I woke up in the morning looking around at the leftovers from the campfire. I slowly stood up and checked the wolf's status and he was indeed slowly healing.
***
-Young Wild Wolf Lv10-
Experience: 45/100
Health: 8/40
Mana: 4/4
Stamina: 18/18
Status: Weakened(Extreme), Sick(Mild), Symbiosis
***
“Good, sooner or later you will get better, the sickness has almost gone away too, I guess after a day or two it will be gone and the healing rate will increase.” I said to myself as I stood up, picked up my spear, and started to head out of the hideout.
At first, I walked by the traps to see if I caught something but of course, I didn't. Two of the traps were broken as well and their bait was eaten by a very smart small monster or by the monsters that were roaming in the night.
I didn’t know who but I didn’t really care either, as I still had a lot of bait left. After that, I thought about exploring a little bit and looking around for more healing herbs and remedies but they were really hard to find.
I started to walk west from our hideout, now the wolf's body condition was better but it was still not perfect, so I was careful shooting my detection skill in every direction where I could while sniffing once in a while through the wolf's nose. After walking for over fifteen minutes I found a river and across it, I saw a deer with huge antlers drinking from the water.
It reminded me of the deer I saw in the wolf’s dream, it stopped drinking and looked at me, “Oh looks like it discovered me.” I said but still continued to look at it as not only was it on the other side of the river it was still far away.
But damn I didn’t expect it to open its mouth and smile while showing me rows of rows of sharp teeth in the process. I felt my back turn cold as I felt sweat form there. “What the actual fuck, weren’t deers herbivores? Why do they need so many sharp teeth…” I slowly backed off as I continued to have eye contact with the deer, and just as I lost contact with it I booked it out of there.
“Not coming back to the river until I am fully healed!” I swore to myself with a tinge of fear.
As I came back I did a small detour to look around a little bit more and found a big Gravis stone that I chose to carry back with me, it was quite sharp and great for the next thing that I wanted to do. I picked more healing grass from the area and even found a flower with a healing regeneration weak effect.
*Sanatio Flower* - Found in grasslands, forests, and dungeons. The primary component in healing potions for alchemists still can be eaten raw but its healing effects will be diminished.
Rank: Uncommon
Status: Weak Healing
I wanted to run towards it but found it suspicious that it was growing on a small mound of dirt. I inspected it to be sure that it was safe, only to discover that it was a boar.
***
-Opertus Wild Boar Lv9-
Health: 41/41
Mana: 9/9
Stamina: 13/15
Status: Olfactory Camouflaged, Camouflaged
***
I immediately stopped at my feet and thought to myself, “Is it only me, or the monsters in this area are a lot stronger than where I was at first.” I inspected *Olfactory Camouflaged* status as I wasn’t sure what it was.
*Olfactory Camouflaged* - Smell camouflage, used mostly by monsters for ambush or escape.
“Oh, this is why I couldn’t smell it, interesting how did it camouflage its smell?” I took a big sniff and immediately became disgusted as the smell of feces assaulted my nose.
After shaking my head for a while, suddenly a light bulb went off in my head and a big smile appeared on my imaginary face as I looked at the mound again.
“Ah, what was better than an unmoving target.” I said with a smile but after checking my mana I shook my head and told myself that I will return.
“Don’t run too far my sweet sweet prey.” I smiled as I remembered the smell of the flower so I would be able to find it once more when I come back looking for the boar.
I walked straight back to the hideout, feeling a little bit dejected as I had so many opportunities for getting treasures but I was just too weak or injured to get them.
I looked at the wolf and patted its head, “Come on little guy, get healthy soon, so we can enjoy all the tasty things together. I am going to make a barbeque for that pig and then I will go and get the huge fruit too!” I imagined myself feasting and saliva filled our mouth, but then something hit me.
“Wait, I can use that, can't I?...” I thought for a moment, I immediately went east from our hideout to the field of flowers.
As I came closer to it the sounds of birds vanished and an eerie feeling assaulted me, I even started to smell the tasty fruit once more, but I shook my head and easily cleared my thoughts as I was prepared for it.
“How many poor beasts have died because of this field.” I asked myself as once more I understood how dangerous this field was.
As I came closer to it I started to feel the wolf's body going a little bit numb, but it was just a smidge it was because I was really focused on my senses. I came closer to the flowers and started picking a few of them with my roots making my best to hold as much distance as possible from the field.
“Will five of them be enough?” I asked myself, not really sure how much I needed and how much I can carry without them affecting me or the wolf. I didn’t want to risk it so I picked only five for now, “It's alright I can always return for more.” I said to myself and wrapped the five flowers tightly in a big leaf that I took from one of the trees on my way here.
“I really need to create another backpack, damn it, I need to start crafting better items too. Like a spiky shield and maybe even armor.” I thought to myself of all the possibilities and imagined myself riding the wolf with full plate armor.
