The next day when Bharat woke up, he decided to start his day on a much brighter note and finally go about creating an overpowered character out of himself. But that was apparently an oversimplification of his goals because when he finally got into thinking about what he should do, or what should be his starting point, he came up short.

The reason being, there was very little he actually knew about the system and how it worked. The explanation he received beforehand from his guide, and he used that term loosely, did absolutely jack shit in providing any worthwhile details. It was like reading a summary of a game without getting any hint about the plot or even the controls.

So, he decided to brainstorm for ideas according to what he understood till now of the ‘System’ and what he could draw from his experience reading the fantasy genre and playing games.

‘Let’s see if I can remember something useful from them. My memory is a bit blurry of the finer details, but I can recall several cliches that used to exist in almost every scenario.’, Bharat thought back to his past, and he could faintly recall some of the famous troupes that were popular among different genres out there.

The first thing that immediately jumped to his mind was the concept of classes, which was the main method by which powerful abilities were gained but he tossed that option out of his head because there was no hint of classes on his status page, just a simple level indicator.

The next thing was the skills themselves, specifically skill books that were instantly absorbed and provided a powerful arsenal and much-needed firepower to characters. But he couldn’t do anything about it at this moment.

Sure, this new world had skill books, or rather ability scrolls as they were called, and they could be absorbed too but he had no way of knowing how to obtain more ability scrolls in this forest, specifically combat-related ones.

Then there was the fact that even if by chance he came upon a powerful ability scroll in these woods, there was a chance that he could not even use it till he gets more levels under his belt. That purple scroll in his possession was a big example of that.

“Why don’t I try to create my own skill?”

Standing up with an excited expression, he raised his hands with palms facing the cave wall, face set into a mask of intense concentration, and focussed with all his mind, with an image in his head of what he wanted.

“fireball!”

…

He felt a tinge of embarrassment but knowing that no one was here to watch his cringy moment, he continued with his attempts.

“Water blast!”

“Wind bullet!”

“Lightening blast!”

“Rasengan!”

“Fucking do something at least!!”

He fell back to the ground exhausted after shouting every magic attack that came to his mind and feeling dejected that nothing worked. ‘It appears learning magic isn’t going to be this simple.’

He thought this would solve most of his immediate problems as in most books, magic was powered by intent. But in retrospect, he should’ve thought that this would be too easy and too obvious.

If that was the actual way to learning magic in the ‘System’, there would be no point to all of this. He could likely create a blizzard, freezing the whole forest, and he would just need sufficient mana.

‘Wait a minute. Mana…”

Recalling something else, he sat back down on the ground with crossed legs, closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling mana inside his body. Although he hasn’t meditated in his whole life, he at least knew the theory behind it. Somewhat.

He just had to relax and concentrate on the inner workings of his body. For example, how his body takes in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide back, the movements of his diaphragm with his breathing and some other things too.

So, he tried what he knew and looked for something in his body, which was the most common way that the concept of internal energies was depicted in fantasy settings. A warm flow of energy in his body pooling in his stomach or chest.

10 minutes…

30 minutes…

1 hour…

For two hours, he sat there, searching for the presence of mana inside his body. He had no experience regarding meditation, but he had a history of sticking with things he strongly believed with a tenacity rarely seen. So that’s why even though his body was getting stiff from sitting in that straight pose for two hours without any success, he sat there, searching for any hints of his mana.

But no matter how stubborn he was, he also had a limit to how much he could ignore the uncomfortable position of his. So, he decided to mark this option as a failure as well.

But just as he was about to exit his trance like state, he felt it.

It was only for an instant, but he felt a small amount of heat emerge in his belly. Before he could explore the feeling any further though, he broke out into a sweat and collapsed on his back, suddenly feeling exhausted beyond belief.

For a moment he thought that the silver of warmth he felt was something he imagined In his head, but a slight glance at his status dissuaded him from making such a conclusion.

Mana: 63/93

His mana dropped by 30 points in that one session. Sure, he couldn’t consider it a success by any means, it was just a decrease in points without any visible outcome, but the fact that it did change likely meant he did something right at least.

