Chapter 5: Chocolate and Space

  For the first time since entering the tutorial, it was daylight as Sam woke up. That was surprising, he must’ve really slept like a log. Nearly panicking, he started ruffling through his belongings. He sighed in relief when he felt the thermos by his leg. The last thing he remembered was activating the thing so that he could have a bite before going to sleep but then he just passed out. For a moment there he was scared that he might’ve lost the thing before ever being able to eat from it. Luckily that wasn’t the case. He would make sure to keep the thing and his gourd in the personal inventory that he unlocked as a reward.

  He was looking forward to having a game like inventory space but reality was quite a bit more limiting than he expected. The inventory from the system only had five slots and he could only put one thing in each slot. At least he could put his most important belongings there without having to worry about losing them unlike the contents of his pack. So far, he decided to only keep his gourd, spear, and thermos in the inventory. Nothing else from his kit seemed important enough. Though perhaps– given he had two slots left– it might be worth it to keep one health potion and one mana potion in the remaining inventory slots in case of emergencies. He never knew whenever he might get into a life or death fight with the wildlife and he might not always be able to reach into his bag to top up on potions. He was fortunate enough to not have needed the consumable yet but considering he didn’t currently have a way to replenish his stock of the things, he wanted to make sure to use them as sparingly as possible. Doubly so because he didn’t even really understand their relative value outside of the tutorial yet. Some of the stories he was used to reading did make alchemists and their potions a rare commodity– there was a chance that things were the same within the multiverse that he now knew existed.

  With the panic now subsided, Sam could better gauge his condition. And the verdict? He felt amazing, almost as addictively amazing as the rush of power he felt from receiving his retroactive stats when he gained his class. He experienced the same kind of satisfaction as when he trained a new muscle for the first time and it finally healed enough for him to feel the increase in strength, except this time said muscle seemed less like an actual muscle and more like an esoteric spiritual strength he didn’t previously know was there. That had to be related to his efforts at pushing against the distortion yesterday all day as he made his pilgrimage to the mountains his primary goal for the near future. It was incredibly satisfying in much the same way as when he learned how to make a connection to a muscle he didn’t use to be able to flex actively. Sadly this wasn’t exactly the kind of muscle he could watch himself flex while in front of a mirror.

  “Oh well, they couldn’t all be winners” Sam muttered to himself.

  Before anything else though, he was starving and he never did get to eat from his thermos last night. He was really looking forward to this. Magically created and spiritually enhanced food had to taste amazing right? He greedily rubbed his hands together as he prepared to open the thermos, grabbing a folding spoon attached to the side that he assumed was part of the magic item. He wondered whether the spoon would reappear if it got separated too far from the main body of the thermos. He’d have to test that out later.

  Opening the thermos, Sam was assaulted by a heavenly and nostalgic scent of chocolate rice porridge mixed with milk. Unable to wait any longer, he tentatively held a spoonfool to his mouth, making sure to blow on it since he could see steam rising for the food and he was a bit of a baby when it came to scalding his tongue. Although that might no longer be a problem considering the stats he had now. He hadn’t actually tried to find out exactly how superhuman he was compared to before so he was looking forward to seeing that later. Taking that first bite was indescribable at first. His imagination alone wasn’t enough to come up with what it ended up being like. It was as though his tastebuds were no longer limited to his tongue. The flood of relaxing warmth and flavor continued even as he swallowed each spoonful. In his fervor, the porridge was finished before he knew it. Not a single drop or morsel was spared. Only having eaten rations for the past month further accentuated the mouthwatering meal he just had. Normally he didn’t mind eating only for the sake of getting the nutrition and calories he needed but there was always something to be said about enjoying good food. And by golly good was this food.

