Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Inspect

As my conscious slowly returned to me, I found myself in the world of darkness yet again. This time there was no dreams only silence. “What? Where am I?… Did I fall asleep again… I should have watched my mana more carefully. *Magic Perception*” As I said those words lights, colors and the sounds of the world returned to me. ”How funny that I can turn my senses like a switch of light, *Self Awareness*”.

*Self Awareness Status*

-Ontopary bush-

Rarity: Common
Health: 4/4
Mana: 13/13
Stamina: 3/3

Race: Berry bush.
Status: Unique-Intelligent

Skills:
*Self Awareness Lv1* *Magic Perception Lv2(Active)* *Calm Mind Lv1* *Inspect Lv1*

Titles:
*Clutz Lv1*

“Shame my mana didn’t rise, now that I have inspect its time to get the information I desire!”.

*Calm Mind leveled up to Lv2*

“…Inspect *Calm Mind*”

*Calm Mind Lv2* – Increase the resistance to stress and mind attacks.

“Yea, I think only because of this skill I am still holding myself within the realm of sanity. Anyway, where was I before the dark ages? Right Inspect… it’s time for inception, Inspect *Inspect*.”

*Inspect Lv1* – A skill helps the user to get information from objects, material or data, usage of mana depends on the object, lv of the skill and other abilities of the user.

“Oh so its uses mana, I should be careful with that as well. Inspect *Self Awareness*.”

*Self Awareness Lv1* – One of the most basic skills, helps the user to know the current state/condition of his body and mind.

“Most of the explanation are vague, maybe because the level of the inspect skill is too low? Ah right, it said it uses mana every time, at least I should check how much it uses, *Self Awareness*.”

I used self awareness to check my mana, but for my surprise, it didn’t even decrease by one, “Looks like it does not use lots of mana or it does not use mana at all? If I remember correctly it said that I can inspect objects as well.” I moved my view and looked at the big tree that was located behind me, and said with curious voice, “Inspect Golden Tree.”

*Big Tree*- Tree with golden leaves, height close to sixty meters.

With a face full of disappointment (If I had a face) I said, “I though the explanations of my skills were vague, but forget vague all this information is useless, golden leaves no shit! At least thanks for using the metric system, but still this does not change anything it’s still useless.”

Then a thought came to my mind. “I still don’t know much about myself as well I should check my plant family? Inspect *Ontopary bush*.”

*Ontopary bush* – Common bush that mostly found in the Great Forest Of Dusk, the bush grows berries all year long, as it can collect lots of mana from the air and the ground. Some people call it a weak monster lure, because lots of small level monsters attracted to its berries as their a food source.

“How lovely I was correct yet again, I am really going be eaten by a cow sooner or later. But this is funny why does the explanation of my plant family so in depth, and the explanation of the tree is so lacking. Maybe it’s because foreign objects need a higher level of inspect, and my skills or my plant family that part of my being, can be inspected easily. Maybe even if it’s connected somehow to my being it will be more easily to inspect as well…” I waited few moments with this though in mind.

“At least I know that my name is not Ontopary, no I was already sure that it wasn’t my name, I had this weird hunch.” That hunch was true, it gave me the feeling as if my memories were locked behind walls, and not really lost. With time I should collect them, but for now I only could only peek at them from time to time, as they were surrounded by the walls.

I started to understand little by little the limits of the inspect skill, my other skills and even learn little about myself as well. I especially understood that I need to raise the inspect skill, for me to get out of this mess because only it can give me the answers that I am looking for.

I started using the inspect skill on the trees under the cliff and making sure to focus only on one tree at a time, I didn’t want to by mistake using it on all the forest, and lose conscious yet again. At the same time I used the *Self Awareness* skill to look at my mana usage and not to let it drain out completely.

“Inspect Tree… Inspect Tree… Inspect Tree…”

*Small Blue Tree* – Tree with blue leaves.

*Small Purple Tree* – Tree with purple leaves.

*Small Red Tree* – Tree with red leaves.

