I immediately threw three more small dry leaves into the flame, they caught on fire easily and the fire started to spread. After waiting a little bit I started to throw twigs into it too, then when the fire became even bigger I took the pile and flipped it over.

Then I came closer to it and started to flap my hands in front of the fire like an idiot yet again. The flame became stronger and stronger, but I didn’t know that when I flipped the pile a few leaves fell on top of my body.

An annoying itching feeling came from the top of my leaves, but I thought it was just because my leaves dried up a little bit from the heat. Then the itching became really painful and I screamed from pain, “Ah! What in hell?!”

I moved my view up and saw smoke coming out of my upper body, “I am on fire!” I fell on the floor and started to roll in the dirt till the flames were extinguished. I stood up on my feet and said with a scared face, “I should have seen this coming…”

Meanwhile, the pile of leaves and twigs was already burning strongly. This time I didn't dare to approach it, I took two broken spears that were laying nearby and pushed the pile into the hole with their help.

“Cook well you little shits!” I screamed at the rats that were in the disposal room while peeking inside. Of course, they couldn't hear me but at least it calmed my heart. Inside the room the rats started to panic while running around the flames, the fire grew bigger and bigger while spreading on the piles that were under it.

Suddenly the white rat gave out a screech on one of the other rats, I could swear that the face of the gray rat became gloomy and full of hesitation. But the rat screeched again and pushed the gray rat right into the flames, to my surprise the rat didn't try to escape the fire but tried to extinguish it with its body instead.

I was in shock, it was totally unexpected not only the rats didn't try to escape, the white rat even “commanded” the other rat to a suicidal action. Strong cries of pain came from the rat while the fire size was slowly getting smaller.

I saw that and immediately shouted, “Not today!” While picking up one of the spare Gravis spears that I made just in case.

I threw the spear with full force at the rat, it flew with a whistling sound and hit the rat right on the head. The spear pierced the rat’s skull as it released a weak cry and wiggled a little bit in the fire, its suffering didn't last for long, it fell onto the floor and laid there without movement.

*Experience reached the desired quantity “Visavil bush” leveled up to Lv2*

*”Throwing” leveled up to Lv2*

“Nice shot.” I said while looking at the other two rats, while reaching for another spear, I only had two more of the spare spears left. The flames slowly started to spread again, when the white rat saw the flames grow it gave me a weird look and immediately gave out a disgusting screech from its mouth.

*Sccrrreeee!!!*

The last gray rat looked at the white rat for a second and started to run to the exit, while the white rat followed it, “Trying to escape? Don’t worry but that won’t be possible.” The entrance was blocked and surely they will slowly die because of the smoke, so I didn’t worry much but just in case I still went to the exit of the disposal room and grabbed the spiked shield that I prepared before that.

I was standing above the room entrance and watched if the door was holding on, you could hear scratching coming from the door and you even could see the door shake a little, but the rats weren’t strong enough to break the door. So without much worry, I started to lower the heavy shield that I held in my hands, the shield was quite big so I had to hold it with both of my hands and it was really tiring.

Just as I lowered the shield I heard something weird, I immediately raised the shield back and shouted, “Those bastards!” Dirt and small rocks started to fly out from the wall near the door, those bastards started to dig through it. “They are much smarter than I thought.”

I came right above the area where the rat was digging and waited for the right moment, with crushing sounds the wall fell and a dusty cloud was formed. From the dust, I saw the gray rat running at full speed, without even a moment of hesitation I grabbed the shield tightly with both of my hands and made a jump of faith right on top of the rat.

The spikes of the shield immediately penetrated the rat’s flesh and blood started to gush out of its wounds, the force was so strong that the spikes went right through until the end, the rat didn’t even have time to make a cry and just died at the spot. I inspected it to be sure and confirmed its death.

I tried to stand up but then something hit me from behind, it sent me flying to the spear barricade, it caught me off guard so I had no time to react to it. The broken spears penetrated into me without much resistance, but of course, I didn’t get any damage from them.

I moved my view to the culprit, and of course, it was the white rat. It stood there and looked around a little confused as if it re-examined its surroundings and didn’t remember the barricade around here before.

“Looks like I will need to deal with you personally, *Self Awareness* inspect *dead rat*!” I checked my status to see how heavy were my injuries and at the same time to see if the rat was injured as well.

***

*Self Awareness Status*

-Visavil Bush Lv2-

Experience: 34/45

Rarity: Uncommon

Health: 10/12

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

Mana: 28/37

Stamina: 7/8

Health regen: 1.2/week

Mana regen: 3.8/hour

Stamina regen: 1.65/hour

Race: Berry Bush

Status: Intelligent(Unique), Shadow Mark

***

-Dust Rat Lv6-

Health: 14/23

Mana: 3/6

Stamina: 13/13

Status: Variant, Burn(weak), Weakened(mild)

***

“Huh? The rat leveled up, but it didn’t kill anything so how?” The level of the rat raised but I didn’t know why that filled my head with questions.

“Right now it doesn't matter, the rat is hurt, and with the help of the spears that are scattered around I can take it out.” I moved my body and started to get off the spears.

