[Due to requirements met, {assigned entity}'s Level increased by 1.]
[Due to requirements met, {assigned entity}'s Skills: [Stealth], [Bite], [Scratch], and [Shadow Strengthening]'s level increased by 1.]
[All Stats have been reset to normal parameters.]
[Status:] [General Information:] [Inputs:] [Stats:] [Values:] [Attributes:] [Values:] [Attributes:] [Values:] Name: N/A HP: 15/15 STR: 6 (4) INT: 1 Species: Monster Rat MP: 2/2 DEX: 3 (1) WIS: 1 Sex: Male ST: 19/19 AGI: 4 (2) WILL: 1 Age: 2 hours AP: 5 CON: 3 (1) LCK: 3 Level: 2 SP: 2 CHA: 1 SPI: 1
[Skills:] [Levels:] Scratch 2 Bite 2 Glare 1 Dig 1 Stealth 2 Body Strengthening 1 Shadow Strengthening 2
[Accomplishments:] May the Weak Prosper
??
...
!
The rat came to the sudden realization that it had leveled up. The wounds it had accumulated in battle—the bashed in nose, the couple of scratches, the graze from the spider's leg—all healed in an instant. In addition, all the fatigue from the skill use had been erased. The rat felt as good as the days it was born, past life and present. Then that feeling fled as a wave of hunger surged through the rat. The gnawing, consuming, cramping pain ate away at its insides. The strength it had before waned briefly in the face of the wave of hunger, but the rat managed to stay standing as it crept up to the spider.
Then, the rodent proceeded to feast, gorging itself on the fluid-like insides of the spider. The goop was delicious to the rat, creamy and savory and only slightly garbage flavored. The meat was soft and squishy, but that only added to the joy of the rat as it chewed on the slippery flesh of the spider. The carapace was hard and crunchy but also pleasantly flaky. Thin pieces of the spider's armor came off, and despite the lack of flavor, they were crunchy in a way that skyrocketed the experience. After a fourth of the spider was consumed by the ravenous rat, the monster was disappointed to find itself too full to eat anymore.
The rat skulked away from the desecrated carcass, stomach bloated like a balloon, and once it was far enough away from the battle site, the rat dug itself a small burrow to rest in. It wanted to distance itself from the corpse and battle because the noises made and the smells of a freshly murdered monster would attract the hungry creatures of the sewers to find their own meal. The rat did not want to be around for when the small war would break out.
With a stomach full of food, the rat looked over its status.
First things first, one point into [Luck].
Why? Because why not. Simple.
Next, these four other points mattered. They would determine the rat's future survival and attack methods. With the rat's previous life experiences too, it wouldn't have to experiment with the stats to see what each one did. Not that the rat ever experimented. [Ability Points] were far too valuable and the rat was far too dumb for any such things as experimentation. The rat did have an innate understanding of each stat, however, and it found some to be extra useful.
The easiest to understand were the physical stats:
[Strength] was obvious: a representation of a creature's physical power.
[Dexterity] wasn't as obvious: it was supposed to help with paw-eye coordination
[Agility] was more obvious with a connection to speed and nimbleness.
[Constitution] affected hardiness and endurance. It was directly connected to [HP] and [HP] regeneration. It also affected the body's ability to resist [Status Effects].
Then, there were the mental stats which were more... confusing.
[Intelligence] was related to book smarts, memory, and processing power. Or, how the rat would put it in its eloquent manner through primitive concepts that have some shared meaning with words: brain... strength? The rat's own "brain strength" wasn't very high, so the mere ability to comprehend such a concept was shocking. It also enhanced mana capacity, not that the rat cared about that.
[Wisdom] was how much a being knew from experience or street smarts. If [Intelligence] is the understanding that a tomato is a fruit, then [Wisdom] is knowing it's a dumb-fuck idea to put tomatoes in a fruit salad. Of course, just like most things, the rat didn't know what a tomato, fruit salad, or dumb-fuck was, so the [Status]'s programmed analogy was lost on the rodent. The stat also affected the recovery rate of mana.
Those were the only real mental stats, the other ones being more unique and niche.
[Charisma] was the deciding factor on how attractive a being was. The rat did understand this concept and the idea of a mate, but any non-existent desires it had made the stat almost as useless as [Spirit]. [Spirit] was the measure of a being's faith in something in a religious manner. Often times, it would be one of the many gods, but the rat didn't understand any of that. Seriously, what in the god's names was a god? When [Wisdom] and [Intelligence] worked to make you more knowledgeable and kept you from doing dumb shit, [Faith] was believing the person who told you that a tomato fruit salad would be delicious.
Finally, the rat's favorite stat: [Luck]. It didn't understand the concept of probabilities or how if you do something, there are multiple things that could happen. The rodent only really liked the stat because of a strange mix of primitive trust and nostalgia.
Digressing from the ever increasingly confusing thought process, the rat put two points into [Agility] for the higher speed. After all, the rat knew there were stronger creatures than itself, and when worse comes to worse, running and cowering would always be a valid and respectable option. Second, the rat considered carefully whether one of its other [Ability Points] should go into [Strength], [Constitution], or something else. After very careful consideration taking all of about point-two seconds, the rat decided an even split between [Constitution] and [Strength] was for the best.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
After allocating its [Ability Points], the rat found it had even more trouble deciding on new skills. The rat just didn't know which new skills it should take. A smarter creature might've been making catalogue of useful skills that they would pick in the future, but the rat was not a smart creature. In the end, the rat chose something practical: [Eagle Eye].
[Eagle Eye] [Requirements: 1 SP.] [Primary effect: Increases distance seen by: 4 meters. Effects scale with DEX, WIS, and Skill Level.] [Passive. Effect halved without light.]
