There were four skills he had left to the very end, though after that error, he was a little more hesitant about these other strange skills.

Finally breathing a sigh of relief as he closed the screen, Tedrick began to go deeply into introspection. There was a lot to consider. The two most important things: how worked exactly, and what kind of sub-skills he’d lean towards.

These thoughts were interrupted by a screen popping up in front of him again, making him jump out of his skin.

Snarky fucker…

After that, things changed. Tedrick was always motivated to grow, of course. Every day he tried his best.

Or at least… He thought he did.

It turns out ones’ motive to get stronger is enhanced significantly after being torn to pieces, experiencing death, starting to be eaten, poisoned to death, again, then cleaved in two like a chainsaw through styrofoam. Needless to say, he put all thirty points into toughness, bringing it to 106.

This was helped significantly when he realized something: Hypnosis was a power that wasn’t exclusive to use on his enemies. He initially tested by starting a small fire, and hesitantly putting a hand into it, before jerking it out with a hiss.

After that previous encounter, he had no trouble at all healing a minor surface burn. It was gone as fast as it arrived, the healing magic far more effective than his previous methodology. Probably because it was actually healing instead of just pushing and merging his own skin.

Now for the variable test.

Focusing on how he commanded the bird, he reached his echo into himself.

It is not hot. It will be pleasant, and there’s nothing to be worried about. This won’t hurt at all.

The words started sounding forced, but as he repeated for some time, they began to feel more natural. Eventually they made sense without the echo.

As fires go, it was quite small. Barely there at all. More like what you’d see in a big match.

That’s not so bad.

With a lack of trepidation he’d normally find alarming, he reached out, touching the flames.

It was warm, to be sure. But more like a really hot day. Sure, it’s not as pleasant as he thought it might be, but he didn’t see what the big deal was the first time.

Tedrick pondered on the nature of hypnosis, and how he might use it going forward; Hypnosis, Telepathy, and Illusion ki might be quite the foundation for self-defense. Best yet, it used two different resources, so it wouldn’t burn through his SS or KS as fast.

A dull feeling started in the back of his head, a weird little itch. Something about burning through...

Something wasn’t right… but what?

Not giving it a thought, he stroked his chin, pausing when something felt… wet?

Looking down, he realized the problem.

His arm wasn’t quite… cooked, not really. But the flesh was just about entirely absent, and the juicy, greasy material underneath blackened a little bit. He couldn’t say for sure what it was in there; it certainly wasn’t muscle and fat like he was familiar with.

Come to think of it, what was he made of? Curiously, he squeezed the flesh in question, discovering its texture. It was… Vaguely rubbery? Almost like a super dense gel of some kind.

There it was again, that little itch. Why…

Oh. Whatever his arm was made of was literally sticking to his fingers and coming off with it.

…Oh. That’s bad. That’s really, really bad.

Feeling almost like a little snap in his head, he had a brief moment of… something between confusion and dizziness. When this moment of forced extreme introspection ended, agony jolted through his arm like lightning. Sucking in a harsh breath, he would have screamed if he wasn’t just about stunned by the overwhelming pain.

Shit shit shit shit shit shit.

That fucking HURT.

Gritting his teeth, he did his best to focus, reaching inwards with again. But he had to be more careful this time. A timer then.

Itdoesnthurtitdoesn’thurt. Itdoesn’thurt. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt.

It doesn’t hurt. For… Ten minutes.

Slowly the overwhelming sensation went away, fading to a dull ache. He realized he’d fallen down, rolling on the ground.

Groaning as he pushed himself back to a sitting position, studying the result.

Alright. So Self-Hypnosis works. No doubt about that. Too well if you weren’t careful. But it had limits… thankfully in this case.

He certainly wasn’t near a level up this time. He could have burned the damn thing to cinders if it worked a little better.

Getting started at healing the wound, he winced hard. The burn itself didn’t hurt, but he felt his arm… growing as a layer of flesh formed from where it had stopped burning at his elbow. It wasn’t pain, of course, but it felt truly bizarre.

He’d only managed to heal about a fifth or so of the arm before the pain came surging back, dizzying in its scope.

Handy, that. He’d appreciate that more later.

Okay. Take two. Maybe thirty minutes this time. Just needed to resist a little longer and he’d be okay.

Before he began silencing his screaming nerve endings, though, a quiet thought came through. Resist.

Resistance. Pain and fire resistance.

After his Appraise marathon, he realized how these resistances and grew. By exposure and survival.

Okay, he thought to himself. Fine. Fine, you crazy motherfucker. If that’s how it had to be. If that’s what needed to happen to prevent that from ever happening again.

Tedrick was no one’s fucking meal.

It’s going to hurt a bit, but it’ll be manageable. It’ll be manageable for twenty minutes.

Repeating this a few times, he eventually felt the pain dull to a degree he could deal with, but it didn’t stop altogether.

Time to get to work.

It wound up taking an hour and a half to fully heal it, since the steadily increasing pain kept distracting him.

As grim as this whole encounter was though… he wasn’t sure what to make of it. He’d be raising pain and fire resistance, healing ki, ss, and ks recovery simultaneously. Even that whole ordeal of healing himself raised his ki power by one.

With this lesson in restraint concerning self-hypnosis learned, he had a grim realization as he looked at what he stood to gain.

This sucked. No doubt. But it was clear to him that what he thought of as hard work back home would be a luxury here. He would have to step it up.

Deep breaths. His A-game was going to have to get a whole lot better, fast. He imagined there were fights he’d inevitably get in that were significantly tougher than a bird and a snake, even if they were odd ones.

Tedrick jerked up, remembering something from the bird. Its last thoughts. About its young.

Shit. They’d be helpless, wouldn’t they?

Well… He needed to practice anyway, no reason he couldn’t watch a couple baby birds at the same time, right? They probably had another parent around somewhere anyway. They’d be back in no time and he could go back to his business.