You would ask yourself why would I endanger myself like that and the answer is really simple, to get combat experience. I can’t continue being weak and miserable. I needed to start growing stronger and to start fighting a weak rat is a great opportunity for that.

The rat looked at me with a surprised look of, “You survived that?” And just like that I answered, “Don’t worry something weak like this won’t kill me.” I grabbed one of the undamaged spears that were located in the barricade and pulled it out of the ground.

Then I used my *Grow* skill to grow another layer of armor around my branches, it made me look a little bigger and much more stronger than before. “Here I come!” I screamed at the rat as I jumped in its direction.

The rat easily dodged the spear thrust and bit me on the hand, I felt a piercing pain going through my hand but it wasn’t as terrible as I expected it to be, “Looks like the armor is working.” I said as I took some distance from the rat.

I looked at it and thought to myself, “The rat is really smart, it's best if I don’t hold any punches against it.”

I backed a little more and pulled a broken spear out of the ground and with a flung off my hand I threw it at the rat, the rat saw the spear flying right at it and made a fast dodge to the right, but that’s exactly what I wanted.

I jumped at the rat again with the spear but this time I didn’t thrust the spear, I made a circular attack instead. The rat didn’t expect the weird attack that came from the left and tried to back off and escape its range but found itself blocked by the spears’ barricade.

The spear hit the rat and pushed it onto the barricade, wounds could be seen forming on the rat but the wounds weren’t that deep. As the rat was stuck with the spear a mighty voice ranged inside my head.

*Skill learned “Lesser Spear Mastery”*

I lost focus for a moment because of the skill-learning message and the rat had fled my grasp to the side. There wasn't a lot of space in this trap but it was enough for us to battle. The rat understood that it was in a difficult spot so it immediately used its trump card.

It looked straight at me and released a strong disgusting screech. With it a white aura circle flew towards me, I immediately took a stance of defense while pointing the spear at the rat and waiting for its attack.

The circle passed through my body but nothing happened and the rat just looked at me with a confused stare and didn’t move from its original spot. The awkward stare continued for a few moments, then the rat released another disgusting cry from its mouth, but yet again nothing happened as the aura circle passed through me as if a cloud of smoke.

I looked at it with a confused look and asked, “What the hell are you trying to do?”

But this time I didn’t wait to discover that and took the initiative and attacked. The rat still was confused and exhausted from using that skill twice but when it saw me coming at it again, it immediately dodged the spear and rushed straight at me.

A smile formed on my imaginary face as I said, “Big mistake.” I activated my *Wood Element Control* skill and the *Grow* skill together, this time I grew small branches from the layers of wooden armor and made them sharp with the wood element control skill.

*Skill “Thorns” derived from “Grow” and “Wood Element Control”*

The mighty voice sounded in my head again but this time I remained focused and collided with the rat with full strength. As our bodies collided, wounds started to appear on the rat's body because the thorns pierced its flesh, but the rat still tried to scratch me with its claws.

But every time its claws met with my thorny body, blood could be seen dripping from them, but the rat didn't stop as if it didn’t care.

The rat's attacks and its movements were getting slower, “Looks like it’s going to be over soon.” I said as I saw the rat huffing because of its injuries. I released the thorns out of my body and hit the rat with my fist, it was already weak so it easily fell onto the floor while rolling in pain.

I came closer to it and said, “Game over.” As I released my roots and inserted them into the rat’s wounds, the rat released a painful cry and tried to struggle but it didn’t have the strength.

I used my *Lifesteal* skill at the rat and the familiar feeling of pleasure came rushing through my roots. “And now the winner will take its prize.” I mumbled as I enjoyed the hot life force that was gushing through my body.

The enjoyment didn’t last long, suddenly the feeling of dread and death fell upon me again exactly like the last few times, as if the god of death itself was present near me. I flinched for a second but didn’t panic immediately like last time. I understood that this terrible feeling was coming only when I was “eating” and till now it didn’t really harm me in any way.

So with a calm mind, I stopped the *Lifesteal* skill and started to focus only on this weird feeling, not fearing it at all. A few moments passed but I still couldn’t understand where this weird feeling was coming from, as I tried to focus more and more something weird started to happen. In my view, white lines of light started to appear and disappear one after another.

It baffled me for a moment, so I tried to focus on those lines a little more, and to my surprise, their number started to increase. More lines of light started to appear and disappear as if creating an old static image of a TV screen and on that image, I saw a silhouette. I immediately understood that the creepy feeling was coming from this silhouette.

“This thing was the culprit of all these nightmares.” This thing was giving off the disgusting aura of death that was making me uneasy.

I continued to increase my focus to make the picture clearer, just to understand what I was dealing with. Slowly the picture was getting clearer and clearer, in a flash the image became clear enough for me to understand the culprit's looks, and just like that the image was gone.

*Experience reached the desired quantity “Visavil bush” leveled up to Lv3*

I was standing there in shock and couldn’t move for a while, I started to mumble to myself some nonsense, “What… But… It's...” I looked at the white dead rat and saw my roots still inside its body, while the rat's eyes were fully opened and staring straight at me with fear, even after its death you still could see fear embedded in its expression.

A few minutes passed and I shook my head as I asked myself one question, “Why did I see myself in that image?”