Alright, it was time to make a plan. Attacking this orc pack without one would be suicide, and they seem pretty dug into these ruins. I could take on ten or so at once, but there were at least fifty here that I could see, not to mention any more that might be in the ruins below. For now, I decided to retreat deeper into the forest. A thirty-minute flight at max speed brought me far out of any possible mobilization range of the orc pack, and I was probably safe.

  Unfortunately, I would have to settle for tying my leg to a tree in order to keep from floating away, but I didn’t really mind all that much. I settled down and pulled out a container of beans and rice from back at the apartment for a late dinner. The beans were cold, but I didn’t really mind all that much. Before I went to sleep, I decided to allocate my upgrade points. I had been stalling, but now that I had five of them, I thought that waiting to allocate them was altogether a bad plan. I should allow myself to grow as much as possible.

  I decided to allocate two into strength and agility each, and then put one into charisma. Having a stat to increase likeability was one of the most supernatural things to happen to the world, to begin with, and not taking advantage of that was foolish. I guess looking better was a plus. I suppose I would have to suffer through it.

  Excellent. This brought strength and agility up to 21, and charisma up to a 15. I would work on increasing those stats to their maximums tomorrow as I hunted down some more orc packs. I planned on assaulting the orc camp tomorrow at midnight, then head back to the apartment before people started to worry. Ideally, I’d like to hit max level by the time I got back, but the gains in skill power and status have already been incredibly useful. I doubt anyone besides a beta tester at or near my level could compete with me. I tied my foot to a tree branch on a five-foot tether and floated into the air. Opening my skill sheet, I started to glance through it, reading more info on specific skills and their derivations, but before I could get anywhere in my search, my eyes began to feel heavy, and I fell asleep.

  My watch alarm woke me up at 8 am with its incessant beeping. Lucky for me, there was no ceiling to hit this time, only open air. Today makes it 7 days since the first wave happened, and my life got sent down a track I wasn’t really ready for. Though if someone had told me 8 days ago that they were actively preparing for a video game-style apocalypse scenario, I would probably either laugh or punch them in the face. Maybe both.

  Considering the way the waves have been arriving and changing erratically, I couldn’t say for sure when the fourth wave would happen, but I was feeling confident that it would happen today at some point. I would hunt some orcs for a while, and when I felt ready I would head to the camp. Every orc I killed while roaming was one less orc to deal with in the camp. Hopefully they didn’t respawn overnight. I took to the skies again, ready to find some more enemies to fight.

  I flew back to my main hunting ground, the areas about two miles in radius from the orc camp, and started looking around for more patrols to wipe out. I wanted to try and level my quiet movement skill, but it seemed to only increase in level when I was on the ground actively hiding. I suppose flying through the air negated the need for creeping around quietly, but last night I checked some of the skill derivations from it and I wanted one of them pretty desperately.

  I knew about rangers from D&D, and they were always incredibly useful to have. I suspected that the higher end quiet movement skill would have even more general stealth options later in its tree, but at the same time, I also literally glowed white. Not helpful when you were trying to be secretive, and I learned pretty early on that while I could close my eyes to hide their glow, the glowing markings on my skin, the gem in my forehead, and my hair were practically impossible to hide without great amounts of effort. What I really wanted was to get the Ranger’s Stride ability. I suspected that it would give bonuses to moving while in nature, and would hopefully help me find a tracking skill.

  My plan was to find a pack of orc, then try and sneak around them, hopefully leveling up Quiet Movement in the progress. Personally I thought it was a good idea, but I quickly ran into a problem. I couldn’t find any orc roaming the woods. I guess they must have realized that there was someone hunting them and decided to stay in the camp, though I needed to do more recon before I determine that to be the case for certain.

  I approached the camp from the ground, attempting to be as silent as absolutely possible. The camp had little to defend it aside from a basic fence made of smaller logs. It seems like the orc didn’t have ready access to tools, as the pieces of wood appeared as if they were ripped off of the cedar trees in the area. I used a spare shirt to try and cover the majority of the shine off of my hair and face, but I didn’t have high hopes for it. Looking around the area, I attempted to get a good count on the number of orc, as well as try and inspect as many as I could.

  There were 46 of them in total moving from tent to tent. Of that number, 8 of them were warriors like I had already seen before, though these were slightly higher in level, the highest being a level 18 warrior orc.

  Now that I was closer to the camp, I could better make out the entrance to the ruins. Honestly, the orc were useful for increasing my personal strength, but the ruins seemed far more interesting than some simple mobs to kill. I remembered the original alert for the ruins during the second wave, declaring risk and reward in equal measure. Hopefully that reward was in the form of sweet, sweet loot.

  There was a lot of orc here, though. I would definitely need to try and use my trump card if I wanted to have any chance. There was one skill that I had been unable to use until just recently, and I wanted to try and use it to wipe out as many of the fat bastards as possible. Hopefully, I could just mop the rest up using unarmed fighting without a storm fist.

  Alright, that would work. I just needed all of the orc in the camp to try and gang up on me, and the AOE would tick them down to nothing before the skill expires. The whole area of the camp was only about 100 feet in radius, and I could fly and use Storm Aspect at the same time. I was really excited to try out this ultimate skill, but I would be next to useless when it was done, at least magically. I was definitely nervous about this fight though. I had been through a few different scuffles at this point, but there was definitely something daunting about facing the unknown. I guess there was nothing for it but to put my game face on and get ready to fight.

  Psyching myself up a bit, I rose into the air and soared into the encampment through the main gate. I stayed only about five feet off the ground at any moment.

