Perhaps he was pushing things a little too far outside the boundaries of what was supposed to be. As far as Aidan knew, nobody outside would go out into the night as frankly, that’s when the monsters would be more ravenous and more dangerous to hunt.
It wasn’t solely due to the danger of not seeing well at night, but something about how the mana shifted in the environment to become more feral and loose at night in comparison to the daytime. There was something about how the sun was something of a limiter on such environmental mana, making it more dangerous when it was outside of the sun, but it went far deep into the equations of how it works that it made Aidan drop the book entirely before he could spend a week or so just trying to understand the basic fundamentals of monster ecology.
That wasn’t what he was intending to learn when he was trying to figure out how the monsters worked in this world. Supposedly they were an incredible danger to some, though there are some locations out in the world that actively use monsters to make their thriving economy in their cities and towns. There were even rumors of a country which is solely dedicated to creating a balanced friendship between the humanoids and the monsters, where beast tamers and the like come into play.
In other words, monsters provide a benefit to this world equal to their danger. So it really shouldn’t be a surprise that Aidan would come out in search of monsters to slay for his own benefit.
Right now his body was laying on the bed, but his mind was elsewhere as his sight led him through the open night sky as his Harmonious Shortsword. Considering that it contained a piece of his own soul, it made sense that the ability to fly was also transferred down to his sword.
But he supposed what made it possible for it to actually work was the magical gem encrusted to the sword. The gem is magically compatible and when infused with mana, it was able to create a magic weapon capable of unleashing a spell of its own right, which would normally be quite a feat to make and expensive to sell. Though Aidan had no plans on selling this beauty nor showing it to anyone else.
This would be his trump card for gaining levels while still within the house. Sure, he could sneak outside with his abilities, but the danger of getting attacked was high, and more than anything, he wanted to do all of this with Nina none the wiser. So he kept pushing on with his sword through the air, going past the city walls and into the forest below.
It was a weird feeling, being only a sword in the forest now, but he felt comfortable knowing that his main body would not get affected at all. As long as Soul Meditation was in place, he would be safe in his own home while his sword would go out and hunt monsters. But this was the first time he ever tried this, so there might still be some issues that he needed to be aware of.
Now to find some monsters… I can’t believe that I’m actually looking for those horned wolves now myself.
It was a strange turnabout, but Aidan was more than glad for it now that he gained the knowledge and the safety of being in a town. The sword kept floating forward, Sense Vibrations going strong and burning in his mind as he floated around the trees.
At the same time, he could feel the environment change around him. Melodies sung in the background as though they had always sung this song for hundreds, thousands of years. It was the flow of the creek flowing in the distance. The swishing of glass blades when a small breeze rolled by. The churning of the leaves atop the canopies that blocked the night ahead.
It mesmerized him, knowing that he was the only one in the entire world that could hear this beautiful music that to others would just be the sounds of nature. Though nature itself had always had its own song, at least to the more natural folks that liked to live it rough in the woods.
The sound of bark breaking took his attention, and he saw a creature approaching in the distance. A horned wolf.
He definitely recalled its features, though now that he was in his shortsword, the horned wolf looked a lot larger in his perception than normal.
I can do this. It's like I'm there myself, that's all.
The wolf noticed the appearance of the sword and it growled at it. It lowered its posture, ready to strike at any moment. Though in Aidan's senses, he could sense panic and fear from the wolf.
That made sense considering that the wolf probably never saw a floating weapon in a forest before. Aidan put that thought to the side as he made his first command to the sword.
It floated backwards for a moment before lunging itself straight at the wolf. The mutt jumped to the side, bearing its fangs and tried to bite at the sword.
With an effort of will, Aidan moved the sword across the air and angled it to the side, catching the wolf unaware and cutting apart its lower jaw. Blood seeped out as the wolf cried out in a howling whine before jumping away from the floating sword, but Aidan didn’t want to let go just yet.
As though he was physically there himself, he grabbed the sword by the hilt and pushed it far into the direction where the wolf ran into. The sword plunged straight through, cutting the air and landing straight into the wolf's hide, the blade reaching deep into its side.
That definitely got the horned wolf to yelp out in pain, but Aidan could tell that it still carried some fight in it. Grabbing the hilt, he willed the blade upwards, bisecting the body in two before the sword was released from its physical coil, blood spurting and scattering across the ground and the surrounding trees and shrubbery.
The wolf hung its mouth open in shock before it struggled to keep standing and fell over to the ground, its jaws hanging loose and its blood pooling underneath. Aidan wasn't even the least bit tired, though his mind was certainly taxed and giving him a minor headache from the constant effort of willpower.
Thankfully the notifications were still around, showing up when he killed the wolf.
You have slain ‘Horned Wolf’.
You have gained a decent amount of experience points.
…..
