32 ONE DAY

However, my joy was short-lived. After a couple of experiments, I found out that the new catalyst was quite similar to the old one, at least in the way I use it. There just appeared a chance of unsuccessful enchantment; after I tried to cast Stone Spike on my spare t-shirt, all that was left of my rags was a pile of dust. In the end, I put a handful of Yellow Elenite into my inventory to carry it to the blacksmith, as it all may work quite differently with him. I then continued torturing myself fighting the monsters. Hastening my pace, I moved to the area inhabited by the familiar silver Naga-like creatures.

Time seemed to have decided to stop, and each subsequent second wasn't in a hurry to come. Here I got punched to improve my endurance, here I ducked to raise the dexterity, and here I hit with my bare fists to keep increasing my strength. When my health fell low enough, I would heal myself and my enemy, all the while maintaining Weakness on me. It didn't seem like a difficult procedure, but, for some reason, I didn't want to turn this entire process into a repetitive sequence and go at it absentmindedly. No, I wanted to be aware of my every move. My mind was spinning, trying to recollect even the smallest of movements. Maybe it made no sense, but I felt like I was getting stronger this way — not when the stat numbers grew, but when my body realized and accepted new opportunities.

The attribute that I decided to max out as fast as possible was intelligence. No matter how opposed I was to burning myself, it was much faster than continuing to raise it through combat. Getting it this way, I missed unfortunately complete understanding of the new power, but in this case. the important thing was to be fully armed by the time of the tournament. Something told me that anything could be useful there, even though I wouldn't be participating myself.

Raising attributes the entire day was exhausting. Not even physically, but mostly mentally. Luckily, I had things to distract myself with. I spent my first pause continuing my experiments with the enchantments. This time I tested the effect on rags, and got two sets of five laces, each enchanted with a protection against curses. They had the same effect as my entire set of clothes, but required less space. And, most importantly, ordinary armor worked perfectly with it, unless it was enchanted in the same way, of course. Well, now I don't have to bother myself with the tournament results. I was never afraid of the fight with the Chaosites; my followers have the ideal skill set to resist their strength. I don't need to worry about the Darks either. This all lifted my spirits. To be honest, before this I feared that with the help of Curses, Dasha's followers would be able to negate all the advantages my paladins had. Also, the name of our element became even more appropriate — my guys didn't only have healing, but also some resistance to Darkness.

Satisfied with the results, I doubled my speed and got into a fight with a pair of Cursed Ones. It was getting much more difficult to work, and several times I even made mistakes that almost cost me my life, but my stats crept upward a little faster. And, most importantly, I seemed to have learned to feel my body again: its weight, mobility, sharpness of movements — everything was raised to a new level. I had a feeling that I would be able to catch a fly with a pair of chopsticks if I wanted to. I also tested my new scythe, but it was not as good as it could've been. The fire damage went well with ordinary attacks, but while combos its damage wasn't considered. The same was probably with skills, too. The result was a beautiful toy, which would be quite difficult to use at its full power. Well, at least it looks gorgeous.¬

When it was time for my next break, I replenished my Elenite reserves a little, placing it into the free slots of my inventory, which had become rather spacious thanks to my intelligence. By the way, after my Deception reached advanced level, I noticed that my inventory changed a little; earlier I could put only one item into each slot, but now the slots worked more like boxes. I could put in them whatever I wanted so long as the thing fitted, and not be afraid of losing anything. Some would probably consider this a significant advantage, but it didn't mean much to me. After all, I didn't need anyone to be extra suspicious of me, and I really didn't have a good explanation for an increased inventory, so I still tried to use my regular bag as much as possible. The inventory I used only for things that others shouldn't see.

When it was time for my third break, I simply sat down on the ground. It was time to eat. Also, I had to figure out this whole shebang with the totems. And, like most people, I tended to think much worse on my feet. So, what exactly did I need to decide? Whether to tell the others or not, and how to do it. And, of course, what to do with all this information myself.

For starters, it was obvious that, as I didn't have a totem myself, I wouldn't be able to keep this a secret. Since this information was going to surface one way or another, it was better to tell everyone myself, perhaps without making references to Light. I was on my own before, and now I suddenly had to explain my every step, which was probably becoming suspicious. We'll just make this a fun piece of trivia we wanted to share, not for nothing, of course. Though, getting a totem without healing would be difficult, but those who really wanted one would figure something out, I was sure. I even had a couple of ideas on how it could be done. Damn, I wanted to try it myself. I had a feeling that I would end up having something more serious than Cyril, but I didn't want to rush. After all, many questions still remained unanswered: whether there was a difference between totems, how many of them could one person have, whether it was possible to abandon the old one and take a new totem, did all pets have the same abilities or did they differ from specie to specie, and so on. I had to be careful, so it'd be better to wait and see what happens before making any decisions.

