The sphere pulsed 17 times in quick succession.
[1700]
[1720]
As planned, I would try to save as many points as possible. I bought [Essential Nutrients] for 200 points.
Then I added 5 upgrades to Strength, 8 upgrades to Constitution and 5 to stamina. It all cost me 510 points. Why stamina you ask? It was because I knew that I am doing fights alone, and would be fighting all day for that point-maxxing. Also, to climb the damn mountain would require great stamina.
[Improve Strength - 15]
[Improve Dexterity - 21]
[Improve Constitution - 20]
[Improve Stamina - 31]
[Improve Mind - 0]
[1010 points left]
Now things seemed more or less balanced out. Satisfied with reaching my goal, I let myself wake up.
_____________________________________
In contrast to yesterday morning, I felt severely uncomfortable. The light shining in my eyes was unbearably irritating.
I stood up with some difficulty. My muscles felt a little stiff, and I had back pain. It went away as I stretched a bit—probably from sleeping in a sitting position on solid stone.
I was tired, like I didn't get enough sleep. Which was true, since I had only slept a few hours before dawn.
I went down the mountain, dragging my steps. I was grumpy and felt like finding my cave to take a nap. I really need coffee. If ever find a way to get some, I'm gonna make that my main goal.
I convinced myself to hunt goblins instead of looking for the cave. My goal was to kill at least 15 before noon.
So, I jogged.
It was much easier to move through the forest with my balanced stats and high stamina, combined with the sunlight filtering through the trees.
To be honest, it felt amazing to jog with this much stamina. Thinking back, stamina is my most upgraded stat. I knew then that stamina is essential to survival.
It wasn't even half an hour before I found goblins. The rest of the morning went the same way.
Extermination.
I killed way more goblins than I had planned. I think it was almost 30 goblins, all thanks to my stamina to run and find more. By noon, I had actually lost count. It was due to lack of sleep. My brain was foggy since morning.
I sat down at the base of the mountain to take a break.
A coffee would really make my day right now. Thoughts of Earth and all its amenities… it seemed like a luxury. Here I was, fighting to survive, all while staying in my pajama shorts. I looked ridiculous.
I also started noticing how my shorts were beginning to tear. The seams looked strained and loose. They were also soaked in a dark colour, from all the dried blood.
"This is going to be a problem."
I took a few moments, then finally stood up and marched upwards. I thought about solutions for my clothes. How could I even make a replacement in this damned place?
Little by little, I climbed up. I lost track of time after a while, and it was already halfway between noon and sunset. I was quite high up and had an amazing view. I still wasn't high enough to see the clearing completely, but as far as I could tell, there was only forest around.
The mountain was much more wider than it looks from the ground. There are many platoes ahead with loose boulders everywhere. At some point I stopped to look at the view.
Further east, there seemed to be hills. I decided to go a little higher, but after a few steps, I stopped before I wanted to.
That was because I saw a weird-looking place.
Over a small ledge while climbing, there was a cave. It was high and wide, probably a radius of 2 meters. There was a giant boulder at its side, just as big as the cave entrance. The weird thing was that it looked identical to the plain-looking boulder at the clearing.
The entrance to the cave had a puddle, connected to a thin stream flowing over the cave floor from inside. I wondered where the water flow ended.
It was bizarre how similar the rock and pond looked to the ones at the clearing.
"The fuck?"
I took a peek inside. It was pitch black.
I decided to do something dumb and throw a rock. I just needed to know how far the cave went straight in.
I picked up a palm-sized rock, stood at the entrance, and threw it as hard as I could.
For some reason, I had to wait longer than I should have. If the cave went straight for about 50 meters, then my rock should have hit the ground by 30 meters or so. I had thrown straight, not at an arc, so the rock should have quickly curved into the ground.
An echo reached my ears after a few agonizing seconds.
I didn't really understand what was going on and didn't want to waste time there. There was no way I was going inside with no light. Besides, the cave freaked me out, so I continued to climb higher up the mountain.
Eventually, it became afternoon and soon to be dark, and the mountain still had a long way to go. I decided to give up going higher and just started scanning the horizon once I reached another very small plateau.
