Year 1023 of the new calendar, Month of the Sun, 10th day

It had been quite a while since my first true evolution, and it had been as hard to survive as ever. I did not see another creature at the same level as that one Eagle, the memory still jolts me awake some nights, but there have been plenty of close calls when it came to my life. Just yesterday, a pack of Lupus, the kind of Lupus is something I don’t know, was dangerously close to my den. Thankfully, another large creature of some kind led them away, I had no doubt that they were about to attack me, and so was infinitely thankful to that other thing that led them away. What did catch my attention was the difference in the smell of the air, a briny wiff was ever-present and confused me. I was sure that I had not walked too far from the swamplands.

Whatever the reason for the change may be, I did not have the time nor energy to occupy myself with it. I was still focusing on the condition for evolution, controlling an area, even though I was only level 6. The little den I was in, one I dug myself, could not be considered the finest of luxury abodes, but it does its job well and allows me an area to think without worrying too much. Controlling an area was very vague, did it mean to subdue every creature in the place, be the strongest in the region, or some sort of obscure control over the creature's wills? All valid and no way to know the truth, very frustrating, but I could do nothing but think. It was a dilemma with no answer until I tried to evolve, so I suppose thinking about it now would be a waste of time.

A part of my mind was nagging me that the exact definition of what it meant was important, very important, but it was something that I could get no answer to. Worrying about it would be a waste, for now anyway, I will definitely have to revisit this later on. Crawling out, I walked through the lands I was in, somewhere between swamplands and an open grassland filled with grass taller than me. The brush around me was a perfect way to conceal my body which was way larger than it was before, it did feel a bit weird even still, I was not as maneuverable as I was before even with my increase in agility, the compensation was not enough and it feels a bit sluggish.

Sighing, something I have become accustomed to in my situation, I completely focused on the surroundings to search for some prey. It was not a pleasure to do this everyday, but not getting experience everyday would be a detriment to my mission, so I did it begrudgingly. A small rodent I had not seen before was in my vision, the yellowish body stood out against the backdrop of the swampish surroundings. It had a tusk on its face, growing out from the top of his skull and curling back. The yellow fur gleamed a bit in the sunlight, it was definitely out of its environment searching for food. I noticed that a bit of the grassland transitioned slowly to yellower and yellower grass, it was likely foraging in this area.

Unlucky, but this was the way of life, so I activated my Observer's Eye.

Observer’s Eye Lv4 -> Lv5

Lesser Tusked-Hiddle Lv 12

HP: 46

Stamina: 123

Strength: 16

Agility: 104

Vitality: 54

Charm: 8

Intelligence: 18

A Hiddle, found in the grasslands of Iabrun, is an incredibly toxic rodent that has venom glands going through their tusk. It is high in intelligence, and they great instincts that can help them cope with many situations. With 8 legs, it's fast and maneuverable.

A smile slowly crept onto my face, it seems that it had a qualitative change at level 5. Now I can actually see how these creatures compare to me, a thing that had been bugging me for a while. I did not know if my stats were high or not, or what the numbers meant, or how they compared to others. With this, I could test everything and satiate my curiosity, so I slowly started to creep up to it. The 8-legged Hiddle was sniffing around in the air, but I had already adjusted so I was downwind of it, the muddy swamp allowed me to creep up to it even more silently. It was very small, a little less than a meter, and as I slowly crept up to it, more details were evident. Its muscles were not large, but are noticeable, its chest was moving very fast, I could observe the red nose and whiskers it had.

A tiny part of me felt bad for the fate of this little guy, but it is what it is. I can’t expect to rise up without killing anything, so expelling all the air in my lungs, I lunged at the Hiddle. It was fast, so fast that it dodged my lunge and ran off, but I was hot on its tail. It was making a mad dash to the yellow grassland, I nearly lost sight of it, but the scent it had was unmistakable so I followed it. The Hiddle was fast, but my larger body size caught up with it in a matter of half a minute, where I took the little rodent inside my claws. Trying my best to not inflict any damage, the little thing was trying its best to escape but I held firm. I slinked back to my little den with the creature in my hand, it was shrieking and flailing at first, but eventually stopped both by the time we reached my den.

