Grace seemed happy that Levi was joining them for dinner.

"I'm glad I made so much extra," Grace said with a smile. "And it's been a long time since I've cooked something like this." Her eyes were bright with excitement.

"Oh yeah, what're we eating?" Joe said, tossing his gear next to his seat by the fire. He'd clearly gotten over his guilt about Grace feeding him.

"Squirrel, rice, and gravy with a side of poke sallet."

Levi couldn't help but laugh out loud.

After all, he hadn't had either of those since he'd been a kid, and it had always sounded like something a witch would cook even way back then.

Joe, on the other hand, seemed uncertain. "Uh... squirrel?"

"Yeah, I traded David for three he'd killed today. He's turning out to be a decent hunter." When Joe still looked concerned, Grace got a little snappy.

"Oh, don't be picky, or you can stick to the rations. We can't keep eating the eggs if we want chickens next year, and we're waiting until someone knows how to properly preserve meat before we slaughter any livestock. The council had a long discussion about it today."

Joe nodded but didn't look much more comfortable about eating squirrel.

Levi plopped himself onto a stool, still grinning, and Grace turned her gaze to him, "And the same goes for you if you want to get snobby about my cooking."

"Not at all, I'm looking forward to it. I haven't had squirrel or poke sallet since I was a kid. Thank you in advance for dinner."

Grace beamed at that.

"Wait, you've eaten squirrel before?" Joe asked.

"Sure. You must not originally be from the country. Actually, I ate it a lot growing up. My stepdad's family were kind of backwoods people. Once, they even took me out of school for two weeks when squirrel season started to just camp out in the woods and hunt squirrel."

Levi decided to leave out the part where they'd actually only pulled him out of school so no one would see his bruises, or that it was one of the few things he could even remember from his 2nd and 3rd grade years.

"And what the hell is poke salad?" Joe asked.

Levi caught Grace's eye and smiled. "Poke sallet. It's just a dish made from a local weed. Pokeweed. It's good, as long as it's made right."

Grace decided to busy herself making their plates so Joe didn't see her smirk.

-----

Paige would've killed to eat squirrel.

Point of fact, she was actively trying to kill to eat rabbit.

And she was hungry. Her stomach felt like it was eating her from the inside.

But, she was hopeful. She had found rabbits. Two of them had made their way into a clearing she'd scouted out near some heavy underbrush. Unfortunately, she'd gotten a little too excited and immediately sprinted to catch them.

She'd barely moved ten feet before both rabbits had made it out of sight.

Instead of discouraging her, Paige had been pumped by that. It was only the first day of three, and she had at least found a couple of rabbits. She was sure she would definitely be able to catch one by the end of the third day.

Rather than try to wear herself out, she'd decided to call it a night and rest, happy with her progress and certain she'd succeed. She thought she may even be able to catch one the next day.

She'd never gathered sleeping gear like Levi had, but sleeping in the woods hadn't bothered her so far. So Paige found a tree to lay under, used her pack as a pillow, and fell asleep.

The crows had woken Paige before dawn, so she could hunt in the early dawn light. She made her way to where she'd seen the two rabbits the day prior. Crouching in the dark, she got as close to the undergrowth as possible and climbed a small tree, staying close enough to the ground that she could jump.

As soon as the rabbits emerged and came within distance, she'd jump and get one. She was sure.

Her stomach constantly protested, and she couldn't remember ever feeling so empty, but she was determined to tough it out. She'd eat as soon as she succeeded.

Unfortunately, no rabbits came. After the sun was well overhead and the day was starting to warm up, Paige finally realized the rabbits were gone. She'd probably scared them off completely the day before. Or they smelled her in the area and wouldn't come back until she left.

She climbed down out of her perch and decided to rethink things.

She was on the right track. She knew she was. But she'd have to find more rabbits. Also, if she scared those off before catching them, she'd just end up needing to find more after that.

On another note, she had leveled up and was almost to level 3. She'd been close to level 2 when she'd started due to the interaction with the crows, but her experience had piled up over the day before.

She hadn't received any skills or abilities from level up, but her Mental Strength had gone up from 4 to 5. She wasn't sure if the stat increase was random or based on her actions. The truth was she didn't really notice a difference, either.

She pulled up her experience log to check where the points were coming from.

Most of it seemed to be coming from her attempt at hunting, but there were five entries of interactions with the bobcat throughout the day. That was confusing because she hadn't interacted with the bobcat at all since their first conversation. Was it watching her?

Deciding it was pointless to worry about it, she closed out the experience log and opened her map to scout a new hunting ground.

After a moment, she'd found some promising areas and was off again. Though she didn't feel like she needed to sneak, because she likely wouldn't see a rabbit until evening anyway, she made every step precise and as quiet as possible.

She figured she had plenty of time, and there was always a chance she could get lucky.

