The Eternal Assassin

If I were a bloodthirsty boar, where would I hide? Double checking the map Samantha had lent him, Asher confirmed he was in the right area before storing it back into his rift. The map was apparently an old gift from her father, and he didn't want anything bad happening to it while he was fighting.

After a light dinner and some much needed sleep, Asher had decided to spend his first day in the village working on his skills and earning some shards. He was so close to being able to unlock another one of his skills that he could almost taste it.

Unfortunately, Samantha had some things she said she had to take care of in the village after they'd been gone for two weeks, but she'd given him her map and shown him the closest monster hunting ground. He'd learned that monsters actually dropped shards upon their death, which made hunting them the quickest way to make money.

Assuming you survived the encounter of course.

Samantha had told him again how she steered clear of monsters in favor of safer methods of earning shards, such as hunting animals and bringing their hides back to sell at the village, but it wasn't just shards Asher was after. He wanted a challenge.

Grinning at the memory of fighting the demon, Asher continued walking around the large clearing he'd discovered, his two steel daggers in hand. He was tempted to pull out his mithral dagger again, but decided against it in the end. He didn't want to become reliant on the clearly superior blade. If he did, and something knocked the weapon from his hand again like when he'd fought the demon, he'd be pretty screwed.

After a few minutes of wandering Asher finally spotted one of the giant boars. The monster was nearly four feet tall at the shoulder and looked more like a miniature car than a living creature. It had two long, sharp tusks sticking out of its face, and its limbs were the size of tree trunks. Asher blinked as he took in the monster just standing there, minding its own business and pushing into the ground with its snout. The creature must not have spotted him yet as Samantha had warned him that pretty much all monsters would attack a person on sight.

[Heavy Boar] - Monster

Jesus, that thing is like a furry tank! I guess that explains why normal people don't go around hunting monsters even if they are the fastest way of earning shards. I can heal ruptured organs, and even I'm not sure I'll survive fighting that thing.

Despite his internal musings, Asher felt the grin on his face and he knew there was only one option for him. Tightening his grip on his daggers he began walking toward the monstrous boar.

When he got within a hundred feet of his prey, the boar's ear twitched and the monster looked up at him, its muzzle stained red with blood. Only now did Asher realize the boar was eating what looked like the remains of an entire deer that had clearly been run through by the monster's tusks. Grunting and stomping on the ground, the boar let out a low pitched squeal that seemed to reverberate in Asher's chest before charging at him.

Eager to try out his new skill in actual combat, Asher waited until the boar was nearly upon him before distorting the space to his right and stepping to the side, immediately ending his skill so the boar couldn't use the distorted space to follow him. His single step carried him almost half a dozen feet, and the boar's eyes widened as it shot past him, unable to turn quickly enough due to its immense mass. Letting out another squeal, the boar slowly turned and began another charge.

Looks like charging and impaling its prey is the boar's main method of attack, Asher thought as he used Distortion to narrowly dodge being run through a second time. Let's see what else I can do.

The boar proved itself rather set in its ways as it charged him a third time, not changing anything about its approach despite its seeming inability to hit him. Again, Asher dodged with distorted space at the last second. This time, however, he quickly used his skill again in a much smaller area as the boar steamrolled past him, giving him the reach he needed to land an attack. Despite standing nearly six feet away, Asher watched as his slash somehow connected with the rampaging monster, drawing a thin red line on the boar's flank.

The boar seemed to not even notice the attack however, huffing as it turned and started a fresh charge. Happy to continue practicing his skills, Asher allowed the boar to charge at him again and again, waiting patiently between charges and fine tuning his uses of Distortion as he practiced dodging and striking the monster in different locations. He was surprised to find that he managed to land his attacks where he was aiming practically every time despite the precise timing needed, before he realized it was probably due to the Comprehend skill he'd picked up. Apparently processing information faster was in fact more useful than he'd originally expected.

After toying with the boar for a couple of minutes, Asher realized he was beginning to experience that same strange feeling of fatigue that had hit him during his days of practice in the forest. His muscles were gradually growing heavier, and he could feel himself slowing down in his movements as it became harder and harder to activate his skills as quickly as he intended. Not wanting to risk anything, he decided to finish off the boar before it could get in a lucky shot.

The boar, after charging at him what must have been thirty or forty times by now, was looking rather worse for wear. Thin slashes crisscrossed its entire body to the point where Asher was hard pressed to find a spot on the monster that wasn't covered in dripping blood. Even so, all of his attacks up to this point had been rather superficial, and the boar hadn't let up on its own attempts to gore him despite looking like it had run through a blender.

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Stomping its feet, the boar began charging at him yet again, and Asher prepared himself for something new. This time, when the boar got close to him and he found himself facing down what had to be nearly two tons of pure, rampaging muscle, Asher carefully directed his Distortion forward, extending his reach past the gleaming tusks and using the distorted space to thrust his dagger directly into the boar's eye. The boar's own weight and momentum opposing him forced the dagger to punch straight through its skull and sink deep into its brain, making Asher's attack far more effective than he'd intended and killing the monster instantly.