"Aaaaaah!" To distract myself from the questions that were occupying my mind, I hit the wall until my knuckles bled. It helped calm me a little, so I went back to training.

I'm sick of them! How much I wanted to finally pass level five and improve my skills, see what leveled up Flame Flow and Stone Spikes could do. And to finally figure out the stuff in the Book of Masks, which I still couldn't read. I wanted to get out of this nightmarish Forest, and out of the damn settlement. I'm so sick and tired of it!

What's wrong with me? I haven't been myself since that strange dream. When I came back to senses, I realized that I burned both my opponents in a fit of rage, and immediately felt better. Yeah, but now I had to find an Adept and get back to level five. How much longer was this going to last? Looking down at my stats, I shuddered in surprise.

Strength: 160

Dexterity: 165

Endurance: 160

Intelligence: 165

Everything was maxed out? But when did I do this? There were burns on me. Had I burned myself to raise my intelligence, but didn't remember doing? How could that be? I suddenly felt like I was splashed with cold water. Level five, and the ability of a God to influence their follower. The smoldering eightcorpses helped me reach level 8 and come to my senses.

I will never! Ever! Return! To! Level! Five!

Having calmed myself down and not giving a damn about getting pieces of Live Rocks anymore — To hell with all that, it can wait until tomorrow, I'll be fine without it for now — I moved toward the exit, picking up my guys along the way. They both gained only forty points of endurance during their training, but I postponed reaching the max for the next day, and made sure that each of them received at least one level on our way back. I didn't know whether my God could influence them, but I didn't want to experiment with it. We'll get them back to level five tomorrow.

At dusk we went back. The guys told me how much easier it was to fight monsters with their new armor and how it was a pity that they had to spend the whole day raising their endurance without it. Cyril remembered once again how he had stopped the Werewolf, while Lena rolled her eyes, showing that this clearly wasn't the first, and certainly not the last time that he was boasting about it. We acted like we were three friends on their way back home from a night in the town. It was strange. As if there were no monsters, no death lurking at every step, or people ready to backstab you at any moment. False safety was a dangerous thing; if one fell for it, then that could be their last mistake.

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I was about to tell them to be quiet, when they suddenly fell silent. And then, right at the entrance to the camp, we ran into a group of Darks. Why did I have a feeling that this wasn't an accident? Maybe because of the devious smile on Dasha's face?

"Cat, hey," the girl approached me with quick steps, as if she had just noticed me. As I thought, something was about to happen. "We've found a book with the Blinding Blow skill on our hunt, you know? I thought that it'd suit you or your paladins, since it sounds like a skill that has something to do with Light, right? I figured that it'd be nice to share it with you. Solidarity, and all that."

I was handed the "free" skillbook in front of everyone. What should I do? I thoroughly examined the gift.

Cursed Skillbook, Blinding Blow

Ordinary vision, of course, didn't show the first word in the title. Imposed Curse, as my raised intelligence showed, level one. I was sure that Dasha had prepared something special for me. Even among the simple curses she managed to find something really dangerous. The question remained: what should I do?

Refuse? In front of everyone? Considering that in the eyes of the most, refusing a common skillbook would look like a confession of cowardice. I didn't want to flush my reputation down the drain like that. Taking it wasn't an option, either. I could ask one of my guys to pick it up, and suffer together with Dasha's reputation. But then I would be left with only one fighter in the tournament. Was that what she wanted? An unfair fight? Someone wanted to weaken their opponents, rather than to work on themselves.

"Could you put the skillbook on the ground, please?" Thinking of all the possibilities, I decided to use my healing spells that could remove curses. So far, it was still level one and had only ten percent chance to remove a curse, but that might be enough.

"Are you afraid of something?" Dasha asked, raising her voice, attracting even more attention to us, but did as I asked.

"Not at all, but before Light receives gifts from Darkness..." You wanted to frame me, huh? I'll remind everyone that you cannot be trusted. "The gifts should be cleansed; you never know what could've gotten stuck to it."

Healing, healing, healing... My health was dropping rapidly. Lena and Cyril looked at each other, then put their hands on my back and started healing me. At this point, the skill effect was triggered. A little black cloud appeared over the skillbook and then dissipated in the light of my continuous spell.

"There really was a curse!"

"It was like banishing an evil spirit!"

"How many abilities do these Light guys have?!"

I listened to the astonished crowd with a smile and then picked up the skillbook. Waving goodbye to Dasha, I continued my way.

Well, that was pretty nice. Maybe I should think about becoming an exorcist?