It's a pity, but Rey quickly realized that even a firm, but rather intangible desire to become stronger is not enough to get rid of the current problems.

Throughout the night, he did not close his eyes even for a minute, because he understood that falling asleep in his current position was the same as dooming himself to death.

But the darkness gradually receded before the sun rising from behind the forest. The beast below lazily stretched, as if mocking an already half-dead person.

Calling him half-dead wasn't an exaggeration, quite the contrary. During the night, Rey was tired and cold so much that quite often he thought about enduring the pain of death and jumping, but every time he remembered that feeling, when his consciousness in the literal sense of the word was torn from unbearable torment, the guy stopped himself.

Looking at the sun with tired eyes, he looked around. The light increased, but the landscape remained the same: everywhere the sweeping crowns of huge trees, and below a predator, ready to finish him off at any moment. Ray somehow understood that it was not so important for the beast to eat him, but simply to finish him off. Killing is not for the sake of hunting, but for the sake of killing.

“Probably shouldn’t have teased him all night…” The guy sighed tiredly. Last night, when it was completely dark, the beast, making sure that its prey was not going to go anywhere, brazenly stretched out its huge paws and lay down on the grass, showing with all appearance that it was going to sleep.

Ray could not stand such impudence and, crushing a lump of leaves in his palm, launched it into the head of the beast. He missed hard, but a second ago, the relaxed monster was on its feet in an instant, breaking the "gift" even before it touched the ground.

A wave of goosebumps ran down his already frozen back. The guy could only nervously and somehow quite hopelessly laugh at the predator's reflexes. There is no chance.

“But that doesn’t mean that it’s worth letting this trash so shamelessly sleep.” Ray thought as he crushed another ball of leaves in his palm. “We will suffer together.”

At some point, the clearly intelligent predator simply stopped responding to balls of foliage, and Ray had to throw down branches that had been broken off with difficulty. The beast growled menacingly when they fell nearby, but at some point simply moved away from the tree for ten meters, denoting the winner in this small game. And then again collapsed on the grass and "fell asleep."

Needless to say, Rei didn't even think about trying to quietly go downstairs. It was possible to try to get over to another tree, but the light of the moon was clearly not enough for this. One careless move could result in another death.

But on the other hand, during the night he managed to crawl out a solid piece of “his” tree, keeping close to the trunk, where the branches were large and it was not so easy to fall from them. Maybe it was because of this, or maybe because of the fact that it had brightened a lot, Rei noticed something interesting. Previously, walking through the forest, he did not find any animals, except for birds rarely flying in the sky, but now the guy was looking at a small nest.

And somehow it happened that during the night he climbed even higher than the animal (and the creature inside was clearly not a bird), which made a house for itself here. A dubious reason for pride, but the deadly tired Ray did not really bother with this.

Struggling with fatigue, the guy moved to the right part of the tree, wanting to satisfy his interest.

"Young?" - Inside the nest, obviously too large for him, lay a creature with a very short brown coat. A pair of tiny eyes didn't even open as Rei gingerly poked his finger at... the ferret? And looking closer, the guy realized that the little animal was almost not breathing. “Is it cold too? And for some reason your parents aren’t there… Maybe this one downstairs did his best?”

This option seemed to be somewhat plausible. It is unlikely that the older ferrets were killed by this particular animal, but the nest could not appear by itself. It is unlikely that this small thing could build something so big.

“No, it’s definitely a baby. I can tell an adult ferret. Probably ... "- Rey shivered chilly from another gust of wind.

So, thinking about all sorts of nonsense and flashing his bare backside towards the beast below, the guy spent almost ten minutes.

"Can it really be considered alive?" - The animal did not react to the next poke with a finger and, having grown bolder, Rei carefully placed a small ball of wool in his palm. If the cub was still alive, it did not show it at all.

"No, he's alive." - The guy was even somehow delighted, looking at how the animal jerked its paw. However, after that, she was quite quiet.

