Perching on a nearby tree, I opened up my status menu. The previous fight gave me a lot of attributes to play with, just in time before the first wave began.

[Task #2 : Defend that gate. The wolf mother is planning to destroy the gate. A wave of enemies will strike the gate in 1 day. Defend the gate, or risk losing your only way out of here.]

One more day…

I debated putting some attribute points into my mind stat, since there was an actual use for it now, but with my current mana-pool, I should be able to use dark arsenal somewhat consistently. Who’d expect that having summon-able weapons ended up being as useful as it was? More options in combat were always welcome, no matter what kind of fighting style you have.

I put all 5 of my attributes to the physical stat, and allocated all 3 sub-attribute points into strength since I felt I was quick enough with my reactions at the current moment.

Player : Zane Black

Race : [G - HUMAN]

Level : 14

Health : 34/370

Stamina : 210/370

Mana : 64/140

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ATTRIBUTES

Physical [20] :

[Strength] - 40 [base : 20] [sub + achv :14] [equipment :5] [bonus 1% : 1]

[Dexterity] - 51 [base : 20] [sub + achv :26] [equipment : 2] [bonus 6% : 3]

[Constitution] - 32 [base : 20] [sub + achv : 11] [equipment :0] [bonus 1% : 1]

Mind [0] :

[Intelligence] - 9 [base : 0] [sub + achv : 8] [equipment :0] [bonus 1% : 1]

[Willpower] - 4 [base : 0] [sub + achv : 3] [equipment :0] [bonus 1% : 1]

[Capacity] - 9 [base : 0] [sub + achv : 8] [equipment :0] [bonus 1% : 1]

[Free Main Attribute points : 0 ]

[Free Sub Attribute points : 0 ]

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Classes :

[The coveted Shadow - epic (6)]

Skills :

[Daggers mastery - novice(1)] [Spear mastery - novice(6)] [Sword mastery - Novice(3)] [Dark arsenal - novice (5)] [Shadow step - epic]

Achievements :

[Death’s door(2)] [Big game hunter] [The first of many] [the trial seeker] [Mark of the elite]

Affinities :

[]

Talents :

[Innate sensory]

Giving the stat page another look, I smiled knowing that my current attributes were nothing like what it was a week ago. Although, I could do less with all the times that I was one inch away from dying.

The thrill of the fight and the pleasure of getting stronger was a feeling I’d never come across in the real world. Frankly speaking, a part of me was delighted that I was transported here. It was like I could truly live for the first time in my life.

Well, the change in my attitude could just be from my brain wiring itself to adapt to this kind of lifestyle, or it could be from the madness poison from the fight with the queen, but that theory has gone increasingly unlikely as the day passed.

No, I have to concede to the fact that I enjoyed fighting powerful things, and also, I loved that I was rewarded handsomely for winning.

Closing my status page, I gazed at the stars, wondering if I should return to the gate and say hello to the people there. It’d be nice to get to know them before we fight together. Also, I was confident enough that I could handle things in case we fought or some shitty shenanigans happened.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

[Task #2 - updated : Defend the gate. The wolf mother is planning to destroy the gate. A wave of enemies will strike the gate in : 23 : 59 :50. Waves cleared (0/3).]

[Upon the succession of the defense, rewards will be distributed to each participating member, based on their merits. A colony chest will also be distributed, providing ample rewards for everyone.]

Three waves, and you’d be judged for how you did in the defense. This was a perfect recipe for in-fighting, especially if you count the colony chest. It was not distributed per person, meaning that the strongest would claim everything inside the chest for themselves. On top of that, the wave would strike at midnight.

“Ugh…”, So we’d be fighting the wolves with little vision, and there were potential for in-fighting?

The new revelation urged me to delay my ‘meeting up’ schedule until the next morning. Unless that bald guy, who I assumed to be their leader, could put things together, we wouldn’t just be fighting wolves by the end of this defense.

Besides, I needed to recover my health and stamina. The fight had used up all of my potions, unfortunately, and every single use of the potions was essential. I need to come up with a way to recover health mid-combat without potions if such a thing ever existed.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

The next morning came as quickly as the night went. I woke up with all of my stats topped off, well, mostly topped off, since my hp was still 100 away from full.

It wasn’t until I turned my head towards the place I fought the ape before I realized how much has been destroyed by the last explosion it let out last night. It wasn’t just a crater anymore, no, the cliff and the trees surrounding what I believed to be its home were turned to black ash.

