Silence. The soundscape was near-empty with ambience being the only audible sound; faint trickling water over there or a gentle rustling of leaves over here.

The only constant in this void of noise was that of the incessant trickling of water. The volume itself was low but its permittivity--how it permeated throughout the whole environment--was what made it such an aural landmark.

This flowing brook was situated in a forest of autumnal colours, gigantic trees towering overhead. They were monolithic, mountains in height and wider than an elephant.

In the middle of a small clearing adjacent to this water source--one of no particular significance--laid a woman, limbs covered in a mixture of dirt and dried blood.

She was unconscious but alive, chest moving in a regular pattern. Her skin was warm to the touch, both a sign of life as well as the percolating sunlight washing over her nude form.

Eventually, her stiff eyelids began to open, the pale green irises reflecting the foliage around her.

She took a moment to just stare into the sky, not really taking in anything as her mind began to work itself to a start, still groggy with the typical fog of first waking up.

Shifting, she struggled to sit up, her muscles as stiff as a board and her back aching from the hard ground beneath her.

However, as soon as she tried to do so, a spark of pain coursed through her, emanating from her side like lightning. Her muscles contorted reflexively, forcing her back to the ground as a sharp gasp left her open mouth.

Breathe. Just breathe. It's gonna be okay; you've got this.

Move slowly, don't let the pain take over, The woman thought as her eyes began to moisten.

Lucidity was returning to her, eyes sharpening.

Lying down, she traced her hand down her body, running over her smooth skin as it trailed to find the injury.

There, she thought as the skin gave way to a bumpy, dirty, slightly squishy surface.

She touched gently and with a light pressure, probing at her injury. Merely making contact didn’t hurt that much.

Just a little further down, she found the culprit; a handle.

Carefully, she stretched out her arms, rotated her shoulders, trying to get a feel for what her degree of movement was. Satisfied with that, she placed her hands onto the cold, hard ground beneath her—beset with crushed leaves—and pushed herself back up into a sitting position. She only grimaced a little before readjusting—a significant improvement upon her last attempt.

With a better view, she saw exactly what was causing her problems; a dagger was stuck into her side, the wound caked with mud and dried blood. The handle itself was blackened wood, finished with a gleaming shine.

Her breathing quickened only briefly before becoming slow and deep, her wide eyes closing as she focused.

Shit, she breathed out with a sigh. Okay, okay. As long as I don’t move, it’s fine.

The long, regular, slow breaths eased her mind as she recalled tips she had learnt a while ago.

Even though staying still wasn’t making the situation any better, the lack of pain helped to keep her mind fresh and alert as she thought about what to do.

For a few minutes, she stayed like that; she had gotten injuries before and knew that panicking never helped.

She had to be productive.

With a deep exhale, the woman’s eyes opened once more.

First, ascertain the damage.

The blade was located in her side but, as best as she could tell, it didn’t pierce deep enough to damage any of her organs. At worst, her intestines were screwed.

Thankfully, she wasn’t actively losing blood, either; the wound was old enough and the blood and mud had congealed enough to create some sort of seal.

The important thing was that she could not pull out the knife. Pulling it out would be the same as stabbing herself again.

The disadvantage of that, of course, is that moving would be an incredible pain in the arse, not to mention that any sudden movements could cause internal bleeding, if that wasn’t an issue already.

So, she sighed, eyes closed as the severity of her injuries came to bear. She maintained her breathing as she considered what to do.

My priority is to get the knife out of my body in a somewhat safe capacity. Getting it out at all isn’t the issue; it’s the cleaning of the wound, disinfectants, medicine in case of any diseases or infections, and bandages to stop the blood flow. All of those things are hard to find in a forest.

Perhaps disinfectants or pain killers or what not could be synthesised from an assortment of herbs but fuck me for forever having that botany book in my cart.

Gently, the woman began to move her body, paying careful attention to her side as she got her feet under her. Whenever the slightest twitch caused a moment of discomfort, she paused, focused on her breathing, before trying again.

It was only now that the sound of percolating water resolved itself as a nearby river in her mind.

She only managed a few, tentative steps before stumbling to her knees a mere few metres away from where she woke up. A harsh landing but at least she had water.

Throat parched, she splashed some of the refreshingly cool water onto her face before quenching her thirst with small sips, the water somewhat rejuvenating her.

Afterwards, she twisted awkwardly, splashing a little bit of water on the wound and gingerly getting rid of some of the dirt. It’ll have to do, She sighed internally.

A bit of tapping and scrapping, she felt she had cleaned it the best she could without reopening it.

