Over the last three days, Alex had been tirelessly working toward completing his plans. Rather than sleep in the cave, he’d spent the majority of his first night in a tree just outside the clearing. He hadn’t managed to get much sleep, both due to the height and how uncomfortable the bark was, but it would have been worth the trouble if he’d been ambushed. In an attempt to be productive, he spent the next few hours reading over the bestiary, the content surprisingly easy to see even with only the dim moonlight to illuminate its pages.
In the end he managed to get a couple hours of sleep but felt surprisingly refreshed as he made his way down from the steep ledge. Back in the clearing before the sun was up, Alex did some weapons training followed by a workout and meal. The “workout” was honestly more play than anything else. Just a combination of IFBB moves and acrobatic maneuvers he’d have never been able to do pre-system, but it helped him let off some steam, so he enjoyed the moment.
Alex refrained from overeating, so as to not run out of food too quickly, but knew he’d need to try his hand at making something local soon. Graham had mentioned avoiding blood in the area as much as possible. He’d assured that whatever kept creatures from finding this place was dependable but warned against tempting fate with irresponsibility. Cooking the heatray for his first attempt would be best, since it was just oversized poultry. Graham’s words meant Alex would need to bleed the beast elsewhere, though cleaning and heating in the clearing would be fine. It also meant he’d need to check his collected possessions for some spices or see if he could gather something from the forest. No food was just as bad as unseasoned food.
Taking a quick swim, he dressed in a combination of Greyson and Trevor’s clothing. It wasn’t properly sized, but a couple knots solved those issues and, doing his best to keep a mental map, Alex headed out. Graham had mentioned that the city was to the west of his current location, though Alex hadn’t gotten the chance to verify yet. The trees in this area were a bit shorter than his surroundings, and he’d been hesitant to leave his body when he was still wary of an ambush. For the moment, he was focused on gathering some gear, and unlocking the hammer mastery skill as soon as possible. He’d used it in a few battles thus far, so he hoped it was close, and there should be plenty to fight on the way to his destination.
The old wolf had mentioned the spot to him the day prior. It was a few hours walk, but was said to house a pretty powerful beast, somewhere around level fifty, that had recently gained a reputation for killing mid-level adventures. They weren’t overly strong by any means, weaker than Graham at his peak, but trying at its life had become an open challenge of sorts for burgeoning adventurers. Graham figured the city would send some higher leveled people to deal with the beast eventually, since it lacked advanced intelligence, though he postulated that one of the settlements might get to them first.
Alex, of course, had no intention of taking the thing on directly. His plan was to abuse his skill set to its utmost: get in, steal some good stuff, and get out. Knowing few of his strategies went that smoothly, he’d designated this first day for reconnaissance. A bit of scouting would tell him about the beast’s patterns, hopefully, allowing his operation to get off without a hitch.
He ran into his first group of beasts only fifteen minutes away from the hideout, a herd of Cervasi. The fight had been straight forward, and Alex used his recent weapons training to kill the creatures without getting injured. What had been odd, however, was the way the beasts spooked after he’d analyzed one of the adults. He’d thought it to be a coincidence until it happened again when he encountered a type of lizard creature called Zera that had a similar reaction. He’d started the fight off with the hammer but ended up needing to switch back to his dagger as the creature’s tough skin absorbed the force of his strikes with ease.
It took a few minutes of consideration before he realized the likely cause of the creatures’ odd behavior, but when he thought back to an incident he’d had walking through the city, it made a bit of sense. For some reason, the beast could sense his attempts at analysis. Graham had mentioned he’d sensed Alex rather than smelled him, proving Stealth did work on all aspects of his person, but he hadn’t elaborated beyond that. Maybe it was Advanced Analyze that had tipped the wolf off. Rather than make him want to limit usage of the skill, he began analyzing everything from plants to pests, in hopes of raising its level faster.
