [Energy: absorb s.h.i.+eld] (new) [Energy: reactive s.h.i.+eld] (new)
Pa.s.sive skills: [Fire resist lv 15] [Commanding lv 3] [Mental reinforcement lv 5] [Pain resist lv 5]
[Bone crafting lv 1]
looking over his status Mars saw the 16 increased status points and the new skills he had unlocked with energy units
"...i think it would be best to test them all at least once each"
unable to suppress his thirst for information Mars decided to test his new skill, starting with [Energy: restoration] and [Energy: healing]
"well the first one should be straight forward"
picking up the bone ax that was standing outside the cave Mars walked over to a random rock and smashed it against the rock with all his strength
*BANG*
*BANG*
*BANG*
"...how st.u.r.dy is this bone even?"
looking at the smashed rock and the ax that had only been chipped slightly despite destroying a rock that was 3 times bigger than him in 3 hits with the side of the blade Mars was a little confused but decided to give up on hitting rocks and transformed his hand using his claws to destroy the blade of the ax instead
"...now how did this skill work again?"
scratching the side of his head for a second Mars used his [Energy: information] skill
[Energy: restoration]
use cost: 10-100
status: unlocked
function: restores and repairs targeted objects at a rate dependent on the amount of energy units used
"so i need to load the energy units flowing the pattern that appeared in my memory when i unlocked the skill?"
closing his eyes to focus Mars loaded 20 energy units into his new skill and activated it as he opened his eyes
"...this is nice"
watching the bone ax in his hands being covered in a soft light and quickly being restored Mars was quite satisfied with his new skill
"...i wonder what would happen if it got snapped in half and i used [Energy: restoration] on it?"
thinking for a while Mars decided to test it out and picked up one of the numerous failed bone swords and snapped it in half, putting down the half of the blade he had snapped of the sword Mars stabbed it in a stump and took some steps backward before he activated [Energy: restoration] with 20 energy units
"...well this is certainly something"
after the light had disappeared the failed bone sword was whole again and the the blade he had stabbed into the tree stump had appeared attached to the rest of the sword leaving a mark in the tree stump
"but it"s not perfect"
looking closely at the reattached part of the blade Mars could see it was only loosely attached and likely would not hold more than a few slashes in a fight
"well i did only use 20 energy units... maybe if i had used 100 energy unites it would have been perfect?"
not feeling like using 100 of his precious energy units on a test Mars moved on to the next skill and used his [Energy: information] skill to get its info
[Energy: healing]
use cost: 25-100
status: unlocked
function: heals user or target living organism by a rate dependent on the amount of energy units used
"...well seems like i am in for some pain if i have to test this on myself"
thinking on how to test a healing ability Mars got several ideas on how to catch some wildlife to test it on but desired against it as it should be evil to the animals and a pain for himself to catch them and unsheathed his bone sword and held the blade up against his lower left arm
"...for science"
gritting his teeth Mars strapped himself in the arm in the s.p.a.ce between his Radius and Ulna bone, the 2 bones in his lower left arm and pushed the sword upwards towards his left hand creating a long and nasty wound on himself before pulling out the blade and sitting down on the ground as blood poured out from his arm forming a red puddle on the ground
"**** this hurts... well not as much as i thought, my [Pain resist] skill must be taking the worst of it"
looking down on his left arm and hand that was covered in blood Mars grasped the wound with his right hand to slow down the blood loss and loaded his [Energy: healing] skill with 50 energy units and gave a little prayer as he activated the skill
"please work"
as the skill activated the wound on his lower left arm was covered in a thin membrane of clear liquid that stopped the bleeding immediately and slowly pulled the sides of the wound together closing the wound slowly while Mars watched the process closely while counting the seconds it took as his wound healed completely
"so less then a minute to heal a wound this size but..."
flexing his newly healed arm Mars still felt some pangs of pain
"it"s not healed completely, but i guess i can leave the rest to my self regeneration"
Mars stood up and mentally noted that the blood still on the ground and his sword had not disappeared and that his [Energy: healing] skill likely did not replace his lost blood
"well now to the 2 s.h.i.+eld skills... but i likely need help from someone to test them"
as Mars walked over to the cave he thought of ways to cheer up the sulking Victoria