Well, it’s good that I’ve got water. All I need next is food and shelter and I’d be ready to survive in the wild. Not that I particularly want to but it could be worse.

But water… Water’s a good thing. There should be civilisation if I follow it. Hopefully. If not a city maybe a town or village--some place with medicine I can obtain. So, pick a direction; up or downstream?

Standing back up, she began to follow alongside the river downstream, reasoning that life would prop up at the base of a mountain rather than at the top.

Her walking was slow, uneven, and clumsy. Every now and then, the way she moved her leg, twisted her body, or placed her foot caused a spark of pain to sheer through her, cutting her breath short and causing her to pause.

She generally waited a minute or two for the feelings to vanish as she caught her breath, grunting and wearing down her teeth as she tried to steel herself against the sensations.

Light was filtering in brightly when she had awoken, keeping her surroundings illuminated but cut off by the canopy above to truly be described as bright. However, as the hours began to pass, the sunlight beginning to fade in a gradual but noticeable way, the woman found herself wandering.

She wandered. And wandered. The trees were the same, omnipresent and monolithic in size. The water trickled and burbled energetically, producing a soothing ambience. The only life she saw was the occasional squirrel or rabbit, strangely large and bulbous but otherwise normal. They skittered away whenever she got close.

A realisation that this forest was larger than she expected dawned upon her, coupled with the knowledge that, with darkness approaching, she probably wouldn’t make it to a bed for the rest of the day.

Her spirits dismayed, she slumped back down to the floor to quench her thirst once more, like she had done many times before.

The stream was a popular place to be; most animals she came across were either drinking or seemed to be travelling to or from the flowing water. Even when stopped to take a sip, that was the only time when the animals approached her even moderately closely , only a mere few metres away.

And so, for this reason, she didn’t bother to turn her head to face the rustling leaves behind her, believing it to just be another rabbit or squirrel like she was used to. After all, every forest she had ever been in was devoid of life; the trees were always either artificial or newly planted. They provided a nice atmosphere, beautiful to look at, but were ultimately harmless.

All that is why the disgruntled huff, the rapid slamming of feet against the dried, dead leaves on the ground, and the sudden appearance of a very angry looking boar startled her so much.

With barely any time to think, she instinctively rolled away, the knife digging even further into her as she gasped out a strained breath, narrowly avoiding the sharpened tusks that ripped through the air she was previously sitting at.

Eyes wide and her mind whirring with understanding, her hand clutched at the knife as her stomach tossed and turned, whatever water she had just drank threatening to pour out of her.

Heart beating rapidly, blood pounding in her eyes with such clarity, her mind ran through all the survival tips and advice she had heard throughout the years.

Damnably little, unfortunately.

The boar didn’t wait; it turned around swiftly, the movement sharp, and faced the woman, it’s beady eyes staring at her.

It was larger--larger than any boar she had ever seen.

I know I’m not that tall but a boar shouldn’t be this big!

It’s black fur was cut short, even the hair follicles looking sharp. Hind legs were patterned brown, mud covering its feet and tusks a glistening yellowish-white as its inky-black eyes bored into her.

It only stared for a moment--an impossibly long time--before its powerful musculature began to move once more.

Feets digging into the ground before pushing off, the leg muscles flexed, quickly bringing it up to speed.

She had barely any time to react, struggling to her feet as her mind raced with instinctual, reflexive thoughts.

Adrenaline coursed through her as the pain dulled, her mind hardening instantly on one line-of-action.

Clenching her teeth together, the woman spared one glance at the boar before quickly grasping the handle of the dagger in her. She knew it was risky but would probably fare better with these odds than that of the tusks missing their mark.

With a deep intake of air, face twisted to bear the inevitable pain, she firmly clutched the handle and practically ripped the knife out of her.

Strength began to rapidly leave her body. Her mind was assaulted by a torrent of sensations, agony striking like lightning as she felt herself afire.

But her body, used to mental fatigue and feeling like it was on the verge of collapse, continued to move.

As the boar closed in, the woman jumped to her feet, slamming one hand against the beast’s head as the other plunged the blade into its skull with as much as her faltering strength she could muster.

Momentum carried the boar, the woman losing grip on the ground as she held onto its short fur for dear life.

It took one step, two steps forwards before they both fell to the ground, the woman barely managing to jump out of the way of its huge body, narrowly avoiding being crushed.

The last thing she saw before unconsciousness took over was the faint, blue glow penetrating her eyelids.

And then, darkness.

By the time the woman eventually came to again, the forest around her was dark. Not a sound could be heard apart from the pumping of her heart, the steady and minimal intake of breath, and the resonant, tranquil trickling of water besides her.

