In the following weeks Kiel got used to not dealing any damage. Instead he became somewhat of a scout, using his senses and teleportation to find prey or escape from monster attacks. His usual targets were small groups of goblins where he distracted and guided Edel to kill them. Aside from that, he also started exploring the areas near them.

He'd been living in the forest for some time now, and he barely knew anything about it.

Thankfully most of the monsters wouldn't attack unless provoked, or unless you refused to leave their territory, which made exploration easier.

There were also a few monsters that gave him a very bad feeling along the way, all of which he avoided like the plague. Which was a funny expression, because he learned from experience a plague was something quite hard to avoid.

In any case, he noticed a fun fact about this forest. The deeper he ventured, the richer the ether became. Usually he stopped after an hour or so into the forest, but this time he couldn't help his curiosity and continued for much longer. Another change he noticed was that the bark and leaves of the trees were darker in color, even if they were the same species of trees.

After a while, the ether was getting pretty close to the same level as the quiet zones, only without the collapsing space to go with it. Speaking of which, he encountered a lot more of those zones the further in he went.

The gradual increase of both ether and the zones made him consider they were linked. That, or something unknown like the weird alien monster was at fault. He hoped it was the first one if he was being honest. He could do with less terrifying alien monsters in his life.

In the end, he didn't stop as he made that observation. The forest was bigger than he'd thought, and although he'd been walking for over three hours at this point, there were only more trees and monsters ahead of him.

Monsters like the three-tailed lizard, a creature that resembled the child of a crocodile and a kangaroo standing on two legs. Two legs, three tails, two nasty arms and a lot of very sharp nails. The very same chasing him right now.

Aside from a meditation skill, he needed a stealth skill apparently.

The lizard jumped towards him, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. It was almost upon him when he managed to teleport above it.

He had no idea if hurting the beast would give him any essence, but leaving without a fight seemed impossible. At least not with how fast the lizard was.

He had no idea how much stronger the lizard was, but considering the alternatives he needed to give this a try. The alternative was dying, so it wasn't like he had much of a choice.

Unfortunately he wasn't smart enough to realize that teleporting on empty air was not a great idea until it was already too late.

As he fell down, the lizard was waiting for him with an open mouth. Focusing his energy in a hurry, he willed his body to move. Because the second shift had been very close to the first, he didn't bother picking a direction, he just wanted to get away.

Finding himself hundreds of meters in the air, however, was not what he had been expecting. He'd never even managed to teleport that far before! At least it wouldn't be the lizard killing him, gosh that would have been embarrassing.

His entire body felt weightless before he started to pick up speed, falling to the rapidly approaching ground. Everywhere he looked was forest, and in the distance was the outline of an enormous mountain, one he couldn't see clearly.

Does this forest even have an end?

His heart started to beat faster as his speed increased. He had to say, it felt exciting in all kinds of wrong; like falling from an airplane but without your parachute. Then he started to wonder... did his teleportation transfer momentum? He couldn't remember for the life of him, and time was starting to run out.

With few options on the table, he coated his body in ether the same way he would do to teleport, only this time he willed himself to stop, something he hadn't tried before.

It worked surprisingly well, like using a parachute with a few holes in it. He bled speed, but not fast enough. Still falling at a high speed, he pulled his remaining ether with another intent; freeze.

His whole body felt like it hit a brick wall, a wall that shattered surprisingly fast, but took most of his remaining speed with it. When his body hit the ground with a thud, there wasn't a place that didn't feel sore and bruised, but otherwise he didn't think he'd broken anything.

He fell for the length of an entire football field and a bit and survived. Ten out of ten, would try again if I get the chance.

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His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to tear his chest open from the inside. He shakily walked next to a tree and sat down, his head needing a much deserved rest after all he put it through.

The three-tailed lizard was gone it seemed, but there was a more pressing issue right now. He was completely and utterly lost. The ether here was slightly higher than before, so it must mean that he was further inside the forest.

Unfortunately judging whether he was heading for the outer regions of the forest by ether alone was a foolhardy venture. He needed to climb up the tree and orient himself.

While he was resting, he kept quiet. Opposite to that was the liveliness of the forest, only instead of crickets and birds singing, monsters were roaring in the distance. The few minutes it took for him to recover somewhat were nerve-wracking, but thankfully he didn't end up getting found by other monsters.

He carefully scaled the tree and teleported where he couldn't reach easily, reaching the highest point at a record speed. To his left was the blurry outline of the mountain far away, which meant he needed to travel northwest. Not wanting to spend any more time this deep in the forest and away from Edel, he decided to walk until his ether recovered and then start running at a decent pace.

