Adam spent the next three weeks hunting. During that period, he never found a single Metarex, which safely killed his original assumption that they were common. He found many, many other equally and uniquely pants-shittingly terrifying things, though, so it wasn't exactly a relaxing vacation. He hunted and fought every single monster he found, trying to become stronger and learn how to use the powers he now had.

Throughout it all, Adam ended up learning how to fight properly. At least enough to survive. He had many close calls and more than a few injuries to show for it, but he would call it worthwhile nonetheless.

Along with fighting experience, he also gained levels. Quite a few, in fact, especially for Apprentice Hunter. Outsider's Body was slower to level by orders of magnitude, though his body stats had remained ahead. His gains also slowed dramatically over time, which he had been expecting. At the end of the third week, his stat sheet looked like this.

Name: Adam Mac Cuill (Unintentional Outsider*)

Mind: Apprentice Hunter

Tier: 1

Level: 47

Cognition: 20

Retention: 50

Inference: 85

Skills: 3/3

* Know the Unknown

* Advanced Stealth

* Tracking

* Gathering

Body: Outsider's Body

Tier: !@)I#(

Level: 20

Muscles: 110

Bones: 110

Organs: 110

Abilities: 2/10

* Unusual Attraction

* Form of Chaos

* Pass WIthout a Trace

Soul: N/A

Magics: 0/0

* Confined Chaos

He literally picked up the Gathering skill when he picked some berries. This time, he had been given the option to not accept the skill, which threw all his previous guesses about how power acquisition worked out the metaphorical window. Adam had given up figuring out the system's intricacies after a few days. He just didn't have enough of a sample size to tell anything for sure. He had decided to accept it since he wasn't looking for any specific skill from Apprentice Hunter.

His hunting had led him up along the river toward a mountain he had seen in the distance on his second day here. He was hoping that he would be able to see signs of civilization with the assistance of higher terrain. Climbing a tree had shown him that the only notable landmarks near him were the mountain and more forest, no towns or cities.

Adam hoped he wasn't alone on this world. He had no guarantees that there were people here. Climbing the mountain was more an act of desperation than something he thought would actually help. It was something to do instead of wandering aimlessly until he died.

The trip paid off, as near the base of the mountain, Adam found something he had actually been looking for.

ROAR!

"What's up, big guy? Having a nice snack?" Adam stared at the Metarex that had just finished trying to blow out his eardrums. He could feel the fear and pain from his last encounter sitting in the back of his mind. It was just barely being overshadowed by determination and his growing excitement for fighting. At this point, Adam was thoroughly addicted to the rush of a life-threatening do-or-die battle.

The Metarex in question was in a clearing much like the one he had met his first Metarex in. Being closer to the mountain, this clearing had more of a slope, along with a few small, rocky outcroppings scattered throughout that Adam hoped would limit the giant dinosaur's mobility. It was chowing down on a group of four Deerdritches, one of them hanging partially eaten from its mouth. Adam had actually found that the freaky tentacle deers traveled in groups more often than not.

Adam flexed his claws, ready to extend a scythe at the right moment. Initially, he had begun most fights with both blades already extended, which turned out to be a mistake. The fully extended arms were obviously meant for a much larger creature, and Adam found that they cut into his mobility enough to cause several unnecessary injuries.

Now, he left the Mantid arms in their collapsed form until he was ready to strike. He was crouched low and at an angle, waiting for the Metarex to make the first move. He could see it tensing, getting ready to attack. Unlike Adam's last encounter, he felt like he could almost tell what was going to happen before the Metarex even moved. His mind chewed up all the information he could see, working through every aspect of the dinosaur's metal body to predict its first attack. He knew that he would die if he couldn't dodge that first lunge.

The fight began.

The Metarex lunged forward, jaws wide, aiming to bite Adam in half. It was blazing fast, faster than him. But he was already moving before it started, making a dive below its body as those foot-long teeth passed over his head by scant inches. He didn't come through unscathed. The sharp metal spikes all over the Metarex's body raked along his back, carving into him right through his clothes.

Now under the monster's belly, Adam extended a scythe and swung in the same motion, the arm blurring forward and carving through a metallic leg, right above the ankle.

With a pained roar, the Metarex listed to the side without the support of one of its massive hind legs. It was fully extended into its lunge and could correct its momentum.

