My forehead was burning and I could not tell if it was because I was standing too close to the fire for too long or because of the bowl the Elven girl had just thrown at my head.

"Something's wrong? What's wrong?" I said as I picked up the bowl and gave it back to her. As much as this last part annoyed me, I could not act recklessly, picking up another fight I could not hope to win.

Seeing with the edge of my eye the boar still lying dead on the ground, I could not be sure exactly what happened, but this girl could potentially be much stronger than me — I needed to be cautious.

Plus, whether I liked it or not, she saved my life. Picking up a fight with her would not be the best way to say 'thank you'.

I gave her back her bowl and walked behind the fire once more. When I turned my face towards her, the bowl came flying, hitting my forehead yet again.

"What is wrong with your ability to make decisions like a proper human being!?" she said.

"Anthir being," I corrected her, pointing with my index finger to my somewhat pointy ears.

"Same thing applies," she puffed. "What were you doing fighting that boar?"

"I was trying to test out my powers," I naturally explained.

"And you thought the best idea was to test them out against a creature literally six times your level!?"

"What?" I asked. "How do you know that?" I continued, surprised by what I heard.

"How do I know what?" she said that so angrily she almost barked.

"The boar," I explained. "How do you know what level it is?"

Whatever annoyance was painted on her face suddenly faded away and gave its place to a puzzled look. She looked at me like she just saw the oddest ghost there is. Although we established earlier that probably none of us are ghosts after all.

The annoyance came back to her face shortly after, even greater than when it left.

"Use your [identify] skill, stupid"

As she said that, I felt something like a notification pop up at the top right of my vision.

Actually, this was there ever since I had woken up. I just failed to notice at first. I only paid attention to it at that point since the new notification came, bringing a slight shiver along with it.

Congratulations!

Skill [Identify] obtained!

I just gained a new skill, apparently. A particularly useful at that, if it could indeed tell me another being's level somehow. But I still did not know exactly what it did, and more importantly, I did not know how to use it.

There was only one way to learn to use it. I had to test it out. I stood up and slowly walked up to the boar. It couldn't be playing dead for all these hours, could it? Even if it did, it would have probably fallen to sleep by now.

I kneeled next to the dead animal and put my palm on the side of its stomach. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and said:

"Identify!"

A surprisingly large amount of nothing happened.

Was the boar unidentifiable? Surely not, the Elven girl had no problem identifying it — unless she was bluffing.

I was probably doing something wrong. I got up, took a few steps back, and focused on the fallen beast.

And then I saw it.

[Lion Boar - Lvl. 6 - Dead]

That was it? No other info? No journal entry? Any sort of information about literally anything would be really useful at that point. Maybe my [Identify] skill was too weak, either because I had not practiced enough, or because I was low level myself.

I walked back to the fire and the mysterious Elven girl.

"Learned how to use it?" she asked.

"Yeah. It is indeed a level 6 boar. And it's indeed dead," I said.

"That's all?" she said.

"That's all," I responded.

"Oh, by the way, you should get rid of the rest of your notifications, too," she pointed out. "One of your eyes is blue and the other is orange, which is getting annoying."

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

Right, I had forgotten about those, but I was now curious to find out what they were about.

Once again, I stepped close to the fire to warm myself up and sat down cross-legged. As I got to the right position to make myself feel comfortable, I slightly leaned my head to the right, barely dodging the wooden bowl that was going for my forehead for the third time that night.

"You won't be getting me forever," I said.

"Pfft."

----------------------------------------

I focused on the notifications on my upper right. Similar to when I used the [Identify] skill and yet, somehow different.

The blue screen popped back up, along with its numerous choices, letters, and buttons.

I couldn't say I missed it after all this time spent trying to choose a name and race, but here we were.

This time, there was a different message at the center of the screen.

Congratulations! You leveled up!

[Anthir - Lvl. 1] -> [Anthir - Lvl. 2]

Gained 6 Stat Points!

Nice, I leveled up. I would expect a bigger deal out of it, like some sort of light coming out of me, or a cool sound effect.

How should I distribute my stat points? I was not completely sure what each category represented, although some of them were more obvious than others. I also did not know how much of a difference would a stat increase make. Well, there was only one way to find out.

I used almost all of my points. I split them relatively evenly to experiment with all the options. I still kept one for later though, to use it on whichever stat would be most beneficial.

I added +2 on Agility, this was already one of my strongest stats and I needed to play to my strengths. I supposed it would help me move and strike faster and hopefully dodge some hits easier — perfect both for offense and defense.

+1 on Strength. There is not much of a point in hitting someone if you cannot even scratch them, is there? I needed to get stronger so my next fight would not end up like when I fought that hog — a point in strength seemed like the right choice.

