Run, Newman, Run

The instant John saw the alpha begin to advance towards him, he turned on his heel and booked it. On a whim, he slowed just enough to grab the green crystal Aeolia had dropped with his left hand, quickly stowing it in his inventory. He didn’t need to see that the hound was following him, the staccato rhythm of its claws was enough of an indicator.

‘OK, John,’ the Gamer thought as he ran, ‘you’ve got the deadly Chia Pet to follow you. Still don’t have a plan, but it’s something.’

Panicked thoughts raced through John’s mind as he tried to keep ahead of the monstrous foliage, mainly ones centered on him being an idiot. Thankfully, he was able to keep the distance between them, though it wasn’t long before his breathing began to grow labored.

‘I don’t think I can keep this up,’ John thought, cursing his low Endurance as he rounded a corner, sweat beginning to sting his eyes, ‘I need to find some way to deal with this guy. Slow him down so I can circle back. Hopefully, Aeolia dealt with the other two.’

He latched onto that optimistic thought as his eyes darted about for anything that could help him to escape the alpha. He turned another corner, this one with a dead end. Near the end of the corridor were two doors right before the hall ended; the one on his left led downstairs and the right into a classroom.

‘Head downstairs or try the classroom,’ John thought as those doors drew closer. He wouldn’t have long to ponder that choice as his low Endurance began to catch up to him, allowing the pursuing Alpha to gain on him. John lunged to the right, his hand grasping for the doorknob.

John shoved the door open and dashed inside as the sharp taps of the alpha’s wooden claws upon the floor grew in both volume and frequency. He slammed the door shut, threw his backpack to the floor and put the whole **** of his weight against the door right as the hound crashed into it.

The impact shook the door hard enough that John was nearly knocked over and he feared that it would fly off its hinges. Thankfully, the Academy's construction was well funded and the door held.

The hound continued its ramming attacks, each one seeming to take longer to occur than the last. The time between each strike was filled only with the clicking of the Alpha’s claws.

With some time to think, as well as an obvious tell to when the next attack was about to occur, John racked his brain to come up with a plan.

‘Okay, got the monster away from the girl, now what?’ John thought, his breathing slowly returning to normal. ‘I need to deal with it, and get back to Aeolia. If those other hounds can regen, then she might take them down and get hit by a sneak attack. Plus, she might want her crystal back.’

When his thoughts drifted to the crystal he had scooped up on a whim, he withdrew it from his inventory, nearly dropping it as the alpha made his latest attempt to knock down the door.

“Was this thing always this small,” John mused as he looked over the green, rough-cut gem, his thoughts latching on to something to distract himself from the monster outside. He swore when he had picked it up it had been too large to fully close his hand around. Now, his fingers could just barely encompass the gem.

John shook his head, getting his thoughts back in order. “It doesn’t matter what size it is. Maybe something this thing does can help.”

John blinked at the number of Attributes the green gem had. He was particularly confused as to why the last one was held in parentheses. He tapped the Observe screen.

(Expanded): This item has been increased in size roughly 2.75 times by an external, non-permanent, source.

“So something made this thing bigger,” John noted, his fist grasping the crystal tighter as he braced for another impact, opening it once he heard the alpha’s claws retreat down the hall. “Guess that means it did shrink, not that that helps me get out of this mess.”

He dismissed the popup and surveyed the remaining Attributes. He skipped over Mana Charged and Lodestone as the description of the crystal made those two seem apparent. Which left Earthen Origin as his next target.

Earthen Origin: This crystal is found in areas high in earth mana. Earth-derived magics cost 20% less and are 15% stronger when this item is held.

“Well, that would be useful if I had some kind of earth spell,” John lamented, his head lightly thumping upon the door as he leaned upon it. The clicking of the alpha’s claws drew closer again and John squared himself to withstand the incoming blow.

But then the sharp taps of the charging beast slowed, coming to a stop right before the door. Sweat began to form on John’s brow as he strained his ears to try to divine what his hunter was doing beyond the wooden veil.

The dragging of wooden claws against the wooden door was what John heard and felt, the vibrations centered on the lower third of the door. Panic began to grow once more in the Gamer’s core and his breathing began to quicken.

“Shit,” John cursed, his voice tight with fear, “it’s trying to dig through the door. No, not trying, doing. It is digging through the door.”

John’s hand clenched around the Tracer Crystal, rolling it around like a worry stone as frantic thoughts flew through his mind while doom steadily grew closer.

