Symon's shoes pounded into the sand, his long strides melting away the distance between him and the not-so-far-off plant life. He'd be there tonight, thanks in no small part to his new Running passive. There was nothing outwardly magical to it, he wasn't even as fast as the expert runners back on Earth, but that didn't matter to Symon.

All of Symon's abilities made him feel powerful, but they always felt borrowed. They were instinctual to use, but he still knew that they were something external that had been gifted to him. He hadn't worked for it. But when it came to Running, he'd earned it through his own effort and copious amounts of sweat. Sure, the healing had made it easier to push himself beyond his limits, he wouldn't deny that, but it hadn't been easy.

Moving around at all under the searing suns was bad enough, but the constant sprinting and fighting required to gain the ability only made things worse. His healing stopped him from collapsing from heatstroke, but that only meant he could suffer for longer.

It was well worth it, he thought. The rush of wind through his chin-length hair was intoxicating, although he tried not to think about how much sand and dried centipede goo must be stuck in there. He'd never been able to just let loose like this, to revel in the strength of a normal, healthy body. It felt good.

His stats had grown gradually enough that he only recognised how much better he was once he deliberately compared himself to how he used to be. The improvements to his mental stats weren't very noticeable, both due to their nature and because they'd had the least progress, but his physical attributes made a big difference.

He didn't look any different, perhaps a bit skinnier from the lack of food and water, but his slight muscles were wiry and taut. They responded quickly and powerfully to his commands as he charged across the desert, leaving a small cloud of sand in his wake like how a boat leaves a trail through water. Whenever he stopped to fill up his vitality by draining a centipede, he used the same simple tactic he always did, simple and efficiently executed.

He would stomp up to the buried centipede, giving it time to unburrow itself. As soon as it did, it would beeline for him and leap through the air, at which point he would slam it back down to the ground with a powerful swing of his metal pipe. If he wasn't careful, this would kill the centipede and reduce the amount of vitality he could get. Thankfully, his Acuity helped him to precisely hit it in a non-lethal spot as well as moderating his use of force, allowing him to drain the creature to death while it was stunned.

He'd been doing this running and killing strategy for a few hours now and hadn't seen any progress in his abilities. This was normal, according to Keelgrave — the easier things were for him the more time he'd need to spend on it before he saw another level, and by now the centipedes didn't pose much of a threat.

Naturally, his running had shot up three levels, and judging by how long ago the last one was he was due for a fourth soon. It was nice to get such immediate feedback, both from the numbers in his status and how much better he was moving across the dunes. He'd also slide down them almost as if he was skiing them, his improved balance meaning he never once tripped — he wasn't sure if this was from his Acuity, a side effect from Running, or a mixture of both.

When he'd first set out from the tower, he worried it would be impossible to get to the treeline before nightfall. Now, though, with the benefit of his improved stats and the Running passive, it was all but guaranteed.

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Symon wiped the sweat from his brow, a centipede curled up on itself to his side. It was unmoving.

By his estimation, this last centipede had provided enough vitality for him to be able to make it to the vegetation without needing to stop for another refill. At this distance, he could make out more details. The few trees he saw were scraggly and barely clinging to life, but the further he looked the healthier they became. It wasn't near dense enough to be called a forest, so the giant swathes of dry grass made him think of an African savanna mixed with a wheat field.

This wasn't some small oasis of life either, but the true end of the desert. The plants extended as far into the distance as he could see, gradually growing greener, thicker, and taller as they went. He would have sunk down to his knees in relief, but he didn't want to spend a second longer than he had to in the desert.

came Keelgrave's faintly echoing voice. It really had been, Symon thought. It hadn't even been two full days and yet he felt like it had been a lifetime. Despite his body feeling better than ever, he was exhausted. Physically, the vitality he'd acquired kept him in peak condition, but it did nothing for his mental state.

He was doing alright, all things considered, but he hadn't been given a single moment to properly relax. He'd been constantly on guard for immediate threats, not to mention constantly worrying if he'd find water or civilisation. He'd never gotten used to the heat either, which kept him miserable. Running had helped him to empty his mind, but even then he had to watch out for buried centipedes and keep track of his vitality.

He hadn't even found solace in sleep, his nights filled with strange half remembered dreams. He was eager to put this whole ordeal behind him, which is why he didn't slow his running until he'd reached the first plant.

It was a tiny cluster of lifeless brown grass, and altogether boring. He passed it by, and then another 30 seconds after. Then another, and another, and another until he eventually stopped in front of a field of waist high yellowish brown grass. It seemed unnatural, both in how suddenly it seemed to start as well as how tall and dense it was. Symon wasn't sure if that was just how this type of grass grew, or if there was some magical explanation.

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He couldn't see anything dangerous about it, but that was precisely the problem — the grass was tall enough that any number of things could be hiding in it. By now centipedes weren't a major threat to Symon, but what if one surprised him? Unlike in the sand, he'd have no way of knowing how close he was running to one.

