Waking up on the wrong side of 'bed' for the second time in a row, Grant groaned with annoyance, quickly turning to pain as his wounds flared.

Cursing, Grant sat upright, he looked at his wounds. The bite marks on his arm was swollen and hurt when he moved his arm.

If his arm was bad, then his leg was worse. While he wasn't going to remove his makeshift bandage to check his leg, just lightly prodding the area around the wound told him that he wouldn't be walking far.

The thought reminded him that he was alone and wounded in a forest, who knows where, with bloodthirsty apples trying to kill him.

There were multiple apples, meaning there's got to be more somewhere in this forest. Also the fact that just a few nearly killed me, I should avoid any rustling.

That led him to something he had tried to ignore.

I almost died. I've had a few moments where I thought I would die, but never like this. Those apples were eating me. Not an animal, like a mountain lion or cougar, but apples.

The absurdity of it made him chuckle out loud.

As Grant was contemplating, something made it self know to him. Pushing to the forefront of his mind, until it was in front of his eyes, was a line of text.

Level up!

What?

Blinking his eyes rapidy, Grant looked at the screen in confusion.

Realization dawned on him, and like fish to water, he spoke, "Status!"

Level 1 Grant Tordon

Race: Human

Class: N/A

Health: 61/100

Mana: 100/100

Stamina: 50/90

Attributes

Strength: 9

Dexterity: 8

Endurance: 10

Wisdom: 10

Intelligence: 10

Free attributes: 2

Skills

Negation (Unique)

Translator (Unique)

Bleeding Resistance Lv 2

Titles

A Whole New World

It worked!

Okay... That's a lot to digest. Ahem! First of all, it's a Status screen, like from all those video games I used to play! And can't forget about magic!

Secondly, I have a hunch, one that I'm almost 100% confident of, about how I got here. A hunch that implies that I'm most likely never going to see my family and friends again...

Thirdly, I already have skills and titles! Two of them even being Unique too! What a steal, whoop whoop!

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Actually, speaking of skills and titles, what do they even do? Let's see... how do I—

As if waiting for Grant to focus on them, descriptions popped up for them.

Negation (Unique)

Allows the user to negate almost anything.

Bleeding Resistance Lv 2

Stymies blood flow. Scales with level of skill.

A Whole New World

You have traveled to another world full of mysteries and intrigue and opportunities. Don't close your eyes, otherwise you'll miss it.

Aquired - Translator (Unique)

Translator (Unique)

Translates languages.

Killed 4x Apple-kin. Experience gained.

Alright, starting off with the 'weakest' of them first, Bleeding Resistance. Sounds simple to understand, easy to 'use'—although I probably can't use it in the traditional sense, as it sounds like a passive skill—and lastly, very useful at keeping me alive.

Translator doesn't even need a description, if it can even be called that, because it says what it does in the name. Although, it is a Unique skill, so...

Negation, on the other hand, sounds powerful! Not even taking into account the fact that it's a Unique—beautiful— the description says it can negate anything! Well almost anything, but potatoe, patatoe. I can already see it being useful. I can see myself canceling out a mage's magic before they can even throw their magic at me! Mwha ha ha ha—cough cough—alright, alright, calm down Grant. But anyways, Negation seems very powerful, and I can see it being my favorite skill.

Now, as for the title, besides it giving me the Translator skill, I see nothing of note.

Nope, nothing out of the ordinary. No implications at all of never seeing my home, or my friends, or my famil—

Nope, out of mind, out of sigh— wait, no— it's out of sight, out of mind.

Wait a minute, if I right about being able to aquire skills by doing things, then if I can assume that I got Bleeding Resistance from my wounds, and Translator from A Whole New World, then where did Negation come from? Maybe I was 'spawned' with it? Yeah, that seems about right.

Sighing, Grant looked up at the sky, through the branches and leaves, feeling more calm than when he woke up.

Reading his status screen had put him at ease and revitalized him, strangely enough, and gave him enough courage to stand up, using a stick he found in the area, and continue his trek to find shelter, food, and water.

Standing up using his good leg, and his 'walking stick', Grant took slow calculated steps, his eyes scrying his surroundings. He did this not just because of his lame leg, but also to be on the lookout for more of those apple-things.

Griting his teeth and grunting with almost every step, Grant endured the pain in leg for all of ten steps, before collapsing.

Fuck! That shit hurts! Man, I wish the pain just stoppe—

He got an idea.

—Wait a second, can't Negation, well, negate pain? That's got to fall under its purview. Only one way to find out!

Sitting up, Grant activated Negation, and focused with his mind's eye on his pain. He felt a trickle of something flow out of him.

He felt nothing happen, no big flash of light or anything. Then he realized he didn't feel any pain whatsoever.

I don't feel any pain in my arm, let alone my leg! Looks like doing that used up some Mana though.

Mana: 97/100

Barely anything too!

Feeling energized, Grant Laid back down on the ground with gusto—jolting his body and causing him to freeze with pain as his leg slammed on the ground.

Whimpering, Grant relaxed his tensed muscles, which he didn't know he he was tensing.

Looks like it only negates the current pain at the time. Maybe I can hold, or toggle, the Negate, because that's gonna take lots of focus if I have to use the every time I take a step.

Sure enough, it worked. Requiring a constant drain of Mana, about two points of mana per minute.

Just 100 Mana gives me 50 minutes of pain-free walking. What a great deal! Maybe I should spend my free attributes on my mental stats. Might as well look at all my stats if I'm going to spend my points.

Alright, starting from the top, Strength. Looks like I can't 'focus' on the words like I did for the skills and title. Anyway, looks cut-and-dry, probably just dictating my physical strength, but it can't be a coincidence that there are 9 points in it and 90 points in Stamina. Maybe it is a coincidence, and Stamina is based on multiple stats.

Dexterity, probably flexibility of my body.

Endurance is most likely what dictates my Health and Health regen, like in most games.

Wisdom and Intelligence, however, is a little trickier, just from the fact it is a mental stat, makes it not so easily defined. I have a hunch that one of them is responsible for Mana capacity and the other, Mana regeneration. Or it could use both stats for all I know.

Now to pick a stat to place my free points in. Dexterity and strength are out right away. Not because they're not useful in this situation, but because I want to make Negation a big part of my 'build' just for the pain negation. Endurance is very good for surviving, and will most likey keep me alive longer.

Wisdom and Intelligence, however, are just slightly more important to me, so Endurence will be placed on the back burner for now.

As I want Negation to be my powerhouse, I need Mana, so I can use my skill more. The faster I regenerate Mana, the faster I can use Negation. Also Wisdom and Intelligence might increase my memory and calculations. The only problem is which one of the two is regeneration.

I'm probably going to have to place a point into each one to see which one increases my max Mana, then place all the free points into the other one. But I have a feeling attribute points are valuable, so I don't really want to waste them.

Whatever, no more stalling, time to test it. First Wisdom.

Wisdom: 10 —> 11

Mana: 110

Damn! At least I know Wisdom is Mana capacity, and Intelligence is Mana regeneration.

Placing his second point into Intelligence, he closed his Status.

Flaring Negation and standing up, without a single aching muscle and painful wound, felt great to Grant.

Level-headed and keen to find somewhere safe, Grant headed off deeper in to the woods.