Chapter 1: 1. Merlin
"Ignis!"
A shout resounded in the outskirts of the forest. Quickly followed by a high-pitched squeal.
A young man, not a day over 18 years old, stood among the trees across from a large boar. The boar was thrashing and squealing on the ground as its body burned. The boy would normally be considered good looking with his bright blue eyes, curly brown hair and sharp features. But his sweat-matted hair and blood dripping from a laceration on his forehead head, kept any observer from thinking that.
The boy stood at 6 feet even and was dressed in standard hunting clothes with leather covering his chest as well as certain parts of his limbs. His left arm hung limp at his side clearly broken. His eyes blazed with triumph as he stared at the dying foe, that had dared to sneak attack him.
Nameless - Meritless
Earth Boar- Level 5
Rank 1 Earth Core
Health- 0/98
Mana- 9/11
Soul Power-None
Strength-15
Agility-12
Endurance-20
Constitution-14
Intelligence-4
Dexterity-7
A transparent message only visible to the boy appeared as soon as the last of the boar's life force faded. Which was quickly followed by another.
*Level 5 Earth Boar was killed by you. 5 experience gained.*
*You have leveled up to level 10. You may now allocate your points. Note, if you do not have enough energy while allocating the points, death may occur.*
A smile crept on to the boys face and laughter filled the now quiet forest. As he let his laughter slowly fade, he waved his hand and repeated his earlier spell. "Ignis." After which, the fire on the now dead Earth Boar, was quickly extinguished.
The boy quickly approached the corpse and placing his right hand on its head and said another spell while his eyes were closed.
"Quaer."
As a his hand felt some heat, another smile crept onto his face and he quickly cast another spell.
"Accipere."
After waiting a moment, the boy took his hand off of the boar's head. In his hand was a apple-sized brown sphere. Lifting it up a little to better see it, the boy nodded and said,"Rank 1 earth core, to be expected. But I'm really lucky for its core to have remained intact at its level."
"Either way, it'll help pay the bills." The boy said, as he turned and headed over to where he had dropped his bag. As he walked towards his bag, the adrenaline started to fade and reality started to set in. Looking at the sky he realized he had a maximum of 2 hours before the sun set. Not leaving nearly enough time to reach the Kingdom of Fryer.
Plus, his condition wasn't too great. He was low on Health and mana, plus he was injured. Looking at his broken arm he couldn't help but sigh. "I'll need at least a few days for that to heal or I'll need to see a healer when I get back."
"Man, what I wouldn't give to have my light core awaken so I could heal myself." He grumbled as he bent over and placed the core inside his bag with the other 2 he had collected on this trip. If anybody else could hear the teenage boy's thoughts they would have the urge to puke blood.
He had already awakened 4 cores without any help from a soul king. That was something only heard of in legends or the elite of the world, yet he wanted another?! Still, he couldn't help but wish he had a light core, to make injuries be less detrimental when he was hunting alone.
Standing up while slinging his bag over his right shoulder, he started to plan his next move. "Well first I need to get out of here and set up a camp for the night. Normally I would set up camp in a larger tree, but with my arm..."He thought as he looked at his limp arm. "Actually I probably should put it into a sling first." He quickly set his bag down again and retrieved an extra shirt from his bag.
Ripping it down the middle he made a makeshift sling, as fast as he could with one arm. Quickly grabbing his bag, he started to move towards the general direction of Fryer. "I definitely need to get away from this area I'm sure our battle attracted other beasts and Titans."
"Last time I came here I found a small cave just on the outskirts of the first on the way to Fryer. Hopefully it is still unoccupied. Because if it's not I'll be in trouble." He thought to himself.
"Well let's check on my stats real quick. I'll plan out my point distributions while walking there, it should take me about 30 minutes to get to the cave if I'm slow and careful." That being said, a screen, that was only visible to the boy, appeared in front of him.
Merlin- Meritless
Human- Level 10
Rank 1 Quartet Cores(Fire, Water, Earth, Dark)
Soul Formation Stage
Health- 2/170 (+1.5 per min)
Mana- 13/116 (+1.7 per min)
Soul Power-11/16 (+1.5 per min)
Strength-9
Agility-13
Endurance-20
Constitution-17
Intelligence-17
Dexterity-12
Merlin couldn't help but smile at the number 10 right beside his name. It was after all, the first bottleneck of an adventurer's journey. So, in his mind it was the first big achievement in his cultivation progress. But most importantly for the next 9 levels the amount of usable points he had would get after each level up would increase from 4 to 6. That being said he needed to start planning on how to spend his new 6 points.
