“I’m fine, really.”

Millie didn’t seem particularly convinced by Zoe’s claim, but she didn’t say anything else and seemed content to let the subject drop. After Zoe had recovered from her initial nausea and cleared her head a bit, she had spent about half a minute studying the products of her regurgitation. Whatever is actually in this stuff, it probably isn’t very healthy for most people. Or things.

Curiously, it didn’t have much of a taste, either when she first threw up or when she dipped a claw back into it. It was basically like drinking thick, slimy water. I bet that’s just because it’s mine though.

In any case, the pair had now resumed their journey upstream. Millie had found a particularly good stick a few minutes earlier and was now sharpening it with a sharp bit of rock she had cracked open. When Zoe asked why she didn’t use her obviously much higher quality, metal knife, Millie shrugged and explained that it made it too easy. She was doing it to pass the time mostly, after all. Also, she avoided wearing out her knife on things that weren’t actually necessary.

The stick was shaping up to make a decent spear. A spear was now one of Zoe’s preferred melee weapons. Granted, usually it was still more effective to use her natural weapons, but still.

While the quickly-fashioned spear was made from quite crude materials and tools, it still seemed fairly well-made. It was much too small for Zoe’s strength and stature, but it was pretty much ideal for Millie.

“Here, give me that.” Obeying without question, Millie handed over the spear. It was almost fully sharpened now. Rubbing it along the finer, softer scales of her upper cheek to get a better sense of the texture, Zoe found that she had somehow carved the shaft to be exceptionally smooth. It almost felt sanded.

Gripping it with her two upper hands, Zoe began slowly, gingerly flexing it. There was no doubt that she could rip it apart with ease, of course—so relative to her base strength, she had to be extremely delicate to get a feel for how strong the wood was without actually damaging it.

Millie looked a bit concerned, but Zoe succeeded in not breaking it. It was still kind of hard to judge, but she suspected it was about as strong as you could expect a mundane piece of wood to be. It would probably be at least somewhat useful up to like, level twenty? Maybe even stage one of the awakened realm.

Zoe wasn’t quite sure where she pulled those numbers from but it felt right.

“It’s stronger than I expected,” she said as she handed it back, “what kind of wood is this?”

Frowning as she went back to finishing up the tip, Millie thought for a moment. “It’s a full trunk of a young tree. Like, the only trees that are all around here. The young ones are just as strong but less stiff and brittle.” Pausing for a moment, she then looked up at Zoe. “Wait, are you even from here? It’s like you barely know anything about the jungle.”

“I only arrived here a day before I found you.”

“Oh. Huh. I guess that makes sense cause I’ve never seen anything like you before. Or even heard of.” She glanced up again. “Will you tell me what you are now?”

Zoe tilted her head as if in thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think I will.”

As they continued, Zoe transitioned to interacting with the System.

{You have devoured an entity possessing a useful durability trait. Consume more similar enemies to gain a new trait.}

Zoe was pretty sure that was the exact same notification that she had received when she killed one of the people in the airship. Thinking back, she realized he was the one who hadn’t put up much of a fight but had been annoyingly hard to actually kill. Yeah, ‘durability’ makes sense for that.

Since both had been the same term—durability—did that mean that both the human man and the boar had possessed the exact same trait, or was it just two different traits that were both categorized the same? I literally have no idea. And with nothing else at the moment to go by, Zoe didn’t think that there was any way for her to tell.

The stranger—and probably more important—matter was the bizarre vision that she had experienced upon consuming the corpse of the boar. It was actually a bit hard for Zoe to recall—even despite it having occurred not even an hour ago. It also didn’t help that she didn’t really want to experience it again or even think about the experience.

But it’s definitely important, so…

Zoning out from the physical world around herself and trusting her feet and subconscious mind to guide her progress, Zoe focused on recalling the experience. It had felt like she wasn’t herself—she had experienced the vision as if it were her own memory, but at the same time it definitely hadn’t been her.

I think I was experiencing life as the boar.

Indeed, that seemed pretty likely. Not only did the end of it exactly match their hunt of the boar but from the other side—it also just felt like how a boar would experience the world at a base, physical level.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

So that was pretty obvious, then. Next, Zoe moved on to interpreting the more interesting, complex part of the vision. Specifically, the boar had been supernaturally tough and resistant to damage. So much so that it had felt itself nearly invulnerable. That lines up with having a durability trait.

But that contradicted the fact that Millie—a human child—had been able to fairly easily kill it with just a mundane bow and arrow. Wait—there was the whole part in the darkness… Recalling that part, Zoe realized it was probably the key part of the whole vision. So let’s see. The boar was in somewhere that was totally dark, and then it got trapped somehow. Then SOMETHING—probably whatever trapped it—did something to it that, what? Negated its durability? And then whatever that was fought some—humans, yes—which allowed the boar to get away.

Honestly, Zoe found that pretty concerning. Something that could suppress passive defensive abilities sounded pretty nasty. What if it could bypass more active abilities as well? The fact that something like that even existed implied that there were all kinds of dangers she would have to be prepared for.

Fortunately, it seemed like its durability started to recover after it got away. So it wasn’t permanent.

