"Curse it all you want, but the System is fair, Sure some may be lucky enough to be born in better circumstances, or have a lucky encounter that puts them above their peers, but hard work and determination is always rewarded, and can often times exceed the reward that one can get through just luck. What I'm saying is, you just didn't try hard enough."

-Roman the Barbarian, right before executing an opposing war chief

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The next day, I decided to go hunting, both to check how well the constructs worked in a combat situation and to earn some contribution points since I was running low. I did invite Leo and the others, but they were busy with their own things, and since the strongest thing we had encountered in the forest was that one level 10 deer, I ended up going alone. Entering the forest, I set off in a random direction, marking trees with a knife as I passed so I wouldn't get lost, carving arrows that pointed to the town. Just like all the other times that I had entered the forest, most animals ran away or hid from me, and after a while without finding anything a thought occurred to me, while it was true that I was no hunter, the animals that I could make constructs out of were, and since they were based off of my understanding of them, they may retain their hunting abilities. That thought in mind, I used 100 mana to create a lightning hawk, and although it didn't respond when I tried to order it to hunt without any target, the next time I heard the rustle of bushes from something running away from me, I quickly sent an order to attack, and this time the hawk sprung into action, diving at the bushes, and judging by the pained squeal, it seemed to have found its mark. As I approached the shrub, I saw an injured rabbit jump out of it, quickly followed by an arcing blue hawk, and since I saw that the rabbit was level five, I decided to not involve myself and see how the construct would do without any instructions or aid.

It seemed that while they were both capable of moving at the same speeds, the hawk had faster reactions, and managed to dodge any bites or kicks while landing its own scratches and pecks as it repeatedly flew overhead of the rabbit. But it was far from a one-sided fight, as although I could see the twitching of muscles from the lighting whenever the rabbit was struck, it seemed that the rabbit was physically much stronger than the hawk, and it was unable to land any deep hits. This stalemate lasted for just a few seconds before the rabbit managed to finally land a hit, and its superior physicality was fully displayed as just the one hit was enough to break the hawks wing, snapping it off as if it were porcelain and causing it to leak energy at an extremely high rate. With this, the fight was more or less over, since while the hawk could still move, without the ability to fly it had no chance of turning the fight around, even though the rabbit was also on its last legs. As the rabbit approached my now-flightless hawk, I decided to check out another skill that I hadn't tested the previous day.

*BOOM*

With a rather small explosion, no more than a meter in diameter, originating from my construct and engulfing the rabbit, its death proven by a system ping telling me I gained 15 EXP, I thought about what the fight had taught me. The first and most important was that I had severely underestimated the autonomy of my constructs, as while I was confident that the hawk could've won without any injuries had I given it actual orders during the fight, it still actually adapted to the situation and wasn't just robotically repeating the same actions, or at least if it was it was an extremely good AI. I also overestimated how much energy was consumed per fight, as the while the consumption was faster while it was actively moving and attacking, it was really only getting hit that caused massive losses, as prior to losing its wing it still had more than half of its energy remaining, though that one hit took 20% of its total stores and it lost another 10 in the few seconds it took for the rabbit to approach it after it was downed. Satisfied with the test fight, I picked up the rabbit corpse, which was covered in shallow gashes but otherwise okay since the lightning wasn't intense enough to cause burns, I hung it on a crystal hook I had grown on my staff, and set off to look for more animals to test my constructs with, long having lost any reservations or squeamishness about hunting and killing animals.

This time I decided to make a crystal hawk, hoping that the extra sturdiness would mean that it would last more than one fight. As I walked, I continuously flickered my [Elemental Sight] skill on and off to see if there was anywhere with denser elemental energy, since keeping it on perpetually was disorienting, but unfortunately it didn't seem that there was anything. After a while, I once again heard the telltale noises of an animal running away, and sending my hawk after it, I saw that it was a level 6 raccoon, and while my hawk was slightly faster than it, it was able to use the underbrush to avoid its dives and continue running. Chasing after my quickly departing construct and its prey, I failed to notice that the racoon was running deeper and deeper into the forest, it wasn't until I tripped on a root that I realized how deep we had come, the forest canopy much thicker than at the fringes and barely letting any sunlight through. As I examined the surroundings and scolded myself for chasing the damn racoon instead of just letting it go, I felt a pull on the connection to my constructed hawk, instinctively able to tell that it had reached its maximum distance from me. Calling it back, I looked to the sky, thankfully able to make out the position of the sun through the canopy to orient myself, and while I doubt the raccoon had run in a straight line, it hadn't made any noticeable turns, and since I was sure to move east when I was hunting, going west should at least take me to a less deep area of the forest. Since the hawk had returned during my musing, I set off in what was hopefully the right direction and return to the fringes, as even when I ordered the hawk to fly above the trees and point me to the clearing it didn't do anything, seemingly a bit too much for whatever pseudo intelligence it had.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I had only been chasing my construct for a few minutes, but considering how much my physique had improved with the system, I had still covered quite a bit of distance, and since I was walking back instead of running, it would take longer to get out than it took me to get here. I wasn't particularly worried about the animals here, as if it was too dangerous there was no way that the raccoon would've ran in this direction, but I still had the hawk flying in front of me just in case. I was far more worried about being lost, since I doubted the town would send anybody looking for me, and the chances of my group finding me were extremely slim. While I was once again berating myself for impulsively chasing after some random raccoon after my hawk started chasing it, I noticed that one of the trees had a fairly large gash in it, and since it wasn't in the shape of an arrow, which everyone who went into the forest was told to make in case anyone got lost, I was immediately put on edge, slowing my gait and making as little noise as possible to hopefully avoid whatever made them. It wasn't until I heard a crunch and felt the connection to my hawk snap that I remembered that I still had a rabbit hung on my staff, attracting any carnivore's within smelling distance.

