Chapter 15 (2/2)

So as the monkey lifted the rock up, Randidly used his free hand to withdraw the snake tooth he had taken from the dead snake, and stuffed it into the eye of the Howler Monkey’s eye.

Immediately it began screaming, and Randidly shoved it off him and scrambled to his feet. Gritting his teeth to resist the nausea, Randidly glanced at Shal, who watched him coolly in the distance, and used the Phantom Half Step to cross half the distance. Immediately he turned to the right, using his good eye to land a couple Entangling Roots on those monkeys close enough to be a threat.

Then he stumbled the rest of the way passed Shal and back to the safe room, where he meditated for several hours to recover.

When he opened his eyes, Shal was standing there.

“You were not going to save me,” Randidly said slowly, watching for a reaction from Shal. Shal simply shrugged.

“If you had died, it was only because you are too weak.”

****

So the training continued. At around 2 and a half weeks, a few days after the monkey incident, Randidly reached the point that he could meditate while doing most actions. Using active skills broke it, but otherwise, he could maintain the passive bonus while generally sparing with Shal.

Sparring was a strong word for it, honestly; mostly it was just Randidly blocking and dodging, but still. He could now survive a lot longer against the onslaught of attacks from Shal.

The next big change came when Randidly got his mana bolt skill to 20, unlocking the mana bolt path. Still, Randidly continued to go the the pathless paths, feeling strangely connected to them now, after grinding his way to here.

Pathless IX was 25, and earned Randidly 14 stat points. After some thought, he ended up throwing all of the points in wisdom, which provided a pretty significant boost to his mana regeneration.

Pathless X jumped all the way up to 50, and it filled Randidly with a thread of excitement. He threw himself into training, working his way through the different spear moves, focusing on the Spear Phantom’s footwork and Phantom thrust. That, combined with marginal improvements in the level of Physical Fitness and Meditation, was enough to finish the Path.

Congratulations! You have completed the Pathless X Path! +2 Health/Mana/Stamina per level! +1 Stat per level! You have realized that all paths are the same, and all paths lead to the same place. And that the path continues ever onward…

Randidly allowed himself a wry grin. So, he still had more to go…

Inside his path screen, he saw that he now had access to the path “Pathless” without a roman numeral, and it had 100 next to it. He had a few spare PP after finishing it, but…

But then he just laughed out loud. If he would get it, it would only be by going all the way, one step at a time. No reason to hold back now.

He put 3 PP into Pathless and followed Shal deeper into the forest, to find more monkeys.