“Well, that's for later…” I said and started to move faster back to my hideout.
As I came back to the hideout I found out that I didn’t feel the numbness through the wolf's body anymore, “I guess the effect works only because of the quantity of the flowers in the field, a small amount like this wouldn’t be able to release so much of the poison. This is good, this means I can take a few more of them next time.” I smiled and went through the tunnel back to our hideout.
I came inside and dropped a few of the items I collected, a few big leaves from a tree, the five flowers inside a leaf, three more branches for spears, and one big sharp Gravis stone.
I looked around the cave and found another smooth stone there. I chose it to be my dangerous material area so I wouldn’t contaminate the food and medicine that I am producing.
I placed the flowers gently on the stone and started examining them. I remembered that from my last inspection, the poison was located in the pollen but I doubted that it was only there.
I cut one flower into a few pieces, the petals, the stalk, and the head of the flower where the pollen was located. I took one of the petals and grinded it with a stone, not much juice came out of it and when I smelt it, I didn’t feel any numbness either.
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“Interesting, it has quite a pleasant smell, you can make great perfume from these flowers.” I said to myself and continued with my tests. I grinded the stalk into a paste and smelled it too, and after a few moments felt numbness in the wolf's body.
“There is some paralyzing agent here, but it's not that strong.” I imagined a lab coat and glasses on me when I said that.
Then I went to the flower head. I knew that there was poison in the pollen but I doubted that it was its source. So I removed all the pollen I could to a leaf and moved it to the side then I crushed the head and made it into a paste.
A sweet smell immediately assaulted my senses. With it, I felt a feeling of numbness through the wolf's whole body.
“Jackpot, most of the poison is located here, so I don’t really need all the other parts.” I smiled and continued to grind all the other flower heads into fine paste removing the petals and steam in the process so the poison will be more potent.
After that I went to make a few more spears with that I had four in total, I found out that I didn’t have enough poison to coat all of the spears so I chose to coat only two of them. I tied two big leaves with the paste to the spear's heads and left them like that for the night so the poison would seep into their heads.
“Soon someone is going to have a nasty surprise.” I looked at the spears with an evil grin.
Then I chose to call it a day, make a campfire and eat some mushrooms and leftover Mungo fruits. But just before going to sleep, I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if the wolf got a *Paralyze Resistance* skill?”
I went back to the hazard table and picked up the stalks and petals of the flowers that I threw out, placed them into a leaf, and brought them to the campfire. I picked one stalk with my roots and gave it a lick, a few moments passed and our tongue became numb.
“I mustn't overdo it as there is a confusion poison in them too, but eating a few of them shouldn’t be a problem.” I said as I gave the stalk a bite and ate it. After waiting for a minute or so a feeling of numbness spread through my body, and with it, I felt a little bit lightheaded too.
“Hmm, I think I can eat at least two more of them.” And so I did, after a few more minutes the wolf's body became completely numb and it was really hard to move it. While at the same time, I felt my mind was sluggish.
“Thisss is great... I almost feel… As If I am tipsy…” I thought to myself as I went to sleep near the campfire.
***
The next day I woke up and checked our status.
***
*Self Awareness Status*
-Visavil Bush Lv3-
Experience: 56/60
Rarity: Uncommon
Health: 4/13
Mana: 39/44
Stamina: 11/11
***
-Young Wild Wolf Lv10-
Experience: 50/100
Health: 9/40
Mana: 4/4
Stamina: 18/18
Health regen: 1/day(-3)
Mana regen: 0.2/hour (-1)
Stamina regen: 1/hour (-2)
***
“Oh crap I lost one health point, well it doesn’t matter as I have my target already.” I said with a smile as I knew that soon I will get some health back and even eat some barbecued meat.
I went and picked up most of my spears, two poisoned and one normal spear. Leaving the hideout was a hassle like always with the long spears as I barely could go around the corners of the tunnel.
“I really need to make a normal entrance to this place.” I said to myself as I tried to squeeze out of the tunnel. It was still very narrow even after making it a little bit wider with the *Dig* skill, but on the other hand, if I make it wider once more there is the chance that monsters would enter it, or worse the monster that comes at night will make this place their hideout.
I went back to the place where I saw the wild boar and started looking for it, but of course, it wasn’t at the last location I saw it.
“It most likely relocated, good that I still remember its smell.” I started to sniff the air around the area, but even after looking for it for an hour I still couldn’t find it, until a sweet smell drifted in my direction.
“It's the smell of that healing flower!” I started to follow it and the closer I got the stronger it was, as well I started to smell the smell of feces that the boar was using as camouflage.
“Weird how I smelled the flower before the feces, it's like the better the items in this world the stronger they smell. Wait, does it mean that they taste better too?!” I threw out a theory and thought once more about that dragon stake I imagined even though I still didn’t know if there were really any dragons in this world.
