//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Threat 
// Story: Equestria's Inventor 
// by Yormsky 
//------------------------------//



Chapter 2: Threat



So a couple of days passed and I grew somewhat confident in my chances of surviving the wilderness for the long term. With my abilities, it became almost trivially easy to identify safe plants, fruits, and berries to eat. I picked up on hunting small game and so far the bootlegged purification system I had for my water seemed to be working flawlessly.

With my ability to automate anything I’d manually done, I quickly added several more tools and pieces of equipment to my repertoire. At this point, I’d even jerry-rigged up a primitive furnace to smelt some metal gear; like, equipment made of metal, not the fictional war machines that carried nuclear weapons.

[Level Up!]
[Level 21 → 22]
[+1 Stat Point]
[+1 Ability Point]

Not expecting the sudden outburst of screens, I flinched when they appear a foot away from my eyes. I choked down the rest of the water I’d been drinking before setting aside my birch basket and wondered how exactly I was supposed to use either of the two points I’d apparently earned. I wasn’t like I could just conjure up the screens at a whim.

If only I could look over my [Status]—

[Status]
[Level: 22*]
[Name: Victor Hex]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Inventor*]

[Stats]
[Constitution: 3 → 4]
[Agility: 3]
[Strength: 3]
[Reflex: 4]
[Understanding: 3 → 4]
[Intelligence: 5 → 6]
[Magical Potency: N/A]
[Magical Control: N/A]
[Stat Points: 1*]

[Abilities]
[Whispers of the Mechanical God (Level 1) - Unique*]
[Automation (Level 1) - Unique*]
[Ability Points: 1*]

Some of my Stats increased since the last time I saw them. Constitution and maybe even Understanding, I could attribute to the whole survival situation I was currently stuck in; Constitution increasing from all the physical activity I’d engaged in and Understanding from all the random knowledge I’d consolidated from the pseudo-Mind-Palace that formed from “Whispers of the Mechanical God.”

But, Intelligence? How the hell could I have gotten smarter when I’d not learned anything new? At best, I was drawing information I’d otherwise never have recalled from the depths of my subconscious with “Whispers of the Mechanical God,” but that couldn’t really be called learning.

Anyways, I had a few new things in my “Status” that could be expanded to reveal details, so I opened them up, one by one.

[Stat Points: 1]
[Details: Allows you to instantly advance one of your Stats, excluding those that are Not Available (N/A), to the next unit. You are given one free Stat Point for each Level achieved, but Stats can be naturally raised through exercising their functional domain. Stats are divided into the four Physical Stats (Constitution, Agility, Strength, and Reflex) and the four Metaphysical Stats (Understanding, Intelligence, Magical Potency, and Magical Control)

Constitution is a measure of the body’s ability to endure. Strength is a measure of the body’s ability to exert force explosively. Agility is a measure of how quickly the body can move. While Reflex is a measure of how quickly the body can process information.

Intelligence is a measure of the depth of all the knowledge you’ve accrued. Understanding is a measure of the complexity with which you can utilize the knowledge you hold. Magic Potency and Magic Control are autological and irrelevant as you do not have the ability to manipulate Magic.]

[Ability Points: 1]
[Details: Allows you to instantly acquire new Abilities based on your Status or advance existing Abilities to their next Level. You are given one free Ability Point for each Level achieved, but Abilities can be naturally raised by achieving feats relevant to the exercised Ability. List of currently available Abilities includes: Identify*]

[Identify (Level 1) - requires Intelligence 5]
[Details: An appraisal-like skill. It automatically scours your “Mind Palace” for every trace of information that might be helpful in learning more about whatever it is you are currently looking at with the intent to learn more about the targeted subject and provides Details that are supplemented by the same logic being applied to your character into “Game Terms.”]

I didn’t really think much about what I’d learned. In understanding that my Stats could grow organically, I did the rational thing and saved my Stat Point and immediately spent my Ability Point on the only Ability I could; the newly unlocked Identify Ability.

I might have debated internally on whether to spend the Ability Point on either of my previously existing Abilities, but that hadn’t been an option as both took two Ability Points to enhance to the next Level. Furthermore, an appraisal Skill was a godsend at this point in time as there were still countless things I’d come across in these last couple days that even my Mind Palace couldn’t identify.

