Chapter 3: Questing

There were a few major revelations Steve figured out in his digging. The first one was simple and seemed to be nothing more than some quality of life from the system. It was the ability to somewhat customize his windows, deciding how his Skills were sorted or what his Status displayed, for example. For now, he didn't really care about Skill sorting since he had so few of them, though he did add Skill Points and Gold to the bottom of his Status sheet.

Now, the second thing he figured out was a whole different beast though. He could apparently gain Stats from physically or mentally training those Stats. The exact methods for each ability score weren't spelled out, but he got somewhat of an idea of it.

Raw muscle mass for Strength, general fitness for Vitality, stamina for Dexterity and simple speed or flexibility for Agility. Now, the mental Stats were harder to figure out. He thought it might just be studying for Intelligence, thinking philosophically or some such for Wisdom, and pushing himself forwards even when his Stamina ran out for Willpower. Meditating might also help with one or two of them, so he would try that out in a bit.

But there was still a problem with training. Physical training required movement and exercise. Those required Stamina, and that was something he didn't exactly have enough of right now, so it was mostly off the table. As for mental training, he would have to wait and see. He didn't have any resources, so he couldn't exactly study from books, making meditation basically his only option.

Though, moving on with his findings for now, he also discovered that there was an inventory. It would allow him to store things in it, but his excitement cooled a little once he saw the amount of slots it had. One. He had one singular inventory slot. Unlocking more came at a cost he could choose himself, and pay in most exhaustible resources the system offered.

, for example, allowed him to buy another slot for 1 000 Gold, which was already very good, but there was also the option of spending 500 Skill points, or 30 Ability points on one. As of right now, those goals seemed very far off, and the points could be put to far better use, so he decided to try and save up his Gold for it.

Other than that, there wasn’t much extra info, even after using on practically everything for an hour. By the end of it, his Sp had also recovered a little more. With his stomach full, he didn't exactly feel like hunting, so he had to figure out what to do with the remainder of his waking time. It really didn't take very long to make that decision. Appraise the remainder of his skills, then try to improve intelligence for more mana, of course! !

[: A skill which reduces the noise the user makes. The higher its level the quieter the user.]

[: A skill to explosively increase the user's speed. Consumes a percentile of total Sp rather than a set amount.]

Both of those were definitely very useful skills. With this it would be possible to hunt by himself and escape from predators if necessary. Okay, that was good news. Now, onto the next step.

He had to rest to regain Hp, Sp and Mp, though as soon as his Mp were back he would spend them on further reinforcing his little log. So, what could he still do to hopefully increase his Stats? Meditate. He had no real resources here except for a little bit of space, so reading was out of the question, and coming up with moral dilemmas to improve wisdom seemed a little stupid, so he settled on meditation instead.

Unfortunately, he had never meditated before, so he would kinda have to figure everything out step by step. Hopefully his time at work turning his mind off while staring at screens would prove to be of some help here.

So, first to get into a position suited for it. As a kitten he couldn't exactly sit with his legs crossed, so for now he'd have to make do with lying down as comfortably as he could. Then, regulating his breathing. Deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. In and out. And then, he should try to feel the world around him more clearly…

[Absorbing mana from the surroundings.]

[Get 1 Exp]

A message quietly rang inside his head, though he could barely hear it right now. This sensation was too different from anything he had felt back in his own life. It was like a gentle wind on his skin, wrapping around him and slowly passing through his outer shell, into his body, before settling down, condensing and falling into a puddle there, adding another small droplet to it.

[Get 1 Exp]

Again, the notification rang, this one even quieter than the last. This sensation was incredible, far, far more incredible than any amount of physical strength could ever be. He could feel the mana around him, feel it wrapping him in a blanket that was cool and warm at the same time.

He could feel how alive it was, how it brimmed with energy, how it turned stable and settled within his body. Yet, somehow, even then it was still crackling with energy, ready to be used. Every hair on his skin stood up from that electrifying feeling and he opened up his eyes.

[Get 1 Exp]

[Max Mp has increased by 1.]

Whoa. That was… awesome. Holy shit. Wow, just… wow. Damn. That feeling had been more real than any adrenaline rush. It was more exhilarating than a rollercoaster and more fulfilling than cake. Status?

Mp: 2/5

His max Mp really had increased by one. This was yet another interesting feeling. He hadn’t played many RPGs, but seeing those numbers go up when they actually described him instead of a character? Crazy.

