You have leveled up your skill Glide (A) to level 3!

You have leveled up your skill Glide (A) to level 4!

Atlas landed on the ground, taking care to land on a specific branch he had set up beforehand.

For the last 10 minutes, he had been going up and down. Climbing up a tree and then gliding down, making sure to be intentionally and in control.

It was harder than he thought it would be.

He placed down another branch, making sure that it was smaller than the last one he had used. Once the branch was in place, he climbed up the nearest tree.

Reaching the top, he jumped off, using Blitz to jump into the sky, activating Glide when he reached the peak of his jump. He flattened his body, turning and controlling his moments as precisely as he could, he wanted to get the most out of every jump.

He continued this cycle over a dozen times, each time getting better at controlling both the speed and direction of his glide. He looked over all of the notifications he had gained in the past hour.

You have leveled up your skill Glide (A) to level 5!

You have leveled up your skill Glide (A) to level 6!

You have leveled up your skill Glide (A) to level 7!

You have leveled up your skill Glide (A) to level 8!

You have leveled up your skill Blitz (S) to level 2!

The last notification was somewhat surprising, but made sense considering how he had been using it. He decided he would move onto another skill, but come back to this one later. He had other skills that he wanted to develop.

Mentally beating himself up as he realized something, he activated Reaper’s Senses. His eyes glowed a sharp red, and Atlas realized that he could have been doing this for the entire duration of his training. It didn’t take much to control, but it was one of his most useful skills, so every level would be monumental.

It was also his only SS tier skill, so he should pay more attention to how it worked. Now that he thought about it. He had never actually looked at the reaper skills, just used them after they were upgraded.

Reaper’s Touch (S): Your touch is death, and everything that is hit by the gray mist starts to rot away. This effect can only be reversed by killing the user, or by healing from a skill or spell at the same grade as this skill (S grade)

Reaper’s Senses (SS): Your perception increases considerably, to the point where everything seems much slower than it actually is. You are also much slower to your own senses. Your hearing is also vastly improved, to the point where you can hear frequencies that other humans cannot, such as a bats screech. Your taste does not change. Your sense of touch does not change. Your sense of smell becomes equal to that of a bloodhound, if not greater. Your eyes glow red while using this skill, and the skill will show you all of the weak points and best places to be while in combat.

Atlas was happy with the large growth in both of his skills, they were far more powerful and potent than their original versions.

Using Reaper’s Senses constantly, he activated Reaper’s Touch, turning to face one of the smaller trees. As gray mist cloaked his fists, he lashed out, scoring deep marks on the tree.

He tried to keep the mist revolving around his fists, but it collapsed the second his fist touched the tree, and he had to reactivate it. He looked at his fists, wondering how he was going to keep the mist revolving around his fists.

He took it off of his left fist, adding all of the mist around his right hand, wrapping it in mist all the way up to his elbow.

He lashed out again, focusing on keeping the mist there. It stayed for a split second before sputtering out. Atlas groaned in frustration. This was going to take a while.

***

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Touch (S) to level 2!

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Touch (S) to level 3!

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Touch (S) to level 4!

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Touch (S) to level 5!

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Touch (S) to level 6!

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Touch (S) to level 7!

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You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Senses (SS) to level 2!

Atlas had made steady improvement over the last couple of hours, growing his two most powerful skills into an even stronger force. He had destroyed more than a hundred trees, and he could now keep the mist wrapping around his fists, making his damage output higher as he could hit faster without having to reactivate the skill.

Reaper’s Senses had played a large role in helping him advance Reaper’s Touch by allowing him to watch everything that happened to the skill in what felt like slow motion, helping him break down what was happening to the skill. If he hadn’t used it in such a way, both skills would be lower level than they were now.

Now time to move on to one of his favorite skills. Full Might. It had a special place because it had saved his life more than once, and it was his first skill. Or at least the first skill he had made.

The only problem was that everytime he used it, he grew exhausted, very fast. He was going to try and prevent that, but it was going to be difficult. He sat down, picking up a rock and taking a deep breath.

“Full Might!” he threw the rock upwards, and it shot up, going so fast it completely disappeared after a couple of seconds. Atlas waited, wondering if it would come back down.

After a couple minutes of waiting, it became apparent that it wouldn’t. He picked up another rock, performing the same movement.

The rock hurtled into the sky, and Atlas felt exhaustion start to creep in. He fought it, doing it again, and again, and again..

After a dozen rocks had become rockets, Atlas was fighting to stay awake. He was so tired…

He snapped out of it, shaking his head tiredly. He started to fall asleep. “No.” Atlas groaned, doing everything he could to stay awake.

In the end, it was fruitless, and he fell down, fast asleep.

***

As Atlas snored, three boars approached his unmoving form. They looked at him for a second before realizing that this was the man that had killed their leader.

Snorting in anger, they charged him. Just as it looked like Atlas was done for, a rock fell from the sky, hitting a boar in the head and shattering its skull.

The other boars halted, trying to comprehend what had just happened. As they did, another boar was hit in the back, crushed under the sheer force of the rock that was going at insane speeds.

The last boar squealed trying to run away, but it was hit with another rock. Rocks started to pepper the ground, hitting everywhere but Atlas, every rock he had thrown had been slanted by just the tiniest bit, and so none of them hit him.

“… How can someone be this lucky?” -System of Stats

“… I have no clue.” - System of Gear

***

Atlas woke up feeling refreshed, he was greeted by some notifications.

You have leveled up your skill Full Might (S) to level 3!

You have leveled up your skill Full Might (S) to level 4!

You have leveled up your skill Full Might (S) to level 5!

You have leveled up your skill Full Might (S) to level 6!

You have leveled up your skill Full Might (S) to level 7!

You have leveled up your skill Full Might (S) to level 8!

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Senses (SS) to level 3!

Atlas was happy, he had somehow kept Reaper’s Senses running while he slept, which had led to another level in the skill. He was surprised at how many times Full Might had leveled up though. He hadn’t been that precise with how he threw the rocks, so he had expected, one maybe two levels.

“System? Can you explain why I got so many levels?” Atlas asked the empty air.

“Hmph.” -System of Stats

Did the system just… grunt? Why was it mad at him? What had he done?

“Look around you dimwit.” -System of Stats

Atlas glanced around, finding three boar corpses and a bunch of small craters in the ground. There were the remains of shattered rocks lying all around. “Was this me?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes. How are you so ridiculously lucky?!” -System of Stats

The system seemed… mad. Atlas decided to continue working on his skills.

He was going to work on gliding again. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences. He shielded his eyes, glancing at the sun. It was starting to go down, he had maybe three hours of daylight left, and he was going to use them.

He cracked his knuckles, wincing in pain as his newfound strength crushed his fingers a little too much. He started to climb.

***

You have leveled up your skill Glide (A) to level 9!

You have leveled up your skill Glide (A) to level 10!

Glide (A) -> Float (S)

You have leveled up your skill Float (S) to level 2!

You have leveled up your skill Float (S) to level 3!

You have leveled up your skill Full Might (S) to level 9!

You have leveled up your skill Full Might (S) to level 10!

Full Might (S) -> Endless Strength (SS)

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Touch (S) to level 8!

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Touch (S) to level 9!

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Touch (S) to level 10!

Reaper’s Touch (S) -> Death Mist (SS)

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Senses (SS) to level 4!

You have leveled up your skill Reaper’s Senses (SS) to level 5!

You have leveled up your skill Fistfighting (C) to level 7!

You have leveled up your skill Fistfighting (C) to level 8!

You have leveled up your skill Fistfighting (C) to level 9!

You have leveled up your skill Fistfighting (C) to level 10!

Fistfighting (C) -> Hand to Hand Combat (B)

You have leveled up your skill Blitz (S) to level 3!

You have leveled up your skill Blitz (S) to level 4!

You have leveled up your skill Blitz (S) to level 5!

Atlas collapsed, staring at the insane amount of skill levels he had gained in the last 6 hours. He had been working nonstop, using more than one skill at all times, it was night time, but because of Moonwalker, Atlas could see like normal. He had barely even noticed the light changing.

He couldn’t believe how much he had grown in the past few hours, he was an entirely different person now, his skills were all upgraded. Or at least the ones he could upgrade.

Atlas was tired. He was hungry. He was also incredibly thirsty. But those couldn’t compare to how proud he was of his rapid growth, he doubted that any other player was stronger than him right now.

“Atlas, the council of systems has spoken. If you do not kill the final boss within two days, you will be thrown into the void. You are growing too rapidly, and we do not want you to use the tutorial as a grinding spot, as in the tutorial, it is infinitely easier to level up your skills. We are telling you this both to help and to warn you. If you do not kill the demonic dino within two days, your life is over.” -System of Stats

Atlas blinked his eyes slowly, taking in the sudden information. Atlas’s knees crumpled beneath him. How dare they! They had no right to control his life like this, he couldn’t believe the sheer audacity of this. They had sent him into another world, and now they were forcing him to kill the final boss within two days? He was confident that he could, but they had no right to do this.

Right then and there, Atlas made a decision. He would use every last second he had to become stronger. He would fight the boss near the end of his time, after wiping out every other boss out there.

The systems had made a horrible mistake.