Zalia woke up to the sound of snow crunching and an animal sniffing. She immediately froze, breathing lightly and making as little sound as possible when she opened her eyes only a single idea came to mind at what she saw.
"What the fuck is that," she thought.
In front of her in the small clearing outside her cover stood what could be described as an extremely large, white, monstrous bear. Taking the shape and build of a bear, the creature varied a little in that it was twice as big as a normal brown bear, razor-backed with spines and six legs. After her observation, a sound resounded in her mind and a tiny message popped up in her eyesight at the top right. Paying attention to it, the message expanded.
Congratulations! You have closely observed both your surroundings and a creature beyond your understanding. You have learnt the passive skill aura observation.
Aura observation - passive
Tin - you are able to identify what rank a creature is by sight, unless it has a method of hiding that information.
"What!?" Zalia thought, confused and terrified at the same time, "what the hell kind of top secret military experiment have I been kidnapped into."
Ignoring the message she looked at the creature once more noticing a little box appear above its head that said,
? - Silver rank
The creature was now looking around, to Zalia's realisation, looking for the freshly dead deer she had hidden in the snow on the other side of the clearing. It must have been following the scent of blood the body had left behind.
For five minutes or so, the creature walked around the clearing, smelling the air. At one point it came up so close as to push its head over the top of Zalia into the small burrow she was in. She almost lost her shit in that moment but held it together by a thread. Thankfully, the creature moved away from the clearing leaving Zalia frozen and waiting, hoping it wouldn't come back. She lay there for about half of an hour before finally deciding to get up, pack up and seeing where the creature had left, make her way as quickly as possible in the opposite direction.
Immediately after leaving the clearing Zalia heard another sound in her mind,
Congratulations! You have been the hunter and become the hunted, yet survived as both. You have unlocked the class, Hunter. Would you like to make this one of your classes?
"What the hell?" She thought, "um.. sure? Yes."
Congratulations! Your first class has become 'Hunter'. You have one more class spot available. Hunter. You are a hunter of beasts, animals and monsters. Through hard work, precise preparation and an instinctive understanding of creatures you hunt down and catch even the strongest of prey. At the same time, you know the ins and outs of hunting and know how to avoid becoming the hunted yourself.
Congratulations! You have learnt the active skill 'Kill shot'.
Active 1 - Kill shot - spell - targeted - execute
Tin - Enhance an attack, go for the kill. This ability deals a tiny amount of damage. The damage of this ability scales exponentially with the target’s missing health.
Mana - high
Cooldown - 30 seconds
Congratulations! You have learnt the active skill 'Hunter's mark'.
Active 2 - Hunter's mark - spell - targeted - channel
Tin - Marked by the hunter, there is no escape. This ability marks a creature you can see. A marked creature takes a small amount of extra damage when damaged by you. You know the general direction of marked enemies. Marking a second creature removes the first mark.
Mana - very low/s
Cooldown - n/a
Congratulations! You have learnt the active skill 'Escape'.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Active 3 - Escape - spell - cleanse
Tin - The Hunter has become the hunted. This ability removes all slowing and restraining effects and prevents further slowing and restraining effects for the next five seconds.
Mana - medium
Cooldown - 2 minutes
Congratulations! You have learnt the passive skill 'Hunter's Sight'.
Passive 1 - Hunter's Sight - passive - body enhancement
Tin - The hunter tracks their prey. You can track creatures easier. When tracking you learn very basic information such as number of legs, number of creatures and general size of creatures.
Congratulations! You have learnt the passive skill 'Survivalist'.
Passive 2 - Survivalist - passive - body enhancement
Tin - The body of a hunter shall not fail easily. Gain the heat resistance and cold resistance passive skills. They level alongside this ability. You are able to survive with less nutrition.
Congratulations! You have learnt the passive skill 'Heat resistance'.
Heat resistance - passive
Tin - You take reduced damage from high temperatures and heat related magics.
Congratulations! You have learnt the passive skill 'Cold resistance'.
Cold resistance - passive
Tin - You take reduced damage from low temperatures and cold related magics.
Your 'Hunter' class has linked itself with your 'Strength' and 'Dexterity' attributes. As your class advances so too shall the linked attributes.
Zalia mentally pushed aside the host of notifications building up in her vision, to which they obligingly disappeared. She quickly started feeling a burning sensation in her body, not painful or uncomfortable in any way just.. odd.
"Ok, ok ok ok. What the hell, what the hell. Magic? I swear one of those messages speaking in my head said magic. I'm going to need to read those through once I'm in the clear." Zalia thought to herself as she pushed away as fast as possible.
Zalia travelled for as long as she could withhold her curiosity for, about one and a half hours. She found a large tree that she pulled herself and her deer up into, the snow coating providing an almost room-like feel to the large spruce.
"Ok, let's go through this assuming I'm not losing my mind. Class? I didn't know I had a class or whatever. One more class spot remaining.. sure why not. Hunter, yeah I mean I do go hunting a lot I guess it makes sense. Wait ok I heard magic somewhere, do I have mana? Like in those games I played back when I was a kid." She thought.
As she thought this, a message popped up in front of her.
Profile - Zalia Taori
Health - Excellent
Mana - Full
Stamina - High
Class one - Hunter - Tin 1
Linked attributes - Strength, Dexterity
Active skills
Kill shot - Tin 1
Hunter's mark - Tin 1
Escape - Tin 1
Passive skills
Hunter's Sight - Tin 1
Survivalist - Tin 1
Class two - none
Unity class - none
General Passives
Aura observation - Tin 1
Heat resistance - Tin 1
Cold resistance - Tin 1
"Oooookay then. I have mana.. and skills.. aaand this is crazy. I'm on the floor in the snow having a seizure, for sure. This can't be real." She thought, shaking her head, "strange way to live out your last minutes in your mind Zalia, real strange."
She started reading through her abilities and trying them out.
"Kill shot, edgy," she murmured.
Activating it by thinking real hard about it in her mind, she felt something click and then tried punching the tree.
"Ow, god damn it. You can't just punch trees Zalia, still hurts," she thought.
Despite her genius testing methods of punching a tree, she did feel like it had an effect. She had the distinct impression of mana flowing out of her body and the ability being locked from use.
"Alright, so it works.. I guess. You know what, this is actually really fucking cool. Ignoring the horrible, alternate reality looking, monstrous bear this could make my life much easier out here. Wherever here is," Zalia thought.
She tried using the Hunter's mark on a small bird she saw fly past to land on a nearby tree.
? - Tin rank
As she applied the mark, she could feel instinctively the general direction of the bird.
"Interesting, could come in real handy with tracking down a kill as it bleeds out if I don't get a lucky shot like that last one," Zalia thought, pondering her new abilities.
"Alright, it's time to get back to reality. If I'm going to survive out here I need shelter first. I have water aplenty around me and an alright supply of food for now," Zalia thought, stopping for a moment to consider, "I could build something but I think some exploration is a better idea for now."
With that, Zalia got herself and the deer out of the tree she had hidden in and began exploring.