Mindless hunting is meant for those who crossed the line, that single Dandralith, not anyone who can provide XP. Sure he will level up much faster by creating some grey lines, but how many grey lines?

Won’t one lead to another, and before the line is erased, can one distinguish one line from another?

The idea of dropping super hacks into luck might seem much, but when a slight shift in luck can flip the coin to life from death, then each point holds an extra life. This still didn’t mean Tetsu was going to test his actual three lives provided by the system.

No sir, never.

After consoling his stomach with half-truths and forcing himself to sleep, Tetsu dreamt of his family and a juicy steak encircling him slowly, and—Tetsu jerks awake and erupts out of the ground with a huge centipede around his body.

He screams like a little girl, high-pitched and rasped voice, kicks the centipede away, and runs to safety.

The centipede lands with a thud, shifts its weight around, and taps the floor in a pattern with every pair of legs.

From a solid state, the land transforms into a semi-liquid state, as the centipede swims around on the solid floor and disappears, diving deeper.

“Enough earth mana can do that!” Tetsu exclaims. “Wow.” His interest in earth mana increased exponentially. “I also need to find new hiding spots.”

Tetsu catches his breath and heads off in the direction of possible meat. Along the way, he created ru’nic formations and relied on normal tracking to find the tiger’s dead body. With an insufficient database, 'RR' skill could not place a mark on the tiger, and now Tetsu did the hunt or scavenge the old-fashioned way.

Broken branches there, claw marks here, a part of the missing forest!

“Where the fuck did you go?” *Tetsu gaped at a vast crater, created by pure magic.

There weren’t any scorch marks or any signs of battle near the crater. Someone or something snapped a part of the forest out of existence, like scooping out a perfect crater in ice cream.

The crater measured around thirty yards wide and twenty yards deep, and it sat ten yards beside his sleeping hole. An explosion or whatever that can cause such a vast crater can’t be done without any commotion.

‘A skill?’ Tetsu ponders over the only plausible explanation, stirring an unsettling feeling inside his gut.

Another weakness of Tenco Ten is the long-range and mid-range attack. If skills can snap an attack from anywhere, Tenco Ten requires a serious upgrade. Otherwise, things were going to get really dicey.

“If I... eh!” Tetsu screams with his mouth shut.

Being able to use wisps of mana to tag objects can solve all his problems, yet the finished puzzle made no sense.

“I need more practice.” Tetsu makes a fist of determination and his stomach growls. “Before that, I need sustenance, it seems! Where is that shadowy tiger?”

He wished the tiger wasn’t anywhere near the crater.

Splitting his attention into different aspects, Tetsu focused on tracking his next meal and pondered about bonds.

Tetsu calls it selling one’s soul.

“Seriously! What’s the point of power if you can’t do what you want? The notion sounds preposterous, but who trusts a third party, a government, to handle the issue? Many factors already divide humans. If the human race goes against any hive mind, we will be wiped out.”

Tetsu rethinks the approach, agrees, and disagrees with himself until he has an epiphany. “Ah-ah! Bonds are set in place to make sure other species, like the human race, behave. I mean, I wouldn’t blame them.” Tetsu had to acknowledge the genius idea behind the notion.

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With mana in the mix, contracts, or bonds, have serious consequences. One order from the president and America will be great again. A Dictator on the seat and humans will become a hive community.

Kile and Tetsu always debated about such a topic. In this particular one, Tetsu never agreed with Kile.

Individuals make humanity great. A single individual born out of a million is enough to conquer every hive. A born leader or warrior. Our individuality makes us great.

A leader can win us the war, one soldier can reignite our hope, one movement can get us justice, and a single enemy can reunite all of us.

We are complicated creatures, to say the least. When ‘We’ are threatened, we unite, and after ‘We’ win—we fight amongst ourselves.

Kile still preferred the hive mind, and if we had to face him, humanity would be wiped out. For a brief moment, he switched his memory and relived the view of the horizon. Each spark emanates a bridge to travel and discover its secrets. A hope that there remained a slight chance of a brand new world—if he wasn’t in a mental institute, that is.

