Eli was confused about the 2 new items now in his inventory, but wanted to check on his stats and free points first. His current stats looked like this:
"Stats: Strength 4, Reaction 5, Vitality 6, Intellect 3, Wisdom 3, Resistance 5, Will 27"
He wanted to put more points into reaction and vitality but knew that he needed to stay somewhat balanced so he decided to put 1 point in wisdom to help with his magic control and one point into strength so he can keep winning by smashing things. So then his stats looked like this:
"Stats: Strength 5, Reaction 5, Vitality 6, Intellect 3, Wisdom 4, Resistance 5, Will 27"
Then he noticed that his Will had increased by 2 points. The system said that it cannot affect Will and it only measures it, so does that mean he increased his Will, or did the system update its measurement. A question for another time he thought, what he really wanted to know is what everyone's starting stats were, cause he felt much stronger than he was pre-system. He wasn't a weak person before, but he certainly wasn't someone who spent a lot of time working out, eating properly, etc. to be truly strong. But now that the system had changed him and that he was working on his power, he doubted any pre-system human would come close. Just another step on the road toward his ultimate goal, but he needed to focus because he had more stuff to go through. He took out one of the bandages and inspected it until a system window came up.
"Regeneration Patch"
"Stick patch to skin and double your in combat regeneration"
"Patch lasts for 40 seconds"
"Patches can be used every 4 to 7 minutes depending on vitality"
"Not usable after level 25"
Well this item seemed amazing, he already seemed to heal pretty quickly and with this he would just have to stall a bit and he would recover a lot. These were going to come in handy and would make him feel more comfortable facing stronger enemies. He scratched his chin in thought while rereading the whole description again. It makes sense he thought, the cooldown timer and level limiter, it probably uses the person's internal magic and some kind of spell it sticks to the skin to increase regeneration. You could have that running forever, your internal magic would go wild from the foreign influence. And after level 25 you could probably have people who focus on vitality and the spell it puts on your skin wouldn't be able to handle that much magic. Now to check on his other item, he had mixed feelings about getting underwear no matter how much he needed something stronger than old world clothes.
"Ape Underwear"
"Pieces of a fire fur ape sewn together to make a pair of underwear"
"The underwear only protects the wearers modesty and nothing else"
Eli took them out of his inventory, looked at them, and his head and shoulders sagged down. Then he looked up, and shook his fist at the sky and yelled, "You think you're funny don't you!" A system window opened
"A horse walks into a bar…."
He fell over laughing, holding his stomach and rolling around on the ground getting covered in ash and blood. He couldn't help himself at this point, he was starting to get so wound up and tense that he was having trouble keeping his sanity. After he finished laughing he wiped the tears out of his eyes and looked up at the sky again.
"I get it, I need to keep my head together and take a minute to not be so serious." he paused for a second then continued, "I'll get you back for this when I'm strong enough." and he winked and went back to looking at the underwear.
They were basically the ape face on the front covering the crotch area, then just something like a monkey tail for the waistband and to hold the face in place. It looked like a joke that you would buy someone as a gag gift. He shook his head and looked at his current pants, although now he guessed they were more like hot pants with holes in them and his current underwear wasn't doing him any favors at the moment either. He decided that he should play along and took his old world stuff off and put on the ape underwear. They were very soft and comfortable but with his butt cheeks in the breeze it was going to take some getting used to.
Eli then sat down and focused on his internal magic, it was back to full and he pushed on it with his will to keep it calm. It felt a little easier to control but he wasn't sure if that was because of his increased Will or the point he put into wisdom, but it was a welcome change as he was looking forward to when he would get an actual spell. Other than the control increase it didn't feel like he had more magic and he couldn't sense any other differences to it. Now it was time to check his skill upgrades and he opened the skills tab of his window.
"Skills"
"Weapon Skill: Hammer / Balance / Novice 2"
"Skill - Novice - Passive"
"Increases damage with all blunt attacks by 12%. Weapon skills stack with all other bonuses'. You may only have one weapon skill at a time. Skill increases as proficiency is proven."
"Will Skill: Empty"
"Nodes:"
"Earth node: Smash level 2"
"Skill - Common - Passive"
"Increases damage with blunt weapons or objects by 12% on point of intended impact. User must hit the intended target for this skill to trigger. Mana cost: Minor Skill increases as proficiency is proven."
"Light node: Open, Empty"
"No other nodes open"
These skill increases seem nice, Eli thought while reading everything for the second time. He was scratching his chin and thought that the weapons skill increase probably happened very early in that fight because all the dodging he did should not have been that smooth. Maybe the skill increase could teach his body muscle memory or something and that is how it had such a large effect. He hadn't really thought about it during the fight but he was not that good of a fighter and probably should have been smashed to pieces a couple times over during all that craziness. It would also explain how he just knew how to swing his mace to get the strongest hit possible, it didn't feel like knowledge so much as an implanted instinct.
Well with everything gone through he was ready to move on and after a couple minutes his timer got updated.
"Time to reach the dungeon: 34 hours."
Eli didn't have a map but he had his direction arrow and distance counter. It said 20 miles left, which didn't seem right to him, he should have easily covered more ground than that. Scratching his chin again he started to think that maybe he was going around the volcano in a bigger circle than he originally thought he was. It didn't really matter since he knew that he was going to have to hurry to be safe and at least try to get much closer before he sleeps again. With that thought, he took off at a run to try and make up some time. He was moving at a good pace, something that felt like a drive through the country pace, since it was a thick jungle and he was having to dodge trees, vines and underbrush. He had all his senses dialed up as much as he could so he would hopefully not get jumped by a monster, however with his current path starting to lead away from the volcano he was feeling less and less magic in his surroundings.
The monsters he encountered started to get weaker, one group of level 4 monkeys that looked similar to the ape but much smaller were not much trouble. He took some hits from them staying in the trees and throwing rocks, but when they got to the ground to find more things to throw, one quick smash finished them. The troubling part was that he did not gain enough experience from them to level again and he really wanted to be level 10 before he got to the dungeon. There was a decision to make here, he could continue to the dungeon and maybe that area would have enough monsters closer to his level, or he could circle back closer to the volcano and hope that he will still have enough time. With all the monsters around the volcano being volcano types, with lava ash and fire, maybe he could run into some other types near where the dungeon is located. He started scratching his chin again in thought and after considering the pros and cons of each choice, he picked up a flat-ish rock and tossed it into the air. If the rock lands wet side up he goes to the dungeon, dry side up he circles back and hunts on the north side of the volcano looking for stronger beasts.
Despite thinking this was probably not his best choice, he always did what the coin flip said. The reason he would flip a coin was that there wasn't a clear answer, thus the flip was to force a choice and he always knew that being dedicated to a choice had better outcomes than not having your heart in the decision even if it turned out to be correct. So he was running to the dungeon, smashing everything on his way there late into the night, he did get one more level on his way there.
"Congratulations"
"Experience level increased from 7 to 8"
"You have gained 1 free stat point"
He tossed the point into wisdom as he was thinking he would need the control to get his nodes to open, and he was about half way there at this point he decided to get some sleep. He climbed one of the trees as high as he could and found a comfortable spot to catch a little sleep. One thing he was happy he had learned from the military was the ability to sleep wherever and whenever he got the chance.