Jack stared suspiciously at Kai. “Just like that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll take me to your people?”

“Yes,”

“So what’s the catch?”

Kai cocked his head in confusion. “I do not understand what you would mean by catch?”

Jack threw his hands to the side, immediately regretting it when he felt a sharp pain in his back. “Why would you help me? I don’t know you, and I have nothing I can give you. What reason would you have to take me to your people?”

“A herd is meant to keep you safe. They look after each other. When one is lost from the group, the others will help them find their way home.” Kai had a look on his face like this was an obvious thing.

“But I am not part of your herd,”

“We are all part of the same herd” and with that, he stood up, retrieved a large knife from a small pack laying next to him, and began cutting up the owl body.

Jack sat there stroking Lucy while he pondered that. We are all part of the same herd? He didn’t know the last time a stranger helped him in any way, asking nothing in return. Growing up, his family was very give-and-take mostly take, if he wanted something he had to give something in return. Nothing was free for him, and the smallest kindness meant he owed them something. The emotional and physical debt his family demanded was steep and unending.

It took him years of distancing himself from his family and a few close supportive friends to be able to accept anything without him feeling he had to pay them back in some way, and that was only with his friends. So for this man… Bird? Birdman? To so easily offer something that is very likely to save him from dying out in the wild. It was causing a strange storm of confusion, gratefulness, and most of all indebtedness.

A few minutes of this emotional cocktail was too much for him. “Here, let me help you.” Jack began to get up to go over to Kai. He knew he didn’t know what he was doing when it came to a body but he just needed to do something for him or he might go crazy.

Kai didn’t even turn “No, you are hurt you must rest. We will leave tomorrow and you need your strength.” The tone told him that he couldn’t argue.

With the attempt to stand, Jack’s back already felt on fire, so he laid down on his side. Lucy found a spot on his hip. Small waves of joy rolled off of her as she curled up and began to rest. To distract himself from his inability to do anything, he pulled up his status. With nothing new, he went to his skills.

Skills (Class) Mimicry Lvl 3 Identify Lvl 3(24) Hydraulic Leap Lvl 3 Hair Manipulation Lvl 3 Baking Lvl 2 Cleaning Lvl 1 Researching Lvl 1 Fear Resistance Lvl 1 Impact Resistance Lvl 1 Medicine Lvl 1 Staff Mastery Lvl 1

His skill list was finally feeling filled. He checked to see if his skill limit had changed yet. Still eleven. He knew Mimicry was supposed to increase the limit, but so far it had only done it once. He guessed his only option would be to level it up more and find out when that would happen again. Mimicry seemed to only level when he learned a new skill from a monster.

(Class) Mimicry Lvl 3 Imitate and copy the non-magical abilities of another creature.

Physical limits may apply.

Increases maximum skill slots available. (1)

Another creature? Does that mean he could copy a skill from a person?

Identify Lvl 3 (24) Gain insight on creatures and magical objects you observe. The effect depends on Skill and Level difference. This skill does not count towards your maximum skills.

Identify says creatures as well. He turned to Kai and focused on him, trying to Identify him. Nothing happened. Does creature only mean something not human… Or whatever Kai is, non-sentient maybe? Jack thought back to his mental checklist.

Find civilization. Check. Find a water source. Check. Find/Hunt food. Check. Get stronger for protection. Help Lucy get stronger.

Honestly, just Kai finding him checked off the first three. As far as Lucy and him getting strong, now that he knew he could grind up some easy levels killing bugs that got his immediate need for levels taken care of. He assumed killing bugs wouldn’t work forever, but he’ll ask Kai about it when he’s not busy.

Without focusing on levels, he needed to figure out what kind of build he wanted and what kind Lucy could go for. Focusing on himself, for now, he looked at his own class. Everything was pointing to a rogue, blue mage type character. He knew he wanted to find out actual magic, but that should probably be more of a hobby than a focus of his build. In games a narrow, focused build was always stronger than someone who tried to be a warrior, mage, and support all in one.

A rogue sounded good to him, dodging, sneaking, dealing focused attacks on weaknesses. Although he probably shouldn’t be a traditional dual-wielding dagger rogue not with his blue mage powers. The benefits of blue mages are the ability to mix and match different monster abilities into powerful combos and unexpected attacks.

So a special-attack elusive fighter. His primary attribute should be dexterity then. A secondary should be endurance. Running around and dodging attacks while whittling an opponent down. Jack smiled, he was beginning to really like the sound of that.

Now onto skills, obviously mimicry as going to a big focus. Just need to find creatures to observe closely.

Hydraulic leap is going to be really important for mobility, and he could definitely work on using it more offensively. He remembered back to when he used it to smash that centipede’s head. He was pretty sure the skill wasn’t supposed to be used that way. At the time with all the adrenaline pumping he didn’t think about it, but there was definitely some kind of mental resistance to using his skill for anything other than jumping. Kind of like how your body stops yourself from punching yourself too hard.

Hair manipulation would be great if he could figure out how to use it to climb walls. Plus training that skill could easily be done while traveling. He imagined himself bouncing around an opponent inside a cave sticking to the walls and ceilings… Just like spiderman! He just needed to somehow copy Lucy’s ability to weave webs to complete the image.