According to the messages, he had also gained Exp from meditating, right? That was definitely useful. It wasn't exactly a lot of experience, probably around one per minute, but it was Exp nonetheless. If he did this for a while longer, he might even be able to level-up before going to sleep. Steve nodded to himself and tried to focus again, calming down.

[Absorbing mana from the surroundings.]

[Get 1 Exp]

[Get 1 Exp]

[Get 2 Exp]

[Get 1 Exp]

[Max Mp has increased by 1.]

[Mp full. Unable to absorb more mana.]

[Acquired the Skill through a specific action.]

So he ended up with 6 Max Mp and a new skill. Perhaps the whole grace period thing had allowed him to earn it more easily. Or maybe his cat side had contributed, it certainly felt like laying down helped him reach absolute zen.

At any rate, if he compared his current mana with his starting mana, he’d increased his cap by about half. It honestly felt a little bonkers, but he was certainly not going to complain. Now, what about this new skill?

[: This skill increases Mp regeneration rate. When used actively it increases regeneration rate further and gains more mastery.]

Mastery? A new term, then?

[Mastery: Gained when utilizing a certain Skill. It serves to increase that Skill's level.]

So Skill Exp, essentially. Interesting. was definitely a very useful Skill, so he probably should try to level it up, though he would have to try that out later. Luckily, he already knew how he would spend his Mp. Time to carve another rune!

This time, Steve started carving the wood on the opposite side of the previous rune, slowly and meticulously scratching every line into it. He still decided to use a low level rune, as high ones were just too likely to fail. With this one, there wasn't nearly as much of a risk, maybe around 20% chance of failure, though that was only a guess.

Well, half guess, half the feeling he got from the Skill. And sure enough, after a while he finished and the usual notification rang out.

[Successfully carved low 1st grade Reinforce rune. Get: 10 Exp.]

[Level Up!]

Huh? Another level-up? That was good damn news! Hell yeah! Status!

Status:

|Unnamed|

Lv.: 2 -> 3

Species: Common Mopaaw

Titles:

Hp: 13/13

Mp: 6/12

Sp: 20/20

Strength: 5

Vitality: 7

Dexterity: 8 -> 9

Agility: 12

Intelligence: 4 -> 6

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Wisdom: 5 -> 6

Willpower: 3

Luck: 8

Ability points: 3

Skill points: 100

Gold: 1

And what a level-up it was. It may not have netted as good of an overall upgrade, but his intelligence increased twice just from the level itself. He still had his three Ability points and another 100 Skill points to spend. In addition to that, he was finally fully regenerated. His situation was improving!

For now though, he decided to save his Ability and Skill points in case he desperately needed any one stat later, and instead chose to use the combo of meditating and carving runes to reinforce his base. Now that he was seeing his Stats improve, he was slowly getting into it. This log would be the start of it all, the very beginning point of his empire!

The cat part of him certainly thought it deserved to be his empire!

And such, a small kitten meowed maniacally while scratching up the inside of an old, dead tree.

Truly menacing.

With the newfound combo of and he was able to get a few more runes done until his eyelids started getting heavy. It seemed that might regenerate Mp faster than doing it manually, in exchange it didn't expand his maximum though. This was a bit of a problem, but quickly resolved in his head.

For now he would use the Skill to create a safe place for him to rest as soon as possible, while once he had established that, he would manually expand his mana pool and use that mana for additional runes or other Skills he had by then. Soon after completing the third rune, he laid down to meditate again, but when he was about to use the Skill his eyes fell shut and he drifted off into the land of dreams.

It was late in the day when he opened his eyes again, the sun already having covered about two thirds of the sky. Though he couldn't tell that from inside the log, of course. No, his attention was occupied by the message right in front of his face.

[Main Quest: "Survive the first day!" completed. You have received: 2 Ability points, 50 Skill points, 50 Exp.]

[Main Quest: "Conquer the forest!" added.

Reward: 10 Ability points, 300 Skill points, 500 Exp, 1000 Gold.]

[Sub Quest: "Reach Level 5!" added.

Reward: 100 Skill points, 100 Gold.]

He had apparently completed and gained new Quests. He already knew there were random ones, but having them pop up like this? Maybe he should have expected it, but if he was honest, he thought they’d need to be accepted from some other person. Having them free-standing like this added a whole new layer of complexity, really.