‘I think I should practise this exercise regularly and explore this energy a bit further. But the little amount of mana I have could be an issue.’, Bharat contemplated as he observed the drain on his mana.

He knew he could use his mana potion to solve this issue, but his meagre inventory of such precious resources made him hesitate walking that route. That was purely in case of emergencies and wasting such item for purely some extra training didn’t sit well with him.

So, he crossed out that option as well. The next best thing that he could think of was a weapon. A good weapon could help a lot in his opinion, something like a sharp sword. His encounter with the wolves the previous day would have played differently if he just had a good weapon on him. Hell, he might have gotten some progress towards the next level.

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But sadly, all he had on him was a crappy dagger that the system itself described as being crap. So, a good weapon was a necessity, until he can figure out how to get more skills at least.

All this thinking also made him realize just how unprepared he was to tackle this whole ‘survive in the forest with just clothes on his back’ thing. His 4 years of college didn’t prepare him for this ‘Mowgli’ life at all.

So, classes were out, mana needed further experimentation and his weapon archives were shameful to even consider in the list. That left the good ole method of ‘punching things until it worked’.

‘Stats’

Stats

+Strength: 13

+Perception: 10

+Endurance: 11

+Constitution: 8

+Intelligence: 10

+Agility: 8

+Luck: 3

Unspent Points: 1

One thing he noticed was that he could call individual interfaces with specific command instead of calling for ‘status’ that brings out the whole page. A nice way to not obstruct his vision every time he wanted to interact with the System.

His Strength stat was decent enough in comparison to other stats, at least he thinks it was. He would assume 10 was the basic average of any stat except luck if he considered his physique. Slightly bulky from when he used to exercise a bit in college and a 6’0’’ build, a bit of a beer belly from too many days sitting on a couch at home and a high-fat percentage.

All that likely contributed to his Strength vastly outclassing his other stats, agility as his lowest stat except luck and Constitution at its current value. he was a bit confused about Endurance though. It could mean immunity because as far as he could tell, he rarely if ever got sick even as a child, but that would be a very farfetched conclusion on his part.

Perception and Intelligence, two of the stats that were average, were a bit vague to allude to any single aspect so he left that for further experimentation.

In short, he only had to work on his agility among his combat-related stats and focus on purely stat increases for the time being. It was the only way forward he could see.

Finally feeling that he came to a brilliant conclusion he got up to work on it right away…

…and fell back down with a crash, his body still not recovered from his previous exhausted state.

‘Urgh, this is going to be so troublesome if this becomes a regular thing’, he wasn’t so thrilled about his earlier plans to practice his meditation daily anymore.

When he could finally move again without falling over, he decided to venture outside the cave to decide his next course of action. Firstly, he needed to wash his clothes as they were still dirty from yesterday, especially the pants which were starting to stink.

While he was taking a dip in the pond, with his clothes off to the side to dry, he noticed the intensity of light in the forest and thought it was probably around noon, or was it morning?

He had no fucking clue how the day-night cycle worked here or if it was even a thing. How long were the days exactly, and from there he went on a tangent thinking of useless things like time compression and only caught himself just as he was about to ask himself whether the defining features distinguishing male and female were the same here too or was it reverse?

He surprises himself with his thoughts sometimes.

Honestly, if he were to make a list of things that he didn’t know about his present situation then he would be sitting here for days without any actual progress.

So, he made a small vow to himself while sitting naked by the shore waiting for his clothes to dry, that he would just wing it as things came. The system may be limited in its guidance, but it did provide him with a goal of sorts that clearly told him to level up. Therefore, he would start there and think about other matters when he could wander these forests without fearing for his life.

After washing up, he got dressed up, grabbed his dagger from the cave and set out into the forest in search of some sweet-sweet experience, full of enthusiasm and self-confidence. But the farther he got from his ‘camp’ the less sure he became.

His strong strides turned into cautious steps and his confident gaze turned to a wary one, shifting from one end to another searching for even a tiny movement.

