Jack was on his back laying on a branch of a massive tree, while Lucy was curled on his stomach. He had been stuck there for a few hours. His attempt to charge a Hydraulic Leap so that he could jump farther than normal, succeeded, saving them both. Unfortunately, his veins were not able to handle the stress of the charged jump.

Afflictions: Ruptured Veins: Left and right legs. 50% Reduced healing in area. May disrupt skills utilizing affected area.

The wolf was still below them. Waiting for them to come back down. Every twenty minutes or so, it would release a Sonic Howl in a futile attempt at getting them down. 

Jack was immensely thankful for how sturdy the trees of the forest were. The first few times the Spell Seeker had unleashed its skill, Jack thought it was just a very loud howl. It would cause the tree to shake and would hurt his ears with the volume, but there was no visible damage to him or the tree, so he didn’t think it was a skill. When it howled for the third time Jack noticed the gust of wind that would accompany it.

In an attempt to see how much force the wind had, Jack tied a sock to the end of his staff and poked it over the edge of the branch. When the wolf howled next, the staff was hit so hard that it almost flew out of Jack’s hands. He quickly pulled the staff back to the safety of his branch. Not only was the sock on the end completely shredded, but there were long gashes all over the staff.

He was concerned about the structural integrity of his weapon until he noticed that it had begun to repair itself. After only five minutes, it was good as new. Jack made a mental note to check into the possible exploits of a self-repairing metal pole.

With the sacrifice of one of his spare socks, he did have a better understanding of what the howl was doing. Just seeing how much damage it did to a metal pole gave Jack a whole new appreciation for how tough these trees were. He also knew that he absolutely had to avoid being hit by it.

Jack checked on his health. He was almost fully healed. Rupturing his veins did about four damage to him and his hope was that when he was back to max the affliction would be gone. That’s how it had worked with his infection, so it made sense. He’d probably hit max health within the hour. 

He peeked his head over the edge of the branch. The wolf was just sitting there staring up at him. Its mood was frustrated. Besides howling every twenty minutes, the wolf had stopped actively trying to get them down or get up to them. The first hour it was furious. Trying to climb the tree, ramming into it, and for a while, it was biting the trunk. But now it was just the tri-hourly howl.

Jack was actually waiting for it to do it again. He was trying to copy the skill. He had a pretty good idea how it worked, but he hadn’t actually seen the wolf activate the skill yet. Mostly because he didn’t want his face to get shredded. 

The wolf and Jack stared at each other. He could swear it was glaring. Finally, the wolf stood, its chest puffed out as it took a deep breath. It flung its head back, pointing its muzzle directly at Jack, and let out a booming howl. The force of the sound was almost visible leaving its mouth. 

He quickly pulled his head back, but he was a little too slow. Jack felt the warm blood dripping from the cut on his cheek before he felt the pain. The slash wasn’t deep, but it scared him to think of what would have happened if he was slower.

**Skill Up** Mimicry Level 5

Mimicry has reached level 5 and is now able to be evolved. Level 5 is a free evolution and does not require a skill evolution token. Would you like to Evolve this skill? Yes No

Once the howl stopped, Jack checked to make sure the wolf wasn’t doing anything new before he dived into his skill evolution.

**Alert** New Skill Evolution Available Choose one   Higher Sentient   Eternal Intern   Basic Instinct

Higher Sentient might just be what the system classified humans as. He was pretty sure that humans didn’t fall under the category of ‘creature’ since he couldn’t use Identify on Kai. He didn’t know how useful this evolution would be. If it made it so he could copy skills from other people, that would be great, but in theory, he didn’t need an evolution for that. If someone had learned a skill, they should be able to teach it to him. It might help in learning the skill if someone wasn’t willing to teach him. The amount of observation it would take to activate Mimicry though would probably tip off whoever he was trying to steal a skill from.

Eternal Intern? Would that just be a boost to learning new skills? He let out a frustrated growl, annoyed with how little information he had to work with.

The last evolution is what caught his attention. It made him think of one of Lucy’s racial traits. He was pretty sure it was called Hereditary Instincts. It unlocked skills and the knowledge of how to use them as she grew. His instinct was that this would give him instincts on skills learned through Mimicry. 

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He laughed at his own little joke.

The only thing that stopped him from clicking Basic Instinct right there was a small thought that popped up in the back of his head. What if he could learn a magic skill from someone? 

