Nate didn’t leave his tree hollow for two days after he made his discovery about the beast cores. Most of the two days were spent experimenting with the effects of consuming a beast core and trying to draw parallels to what little information Nate had available.

From Nate’s best guess, a human’s core formation was similar to the way that a beast formed cores at the base of a beast’s skull. This theory was solidified when Nate decided to stupidly consume one of his two remaining beast cores whole. The sphere was just small enough to swallow without choking, so it had gone down without any issue. But the second the core rested in Nate’s stomach, he relived a similar incident to the first time he consumed a piece of core the day before.

The painful burning sensation created by the energy traveling from his stomach to his head was horrendous. However, Nate was able to note that the energy leaving his stomach seemed to be congregating at the base of his own skull. This feeling was more than enough for Nate to confirm his theory.

By the end of the second day, Nate had eaten the other beast's core and was now looking over his user interface.

“With two beast cores and almost a whole broken one, I was able to gain 11 units of energy and two more levels in [Survivor’s Need],” Nate said to himself as he munched on some of the meat that had been continually cooking over the fire.

The meat had dried out significantly from the smoke and heat exposure, but the taste was quite pleasant. Nate took a sip of water from a cup made from a large acorn shell.

“I wish I had more information to base my decisions on. I guess all I can do is try to get more beast cores and gather enough energy to form a core,” Nate said to himself continuing the conversation with himself.

“We’ll just have to see how that works. Won’t we?” Nate said to no one as he stood up and walked over to the entrance to his tree hollow and began taking down his protections.

************************

Nate sat about 30 feet up in a tree resting in a small hollow just large enough for his body to fit inside.

Over the last two weeks, Nate had formed a routine of venturing out of his tree hollow and attempting to hunt beasts. During all of his outings, Nate was always mindful to remember the incident with the cat beast and was on high alert. This alertness had paid off by Nate finding a few spots he could rest while traveling through the woods. These places weren’t large enough to be home, but they were protected enough to provide a few moments of relaxation in a stressful environment. Nate enjoyed having spots where he could watch over the woods without fear of a beast sneaking up behind him.

Roaming the woods continually had also generated several levels and stat increases, but Nate was most excited about one of his successes two days ago. He had managed to hunt and kill his first pig with his bow and arrow. The successful hunt had netted Nate a level increase, some skill levels, another beast core and enough meat to ease any concerns over the food supply. With the successful hunt, Nate was happier than any other he had in his entire life. His efforts had paid off big.

With so much going right for Nate, he wouldn’t let himself end up in trouble over something that could be prevented. Nate even figured that he could never be too prepared with food, so he had gathered a large supply of acorns over the course of several hunts.

Nate scooted out of the little nook in the tree and stood on a knotty protrusion coming out of the tree.

“I guess it is time to get back home,” Nate said to himself as he surveyed the woods for potential dangers. After a few minutes of carefully watching for movements, Nate climbed down the tree.

With around thirty minutes of constantly moving along the forest floor, Nate reached a familiar part of the woods that contained his tree hollow home.

However, the sight that awaited him didn’t cause a smile to show on his face.

A large beast was ripping at the entrance to his tree hollow with its mouth. Bark and splitters of wood were flying in all directions as the beast dug its two large front teeth into the tree.

Anger surged through Nate like adrenaline. This beast was destroying his home. Without even a second thought, Nate crouched down and began to stalk towards the beast. As he moved closer, the beast’s full figure came into view. The creature had a long bushy tail and coarse brownish-red fur. Its humanlike clawed hands sank into the bark of the tree as its teeth did continual damage entrance to the tree hollow. Nate didn’t know what sort of monster this beast was, but he did know one thing for certain. This animal was going to die for messing with his home.

When Nate managed to creep within 40 yards of the beast, the animal’s entire head was already stuck inside the tree hollow. This beast was at least twice the size of one of the largest pigs, so its head was more than double the size of the original entrance into the tree. The furry beast was at least two to three times the size of Nate.

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The destruction of the small entrance to the tree hollow home became more evident as he neared. Nate’s anger flared and drove him forward to strike the beast. He knew that he had an opportunity with the beast’s head stuck inside of the tree.

Nate continued to move closer to the beast as he removed his spear from the harness on his back. Within a few seconds' time, Nate had closed the distance between him and the beast to around five yards. Nate could hear the beast gnawing at the inside of his home. It had even managed to squeeze one of its arms into the hole with its head. But even with his close proximity, the beast had no idea that Nate was even present. It seemed solely focused on destroying whatever was inside of the tree hollow.

Nate moved up to the side of the beast with his spear in hand. Now he was so close that he could have reached out and petted the beast. But he didn’t want to touch the animal. He wanted to kill it for destroying a tree home that had become important to him.

