NOVEL NEXT Chapter 15
Mark kept himself from screaming. To him, it felt like his arm and his thigh were on fire. The pain was tremendous and he wanted to just faint to avoid dealing with the pain, but he tried his best not to. He was not sure if there were more enemies in the vicinity and he did not want to suffer the consequences if there were. He immediately opened his System Interface, went to the Gaia’s Disciple in the Skill Tree tab and immediately put a skill point on Plant Mage and then on Goodberry.
Mark then casted the skill Goodberry by pointing his hand with the uninjured arm near his feet. A small bush grew and when it was about knee high, which took about five seconds, it produced two red berries that looked like Cherry tomatoes. He pulled the two berries from the bush and the plant immediately withered. Mark sat on the ground and braced himself. He pulled the arrow from his thigh and then the arrow from his arm. Despite his effort, he had not been able to avoid letting out a short scream. He immediately ate the berries one after another and after a few seconds, the pain decreased until it was bearable.
Mark immediately limped to where the two hobgoblin died, took the loot and put it on his inventory. He then went back to the portal. When he was about to enter, a small pop up window appeared in front of him with two option, Main Entrance Portal and Second Floor Portal. He chose the Main Entrance Portal and he was able to leave the dungeon directly. Mark closed the Dungeon Portal, limped to his bed and sat down. He tried to calm himself and after a few minutes, his heartbeat slowly went down to normal.
Mark learned a good lesson. He should had never underestimated the danger of the dungeon. The power that the level two Void Bolt made him over confident thinking that he would not be endangered since he had a long range powerful skill. He never thought to consider that the monster could have a long range skill as well. After ruminating on his mistakes, Mark opened the Notification Window to check the damage that he received and the healing that the level one Goodberry provided him. It stated that he received forty damage for the first arrow, the one that hit his arm and thirty damage for the one on his thigh. The berries provided him thirty HP per berry over five seconds.
Mark switched to the Skill Tree tab to read on Plant Mage and Goodberry. Plant Mage description was still the same. It gave him an affinity with Plant Magic for him to be able to use Plant Magic. Goodberry was basically the first healing spell that was available to him. As he experienced, it allowed him to summon a small bush that would give him two berries. The berries were like healing potion since when he ate it earlier, instead of feeling like he was eating a fruit, the moment it entered his mouth, it immediately melted and he was able to swallow it like a liquid. It tasted mildly sweet and he thought that it was delicious. It gave him HP healing of thirty over five seconds. The berries stack, so it did gave him sixty HP heal and the good thing was, the over time heal stayed the same which was five seconds for both berries combine. It meant that more berries, more health at five seconds over time.
Mark casted Goodberry again since he still felt a little uncomfortable and his HP was not full, it was still one hundred forty over one hundred fifty. While looking at the bush that grew on his bedroom floor, he was a bit surprised since he was expecting that it would have cracked the tiles on his floor but instead it grew over it. When he picked the berries, the bush withered and the floor where it grew remained spotless, as if nothing happened on that space. He ate the berries and once his HP was full, all the discomfort that he had felt disappeared. He had expected that it will alleviate the mild hunger that he was feeling since the description did say that the berries will also provide sustenance but he still felt a little hungry. Mark shrugged and put it at the back of his mind since more than likely, through experience, he would be able to see the full effect of the spells. Mark also pondered his skills that he had casted so far. From what he saw and felt, they were more like spells. The main difference was there were no verbal nor somatic requirements in casting them. There was a rune like image that formed in his mind when he casted the spells and he guessed that if it was the normal magic system, it will take a long time to study and memorize a rune spell before he would have been able to cast it. The System automatically implanted the rune on his mind perfectly and possibly dispense the need for verbal or somatic requirements when he input the points on the skills making him able to cast it immediately. He also intuited that adding levels to the skill allow the runes to be mastered meaning, it was able to gather Mana with much higher quantity faster making it more powerful. Of course all of these were just his speculations.
Mark checked the item that he received from the Hobgoblin and the monsters were Hobgoblins according to the Notification Window. The drops were a bow and a skill point. So the total number of skill points that he had was eighteen. It was nineteen before the battle with the Hobgoblin and then he used two on Plant Magic and Goodberry, and together with the last skill point drop, it climbed back up to nineteen.
Mark paused for a bit. When he checked the time, it was already eleven pm. He stood back up, removed his clothes then threw them to the garbage bin since the clothes were basically destroyed. He then took a shower. After shower, he replicated a big Mac meal and a can of soda and opened his laptop. While having a meal, he checked for any news regarding the System Holders but he did not find any. Mark thought that it figures since it was only this morning when he received the system. After finishing his meal, normally at this time he would have gone and watched an anime or continued reading some of his marked web novels but he felt utterly exhausted. He lied down and slept.
