Jason poked the broken corpse of the Grothlit curiously. The creature was fascinating on so many different levels. On the one hand, the thing’s skin was rough and scaly, not unlike that of a reptile. Its hide was stretched taut over the familiar bulges of muscle and bone. The single deep gouge in its back also leaked a greenish-blue blood. Strange, but still not entirely unheard of in the animal kingdom.

That was where the similarities to earthen creatures ended. The Grothlit had bilateral symmetry along its primary axis but no clear front or back. There was no face or even a mouth of any sort on its main body. Even when flipped onto its back, there was no obvious hole where food could be taken in or waste expunged.

The thing also had insect-like legs on its underside, but they were spaced haphazardly, completely ignoring the bilateral symmetry visible on the back of the creature. The lack of a clear bone structure made this only more confusing. On earth, regardless of how many joints a limb had, a single creature usually shared that number of joints in all their limbs. It was simply a quirk of how DNA functioned. The Grothlit, however, threw all this out the window with every appendage containing anywhere from two to four joints that didn’t even necessarily bend in the same way.

It was...fascinating. And utterly unique.

Jason suppressed the elation and curiosity, burning a hole in his gut. This whole thing was traumatizing enough without freaking out Corinne by smiling like a loon.

“Is your health fully recovered?” Corinne asked softly from the side.

Jason glanced at her and stood, flicking open his status to check.

————————————————————

Jason Mendel

Level: 2

————————————————————

Strength 12

Constitution 12

Dexterity 11

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 10

Unspent Stat Points 0

————————————————————

Health : 100% |█████████████████████████| 48/48

Stamina : 89% |██████████████████████▁▁▁| 40/45

Mana : 100% |█████████████████████████| 40/40

————————————————————

Skills:

- [Regeneration] [1] Grants permanent health recovery.

————————————————————

It was all laid bare. He — and also Corinne — started with 40 health, stamina and mana, and 10 in all the attributes. His chosen skill, [Regeneration], was listed with a level, which implied that the skill, like him, could improve with use. It pointed to a game system of sorts that was both familiar and impossible in equal measure.

Jason couldn’t wait to learn more about its intricacies.

He’d placed his five stat points into strength, constitution, and dexterity as a test to see what the stat points did. The three stats did precisely as described, making him feel stronger and faster as he’d invested points into them. The stats also had a secondary effect of increasing his resources by a small amount. Strength increased health by one. Constitution increased health by three and stamina by one. While Dexterity increased stamina by three.

Corinne had chosen [Spike] as her skill and had therefore invested her five points into wisdom and intelligence. Doing so revealed that mana increased by three for each point in wisdom, and one for every point in intelligence. Presumably, the stats also increased the power of her spell, but they hadn’t tested that yet.

But the opportunity was coming up. They were ready to explore the cave system with [Regeneration] fully healing him after several minutes of idling.

“Still no signal,” Corinne said, slipping her phone into a small, stretchy pocket.

Jason nodded and advanced down the far tunnel, dragging the heavy chair behind him. Corinne followed a half step behind. The tunnel they traversed suddenly opened up to an identical vast chamber. Immediately upon entry, they spotted a pair of Grothlits undulating around the numerous stalagmites. For a brief second, both parties froze.

The Grothlits charged.

“I got the left one!” Corinne shouted. “[Spike]!”

Jason cracked his neck as a spire of stone erupted from underneath the far Grothlit and impaled it through its fragile underside. He dismissed it in favor of focusing on the other charging beast. He raised his chair, noting how his stats made it feel lighter, and then threw it down.

The Grothlit chittered as the chair broke two of the six appendages and skidded off its back. It lunged, lifting its underside to claw at him, but he hopped back to avoid the swarming claws.

Jason stepped in before the creature could recover and let fly a powerful right hook. The attack connected, bruising the soft underside. The shivering claws scraped on his arm, and he winced but ignored the pain and trusted in [Regeneration] to protect him.

He stepped closer, unleashing a flurry of punches and kicks that broke the creature in seconds.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

‘ding!’ ‘Your party has slain a lvl 3 Grothlit. Experience awarded’

'ding!' 'Congratulations! You have learned the skill [Stab Resistance]: You have been impaled repeatedly by a Grothlit's claws. Your body hardens and grows more resilient against such attacks in the future’

'ding!' '[Stab Resistance] has reached level 1'

Jason grinned as he dismissed the notifications and turned to the other Grothlit. It was pinned between two materialized stone spikes. Claws scraped on stone, cracking the thin protrusions of stone and slowly freeing itself. Jason rushed closer and hurled a haymaker to finish the creature off.

