Chapter 4 Aether And System

"Finally." I sighed in relief as a few things appeared out of thin air and dropped to the ground.
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Time Remaining: 119:28:19
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The timer on the hologram had started soon after I fell from the sky. After that, it was continuously displayed on the bracelet.
"Not too bad, I guess." I gave myself an imaginary pat on the back as I looked at the remaining time.
For the last 30 minutes, I had been trying to control my Aura to open the ring on my right-hand index finger.
This ring was a semi-artifact, which could be used to store objects, at least that was what its status said.
Aura was one of the derivative forms of Aether, the energy which had arrived on this planet during the First Great Disaster 150 years ago.
Aether had caused the beasts and the plants to evolve. But due to its pure and chaotic nature, humans could not directly use it.
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As such, humans on this planet learned to harness Aether into its constituents and use them. One such constituent was Aura.
Using an energy, in my case Aura, was like commanding a new limb. As such, to some basic extent, even regular humans could use it to operate devices like dimensional rings.
So it was not something weird for me to be able to operate the dimensional ring.
Though forget checking out the contents of the ring or bringing a single object out, I emptied the whole ring. This was due to my lack of control.
But I already expected something like this to happen. Even if controlling Aura was like moving a new limb, learning anything more than simple controls in 30 minutes was absurd.
A sigh escaped my lips as I looked towards the content lying on the ground, which were a spear, a dagger, and a few simple snacks.
An interview for Ward was not your simple interview, the candidates could also be asked to display their skills.
So most students would be carrying a weapon with them. Not that I knew how to properly wield them.
"At least there is some food."
Putting everything other than the spear back into the ring, I scrutinized its condition.
Storing objects was easier than bringing them out, as I simply had to connect them with my Aura while thinking of it being stored.
"Maybe the previous Nathan practiced with it quite a bit." The spear's wooden handle looked worn, while its metallic tip had several scratches on it.
Eventually, I began moving to scout my surroundings.
Not wishing to attract any unwanted attention, I was moving as sneakily as possible.
As I kept moving from one place to another, the sun rose a little higher and now shined directly above me.
"It's too hot."
I peeked at the rabbit-like beast munching grass while wiping my forehead.
It had brown fur and was the size of an adult rabbit. The reason I could instantly tell that it was not an animal, but a beast was due to the horn on its forehead, giving its otherwise cute appearance a menacing look.
Looking at the beast my brows knit.
As a person who belonged to regular modern society, the most I could do with the spear was a simple thrust and swing.
But even so, I was eyeing the rabbit to kill it.
I knew about this beast. It belonged to the weakest class of beasts in any rank. Although average beast were stronger than an awakener of the same rank. It should not be the case for it.
Since the whole island was infested with beasts I knew that sooner or later, I would have to fight.
Taking this chance and fighting a weak beast to judge the extent of my capabilities was the most reasonable choice.
Leaning the pros and cons I finally decided to fight the rabbit.
With the spear raised to use it at any moment, I quietly crept towards the rabbit.
As I moved closer, the rabbit didn't move and kept munching. Suppressing my thumping heart, I kept moving closer to it.
Just as only 15 feet were left, the rabbit's ear twitched, and it jumped.
The moment I saw the twitch, I rushed forward and thrust the spear. But, I was a moment late to react which caused me to miss the rabbit.
The rabbit landed 20 feet away from me. Before I could even pull my spear back, it rushed towards me.
I hurriedly held the spear with both hands and swiped it upward to attack the rabbit.
CLANG-!
The rabbit had used its horn at the last moment to protect its body causing a metallic sound to ring out.
But the clash itself caused its body to stay afloat for a few seconds.
Not wanting to miss the opportunity, I swung the spear to tear its flesh before it could again move.
BANG-!
But due to my inexperience what hit the rabbit was the shaft of the spear, not its tip. The rabbit blew away and crashed into a tree.
I quickly ran towards it while cursing under my breath.
The rabbit hurriedly jumped back up and tried to find its enemy. But because of the previous hit, it was injured and a little late to move.
This time I swung his spear while making sure of the distance and killed the rabbit in one go.
[Congratulations, you have killed a Lvl.3 Greenhorn Rabbit. You've gained 30 exp.]
I slumped down, trying to catch my breath. Although the fight I was feeling mentally strained.
This was why I was reluctant to fight. My inexperience with fighting had caused me to misjudge the distance when attacking the rabbit. If it was any other beast I could have been eliminated then and there.
I sighed and called my status to check the progress.
"Status."
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Name: Nathan Hunt
Rank: Meta
Level: 3
Exp: 330/450
Remaining SP – 00
-->Stats:
Strength – 09
Agility – 14
Stamina – 11
Constitution – 10
Aura – 10
Intelligence – 11
Luck – 07
-->Skills:
[Pierce [Common-Rank]]
Extend the tip of your weapon by 5 feet.
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The rabbit had earned me 30 exp. With this, I needed to kill 5 more rabbits to levelup.
Leveling would give me extra stats points, which I could freely allot into any stat other than Luck.
The system, or the status screen as one would call it, had also arrived at Earth along with Aether at the First Great Disaster. It was because of this that humanity found hope at that time and managed to survive.
"I have a skill!" Examining the status screen, I only now noticed the skill section. Perhaps due to the stress, I had missed this section before.
As I read the skill description my expression slowly returned to normal.
"I shouldn't have expected more." Although having a skill was helpful, a common grade skill was nothing special.
Also, not only was this skill a weapon skill, which could only be used with a weapon. It was among the weakest skill among the ones I read in the 'Saga of Heroes'.
"I shouldn't get greedy." Clapping both my cheeks hard, I reasoned with myself.
Although the skill was weak, it was still a system skill regardless. Any skill shown on the status screen would be called a system skill.
I only needed to say the skill name and I would be able to use it with perfect mastery. This was the advantage of system skills.
For me, this was a great help, as I didn't need to do anything special to use it.
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