About an hour into his walk, Alex spotted a beast, though insect was a closer fit in this case. They were giant ant like creatures called, Rebos, a name he’d learned after managing to kill one. He’d been hesitant initially, there were three in just this first group, and he knew nothing about their abilities, but when he analyzed one, as had become habit, the whole group had spotted him. He could have run, but his analysis came back with an estimated level of thirty-five, so Alex decided to take his chances. The fight turned out to be his easiest yet, merciless strikes of his hammer crushing their carapace like a glass at a kiddushin. The creatures did turn out to have insanely strong mandibles, which Alex learned when one bit a massive chunk out of a tree, but by crushing their head or teleporting away when one got too close, he managed to get through the fight without being injured.
Plenty of their slimy green blood did end up getting on him and staining his shirt, but a quick change later, Alex was back to moving, still in peak condition. The culmination of the fight had resulted in Alex dinging a level, and he arrived at the assumed beast location not too much later. He felt it was a bit odd for his day to be going this well and double-checked he had Stealth active as he entered.
There wasn’t a territory marker or anything of the like, and for the first ten minutes Alex was unsure he had the correct location, but after about fifteen minutes he was certain. The typical soundtrack of the forest had died down to near silence, leaving little but eerie thoughts to distract him from his task. Deciding he’d been brave enough for the moment, he verified nothing was close with another max pulse of Sixth Sense before climbing up a nearby tree. It was around noon by this point, which would mean lunch, if Alex weren’t scared the beast wouldn’t sniff him out and put him on the menu. Instead, he pulled up a metaphorical seat, and waited.
Looking at the time as an opportunity to train the two of his skills closest to E-Grade, Alex waited while meditating. It was three hours later he came out of the refreshing trance; the mysterious creature having not entered his bubble once. He could afford to stay in the forest for another little while, but leaving now would give him an extra hour of daylight at the camp, and Alex still needed to try his hand at fireside cooking. The walk back was similar to the one there, and after hanging around a potential Rebos nest for a bit too long, he finally managed to unlock Hammer Mastery.
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Covered in gore and more exoskeleton fragments than he could count, Alex opted to stealthily make his way back to the hideout. His last few levels had really shot up his regeneration rates, but he’d been fighting on and off all day. He could have continued for another little while, but didn’t want to overexert himself when it was only his first full day of trying to level. Making it back to the camp with only one forced encounter as he’d tried bleeding the heatray, Alex opted to take a warm bath before changing into what he is earth clothing turned pajamas.
Thorn’s Touch worked on beasts even after they were dead, which Alex was glad for, though it hadn’t helped much in his attempts at cooking. He’d made a fire pit from some dirt and rocks before throwing in some sticks he’d collected on the combination. Lighting it had been a bit of a chore, though Alex had managed to grab some dry sticks, remembering from a video how fresher wood just created smoke. Though, as he took a bite into the utterly disgusting meat, he wondered if the vapor would have been an improvement. He wasn’t sure if it was the beast, or his lack of any ability to flavor the drumstick, but his cooking skill could do nothing with what little he had. Alex ended up spitting out the half-eaten bite into his inventory in disgust, promising to try it again the next day.
Gargling with some of the water he’d kept in his inventory, Alex pulled out his platter of bacon and eggs from Anise’s and got to eating. What remained of his food from this point was a couple skewers and some rations Greyson had carried. Why the man has picked dry MRE’s to store in what was essentially a never-spoil fridge, Alex would never know, but he despised the man all the more for it.
Pulling out four books he’d recovered from the storage rings, Alex placed them on the grass as platforms before withdrawing one of the hopefully clean beds. Taking a seat on the mattress, he grabbed a couple sticks from his inventory and burned the rest of the daylight trying to carve out rough estimates of yantoks, though some of the knobs made him worry they’d come out closer to tonfa. Falling asleep under the foreign stars, Alex felt the quietest whispers of true peace.
That peace was hastily ruined as he woke a few hours later to rain, forcing him inside unless he wanted to get involuntarily wet once more. Unable to fall back asleep immediately, he spent another couple hour rotating between weapons practice, carving, and skill training before winding down for some more shuteye.