Bear - Level 10

Jumping back as fast as I could while using 100 of my remaining 360 mana to erect a crystal wall in front of me, focusing on making it as hard as possible and completely disregarding duration, I barely managed to see as the bear rear up on its hind legs, standing almost twice as tall as me, and as it swung its massive paw down, I heard the wall I had made strain against it, slightly cracking but still holding firm. With no time to think and not confident in my walls durability, I created a lightning cobra out of 50 mana, with the order to bite the bear and inject as much energy as it could, using another 50 to shoot a spike out of the wall once the cobra was formed. Still on its hind legs, the bear wasn't mobile enough to dodge, and the spike hit its torso, but only went in a few inches before being stopped by its strong body. Howling in pain with a roar that I could feel in my bones, the bear swung once more at my wall, this time much faster and with a faint glow around its paw, shattering my wall upon contact and sending shrapnel flying, giving both of us minor cuts. As it dropped back down to all fours in order to close the distance, my cobra reached its back leg, quickly biting it and injecting Lightning into it until it dissipated, causing the bear to roar once more as its leg started to spasm, delaying its charge. Not wanting to wait for it to regain full control of its leg, I channelled as much energy as I could and shot a bolt of Lightning at it, using all of my remaining mana in a single bolt at it head.

After being struck, the bear's whole body started spasming as it fell to the ground, but I still hadn't felt a system ping. With no mana remaining I gripped my staff with both hands, the rabbit having fallen off at the start of the fight, and used the hook that had held the rabbit as as a pickaxe as I struck at the bears head, the hook breaking off of the staff only after piercing the skull of the bear, making a ping appear in my system to my great relief. Out of mana and physically tired, I spent a few minutes staggering about before I found what I assumed to be the bears den, a small dug out hollow beneath a rather large trees roots, and without any way to effectively protect myself without mana, I sat in that den and waited, too afraid to fall asleep in case something else stumbled upon the den. In this time I checked the system message.

Congratulations, you have defeated a level 10 Brown Bear and gained 100 EXP

Once again realizing how hard it was to gain EXP, I spent the next few hours thinking over the fight and the events preceding it. Clearly, I had been taking the forest too lightly, lulled into a false sense of security over these past few days of safety and the low levels of the fringes, but when it came to the fight itself, I couldn't really think of what I could've done better. While it may have been smarter to make a hawk instead of a cobra to harass the bear and distract it, considering how little my spike did to the bear it likely would've been able to shrug off whatever a hawk would've done to it, not to mention even a crystal hawk with 100 mana in it was destroyed in a single attack, as the actual strength of the constructs didn't reduce with their energy, so it was just as strong as a fresh one would be despite having lost a decent amount while chasing the raccoon. Thinking about it more just made me realize how poor of a matchup this fight was, the bear was clearly heavily invested into STR and END, extremely resistant to physical attacks, and it managed to sneak up on me so I was unable to fight at my preferred range. The only lucky thing was that it attacked the hawk first, likely due to it's reflective nature making it a more conspicuous target, as even if I managed to survive a sneak attack I doubt I'd be able to win that fight while injured.

A few hours of brooding later, once I was at 300 mana, I decided I had enough to fend off any non-bear animals. I was pretty sure that the bear was the highest level animal nearby due to the fact that no animals came to investigate the noise after our fight concluded, and since I refused to risk my life for a measly 100 EXP, I made a crystal sled that I tipped the bear's corpse into before trudging west. Thankfully, it only took a about half an hour of walking before the canopy started thinning out, another hour and I found an arrow carved into a tree that led me out of the forest.

My approach grabbed quite a bit of attention, since it wasn't everyday you see someone carry a giant bear on a sled into town, the fact that I didn't have any visible injuries besides being covered in dirt also helping. Taking my sled to the storage building, which was where you could sell carcasses to the town, I was intercepted by a few people from my group, who I waved off and said I'd explain after I dropped this off and took a nap, I sold the bear for 800 contribution points before going home and collapsing on my bed for a much needed nap.