The problem was, now it was falling on Adam, and the momentum of his swing threatened to pull him right under several tons of metal-coated dinosaur butt.

Quickly, Adam extended his other scythe and swung back, away from the collapsing Metarex. Leaning into the force of the swing, he fell out from under the monster just as it slammed into the ground, completely prone.

Well, mostly.

"Fuck!" Adam screamed. One of his feet hadn't made it all the way and was now being crushed and stabbed by the metal spikes. Retracting one arm, Adam used it to push himself upright to swing with his other arm into the side of the Metarex, hoping to cut his leg free. The force of the swing twisted his body and moved the crushed appendage, sending searing, mind-melting pain shooting up his leg.

It also caused the Metarex, still alive, to groan out in pain and kick its one good leg, which lifted its body enough for Adam to pull his foot out. He scrambled away to avoid getting crushed if it tried to roll. Looking at the massive creature, it wouldn't be moving any time soon. All the strength and speed it could bring to bear came from its gigantic hind legs. Without one, it became immediately unbalanced and lost all mobility.

Adam dug a scythe into the ground and used it to lever himself up. Then he leaned on it like a crutch. His foot was a bloody mess, contained in a completely fixed boot. Limping awkwardly and painfully, he made his way to the head. Along the way, he watched the Metarex struggling to move, shaking its head and kicking its legs, wriggling around.

"You, my friend, look extremely ridiculous. Having a big head and little arms makes it pretty hard to get up, huh?" He almost pitied the thing. Almost. It had crushed his foot and shredded his back.

With a swing, Adam put it out of its misery.

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In far too much pain to worry about his levels, Adam started opening portals. One each for the foot, head, and torso. Then he opened another directly under himself and fell into Confined Chaos.

Out of all his powers, Adam had learned the most about this one. For instance, He could open as many portals as he wanted, but he had to keep track of them. If he wasn't constantly thinking about a portal, it closed. Also, he couldn't open more portals from inside Confined Chaos, but ones that were already opened remained so.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Adam relaxed. Now that he was in Confined Chaos, he was floating, and all the weight was off his wrecked foot. He wasn't worried about anything following him in here. Living things had an aversion to the portals and wouldn't enter them.

He made his way over to a massive four-poster bed floating in the ever-shifting expanse, making sure to keep track of his growing portals. Along the way, he passed by piles of random things that had been changed from monster corpses, as well as several glowing balls of pseudo-stuff that hadn't finished. The time it took seemed random to him. After all, even three weeks later, that first Metarex corpse still wasn't done.

He grabbed a few hotdogs from his magical hotdog cooker as he went and settled into the bed with a groan of relief. This bed was one of the reasons he was alive right now.

Lavish Regeneration Bed: Transfigured by the magic of Confined Chaos from the corpse of a Living Oak. You don't need a bacta tank with this baby. A good night's rest in this bad boy, and you'll be good as new, no floating in weird blue water in a diaper required.

The Living Oak had been a hell of a fight. It was basically and ent, but a lot more down with murder than its Tolkein counterpart. Every time Adam cut off a limb, it would just put down roots and grow it back. It took him nearly an hour of constantly pruning the thing to wear out whatever powered that insane regeneration. During that time, it almost took his head off with swings from its big tree trunk arms. Now it had lovely soft forest green covers with big fluffy pillows that fixed all his injuries.

Getting comfortable, Adam took a bite from a hotdog and pulled up his notifications.

Congratulations! You have Leveled up (4)

Congratulations! You have Leveled up (1)

Those he had expected, though the gains were great compared to what he was getting from other monsters now. He was down to killing multiple things to get one level in most cases.

Congratulations! Apprentice Hunter has met the conditions to advance

Congratulations! You have an ability available to incorporate

"Damn." Adam wasn't sure which he was more excited about. Ever since he saw the tier section of his stat sheet, he figured classes could change tiers. He had been waiting for Apprentice Hunter to hit this mark for a while, and he was curious to see how exactly it worked.

On the other hand, he hadn't been offered a new ability since he picked up Pass Without a Trace. Several skills had come up after Gathering, but none of them had interested him, so he just stuck with what he had. It made him curious about what exactly he would get, especially since his abilities were far and away better than his skills.

"Ah, screw it, this should be quicker to get through."

Form of Order:

You have used one weapon from Form of Chaos to slay 50 creatures without changing.