That was definitely a relief. Zoe wasn’t keen on regressing and losing any of her acquired power. But even if it’s just temporary, that’s still SUPER dangerous. After all, ever since her first ascension a few days ago, Zoe had been feeling pretty invulnerable herself. The boar thought that way too.

Shuddering slightly, Zoe returned her attention to reality. She had clearly been processing all of this for longer than she thought—the sun had moved pretty far across the sky, and she didn’t recognize any of her surroundings, even when she looked backwards.

Millie was still trekking along beside her—now carving a small, rounded lump of wood. Into what, Zoe couldn’t guess. But most notably, the landscape ahead of them had experienced a significant change as well. While the jungle had always been quite mountainous, the peaks weren’t that high. Ahead of them, however, a colossal mass of land rose up so high and steep that it crested above the clouds.

Zoe wasn’t even sure if she would have been able to see the top even if the sky was completely clear. That’s a big one.

The base was as tree-covered as everywhere else, but the vegetation started to thin out just before it disappeared into the cloud layer. To make it even more impressive, Zoe couldn’t see any end to the mountain in the horizontal direction either. The base stretched out as far as she could see to each side, the edges blocked by the much smaller surrounding peaks.

Looking back at the trees, Zoe almost whistled as she saw just how steep the whole thing was, judging by height difference between successive rows of trunks. Of course, the whole thing was still rather far away. Zoe estimated it would take them almost to nightfall to reach the base at their current rate.

“Please tell me that the village is somewhere between us and that really big one.”

Millie laughed. “I told you I had been running for two weeks…” She shook her head. “It’s right on the other side.”

“Ah.” Zoe squinted. “I guess climbing it wasn’t an option.”

Millie just squinted at her like she was a total idiot. “What? No, it just took me a week and a half or so to do it.”

Zoe swallowed. The fuck? She knew quite well by now that the girl was quite adept at climbing and navigating difficult terrain. And it took her over a week to cross, WHILE she was fleeing murderous demon cultists?!

Just how high was this thing? And if it took that long to go over—and it was surely a difficult, treacherous climb—than that meant that going around was even more arduous. Shaking her head, Zoe sighed. Well, at least I have plenty of stamina, enough strength to dig my own handholds, and extra arms.

Yeah, that would make it easier. Still not looking forward to it.

Opening her status, Zoe scanned over just her abilities.

Abilities: - {Corrupted Spirit Shield - 2, Onyx} - {Instinct - 3, Onyx} - {Predator’s Eyes - 2, Onyx} - {Devour - 5, Onyx} - {Corrupt Wound - 1, Onyx} - {Kinetic Manipulation - 15, Bronze} - {Kinetic Enhancement - 7, Silver} - {Kinetic Dash - 7, Bronze} - {Mana Manipulation - 20, Bronze} - {Meditation - 20, Bronze} - {Corrupted Strike - 4, Onyx} - {Sapping Strike - 2, Onyx} - {Morph - 5, Onyx} - {Thermal Manipulation - 7, Bronze}

Might as well go ahead and practice something. Reading it over again, she selected both {Kinetic Enhancement} and {Kinetic Manipulation}. The former was something that she hadn’t deliberately trained much and that would no doubt become quite useful soon. The latter was both closer than anything else to reaching the maximum and also had a wide variety of utility.

It also takes more understanding than something like ‘punch harder.’ With nothing challenging to fight, she would likely gain ability levels faster in things that weren’t explicitly combat oriented.

Finally, trying to practice two different kinetic abilities at the same time might do something. Well see.

And so Zoe attempted to take her mind off of the looming—quite literally—mountain passage ahead of them and hone some skills. Of course, she had barely activated {Kinetic Enhancement} when {Instinct} pinged at the edge of her awareness again.

Zoe groaned.

“What?”

Ignoring Millie, Zoe focused on the sensation. It was extremely faint and vague—a loose ‘vibe’ that something dangerous was approaching them from some distance somewhere behind them. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t much to go off of.

Has it actually been following us this whole time and it’s just been out of my range?

That was certainly a worrying thought. The only other reasonable possibility that Zoe could think of was that they weren’t being followed themselves, but that something else was also headed towards the same target for some reason.

I can’t say I really like that either.

Clenching her jaw—and then making herself relax—Zoe picked up the pace. Maybe we can lose them in the clouds. Or wait for them to come into view while we’re in the mists.

Deciding on that course of action, Zoe also decided that there was no point in wasting time. Snatching up Millie in one quick motion, she reactivated {Kinetic Enhancement} and darted off down the riverbank in a dark blur. As the girl’s surprised yelping turned into hoots of exhilarated joy, Zoe focused on keeping track of the sense of danger behind them. Within a minute it was gone, but that was undoubtedly just because her sudden uptick in pace had put her once more out of range.

In less than an hour and with plenty of daylight to spare, they reached the base of the colossal mountain. {Instinct} had gained another level, and while Zoe hadn’t felt the dangerous presence again, she didn’t hesitate to begin the climb. She really wanted to make it to the clouds so she could wait to catch sight of their pursuer.

Let’s see what you really are.