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Matt was lying on the sand trying to figure out whether he should distribute his free stat points now or wait a while longer. It was a lot of unused power, but at the same time this wasn’t a game where he could simply press the reset button. It was life, and decisions now had consequences. Not having access to a class was the main issue and the reason for his uncertainty. He could assume what each stat did, but without knowing what class he'd end up with, distributing anything now could end up biting him in the ass.
Was he expected to fight with his hands until then?
It was all valid questions, but the biggest one on his mind was what to do now. The sun had already set and while he didn’t want to drive across the desert at night, he really didn’t want to sleep out in the open. He might’ve if a random ass vulture hadn’t attacked him, but knowing now it was a possibility was enough of a deterrent.
He sighed and decided to finish with his status, at least the skills seemed intuitive enough. He still hoped there was a description though, and fortunately for him, there was.
[Universal tongues](unique)
Being able to communicate has been integral to the growth and development of every civilization. You are now able to communicate in and understand the spoken and written languages of every race in the known universe.
This will definitely come in handy. Granted I’m stuck alone on Earth for the next 6 months fighting for my survival, then after that I’ll have to find a way to actually leave Earth, but when I do, handy it will be, he nodded to himself in a semi-assured manner. He tried focusing in on the unique tag, nothing showed.
[Identify](common)
Fear cripples the mind, and most fear what they do not know, so let your mind remain uncrippled. You are able to identify any target with a mana signature to glean some information about them.
I guess mana signature means it has mana or is infused with mana? Weird term though, He wondered as he tried to identify the dune buggy… nothing. He tried to identify the cane that Sal threw at him, and bingo!
Scepter of Life (Rare)
A scepter infused with life mana, improving passive health regeneration.
Enchanted: [Life Attack]
Enchanted: [Minor Heal](common 5)
[Life Attack]: Unattuned mana channeled through the scepter is transformed and charged into a life mana orb capable of dealing damage.
[Minor Heal]: Recover a target’s health by a minor amount.
“A healing weapon, huh? Guess I’m gonna be using it to follow through with one of my threats to Sal after all,” Matt said in a low voice, smiling to himself.
Matt had nothing against healers, and if he was honest with himself, he was a shitty healer, but asking someone to be a healer in what can only be described as an apocalyptic setting, was cruel–you were basically forcing that person to rely on people for the rest of their journey–and when that someone happens to be stuck alone for 6 months with not a fucking soul to heal, it fell on him to create the targets in need of his healing, you know?
So, this is where Sal came in, Matt will do things, Sal will need healing, and then Matt will still not heal him because he won’t be a fucking healer. “Good plan,” Matt approved, nodding to himself in satisfaction, before muttering under his breath, “Fucking healer weapon.”
Viewing his status gave him more questions than answers. There were too many unknowns and missing information, something that he had to remedy somehow, but how? How was he supposed to find answers when he was all alone for the next 6 months, no one to even trade notes with. Did he really have to figure everything out on his own? It felt like too much of a hindrance, and while it wasn’t really a race and he could just take his time and wait for life to return to Earth, his ego would be permanently bruised on seeing everyone's gains. He was a competitive person by nature, and being the weakest of the bunch just didn't sit well with him. He’ll try to be safe when possible, but taking risks just became a necessity.
Sighing, he got a move on. He didn't feel comfortable spending the night in the open. Also, he was running low on gas so might as well see how far it would take him before stopping for the night. A source of food and water would be nice to have, as well as a place to stay, then he could work on a plan of action. Hopefully he would see Hurghada soon, because he really didn't want to think about the alternative.
Less than an hour or so later, there was finally a change in scenery. It was subtle but he noticed a hill of some kind far off in the distance. Driving towards it revealed it was actually a crater.
“Why is there a crater in the desert?” he wondered out loud as his eyes fell on something smack dab in the middle of the crater. Now a smart person would probably go back on his buggy and not approach the likely alien object, but despite his intelligence stat and plethora of horror movies telling him otherwise, he decided the smart option wasn't gonna work for him, for one simple reason, “What if it's loot? I’m not walking away from potential loot, especially if it’s a weapon,” he muttered, trying to justify to himself his reasoning for approaching an unknown object in a suspicious crater at night.
As Matt approached it, it looked like a sand colored, half buried, open tomb, but upright with a slight lean to the left. It was too dark to make out what was inside of it, so he threw a stone, but nothing happened, not even a sound. I'm starting to like this less and less, he thought to himself as he approached the weird tomb.
He started circling the structure in search of any clues. There were some symbols on the sides but he couldn’t say whether it was hieroglyphics or something else. It looked like hieroglyphics, but to be fair he would think the same about any symbols on a tomb in the middle of a desert in Egypt. It was just the obvious conclusion.
Finally he stood in front of the open tomb. It was pitch black inside, as if light couldn't penetrate the darkness, it looked eerie and unnatural.
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He paced back and forth a few times, hand under his chin, as he tried thinking of an explanation or alternatives. In the end, with nothing coming to mind, he sighed. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Matt shrugged as he inched his index finger closer and closer to the darkness.
Then, he touched it.
Would you like to enter Tomb of the Guardian of the Dunes (Tier 9 dungeon)?
Accept? Yes/No
Dungeons.
