Reckless

He felt unstoppable, until the Huntsman's spear plunged into his shoulder. He immediately broke its shaft with his mace and gripped the mounts face with his open palm using Grim touch to rip away it's life force, as the wolf lost its strength and began to fall the huntsman released the remains of his spear and jumped back off the dying wolf, pushing his last remaining subordinate forward as he walked backwards sounding a whistle and drawing a small curved metal sword.

As the wolf fell Daniel managed to mace another and fire off a burst of flame towards the last remaining wolf and goblin as they advanced. Running into the forest and emptying his hands with Storage space he ripped the spear from his shoulder and cried out from the pain. As the wolf charged forward he summoned his last health potion and a mana potion from storage taking cover behind a tree. He drank both while summoning his mace back out, killing the wolf as it bounded round the tree trunk. Seeing the body of the wolf go limp, the goblin quickly turned and ran back towards the Huntsman shouting out in fear as it did, he chased it down and crushed it before rushing back to the clearing.

He was half afraid the Huntsman would have taken the opportunity to run but it seemed it was just regrouping with its reinforcements. It now led them forward with fury etched on its face and a shout of rage which was soon taken up by the rest. Daniel didn't even take stock of what he was charging, simply going forward with a war cry of his own and replacing his mace with his iron spear.

As he charged forward two large rocks shot towards him from one side of the goblin line which he narrowly avoided and then he was amongst the sword and short spear wielding mass of goblins. He was only able to get a single thrust and kill with his spear before immediately dropping it and summoning his mace and pickaxe, killing a goblin with every hit from the mace the pickaxe was launched at a goblin spearman and immediately replaced with his wood axe.

One of the next moss covered rocks hit him in the back as he worked his way blindly through the goblins who had been unable to land a hit until now. As he was pushed forward a crude wooden spear tip grazed him and the Huntsman's sword cut his arm.

The pure fury driving him made his mind latch on to the sight of the sword and he pushed straight forward through the last few goblins landing bodily on the Huntsman. His axe dug into its chest and was left there as he swung round with his mace, killing another of the cannon fodder, and dousing the last two in flame.

Finishing off the Huntsman with his mace and retrieving the axe he ran down the now retreating and spent shamans. Breathing heavily his eyes wildly scanned the battlefield and his ears tried to pick up anything above the never ending drone of the bees above. FInding nothing he checked his condition and he forced himself to calm down.

[HP: 114/290]

[MP: 16/70]

He checked his exp while he was looking as he felt having just destroyed a whole tribe of goblins he should be rewarded.

[exp 741/900]

He had been getting notifications throughout the engagement but was too busy to even see them.

Now that the battle was over he went about clearing the battlefield, gathering his weapons, the drops, the wolf corpses and the bear corpse he'd weaponised and then fire balled. He laughed at himself thinking of this and wondered if the damaged state would change the outcome when he put it into the colony storage for processing.

He was beyond numb from that battle and just wanted to go back home; he sat against a tree and dipped some of the leftover bread he'd brought with him in his soup bowl of honey. It was delicious and healed him on a spiritual level. After five minutes of eating and drinking he got up, collected a weapon he'd noticed while he ate and headed for home.

As he walked he listened to the sounds of the forest, there were no more whistles. The biggest threat he faced was an unlucky rat who was added to the storage space. He considered harvesting some of the abundant deadfall that was laid about him but he just didn't have the energy. He just wanted to go home and level up to heal.

"I was really too reckless back there, there's nothing saying I need to complete these missions, I could just grind, there was no reason to allow myself to be cornered like that, it was just greed."

Once he arrived at the dome he put everything into the storage without even looking at the returns, he'd withdraw his last pear and some honey later along with his bear skin but everything else he couldn't be bothered with.

[Retrieve the Bandoleer]

[Collect the Honey]

[700 exp]

[Huntsman Bow]

[300 exp]

[Wild flower seeds]

[Congratulations Hermes, you are now level 10]

[Congratulations Hermes, new Beachhead functionality unlocked]

[Congratulations Hermes, new bonuses unlocked]

[Congratulations Hermes, Unique skills enhanced]

As soon as the notifications finished he saw the light of the dome change and intensify, the beam in the middle pushed higher into the sky and he saw the edges expand, the poor slimes too close were pushed along and tumbled over each other as if by a slow moving snow plough.

As the movement stopped the colour changed back to normal and stabilised, the poor little slimes slowly separating and sliding off each other.

Quickly checking the panels he couldn't see any other changes and looked back at his notifications.

"Every five levels maybe? Sweet"

He next saw the iron chest at his feet, the patterns were slightly different to the wooden ones but it was the same size and shape, he could only assume they were different tiers of reward which made him excited for whatever he got out of this one.

"Give me a ranged spell, I'd take the mossy rock at this point"

Opening the chest he found a large clear gem, bigger than any he'd yet seen and immediately put it into colony storage to identify.

Common quality pure gem x 1

"Pure? Maybe it will help with my holy magic cost?"

He had been hoping to find a higher quality gem than poor to try upgrading his mace with, he couldn't know if the gems could come out after being put in and so didn't want to waste the slots on such a fine weapon.

He liked the idea of his silver mace being a holy weapon, especially given who he essentially stole it from under the nose of.

"They wouldn't want it back then"

"Okay, status, let's see it"

Hermes: Level 10

Exp: 849/1000

HP: 315/315

MP: 75/75

Strength - 14

Endurance - 11

Agility - 14

Intelligence - 15

Wisdom – 13

Free Attribute points: 6

Free Skill points: 6

*Transfer energy – 898

Skills:

Dimensional Transfer LV 6

Storage space LV 4

Flame LV 1

Grim touch LV1

Radiance LV1

"Nice, looks like it gave me triple points again, does that mean I'll upgrade from 2 per level to 3 now? I think I'm getting the idea with this system."

"Whatever, I need to know how my unique skills have changed first, oh wait"

Before he looked at the details he tried upgrading Dimensional transfer further and found himself 1 skill point short.

"No worries, only a little bit until level 11, it'll keep, be calm"

{Dimensional Transfer – lv 6}

[Able to transfer himself from Eden to Earth freely using the world's own mana to achieve the transfer, due to the relative sizes of the two planets transfer locations are unpredictable]

[Able to transfer himself from Earth to Eden freely at a fixed transfer energy cost of 475, due to the relative sizes of the two planets transfer locations are unpredictable]

[Able to transfer anything from Earth to Eden at a cost of transfer energy based on the relative value of the item (Combined perceived, physical, data intensive and compatibility) all items from any location will arrive at the Beachhead and be placed in storage]

[All humans transferred will receive the System interface and arrive through the Beachheads primary column]

{Abundant vitality} – [When HP is full, transfer energy will accumulate faster reflecting the HP regeneration rate.]

{Mana overflow} – [When MP is full transfer energy will accumulate faster reflecting the MP regeneration rate.]

{Glutton} – [Transfer energy produced from eating mana rich foods increased drastically]

"No way, direct control over the transfer time, that's more like it, gives me an excuse for the choicest cuts too. That personal transfer energy cost though, is that right?"

"System, how long to transfer me from Earth to Eden from empty, and someone else from Earth to here from empty please"

[0.66 days]

[11.42 days]

"Less than a day! And 11 days for someone else, we're going to be expanding quick; I should go back tonight and let the others know, I just need to level up and upgrade once more first though"

He looked at the sky and guessed he had another couple of hours until dark.

"A quick run to the undead zone wouldn't take that long, would it?"