It was obvious she was getting better at sneaking through the forest, too. More and more often, she'd find herself within throwing distance of a squirrel or a small bird before it noticed her presence.

However, the real reward came later, as she descended into a creekbed. This one had a small but swift flowing stream, which she planned on using to refill a waterpouch. Paige knew it probably wasn't the safest thing, and she should probably boil it, but fast flowing water was usually decently safe and she had healing potions, so she was going to take the risk.

However, she saw movement in the corner of her eye and froze. She slowly crouched and turned her head to see what had caught her attention.

A doe and her fawn stood downstream at the edge of the creek, drinking.

Paige's heart pounded in her chest, and a smile spread across her face. It felt amazing being so close to the deer and watching them. They were close enough that a hunter could easily shoot one with a bow.

She watched them for a few minutes before a breeze blew at her back. It must have caught her scent and alerted the deer because the doe looked up, suddenly spooked, and both her and her fawn tore off through the woods, white tails raised high in alert.

-Ding. Skill Aquired: Basic Sneaking.

-Ding. You have reached level 3.

Paige quickly checked her status sheet and saw that her Mental Proficiency had gone up from 3 to 4.

Nice. She was definitely going to catch her damned rabbit.

_____

"So, you get a couple levels today? Most guys got at least one the first day," Joe asked as Levi was throwing on his pack and getting ready to leave Grace's camp.

"Fuck me... I completely forgot that I get no experience inside the safezone." Levi really could kick himself in the ass. He'd gotten skills for Basic Grappler and Basic Pugalist, resetting his Parched Soul debuff another 12 hours, but he hadn't even considered the experience he was missing out on.

"Oh shit. That didn't even cross my mind. So the entire day was wasted?" Joe asked.

"I wouldn't consider it wasted. I picked up a couple skills. But... I didn't get any experience today at all. I'm still 10 or so experience from level 2."

Joe considered for a moment. After some thought, he seemed to come to a decision. "Well, that's not going to work. But the pits aren't that far from the edge of the safezone. I bet I could get some of the guys to help me set up a pit out there. That way you can get some experience.'

"That seems like a lot of work just for me," Levi answered.

"To be fair, it isn't all for you. We'd discussed potentially needing more room. We'd just planned to keep it toward the inside of the safezone. But who knows, maybe there will be people with restrictions similar to yours, and they'll have a place to spar."

"I still appreciate the consideration," Levi said, extending a handshake to Joe. "Either way, I'll see you tomorrow."

Joe shook Levi's hand and gave him a nod.

-----

Levi was a lot more upset about the loss of experience than he had let on. He stewed on it as he made his way back to his camp. As tired as he was, his work for the day wasn't even finished.

Arriving back at his spot in the edge of the woods, he dropped his pack and got a fire going. After the fire was bright enough to see well enough, he began his practice of Tai Chi.

As he started moving through the slow sets, his mind couldn't help but wander to his lack of experience from the day and the fact that he still had meditation to practice. He also thought about Paige and the fact that he hadn't seen her. He hadn't gotten to apologize yet, and that was eating at him.

He refocused on his form. He needed to stay focused to practice properly. But he realized something as his focus shifted back to his form. It hadn't slipped at all.

Every move he was making was still perfect. Immaculate, even. His skill at work.

It gave him an idea.

Restarting the slow sets, he focused on his meditation training. His body, though not in a complete state of relaxation, immediately felt right for the next step of meditation. With his skill moving Levi through the slow sets of Tai Chi almost on autopilot, his mind was able to find the energies inside himself.

He felt at least three, though he didn't understand what any of them were.

One of the energies felt completely passive. It felt like it hung aimlessly within him.

Another felt like it stirred as his body moved, clinging to his muscles as they tensed and released as they relaxed. He thought this was probably stamina. At least, that was his best guess, and he couldn't think of anything else it could be.

The other energy was far harder to understand. It was everywhere, even saturating and possibly feeding into the energy of the other two.

Having only a vague notion of one of the energies, Levi began trying to manipulate it.

As his muscles tensed and relaxed meticulously in the forms, he tried to deliberately infuse the energy he assumed was stamina into the muscles as they tensed.

This had been the concept he'd had in his mind from the moment he began learning the slow sets again. To be able to deliberately infuse energy into every strike. He didn't make much progress, but at least he was on is way to learning something he'd been excited about for a while.

After he had finished, he was completely exhausted. He wanted to keep going but knew his body and mind were toast. He could barely think straight. Feeling his stamina was low, he even pulled up the exact numbers of his health, stamina, and mana.

Health: 139/150

Stamina: 13/165

Mana: 163/165

Where his mana had gone was a mystery, but his stamina and health made absolute sense. Maybe he'd accidently wasted some mana while he was messing around with his energies?

Giving up for the night, but feeling optimistic about his progress, Levi committed himself to push his training further the next day.