  The guards at the entrance to the camp immediately saw me, letting out squeals of agitation and rage as they ran after me back into the encampment.

  I shouted at the top of my lungs, “HEY PIGGIES, COME AND GET ME!”

  They might not have understood my words, but they definitely understood my intent, and I began to kite the group around the encampment, weaving around columns and broken pieces of stone that made up the ruin. They piled after me like lemmings, and I could tell that something about my challenge invoked a part of their instincts. Before I knew it, there were arrows flying towards me and I had the whole camp out and about chasing after me. I heard a particularly loud guttural oink behind me and turned to try and see what it was. There was a large orc standing above the rest by about three feet. He had metal armor plates across his upper chest and shoulders, and he wielded in two hands a massive hammer made of some kind of strange bronze material.

  I decided to test out my new ability to Identify and see his highest level skill. Seeing that his highest level was in a combat type, I wasn’t particularly surprised, but I knew for certain that avoiding contact with that hammer was an incredibly good idea.

  It was time. I had all of the orc in a big angry rush coming right after me.

  I sensed for my magic drawing on it deeply and activated Storm Aspect. My senses faded as I knew them, and I was placed in a strange state.

  Replacing all of my senses was a 3D map of the area around me. I could sense the airflow and the water in the earth and sky, and it was mine to command. I expanded myself, until I was humanoid no longer, nothing but a 30ft. circle of lightning and storm clouds. And then I attacked.

  It didn’t take long for the orc chasing me to realize that they had been baited, but it was too late. They had no magic with which to strike me, and in order to do damage they would have to reach my core at the center of the maelstrom. I did take a few arrows, but they had virtually no effect, while the lightning damage I did to my surroundings tore the very earth to shreds and reduced the orc to quivering piles of slag. -8, -8

  I moved through the orc following me with precision and grace, an arbiter of death collecting her due. There were none who could come close to the pure chaos of the storm that I had embodied. What an ego trip. Before long, even the orc warriors fell to me. There were only a few seconds of Storm Aspect remaining, and I was hovering over the Orc war chief, doing all of the damage I could while the ability still remained.

  -30, -30, -30, -30

  After four ticks, Storm Aspect expired and I reformed in the middle of the maelstrom. I could sense that the magic that made a part of me was fatigued and was in a place that I was unable to access for the time being. It was a distinctly unpleasant feeling, but I didn’t allow my mind to settle on it. There was still one more orc, and while he was injured, he definitely was not out of the fight just yet.

  In a rage, he swung his hammer at me. I instinctually attempted to activate elemental flight but found myself incapable of it in my fatigued state. I managed to throw myself backward instead, but the hammer came down between my legs, scattering rubble up at my face. -8

  I checked over my status to observe my health and stamina.

  Quickly rising to my feet, I clenched my fists and pounced towards the orc. He swung his hammer horizontally in a sweeping blow, trying to crush my legs, but I jumped back again at the right time to avoid it. In the brief opening he made with his sweeping attack, I moved in, unleashing four quick strikes straight into his unarmored side.

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  RESIST: -14, -14, -14, -14

  I guess he had resistance to melee damage. A fight like this was definitely not ideal, but at least he was slow. This would have to be an exercise in time and patience.

  I danced around him as he wildly swung his hammer about, trying to smash me into the dirt. I could tell that my stamina was decreasing, but his was as well, and at a much faster pace. He had managed to hit me with a glancing blow dealing a staggering 54 damage, but I was able to hit him countless other times. He was getting bloody and bruised, and the lengthy fight was weighing on him.

  It was finally time to try and end this. I moved closer, baiting an overhead blow into the ground. The hammer rocketed down onto me, but I dashed backward quickly, leaving it to slam into the earth. I immediately dashed forwards again, ramming my fist into the big orc’s face. I jumped back as the orc boss finally fell dead at my feet.

  Holy crap that was a fight and a half. I could tell if I just waltzed in here and tried to take them out with my fists I would be toast. The whole thing lasted only about 15 minutes, but it felt like forever. It goes to show how fast things like this can happen. I was itching to explore the ruins, but I wanted to make sure I got rid of the mana fatigue. I also wanted to go over all of the upgrades for the fight and the experience I gained.

  Max level, get. The new skill upgrade readout was better too. I guess the patches are still coming in? I went ahead and pulled up my status to look at the changes to my abilities as well as the new spells. As much as I wanted to perform my race rank up, I wanted to go back home to do it so I knew I would be safe. The increases to my stats across the board were awesome though, and I was very happy about the increase to luck. That would always come in handy. The skill increases were fairly substantial as well. I guess that Storm Aspect does damage to myself as well as the surroundings though because my Intermediate Storm Resistance increased by three levels as well.

  Well, that certainly marks today as a productive one. Now, there was only one thing left to do; investigate the ruins. Taking the boss orc’s large hammer made of strange metal so I wouldn’t forget it, I sat down in meditation in-between two large pieces of stone, and focused on regaining my stamina and mana.

  I was tempted to wait until I had advanced my race so that I could take advantage of the exploration experience, but I decided that it would be better to go through the ruin now than wait the two days until I was rank 2. The longer I stayed out here, the longer I left James to suffer, and I wanted to make sure he was rescued before I was free to do as I pleased. I would feel terrible if I tried to rescue him, but I wasn’t strong enough, only to return to this ruin and find a magic item that could have helped. I could make up the loss in experience with more ruins, or with hunting some monsters. This was only a rank 1 ruin anyway considering the orc that were guarding it, and I knew that pretty soon the experience I needed to level up would increase even more. If there was one thing I understood about this system, it was that it was a fan of exponential curves.

  It was time to explore my first ruin!