Which is my current condition, my mana control is sufficient enough to send it through the mana pathways in my eyes to not make them pop.
This task is very delicate, so at first I only meditated, slowly sending strands of mana into the eye to make them somewhat used to the new sensations, mostly the feeling of my eyes being bloated
If I send the mana the wrong way, wrong direction too strong, too weak and so on, at best the effect just won't activate, which is the current situation as I'm sending too little mana.
At worst I lose sight permanently.
My current goal is to make my eyes able to perceive the mana in the surroundings.
At some point, if I do it enough, it'll turn passive, but for now this is the best I can do.
Back to the present, I slowly upped the mana strands into a constant mana stream and just sat there as I was finally able to perceive the mana in the surroundings. This is one of the ways I use to see in the dark.
With the current amount I'm sending, I can only make out the basic shaped, as for mana, it's all grey. Kinda like looking at a white-and-black movie, but you have a -9.3 diopters.
As I sat there and my eyes got used to the mana, I sent just a bit more and as my control got better, I also increased the mana output just a bit more.
At some point the blurriness dropped to something along the lines of -7 diopters and I can differentiate between organic and non-organic stuff, way better, and it didn't take long.
Even if you take away my memories of it, my habits remain, haha… damn, now I'm just coping.
With that thought I stood up and started to move, since my eyesight is shit, instead of looking for specific stuff, I realized more on spotting unnatural movements and my other senses.
At this time of the night it seems predators come out as I heard a fox and an owl, or other animals that use calls similar to theirs, who knows.
And just then, I spotted unnatural movement and it spotted me and it began to run, so I chased after it.
The benefit of the current mana sight is that normal camouflage doesn't work, since I can only make out two colors a darker grey for inorganic objects and a lighter grey for organic.
This allowed to tail it unobstructed by its attempts at trying to hide from me, since even if it attempted to throw dirt into my eyes, it just didn't matter, since technically I don't even need to keep my lids open to use mana sight.
With that though I caught up with it… wait caught up?
Once I caught the animal, I grabbed it by its scruff and dragged it back.
Along the way I killed it by twisting its neck, since I didn't want it to suffer for what I'll do next.
Then I went back to the river, found the tree on which I hanged my rope-to-be and put the animal on top, using moonlight as a light source, I made it out to be a fox, only it's fur is green.
Though its hind legs are oddly bulky, almost look mismatched for the body, maybe this fox decided to specialize more in strength and stealth, but that only partly explains the cowardice I saw *Sigh*
Mana, am I right?
...
Using this method I hunted six more.
Throughout the night my mana sight improved, the blur went from -7 diopters to -6.8 and the mana color of organic and inorganic stuff got different, the organic one gaining a barely noticeable shade of green or red depending on if it's a plant or animal/bug.
But I have to stare at a while to notice the difference between the two, but it's an improvement.
Using this I got more stuff to eat, like berries, I also found a few fallen fruit, they're poisonous, but its fine.
I also managed to find an ant nest and a few moth, all of which I turned into food resources.
And at the break of dawn I look at the two piles of food, they only go to my knees, but I hope it'll be enough for what I'll do next.
Yes, that's right, I did my best to butcher the fox things I hunted, I name them green foxes.
Anyways, their organ layout is similar to that of normal foxes, just that their fur is green.
Oh, right, I managed to catch up to them, what's my AGI again?
[Name: Javen Belgham
Age: 28
Class: Craftsman
Health:98%
Mana:5000/4737
Stamina: 89%
Level:1 (99%/100%)
Str: 21
Agi: 23
Dex: 21
End:26
Vit:27
Sen:22
Int:500
Luck:20
Cha: 15
Traits: 'Blessed by the craftsman spirits'
Skills: furnace body lv1, intent imbuement lv1, spearmanship lv1, all language mastery lv1
Quests (click to open) (empty)]
Well, my stats increased by a lot more than I thought, guess all that running around did something, but still, it doesn't make sense for me to catch up to the foxes, shouldn't they be faster.