The answers that I got from the trees with the inspect skill, had even less information than from the golden tree. “I guess the distance is a factor as well for the inspect skill, I shall notice this for the future.” I said in a thoughtful manner, it wasn’t so far away from the truth but how could I know that I was wrong, it still was the first day of me using the inspect skill to it fullest.

“*Self Awareness*.” I checked the mana usage again and said “After inspecting more than twelve trees the mana decreased only by one, how much did I inspect? Close to fifty or so I think, but the skill still didn’t level up.” My current mana was at eighth, four got used by the inspection of the fifty trees and one was used be *Magic Perception*.

“Oh right, I almost forgot I still need to inspect the Magic Perception skill as well, inspect *Magic Perception*.” How could I forget my most important skill that helped me to see and feel this world? I didn’t know, it could be because of me being still disoriented or maybe it was part of my personality.

*Magic Perception Lv2* (Active) – Lets the user to feel and see the magic essence around him, can be used in many forms even to replace some of the senses, such as sight touch smell hearing and etc.

“That just confirm my theory… Now that I think about it I really don’t have any eyeballs, why is my view is so limited. Wouldn’t it be possible for me to see 360 degrees, even the inspect skill said that I can feel the magic power around me, and there was no place it said that there some kind of limitation, at least I should try there nothing to lose.”

I focused all of my mind onto the view in front of me, seeing this huge mighty forest shining with all his beautiful colors, I tried to increase the view and let all the forest fit into my perspective. A few moments passed by, and then a minute even after few more nothing happened, the view just twitched about a little and that’s it.

I changed my tactic and tried to use Magic Perception to its fullest. I pressured it again and again not releasing my focus from it at all, even after an hour of trying there were no changes, but then when I shouted with frustration, “Ah screw this shit!” and pushed my mind to its limit, just as I almost gave up it happened. I guess what happened at that time is that I increase the pressure on my magic perception skill for over an hour, and then released it all in one go.

What happened next left me speechless, with a weird sound of *woosh* very similar to a sound of water flow when you open the valve of a huge water pipeline, and then all its pressure vanish and lets the water flow. All the surrounding became clear as glass, as well my perspective started to grow to all direction slowly, little by little just and just after few moments everything entered my view.

I could see the sky above me, I could see the ground under me, the forest that was in front of me, the big golden tree that was behind me, and even the edges of the cliff that were looked so close to me but in reality were few meters away. The howls of weird creatures, the rushing wind against the golden leaves above me, those sounds become so much clearer, it felt as they were coming from nearby, and not from far away. Nothing could escape my senses, nothing could escape me at all… Except for my stupidity of course.

Have you ever wondered how would a blind person, that was blind for all his life feel if he got the sense of sight? No? Shame… But that was the exact feeling that I got. I was astonished, I had no words, it felt like a whole new world opened before me, “This is amazing! I think I hit the jackpot!” I shouted with excitement, as those toughs went truth my mind I stopped for a moment and the feeling of happiness almost disappeared in an instant…

What followed after was only fear and pain, my mind felt like being squished and squeezed be a terrible strong force, my view became all blurry and started to shatter, my hearing became chaotic and weird, only statics of an old broken TV could be heard.

It felt as my mind going to explode, with pain as if one hundred hot nails entering my head, fear and dread filled my mind. I tried my best to turn it all off, even tried screaming magic perception but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything at all because my mind was in so much pain and chaos that I could barely hold myself together, and the only thing that left for me is to try my best to resist. I got more and more confused, I couldn’t even find the difference from down and up, left and right.

Only screams of agony could be heard inside my head, and only I could hear them. I didn’t know how much time have passed in this purgatory, for me it felt like hours but in reality not even a minute has passed. Not only my senses got affected, even my sense of time got all weird. All what happened just took one little less than ten seconds from start to finish, from the moment I released the pressure to now.

After those ten seconds or maybe even less, the pain slowly disappeared, but with it everything went black and yet again I have returned to my small world of darkness, where I rested for another night.

*Magic Perception leveled up to Lv 3*

*Calm Mind leveled up to Lv 3*

*Calm Mind leveled up to Lv 4*

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Fun fact: Not all chapters will end in darkness.

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