Just as his fist landed, a stone spike erupted from under the ground. Jason flinched, pulling his punch as the stone spear narrowly missed impaling him as it tore through the monster.

‘ding!’ ‘Your party has slain a lvl 4 Grothlit. Experience awarded’

'ding!' 'Congratulations! Your level has increased to 3. 5 stat points awarded'

“Oh shit! Did I hit you?” Corinne said, running up to his side.

“Nah, It’s all good. You just missed me.”

“Thank goodness,” Corinne said, watching the thin cuts on Jason’s forearms slowly close over. “I still can’t believe how quickly you heal.

“It is impressive, isn’t it. Like, the system isn't just improving my clotting factor. There is something deeper going on under the surface.”

Corinne grunted, tucking a stray strand behind her ear. “That went well, but we should really come up with a better strategy to avoid me hitting you. This feels like a game, but friendly fire is definitely on.”

“What do you have in mind?” Jason replied. He looked around the chamber, but it seemed like a carbon copy of the previous room. Just a whole lot of stalagmites and stalactites with two dark tunnels leading onward.

“My spikes don’t seem very strong, but they are good at locking them down,” Corinne said, joining him in his cursory examination of the chamber. “So, how about I focus on keeping them away from you, and you focus on getting the kills. I’ll try not to spike any of them that are close to you, but if you want me to do that, just call out.”

“Seems good enough for me,” Jason nodded, and they continued. As they walked, Jason allocated all of his stat points into constitution. Damage didn’t seem to be an issue, especially with Corinne with him, and with [Regeneration] constantly healing him, it was the best way to ensure he could survive a dogpile.

'ding!' 'You have invested 5 points into Constitution'

Health : 83% |█████████████████████▁▁▁▁| 52/63

He grinned as his maximum health shot up, now even more confident for the next challenge.

The pair waited again for Jason’s health to recover fully and moved on. The next room had only a single Grothlit, but at level 7, it took significantly longer to take down. Jason’s massive health pool easily handled the few hits he had to tank, and their new strategy of locking down the monster made the battle trivial.

‘ding!’ ‘Your party has slain a lvl 7 Grothlit. Experience awarded’

'ding!' '[Regeneration] has reached level 2'

'ding!' '[Stab Resistance] has reached level 2'

Abruptly, Jason felt all his wounds tighten. [Regeneration] pulsed in the base of his stomach, releasing tingling fuzziness across his body as its power seemingly doubled. Jason let out a soft sigh as he embraced the lovingly warm sensation. Then he grinned and focused back on the tunnels.

There was a branch in the path, and they collectively decided to follow the left wall. The network of caves was eerily similar to a maze, and neither wanted to get lost in the monotonous caverns.

The next room was smaller but contained three large Grothlits that immediately focused on them. Jason rushed in to gather their aggression as stone spikes erupted from under their bodies.

Jason slammed into the first Grothlit with far less care than usual. His fists rained down a brutal, bone-breaking punishment, intent on removing one of their foes before the others reached him.

The monster tore into him as he disassembled it, but his massive lifepool combined with his Stab resistance meant that the damage the claws dealt was barely worth mentioning.

“It broke free!” Corinne shouted from behind, and Jason instantly disengaged from the first monster. It raced after him, ignoring its injuries as the second beast slammed into him from behind.

The flanking strike hit him hard, and he felt something tear in his mind.

Health : 65% |████████████████▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▒| 41/63

His life bar flashed before his eyes, but it was more than healthy enough. He dismissed the notification and tore off the Grothlit on his back. He roared, slamming the creature onto its friend before laying into both chittering beasts with powerful, measured kicks.

A notification sounded in his mind as Corinne’s Grothlit succumbed to her spikes, and he jumped back to let her switch focus. Her spikes swiftly claimed the lives of the two nearly-dead monsters.

Jason’s panting echoed in the chamber as he leaned wearily against a stalagmite.

“Are you okay?” Corinne asked again, stepping gingerly around the broken corpses and the growing pools of blood around them.