Nate readied the spear and pointed it at the location just behind the beast arm. With all the weight behind the thrust, Nate rammed the pointed spear into the side of the beast.

Before Nate could remove the spear and deliver another strike, the beast yanked its head and arm out of the tree hollow. Because he was still gripping the spear, Nate was flung backward as the beast moved. He went crashing to the ground a few yards away.

The impact to the ground cause Nate to briefly lose his breath, but that didn’t stop him from immediately removing his knife from its sheath.

Hearing the noise behind it, the beast whirled around to face Nate. Its cheeks were swelled up in a ridiculous amount. The sight would have almost been comical if the beast wasn’t standing tall on two legs with emotionless eyes directly staring at Nate.

Nate readied his grip on his knife. His heart was beating so fast as the beast began to ease forward with its arms to walk four-legged on the ground. As it moved, the spear in its side seemed to restrict its ease of movement substantially. Realizing the spear was a hindrance, the beast angrily pulled at the weapon stuck in its side.

The sight sent fear coursing through Nate as he maintained his grip on the knife ready for an attack. He was slowly moving back to increase the distance between him and the beast. He had no way to protect himself from a beast this large. All he could do is hope to escape from the predicament that he had stupidly put himself in out of anger.

The beast finally managed to yank the spear free, but it didn’t seem to achieve the effect the beast had intended. Before the animal could move toward the backpedaling Nate, a spurt of blood flowed out of the beast’s side and it crumpled to the ground.

[‘Survivor’s Resistance’ has increased to Level 6]

[‘Fear Resistance’ has increased to Level 9]

Alerts sounded in Nate’s head before he could even grasp what had just happened. The beast lay on the ground in a pile of blood. Bloody acorns were falling out of its mouth as it seemed to be trying to gasp for air. The beast flopped around in a struggle against its impending death, but the struggle would not have an effect on the outcome. After a few seconds, the beast was dead.

[‘Calm Survivor’ Class has increased to Level 6]

[Level has increased by 1]

The system alerts providing him some renewed courage, Nate stopped trembling in fear and moved away from the beast. Not willing to risk going near the beast unless its death was absolutely certain, Nate removed his bow from his back and readied an arrow.

The arrow landed right in the eye of the beast, but there was no reaction what so ever.

“Serves you right, you fucker,” Nate cursed at the beast’s corpse as he moved forward to inspect the animal in more detail. The puffy cheeks of the beast appeared to be full of acorns. Nate stomped down on the beast’s cheek with his boot and more bloody acorns fell out of the beast’s mouth.

“Damn it,” Nate said as he looked at the pile of bloody acorns. His whole supply of tree nuts was ruined. After looking at the furry beast for another minute, Nate moved over to his tree hollow.

The whole entrance was trashed. The previous entrance had been just big enough for Nate to fit his body inside. The beast had chewed at the entrance enough to get it’s own body so now the opening was three times larger.

Nate climbed down into the splintered entrance and took in the scene inside. The condition inside wasn’t that bad. Most of the inside was untouched by the beast. From Nate’s guess, the beast had only broken in the home to raid his acorn stash. His small supply of cooked meat wasn’t even touched and his small stock of other supplies was only moved around slightly.

The big issue was the enlarged entrance to tree hollow. The reason that Nate had always felt safe in the tree hollow was that the opening was small enough to restrict the entrance of some beasts. Now, he didn’t feel as protected. If a beast over twice his size could now get in easily, then he didn’t feel like he had any protections.

With the entrance to his cozy tree abode destroyed, Nate felt like he had no option but to look for another shelter. While he could take some measures to make the space inside the tree hollow somewhat secure, Nate felt like he needed something more protected.

A whiff of blood entered his nose. Nate snapped out of his thoughts and realized he had more things to be concerned about than just where he was going to rest.

Blood was steadily pouring out the dead beast’s body. Nate knew that this would attract other beasts. The tree hollow wasn’t secure anymore. He couldn’t move the large beast corpse away. Nate needed to find another place to rest tonight. He would probably die if he stayed here for too long.

He needed to move quickly if he wanted to salvage as much as he could. He wrapped his supplies and the cooked meat in tree leaves and placed them in his filthy backpack as quickly as he could. After a few minutes, he had all his belongings either strapped to his back or held in his hands. He needed to put some distance between himself and the beast corpse. He started walking off into the woods uncertain where he would be going. Thankfully, he had some time remaining before night.

As he made it about fifty yards away from his old home, Nate suddenly realized that he had forgotten something important. He sat down his stuff, pulled out his knife and ran back toward the beast’s corpse.