- Hey. What are you?

Ray was about to stroke the animal again, but a cloud of gray smoke rose from the body of the ferret.

Almost dropping the tiny body in surprise, the guy took a closer look and realized that it was not smoke. An almost transparent veil concealed a small silhouette of a just-dead animal. Unless it was a little bigger.

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Out of simple curiosity, Rei touched the substance with his finger, only to pull it back immediately. But it was too late - a cloud of smoke was absorbed into the finger without a trace. Instantly passing the path along the arm, it entered the chest over the shoulder and froze somewhere, judging by the pleasant coolness.

"Eh?" - Feeling the place where the gray haze had disappeared, Rei realized with some relief that he did not seem to die.

"AND? What was it?"

Good luck, but the answer was found in my head pretty quickly. All you had to do was remember what you saw in the Status.

It looks like he just saw the soul of this small animal. Confidence in such an incredible fact came pretty quickly - after all, everything around is just a game. Outrageously realistic, but the game.

And, it turned out to be quite simple to verify your guess. All you had to do was call the Status.

_____________________________

Name: Ray???

Race: ???

RACIAL FEATURES:

[Immortal]

[Many Faces Level 1] (Human, curing)

[Soul Lord Lv1]

[???]

_____________________________

Returning the body of the now apparently dead animal to its proper place, Rei began to think. Strange, but the death of this animal did not hurt him too much. It can be seen that the awareness of the unreality of what is happening around affected.

Own Status looked much more interesting.

“Couring… This clarifies what “Many Faces” means, but how to use it? - Empty thoughts led to nothing. He simply did not know any other game commands, except for the three main ones, and the Status gave so little information that it became somehow sad.

Fortunately, the soul ... curing regularly helped to distract from their own deplorable state. Although rather, not even the soul itself, but the search for a way to use the ability. The name "Many Faces" rather eloquently hinted at the effect, which, in fact, attracted.

Ray tried everything, it would seem. Starting with pats and strokes on the chest, where, it seems, the souls were, and ending with cries of the name of the animal that I learned from the Status. The torment did not last long - fantasy unconditionally gave in to the cunning of the developers.

“Why couldn’t you leave a hint…” – Dissatisfied, the guy sighed, once again tried to imagine how he was overgrown with wool and, without waiting for the effect, leaned his bare back against a tree. The bark dug into the skin, but during the night he somehow got used to it.

But it was impossible to get used to thirst ...

Closing his eyes tiredly, Rey, as if forgetting about the danger waiting below, relaxed quite a bit.

And in a second, in surprise, he opened his eyelids, which did not have time to really close. And there was something to be surprised.

Just now he saw a strange... space? Somehow it was reminiscent Inventory. Black nothing, devoid of any other colors. Almost devoid of. After all, there, unlike the Inventory, there were as many as two ... souls. Yes, now Rey knew they were souls.

One human, apparently belonged to Ray himself. And the second was the already familiar soul of curing. Both were grey. Is that the human a little brighter, but nothing more.

"Finally". The guy nodded to himself. “I was afraid that I would never be able to figure it out.”

Ray mentally reached out for the beast's soul. Feeling like nothing happened. And then it would be just right to be upset, but the guy did not have time for this: the branch under him became simply huge.

"Good. The main thing is not to rush." Afraid to even think about moving, he cautiously turned his head to the side, noticing that his field of vision had become perceptibly wider. But the picture itself was very blurred before my eyes. Only neighboring branches were clearly visible, but further ...

Rey stopped moving his head and looked down and stumbled upon two clawed feet.

"This game is just something!" - An attempt to speak turned into some kind of even funny hiss. And it also became clear that curing has no teeth ...

Jerking up all the limbs in turn, Rei realized that he was experiencing problems only with the tail. A new fluffy limb, almost as long as the rest of the body, although it interfered, did not hinder movement much. At least the guy climbed along the branch without any problems.