+1 on Wisdom. This should be related to magic in some way. I did not know if there was indeed magic in this world, and if there was, I did not know how it worked, but I would be better off if I was able to use it than if I couldn't.

+1 on Perception. I had no idea what this was, but it felt like something that would prove to be useful in the future, and it was already relatively high. I decided to trust my instinct. Worst-case scenario, I just wasted a point. There should be way more coming — hopefully.

I pressed the 'submit' button, locking my decision, increasing my stats.

The moment I did, I felt a weird sensation in my mouth. Like I just ate the most delicious bowl of stew I had ever tasted. I wanted to gulp it down immediately and at the same time, I wanted to savor the taste for as long as I possibly could.

I ended up hungrily swallowing the broth. I felt the pungent, warm liquid going down my throat and from there to my stomach, warming up my whole body, giving me a sensation that I could only describe as euphoric, as I could not find the exact words to express that feeling.

Once the feeling faded away, I got up and focused on myself.

Name: Jinden

Race: [Anthir - Lvl. 2]

Class: None

Affinity: None

Attunement: None

Stats:

[Available Stat Points: 0]

[Vitality]: 8

[Strength]: 9

[Endurance]: 9

[Wisdom]: 8

[Agility]: 11

[Perception]: 9

Skills:

[Identify]: Lvl. 1

I swiped the semi-transparent screen away and concentrated, trying to figure out if there were any differences between me and my Level 1 self.

I was not expecting it at first, but there actually were some visible improvements.

My movement was faster, my steps quicker and lighter, almost as if I was wearing ankle weights before and I had just decided to take them off.

The effect on my punches felt massive. They had increased in speed and they felt more crisp and accurate, which gave me back some of the confidence I lost during the fight with the boar — the points in Agility were definitely worth spending.

When it came to Strength, I could not tell if I actually was any stronger as I did not have something to test my strength on, but if the effect was half as good as what I got from my Agility points, I should be much stronger now. Plus, the added speed in my punches alone should make for a harder hit.

Wisdom was interesting, but lackluster. I could not understand it still. The only difference I felt from adding a point in Wisdom was that I could now actually feel my blood pumping from my heart and flowing through my veins. I could feel it going from my chest to my head, coming down to my fingers and from there travelling to my legs and feet, only to come back up to the heart again. If anything, it was an annoying sensation which I would soon get used to — I should not have added a point there.

Finally, perception was so and so. Like having your favorite food for dinner but you cooked it yesterday — good, but could be better.

Adding a point in this made me see the world clearer and notice details I was completely ignoring up until that point. Almost as if I suddenly put HD glasses on. The hog that the Elven girl defeated earlier had a bad, fresh wound on the bottom side of its neck. One that I could have taken advantage of, but I was too blind to see.

The Elven girl herself was keeping a seathed small dagger on her left hip. Was that the only weapon she was keeping on herself? At least it was definitely better than no weapon and she didn't need to use it so far anyway. Hopefully, this would not change anytime soon.

Satisfied with my new stats, I sat back down with a big smile on my face.

"You still have more notifications left," the girl said. "Your eye is still orange."

"I don't, I just checked them all"

"So your eyes are naturally like that? Wow, that's weird."

My eyes were like what? It did not dawn to me up until that point, but I did not know what I looked like. Apparently, my eyes were somehow weird. This did not make me feel great, but eyes don't play a part in winning fights — do they?

In the end, I decided to ignore the comment.

"As I said earlier, I'm Jinden. What is your name?"

"My name is Guen," she replied while pouring some more of whatever she was drinking from her flask into her bowl.

I used [Identify] on her to see if she was telling the truth, but the only thing I got was

[Guen - Elf - Lvl. 9]

Wow! Level 9? I knew she was strong, but I did not expect her to be such high level. I guess I'm lucky she decided I am not an enemy.

"You know I can feel it when you do that, right?" She said referring to me using my [Identify] skill.

"Now I do," I replied.

"Listen," she said, "it's obvious that you just spawned here — either that or you are extremely dumb. Definitely an unlucky place to start, you can't possibly make it out of the forest in your currently state — it's too dangerous. Go to sleep and tomorrow we will start your training. Don't expect much, I'll teach you the basics and I'm out. I just don't want you to die here knowing I could prevent it. Got it?"

"Got it."

I lay down next to the orange flames, that were still dancing as if there was music playing all this time. The noise of the burning wood, along with the soft touch of the wind, were singing the most peaceful lullaby, but I still could not get myself to sleep. I was too excited for the day that would come. I would finally be able to really test myself and learn how to utilize my new body. The faster I grew, the faster I would be able to face him.

I started counting stars on the now-black sky.

Tomorrow was going to be a great day.