Asher didn't have a chance to celebrate, however, as he received a quick and rather painful lesson in physics. When his dagger connected with the front of the boar and killed it, the monster's immense momentum continued forward almost completely unhindered, snapping his arm like a toothpick through the distorted space and breaking it in multiple locations as he was flung backwards. It was only thanks to Comprehend that Asher processed the pain fast enough to realize he was about to be crushed by the boar's corpse.

Without a moment to spare he slipped into the astral realm, staring with wide eyes as the monster's bulky form crashed straight through him, creating a large furrow in the dirt as it slid a good two dozen feet before finally coming to a stop.

His heart pounding, Asher returned to the normal world, staring at the monster that had nearly killed him posthumously. A quick glance at his shattered arm showed him exactly what would have happened to the rest of his body had he not reacted fast enough, and he immediately took back everything bad he ever thought about his Comprehend skill.

I need to be a bit more careful than that when practicing my skills, I suppose.

Hissing through his teeth at the pain, Asher walked over to the monster's corpse and used his still functioning arm to yank his dagger from the boar's eye socket, wiping it clean before sheathing it and turning to his prize. His reward for surviving the encounter and felling the heavy boar was floating directly in front of the dead monster.

A glowing violet orb of shards hovered in the air, just begging to be taken. Though unlike the one he'd grabbed off Mr. Sonth's body, this one was only about the size of a golf ball, and clearly consisted of far fewer shards. Reaching out and tapping the sphere, Asher absorbed the shards with a soft flash of violet light, immediately checking his new total.

Shards: 20,881

So about 2,000 shards for risking my life to take down the heavy boar. Doesn't feel like a lot, but I suppose that's on the upper end of what Samantha said she makes in an entire month of hunting, after paying for her and Brian's mysterious living expenses. And all it takes is a single mistake, and you're monster food, he thought, glancing again at his mangled arm, doing his best to ignore the searing pain radiating out of the crooked limb. If I didn't have Eternal Regeneration, this would probably be a career-ending injury right here.

Making sure there weren't any other boars that had crept up on him while he was distracted, Asher pulled out his mithral dagger and used it to cut off the boar's gleaming tusks. He had no idea if they were actually worth anything, but he figured at the very least they might cause Brian to faint when he found them hiding poorly under his pillow. The two tusks took up a good chunk of his Personal Rift, but after leveling the skill twice during their escape from the forest the volume he could store had already increased to that of a large suitcase.

Making his way to the edge of the clearing, Asher picked a sturdy looking tree to lean against and carefully sat down, doing his best not to move his injured arm. He knew he healed broken bones faster than damaged organs, but his arm looked and felt like it had been fractured in numerous places. Realizing he was probably in for a bit of a wait, he decided to pass the time with some light shopping, eagerly bringing up his interface. While it hadn't been as many shards as he'd hoped for, killing the boar had in fact given him just enough shards to pick up his next skill.

Asher glanced between his two options as he tried to come to a decision. Before realizing how useful Comprehend was, he'd been rather disappointed in his skills from the Knowledge element. But after seeing how precise his timing and reflexes had become, the Knowledge element had gone up a few ticks in his mind. It had finally become a serious contender.

However, skills that directly correlated with keeping him alive were still hard to compete with. Eternal Regeneration's usefulness went without saying, and while he still wasn't a hundred percent sure what Complete Resilience did, he was beginning to suspect he was already benefiting from it. The pain from his thoroughly shattered arm was far less severe than he would have expected, and he wondered if pain counted as a negative effect for the purpose of the skill.

In the end, all I have to do is kill ten more boars before I can unlock the other skill. With that in mind, and the fact that Asher was rather confident in his ability to slay the monsters, he decided survivability was more immediately important. Focusing on his selection, he spent the 20,000 shards.

Shards: 881

Eternal Mark (passive/active) - Lvl 1 - Leave an everlasting mark on your target.

"Well… that doesn't exactly help with survivability." Sighing, Asher dismissed the notification, mildly annoyed with himself for assuming all of his skills from the Eternity element would be similar in nature.

I mean, obviously they are similar. Just not similar in terms of keeping myself alive.

Shrugging, Asher picked up a nearby stick and tried out his new skill. Upon activating it, he felt a tiny, almost imperceptible sliver of energy leave him and impress itself upon the stick. Immediately, Asher realized the skill was more useful than he first thought.

The moment his mark landed on the target, Asher began receiving feedback from it. At a thought, Asher could tell both the current status of the stick and its position relative to him. He somehow just knew without a shadow of a doubt that no matter how far separated he and the stick became, he'd always know approximately where it was located.

Alright, you win again, strange God giving out magic powers. I see how this will be useful.

Shaking his head, Asher tossed the stick to the side, deciding he should probably stop judging a skill's usefulness just from the text. After a few moments, he frowned as a sudden thought struck him.

Hold on a minute… The skill said an 'everlasting mark,' didn't it?

Did I just bind myself for all eternity to a random stick?