Like a wounded wolf, the woman ran through the woods like her life depended on it. Her fur-covered feet hit the ground hard as her trained muscles propelled her through the forest at a dizzying pace.

She didn’t look back, didn’t stop to catch her breath, and just kept running. At least, she couldn’t sense anything keeping pace behind her.

She had lost her spears, not wanting to waste any time looking for them. Hours of hard work and labour down the drain but she wasn’t in a state to complain currently.

Her freshly repaired leg bounded along the ground with as much grace and strength as the other one, showing no incisions nor any remnant wound that’d make you think a monster was biting into it not that long ago.

She ran with purpose, knowing exactly where she wanted to go; her hills.

They were familiar terrain and littered with trees and bushes; she’d be able to hide and ambush if necessary.

But her running quickly came to a stop. Although she felt superhuman, she wasn’t; she quickly had to slow down and catch her breath as her pace receded to a light jog and, eventually, a walk.

None-the-less, she found her way to her old campsite and proceeded to diligently climb the nearest tree before settling down on a thick branch. Thankfully, for how massive the trees were, their branches were consequently thick and load-bearing as well.

As she struggled to catch her breath, large lungfuls of air constituting her breathing, she closed her eyes as her body finally began to relax, the adrenaline already having exited her system but the nerves and anxiety only beginning to now.

Just like before, the woman tried to [Meditate], thankfully succeeding this time.

As her mind calmed down, she began to reflect on the notifications she had received before being rudely interrupted.

[Well of Spirit] [Level up]

[Maximise Mastery] [Level up]

Finally. That’s so welcome. [Maximise Mastery] levelled up as well.

Let’s… Let’s figure out the new maths.

[Well of Spirit] (2/10) -Learned

Spirit is multiplied by 1.8

[Maximise Mastery] (3/10) -Learned

Multiply intensity of an active essence skill by 2.2

Cost: Variable

The numbers are higher than I thought. I guess, [Leech] just scales badly comparatively? I suppose that makes sense, given how it does two things at once. I guess that means [Heal] would probably scale better than [Leech] with each level.

But this means my calculations from before were way off; I’ll be a lot stronger. This is like… 1 essence per minute!

The more powerful [Lone Wolf] seems, the more worried I get about the downside. Are parties really important somehow? Maybe I should’ve taken the safe option of [Source of Spirit]?

No! Stop second-guessing yourself. You don’t need other people; you’re strong enough by yourself.

Shaking her head, a smile burgeoned on her face as she watched her essence value tick up by one every minute—a visual representation of her strength.

Well… At least I know what’s deeper into the forest now.

From the looks of things, it seemed like every side sloped down to the fog, so is the whole forest in a bowl of some kind? Maybe it's a somewhat circular valley.

The shape doesn’t matter; what does is that I was clearly going the wrong way. I found civilisation, sure, but not helpful civilisation. From how deep those buildings were buried, I’d bet there hasn’t been anyone living in them for a long time.

So, new plan; instead of going down, let’s go up.

Rather than getting started right away, however, the woman decided to relax a bit, and restore her essence. Her muscles were sore, doing so much hard work that day, and as much as she wanted to get moving, the familiarity of her surroundings offered her a sense of comfort and security, no matter how much of a phantom they may have been.

Cognitively, she knew she wasn’t far from the sunken village, but her body would cry out in protest if she tried to move it, so she reluctantly decided to rest until her essence regenerated to max.

Which, happily, only took an hour and a half, the woman sunk in her meditative state and was able to de-stress her whole body.

While waiting and resting, she began to think.

She needed a new goal, now. Originally, she was venturing further and deeper into the forest, following the stream, as that seemed to be the best bet of finding civilization. Civilisation she did find, yes, but it was old and infested by monsters, so no success.

Therefore, she decided to try to go the other way; follow the brook upstream and hopefully get to higher ground that way. A vantage point should allow her to scan the horizon for civilisation.

What all that meant, unfortunately, was all the travel she had done thus far was completely and utterly pointless. The woman let out an audible groan as she considered all the time she wasted but that wasn’t going to stop her from going.

At least the time in the forest was fruitful in other ways. Like her skills and levels.

Speaking of levels, when I killed that… Thing, it said my ‘level cap’ increased to 7. There’s a level cap?

That leaves me with an awkward dilemma; should I plan what skills to take based on what would make me the strongest at the level cap, or what would make me stronger predicated upon my level cap continuing to rise?

A difficult question. Though, the next skill I’ll take won’t change—that, I’m adamant about.

