some part of him sensed that danger was approaching. Suddenly a goblin burst through the brush and leapt. Its upper torso and arms were limbed in a red aura, its eyes also glowed red and it was frothing at the mouth. With instincts born of memories he didn't have he fed the intent into caloric completion to fade step back just enough for the goblin to miss its swing. He couldn't access his character sheet but he didn't need to. Since he invented Caloric Completion.
It was broken but not inherently a combat ability. It allowed the user to do anything that they knew and understood how to by expending the caloric energy to complete the task instantly. Know how to make an origami crane? Have a stack of paper? You expend Calories and the resource; paper in this case, and instantly complete all of them.
In this instance Arthur let the Talent drive by expending the calories to move backwards to just avoid the swipe.
The talent did not allow for complex actions that relied on the unpredictable acts of others like the act of striking someone with the potential for blocking or dodging a series of attacks. Doing only self affecting actions like moving within a parameter like just out of this goblins reach. Will work. But expending the calories to dodge every attack thrown at him would not.
Now that he shifted back clear of this talent using goblin; wearing bone claws crafted from some creatures fangs. He instinctively did something else curious. He reached both within and without and drew his space and time affinities into his perception stat in a precarious but even measure.
Suddenly everything was slow. And he could sense everything within a 50 foot radius, like the other 3 goblins trying to flank him. He applied a trickle of time to his dexterity and agility, and now he was moving at normal speed through this slow time, but he knew this was eating his stamina and taxing his body.
He summoned his chakram to his hand and punched out towards the goblin’s neck severing it. With one last trickle of time he pushed it into the weapon and twisted to throw it behind where the goblins were preparing to flank him. The last thing he did before letting the time flow out of his physical stats was teleport to the thrown weapon. He fell upon the goblins with fury after time began to flow normally for him.
After the fight he lay panting in the clearing. The Technique he used was likely created with a much sturdier body in mind. Because everything burned. He took a moment to focus on his muscles, the lactic acid and the torn fibers repairing in the way that made them stronger, and applied his Caloric completion to the process. Suddenly he was ravenous, but his body no longer hurt. He reached into his inventory and drew out a Pemmican bar or three and ate them with his talent metabolizing and adding to his clearly low calorie pool.
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Once he felt like he was put back into working order he sat back up. Floating in the air above where each of the goblins died was a card With a light blue glow, he knew it was rare rarity. He considered how he knew that and he had a ton of knowledge but no memories. Briefly he wondered if this was how a certain loud orange anime ninja's shadow clones felt when they were summoned. Knowledge skill and intent with no supporting memories. Either way he checked out the four cards. They had three question marks as the description but each one had a purple gem with an icon. He poured his intent into them with the thought of acceptance and three lighter sized crystals lay in his palm. He focused on one and it was a full skill crystal for a berserker skill. He stored that in his inventory.
The other three were a foraging skill, a wilderness survival and a tracking skill. All of which he crushed and absorbed. It was a weird experience. They gathered and organized my existing concepts pertaining to the skills; and then corrected and edited them according to correctness and efficiency.
*****
You have unlocked the skills Foraging tracking and wilderness survival.
*****
The biggest leap was the foraging skill because it drew the most sensation of new knowledge. Plant types and what was edible or toxic. What moses grew in what conditions. Followed by the tracking skill, which I seemed to know plenty about, what drew attention there was animal tracks habits and droppings that I guess I didn't know. Again it was so weird to have a sense of self and no memories to support it. In what was clearly a big brain maneuver Arthur Decided to Dissociate. He wasn't Arthur. He was Shade, a mysterious amnesiac on the run from world controlling organizations on a mission to survive equipped with mysterious skills and abilities to save a world he cannot remember from invasion.
After that bit of deciding was out of the way, Shade scanned his surroundings and spotted several edible plants and mushrooms. Now that they were highlighted. He also saw the tracks of the goblins and the direction they had come from. Which was probably the dungeon. Going that way was a terrible idea. He was lv 1 and he couldn't access his character sheet stats hit point or even his halved MP pool let alone his experience. How did people live like this? The non adventuring populace. The farmers and villagers. Did they just have like a tier day or does the church just have that tight of a hold on the populace. He bet that was what it was. They probably baptized the populace and convinced them to worship.
Shade began to move through the forest towards the south east; he kept his space perception up, and did his best to avoid enemies and predatory animals. Between caloric completion and his Chakram wasn’t a problem. Navigating to the head of the valley Shade discovered a fortress manned by goblins and Orcs. The orcs were larger but they all seemed to be collared and goblins with rods and whips stood by. There were at least twenty of them and twice as many Goblins. Some of the goblins and most of the Orcs gave off a sense of weight that others didn't. Shade decided to avoid this whole situation before he herd twig snap.
