I had barely enough time to process that the thing in front of me was probably some kind of dog monster before it went on the attack. A brown blur shot towards me, immediately followed by a dull pain. I spasmed a bit at the sudden stimulation as I was sent flying. It must have probably attacked me with its paws or something and seeing how much bigger it was than me, the power was more than enough to make me lose my grip on the ground. I had barely enough time to reorient myself after landing and the beast was already barreling towards me again.

Panicking, I did the only thing I could think of, which was to activate my skills. The process of activating skills was a weird sensation. It didn't feel right to call it a normal body function, as the skill seemed to almost take over my body movements for a bit, maybe to ensure it activated properly? As I activated Compress, I could feel my whole body locking up, and it felt like my surface area got maybe halved by this action. Immediately after, I activate Lethal Poison Mucus Armor, which caused whatever produced my mucus to go into overdrive. I almost felt like I got covered in a cocoon of Mucus. Thankfully I reacted fast enough, and by the time the dog thing got to me, both were already fully deployed.

What followed were a few more sweeps by the dog, which had pathetically little effect compared to his first attack. Not only didn't I feel any pain from his swipes, he seemed to slip off my mucus, which took off even more of the force he put behind his attacks. Apparently, its intelligence wasn't too high either, because the next thing it tried to do was get at me with his teeth. Big mistake buddy! I was somewhat afraid of what the razor-sharp teeth in his mouth might do to me for a second, but it'd seem like my worries were unfounded. The pressure on my body increased for sure, but it failed to do any meaningful damage to me as the combination of my skills protected me. There was no notification or anything, but I was probably safe to assume that this thing was now lethally poisoned, since it basically ingested some of my mucus.

Apart from that, I got the feeling that my defensive capabilities were amazing. This thing was using me as a chew toy, yet here I was, unmovable and taking zero damage. it would seem like heavily investing into my defense was the right call to make, especially since Compress doubled it. It didn't take long for the dog's movements to slow down a bit, maybe it was slowly realizing that it fucked up somehow. The attacks got slower and lacked the power needed to even so much as scratch me, and I felt safe to test out my other skill. Unsure of how this would go, I activated Lethal Poison Shot. I felt like some of my energy was drained away, which was probably my mana being sapped in order to activate the skill. Curiously enough, the skill conjured a blob of poison over my head, instead of being generated within me. I suppose that means that this is more of a spell, instead of a skill.

Contrary to the generation of the poison, the aiming and shooting was left up to me, which proved a bit difficult. I was just lamenting the fact that I could barely see what I was aiming at, when the stupid mutt went for another bite attack. Dude just swallowed the blob of poison without me having to actually shoot it. And it seemed to have a more immediate effect as well, compared to my poison mucus. While I didn't hear it, the blurry movements I could spy were associated with retching. Maybe he was puking his gut out right now. Whatever it was doing, it was most likely not fun at all.

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You have killed a Lv. 3 Monster Hyena

You have been awarded 20(40) XP

You have been awarded 3 Data Points

You have leveled up!

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Sure enough, the poison did its job in the end. I slowly relaxed my body, letting go of my active skills. This monster was only two levels higher than me, but most likely a Tier 1 creature, so it should theoretically have little to no problems killing a slug like me. But all the rewards I got from the system apparently made it possible for me to compete at this level. Seeing as how little damage I took throughout this entire altercation, I maybe had even more defense than a Tier 1 monster was supposed to have.

Having survived my first encounter calmed my nerves down immensely, even if I was still shaken by the experience. Slug I may be, but survival was possible, even with all of the odds stacked against me. Content with how well this battle went, I checked out the rewards I got from leveling up, which turned out to be a single attribute point. If that was how all my future levels would be rewarded or if there were variations depending on the level reached, I would have to find out. As my constitution seemed to be more than high enough, for now, I threw this point into Intelligence in order to make my poison stronger. With the system window closed once again, I was faced with the body of the Monster Hyena I just killed.

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I'm going to have to eat it... right?