“Yeah,” Jason shot her a grin, then grimaced. “Mostly. I felt something strange during that fight. It was...Yeah, my health bar has a bit of gray on the right side of it.”

“Oh?” Corinne quirked a curious eyebrow at him. Her expression was cheerful, but Jason caught how she carefully scanned his cuts for serious injury. “I bet that’s some secret upgrade that you get by getting at least a thousand cuts in a single fight.”

“Maybe,” Jason replied, his eyes glued to his status. “I guess we’re waiting for my health to go back up again?”

“Mhmm,” Corinne hummed, leaning against a tall stalagmite. “Do you think this place has a boss monster?”

The conversation continued as they talked about their situation. It quickly diverted from their direct circumstances and moved on to more mundane, earthly worries. They kept coming back to whether they could get back home. And if they did, would the system stick around, or was all this just some strange hallucination.

It was nice, Jason found. He’d somehow never really interacted with Corinne before, though admittedly, Tyler had only met her three weeks ago.

Eventually, Jason’s health capped out two short of max.

Health : 97% |████████████████████████▒| 61/63

“I hope it's not permanent,” Jason eyed his health bar as if he could make it fully heal by glaring at it enough. His various injuries twinged as the magical healing granted by [Regeneration] failed to close them completely.

“Yeah,” Corinne mirrored his sentiment. Her hand touched a partially healed cut on Jason’s forearm. He pulled his hand back, and she let her hand drop. “Maybe it heals slower or something. Or maybe you need to sleep to get the gray health to go away.”

“Hopefully,” Jason nodded but couldn’t entirely banish the worry from his mind. He would have to be careful not to take too much damage in the future if it resulted in a permanent loss of maximum health.

The pair stood and continued to the next chamber. To their surprise, the tunnel abruptly ended in a slope leading down to a bowl-shaped cavern with a massive swirling white portal in the center. A single Grothlit was patrolling around it, but they barely noticed the beast, as even from this far away, they could easily see a blurry image of Jason’s living room.

“Holy shit, is that Tyler?” Corinne exclaimed. She fired off a spike at the Grothlit, then slid down the slope. Jason followed, quickly taking care of the lone monster with a few well placed punches.

‘ding!’ ‘Your party has slain a lvl 5 Grothlit. Experience awarded’

'ding!' 'Congratulations! Your level has increased to 4. 5 stat points awarded'

“It is Tyler!” Corinne called, standing before the portal. Jason joined her, squinting through the foggy, swirling substance and spotted his buff roommate.

Tyler was standing off to the side of the portal, bare-chested and with a horrified expression on his face. Bandages crisscrossed his bare chest, most of which were already fully saturated with blood. Dozens of minor cuts were visible around the larger, bandage-covered wounds.

He clutched his shredded t-shirt tightly around his left fist in a defensive position while his right held the cracked remains of a once white medkit. The box was covered in inky greenish ichor, and a massive crack extended down the length of the hardy plastic.

Curiously, he was standing perfectly still. Not even breathing. Nor was the single droplet of sweat visible on his brow moving.

“OH!” Corinne slapped her thigh, causing Jason to jump. “That’s what it meant by temporal rift. Look! Tyler's floating an inch off the ground! Holy shit, that’s insane.”

Jason couldn’t help prevent an incredulous grin from lifting his lips. He was seeing a time stop in person. What most likely had happened was all three of them had been sent to this temporal dimension, and what they were seeing now was the result. As in, Tyler had survived and stepped out of the portal, so they were seeing the moment where he had jumped out of the portal immortalized in time until they decided to step through the portal themselves.

“Wow, this is trippy,” Jason eventually said, unable to articulate how cool he found this entire situation. “Do you...Do you think it’s really a time stop, or do you think it is just an aggressive time acceleration on our end?”

“Who knows?” Corinne said, peering into the room. “Man, I can’t wait to take a shower!”

“Looks like this strange adventure of ours is coming to an end, Corinne.”

“You know? I can’t say I hated it.” Corinne took a step closer to the portal. A lock of blonde hair escaped from behind her ear as she reached up and touched the swirling portal. The portal washed over her hand like liquid metal. She turned and shot Jason a smile. “And call me Cory!”

With that, Cory jumped into the portal.