I woke up to the sound of crushing stone yelping pups, I move towards the entrance of the cave and look down to see the wolves using their glowing teeth to rip apart a stone… bear? The creature is already dead but I can see that when it was alive it easily reached three meters in shoulder height it and is covered in a thick shell of rock like substance making it look like any old boulder.

And the wolves were biting through the stone, how the are they doing that?

I watch carefully, now glad for the small boost my perception stats give me and notice the same glowing teeth that the wolves had while they were hunting the deer ripping through the stone like it was paper.

Even the pups were joining in, the glow of their teeth was less noticeable and they did less damage than the adults but they were still making quick work of the bear corpse,

I watched on as I think about the recent couple off days, in five days not counting today the helicopter was supposed to come and pick me up. But assuming that the entire world has wolves like these or that giant eagle from earlier, I doubt they would be able to safely come here.

Unless dad convinces one of his friends in the military to get me I doubt I’m going anywhere, I should still try to get to the platform in case they do come for me. I shuffle to the back of what is probably going to be my home for a few weeks if I’m unlucky and start working on expanding it, I take it carefully so as to not destabilize the cave and I already placed the backpack on the platform above…Wait a minute, if I’m so worried about the wolves why don’t I just climb higher?

Frozen from the sudden thought I look around, I don’t need to be right above the wolves I could just continue climbing higher and climb around the mountain. Gathering up with supplies I have I climb out of my cave and up on to the mossy area above . After placing everything into my backpack I measure out the path I should take on the next cliff wall.

Mt. ExToSe is formed almost like a witches hat, getting steeper the higher up you go. And since the mountain is hidden by the nearby mountain range the winds shouldn’t be too bad, I hope.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I walk towards the cliff wall on the other side of the moss and start creating hand holds using my Mana manipulation. Yea this is going to take forever…

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Three days later and several uncomfortable nights under thin blankets I managed to arrive near the helicopter platform, to remain safe I even started building another hollow in a nearby cliff wall to spend the(hopefully) last night on Mt. ExToSe.

You have reached level ‘8’

Congratulations! Your skill ‘climbing’ has advanced to the first tier.

Climbing has reached level ‘1’

Climbing has reached level ‘2’

Mana Manipulation has reached level ‘1’

Mana Manipulation has reached level ‘2’

You have reached level ‘9’

Mana Sense has reached level ‘1’

Although the increase in level is significantly smaller than in tier one all of the skills managed to level at least once, and my overall level was soon at the max for tier zero. The difference in information in the tiers was massive, added on to the original information that is based on my actions the level ups also gave me significantly more knowledge that was based around their tier one specialization.

As I sat in my little cave and prepared for the, hopefully, last night on the mountain I couldn’t help but wonder. The baby cubs didn’t use their glowing teeth when they were chasing after me, in fact they were behaving almost like when they were playing with each other earlier in the day, that and the fact that the elder wolf didn’t chase after me even after I threw the cub down from the cave…

They were never trying to hurt me to begin with, they were just playing with me, except I’m a human(elf) and took damage. Or they just didn’t take me seriously enough to use their ability… anyways its not like I will get an answer to my questions, it’s just boring not having anything to read since all my books were still in the tent.

Curling in on myself with my blanket I fall asleep grumbling about wolf behavior and magic…

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I woke up right as the sky started to brighten up and headed to the landing platform, I climbed up a nearby tree so I could wait in safety. It was a lot harder climbing trees than it was mountains, it was probably due to the first tier specialization I got for climbing. I look at my status screen once again proud over my achievements over the last two weeks.

User

identity - Auden Leymoore/Elf?

layer - 1

Tier - 0

Level - 9/10

Oath

0 - “Magic”

Stats - 0

Perception - 7

Wisdom - 0

intelligence - 0

Vigilance - 0

Creativity - 2

Skills

Mana Manipulation 1 - 2/20

1 - Parallel Mana Control

Climbing 1 - 2/10

1 - Mountain climbing

Mana sense 1 - 1/20

1 - Long range sensing