The updated panel hung in front of him, solid and golden.
He scanned through it, starting from the top. Level two, now. EXP required to get to level three amounted to 200 points, 35 collected so far, according to his stats which reflected his actions in clean figures.
Three cards in his active hand. Two suits launched, but a long way from completion.
Jokers locked until the condition beca clear, whatever the system had in mind with this.
Storage capacity was at two out of twenty. One magic stone, and one sli gel portion, all invisible and weightless, stored away neatly in so place called inventory.
Strange thing to get used to, having everything stored without any tangible representation of the existence of any object within it, waiting until it needed to be put to use.
It would take ti.
Finally, he glanced over his quest panel.
Kill 10 Sli Monsters ≈ Progress: 1 / 10
Underneath, untouched, and with the entire burden of the agreent in an empty void made of nothing else but his promise to an old man with blank eyes holding a wooden staff:
★Unique Quest★: SAVE THE WORLD
Two quests faced him at the sa ti.
He understood that sli monster quest was a growth quest, one which did not have anything to do with the old man’s mission, which would not bring him one inch closer to completing his part of the mission, and was rely a ans of motivating him into getting stronger.
The system was trying to guide him towards a goal, sothing tangible and achievable while the big and truly scary quest was waiting.
The world will wait.
He needed to be worthy first.
’Nine more slis. Where?’
Since his arrival here, he had seen precisely one sli monster - the one that had found him under a tree and tried to dissolve his hand.
One sli in thirty minutes of walking across the vast grassland was certainly not a lot, considering that there was absolutely no indication of any sort of concentration in a certain area.
He had no map, no compass, and no friendly NPC to lead him into a monster-infested hunting ground.
He looked behind him.
And stopped.
In the direction he had walked in were several shapes that he had not seen earlier, when he sat at the tree. Small, rounded, blue-tinted. Reflected the sunlight in a peculiarly translucent manner.
Slis.
Several of them, to be more precise. Not a swarm, of course, not anything frightening, but still enough to do his job with, five or six roughly speaking. Moving slowly in a lazy fashion, seemingly not caring in the least about his presence at such distance.
He was staring.
’Where did they co from?’
He did not rember seeing them earlier. As he had already noted, he had watched the whole area carefully enough when he arrived here to notice, had it been a problem.
Now, however, they were right there, ready to complete his quest conveniently, and he would rather not question that.
A slow smile appeared on his face - an unfamiliar gesture for this face. Clean, young, and unused to smiling. Nevertheless, his smile appeared very naturally.
"Ti to kill so monsters."
With that thought, he raised his right hand again.
Again, the familiar ♥ 2 of Heart appeared between his index and middle fingers, glowing, warm, its fla sigil reflecting sunlight from both stars above his head.
This ti, however, he felt himself doing that more confidently, like it was just another natural action.
Then he raised his left hand.
The new card appeared almost automatically at the thought of it. The ♥ 3 of Heart, Fla Lance, level one. He visualized the number, the suit, and the na - and it was there.
The card was different from the one he just received, even if only a little bit.
The golden base, the intricate border markings, the warm pulse of energy that all cards shared, the two small heart signs at its corners, the sa as they were in his old world.
What was different, however, was its center.
Instead of carrying the sa rounded fla symbol, which suggested gathering and releasing, the ♥ 3 of Heart had a spear sigil, made of fire, elongated, with its sharp point indicating movent. This card appeared like sothing made to go straight through any obstacles rather than hit them.
He held both cards up, one in each hand.
Left and right hands, fireball and fire lance. Two choices, two options, thirteen shots between him and an empty hand.
He was looking across the field at his victims.
They were moving. Slow, directionless, wobbling about the sa way as they all seed to do, apparently having no clue that soone was after them right now, and his stats were already far ahead of where they should have been at level one.
He started moving across the field to approach them.
The grass bent around his feet as he walked through, while double sunlight cast a long, diagonal shadow on his steps. Two cards warm in his hands.
His system panel vanished into thin air, unnoticed until that mont, leaving only grassland and distance between him and the first of his targets steadily shrinking.
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