"Well in this last fight I definitely realized that my agility was lacking. If I was a little more nimble, I probably could have prevented my arm from being broken. Also, I realized my health was too small. If my constitution was higher I probably could have avoided taking actual damage to my body."
**In the world of Avalon, magic was prevalent and help all living things to survive a flourish. In the case of the Health Merlin is referring to, it is a barrier naturally given from the world, that protects the body from taking damage. Once it hits zero, actually damage will be inflicted to the body.**
"The problem is, I only have 6 points to spend and the majority of them need to go into strength and dexterity to help my chances of learning some weapon mastery after I become an official Hunter. Man, this is frustrating. I want to improve my constitution and agility to help with my hunting, right now. But in the long run, I need to improve my dexterity to be able to properly learn how to use a weapon. And if I'm being frank, I've been neglecting my strength for a long time anyways."
"Well in the long run, I know what I need to do. Plus, it's not like putting my points into dexterity and strength will hurt my hunting abilities. Once I've recovered enough, I'll add half of my points to strength and the other half to dexterity."
Checking his status again, he had a handful of points more in his health and mana and his soul points had filled completely up again. Ducking under a lower hanging branch, Merlin continued on his path to the cave. Cautiously looking around his surroundings, while occasionally casting his area search spell under his breathe, his journey to the cave went undisturbed.
Looking at the small cave hidden in a small hill at the edge of the forest, Merlin couldn't help but frown. While the appearance and location of the cave appeared to be the same as he remembered, he could tell there were some almost unnoticeable tracks around the entrance. "It looks like I'll need to find out what is occupying the cave, and if I can kill it in my condition. Hopefully it is something low leveled."
With these thoughts in mind, Merlin made his way to the cave slowly. Leaving his bag hidden underneath some shrubbery about 10 feet from the cave entrance, Merlin cast his area search spell hoping his guess was incorrect.
"Regio!"
Almost immediately after, Merlin could feel a burning feeling in his chest, confirming the presence of a titan nearby. "Crap. The feeling was a little stronger than I was hoping for. It's a higher leveled Titan or at least an uncommon Titan."
**Based on the strength of the species the burning feeling would get stronger as the titans potential got higher. Their potential, starting from lowest go as follows. Common, Uncommon, Special, Rare, Legendary, and Mythic. Note that it's not an actual rank, rather a difference to better understand the difference between species, domination and growth rate.**
~sigh~
"Well I need to find a place to sleep and this is my best option. So I guess I'll give it a try. If it's higher than level 5 I'll just run away and figure something else out."
Touching his chest where his dad's amulet hung, Merlin enter the cave slowly casting a spell.
"Aspectu Tenebris!"
With the spell that used his dark core, he instantly was able to see in the dark. Not even 15 feet in the cave, Merlin found some good and bad news. First, it appeared the cave hadn't been occupied long, maybe even just today, with new marks here or there but no old ones. The bad news was he could see webs, large webs.
"Crap, I have the worst luck!" Merlin thought. "I hope it's just a lost spider drone and not the beginnings of a nest." With the new insight, Merlin continued to enter the cave that was much bigger than it looked on the outside.
As he approached what appeared to be the end of the cave, Merlin thought to himself, "If I remember correctly, this cave is in the shape of an "L". With a 30 foot part of the cave hidden to the left. If I'm right, I might be unlucky enough to have met a new Spider Queen. The drones normal aren't smart enough to hide and set up a base like this. It's just strange to find one on the outskirts of the forest."
Stopping himself at the edge of where the meter wide gape was, Merlin steeled himself and looked into the gap, hoping to see the Titan and determine if he could fight it. Which at this point if it was anything higher than level 3 and a Spider Queen he probably couldn't.
Ricarris - Survivor
Dark Spider Queen- Level 3
Rank 2 Dark Core
Health- 265/278
Mana- 56/56
Soul Power-None
Strength-13
Agility-25
Endurance-23
Constitution-37
Intelligence-16
Dexterity-12
Merlin quickly looked away from the opening and thought, "What the crap!!" Luckily, the spider wasn't looking in his direction, but rather it appeared to be focused on some unfortunate prey. The spider was at least 4 feet tall and was a deep black color with purple patterns all over its carapace. Its second section had a torso, arms, and head of a woman like all spider queens. After seeing its stats, Merlin doubted his ability to finish it off. While its stats were extreme lopsided toward health and running attributes, and probably the reason why it somehow got the title "survivor," it still had higher stats in nearly everything!