The abode was large enough for my tests of agility, which, as far as I could tell, presides over speed and maneuverability. It was about a 20 by 5 meter den with a meter opening. It was a bit cramped for me, but perfect to test this. His agility had around the same number of points as me, best I could come up with for these numbers, but his size was about a fifth of me. So would the agility values compensate for the size, or are they a standard buff? The chase before had too many factors for me to say definitively, so this shall be a good way to test this. I gain 2 points to each of the attributes, so I am at 108 in agility. It was lucky that it had this much agility, I couldn’t be sure if the leap from, say 90 to 100, was more than 50 to 60 because I had not measured it. A mistake on my part but I can’t rectify my past, so I can only test for the future.

The Hiddle in my claws was dead-silent, and its movements were about as much as someone dead, the heartbeat it had notified me otherwise. I sat down near the entrance, blocking it so it couldn’t escape if it wanted to. Laying it down, I waited to see what it would do. The Hiddle stood there with its 8-legs, looking at me, I didn’t know what to do.

“What are you going to do with me?”, it said. I certainly did not expect such a thing from the little rodent, “Wait, you can talk?” I replied, it was very unexpected that he could talk, the Hiddle nodded to my inquiry. This was very interesting, could all animals above a certain threshold of intelligence talk, or can they all talk? This just brought up more questions than it answered, and it was confusing but very interesting at the same time.

“I plan to do some experiments, to try and figure out the system.” Its ears perked up, “What system?” the Hiddle asked, a question that thoroughly confused me. I thought every creature had the system, do they not or was it special? No, it was just a basic Hiddle so it should not be the exception, maybe something that I could not notice in it?

“The system, you know, the'', it was very hard to describe it, so I paused for a bit, “the, the thing in your mind that gives scores for your attributes.” was the only way I could describe it, I am sure that I sounded absolutely insane, and the little Hiddle’s expression perfectly conveyed that.

“What-What exactly are you talking about? There is no such thing. You’re insane, talking about these imaginary numbers. Why did you even take me if you did not plan to eat me, huh? Is it some sadistic torture you like to do with the prey you kill, what even are you?” It went on a bit of a tirade, evolving further and further into a bit of a weird territory, it did not plan to stop either, continuing.

“You’re sick, aren’t you? Talking to me like this, wanting me to go mad is some sort of weird pleasure for you. Well, I won’t fall for it, just kill me now.” I can already feel a headache coming up, the Hiddle was more troublesome than I thought, but that did not matter for the moment. The system not being there for others is weird to say the least, it was only a matter of course that they did, but that was not the smartest on my part. What goes for me does not automatically go for everyone else. I did notice the Hiddle looking around, most likely to find an escape route from this area, but there was no other entrance or exit, so I went back to thinking.

There were plenty of things about me that were different from most other creatures, disregarding the system itself, having blood of the Primordial Dragon would be enough to be a unique creature among uniques that are already part of the broader range of abnormal animals. The concept of being a Primordial Dragon is complicated anyway, reaching that sort of stage has only been reached by one in our species. It is theoretically possible to reach, but the chances are slim in succeeding, so only one reached such a stage. Anyway, I should not muse about that too much, the system not being in this Hiddle is more important of a discovery. I would need more things to experiment with, so this was definitely a question that I will have to revisit.

First, I should get on with the reason I catched the Hiddle, a test on the systems numbers. Looking at its body that was now firmly placed in the corner of the room farthest away from me, I nodded, that position was perfect for the agility experiment.

“Run over there,” I said while I pointed to the top right corner from my view, the Hiddle was in the top left corner so this would be an easy way to test the speed of this thing, not the most accurate but it was all I had at the moment, “And count the number of seconds you took.” I finished with that and waited to see its response.

“Wh-”, before it could finish, I cut it off and said “Because I said so, do it or you’re my next meal.” I could see it gulp, and then run off to the corner I pointed at, taking only about a second and a half to finish, quite fast but it made me question, if he could do this much in a second and a half, what about that Osprey giant who is sure to have much more? Could I see him or just an afterimage, a shiver ran down my spine, I am now doubly sure to never cross the path of such a creature, not until I am ready at least. I stood up from my position and ran towards it, grabbing the Hiddle that made a dash for the entrance.