‘Focus Bharat! You can do this!’

He didn’t forget to leave some traces on his path, to help him return to the camp in case he gets lost in this forest, of which the chances were very high.

Finally, he came upon the sight of the first creature since he left the cave, which he found a bit weird as he couldn’t find any traces of small insects like mosquitos and beetles which were usually filled to the brim in forest areas. Not that he was complaining.

The beast in front of him looked like a bear from his world, but different from a normal bear, it sported dark violet fur on its 15-foot frame, more than double his height. It was currently sleeping against a tree in the clearing, its enormous frame tilting the tree slightly backwards, and the slight snores it made in its sleep echoed inside the clearing.

‘Appraise.’

<< Your Level is too far below the target. Attempt to Appraise can alert the target of your presence. Do you still wish to proceed?

Yes/No >>

‘Nope!’

No way was he going to ignore the clear warning given to him by the system.

So, he turned directions and starting his search once again. But other than the large bear he found, and a horde of wild boars that were also too high levelled for him, he couldn’t find any other monsters that he could kill. There were the wolves, but he was staying clear of that area for the foreseeable future.

The games and books made it look so easy in their stories. Step 1, get the system. Step 2, Kill some shit. Step 3, get insane ability and boom! Insta-OP character. But doing these things in real life scenario was a lot different than reading it somewhere, where most of the times, some of the finer details don’t get covered.

One other thing that was bugging him was that, for all that time that he was searching for prey in this godforsaken forest, he hasn’t encountered a single human being, nor any signs of one being there before. He remembered that Xena girl mentioned that the whole zone was to be transported to a single area for the training program.

Now if he considers the city in which he was in as a zone, then there was bound to be more survivors out here too right? Hell, he managed to survive by jumping into a manhole of all places and he wasn’t the farthest from the dragon’s location either.

‘Weird. Maybe their spawn points were chosen far from each other in order to promote individual capability?’, Bharat shrugged mentally to himself and didn’t get much further into it.

‘Argh! I can’t take this anymore! I’ve been roaming this forest for about 5 hours now and I still haven’t found a creature that I can take on. How am I supposed to level if everything around me is too high levelled for me to even think of appraising them, let alone actually fight?!’

Feeling dejected again for yet another failure, he decided to go back to his camp by retracing his steps. Looking down, he gazed at his stomach in pity, feeling sorry for its state. His stomach as if feeling his emotions let out a loud growl of protest at the injustice it was feeling for 2 and a half days.

‘It’s the longest period I’ve gone without food my whole life. I am going to start losing weight at this rate, which isn’t a bad thing now that I think abou-’, Bharat was interrupted in his thoughts and halted in his steps as he heard the rustling of bushes nearby. With great haste, he rushed to hide behind one of the larger trees in the area and cautiously looked at the place the sound was coming from.

The next moment, a small creature with dirty yellow fur, with height not likely reaching past his knees, exited the bushes a few feet ahead and entered his sight. With its short height, small stubby feet, long ears, and small beady eyes, it was undoubtedly a cute creature.

It was a rabbit.

But right now, it was something else in the eyes of Bharat when the results of his Appraisal finally turned something along with a notification from the system.

[Swift-foot Rabbit - Level 1]

*Ding*

<< New Species discovered. Additional bonuses will be provided Due to being the first from your World to discover them in this biome. >>

<< Name: Swift-foot Rabbit

Description: A species of peaceful and cute looking creature which roam these forests without care, with their only goal being not becoming food for others and eating berries. Known for their speed and slippery nature.

Remarks: Don’t even think about it you monster! >>

Bharat didn’t see the cuteness of the creature at all because only two words were echoing through his head.

‘Prey! Experience!!’

And another part of his mind also shouted in glee at this sight.

‘FOOD!!’

So, without further waiting, and without even bothering to care about things like strategy, he ran from his hiding spot with the dagger in his hand and pounced on the rabbit with a crazed and hungry look in his eyes, while letting out a war cry from his mouth.