Chương 28

The skill alerted me to stop immediately. There was no notification or anything like that, just a strong feeling that I should stop and not move forward. Listening to the feeling, I halted. The feeling went away, but as I continued thinking about wanting to attack the crab, a new feeling rose within me; that it was a bad idea to engage here. But… why…? There was no answer. I looked around, confused, as the feeling persisted. There was nothing else in the vicinity as far as I was concerned.

I looked back at the turtle-crab hybrid, still lounging around without a care in the world. Even its eyes were closed. It looked to me like a perfect moment to attack, but perhaps I was missing something. I backed away and moved a bit inland, choosing to wait and watch. A couple minutes passed before another of the crabby monsters rose from the water, shuffled slowly on its spindly legs, and settled down in the sun as well. It was warning me about others! I thought about the name of the skill: Tactical Insight.

Does it mean it was warning me that it was not tactically sound to attack that thing near the water, close to where others could rise from? Very useful! In hindsight, it was pretty idiotic of me at trying to attack a clearly water-based monster right at the edge of the river. Making the umpteenth mental note to begin making smarter decisions, I left the sunbathing crabs and went further upstream. Once I was out of sight of the crabs, I looked around carefully, and then undid concealed presence.

It was getting a bit frustrating having to wait for mana to regenerate, and I thought about raising both wisdom and intelligence to the 10 mark yet again. However, I once again held off. It could be downright debilitating reaching the threshold in a stat. The memory of agility raising to 10 was still fresh in my mind, and I couldn't risk it here. Still, I can raise them to 9…

Feeling a bit foolish for the second time in as many minutes, I opened up my Status and assigned 1 to Intelligence and 2 to Wisdom, bringing them both to 9 and leaving me with 4 free stat points remaining. I closed the Status window and felt a sudden electrical rush in my head, before a moment of enhanced mental clarity appeared, and left as soon as it came.

Feeling pleased at having increased my mana from 115 to 130, and my mana regen from 7 to 9 per minute, I went under concealed presence again and continued upstream. Soon, I came across another one of those crabs, and this time it was very slowly making its way towards the river from the tree line. The key thing was that it quite far away from the river, and moving very slowly. This looked like a much better moment to attack, and a second later, tactical insight offered its agreement.

I looked at it through Critical Sense, and surprisingly, the base of its legs, where the leg connected to its body, was highlighted, along with its eyes. I crept closer, picking up a pebble from the ground. Earlier, I had noticed that the second crabby turtle that had gotten out of the river took a long time to turn around, and I was planning on capitalizing on that vulnerability in turning speed. When I was in position right beside its left-hind leg, I threw the pebble in an arc towards the opposite side.

It landed and made a slight sound, enough for the crustacean to pause and start looking over to see what had made the noise. At that moment, I slashed the exact spot Critical Sense had highlighted with all my might, the dagger cutting deeply and almost going through the spindly leg. I jumped back as the monster buckled and let out a loud screech of pain. It tried to stabilize itself, but was having a hard time. I moved again, this time targeting the other leg on the side.

This time, probably due to the creature moving around, the strike wasn't as clean. Still, it was enough. With another loud screech of pain, the creature crashed to the ground on its side, its legs no longer intact enough to support its considerable bulk. One of the claws also crushed underneath its body, leaving it with just one claw and two legs waving about in the air with desperation. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I moved towards it face, intending to strike it in the eye and finish its misery. Our eyes met, and I saw the intensity of pain and rage in its eyes for a split second before tactical insight screamed at me to move. I instinctively used quick step to back away, and in the sharpened view associated with the skill, I could see a blob of green liquid that the crab had spit from its mouth moving towards the spot I had just vacated. Even to my enhanced perception, the blob looked fast.

The ground it touched immediately hissed and released a bit of smoke, indicating an acid of some sort. Quick Step ended and I had a newfound appreciation for my newest skill. I was learning it to be a skill that read my intent relating to a combat situation, and informed me of whether it was a smart idea or not. It did not give me any direct advice on how to best attack something, it just judged my impending actions and informed me whether they were a tactically sound decision or not. Very useful indeed.

The question now remained what I should do about the crab/turtle hybrid that was still laying on its side, screeching loudly, and waving its legs about in a desperate attempt to right itself. I knew it was a bad idea to go to its front and face its two working legs, a claw, and its spit. Attacking it from behind would be a futile exercise as well; my dagger wouldn't even leave a tiny scratch on its thick shell.

And I needed to do something quick, before more of its kind or something worse showed up to see what was making all the racket. An idea came to mind, and I felt a sort of reluctant agreement from tactical insight. Believing it to be enough, I reached close to its face again from behind, keeping out of reach of its claw and then quick stepped in a direction passing close to its face. Taking advantage of the enhanced perception of the skill, I stabbed the eye of the monster, or at least I tried to.

The creature had small, beady eyes and it was constantly moving about, making me miss the eye but striking a bit above it instead. Its' entire face must have had soft flesh, as my dagger slid in quite a bit before my momentum wrenched it free. Luckily, the dagger scrapped its eye a bit too while exiting. Quick Step ended, and I immediately dove to the right, having learned my lesson about its accurate and swift spit attack.

Marveling at how my enhanced body allowed me to dive, roll, and get back up on my feet in one smooth motion, I looked back at the now positively screaming beast. Its forehead was streaming bluish blood, covering its eyes and making it thrash much harder than before. Knowing that I was on a timer, I rushed back in and stabbed its face three more times in quick succession, being mindful of constantly moving about to avoid getting spit on.

The creature's movements slowed with each stab, before its large claw thudded down with finality at the last one. I was left breathing heavily, the rapid activations of Quick Step draining a significant amount of my tiny stamina pool. Yet another thing I need to address. A clacking sound reached me, and I turned around to stare in horror at six of the crabby beasts rising from the river and angrily clacking their claws at me.

I immediately turned around and sped away from the area, choosing to head a bit into the forest, but not too deep as to get lost. When I felt sufficiently safe, I slid down between some bushes after ensuring that these were the normal kind and not the ambush predators, and activated concealed presence, still breathing deeply. It felt like a good place to rest a bit before continuing on, and the system must have agreed as a system notification lit up. Ding! You have levelled up! Class stats distributed.

However, the notifications didn't end there. You have successfully reached level 10, and you are now eligible to advance to E Grade. Prepare yourself for the advancement. Giving me barely enough time to finish processing the notification, an ethereal feeling enveloped me. My very being felt as if it was being split apart, improved, and fitted back into me again. Every sense I had was going haywire, making me see, smell, hear, taste, and feel things I had no way of describing.

Something deep, deep within me expanded, before it all ended as suddenly as it had begun. I looked around, absolutely bewildered, before realizing I was in the exact same place I had been before – nestled within some random bushes. My heart was hammering and I was sweating all over as I was still having difficulty processing what had happened. The system, in its usual indifferent manner, didn't care about any of that. Instead, a new screen came up in front of me. Congratulations on reaching E Grade.

You have now unlocked Abilities. A User may only have one Ability in their entire lifetime and it cannot be changed through any means. An Ability is granted by the System to the User according to their achievements, mannerisms, and decisions in F Grade. The Ability shall grow alongside the User as the User naturally advances. Please wait while an Ability is generated for you.