“No, you are not going anywhere.” I said, before crushing the Hiddle in my claws quickly, but not with my full strength. Just enough to incapacitate the little guy, but not life-threatening. He could not even talk, just laying in my hand with a slow heartbeat, and blinking even slower. Good, I tossed it down and ran to a corner, before running the same distance that he did. I did it much faster than him, so fast that I forgot to count so I don’t know the exact time, but it seems like agility is just a flat boost to the speed of a creature, which made sense but I likely could not get accurate measurements for a long time.

Leaving the Hiddle, who I will use for further experiments down the line, I went out and decided to hunt. No experience was gained today, and that needed to be remedied, so I decided to head to new grounds, the grasslands. The green, lush grass all around me was mesmerizing, it was a beautiful sight but I could not focus on it for too long. A large centipede of some sorts crept up on me, choosing to bite down on my tail.

The pain hit me before I could process what happened, instinctively I kicked off the centipede and turned around to face it. The centipede was green, to match with the surroundings, and the distinction between head and tail was near none. I bite down on what I think to be its head, but it isn’t. More excruciating pain came from my back, the real head squeezing more of its venom inside of me. The pain was nearly unbearable, it was like burning acid was poured down on my back, which was not too far off. My head became blurry in an instant, my right arm was feeling sluggish, the sight of the centipede was also getting blurrier. Stamping down the pain, I bit down on the middle of the damned creature, drawing its purplish blood and causing it to shriek.

I moved once again, putting more distance between me and the 4 meter centipede. Its green and red chitin was hard to spot amidst the swaying grasslands, but I focused upon what I knew to be the head. A part of me warned me about something that was going to come my way, so I, through sheer instinct, moved to the left and dodged a small bolt of acid it shot out. The mana sense I had could feel the mana forming up inside of it to form that acid, a life-saver in the current situation.

But just because I had dodged one meant that the fight was over, far from it. It attacked me again, this time with its tail. The spines upon it dug into the gaps of my scales, going straight through my flesh that ached with pain and coming dangerously close to my organs. Thankfully, it did not quite reach them and that was what I was banking on. With its tail being planted firmly inside me, I brought my jaw to the back of its head and bit down as hard as was possible for me. The shriek of the centipede, and the purplish blood spilling everywhere, allowed me to gain a bit more clarity of my surroundings.

It was far from dead, though, so it started to move itself, rupturing through my flesh with the tail that was still embedded inside my body. I raised my left hand, the 5 claws on it breaking through the tough chitin, but it was caught up inside of the flesh, my hand not moving due to the paralysis inflicted by the venom. The centipede did the rest of the job for me, moving its body to try and come up to bite me, but also allowing my claws to rupture through, making it lose a large chunk of the half. I bit down on the tail that was still inside me, removing it forcefully. I threw it at the centipede's head, it dodged away but the action foiled the centipede from biting me again.

It shrieked again, more of its purplish blood was leaking, and my own red blood mixed with the centipedes across the battlefield. I felt the paralyzing venom spread throughout my body, and knew that I had no time to waste. The centipede likely drew out the battle so this outcome could occur, but it was slow-acting and not fully through. I ran with all my might to the centipede, it didn’t seem to expect it and was caught off guard, allowing me to ram my body into it. Toppling it, that was accompanied by a shriek like never before that hurt my ears, but I disregarded the pain that was paltry before the venom, and bit forcefully through, severing its head, and killing it.

Exp gained

A few seconds later, the venom completely came over me, making me the equivalent of a sitting duck. The noises of our battle is sure to have attracted other creatures looking for a quick and easy kill. This was bad, I had no real option to defend myself at the moment and waiting for the venom to go through its course and leave my body naturally would leave me a pile of bones. I decided to do the only thing I could think of, stimulating the mana inside of me. It was as if I was trying to pass water through a canyon, an excruciating process. A bit of mana went through after a minute, I quickly lost control of it, causing it to explode around and wreak havoc on my body. Coughing up more blood, and pushing through the pain, I started the process again.

Another bit of mana was through, dangerously close to losing control of it I am, but I kept a grip on it. Using the mana that I extracted from my reserves, mana that was causing pain on the level of the actual venom because of my faulty control, to forcefully evict all the venom I had in my body and cells. My pores in between the scales secreted a white fluid, a mix between snot and water, depositing it on the ground. Sighing with relief, I ran away from the battle scene as quickly as possible, I was still way too weak even after my evolution. Strength would be my only remedy.