Quickly deciding, Merlin went to check if the Queen spider was still occupied, so he could safely retreat. Looking into the crevice, Merlin froze, the Spider wasn't there. Readying himself for battle, Merlin gave himself about 10 feet from the opening of the cave and checked his status.
Merlin- Meritless
Human- Level 10
Rank 1 Quartet Cores(Fire, Water, Earth, Dark)
Soul Formation Stage
Health- 50/170 (+1.5 per min)
Mana- 68/116 (+1.7 per min)
Soul Power-12/16 (+1.5 per min)
Strength-9
Agility-13
Endurance-20
Constitution-17
Intelligence-17
Dexterity-12
Quickly forming a plan, Merlin realized with the Spider Queen's ridiculous agility, endurance and constitution stats, his best bet was to hit it as soon as it entered the crevice with everything he had to do maximum damage, while at the same time preventing it from dodging. The only bummer part, was he needed to get rid of its health and get past its carapace to actually hurt it. And if he didn't manage to kill it right away, he was basically dead.
As he waited, he had a sudden inspiration that might give him a better chance. Steeling himself, Merlin prepared his spell, while unblinkingly staring at the crevice.
Not even a few seconds later, a women's voice sounded from out of the crevice. "Does some lowly human dare to interfere with this queen's business." The voice was strangely raspy, yet alluring at the same time.
Ignoring the voice all together, Merlin remained focused on the crevice. Like this, silence dominated the cave for another 10 seconds or so, until a women's head could be seen looking through the crevice.
The spider queens face immediately broke into a smile. "What do we have here? A little hurt man cub?" Her unnaturally black eyes stared into Merlin's. "Come over here and let me help you, small one."
As her words left her mouth a strange need to listen to them flowed through Merlin. Stepping towards the crevice Merlin lowered his right hand, appearing to relax. As Merlin started to take his second step towards the crevice, the Queen's smile enlarged even more.
Seeing as her trance had succeeded, she started to enter the crevice to acquire her new food. Then, all of the sudden, Merlin stopped and shouted out a spell.
"Intermissum Petram!"
With that, the rocks surrounding the Queen quickly broke, collapsing on top of her. Before the dust settled a high-pitched scream resounded throughout the cave. "You little brat when I get out of here, I'll chase you down, bring you back , and slowly remove all of your limbs!"
As the dust settled the Queen was shocked to see the man cub, standing 4 feet away, just out of her reach. A devilish smile arose on Merlin's face. "I know I stand no chance of running away. That's why I'm planning on killing you instead."
Ricarris didn't know whether to laugh out loud or by some miracle believe his words. "You? Kill me? That's laughable boy, if the great fox pack of the inner Dunmar forest failed to kill me while I was escaped with one of their pups as a snack, how could you possible kill me?" Finishing while laughing out loud, Ricarris looked directly into Merlin's eyes.
Shrugging his shoulders, Merlin replied, "We will see." Stretching out his right hand and painful turning his left hand so it was facing up, Merlin shouted two consecutive spells. "Ignis! Ignis!" Creating a small concentrated ball of flame on each hand.
Still laughing Ricarris taunted,"How are you supposed to kill me with those small flames? You won't even be able to leave a scratch on me."
Completely ignoring the Ricarris' words, Merlin cast another spell, while forcing the fire in his right hand onto the fire in his left.
"Simul Ignis!" Pulling his right hand away he held a blue flame in front of him. "You get to be the first to experience this spell of mine. If you survive, I'll mostly likely die. If you don't, well...thanks for the experience." Merlin said, with sweat pouring down his face, and a smile plastered on it.
Fear entered Ricarris' eyes as see felt danger from the strange blue flame. She frantically started to thrash trying to free more than just her exposed head and human arm. "Die!"
With that being said, the blue flame turned into a thin line of blue fire that shot right at Ricarris' forehead at point-blank range. Lifting her arm to protect her head while turning, she let out a a reach of pain as the flame hit her hand. And in less than two seconds a sizzling could be heard along with a notification.
*Level 3 Dark Spider Queen was killed by you. 3 experience gained.*
Falling to his knees, Merlin let out a sigh of relieve. Then a huge wave of fatigued set in as he slowly collapsed on the ground, the spell having drained all his mana. As his consciousness faded his only thought was how unfair the world was. "Really? The boar gave almost twice the experience."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone