I still had a bit of time left before the sun set, I decided to spend some time reaching the top of the hill.

The hill did get steeper as I got higher, but it was still manageable. After only slipping a few times, I finally made it to the top, unsurprisingly, there were more trees. It was more open here as the canopy wasn’t so interlocked. I decided to wait for the moon to come.

I was close to my secure home, and I did miss the moonlight enveloping me. It was strange, I was not in the moonlight for a single night, yet I already felt a desire for it as if a part of me was missing.

It was bearable, but there was a sense of wrongness, and it has been bothering me ever since I left my home.

That Stalker seemed to evade any sort of light and this place was open. I had only seen the Stalker when the moon was up, and the forest was close to being pitch black. Or there was only a single Stalker, and it lost interest in hunting me.

The sun finally had left the sky, and the moon came out to play with its thousands of followers appearing in the dark sky. It would be a bit of time before the moon shines down on me, the trees guarded me from its embrace. It bothered me, but there was nothing I could do, maybe if my wings weren't so damaged, I could reach the top of the canopy, but for now I am grounded.

I had wanted to learn more about my [Skills], but I had to divert my attention to my surroundings. I had barely seen the Stalker when I had two eyes, and now it was infinitely more difficult with one eye.

Hearing a bush not too far from me rustle brought to perspective how bad of an idea this was.

Wait, what am I doing?

As pretty as the moon was, I don’t remember being this obsessed with it.

The moon feeds you, are you not hungry?

That wasn’t me?

… I do feel hungry...? Wait no!

Something strange was going on, I had a very strange desire to stay out in the darkness even though I had no reason to.

You have a reason, just stay outside longer.

This wasn’t me.

Who are you?

Stay outside.

I heard the bushes rustle one more time before a rythmatic thumping sounded, as if something heavy stomped through the forest floor. It moved without a care of making noise, leaves on the ground rustled with every stride. It sounded right in front of me, yet I could not see anything, so I ran.

Stop running, there is no danger.

I in fact did not stop running.

Behind me the sound of something large ran down the hill, its steps caused the ground to quake. I was glad I was not too far from my home. Yet just as I was reaching the flat area where my home was located, I slipped and tumbled the rest of the way.

Whatever was chasing me stopped running and instead it walked. Seeing my chance, I hurried into the entrance of my home. And looked back, a pitch-black void greeted me, knowing I was now safe, I used [Appraisal] on the inky darkness.

Nothing happened, so I kept using it until it worked, the thing kept scratching at my mind with promises and telling me what I needed most.

Seeing that [Appraisal] still didn’t work even after ten times, I hurriedly left to go farther into my home until my mind went silent. The silence was welcoming, I didn’t even notice that I was breathing heavily.

Noted, the dark has scarier creatures than the Stalker.

My [Appraisal] refused to work, which makes me think it's not a high enough level, but I’m not sure, maybe my mind is playing tricks with me.

I need to get stronger.

And to get stronger, I needed knowledge. I had zero idea what would make me stronger.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Wait evolving gave me more [Skills] and [Stats], that means I’ll have to level up more! But leveling up means I’ll have to kill....

I didn’t want to kill unless I had to, and I was not good at killing either, I had struggled against the mice, and they were smaller than me! I also had a lot of broken body parts, there was no way I could fight.

Do I really need to fight? Maybe there's another way I could kill something...

Not thinking of anything, I just went into torpor.

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Instead of going into torpor for a long time, after a short period I would get out of torpor and go into the entrance of my home. Yet I never exited as it was still dark outside. Thankfully, I never saw the creature again, but I did hear cries of creatures in the distance. For some reason once the sun rose, the forest once again turned silent.

And I watched and listened, the second the sun starts peaking over the horizon and lightening up the forest, silence comes along. That is not to say that the forest was dead silent, there was just less activity during the day.

An odd fact that I would have to get used to.