I lifted on of the corpses to my face and observed them, maybe they got slower, who knows, but they're also cowardly, if they're cowardly, shouldn't they be fast…questions, questions, oh how many of them I have.
Anyways, I moved to butcher them.
As last time, I made a small knife from mana as an extension of one of my nails.
Using that I once again took out the most important stuff, the digestive track. This time instead of getting rid of it by placing it further back, I threw it into the river and watched it get washed away.
Goodbye you accursed thing, I hope you turn to fertilizer.
...
Now…
I know it and you know it too …I hope
Yes, that's right, I found flint, time to eat some flint
I swallowed it
Mmmm, yum, it has a more intense rock flavor than the two random pebbles I ate before. With that I wrapped up the drying bast, went into the river and the heat kicked in.
Once again, I went through the two piles of food…
Once again, I drank more water than my body weighs
But this time…but this time…this time I didn't vomit. I still don't get how I digest the stuff, I don't even get to that high of a temperature…I think….
Well, I had grass burn just due to me standing near it…so maybe I do get that hot…
Now that I think about it, that can explain a lot of my growth.
Why my VIT and END grow so much.
My agility grows that fast because of how much I move in the water to catch the coldest spot, but even then, my agility growth is too much.
As for strength…why does it grow at all, its not like I lift heavy stuff…
*Sigh* more unanswered questions.
The other thing I noticed is my level.
I'm so close right now
Only 1% remaining.
With that I went into the forest, once again activated mana sight, but this time kept my eyes open, mana sight doesn't interfere with normal vision anyways, when combined with normal vision, mana sight, instead of showing rough shapes, shows an aura surrounding the object.
The problem of shape and color remain the same though, but its okay, it's only temporary.
With that I gathered my belongings, found a nice stick, tied my makeshift bag around it and went hunting. 10 minutes later I killed 2 squirrels and a bird and got the level up
[Congratulations, you have leveled up]
I immediately checked my status
[Name: Javen Belgham
Age: 28
Class: Craftsman
Health:100%
Mana:5000/4936
Stamina: 0%/100%
Level:2
Str: 22
Agi: 23
Dex: 22
End:27
Vit:28
Sen:29
Int:500
Luck:20
Cha: 15
Sp:1
Traits: 'Blessed by the craftsman spirits'
Skills: furnace body lv1, intent imbuement lv1, spearmanship lv1, all language mastery lv1
Quests (click to open) (empty)]
Well, I got sp? Probably free stat points I can invest anywhere, anyways, it seems my physical stats increased by 1, except dexterity, which got raised by 2, nice, a total of 7 stats per level.
I don't know if it's good or bad, since I can't compare it to anything else.
In fact I don't even know how strong I am, since the only comparison I have is members of foregin species.
*Sigh*
If only I could meet…but it just seems so bothersome, creating a workshop seems much more interesting.
Plus I can finally experience what I missed out on at the very beginning of my journy to perfecting crafting. Instead of having that one week assistance period, this time I'll have to find and do everything from scratch.
With those thoughts I continued on my search for a big enough clearing for a workshop, then I could do the whole hermit play, where someone finds me, I could be the quest giver.
…
*Sigh*
What am I thinking, I haven't even met anything whose height surpasses that of my knees' height, not counting the deer I occasionally spot, but never manage to catch-
My thought were interrupter by finding a less dense area I could somewhat spot further from the river, so I went there.
I found a nice clearing, it's a patch of grassland surrounded by the forest, as if about to be devoured by it.
I uprooted one patch of grass and went to dig deeper in that spot to check if I can lay a proper foundation.
Don't want any clay or something else that could make the process a pain in the ass.
To my luck after digging deep enough to fit half of my body in there I found nothing of the sort, no clay, no silty soil or anything bad.
With that I marked this land as mine by uprooting all of the grass in the center, around 50x30 meters of land, though I did leave a clear border.