[Eagle Eye] was a good choice; no ifs, no buts, no howevers. It might be a better idea to save up [Skill Points] but this was still an objectively good choice. In the dark of the sewer, sight was limited, and even with the penalty applied, any additional sight would and should be welcomed with open arms. The rat then spent its other point on upgrading its skills. That was the other side of [Skill Points]: they could be used to either purchase new skill or upgrade old ones. The rat had learned in its other life that after a certain point, getting new skills just didn't help all that much; instead, it would've been more beneficial to become better in one area than a novice in everything.
The rat spent its [Skill Point] on [Shadow Strengthening], seeing as it had an innate knowledge that it was probably the best skill to boost.
[[Skill Points] used on skill: [Shadow Strengthening].]
[Shadow Strengthening] [Primary effect: Adds 3.2 to STR, CON, AGI, and DEX. Effects scale with Skill Level, STR, CON, AGI, and DEX.] [Passive. Only active while in the shadows.]
The skill, unfortunately, did not rise in level. To reach a new level, a number of [Skill Points] equal to the next level would have to be used, reducing in amount the more the skill was used.
After finalizing its [Status], the system gave a little prompt and disappeared.
[Adjusting Status...][Adjustment finished.]
Status:] [General Information:] [Inputs:] [Stats:] [Values:] [Attributes:] [Values:] [Attributes:] [Values:] Name: N/A HP: 20/20 STR: 8 (5) INT: 1 Species: Monster Rat MP: 2/2 DEX: 4 (1) WIS: 1 Sex: Male ST: 25/25 AGI: 7 (4) WILL: 1 Age: 2.5 hours AP: 0 CON: 5 (2) LCK: 4 Level: 2 SP: 0 CHA: 1 SPI: 1
[Skills:] [Levels:] Scratch 2 Bite 2 Glare 1 Dig 1 Stealth 2 Body Strengthening 1 Shadow Strengthening 2 Eagle Eye 1
[Accomplishments:] May the Weak Prosper
Done with the intricacies of its [Status], the rat decided it was done digesting and would find a new meal to murder.
Setting off with strength in its steps and murder in its mind, the small rodent crept down the many twisting tunnels of the sewers. Unlike in its previous hunt, the rat now had a belly full of ooey gooey spider guts, and therefore, was significantly less urgent. It sniffed the ground and cautiously skittered around. It turned a corner, and suddenly, its fur spiked and fear struck its heart.
Activating [Stealth] on instinct, it crouched and cowered in the face of the monster that was just down the tunnel. It was huge, half the height of the sewer's tunnel and just as wide. It was chunky and gelatinous in form, translucent purple and red slime made up its body, hunks of corpses from previous monsters slaughtered floating in it. From this distance, the details were blurry and unclear in the darkness surrounding it, but with an exaggerated movement, the slime opened.
A large hole formed, teeth and claws floating in the monster's body surging forth to the edges of the orifice. It formed a disgusting disgrace to all mouths, and in a roar which the origin within the monster was unknown and that's tone shook just as much as the monster's body, a wave of rotting, putrid stench blasted from the being.
The rat watched in horror as tentacle-like pseudopods came from the creature. They wrapped around a different rat, one cornered by the slime, the smoking and sizzling of flesh on acid being audible along with the squeaks of pain and terror. Then, in one swift motion, the slime crunched down on the rat along with its own tentacles. By that point, the reincarnated rat slowly backed away, knowing that a similar fate would await it if it stuck around.
What it had just witnessed without realizing it was the [Decay of the Sewers, Pma the Rotting Slime]. It was a rare evolution of the normal slime species with requirements similar to [Plague Bearer], just more intense. The rat's [ST] soon plummeted to nothing, but it had already moved past the horror scene unfolding right near it. After getting its energy back, the strange and unnatural exhaustion that had built up in its limbs was washed away.
The rat explored some more, scoping out all the tunnels, wary of the presence of [Pma]. It began to build a sort of map in its head: it wasn't very precise nor was it that accurate, but on a very simple and primitive level, it gave the rodent some general understanding of where it was. After about two hours of searching, the rat finally came upon another toxic spider. This one's web fort was very similar to its kin, and the rat went with same strategy. This time, however, it kept in mind its [ST] consumption.
Instead of starting with [Stealth], the rat used its natural instincts and capabilities. As it slowly crept up, it activated [Body Strengthening]. Then it was launched at a high enough speed to make the flash blanch. It's original [Strength] and [Agility] scores were five and four respectively. Then, with [Shadow Strengthening], five rose to eight and four became seven. THEN, with [Body Strengthening], eight was twelve and seven was eleven. Control was difficult at the level [Shadow Strengthening] brought it; [Body Strengthening] made the rat far underestimate the level of force needed, sailing right over the spider's head.
It wasn't even caught in the webs, instead just forcing them to rip through sheer brute strength. The rat rapidly approached the wall on the other side of the tunnel, and with just barely enough time, the rat flipped around in the air to meet it paws first. Its inertia forced its little legs to bend, but just as quickly, the rat launched off the wall to the roof. From there, it began bouncing around the tunnel in a panic, unsure of how to stop itself. Then, on the sixth rebound, it passed right above the spider. In a snap-decision, the rat swiped out with [Scratch]. The rat managed to keep up its new way of attacking, small scratches building up across the spider's surface. Then, the rat heard a concerning message.
[Warning: Unable to continue Skill: [Body Strengthening] due to lack of ST.]
The rat slowed down midair, flipping head over tail right into the spider. The victim of the rodent's onslaught used this by having the back of the rat's neck land right in its waiting mouth. Fangs pierced the rat's flesh and venom flooded into its system.
[Warning: Status effect: [Poisoned] has been applied due to [Toxic Bite]. HP will be drained at a rate of 2.4 per second for 6 seconds.]