Not needing to go to the creek, I decided to explore my surroundings, I had already gone up hill and met with whatever that thing was, so now it's time to go to either side of my home. I decided to spend half my day exploring and the other half figuring out how to survive.

I expected nothing but more trees, and I was correct until I arrived at a ridge. It was as if something colossal had ripped through the very ground causing a massive canyon, I could not see its end, but I could see its depth. Far down below was water flowing rapidly creating enough noise that I could not hear my own thoughts. On the other side of the canyon lay the very same forest.

I was curious to what lived on the other side, but for now my curiosity would have to wait.

As I was heading back home, I noticed a creature that had the same color as the trees, it blended extremely well with the bark, yet I was still able to notice it. It had the body of a rat, yet a big bushy long object was attached to its lower back. Its torso and arms were connected by a very saggy piece of fur, which confused me as I had no idea what it was used for.

Against my better judgement, I followed it as stealthily as I could. It did not work out well as the creature noticed me quickly and ran up a tree far into the canopy above.

That’s when I had an idea.

If I cannot fight head-on, why don’t I sneak up to creatures and attack them that way?

I had no idea if this would work, but it was worth a try. The majority of creatures I had seen would try attacking me by sneaking up to me so there was a chance it could work.

The problem is that I wasn’t exactly quiet, but there was no reason not to try.

It would be dangerous if I got caught, but there's nothing else I could do.

Once I got back, I went the other way, yet I found nothing interesting in the time frame I had given myself, so I went back. I would have to explore in a circle if I wanted to see everything around me.

Oh, I could explore and practice sneaking around!

One problem was that I was going to get hungry, and without the moon feeding me, my hunger would come much earlier, so I needed to find a food source. Bane Berries were almost nonexistent here, and I didn’t notice anything else that looked like food.

I should be using [Appraisal] more often.

That reminds me, I was going to use [Appraisal] on a Bane Berry. Thankfully, there's some just a little down the hill.

Trusting my memory, I went down the hill and found the bush having the white with grey berries.

[Bane Berry] A berry containing a small amount of poison.

Well, it did tell me more, but I still don’t know what poison is.

I did suspect it made my exoskeleton crawl about, but I couldn’t be sure. It would be nice if I could see what it does to another creature, but I had no way of knowing.

I decided to eat one, I wasn’t hungry or anything, I was just starting to like the sourness it had.

Not having anything else to do, I went back home, but didn’t go inside, the sun was still up and being outside was more enjoyable than being inside.

Ok time to figure out my two [Skills].

I didn’t know where to start so I simply tried to remember anything that would help me identify what I needed to do to use these [Skills]. I have already tried to use them with mental commands, and that never worked.

Let's start off with [Essence of the Moon] as I already knew what the moon was.

I decided it was best to focus on one [Skill] at a time, I thought I could rush through this like I did with figuring out how to open my [Status], but something is telling me this would be extremely difficult.

The description says that I can take some of the moon’s power... what does the moon do...? It lights up the world, it can feed me, and it can ward off Stalkers.

The last two ideas didn’t make sense as I didn’t need the power to feed myself as the moon did that automatically, and I am quite sure Stalkers aren't around when the sun is up.

Lightning up an area would be useful.

Maybe Stalkers were afraid of the light, if they were, this [Skill] was already extremely useful. Even if they weren’t afraid of the light, it would also allow me to see when it was pitch dark.

That’s when I decided to go inside my home and into the side room. It was dark in here so if my [Skill] worked I should be able to see it.

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I had tried everything I could think of, yet nothing worked. I wasn’t too surprised, but it did still make me lose some confidence.

My next plan for learning how my [Skills] worked was leveling up [Appraisal] so that it would show me more information. If that didn’t work, I didn’t know what else I could do.

Maybe the [Skill] requires a part of my body to work properly?

With nothing else to do, and the sky turning pink, I went into torpor, hoping that the next day would go well.