Impact resistance was going to be huge both defensively and to prevent damage as he jumps around. That was going to be a real bitch to train, at least he heals fast. He added finding a healer as a priority before training that one.

He thought about his pole. The ability to extend it was really cool, it made him feel kind of like the monkey king. It was versatile, but with the existence of impact resistance, it made him slightly pull back from considering it a main weapon. Though wielding it reminded him of his friends, and he didn’t know if he wanted to give that up.

Skills to try to unlock:

Some sort of dodge skill if there is one.

A few attack skills, maybe something to do with poison?

A skill to understand the weaknesses of a creature would be immensely helpful. Identify kinda fit that role but it didn’t give a ton of information on how to kill something.

A way to reduce an opponent’s movement. Webbing would be amazing for that, but mimicry may not be able to copy that.

Kai finished his slicing up of the owl body when he suddenly stopped and turned to Jack. “Do you eat raw meat?”

“What? No, I have to cook it”

Kai let out a high-pitched clicking noise in dissatisfaction. “You will have to eat insects then, the trees here are resistant to fire.”

“Oh, it’s ok, I have enough food for a few days,”

Kai cocked his head in confusion. Jack leaned up and opened his inventory reaching in he grabbed a calorie bar to show him. The box was larger than before, a quick check of his class, and Jack saw that it was now four feet in each direction.

“Ahh, so you do have a class and it has given you an inventory. I will use that to store this meat then.” Kai walked up and started going through his inventory. He first pulled out the bodies of the snake and toad. After sniffing them both he set them off to the side pulling out the chunks of centipede meat, he threw them into the pile of owl bones. He reorganized the inventory to take up less space than stacked his large pieces of owl meat inside.

Kai took the snake and frog and began to clean them as well. After slicing into the frog though, he threw it off to the bone pile while letting out another click. When he started on the snake Jack felt a wave of exhaustion come over him. Putting more build planning on hold, he laid back down and went to sleep.

After a terrifying dream of being chased by giant owls, Jack woke with a start. Kai was gone, but in his place stood the domineering Ava. Her feathers were the same copper brown as Kai’s with small patches of white on her chest and wings. Her beak in the very front was slightly hooked and black fading into a muted yellow which then fading into a brown as it met her face. She was leaning forward in what Jack could only assume was a relaxed pose. He remembered her standing height was a little over seven-foot.

Lucy was still laying on his hip resting, slowly he sat up, rousing her. She hopped off and walked around the camp. A flair of pain and discomfort shot through his back. Wincing, Jack pulled up his modifiers screen, having forgotten to check out the actual affliction he received for the infection.

Perks Pioneer Dungeoneer Dedicated Dungeoneer Dedicated Pioneer Slow Learner Slow and steady wins the race How are you still alive? The Wizened Sage At your age, you must have aches and pains Buffs Afflictions Infected wound - Back Infected wound - Back Wound heals 50% slower than usual, resistant to magical healing. While wound is healing Human Resilience buff is disabled. Health 18/30 Regen .5% per hour

So it takes around eight days to fully heal and twice that if it is from the infected area. Twelve health missing, presumably all from the infected wound. Three days to heal normally and six since it's infected. Jack sighed in frustration.

Although he could theoretically speed that up if he leveled a few times from killing bugs.

Back to his thoughts of leveling up, he continued his theory crafting from the night before, but this time for Lucy. He pulled up all of her menus.

Name Lucifer Race ManaWeaver Age 11 Days Level 2 Health 6/6 Stamina 3/3 Experience 193/200 Strength 1 Dexterity 3 Endurance 2 Vitality 4 Perception 2 Available Attribute Points 0 Skills Hydraulic Leap Lvl 5 Hair Manipulation Lvl 4 (14) Poison Fang Mastery Lvl 3 Sneak Lvl 3 Web Weaving Lvl 1 Unlocked Skills Burrow Perks Deus Ex Machina Buffs Afflictions

Jack stared at her skills menu in confusion. Everything was normal except her Hydraulic Leap skill. Every five seconds it would flash red and then back to blue. He had almost missed it since he was only quickly scanning for changes. Clicking on the skill, a new menu popped up.

Hydraulic leap has reach level 5 and is now able to be evolved. Level 5 is a free evolution and does not require a skill evolution token. Would you like to Evolve this skill? Yes No

Jack had to actively stop himself from immediately pressing yes. He didn’t know if evolving a skill would completely change it or not, and he did not want to get rid of Hydraulic Leap for Lucy just because he was impulsive.

With perfect timing, Kai appeared in the sky. Flying down through the trees, he extended his legs and spread his talons wide. Right before he touched the ground he gave a powerful flap of his wings, stopping his momentum and landing him on the ground where he took a few steps forward as if he had just been strolling through the forest and not soaring through the sky.

“Good, you are awake. We shall start moving within ten minutes.” He walked to Ava and stroked her cheek.

“Ok, I’ll be ready. I had a quick question though, can skill evolutions change the skill so much that it won’t work its original way anymore?”

“No, they only add effects.”

“Awesome, thanks.” Jack clicked the yes option.

**Alert** New Skill Evolution Available Choose one Hydraulic Assist Requirement: Exoskeleton Reinforced Frame Pressurized Fluid