Before I even noticed I was already in front of the mound, I wasn’t so sure how close to it I could come before the boar would try to ambush me so I started to make holes with the *Dig* skill, around ten meters away from the boar near a tree.
“It would have been awesome for me to use more spears and add them to the holes but I only have three of them. I guess I will use two spears with the poison immediately and leave the other one as a spare, while I add more obstacles for the boar as I know that they run in a straight line.” I went around the place and continued to add holes here and there while at the same time removing the dirt and creating dirt piles around the area.
All this my perspective was always on the mound of dirt with the flower. If the boar would move even a little bit it wouldn’t escape my notice and just when I started to dig my fifth hole is when the boar must have noticed me.
Or choose to act as he must likely notice me a long time ago when I started to dig the first hole. It wasn’t a surprise as even if I was going to use the *Stealth* skill there is no way it wouldn’t hear me digging out all of these holes.
The boar raised its head and slowly stood up while looking at me with an angry look. Dirt was slowly falling off him from the side but the dirt on his top wasn’t disturbed as if it was glued to his body.
“Hmm, it's white.” I said as I looked at the boar's white fur.
“This is why they camouflage themselves because they stick out as a sour thumb in this forest otherwise.” I understood that this monster most likely got their camouflage skill as the means for their survival in this forest.
As many thoughts ran through my head the boar raised its snot high in the air and released a strong squeal.
*Whhhheeeeeee!*
“Shit, it's going to charge.” I panicked and pulled out one of the poisoned spears ready, to defend myself from the upcoming charging attack, but to my surprise not only the pig wasn’t charging at me, it was even running away from me.
“Eh?” I said as I looked around the holes that I dug out for nothing.
“You bastard come here and fight me like a man! I mean pig!” I shouted and even used my new *Taunt* skill but it just ignored it and continued to run away.
“This mother fucker!” I started to run after him and even used the *Adrenaline Rush* skill of the wolf to close the distance between him and me.
I continued using the *Taunt* skill every moment I could but it didn’t faze him at all, as if his skin was just too thick metaphorically and literally.
“You dumb shit eater come back here!” I shouted through the *Soul Link* while using the *Taunt* at the same time.
*”Taunt” leveled up to Lv2*
*”Soul Link” leveled up to Lv2*
“Well, this is a great way to level up my Soul Link skill…” I felt a little bit bad that I was cursing left and right, but I chose not to take it to heart as it was for the greater good and the greater good was a pork barbecue.
“I wish your face would look like your ass that way at least you will be less horrible to look at!” I continued to shout out insults at the boar but no matter what it didn’t slow down.
Our distance did shorten as I was faster with the *Wooden Puppet* and the *Adrenaline Rush* skills but I couldn't keep using them for a long time and just as on cue the wolf started to slow down.
“Goddamit if this continues it will run away.” I thought about what to do but nothing came to my head then my gaze fell on the poison spears.
“I guess I am all in.” I took one of the poison spears in my right hand and started to aim at the boar's ass. I took a moment to get used to my running tempo and threw the spear. It flew perfectly but it went too high and missed the boar as it hit a tree.
As the boar saw a spear hit the tree in front of it, it panicked and changed direction and what was more surprising its movement became more unpredictable as if it knew that I was going to throw another spear at it.
“Did it get hunted before?” I asked with surprise and shook my head as I needed to focus.
“I didn’t want to do this but I guess I have to.” I took a big breath of air through the wolf's mouth and everything suddenly started to appear in a brighter color, while the boar's movement and even mine became a lot slower.
“Control it, control it, or else I will get consumed by it once more…” I whispered to myself again and again as I was using my *Magic Perception* skill to the max, even though I still had nightmares from the last time I did this I just couldn't miss this chance.
The lights around me became more and more vibrant as my view started to increase more and more, I started to be able to see all around from many points of my body and it was slowly overwhelming me.
“Shit shit, control, control… I need to focus, focus.” I looked at the spear that I was holding for a moment.
“Yes, I need to focus on the tip of the spear.” And just like that, my perspective moved to the hand, and from there all the other's views slowly disappeared and all I saw was the spear and the boar in front of me.
My wooden hand slowly moved forward and I threw the spear at the boar with everything I got.
*Woosh!* The spear flew forward in a straight line and hit perfectly at the left side of the lower back of the boar just above the leg.
*Squeeeee!* The boar released a screeching scream as the spears pierced into its flesh.
*”Magic Perception” leveled up to Lv5*
*Sub skill of *Magic Perception* skill learned “Focus Time”*
“Yes! I did it.” I shouted as and before I could react to the message that popped up in my head a tree suddenly entered my view and only one beautiful word could cross my mind at that moment, “Fuck…”
*Crash!* I saw a flash of light as I hit the tree head-first.