But at the end of the day, that was just a matter of luck. He could only skew things a little bit by filling the box with mana. With his fingers crossed, Ashton pushed against the side of the box, and it quickly fell apart into red motes of mana.
They came together into an item, that soon laid on Ashton's hand. It was a silver pocket watch, with luminescent blue hands filled with so much mana that Ashton was able to tell the time easily. There was a dial on the outside. Was this some kind of stopwatch?
[[Observer in the Veil] clicks their tongue at your luck]
A smile appeared on Ashton's lips. That meant this was an amazing item. He tagged the watch through the Pen of Insight, and it quickly began to write down some information on a piece of paper.
Arcane Pocket Watch
Grade - Epic
State - Charged
A magical pocket watch that, once a day, can be used to view what happened over the course of the past 24 hours in a 15 metre radius around the watch's location at the moment of activation.
The user has 30 minutes to freely look through the events of the past day.
Ability resets every day at midnight.
He carefully looked through the note, and smiled. He felt the dial and twisted it. Each hand seemed to split in two, or rather, a shade of mana was detaching from the physical hands. It was a little hard for Ashton to tell the difference right now, so he might have to ask one of the others later.
The more he twisted, the more the hands went backward, and a small symbol twisted around on the watch, probably showing that the time was before noon, instead of past it.
When he let go of the dial, the hands quickly turned back forward and snapped into place. He would have to find a good place to try this out later. If this could only be used once a day, then he wanted to make it count. Though, since the ability resets every day at midnight, he could just use it later at 11:30 and try it out randomly anywhere he wanted.
For now, Ashton gave the watch to the Backpacker and stood up, walking over to the table where the ingredients for his ink were still settling in.
"Is this bottle still dark brown?" he asked, specifically talking to Poppy, who quickly nodded her head. But from how hesitant she was, it seemed to be a little lighter than before. Either way, things were proceeding well, so Ashton could head out and grab some things that he needed.
Though Market Street was the only place that he could remember having certain stores at the time, by now, Ashton had moved through the town enough that he could remember a lot of places that he didn't when he first returned. So for now, Ashton had three stops.
One, the botanical gardens. Two, a shoe store. And three, a fabric store that was nearby. Probably in that order, too. The good thing was that at this point, it didn't make much of a difference whether or not Ashton was active at day or at night, the only matter was how exhausted he was.
Which was quickly solved through the second to last dose of the combined stamina- and mental-potions to reset his exhaustion. Walking down the hallway, Ashton quickly drank both and could feel himself become reinvigorated immediately. The surgery and the recovery from it really took a lot out of Ashton, and the physical exhaustion was a lot afterward. At this point, he could stay awake for around 7 or 8 more hours on this cycle, and then after that, at best another 3 or 4, but Ashton wanted to avoid that.
He was using a lot of potions at the moment, and this body wasn't exactly as sturdy as the one that he used to have. Ashton hoped that it would be fine, but he's been awake for three days at this point and was only forcing himself along with tons of potions. They were the only reason he was even alive at this point in time. That couldn't be good, long-term.
Ashton walked down to the foyer and looked around, trying to find someone that he knew. He didn't want to head out without telling anyone first. But luckily, right when he went outside, now that it had stopped raining at least for a little while, he could hear someone running around from one wall to the other.
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"Clem?" Ashton asked, just trying to be sure, and he heard the person stop running. She came over to him, and soon entered his properly visible range. She was a little out of breath. Probably has been running around ever since she left earlier.
"Yeah?" Clementine asked, putting her hands onto her hips. "Is everything okay?"
"You're a 6, right?"
Clementine raised her brow. "Excuse me? I mean, I know you're blind and all, and I haven't been able to clean up thoroughly, but I'd like to think I'm better than a 6..."
Ashton sighed. "Shoesize, Clem."
Startled, Clementine put a hand in front of her face and instinctively looked away so that Ashton couldn't see that her face go bright red. Not that he had to see her for that. Not that he could, anyway. "Ah... Uh, yeah, a 6. Do you have some shoes for me?"
"Not yet. I'm heading out and grabbing some stuff."
"You're going... alone?"
"I'm never alone."
"You know what I mean. Come on, Ash, you're blind..."