The world went through another big bang. A new start where one can attain perfect balance or utter chaos, and Tetsu wanted to build a little haven for himself. A place that can protect his people, which can defend against an army of Kile, and a place that the world will come to know of as his home.

To build such a place, he would have to explore and attain everything the world had to offer, starting with some tiger meat.

These thoughts clogged Tetsu’s mind as he found a mangled corpse and partied inward.

Tetsu bowed after he realized how idiotic and disrespectful the action was. “Sorry for your loss. I shall make sure your energy is converted to the right place.” His stomach grumbles and Tetsu hushed it. “Pay your respects first.” He takes a deep bow and prepares for a feast.

Tetsu lost his delicate sense of taste. From having a tongue that can tell you the recipe with a lick, to gouging anything the stomach won’t reject.

This math felt very wrong and he had to fix his hunger and sleeping issues before advancing his level any further.

Since Tetsu leveled up and used more mana or any of the three basic powers, a pit opened up in his stomach. Skill stretched said pit into the abyss and level four only worsen this state.

At this rate, Tetsu will require four large buffaloes just to walk around at level ten, or one level ten buffalo.

With ‘Razor edge,’ skill over his limbs, and fangs, Tetsu cuts the branches. He did not want to rely on any weapon to strengthen him. As with proper training, his body can turn into a weapon. There also lay a possibility of dropping the weapon, someone else using it against him, restrictions from the Artificer class, and many other factors which made Tetsu stick to strengthening his body.

The aspect of godhood is tempting, but one has to survive first to dream big, and by only understanding his mortal shell can he shed it.

Two birds, one stone.

The aspect of slapping someone to ribbons also helped motivate him.

From a certain X-Men fan, he shifted to using the skill over his entire body. The longer the range, the better, and he required to be flexible in his skills to decode their secrets.

Building a fire helped with creating, controlling, and nurturing his fire affinity, and the smoke stored in various charcoal shards went into traps or safety stashes.

His hunger left no part of the beast to convert into clothing. Not that one can find anything left after an intense mana battle, but his fangs even dug into bones like butter.

This proved another theory of his. After the body is disconnected from mana, it becomes weaker, much like any construct imbued without mana.

Halfway through devouring the tiger, Tetsu remembers and uses info on the beast. The level-four Shadow tiger opened up more doubts in Tetsu’s mind and stomach.

Beasts are strong by default and with an added bond… “Lucky I survived.” Tetsu nods, agreeing with himself. “I also know how to use luck now. I think?”

The thing that bothered him the most were other beasts leaving their hunt behind. Did they evolve over conventional ways and now survive through consuming mana, or did they somehow continuously maintain a flow of vital energy?

He wasn’t complaining about free food, but the idea of not having to eat or sleep meant lesser time wasted on daily uneventful chores and more chances of surviving and exploring.

“Huh!” Tetsu looks up with a face full of meat. “I forgot. I need another safe house.” He buries his face back into the half cooked meat.

A similar level beast worked wonders over his increased appetite. Tetsu assumed the condensed amount of mana increases in a shell/meat of the user as they level, so a lower beats didn’t satisfy the stomach anymore, while a higher or same level meat worked wonders.

He still expected to figure out the vital rotation technique to survive. Otherwise he might end up hunting gods to satisfy his hunger.

“Ah!” Another puzzle fits in place. “Poor Crimsonfae.” He tsked, shaking his head.

Scanning the area, Tetsu asked his intuition which direction appeared safer and ignored the suggestion, heading in the opposite direction.

Years of experience with his intuition and Tetsu learned to never trust it.

Kile made a workaround for him or rather made him figure out a better solution.

By not following his intuition, Tetsu used reverse psychology or reverse magic to find the best route. Quite a genius move if he says so himself, but little did he know things worked quite differently in the system.

Tetsu met a hydra—freak out, a badger that killed a hydra—freaked out more, and later found the badger dead from poison which blew his freak-out meter to smithereens as he knelt and accepted fate.

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