You can store up to 3 weapons from Form of Chaos to change to at will.

"Oh, holy shit!" Adam could accept fast enough. Once he had, he immediately opened the menu.

Form of Order:

Order arrives from Chaos.

* Mantid Arms

"Yes!" For the first time in three weeks, Adam shifted his arms back to normal. "Oh, yes yes yes! Holy shit have I missed you!" Adam said, kissing his hands, flexing his fingers, clapping, snapping, and performing random gestures.

"I. Have. Fingers!" He shouted into the void. He floated out of the bed and over to his pile of gas station food, which he had barely made a dent in, and quickly opened up a soda, downing it so fast he almost choked.

"Manual dexterity is so underrated. Claws suck." He wiped tears from his eyes. Adam had been staring at all the packaged food items for weeks. Every time he tried to open something, his claws cut straight through it, shredding the food inside. The same went for the drinks. He had been drinking river water until now. He could only eat the hotdogs and taquitos because he could just stab them and eat them off a claw.

He spent a while opening a few bags of various junk food and eating a little of everything, just for the hell of it. He had just completed a major milestone he had been building toward with minimal injuries. Adam wouldn't have been surprised to come out of that fight missing a limb, or in the Metarex's belly. The new ability was just Icing on the cake of an amazing day.

When he was done, that is to say, when he was too full to continue, Adam made his way back over to the bed and settled in. By that point, all the Metarex bits had fallen into their portals, so he closed them down and left only the bare minimum open. It turned out that Adam couldn't shut himself in Confined Chaos completely.

When he stopped trying to maintain all the portals completely, one would remain open that was roughly the diameter of a pencil. As it was, it gave him a portable base that was essentially unbreachable to sleep and eat in, which had gone a long way to saving his nerves after spending every day surrounded by stuff that fully intended to kill and eat him.

Before he could go to sleep, he had to finish his class advancement. The new ability had thoroughly distracted him, but he hadn't forgotten.

Congratulations! You have chosen to advance Apprentice Hunter to tier 2! You have earned the advancement(s) Hunter, Slayer, Ghost, Stalker, Slaughterer.

Warning! Please note that some advancements will remove certain incompatible skills.

"Ok, we have options. Hunter is basic, probably not that. Ghost sounds cool, but that's probably stealth-based. Since Pass Without a Trace has me covered on that front, pass." Adam dismissed the two. "Now, Slayer, Stalker, and Slaughterer. What's the difference between Slayer and Slaughterer? Also, Stalker? Really? I'm not some creeper in need of a restraining order. How did I even get that?"

Stalker:

You have followed a creature without it noticing you for more than 10 hours. This class focuses on stealth and observation with minimal combat ability.

Upon acceptance:

Cognition+5

Retention+15

Inference+25

Skill+2

Every 5 levels:

Cognition+2

Retention+5

Inference+10

"Oh, I forgot that happened." A week ago, Adam had followed an Archneko, which was a hybrid cat-spider that was a lot cuter than that sounds, for an entire day to see what it did. "Also, why the heck is this description way more helpful? All the previous hardly said anything to describe how the class worked."

Adam sighed in frustration. He kept running into inconsistencies that he had no explanation for. The inconsistency made making informed, reasonable decisions even more difficult than they already were. After three weeks of this, he was thoroughly fed up with this system, even though it gave him magic superpowers and a really comfy bed.

Without a way to get better information, Adam dumped Stalker. He wasn't looking for stealth. That left the two most promising options.

Slayer:

You have killed every creature you have hunted, letting none escape. This class forgoes all other aspects of the hunt to focus on the kill.

Upon acceptance:

Cognition+30

Retention+20

Inference+20

Skill+5

Every Level

Cognition+1

Every 5 levels

Cognition+3

Retention+5

Inference+5

Slaughterer:

You have killed more than twenty creatures in under 10 minutes. This class forgoes all other aspects of the hunt to focus on the kill.

Upon Acceptance:

Cognition+30

Retention+20

Inference+20

Skill+5

Every Level

Cognition+1

Every 5 levels

Cognition+3

Retention+5

Inference+5

"Well, shit." Both had the exact same stat spread. They even had the same class note. "Well, I guess it's just down to name then. I'm sure they're different, but it's not like I can tell."

Congratulations! You have accepted the advancement: Slayer.