To the east, there were many hills behind the forest. To the west, small mountains stretched far into the distance. It seemed like the forest stopped halfway between those mountains and the one I stood against.
To the north, I couldn't really see anything. It was misty and foggy that far away—almost like clouds were rising from the horizon.
Whatever was there, I couldn't see it.
I also didn't know what was behind me in the south because I didn't want to climb around this giant mountain.
I went down the steep mountain, and on my way between small rocks, my heart sank to my feet.
At the plateau in the mountain, where the cave was, crawled pale looking humanoids. I could clearly see their elongated fingers, and black - ish neck. I had no idea what they are, but they resemble the pale walker.
There were probably almost a hundred, and some were going in and out of the cave.
I stood frozen in my climbing position, hoping they wouldn't see me. I turned slowly, but in my stupid panic, I slipped on the steep rocks.
Small rocks bounced down as I stepped on another surface to adjust my weight. The small rocks made loud noises as they crashed into bigger boulders.
All of the pale walkers saw me. And they all started climbing. Fast.
It was like their own little playground.
I climbed back up. I was officially freaking out. There was no way I could deal with that many freaky looking shit at once.
Occasionally glancing down, I saw they were catching up—but still far away. I felt like peeing from fear. Their eyes were completely black, and their mouths hung open with rows of teath, like a worm's.
Meanwhile, I was struggling to climb a rocky wall of stone. I had to let go of my club, throwing it down at one of them. I missed, and it disappeared from view.
Eventually, I got on top of the rock wall and stood on a small plateau. It was only about three meters wide. Looking down, they had already started climbing the wall, about ten meters below.
Dozens at a time, climbing together.
A moment of realisation.
A maniacal smirk curved up my face.
There was no reason to fear. I would kill all these freaky monsters.
The first three reached the plateau at the same time. I started stomping on their long, thin hands when they held the edge. The first two fell down the mountain.
One even collided with another crawler, and they both tumbled down together.
By the time I moved to stomp on the third crawler's hand, he had already pulled himself up.
I kicked him. Like a certain warrior from a certain Greek-warrior film. The crawler flew, screaming.
Two more had reached the plateau on the other side. I kicked one and bumped the other off.
I had to run up and down the short length of the plateau, being careful not to fall off myself.
I kicked and bumped and stumped. All in random order. Sometimes I almost fell of with them. One time I missed my stomp and almost fell of the ledge.
Some caught the rocks as they fell, and started to climb back up. They were clearly built for this. After what felt like an hours, way past sundown, the crawlers stopped showing up.
The constant climbing, kicking, and balancing had caught up to me. One of my legs felt limp—like an overworked muscle.
Overall, I felt okay, but that was before the adrenaline had worn off. Then I felt like shit.
I was really tired from running around hunting and then climbing a stupid mountain all day. I sat at the back of the plateau to rest.
The sun has already set, and the blue moon shone bright. It was warm even up here, with no wind.
I climbed down to see the bodies up close and compared them to the goblins. Their hands were very long, like 30cm long. Their arms were also much longer. Overall, they were thinner, extremely thin and light. Their heads were disproportionally bigger, with total black eyes being bigger than my fist.
I counted as I passed them on my way down. Around 73. Maybe 70? I lost track. Lower down the mountain, I saw about 28 more dead crawlers. I also spotted a few more on my right down.
Easily at least a hundred of them.
They had to have come from the cave after I threw in the rock.
"Thank goodness I have good instincts." I sighed to myself with a facepalm. My palm was sore, my fingertips torn open from all the climbing.
I sighed again. I couldn't reach the cave before nightfall.
I climbed sideways until I found a few boulders pressed together, wide enough to lie down on.
I watched the stars and thought about my discovery. Something in me didn't want to tell the others what I found, especially if these crawlers gave points. I could easily exploit this spot for points. Finders keepers right? Besides, the others were just fighting against themselves, instead of putting in the hard work and raking risks like myself.
I reflected on what I did that day. The morning I ran around to hunt the same amount of goblins a day of walking would take. I also climbed a giant ass mountain and found a weird cave.
And I lost my club.
In frustration, I became sleepy. Then with satisfaction, my eyes drifted off to sleep. The day ended with at least a 130 kills and 1040 points to spare on the Sphere.