Every time he noticed a monster before they noticed him, he took the long way around and for those that caught on to him he was the most annoying monster to chase around. Unfortunately the monsters that managed to find him out were also incredibly fast. His one saving grace, however, was that monsters here also seemed to be more territorial. They didn't chase him far from their territory and where they met other monsters they were easy to distract.

Of course, every place had one exception, and the three-tailed lizard was his. It just seemed suited to hunting monsters like him, to the point the teleportation likely wouldn't be enough to escape if he found the creature again.

And sure enough, he jinxed himself. After almost half an hour of walking later, the damned lizard seemed to have been waiting for him. The moment his head broke through the low foliage, he was forced to teleport away, or let his head get skewered by the lizard's claws.

Like last time the lizard had him on the back foot. I'm sorry, I will stop eating your kind's tails! He pleaded but to no avail. Which was good in a way, because he wasn't prepared to lose his favorite food.

Jumping to the side, he barely avoided being cut in half by the lizard's claws even as the lizard ran for another attack. That didn't mean Kiel wasn't prepared this time, however. Getting swept up in your opponent's pace is the best way to lose a match from what he remembered from online fighting videos.

Running towards its legs, he barely avoided another claw and a stomp before he was close enough to attack. Using his claws, and imbuing them with ether for good measure, he slashed at the lizard's legs.

He expected to deal a significant enough injury that he would be able to use in order to escape. The reality was a lot more cruel, however, as his claws left only white marks on the skin of the lizard.

He was forced to teleport away this time as he hadn't managed to react to its next attack after his failed attempt in causing an injury. Thankfully, it seemed a little more apprehensive about him after he managed to land a hit, even if it didn't hurt it.

A little more apprehensive translated to about two seconds of pause in a fight of life or death. He didn't wait for the lizard to make the first move, he did it on his own. It was a very well known strategy back on Earth called strategic retreat.

Utterly enraged, the monster ran after him with renewed vigor.

His ether was still good for another fifteen or so jumps, which didn't mean a thing if the lizard caught him before he managed to make it out of its territory, and even then it wasn't certain. Most other monsters didn't even attempt to fight it when he dragged it near them.

In a desperate attempt, he teleported up, this time with a much clearer goal in mind, the top branch of a tree in front of him. He vanished from the lizard just as it was going to reach him for the second time, and remained silent.

While the lizard was strong, built like a shredding machine combined with a tank, it certainly lacked in the intelligence department.

It circled the area a few times, while Kiel was afraid to breathe too loudly. Thankfully a few minutes later it went searching in another region, leaving him alone. Escaping death this many times in a row, in one day, was bad for his health.

He waited an extra half an hour to make sure it wouldn't come back suddenly, and then got down from the tree. By this point his climbing skill had reached the point where he could climb down without much worry, but he still preferred to teleport directly to the ground. It was faster and stealthier.

After getting down he hightailed it as fast as he could without making too much noise. It wasn't always possible to avoid dead leaves and small branches, but that was exactly why he had his trusty Spatial Shift. Maybe not so trusty after it threw him a few hundred meters in the air, but the details didn't matter.

Finding the river and following it back added a few hours to his journey, but he made it back without another incident. Seeing Edel besides the river almost four and a half hours later, he collapsed on the spot.

Next time he was going that deep in the forest, he would be the one hunting that damned lizard, not the other way around.

He fell asleep next to Edel dreaming about catching running lizard tails while falling from the sky. It was probably his weirdest dream to date, but in a strange kind of way, a somewhat accurate description of what had happened today.

When he woke up the next day, he saw that the warning on his level was still there, but there was a surprise waiting for him when he checked his status screen. It was a message that he'd somehow missed with all the chaos of yesterday and then forgot about it.

You have maxed out your skill, Spatial Manipulation! You have gained +3 in the Spirit attribute, space has become a part of you.

When he checked to see what that meant, he found out that using spatial ether had become infinitely easier. He was able to teleport much further and faster now, and that wasn't even half of it. Alongside with all of that, he also gained a limited amount of spatial sense. It wasn't an easy thing to focus on, but if he got good at it, sneak attacks on him would be a thing of the past.

He was pretty sure Spatial Sense was a skill he could gain, but with how much harder it had become to get new skills, he wasn't counting on it happening soon. Nevertheless, even unable to level up he was growing stronger and that made him happy.

When he was able to hunt again, he would be catching up to Edel in no time.