‘How long do I have? A few minutes maybe before it breaks through,’ John presumed, eyes darting about the classroom for anything he could use to escape the beast. He’d never been in this particular room, and by the state of things, no one else had either. Desks were lined up neatly, too neatly to have seen any student use them.

Likewise, the teacher’s desk bore no sign of use. It was bereft of any ornaments, no books or nicknacks marked it, and the fine layer of dust told the tale of a lengthy period of disuse.

‘If it was only trying to break down the door, I could use one of the desks to make it harder,’ John thought. ‘But digging through more wood probably won’t slow it down. I need to find a way out of here.’

The sound of digging was growing more frantic, a signal John interpreted as the hound pushing through the last bit of the door.

‘Come on, Newman, think. Intelligence is your highest stat, make use of it. It’s going to make a hole, crawl through it and try to kill me. And all I have is a shrinking crystal that can’t help me since I don’t even have a skill that it can boost.’

Growing a bit ****, John’s grasp on said crystal tightened further, its edges digging into his palm. With no plan involving the contents of the room forming, John moved to his next, and last, option. He focused his mana like he had done only a few hours prior on the bus, intent on shaping it into something to help him.

‘Something with earth elements,’ John thought as he willed this power he had woken up with into shape, his mind centered on the Tracer Crystal. He felt his mana begin to move, much like earlier; a somewhat uncomfortable sensation akin to moving a muscle in an unfamiliar but possible way. Before it could resolve into anything, the sound of fracturing wood signalled the entry of the alpha.

John jumped away from the door as the green forelimbs of the hound tore through the wood, sending a spray of splinters into the room. The beast’s actions grew rabid when it saw its quarry, claws and fangs tearing the hole wider.

John froze for a moment, the up-close sight of sap covered wooden fangs shocking him as imminent **** stared him in the face. Then, panicked, John **** his mana to move, imploring it to do something, anything.

Then his mana lurched into the Tracer Crystal.

The asymmetrical gem burst with green light, flooding the room with emerald radiance. The vine hound wasn’t fazed by the light as it finally worked the hole wide enough to slip through and fully entered the room. Its head shifted around the room, the vines forming its nostrils flexing as if it was trying to catch John’s scent.

It growled and then turned away, slipping back through the hole it had spent the last minutes creating to get him. John’s breath held in his chest as his disbelieving eyes stared at the ruined door, half expecting the beast to rush back in and attack him. When an attack didn’t happen, John relaxed, slumping against the wall.

Before he could even question what happened, a pop-up appeared.

John dismissed the display and looked at the crystal clutched in his hand. It had shrunk slightly, but he didn’t know if that was a side effect of whatever he had done or if it was always going to shrink again. Whatever the case was, John used Observe once more on it.

There was no more information on the display, leading John to wonder if there was a character limit as he tapped the new addition to the Observe screen.

“That explains the durability loss,” John mused as he dismissed the displays. “I guess with this field active the hound couldn’t see me? It’s got eyes but they must work magically and I was basically invisible to it.”

While the possibilities of such a useful effect were tantalizing, the reality of the situation settled back upon John. He shook his head to clear it of those far-flung ideas.

“Focus on that stuff once you get out of here,” he chided himself, eyeing the crystal. “It’s not even my crystal I’m using.”

That brought about a chilling thought, “Shit. If the hound lost my scent, it might circle back to Aeolia.”

John dashed over to the door and carefully opened it, ready to recast Pulse of Disruption if needed. Thankfully, the hall was empty and the predator had resumed its search elsewhere.

As quietly as he could, John slipped into the hallway. As he began to head back, a pinging noise almost caused him to trip over his feet. As he tried to calm his heart, he glanced at the pop-up that had accompanied the sudden noise.

Crafting Complete. Dark Gripped Steel Knife has been added to your Inventory.

John dismissed the display and opened his Inventory. True enough, the knife was listed. When he tapped its name, a display appeared.

Would you like to equip this item?
Yes/No

John didn’t hesitate to hit yes, dismissing the pop-up and materializing the knife in his right hand. John recognized the style as a KA-BAR knife thanks to the various modern war games he had played over the years. The smoothed grip of dark wood fit perfectly in John’s hand with no odd bits to dig into his palm. The blade extended from the hilt around thirty centimetres, coming to a clipped point. The faint blue lines that had been present in the steel had become more apparent and flowed up the blade in a wave pattern.

John gave the blade a few swings before casting Observe on it.

John ignored whatever Well-Crafted was and tapped the Evocation effect.

“I can use that,” John thought as he dismissed the displays and quietly made his way back towards where this whole event started, a strategy forming as he picked up speed.