Having finished his early morning training in the middle of the night, Alex decided to set out earlier than the day prior. Taking a slightly different route from the one he’d taken the day before; Alex entered an area with particularly large trees. As it was still only just past dawn, he decided to make good on his promise to scout the forest out from above and took to climbing one of the massive plants. They reminded him of sequoia, if not larger, and Alex wondered if he could really survive a fall from a couple hundred feet up. Unfortunately, though not for Alex, he never got the chance to find out, as he ran into something interesting only fifty feet up.
He'd been preparing to use a spacious branch as a handhold when instead of the rough texture of bark, he found himself holding something warmer, and much smoother. Feeling around until he could pull himself up on something sturdy, Alex was surprised to find he’d been touching an egg. The nest held three of them, though Alex thought they had to be massive if their shells worked anything like earth birds. Deciding to store them in his inventory before anything came back, since he was now looking forward to more eggs, he managed to get all three just as Sixth Sense alerted him of something swooping down from above. The mother heatray had found him.
What followed was a harrowing, death defying battle, which ended with Alex covered in some first-degree burns, and another set of ruined clothes. He’d been forced to maneuver on and around the single branch, the limb his only nearby platform due to how spaced out everything was on the large tree. His eventual win had been due to a stupid series of relocations that forced the beast into a range he could finally reach the creature; the fight only reinforcing his need to gain a ranged attack.
Out of spite, instead of healing instantly so he could continue his way to the beast’s enclave, Alex cut the beast by the neck and held it to bleed where its home had once been. It was a bit silly to hold a grudge against a bird, especially a dead one, but the smell of cooked meat radiating from his own skin helped him feel justified in his actions. Placing his mat so it drooped around the edges, he spent the next hour healing. His sensory skill showed a few beasts approach to lick at the dirt covered blood below, but none bothered Alex as he watched from above.
He arrived in the beast’s territory a couple of hours later, having managed to gain another level even without farming Rebos. He’d run into a Twintail and, while he’d been a bit scared of facing it due to his last encounter with the beast type, he managed to defeat it with only a few injuries. Clean, and hopefully not smelling of any lingering blood, Alex followed his strategy from the day before and climbed a tree with Stealth active. This time he managed to find the beast, its feline-like form matching the description Graham had given him.
Rather than a simple passing by, however, it seemed the beast was on a hunt. A Jarkin had just hopped its way into Alex sphere, and he wasn’t the only one to spot it. He refrained from analyzing the creature, not wanting to give either warning of his presence. Deciding to just watch how the scene played out, Alex found the large rabbit creature was a bit smaller than he’d remember them. Just as he had the thought, the shadow-furred beast pounced, its attack much too fast for Alex to follow. The cat was on its target in a moment, the buck-teethed beast falling over with a sickening crunch,
Opting for complete stillness, Alex sat and waited as the beast killed then ate the Jarkin, before following with Soul Sight once the feline was ready to leave. Thanks to his higher level and expanded mana pool, he had an easy time tracking the creature, his mana recovering at a rate faster than he could burn it. When they finally reached the cave it called home, Alex learned the reason he hadn’t spotted loot lying around at the frequency he’d expected to, the cat was a hoarder. There were bodies, some whole and others in parts, as well as individual pieces of gear spread throughout the cave it called home. The sight was a bit foreboding as the beast curled up to sleep just in front of the haul, but Alex knew if he played his cards right, he’d just hit the jackpot. Noting the time and deciding to head back early, he made plans to return before the beast left to eat. For once, things might actually be working out.
The day ended much as the last had, and Alex fell asleep after a short session of carving, his first of the two bastons finished. Waking early in the morning, he followed his daily routine before using the fire pit, an old plate, and some skewers to make one of the eggs. Like the poor man’s chicken, they hadn’t come out well, but Alex thought they tasted sweet as he considered how their parent had wronged him. He managed to gain another level on his way back to the tree he sat upon, about fifty feet away from the cave the beast called home. Training the skills as he waited, Alex finally managed to level both Sixth Sense and Meditation to twenty-five. He opened his notifications with a mental command and looked over his progress from the last few days; it was time to upgrade some skills.