You have gained a title!
“Out of Sight”
Defeat your first enemy without even being physically there. Talk about hands-off approaches!
+1 Might
+1 Intellect
+1 Perception
Unfortunately it wasn't enough for a level, but Aidan was fine with that. Just like that, he managed to make his first kill while he wasn't even there. The title was also proof of this. This felt like cheating in all kinds of ways, but he had to remember that with his talent, he had the right to use them however he wished. He could easily imagine someone with worse intentions taking advantage of such a powerful talent, making things worse for everyone around him.
Though he still had no clue just how powerful this talent was. He had a feeling that he was only scratching the surface of how far he could go.
…Better not to think too far ahead. I don't even have a class yet. I'll think about what to do once I get one.
With that, he kept pushing forward as his own sword, leaving the corpse of the horned wolf behind.
There was no way for him to drag the corpse with him to bring back to his house. Even if he could, anyone with eyes could tell that a flying corpse dripping with blood would be way too much to handle, and a lot of people would get involved. For now, the corpse was left behind, though Aidan did think about whether to go out in the morning to pick them up.
Going through the paces, he spotted several more wolves in the distance, each one doing their own business of scouring the field to look for prey. They hadn’t once noticed that a floating sword was approaching, its gleaming edge ready to kill.
Aidan took the first strike, launching the sword straight into the first wolf’s head. It was an easy kill, piercing right at its brain then pulled right back out, leaving the first wolf to fall to its death. The other two horned wolves followed suit, jumping out of the way and pouncing straight at the floating sword.
Aidan made the sword weave around the air, avoiding the attacking wolves despite knowing that nothing could seriously hurt him. Through the weaving, Aidan angled the sword so that the blade would cut across their legs and torsos in mid-flight, causing them plenty of injuries before landing back on the ground.
One of the wolves growled intensely at it, but the last one stepped back as though it knew the futility of it. Aidan had no plans of letting either of the wolves leave, so he forced the sword to act on his will and flew straight at the retreating wolf.
The cowardly wolf barked and stepped out of the way, but the sword was too fast for it to react properly before it got stabbed right in its stomach, plunging the whining wolf into the ground. The other wolf used this chance to go after the sword while still impaled into its friend, biting onto the handle of the sword and pulling it out.
While that definitely caused the downed wolf a lot of pain, the wolf biting the sword kept its hold on it, even swinging it around left and right and making it land on the ground to try to snuff the life out of the sword.
For Aidan, it was just giving him a bit of whiplash as his vision was pulled left and right, his soul only being affected rather than his physical body. It was almost like a surreal VR experience if he was honest.
Taking the chance, he willed the sword to move upright, bringing the wolf along with it as its mouth was still hanging on tight to the hilt. It growled and tried to bite harder, but the metal wouldn’t cave as the blade flew straight across to a tree, plunging the blade into the wooden trunk and making the wolf crash into it with a solid thunk. It took some effort to be released from the trunk, but Aidan managed to pull the sword out and plunge itself straight into the knocked-out wolf straight through its head, killing it instantly.
When he pulled the sword out, he noticed the last wolf that was pierced limping away, its blood trickling down on the ground. With one final command, the sword swept through the air and finished it off with one final swipe, cutting the head off of the wolf with ease.
Aidan was definitely starting to feel the exhaustion hitting him after killing the last wolf. He wasn’t sure himself, but he felt himself sweating in the real world, his heart beating rapidly as if he was in the fight himself. But he still had plenty of energy to keep going, and he knew he was close to a level.
He dragged the sword into the air again, forcing it to fly around the perimeter to scan for any other monsters he could hunt. He was deeper into the forest than he ever was in reality, reaching into areas he hadn’t seen before such as having several boulders tucked into the ground with moss covering them entirely.
He also felt something shifting in the air through the vibrations that made him believe that something changed within the forest. As if he entered into an entirely different area than before.
He also noticed that the grass changed hue a little, showing a purplish hue at the tips of the grass, and the trees were more gnarled and entangled than before. Through his Sense Vibrations, he felt the air stifle and cease to move, a resounding thud echoing across the forest.
His metaphysical eyes widened when something approached the sword. It reached around four feet in height, its bluish skin tinged with red spotted welts shown beneath the moonlight as it revealed itself from the greenery of the forest. It carried a long axe, the blade six inches long and twice as wide. It was covered in furred pelts that hid its valuables, with prolonged feet having three large talons rather than the usual five toes.
It opened its gangly mouth, sharp teeth glistening in saliva as it let out a shrieking roar at the challenger in front of it.
Night Goblin, Level 9
Seeing the scan, Aidan knew that he would have a tough time if he first spotted it when he landed there. But he also knew that there would be no better chance than now for him to try to take it out and get some sweet levels. Preparing to strike, he held the sword in his imaginary hands and thrust it at the goblin through the chest.
