Chapter 43: Return

  The village of Vrung’s Quarry looked the same as when Garret and he had visited it just a few days ago. A medieval visual flair, two story buildings dotting the area among their single story counterparts. Stalls and shops all along main thoroughfare, all together made it a true earth gamer’s dream view.

  There was something a bit different compared to last time, and that was all the stares he was getting from the villagers as he walked through the street.

  Do I really look that bad? Alex thought.

  “Well, you are wearing basically rags, wounded, bloodied and dirtier than a kobold’s bed-pillow.”

  Alex looked down at himself and frowned. He did look terrible. That was to be expected, as he had been traveling for the last day, non-stop. Which was another surprise for Alex, as he found he was able to go the whole way without getting that tired.

  He wasn’t sure if it was because of his increased vitality stat which allowed him to do this. But he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

  There was also the fact he really wasn’t as hungry or thirsty as he thought he should be either. Again, that could be his higher vitality. Or, it could be that his body was now partially supported by the aether that filled his tissue instead of standard food?

  It could have been both. It could have been neither.

  There were a few other things that Alex was able to learn as he traveled as well. One of which was that trying to maintain the [Condensing Spiral] technique while walking was fucking impossible. Especially when he was trying to compress and store excess aether while using it.

  “Or maybe you just suck at aether control? Human bodies are really bad at it, you might have to fix that.” Obby continued to give such helpful hints the whole time he had traveled.

  But, altering his body to better control and utilize aether was an idea Alex was intrigued by. Which led Alex into hearing all of the amazing ways Obby knew of that would allow Alex to alter his physical body. The vast majority of which Alex was not going to try.

  Surgeries were the least of the ideas. Making his flesh turn into rock or different materials was one. Alex was told he could even try transferring his mind into the body of an arcane beast, something that sounded utterly insane.

  Until eventually, Obby suggested one that might turn out well.

  “We can apply [Glyphcraft] runes to your body, enchanting your physical tissue. All kinds of things we can do with that. But, for that, we gotta get your wisdom increased to let me access that knowledge.”

  That was the fifth time the rock had reminded Alex about increasing his wisdom stat.

  “Fine, fine, lets do this.” Alex sighed before he walked to a tree and began to prepare himself for yet another messy process.

  So a refinement, which was long over do, had to be taken care of on the journey towards the village as well.

  Alex finally spent some experience and brought his wisdom to five.

  Just like when he refined all of his physical stats, the abilities for the individual attributes combined into one singular ability when all his mental stats were refined. It made things simpler, cleaner in his status screen. Alex liked that.

  “Oh yesss… that’s the stuff. Finally.” Obby’s voice crawled through his mind, but it felt gross, like a creepy religious figure looming over a choir boy.

  Alex shuddered but didn’t say anything.

  “Okay then, with that done. Let’s go over your [Glpyhcraft] knowledge, because it is sorely lacking.”

  A crash course on [Glyphcraft] occurred through Alex’s entire travel.

  The day was spent with Obby explaining theory and application, bringing up runes of many different uses and styles. The stone said he couldn’t teach him things as advanced as he had taught Doudra until his wisdom was much higher. But that wasn’t much of a let down, because the information that Alex got was more than enough to give his skill a huge boost.

  It certainly helped that Obby was able to project the runes and lines into his vision like an in game display. It might also have been the fact Alex could just see the aether better, and not Obby’s upgrade at play.

  His aether vision was now letting him see not only the azure glow of concentrated aether, but also better see the ambient aether in various hues. Alex assumed these hues were elemental attunements of the aether energy, but he wasn’t certain.

  So obviously, Alex’s last twenty-four hours was massively busy. Stat refinement, skill lessons, aether cultivation practice, and all while Alex had traveled.

  Now he was walking up the street on the far side of the village headed towards Celeste’s shop. The familiar wooden sign dangled by the door, and for some reason that Alex couldn’t understand, he felt like he missed the place.

  He pushed the door open, and a bell chimed as he did so.

  Alex’s eyes scanned over the little shop interior. They stopped once his vision landed on the counter at the back. There, a middle aged looking woman stood at the counter speaking with two men.

  The three of them stopped their conversation the moment he looked toward them. Alex looked down at his ragged appearance again and gave an embarrassed smile.

  “Um, hello.” Alex waved at them.