Above her head were the words “Sarah, Level-6 Goblin Assassin, Rank-G.”  There was also a Health-bar, which was completely full, but only had fifteen points total.

Michael laughed and asked himself “I wonder what she’ll turn into?  Actually, why would they need to keep me alive?  Can’t they just crack my skull open and eat my mana-core?”  Dying seven times already, his sense of self-preservation had become… nonexistent.

After attempting to lift his body, the two Goblins complained “He’s way too heavy... how the hell are we supposed to move this asshole?”  Vitality, endurance and strength, each have a dramatic influence on a creature or person’s weight; his body was originally one-hundred and eighty pounds, regardless of his short stature, because his muscular and bone density were relatively high.

However, agility has the opposite effect, but size and leverage are both, much more important.  Even with the three extremely-light Goblins together, they still weren’t able to lift Michael; realizing the problem, the three of them immediately pulled out their crude, iron daggers, and took a few dozen steps backwards.

They were actually surprised that even when they were making so much noise, and treating him so roughly, that he managed to stay asleep.  Sarah commanded “Stop, don’t get too close… He’s obviously faking.  The moment we approach, he’ll attack… He might even be able to break free of those shitty bindings as well.  It’s not worth it, let’s get the hell outta here while we still can.”

When they were about to leave, the pitch-black wisp entered the exhausted body, and he lazily opened his brown eyes, while easily slipping out of the poorly-tied leather-strips and yawning.  The first thing that he said was “Eww, gross… damn it, there’s so much dirt caked onto my hair and face.”

The Goblin trio were making serious expressions, while holding their serrated, poison-coated, double-edged, rusty iron-daggers, preparing to attack.  Michael just snickered at them, as he stood-up and cracked his neck a few times, then asked Sarah “You mentioned that I needed to be alive for something, right?  Can you explain it a bit more for me?”

However, instead of answering him, she whispered “Shadow-Cloak” and all three of them disappeared into the darkness.  With a Perception of just one, the naked man obviously couldn’t see their their stealth technique, and could only sigh dramatically as they fled.

Considering how low his Agility was, it wouldn’t have been possible for him to chase after them anyway: not that he would have.  Michael was tempted to simply kill himself, and just respawn with a completely clean and rested body, but considering that he didn’t have any way to end it quickly and painlessly, he decided to just do things the old-fashioned way: Go to the river.

While he was surveying the surroundings in wisp-form, he noticed quite a few sources of water; unfortunately, each of them was at least a mile away.  Before he left, he reached down and untied the thin leather-straps that were around his ankles, and put all of them into bag-slot six.

Since he came from the southern grasslands, he hadn’t encountered any magical-beasts; yet, there were still normal animals.  The reason that he could tell, was because the adorable, fluffy brown rabbits, grey squirrels, or random birds, didn’t try to kill him.

When he looked at a miscellaneous red-fox kit that was prowling around, he noticed that its level was zero, and it wasn’t even ranked.  He crouched down and gave the creature a warm smile, and it unhesitatingly walked up to him; since the left side of his body was covered in dried mud, he reached out with his right hand and gently caressed the beautiful, orange fur, casually scratching behind its ears and asking “I bet you’d love some delicious rabbit-meat…”

He pulled out the first bunny that he had to kill, it’s head wasn’t even there anymore, but the adorable vixen didn’t seem to mind the gore.  It immediately began using its front paws and tiny snout to tear apart the carcass; he didn’t stick around, and continued to walk towards the river.

When he was about a kilometer away, he could finally start to hear it clearly: Although, the small amount of moon and starlight weren’t nearly enough to let him see that far ahead of him.  By the time that he made it to the relatively small and shallow stream, his Stamina-meter was down to 4/15.

Michael muttered “Maybe I should just lay down, face-first?  No, nope, that’s a terrible idea… I definitely don’t want to drown or suffocate.  Ugh, it’s so much easier to just respawn though…”  After standing in the flowing, fresh-water, which was only up to his shins, he sat down with his legs crossed and started using his hands to wash his face, hair, and body.

There was no soap, so even though he scrubbed furiously for twenty-minutes, he still didn’t really feel ‘clean.’  The exhausted Human also had another pressing issue: he was getting hungry.  As he was wonder what he should eat, there was a loud growl behind him; it was a level-one, rank-less grizzly bear, which had a surprising fifty-points of Health.

It was standing on its hind-legs and threatening the person who was invading its territory.  However, Michael just turned around, then glared at it, while asking “What the fuck’s your problem, asshole?”

He was so irritated by the fact that he couldn’t wash himself off properly, that he unintentionally channeled mana into his eyes and voice.  The skill “Intimidation Level 1” was created, and automatically activated.

Since his level was so much higher than the bear’s, it was given a ‘terrified’ debuff; the effect was a combination of ‘fear,’ which would force the target to flee, and a ‘stun’ to keep it from being able to move.  When the three-meter tall grizzly, suddenly got down on all fours and started trembling, Michael sighed dramatically.  After a few seconds, he gazed at the ‘cute’ animal, and softly said “Don’t worry kid, I’m not going to hurt you… Come here, I’ll give you a tasty snack.”

Focusing mana into his calm and gentle voice, he unintentionally broke his previous spell, and cast a new one: “Enthrall Level 1.”  It was a very simple ability, but remarkably useful when dealing with animals or even humanoids.

Upon hearing his convincing words, the bear seemed to know exactly what Michael wanted it to do, and cautiously approached him.  He held out his right hand, and one of the seventeen remaining white-rabbit carcasses appeared; it died by having its neck broken, so there wasn’t much damage to its fur or body.