I seriously doubted there was somebody selling fruits and vegetables around here, which made the only source of food other monsters. I'd eventually have to check out the water situation, but for now, eating my kills seemed to be my only avenue of filling my belly. I'd just have to assume that the slugs in this world weren't herbivores like they were back on earth. So I slowly made my way over to the collapsed hyena, positioning my mouth over it and getting ready to eat. This felt really fucked up, but my slug body was getting hungry, and I didn't just want to starve myself to death because I didn't want to eat. Still, this was uncooked meat I was about to dig into, and my human mind struggled with the concept.

Eventually, I got over my trepidation and went for a bite. I actually struggled a bit with biting through the hide of the Hyena, but after some time I succeeded in biting off a little piece of flesh, which I gulped down. There were thousands of tiny teeth in my mouth which shredded the food into a paste, which eventually went into my stomach. Surprisingly, it didn't taste like anything at all. I suppose slugs just don't have any taste buds in their mouth. Feeling less disgusted now, I dug into the hyena with abandon. My sluggy body was hungry, and I would eat my fill!

A weird urge overtook my mind and I just mindlessly chomped away at the dead monster. Gone were my reservations about eating raw monster, and I ate and ate away. The blood of the hyena served to sate my thirst as I became absolutely drenched in the stuff. And just as suddenly as my feeding frenzy started, it ended, leaving me as a confused and slightly terrified slug.

Before me was a half-eaten hyena corpse. Did I do that? It looked like I ate several times my own body weight. Where did it all go? Was this some weird slug thing or some weird monster thing? And most of all, why did I enter such a mindless state while eating? It was as if something just completely took over and made me act on my feelings of hunger against my will. Well, I did want to eat, sure... but not like that. Was there maybe some sort of primal instinct mixed in with the knowledge I received from the system?

If that was the case, I'd need to be careful in the future. Losing my mind like this and ignoring my surroundings was dangerous. I could be ambushed at any point while eating, and if I didn't have the presence of mind to take a defensive stance, I'd be in heaps of trouble.

I took another blurry look at the half-eaten corpse before me, wondering what I should do with the rest. Should I just leave it here for another monster to take? Or could I potentially even use the remains as part of a trap to lure in other monsters? Would I get credit for the kill if I poisoned the leftovers and something died from eating it? Now there's a thought!

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You have received 1 Data Point from consuming your kill.

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Or I could just eat the rest myself and find out if I could get another point if I ate the entire thing! While the poison experiment was important to figure out, I wanted to know more about this whole Data Point business. Right now I couldn't access the P2W shop, but I could still collect the currency for it. If I could find ways to farm it, I might be able to buy some nice things once I finally got to use it. Which brings me to another experiment idea!

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You have stored Hyena Remains in the inventory.

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Yes! I watched in awe as the dead monster in front of me seemingly disintegrated into blue wisps, which entered my body. Eager to see, I opened my inventory with a mental command. Sure enough, in the first slot was a little image of the hyena remains. I finally had something in my inventory! The simple fact that I could store dead bodies like this meant that I wouldn't have to worry too much about food in the future. Then, I played around some more with my inventory, discovering several things about it in the process.

I could move my stored things to whatever inventory slot I wanted, there was a sorting system, as well as a search function that I hadn't noticed before. Both of these would come in handy once my inventory filled up. I found out how to take something out of my inventory, as well as how to put it in a specific slot when putting it back in. Thank you system, very convenient!

Once again, I was too absorbed playing around with my fancy new toys, that I almost didn't notice the monster approaching from behind. The first thing I noticed was the vibrations from the floor, caused by something walking towards me at a brisk pace. Apparently, I was pretty sensitive to these things, as I could tell where the vibrations came from. I turned my eyes behind me in a flash, seeing another brown blur dashing towards me. I couldn't be entirely sure, but it looked like another hyena, an even bigger one than the one I just killed.

Not wasting any time, I immediately activated my skills. Compress and Lethal Poison Mucus Armor, go! Once again, my whole body seized up as my defense shot up, and not a second too late, as the Hyena was upon me. I experienced a deja-vu as the same battle repeated itself. Lots of useless paw swipes and biting. This time I even used a Lethal Poison Shot pretty much immediately, without firing it off. Sure enough, this mutt was just as dumb as the first one and ate it whole. I cackled madly in my mind, sure of my victory already, when I noticed a weird glow coming from the Hyena's mouth. I only had a brief moment to consider what this meant, before it chomped down on me once again.

And then, everything was pain.