He came to his senses already clinging claws to the pliable bark while climbing up the trunk. Doing so proved surprisingly difficult. But not because of the claws, no, they regularly and firmly clung.

All of a sudden, he was overwhelmed with a sense of exhaustion. And then the hunger returned. Along with it, thirst. And after thinking a little, the guy realized that they didn’t go anywhere, he was just too carried away.

Unless the cold receded - the wool did its job.

Frustrated, Rey dug his claws deeper into the bark, giving himself a chance to think. Now the primary task was to feed himself and, not strange, he already knew the solution. Reaching out with his paw, Curing grabbed a smaller leaf with his claws and put it in his mouth.

“Since it has no teeth, this animal must be a herbivore.” The observation turned out to be correct. The taste of the leaves was… fresh. And, strangely, not at all like greenery. It looked more like a cold, savory dessert.

“I think there must be a lot of these curings in the forest,” Ray thought businesslike, crushing another leaf. - "With such a color, I would hardly have noticed them so easily."

Climbing almost to the top of the tree, Rei judged that he had settled in well enough in his new look. But all this time he did not stop chewing the leaves. Those, by the way, in addition to satisfying hunger well, also banished thirst. It seems like a small joy, but still nice.

But below the picture was waiting many times more pleasant. A hefty beast, uncomprehendingly, wound circles around a tree. Having lost its prey, the predator became much more serious, but he was no longer destined to catch the guy.

Ray stared for several minutes at the blurred silhouette of the animal that had forced him to sit up in a tree all night.

“Although, on the other hand, it was because of him that I found this curing ... But I will not thank this animal.” — The smiling curing must have looked pretty funny. It is a pity, because there was simply no one to appreciate this spectacle.

But the following thought that came to mind, made me think:

"If I kill him, will I get the same appearance?" – But once again looking at the absolutely gigantic figure of the beast, which for curing seemed like only a mountain, I had to give up this idea.

Yes, and there was no point in such a thing, because in the guise of curing, that in the guise of that predator, Rei would feel about the same. Not only did he have no idea how to kill such an enemy, but also the appearance this little animal had a number of clear advantages. And the main one was food. The guy's hunting abilities were somewhere on the verge of complete absence. And with his current skill, he could only catch the same leaves. Yes, and crushing greens is clearly easier than the raw meat of other animals. But they still need to be caught.

Now, instead of smiling, curing made a funny face.

Also, Rei was not sure that this predator was the strongest in this forest. What if you had to fight? Curing, on the other hand, was fast and discreet, so one could travel in relative safety.

"I decided". Rei glanced warily down at the raging beast that had lost its rightful prey. - "Live. For now. But if I have time, I will definitely return and get even with you.

A branch that is more authentic easily allowed curing to move to a neighboring tree and after ten minutes the dexterous animal left the unfortunate place far behind.

With the choice of direction, Rey did not bother, leaving the rising sun behind. But now, when he "joined" the forest fauna, she answered him the same. It became clear that there are much more inhabitants in the forest than it might seem at first glance. Basically, very small living creatures, which the mastodon left behind would only fit for a snack. It has not yet been possible to find something larger, but other curings have been found.

"By the way," Ray remarked, already quite briskly moving his paws. “We are the same size as them. But there was a cub in the nest… So, the ability does not make me a copy of the deceased creature.” With a nod of his own ingenuity, the boy continued on his way. He had already come to terms with the fact that he was unlikely to have time to get out of this forest.

But, there was still a way to quickly overcome a long distance. And, most importantly, this method will make it possible to spend the last couple of days of your life not just anywhere ... In the sky!

Stopping at the next branch, curing looked up. A lone green bird calmly soared almost above the very tops of the trees. Even though the Curing's eyesight wasn't particularly sharp, Rey could still see her.

“Catching her will not be easy. But, perhaps, I have nowhere to hurry, I can try.