The goblin dodged out of the way, instead reacting with a well-placed strike with its axe, disrupting the flow of the sword and making it fly upwards in an arc. The force from that strike was larger than Aidan expected and it threw him for a loop.
Despite that setback, Aidan used the momentum of the strike to his advantage, making his sword spin in the air before lunging itself straight down at the goblin from atop its head. The goblin managed to step aside, but the blade grazed across its left shoulder, blue blood oozing out in response.
The goblin didn’t falter and swung its axe straight at the sword, but it was easy enough to move aside, not wanting to get throttled back out into the open air. He also wasn’t quite sure what would happen if the sword got damaged to the point of breaking. Would it affect him mentally if he let the sword break?
Preferring not to risk anything, Aidan kept swerving the sword around in the air, avoiding the crazed strikes of the goblin. For a while the two battled it out, though in Aidan’s mind, it was more of a fight with an invisible person and the goblin was losing out.
That’s when the goblin finally made the change in battle. Its axe started to glow a purplish gleam before bursting into purple flames that encompassed the axe. It roared, swinging the axe down at the sword. The swing was too fast for Aidan to react in time, and the sword took the hit of the burning axe.
The flames danced across the blade of the shortsword, but that didn’t do anything to the magically enchanted blade. Instead, it sent a ripple of burning sensations straight down to Aidan’s core, causing him to scream out in anguish on his physical side. He forced the sword away from the goblin, whose axe still burned with its strange purple coloring.
The fuck was that? Did it actually hurt me?!
He wasn’t sure what happened, and that made him panic as the goblin continued its rampaging onslaught at the sword. Aidan kept a healthy distance, keeping the sword away from the lunatic goblin throwing its magic around. He didn’t even know that goblins could use magic, but he should’ve expected that a higher level monster would have some tricks under its sleeve.
Acting as though he was there in the fight, Aidan pulled the sword and jumped to the side, getting over the goblin’s flank and slashing at its back. It cut a deep gash, but the goblin didn’t relent as it shrieked at him before slashing down with the burning axe. It missed him and landed on the ground, creating a small explosion of burning purple flames, blinding his senses severely and blanketing his mind.
A hideous sense of pain hit him all over, making Aidan scream out when the sword was launched to the side, scattered bits of purple flame tinging its blade before falling to the ground, hitting against the wooden roots beneath and landing blade first into the soil.
The goblin rushed towards the blade, grabbing it by the hilt and pulling it free. Then it swung it around a few times as though trying to wring its user away from it before putting it onto the ground, keeping its weight on it as the goblin raised its axe high into the air, the flames burning maliciously and licking the air for a death kill.
Aidan had to move quickly, or the pain might actually pull him out of his meditation and force him to lose the blade for good. He acted on impulse, using his Multicast skill and forcing another spell into play.
The sword that was held tightly in the goblin’s grip quickly disappeared thanks to the Vanish spell Aidan cast on it. The goblin paused mid swing, looking at the blade and pulling its hand away in shock. It looked around, putting its hand back onto the ground, finding that it was gone for good.
Aidan managed to move the sword away when it was momentarily confused, now left in the air completely invisible. Aidan only had one shot at this, so he took the sword by the hilt with his metaphysical hands, and stabbed straight into the goblin’s naked head.
Blue blood exploded outward, drenching the sword completely as the goblin struggled to break free, its hands seizing up and dropping the axe. It tried to pull at the sword, but Aidan pulled the sword out of the head and stabbed it again, then repeated the process over and over, his own bloodlust taking over as he wanted nothing more than to kill the goblin straight on.
After three or four successful stabbings were done, the goblin’s hands stopped shaking and fell limply on both sides. Pulling the sword out, Aidan watched as the Night Goblin breathed its last before falling over, its axe left forgotten on the ground as it drowned in its own blood.
Aidan couldn’t focus any longer. He felt his head aching in ways that was similar to his mana pool reaching its end. Using both Soul Meditation and Vanish took its toll, his mind taxed beyond reasoning. But he had done it.
And the notifications made proof of that.
You have slain ‘Night Goblin’!
You gain a large amount of experience points.
…..
Level Up! From Level 4, you became Level 5!
You have gained 1 Attribute point and 3 Stat points!
…..
You have reached the level requirement to gain a class! Please choose the following class options before interacting with the status any further:
-Warrior
-Mage
-Healer
-Thief
-Archer
…
Aidan couldn’t focus on anything else at the moment. It took all he had to force his sword up into the air and fly back into town. It slowly floated through the window of his house, landing carelessly on the floor with a clattering noise that made him flinch.
Aidan only just barely returned to the physical world before his exhaustion took over and closed his eyes, the darkness taking him into a dreamless sleep.
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