Ashton let out a slight sigh. "And I'm still stronger than anyone else in this town, at the very least. Okay? I'll be fine. I'll just be gone for... an hour or two, at best. I'll come back, finish the ink, summon the Salesman, make you some cool fucking magic boots, and then I'll head out to the elementary school."
Confused at the last part that Ashton said, Clementine frowned slightly. "Why are you going to the elementary school?"
"Because I promised that I would come back and check on someone after I was done with the lizardmen," he explained, smiling nervously. "There's this little girl there... she's the reason why I had to summon the demon, so we could amputate her arm. She was bitten by a zombie, so it was the only way to save her. But the people around her just saw a little girl that was bitten by one of the zombies, and... they weren't exactly nice about it."
"Oh... But she's fine? She's not going to turn into one?"
"No, no, it's usually pretty instant. The only reason why she didn't change was because a constellation stopped it from happening."
Clementine seemed confused, once again. From what she had heard about constellations, from both Ashton and Sam, they didn't seem like the sort to interfere like that. "But why would they..?"
"I don't know. It's another reason why I'm going back. I want to figure out if there's anything special about her. Not like I can ask the constellation, the Guardian got their message rights revoked for a while for overusing their influence." Ashton turned around and started walking toward the wall. "And while I'm gone, you just keep on running and getting used to your abilities. When you're ready, I'll give you some small round-trip destinations."
"Sure. Just be careful out there," Clementine said, pointing at Ashton as if to give him a warning. "And make sure to come back with all the parts you've got now, yeah?"
With a smile, Ashton turned around and waved slightly, just as Clementine was leaving his compressed channelling range. "You know I can't promise that."
Ashton quickly made his way outside the walls and stretched slightly. This was a good opportunity for him to test out his stats on foot. Before, he was on the bike, and after that, he was mostly sneaking around. If Ashton wanted to create a core for himself, he had to know his body properly.
[Ashton Garling] [Age - 23] [Coins - 10.564 -> 12.812]
[Stats]
[Power - 21 -> 23]
[Resilience - 22 -> 26]
[Speed - 27 -> 31]
[Spirit - 35 -> 40]
His power and speed were the two stats that were the ones used while running specifically. 'Power' was pretty simple, and affected the strength of all his muscles. Meanwhile, 'Speed' changed things like reaction time, reflexes, as well as the speed of muscle contraction and relaxation. He wasn't 100% positive, but Ashton could swear that it might change mental processing speeds as well, but he couldn't be too sure.
By just finding some heavy objects, Ashton could figure out the effectiveness of his 'power' stat. He basically did that already when dealing with different monsters on the way here, though he still needed to get a good idea of his upper limits. It would be great if he could find some kind of gym, but worst-case he could just arm-wrestle with the Drunken Bear or something. Testing the upper limit of his physical speed was a lot easier.
He just had to run. Dodge past objects on the road, deal with monsters while running at full speed, and figure out exactly how his body felt right now.
Ashton took a breath, feeling some tension in his chest. Breathing still felt a bit weird with his lung having a chunk removed from it, but he'd get used to it with time. He was more worried about his heart. Then again, it was the Spawn of Akrazoth that had repaired it, so there was no way it would randomly give out.
For now, while Ashton took deep breaths to try and get used to his new breathing a little before he started sprinting, he began to think about the path and the last time he had seen it. Ashton couldn't orient himself using landmarks anymore, and this place was changing by the daily now, with different monsters tearing apart and pulling away cars and smashing walls while trying to break into buildings. All the plants that were growing all over the place weren't helping, either.
But he just had to concentrate and think. Three-hundred metres ahead of him was a crossing onto Reddings Way. One-hundred metres to the right, there was a road branching off onto Larson Road. There was a stop sign with a cat sticker on the edge the last time he was there. If he went straight, there was a train bridge, then he had to go right, left, straight for a while, then left and right again. A little more that way, past the building with two different types of vines intertwined, and Ashton would get to the botanical gardens.
He spread out his channelling range to the fullest extent again. His 'sight' wasn't as sharp as before, but now that he had grasped how to do this properly, things were brighter, so it was still a large improvement. It was also enough for Ashton to navigate relatively well.
And with that, it was time for Ashton to start running. With the barbell bar in his hand, in case he would need to fight, he quickly took off.