They were the ultimate fantasy element. It’s where you could find monsters, beasts, puzzles, traps, ridiculously powerful bosses, and most importantly, loot. Yep, if there was one commonality amongst dungeons everywhere, it’s that where there's a dungeon, there's loot. They were always a combination between long, arduous, and dangerous, sometimes even all three, but the bigger the danger, the greater the reward, aka loot, and Matt was standing right in front of one.
He took his hand out of the tomb and tried to be logical about it. The problem was gas, he was running out of it. Hurghada was still nowhere to be seen and he had no idea how much further he had to go. He still had some food and water since he’d been using them sparingly, but running out of gas was not an option. The desert was dangerous as is, but having to walk through it with no city in sight was akin to a death sentence, and that’s assuming he was even on the right path. He had crossed at least 200 miles of it by now. Even if he had been driving the wrong way this entire time he should’ve seen something, yet the scenery never changed.
The question was, even if he entered and finished the dungeon, how would that help him with his dilemma? A reward was the simplest answer. Also while the entrance was in the middle of the desert, the exit could be somewhere else, maybe even in the city itself.
It was risky, but it was also an opportunity. So while he could find arguments for and against entering a random dungeon in the middle of the desert, in the end, one thing mattered more than the rest, he really wanted to dungeon dive. Also, he really wanted loot. He was growing tired and sick of the desert, it was just sand and nothing else. He hadn't spotted any wildlife aside from the vulture that had greeted him upon his return. And while a dungeon was definitely more dangerous, it was also way more exciting.
Was it smart? No.
Was it logical? Hell no.
But right now he was alone, and the only one it needed to make sense to was him, and luckily, it did. “So, dungeon it is,” he nodded to himself excited to see what was on the other side. "Please don't be another desert," he kept muttering as he put his hand into the darkness, the familiar message appearing once more.
Would you like to enter Tomb of the Guardian of the Dunes (Tier 9 dungeon)?
Accept? Yes/No
He mentally chose yes.
Darkness enveloped Matt like a warm blanket, pulling him in, then spitting him out a breath later into a new environment where he almost stumbled. It was like taking a step only to find the elevation had changed. It was slightly nauseating but better than the previous time. In the end, he appeared in what seemed like a cave.
It was extremely spacious for being a cave with around two hundred feet in width and more than a thousand in height. Sunlight was shining through cracks and breaks in the ceiling, enough as to illuminate the entire cave, which was how he was getting a good look. It seemed to be mostly sand and rock formations. No plant life, no monsters, just another desert, but this time in a bottle
"Please let there at least be an oasis or something," Matt groaned in complaint at being shoved into another desert as he stared at his half full water bottle. He hadn't really been feeling that thirsty, but his throat does dry up from the dry air and sand, and this was the last of his water.
He took a look behind him only to see the pitch black portal he came through was still there. He tried putting his hand through only to get a different message this time.
A checkpoint is needed to exit Tier 9 dungeon Tomb of the Guardian of the Dunes (floor 1) as it is considered within the acceptable level range.
“Well, this blows,” Matt muttered. Having no way out was less than ideal, but he also didn’t really expect for there to be a way out. For some reason he'd expected that once he was in he was stuck until the dungeon was over, so a safety net was more than welcome, even if it came with its own set of restrictions.
He wanted to get a move on and start exploring, but before that, he needed to figure something out first, how to use mana. It was a world of magic and mana, yet he still had none, and the only weapon he had on him required mana to be channeled through it. If he didn’t do that he’d just be walking around unarmed… in a dungeon… he probably should’ve thought about that before entering…
Identifying the scepter revealed the same description.
Scepter of Life (Rare)
A scepter infused with life mana, improving passive health regeneration.
Enchanted: [Life Attack]
Enchanted: [Minor Heal](common 5)
[Life Attack]: Unattuned mana channeled through the scepter is transformed and charged into a life mana orb capable of dealing damage.
[Minor Heal]: Recover a target’s health by a minor amount.
It did seem very powerful for a weapon with no requirements, did items in the system even have requirements? He wondered, hoping that would be the case, or else every rich brat out there would just get decked out in the best gear money could buy, talent and hard work be damned.
It was an unsettling thought, one he chose to move on from in his attempt to not think too much about the political climate of the multiverse.
Going back to the mana issue, he started revisiting everything he knew so far. Using [Identify] didn’t seem to cost any mana, and the scepter itself seemed to have a green hue surrounding it. Is that coz of life mana or is that what mana looks like? He mulled it over as he kept rotating the scepter in search for any clues. This was the first item he had identified, he hadn't gotten a chance to identify the vulture, and nothing in the cave was identifiable, so he honestly had no clue.
He sat down, leaned onto the rocky wall, and crossed his arms. How does someone channel mana? he asked himself. He held out a hand in front of him and tried envisioning mana gathering on his palm, and surprisingly… nothing happened.
“Of course,” Matt muttered, half expecting the result but still slightly disappointed nonetheless.
He tried to sense whether there was any mana within him, but he felt the exact same as he had been before the system. Normally he'd expect a skill to do all the work for him, channeling and using the mana, but the scepter told a different story. It implied that he could channel mana into it, which meant that he had a certain degree of control over his mana, or it wouldn’t be logical for the enchantment to exist in the first place. It made sense, but also put him in a position where he had no idea how to proceed.
He tried to use the [Minor Heal] skill that came with the scepter, but still, nothing. No response no matter what he tried, which meant that he was definitely doing something wrong. And until he figured out what it was, he was stuck with no mana, and no skills, not even the ones on his scepter.