He facepalmed when he thought back to the skill description of Mimicry. It very clearly said non-magical abilities. Hopefully, an evolution down the line could change that.

**Alert** Mimicry has gained the evolution Basic Instinct

**Skill Unlocked ** Through observation, you have unlocked Empowered Howl with Mimicry. Would you like to learn this skill Yes No

With mild disappointment that he didn’t get the full Sonic Howl skill, he clicked yes. The plan was to remove baking when it prompted him to replace a skill.

**Skill Acquired** Empowered Howl Level 1 Release a powerful howl

Confused as to why he didn’t have to replace a skill he quickly checked his racial traits. 

Skill Limit 12

He double-checked Mimicry and confirmed that the extra skill slot was from it.

Now to test the skill. 

He took a deep breath and tilted his head back. A high-pitched howl escaped his mouth. It was nowhere near as loud as the wolf’s and it only lasted thirty seconds until Jack was out of breath. 

He surprised himself with the whole thing. The moment he thought about howling, it was like muscle memory kicked in. It was as easy as it would be to ride a bike. The Basic Instinct evolution was already seemingly showing its worth.

Howling a few more times trying to adjust the pitch, or change the volume, he even tried doing some sort of damage to a sock. The last one had him on all fours, with his mouth inches away from a sock resting on the branch. Besides making him feel like an idiot, it did nothing.

A quick check-in on the wolf revealed its mood had changed to confused, but quickly changed back to annoyed once it saw him. 

Since his new evolution was supposed to give him some insight on how to use his skill, he started testing them out. None of his non-Mimicry-granted skills seemed to have any difference, but he kind of figured that would be the case. 

With his progress with Hair Manipulation, he didn’t expect much, but as soon as he went to use it, his attention was drawn to his arm and all the hair on it. In an attempt to go with his gut feeling, he pressed the top side of his arm against the bark of the tree. Like he had been doing with the hair on his head, he attempted to grab onto the bark. 

The arm hairs were able to get a small grip on the bark, not much of a stronger one than he had been able to get with his head hair though. With the failed attempt, he got a sudden feeling of unease. Like something was wrong with his hair. 

It could be that he just didn’t have enough hair or his hair just wasn’t made for climbing. With a sigh, he moved on to Focused Senses.

Weirdly enough, the “muscle memory” led him to close his eyes focus on all the hairs of his body. The slightest movement or breeze sent tingles throughout his body. He sat as still as he could to try to interpret what his body was telling him.

After a minute or so, he was starting to be able to understand some of the information being sent to him. Most of it was stuff he would be able to feel normally such as the wind, but he noticed a weird sensation across almost his entire body. After another minute of trying to figure out what he was feeling, he understood. He could feel the hairs on his body growing. While he knew that they were growing on a microscopic level it was like there were sending tiny waves through his body.

Getting an interesting idea, Jack tapped into Hair Manipulation. One of the potential problems was that he didn’t have enough hair to actually use to climb. Focusing on a small area on his arm, he could feel the tiny growth of the hair slowly pushing through his skin. Using his skill, he tried to help push it faster. The hair seemed to resist this artificial growth, but it felt like it had some give. 

Concentrating, he tried to mentally push it along, but it still resisted. The mental strain of using both skills at the same time was wearing him down quickly. 

In one last attempt, he threw his figurative back into it and gave it everything he had. Like trying to break in a door only to have someone open it at the last second. The hair gave up all resistance. 

The sensation that went through him was like his entire body, head to toe, sneezed. Immediately he deactivated his skills and opened his eyes. 

At first, everything seemed normal, but as a breeze came by, it felt exceptionally colder. The wind touching his arms blew little hairs across his skin. Touching his arm revealed it to be covered in loose arm hairs. Wiping them off, he saw that not a single one was attached to his arm. His arm was completely bald.

As the breeze hit the back of his head, his stomach sank. “Oh, no!” His hand raced to his head only to feel smooth skin. Touching his eyebrows was a similar story. He even checked down his shorts. Stuck on the inside of his underwear was a small mound of loose, straight black hair.

He looked around, and there were strands of his long black hair everywhere. Lucy was trying to catch some of the strands that were floating through the air. Somehow he had ejected all the hair off of his body.

Just then is when the wolf decided to howl again. The gusts blowing away the loose hair all around him. 

He put his face in his hands, a surge of anger and annoyance going through his body. Most of it was directed at himself for screwing up,

Though there was a fair amount of emotion directed at the wolf. 

He was so ready to be out of this damn tree.