And what if it wasn't just one? If conditions were good enough for grass to grow — no matter how unhealthy it looked — then would that mean more centipedes lived here too? Symon found it very possible. He'd really rather not find out...

He pictured himself wading through the grass, centipedes swarming until he drowned in a tide of chitin, their stingers preventing him from doing anything as they ate him alive.

"Hey Keelgrave, you know any other way around this grass? I've no clue how many creatures are in it that want to eat me, and I can't even see the other side."

Keelgrave's answer was disappointing, but expected. he continued with a mocking tone.

Symon was about to retort that he didn't exactly choose to come here, but decided against it. He wasn't the only one who had ended up in that tower, after all. Who was Keelgrave really mocking?

Symon realised he'd skipped over some details in his haste to get out of the desert. "Uh, what's actually on the other side of all this grass?

Then it seemed to Symon like his only option was to go straight through the grass. He'd just have to deal with the inevitable problems as they arose.

Glancing at his vessel, it was less than a third full. It would be smarter to backtrack and kill centipedes until he filled it back up, just so that he had the most leeway going into unexplored territory, but he really, really did not want to go back into the sand, even for an hour. Besides, night would fall in a couple hours so he needed to be quick if he didn't want to be caught out in the dark.

Although, there was something else he could try first. There was no reason for it not to work, but he'd never had the opportunity to try.

Slowly, he raised his hand toward the low wall of grass. It seemed unnatural, the way the sparse few tufts of dead grass suddenly transitioned to a thick wall of waist high grass, but he continued all the same.

When the tip of his finger was two handspans from the grass, the familiar grey thread of his magic struck out like a snake, latching onto a stalk of grass for the barest moment before jumping to the next, then the next, then the next.

Symon yanked his hand back, surprised by the suddenness of his own magic — he hadn't even deliberately manifested the thread yet. His culling of the centipedes had gotten so repetitive that he'd almost forgotten that it would also work on his own, so used he was to forcibly draining as much as he could.

In front of him, a small patch of the wheat coloured grass had turned a darker brown before collapsing under its own weight.

Glancing down at his vessel tattoo, he saw that it was... exactly the same as it was previously. Well, he had only drained a few strands of barely living grass, he reasoned. If a centipede only gave two or three points of vitality, out of his maximum of eight, then he'd probably need a metric tonne of grass for a single point.

Luckily for Symon, he had exactly that.

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"Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair," Symon said to himself before letting out an evil chuckle. Behind him was a trail of brown, wilted grass, stretching back for a few hundred metres until it reached the sand.

Okay, sure, all Symon had done was stroll through the grass and let his magic feed his vessel, but he was still very happy. The gain was slow —he'd only just now noticed the liquid in his tattoo had risen slightly, not even enough vitality for the number to change on his Ledger — but something was infinitely better than nothing.

He could, in theory, never need to fight another centipede again, instead using just the vitality from the grass to keep himself stocked up. And it would only get easier too, when he progressed deeper in where the grass was full of life — not to mention the levels to his Seize ability that he would earn.

He'd already learned that challenging yourself was an important aspect of developing and growing your stats and skills, but enough quantity was a quality all its own...

"Heh, I never knew you were such a jokester."

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Symon had been walking through the grass for half an hour without anything happening. His draining wasn't able to clear the grass ahead of him fast enough if he ran, which necessitated the slower pace. The heat was ever present, but by now he was deep enough that the grass was chest height, blocking a large amount of the sunlight from hitting him. It was easy to walk on, the vegetation holding the ground together so he wasn't constantly sinking and sliding around the sand. He would admit, in retrospect, that he could have been more vigilant.

Keelgrave's voice was serious, so Symon did exactly as asked.

Pausing his walking, he turned back the the way he'd came. He could see the trail of wilted brown grass behind him, but nothing else. All the living grass swayed gently in the breeze, but nothing out of the ordinary stood out.

He stood like that for some time, muscles tense and ready to react, eyes darting around looking for threats.

"I don't see anything," he whispered.

Almost immediately after, he spotted a flash of movement going against the natural swaying of the grass. Not even a dozen metres away, something stepped out onto the path he'd made.

It was vaguely humanoid, two arms, two legs, and a single head, but that was as far as the similarities went. It was immediately obvious that the gaunt figure wasn't human. It had a chitinous exoskeleton like a centipede, but this was the brownish green colour of the surrounding grass instead of black.

Instead of hands, the unnaturally long arms ended in massive scythe-like blades which twitched back and forth, an almost palpable bloodlust begging to be released.

Its legs were skinny but yet extremely long, putting its total height at over two metres — Symon had no idea how something so tall could have been hidden for so long in grass that only went up to his chest.

On top of its triangular head were two large, spherical eyes. Despite being completely black, Symon knew they were looking directly at him. The pair of mandibles on its face unfolded, revealing a too-human mouth that let out a long, deep hiss.

He gulped and readjusted his grip on the club, staring back at the creature. Without breaking eye contact, it stepped sideways into the grass — barely above waist height on the creature — before ducking down and vanishing into the field.