Once the hour and a half was up, she felt her mind fully refreshed, able to tackle anything.

Opening her eyes, she was met with the same empty hill she had come to know, thankfully.

Carefully climbing down the tree, the woman prepared herself for another long journey.

She was aware she had been walking an awful lot that today, but she couldn’t feel comfortable or safe without putting at least some more distance between her and the village.

So, even as her exhausted mind and enervated body trekked forwards like an iron machine, she tried her best to remain alert but also to get in a little bit of skill training; she regenerated one point of essence every two minutes without [Meditate] so, every 22 minutes, she’d use a maximised [Leech] for 2 seconds, spending around 11points of essence. This way, she kept herself relatively topped-up while also able to grind away her skills.

Like a zombie, she walked on, her mind engaging in a methodical, mechanical rhythm of [Leech]ing while her body moved mostly on muscle memory, her mind so tired that even as darkness descended upon the forest, she didn’t fall asleep no matter how much she wanted to.

Instead, she pushed on, cursing how far she had travelled in previous days, and continued walking for a couple more hours before the urge to sleep became too much.

Finding a big bush, she quickly crawled into it, wrapping herself up in her large cloak as her body carried her off to slumber.

By the time she awoke, the sun was high in the sky and her whole body was sore with aches and pains. Even after stretching them out, accompanied by a large yawn, she still didn’t feel quite right, though that had been a common occurrence for all the times she had to sleep rough and on the cold, hard ground.

Today, however, she believed it was going to be a good day. The previous fear instilled in her the day before was all but gone; the distance she had traversed, placing her further away from the village, helped to placate her worries and discomfort and fear.

With her coherent mind, she clearly outlined her priorities:

Number one; find civilisation.

Number two; level up my skills.

Number three; level up myself.

Ideally, she’d be doing things which further all three of these, but that would be next to impossible so only doing things which advanced two at once was the standard she was trying to attain.

Thus, the rest of the day passed like many other days before it, except going in the opposite direction.

Just like before, she trained her skills where possible while always being on the move. When she got hungry, she deliberately moved off the path to hunt for some game, a squirrel or rabbit constituting her lunch.

It was only three and a half hours before she received a delightful notification:

[Leech] [Level up]

Just another step on my journey to become stronger.

The familiarity of things by now, of hunting small game, trekking, and enjoying the scenery, immensely helped her mental state; it was just like before, if you ignore the magical part to it. Falling into routine and familiarity provided a sense of comfort that she always derived from repetition.

An interesting observation she had made with using [Leech] was that even though the plants she demonstrably knew had less health than how much damage [Leech] dealt, [Leech] still expended all of her essence. In a word, it was inefficient.

Perhaps that’s the point of [Alteration Mastery]? I could finely tune [Leech] to deal, say, 30 points of damage and it’d use less essence that way?

After a good day of walking and hunting, as the woman was preparing to go to sleep in some undergrowth once more, she was presented with another wonderful notification:

[Well of Spirit] [Level up]

While lying down, however, she had a thought.

Is there a way to use skills while asleep? That’s a whole 8 hours I could use to train up my skills, like [Meditate].

She didn’t know exactly where to start, nor how to maintain a skill during her sleep, so she decided to start simple and intuitive; she’d fall asleep while under the influence of [Meditate].

Which, as it turned out, was incredibly easy to do. Once the skill's effect took over, the rough ground beneath her faded away, the ambience disappeared, and whatever light there was didn’t penetrate through her eyelids. It was incredibly easy to lose herself in that state.

And, by the time she woke up, she was delighted to see not two but three notifications waiting for her!

[Meditate] [Level up]

[Maximise Mastery] [Level up]

[Well of Spirit] [Level up]

While they were indeed good things, she had woken up to a bright world full of sounds and feelings so, unfortunately, her [Meditate] experiment failed to survive the whole night. At least it lasted long enough to bear some fruit.

It was invigorating, all this levelling up of skills. It provided a tangible basis for her to appreciate her strength, and she was getting stronger incredibly quickly.

[Leech] (4/10) -Learned

Drain 156 points of health from a living entity

Range: 16m

Cost: 13 es/sec

It won’t be long now until I can kill a boar in a single second. I can already [Heal] more health than I have with [Leech], now.

Should I put stat points into power, then? Otherwise, the extra health from [Leech] will just go to waste.

No; I’ve already committed to the path I’m going down. Spending points elsewhere will just unnecessarily weaken me.

With renewed resolve, the woman prepared herself for another day in the forest, happier, more confident, and perkier than ever.