The beast had noticed the weak human wandering around the trees and since it could not sense any power in his body as was usually the case with others of his kind, it saw no need to hide its presence or use its ability on him. The energy would be wasted by using it on such a weakling. Slowly approaching him, it saw him frozen in fear and could practically taste his delicious flesh and blood as it ripped into him. Callum knew he only had one chance to get the timing right so when he saw the wolf primed to attack he pretended to be afraid stumbling backwards and falling on his ass.

The wolf's bloodlust peaked seeing his panicked actions and pounced at him ready to rip out his throat. As soon as it was in the air, Callum swung his left hand activating the flame claw ability while aiming for its underside. The wolf only had time for confusion at seeing the innately familiar ability before five red streaks flew through the air far faster than when it used the power. The wolf instinctively tried to use its own flame claws to counter but there wasn't any time to charge the skill. The ethereal claw ripped into the wolf's body tearing into its internal organs and burning them. Callum hurriedly rolled to the side and stood up getting in a defensive position but all he saw was the wolf's sizzling carcass with five horrible cauterized wounds in its midsection, it was dead before it even hit the ground.

Callum hurriedly looked around to see if there were any other enemies and let out a breath seeing no one. He was keyed up and breathing fast because of the ordeal & the fact he had survived filled him with relief and a new excitement for danger he didn't know he had. He felt exhaustion wash over him, a side effect of not having enough energy to use the Tier II flame claw and approached the body of the wolf scanning it.

{Scan activated... Target - Wolf Corpse}

{Extract remnant energy?}

Callum excitedly chose yes and realized 70 units of energy points had been added to his panel.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[Energy: 100]

Feeling the fatigue in his body he added 45 points to both speed & strength and upgraded his life regeneration to Tier II. The massive influx of power washed away the feeling of over-exertion and the energy used to activate flame claw was rapidly replenished when he upgraded life regeneration. Callum then looked at his newly updated system panel.

[Apocalypse End System]

Functions - (3)

Strength: 80 +

Speed: 80 +

Abilities :

* Language Translation (Complete)

* Scan (Tier II) +

* Life Regeneration (Tier II) +

* Flame Claw (Tier II)

Energy: [0]

Callum spent a few minutes calming down then decided to explore the forest and try to find a way out. Coming beside a tree he jumped up an incredible height, a superhuman feat and could feel the benefit of his improved attributes, then before he could descend he dug his fingers into the tree's bark and slowly looked around but there were only trees in the distance. He hurriedly jumped back down just in case something far scarier than the wolf saw him and decided to just start walking.

At first he was very cautious but after a while, all he saw were just some rabbits that had glowing blue ears, small creatures with two tails and weird looking birds. Except for the wolf & rabbits, the creatures were all different from anything he had ever seen and he was fascinated.

Scanning them, he noticed most of the small creatures here were around level 5 so he relaxed slightly. Now that there was no imminent threat to his life, the feeling of exploring a new world made Callum's eyes light up in wonder. He noticed he could see & hear further and his nose was more sensitive to scents then after walking a while he suddenly sensed a burst of life force coming from behind a tree. Following it he found some glowing purple fruits under a bush and noticed what he sensed came from the fruits.

Realizing this was a side effect of his upgraded life regeneration he was pleasantly surprised and decided to try one. Though he was worried they might be poisonous, he somehow knew through sensing their life force that they were edible. Biting into one he found it tasted faintly like grapes but not entirely. When he swallowed it, the fruit seemed to be broken down in an instant and his eyes jumped in surprise when he looked at the panel.

[Energy: 5]