In the crater's heart laid a single, unmoving body. It was the prime ape’s corpse, untouched by the impact of the explosion. How the apes were unaffected by their own explosion was something I’d never understand. Was it an innate ability they had?

Since there is magic in this world, I couldn’t exclude the possibility of that either.

The tree I slept on was only a few feet away from the edges of the newly expanded crater. My next move was obvious. I need to see if there was some type of loot akin to the ones I found from the Ant queen.

Sliding down the slope leading towards the corpse, a sense of chill permeated all across my body. I never comprehended the magnitude of the explosion until I was at the epicenter, with the top of the slope now feeling like a mountainous climb rather than a steep hill.

The air surrounding the corpse remained heated from the explosion. Sweat dripped from my forehead as my body let out a downpour of cold water when I reached its corpse. Had it been last night, I wouldn’t even be able to come close to this thing, but alas…

[Extract elite item?] [yes] [no]

Thank goodness I bothered to try.

The same process from extracting the queen’s body transpired again, and on my hand now lays the same type of gem I siphoned from the queen, but it was reddish instead of pure black.

[Beast core of the prime ape : A component that can be forged into an F-rank fire elemental stone. One use only.]

Fire elemental stone… It didn’t sound like something I’d ever use.

Storing the gem inside my backpack, I began the arduous climb back to where I came from. All in all, it was not a disappointing find, but I kept wishing that it was something I could use right now instead.

I headed straight towards the gate once I finished climbing. There was no way for me to use the gems at this moment, but I have this feeling that I’d be able to see a use for them soon. Then there’s the onyx hyacinth…

My mind drifted to the moment I got my first class. The shadow and darkness that were felt at that scene were strangely familiar with the haze that the flower emitted.

Could it be? Was the flower an answer to the shadow affinity? I could test that theory right now. It was only a slight detour to my right.

“Haaa….”

Deep breaths, deep breaths…

First, there existed a strong possibility of something bad happening if I touched that thing. Should I even risk dying at this moment, when there was a wave of wolves that would decide everyone’s fate?

But then again, I couldn’t see myself returning to this spot once the wave was cleared. There were so many other directions to explore, and time was running out.

[Task #1 : Find the 4 keys to open the gate leading to the exit, located in the safe zone (0/4). 81 days left.]

Nobody knows how difficult it was to get one of those keys. So far, all of my near-death fights didn’t result in any, even after a supposed dungeon clear.

In the end, I elected to leave that flower alone. The risk far outweighed the gains, at least for now, while the wave was about to come. I resumed my stride back to the gate, still wondering if I’d made the right decision.

To my delight, I saw no more apes and giant bears on my way back, and the wolf population seemed to have diminished significantly once I entered the old spot where wolves used to spawn.

Then, after a period of mindless walking, I met the first group of people I’d seen since I departed from the gate. They were a bunch of normal-looking people with a different assortment of equipment on their backs. Their eyes lit up when they spotted me.

“Are you here to defend the gate as well?”, One of them asked, sporting a lightly armored vest and carrying a sword on his waist. His brown-ish hair was greasy from all the days of fighting, and he carried an expression that I found to be pleasing.

I didn’t see the need to antagonize anyone, so I waved them hello with a smile. They were all somewhat sheepish when we talked, but opened up once I mentioned the gate.

We exchanged a few pleasantries as they led me toward their temporary settlement. From their speech, they were optimistic about their defense and the leadership of the person they called Reghan.

“Reghan? He’s the strongest person in the camp at this moment. He’s the first one that we know of to have reached level 10. That was how we knew about the talent point, and everyone has been on a wolf-killing spree since.” The guy with the brown hair said, Who then introduced himself as Edward.

“Have you gone further than that?” I asked, curious about their progress.

“We’ve explored quite a distance around the gate and met a few other types of creatures there. The apes were a headache, with their exploding fists and tails, but for one reason or another, we didn’t encounter any since a few days ago.”

“There are also the scorpions in the opposite direction from where the apes are found.” He continued, listing the things the group of settlers had seen. “There’s a dungeon over there, in the heart of where those scorpions roam about, but we’re too weak to even approach it. From the report, the lowest level of the scorpions is 17, and the highest one we’ve found is 21.”

That’s high. I let out a whistle.

The talk of the dungeon roused my interest, but from the way he described it, there was a possibility that I might not be strong enough to attempt it.

Calmly listening to their continued chatter, the forest soon opened up, and I started seeing stumps as we arrived at their camp. My eyes were agape, staring at the new scene that beheld me, as the gate towards their ‘camp’ opens up.

Well, it’s not just a simple camp anymore, is it?