  In the intensity of the oddly intimate moment of enjoying his meal, Sam didn’t notice the changes to his body. Now that he wasn’t so distracted by the flavor though, he could feel the food do something to him. He felt an energy emanate from his stomach that seemed to permeate and change every cell in his body. It was a slightly ticklish feeling and he surmised that he was really only able to feel it properly because of his efforts to “cultivate” and whatever effects Sagacious Being gave him. Effects which by the way he still hadn’t actually checked the description for. There were just so many things to focus his attention on and he could scarcely keep up with it all. Quantitatively he couldn’t see any changes on his status from having eaten the food but he figured that it would take time and repetition for whatever changes it made to become numerically visible if at all. Regardless, he felt amazing and full of energy. Grateful for everything, he took a quiet moment to pray before he got started for the day. He didn’t have many people he personally cared about but that didn’t mean he had no one. So he took this time to ask that those he did care about were okay. Truthfully he felt a little guilty about the fact that it had taken him this long to contemplate the fact that his family was probably in their own versions of the tutorial too, facing dangers probably unknown to him. As such, he asked solemnly hoping that they were okay, and also he was really really thankful for the gourd and thermos. Those things are awesome. As he finished, he realized his prayer/meditation skill had activated, making him lose some mana in the process. He didn’t feel anything different aside from that and he couldn’t see any changes to his status either. He wondered what exactly the skill did. It was one of the few things in his status that he didn’t have the option to get an explanation for unlike the others that he could instinctively tell had the a set explanation waiting if he willed himself to see it. Considering there wasn’t anything detrimental aside from the loss of some mana, Sam just shrugged and went on about his business getting his things in order before he resumed his march to the mountains.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Resuming his endless march onward, he eventually began to feel that distortion again. Much like the day prior, he started to mentally push against it while focusing on his goal. He was making progress on this endeavor but he was bothered by this feeling that he was just a hair’s breadth away from something important. This was the same kind of dissonance one could expect when having a word on the tip of their tongue but not quite being able to pull out exactly the word that they’re thinking of. It was a frustrating feeling but he also relished in it because he intuited that he was on the verge of something quite important. Sam focused even harder on the task at hand. He thought about his destination and what lay in between. What was he pushing against in the first place? A large part of the frustration was that there weren’t any apparent barriers obstructing him from reaching his goal. All that remained was the distance between them and nothing else. That was the part that was beginning to annoy him more and more. The past few weeks had been fine because he had been distracted by a whole host of other things but now that he had single minded focus, he felt like he was starting to have a temper about the whole situation. He was having trouble with the bubbling emotion because unlike most things, what he was emotional about was missing. It was the idea that he didn’t where to direct all that emotional energy that was creating a feedback loop of self-doubt. Despite this growing feeling of ineptitude, Sam was subconsciously pushing harder and harder with each step; not just physically in this case but also with a whole mix of esoteric energies that he didn’t even realize he was doing yet. Just like yesterday, his mana was draining slowly– except this time that rate that it was going down kept going faster and faster as he walked with great determination. Of course, distracted by his feelings, or rather because he was so focused he didn’t see the drain on his mana either. All he could think about was where he wanted to go, where he was, and the lack of anything actually stopping him from getting there. As his stamina, mana, and spiritual power drained– though it should be noted that at this point he didn’t even know what that was in the first place– a crescendo was building. When he was down to the last dregs of his resources, even if he still hadn’t checked, everything suddenly went still. The frustration just ceased, and that feeling like having a word on the tip of one’s tongue went away, replaced by the relief of finally remembering.

  [Wondrous Achievement earned!]

  [You have touched upon the Form of Space]

  [Your Sagacious Being title has been upgraded]

  [You have been given the title Skill Prodigy]

  [You have learned the skill [Inexorable Stride (Epic)] ]

  [You have gained an excessive amount of special experience] [This will be held for you in the interim until you reach a higher species Tier. You would rapidly deteriorate then expire within seconds if you received it as you are now ]

  “Damn that’s a lot of notifications! What the hell did I do?” Sam exclaimed.

  Before looking into the notifications, he made a sudden realization. He made it. He was at the mountains after more than a month straight of walking. He was finally at the base of what had always looked like the closest one.