By completing Quests he could earn extra points and Gold. Apparently the Main Quest even had smaller Quests aimed at achieving the final goal. Given that he’d now seen a “main” Quest and a “random” Quest, he was curious what other types there were, yet even told him nothing of value towards that.

[Quests: These are tasks which will reward the individual after completion. Some can be refused while others have to be completed.]

That's all it said. They were tasks, which was fairly basic information. It was almost as basic as when he appraised stuff like his runes or some trees. It had the absolutely amazing capability of spitting out information like:

[Tree: a Tree.]

or

[Rune: A reinforce rune.]

Truly incredible stuff right there. Appraising was basically useless when it came to matters outside of the interface, and now there was stuff that it explained unreliably even within the system. He gave a small sigh. While that was unfortunate, he couldn't exactly change it. In addition to that, his stomach growled. Well, he couldn't exactly eat the log, so it was time to step outside.

The afternoon sunlight felt quite nice on Steve's fur, actually. Nicer than it had any right to. For a moment, he closed his eyes and stretched to his fullest ability, before opening them and gazing into the forest. Something about it was a little different today. It seemed just a bit more… vibrant. The grass looked a little brighter and the air was filled with the buzzing of insects. Even now, he could see a butterfly sitting on a tree only a few steps away from him.

When he looked around on the floor, he could see an ant colony not too far from here, carrying some leaves and needles from the trees. Then, looking a little further, he could even see a deer, though that might not be something he'd wanna hunt. No, he needed prey that was actually possible for him to catch, so mice, in the best case, though he would also take moles or something.

It only took a small bit of strolling until he found a mouse scurrying along the forest floor, and even less time to jump on it using after he’d found it.

[Killed a mouse. Get: 5 Exp, 1 Gold.]

After the first one, Steve decided to hunt down a second mouse, so he had food for the day. Hopefully. If it was enough, he would be able to focus on carving runes all day instead, making his current home a little sturdier.

The second mouse took a little longer, and a few attempts as well, but he managed after a little while.

[Killed a mouse. Get: 5 Exp, 1 Gold.]

[Level up!]

What? A level-up? The experience from the Quest had probably put him pretty close to one, then.

Status:

|Unnamed|

Lv.: 3 -> 4

Species: Common Mopaaw

Titles:

Hp: 13/13

Mp: 15/15

Sp: 16/25

Strength: 5 -> 6

Vitality: 7

Dexterity: 9 -> 10

Agility: 12 -> 14

Intelligence: 6 -> 7

Wisdom: 6

Willpower: 3

Luck: 8

Ability points: 8

Skill points: 250

Gold: 3

Once again, levelling felt satisfying. With his physical stats receiving boosts, he could almost feel himself growing. In general, growing his stats was nice. He should probably take some time today to work on them in general, rather than relying on the levels.

Having decided on that, he put the mouse in his single inventory slot and started heading to the small pond he had found. Since the bear drank from it, he should be okay doing so as well, just from a standpoint of the water being drinkable. He was almost halfway there already, anyway. Luckily for him, the bear wasn't around this time, nor were any other big animals, so he quickly ran to the lake, drank until he was no longer thirsty and then headed back to the log.

It was the first time since reincarnating that he was actually looking forward to something. Without him even realizing it, carving runes had become kinda fun. He enjoyed knowing that he had created something solid and tangible, that he had improved on something else. It was the joy of making a bit of an impact on the world, for him at the very least.

So, when he arrived at home, he got to it again and carved two beginner runes. It was actually the first time he failed at one of them, marking 7 successes and 1 failure. Oh well, it wasn't too bad, it wasn't like it would kill him to retry the rune, though unfortunately he only got half the Exp from it. Whatever, just meditate for now.

[ has levelled up!]

At some point, when he was already almost done, his mana gathering speed seemed to increase just a little. He understood why once he opened his eyes again after refilling his Mp. It didn't have a huge effect, but levelling up was still great. ‘More mana, more runes’, as his uncle never used to say.

After meditating he carved two more runes, both successful, when another notification appeared.

[Successfully carved low 1st grade reinforce rune. Get: 10 Exp]

[ has levelled up!]

Awesome! Increasing the success rate of his runes was one of his top priorities, so this was quite perfect for him, having a safe home was the most basic basis for survival after all. With his Mp depleted, Steve went right back to meditating.

And at the end of the night, after repeating the process a few times over, he had drawn six more runes onto his walls. By now, they should be quite sturdy, huh. Well, he'd see when it rained, anyways. For now, he thought he could simply call it a night when he heard a thud outside his small home, and a Quest popped up.