For all my lifelong internet binges, I’d never set aside any time to randomly look over entire encyclopedias on the millions or billions of pieces of flora and fauna that might have existed on the planet. Sure, I knew more than enough to survive, but more often than not since I’d been transported to wherever, I’d still come across some animals, insects, or pieces of vegetation that I that left my mind blank.

Moreover, with Identify, if I read what the Ability did correctly, then I should be able to see…

[Identified Status]
[Name: None (Primitive Knife)]
[Durability: 9/10 (Chipped)]
[Details: A crudely shaped and sharpened piece of stone. If not repaired soon, it might crack and permanently dip in Durability.]

Nice.

Now I just had to test it out against something that I didn’t have knowledge of to see exactly how far the Ability’s usefulness would go. But first… I’d go about resharpening up my knife, of course.

A few hours later an opportunity was presented to me. I’d been looking around for some food when I came across one of the many creatures that occasionally crossed paths with me. I’d never been afforded the chance to take a long enough look at the “black things” as they would usually be too far for me to size up or they would notice me and take off before I could come up with anything.

This time, the moment I caught sight of another one of the creatures, I instantly cast an instance of Identify.

[Status]
[Level: ???]
[Name: ???]
[Race: ???]
[Class: ???]
[Details: Looks like the combination of a small horse and an insect. Standing at around slightly below one and a quarter meters tall (call it four feet) on all fours and armored with a hardened carapace, the petite scale wings on this creature’s back look entirely too small to prove functional for flight. Taking note of the horn on its head and the unsettling deformities along its limbs, it looks like a terrible little monster made for war. And currently, the little monster looks like it's observing you… intently.]

This has been the first “Oh shit,” moment I could recall since I’d gotten over being dumped in the middle of nowhere. Screw my search for more food, I needed to get back to my little base camp and prepare myself for a potential confrontation with whatever the hell I’d just come across.

So far, the bug-horse-things had fled from their every encounter with me, but their biological characteristics suggested they had evolved to be dangerous in a fight. The last thing I wanted was to be gored alive on the end of one of their horns while my punches did nothing against their armored bodies; those things had to weigh over a hundred pounds at their height!

Thus, I ran like hell back to where I’d made my current shelter, picked up my knife, and cringed. “This is definitely not going to be enough to guarantee my safety!” I whined.

Even with a weapon in hand, I didn’t know the first thing about defending myself against anything that could actually put up a fight. The largest thing I’d killed so far were small rodents. I’d never so much as thrown a punch in my life! How the hell was I supposed to survive against a little war machine monsters?!

Even worse — My mind went immediately went to the worst possible scenario — What if I ran into a group of those things?! The last one I’d seen had literally been staring right back at me for who knows how long. So, what if it was like a wolf that hunted in packs? What if it was a carnivorous species that was just appraising its next meal? What if it was just observing me to see if I’d be able to fight back against its pack should it decide I was to become their next meal?!

Shit! Shit!! Shit!!

I needed something better than just some lousy knife I’d haphazardly sharpened out of stone if I was to survive the apocalyptic situation I may or may not have been imagining. It’d be nice if I could just conjure up a gun with Automation, but I’d never so much as put a gun together, never mind made the parts that would make a gun in the first place.

So, for right now, I settled on making a spear. I’d already gone through the process of smelting low-melting-point alloys like bronze. The “sharpening” action I’d already automated technically counted as “hammering” as well. I’d also tied plenty of things around with “birch bark” fashioned into string. So really the only thing I actually needed time to physically do was gather all the material to make the crudest of crude spears.

The next couple minutes, I spent in extreme paranoia as I was constantly distracted from filing the point and edge of my primitive spear’s head against the grainiest stone I could find by looking around for a hoard of black bug-horses. By even after I was long done, there wasn’t any sign of impending doom coming any time soon.

Eventually, the sun went down but it was only it was deep, deep into the night that might paranoid-fueled hysteria died down enough and the crash from a lack of adrenaline knocked me into falling asleep.

…

‘It seems to have finally gone asleep,’ the shadow thought as it continued to survey the area around the anomalous entity it had been studying for the past week. ‘I should report back to the patrol leader of its erratic actions. That strange creature has never once reacted like that after spotting me the last couple of times.’

At that last thought, the shadow connected itself to the local hivemind and relayed its intended message.

‘Continue observing for now, we will capture and disarm the anomaly after the rest of the squad arrives at your location,’ was the response from the hivemind back to the shadow.

Thus, the shadow continued to watch.

For now…