The ground beneath her was muddy and stained dark red, the colour prompting her brain’s recollection of the events.

It’s… It’s dead? Holy. Shit.

As these thoughts ran through her mind, a mystical, impossible blue box suddenly appeared before her.

[Level up]

You have gained 5 stat points and 1 skill point

Stat points?

Name Unnamed Level 1 Health 14/80 Stamina 43/100 Essence

20/20 Power 4 Constitution 4 Endurance 5 Vim 6 Essence

1 Spirit

1 Stat Points 5

Eyes wide, she moved her head left and right as she watched the box moving with her.

A hallucination? Shit; I don’t have a fever, do I? Raising a hand to her head, she did indeed feel a bit hot.

She waved her arm through the air, passing straight through the box that seemed to follow wherever her eyes were looking.

A hologram, perhaps? Is technology that advanced, yet? I’ll… I’ll think about it later.

Her eyes widened slightly as her brain began to remember more details in its burgeoning lucidity.

Her hand dashed to her side, feeling out the wound that must’ve been there.

Nothing.

She tried looking but with how muddy and dirty her body was, combined with the darkness and lack of light, she saw nothing. Her hands probed and roamed, finding only unevenness and bumpiness but not distinct hole she was certain should’ve been there,

How...How long was I out? A rising panic began to emerge before her eyes settled once more on the blue box in front of her.

You’ve gotta be an hallucination. Right? No glass, no screen, no projector.

What next; a neural implant? She joked with a hint of worry.

It was unlike any hallucination she had experienced before. Whenever a fever took hold, they usually manifested as mundane but impossible objects, like an inexplicable filing cabinet in her room.

Not a mysterious blue box with unnervingly consistent information in it; whenever she opened and closed her eyes, the numbers didn’t change.

I guess it’s not a dream, then. Ouch. The pain is too real anyway.

She was paradoxically tired yet invigorated.

Okay. If not an hallucination then maybe augmented reality? That’s made a few advancements, hasn’t it?

She ran her hands through her hair.

Whatever. Even if you’re not real, the health value certainly is, She thought, feeling her body physically creak and groan as she moved, each moment sending a spike of pain through her system.

Is there a way to increase it? [Heal] me? And, just like that, another blue box appeared in front of her, similar but different from the last one.

0th Tier

[Heal] (1/10)

Restore 5 points of health to a living entity

Cost: 1 es/sec

[Leech] (1/10)

Drain 10 points of health from a living entity

2m range

Cost: 1 es/sec

[Cleanse] (1/10)

Cleanse an entity from any toxin, disease, or contamination

Casting Time: 1 sec

Cost: 1 es

Okay. Definitely not a hallucination. Her breathing was getting faster.

Let’s go with a neural implant, then. Computer-brain interface technology has gotten further along than I thought. She was deliberately ignoring how something like that had gotten into her.

This is a game. An augmented reality game. Sure; that’s as plausible as anything else.

So, I guess it responds to my thoughts. Somehow.

The woman groaned, thinking about the futility of thinking.

Well, surely there'd be a way to log out? An options menu or something?

Just like before, thinking about what she wanted, nothing happened. The interface responded to her calls for a [Heal] skill just fine but logging out, exiting the game, or an options menu? No response. Just great.

For the sake of my sanity, let’s say it’s a game. This is all real--somehow--I can pick a skill, and I can [Heal] myself.

Then go for the one that heals the most, I guess. [Leech].

With that, she confirmed the selection, watching the blue box react before her.

And, with the wibbly, wobbliness of the box came an onslaught of information, tearing through her brain. The epistemological force shattered her brain as she let out a rough, guttural scream.

The woman’s body collapsed, unresponsive and her mind in a near-state of comatose. Again, she felt her head scorched, the pain ripping through the channels and wrinkles of her brain, piercing her mind with pure knowledge itself.

It stopped. The incredible sensation vanished and all that remained was mental fatigue, exhaustion, and strange, unnatural knowledge she didn’t have moments earlier.

As she regained control of her limbs, pushing herself back up awkwardly, she began to sift through what had just happened.

The selection of the skill had imparted upon her information pertinent to that exact skill, [Leech].

And it was all gibberish. For one, essence? What was that? She had to apparently do something to essence and then [Leech] would be activated but, frankly, it sounded like a bunch of pseudo-science.

In fact, it sounded awfully similar to what people used to believe the world was made of before humans discovered atoms. Aether, and whatnot.

Was it all useless? Was she scammed out of her skill points? Well, not entirely; there were some useful snippets hidden under that mess.