[Random Quest: "Kill the giant spider!" added. Reward: 20 Exp, 50 Gold. Accept?]

Interestingly, the first Quest he could deny. Though, in this case, the choice was more of an illusion. If he fought, why not accept? And if he didn’t fight, he'd have to give up his log to this eight-legged asshole. Absolutely out of the question. But to take down a spider roughly the size of him, he needed the element of surprise, so he took a few deep breaths.

While Steve was busy decreasing his heart rate, the spider started moving its hairy legs around just in front of the log's opening. It hadn't noticed Steve yet, and if everything went his way, there was still some time until it would. Now, his thought process was fairly simple. A spider has eight eyes in the front and eight legs. It also had its webbing. But none of that could really reach him on its back, right? So, all he needed to do was drop on the spider from above and kill the shit out of it. Luckily, it was big. If it had been tiny, he'd be much more afraid. Never knew where those little guys were hiding!

With a plan in mind, Steve exited the log on the other end, walking backwards without making even the slightest sound, then jumped on top of the log. From the ground, even the lowest tree branches were absolutely impossible for him to reach. After some sneaking, and making sure that mister I-have-twice-your-legs was looking the other way, he pounced.

Using , he jumped, landing right on the back of the spider, and digging his claws deep into it. He got two long gashes in before the spider started shaking himself, trying to throw him off. He kept his grip for a moment, but soon lost his hold, his claws leaving gashes on the spider’s back as he slid off.

Steve landed on the forest floor with an audible thud, but quickly regained his posture. His ribs were less than excited about having just hit the floor, but he bore with it. When all eight of the spider's eyes then fixed on him, he knew he stood no chance in a simple strength based matchup, so instead, he took the path truly meant for people like him: running away.

He turned around and dashed away at full speed before the spider could even think about using its webbing on him. He might not be stronger, but he was definitely faster, and with it being injured, it might bleed out after a while.

Now, Steve may have been an idiot, but he wasn't stupid. After running away he snuck closer again to check the spider's location. Sure enough, it hadn't moved too far. It was a little further up the hill, at a spot with very few trees around so it couldn't be ambushed. There was ichor leaking from the wounds on its back, but it didn’t seem like it would die very soon.

Steve thought about it. He had to avoid the spider's silk and fangs at any cost. If he got tied down or bitten, he'd die, which would not be very cool at all. Having said that, what were his weapons? With his paws he couldn't throw anything at it, so his only option was close combat. If he approached it from the side, it would simply turn, if he came from behind, he had to deal with the webbing but would be hidden, from the front he would have to deal with its fangs. So his only options were above and behind, both of which were limited.

Currently, he was standing slightly below the spider. Luckily, it was facing the mountain with its back, mostly, so he could probably get another sneak attack in. Very slowly, he circled it, relying on his instinct and to know what to do, until he’d reached the back of the spider. It didn’t seem like it could follow him with its eyes very well.

[Acquired the Skill through a specific action.]

Steve used the Skill immediately, having his steps grow even quieter yet. He would take the time to it later, for now, he focused on getting closer to the spider, then leapt onto its back. This time, he jumped even further, digging his claws into the spider’s eyes for stability.

Luckily for him, while the spider was now quickly scurrying along the forest floor, it wasn't shaking him off. He was able to hang on, now that it was blind, and dug in his claws until it went limp.

[Killed a giant spider. Get: 100 Exp, 50 Gold, spider's venom (consumable).]

[Random Quest "Kill the giant spider." completed! You have received: 20 Exp, 50 Gold.]

[Level Up!]

While still breathing heavily, Steve received the level-up message and immediately felt much more refreshed than before.

[Sub Quest "Reach Level 5!" completed. You have received: 100 Skill points, 100 Gold.]

[Sub Quest "Establish a small territory!" added. Reward: 100 Exp, 50 Gold.]

Alright, going strong! Time to get back home and check out the rewards, then. He swapped the mouse corpse in his inventory for the vial, choosing to drag the much less dangerous item instead. Then, with it in his mouth, he made his way back to the log.

The sun was beginning to rise in the sky now, and Steve felt beat. Sure, the fight hadn’t been hard, but he felt his human part revolt in his mind, as he shoved the disgust down. Instead, he simply plopped down on the ground in the log, as his eyes fell shut.