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After sniffing the bunny a few times, the grizzly gently bit down on it, and then slowly walked away, stopping on the riverbank and sitting down.  Then it used a combination of its paws and teeth to tear the meat apart, happily devouring the delicious meal.

However, when it ate the head, there was an almost instantaneous change to its body; the brown fur started turning completely white, and rather than getting larger, it actually shrank.  Watching that strange scene, Michael muttered “Interesting… so it isn’t necessarily the bigger the better, when it comes to magical-beasts and evolution.  Well, that isn’t very surprising, and I kinda expected the color-scheme change, but… those ears are kinda weird-looking on a bear.”

Not just the rabbit-like ears, even the eyes went from dark brown, to bright-red.  Then he received a notification: “You have created a White Hare-Bear, would you like to tame him or release him into the wild?”

Michael groaned, and muttered “That name… No, nope, can’t do it.  I mean, he’s definitely adorable… but I’ll pass.  Bears eat way too much, and I can’t afford to take care of a pet right now.  Also, knowing my luck, he’ll just end up getting killed, and then I’ll get depressed.”  Once it was released, the newly created magical-beast didn’t act the same way as all those other creatures that he had seen in that field; it didn’t become aggressive, and just waded in the shallow water for a few minutes.

Then it caught a relatively large salmon, and brought it over to the spectating Human.  Michael smiled at the ‘Hare-Bear’ and gratefully accepted the gift, even saying “Thank you very much.” as if he thought that the animal could understand English.

However, even if it didn’t comprehend the words, his meaning was very clear.  The fish was still alive and squirming around in his hands, as the pure-white grizzly with bunny-ears, reluctantly left him.

Michael was finally able to test something that he had been extremely curious about for a while; he inserted the salmon into bag-slot seven successfully.  When he pulled it back out, it was still alive and didn’t look any different; to test another theory, he had to leave it in there for a few minutes.

While he was waiting, he stood up and walked over to the dry riverbed; it was essentially just a bunch of smooth green and brown stones, so he didn’t have to worry about getting covered in mud or dirt.  Although, he still considered everything to be relatively filthy, compared to what he was used to, but since he didn’t worry about getting sick, his mysophobia was easily subdued.

Once he sat down, he sighed and removed the level-two field mouse from his inventory.  Like many of the others, he had snapped its neck to kill it, so the overall damage to its pelt and body was negligible; there was no noticeable decomposition or changes, and it was even still covered in his own blood.

Michael was actually fairly talented in cooking, but was never in a situation where he needed to flay the ingredients first.  In fact, he had no way to cook it anyway, or a knife to cut it, only his hands and some dirty rocks: which he didn’t use.

Three strength was still within the limits of a ‘normal’ Human, but it was enough to tear apart the brown-furred rat.  It was messy, really terrible, and if he wasn’t starving, he would have definitely lost his appetite.  

However, while grimacing and singing a popular song from his original world, the naked man kept going until he was able to separate some of the edible organs and meat, from the rest.  The pelt was ruined, bones were destroyed, and even the head was crushed beyond recognition, with only the mana-core being salvageable.

Perhaps if he was seriously worried about survival, he would have stored and saved even the left-overs from that bloody meal, but after eating some raw field-mouse, Michael decided to just throw it into the river and let it get washed away.  His “Immune System Boost” reached level two, and all it cost him was twenty minutes of laying on the ground and groaning in agony.

He complained “I wonder if I just contracted salmonella or dysentery?  Either way, I’m gonna have diarrhea regardless, so I might as well just OD on these fucking mana-cores anyway…” while removing five white-rabbits from his bag and tearing their heads off, before hurrying to store the bodies again.

After washing the six, tiny crystalline beads, he started with the level two rat’s.  He waited a few seconds, and surprisingly didn’t feel too much pain… until a few seconds later, when he felt like he was having appendicitis.  

Michael had an appendectomy when he seventeen, but once his body was reformed, the missing organ was replaced with a brand-new one.  Of course, that was one of the many reasons why Humans typically couldn’t or didn’t consume mana-cores; for whatever reason, it caused their appendix to burst.

He was dying anyway, so he decided to just shove the rest of the little beads into his mouth, and swallow all five at the same time.  While he awaited his death in absolute agony, a screen appeared in front of his face, which read “Stats have increased after digesting a level-two, rank ‘G’ field-mouse’s mana-core: Aura +.2, Vitality +1.”  Then there was another pop-up, which told him “Stats have increased after digesting five level-one, rank ‘G’ rabbit mana-cores: Aura +.5, Agility +2.5.”

[Player Information

Name: Michael

Titles: The Nudist, The Noob, The Immortal

Level: 3

Experience: 1/30

Age: Adult

Race: Human

Class: None

Specialization: None

Profession: Unemployed]

[Stats

Health: 10/35

Mana: 15/15

Stamina: 5/15

Mana Regen per minute: 20 

Health Regen per hour: 40

Strength: 3

Vitality: 4

Endurance: 3

Dexterity: 3

Agility: 4

Intelligence: 3

Wisdom: 2

Perception: 1

Charisma: 1

Willpower: 14

Luck: 14

Aura: 1.8

Attack Rating: 15

Defense Rating: 1.5]

[Passives

Resist Paralysis Level 1: Resists level one paralysis spells and abilities.

Immune System Boost Level 2: Resists level two infectious diseases and illnesses.]