For instance, using a skill relied upon visualisation. It made sense; the interface reacted to her thoughts and the skills seemed to be a part of the interface so she’d have to think about it to use it.

Except… Why can’t I just think [Leech] and that works? It’s a computer; of course it’s gonna be temperamental.

Just my luck to get some buggy piece of shit.

Slightly dismayed it wasn’t as easy as she hoped, the woman didn’t let that stop her. Instead, she turned back to the useless knowledge.

Maybe there’s something here after all?

There’s a beauty to maths and physics; it’s all based off a few simple axioms and anything more complex is just an expansion of that--everything has a proof or rigorous evidence.

This? This was like reading the ravings of a mad person; the sort of people who say they’ve upended relativity and discovered the real way the universe works, with a bunch of esoteric words, concepts, and axioms, all trying to hold the bullshit together.

At least, it wasn’t entirely foreign. Limited in scope, sure, and nothing was hard or concrete but the information bore a modicum of similarity to what she could understand.

Her mind was predicated upon classical axioms; kinetic theory provided the basis for an understanding of energy. And, an understanding of essence, if she was right.

Essence was described like an energy. She drew from a well within her and apparently converted it through a skill? Some metaphysical bullshit.

The important part was the conversion; not creation or destruction of ‘energy’ but conversion. That, she could deal with.

So, on a fundamental level, the woman decided to interpret essence to be energy. Or, rather, energy anchored to particles, since she had to visualise it anyway, like an elementary visualisation of particles in different forms of matter.

Confidence growing as she believed she was on the right path, the woman held out her hand (it just felt right, her brain told her) and began to look at the plant in front of her.

If essence was energy, then it would function the same way as heat. The plant was healthy. She was not. Therefore, health would flow from the healthy body to the unhealthy body as diffusion would dictate.

Simple but she hoped that’d work.

Superimposing the image of particles over the plant in her vision she imagined herself a void, aching to be filled.

She just had to get the particles from one place to another.

Which was harder than expected.

Instinctually, she thought about the particles moving, trying to visualise them flowing towards, but they didn’t move.

A few more thoughts, a few more experiments. Nothing bore fruit and her mind began to worry.

Her stomach rumbled at her angrily but she smothered the thought; she felt this was more important.

Once more, she looked at the same bush as before and overlaid the visualisation of particles on top of it. And then, a thought occurred to her:

Is this computer not as advanced as I thought it was? Not being able to account for every permutation that a human could think would make sense; maybe I need to tell it directly what I want?

With a new method in mind, she focused back on the inert particles of the bush before realising an issue.

It’s heat. They should be moving. And just like that, the particles began to bounce around randomly and erratically. Whether they were exhibiting true Brownian motion or it was merely a substandard emulation of randomness that her mind was capable of, she didn’t know. Nor was it important.

Instead, she thought [Leech]. Nothing.

With a disappointed sigh, she tried something else.

Health? Still nothing.

Give me health? Nada.

Maybe a command isn’t enough? I need to think about the result as well. Fuck me; it’s like philosophy 101 all over. 5 plus 7 equals 12 but 12 does not inherently equal 5 plus 7.

Give me health, She thought in addition to thinking about her muscles. She thought of the sinew, the tendons, the fibres that made them all up. Imagined them repairing themselves, as well as blood flowing to her wound and clotting, rapidly healing inside her head.

As soon as her thought process finished the sentence, something just clicked. She could feel it inside of her, like when you crack a joint and it settles into place satisfyingly.

And then, small as it was, her mind was noticeably more fatigued suddenly. However, that was quickly washed away by heat blossoming across her skin, as her muscles felt invigorated.

She swore she could feel her muscles moving, rippling, under her skin as her flesh began to repair itself. She watched her wound, watched the red flush of the skin flow towards the wound in real time, saw how it began patching itself back up like her flesh was stitching itself together.

And then, after twenty seconds, it was over.

Name Unnamed Level 1 Health 80/80 Stamina 43/100 Essence

0/20 Power 4 Constitution 4 Endurance 5 Vim 6 Essence

1 Spirit

1 Stat Points 5

Holy shit. What the fuck just happened?

I have more health. I feel healthier. Her hand darted to her side, pressing and probing her new skin.

It’s… Gone.

Disbelief ran through her mind as she collapsed onto her butt, the reminiscent pain she was expecting no longer there.

She raised her gaze to look at the bush, now wilted and off-colour. It looked so healthy previously; a beautiful, bright, lush green.

Her head fell back against the dirt, unable to bring herself to move.

Magic.