◈ Chapter 89:

Rain watched the red-scaled Kobold and the fluffy wooled sheep girl as they pushed branches and leaves aside and emerged from the forest.

Red was definitely still angry with him, giving away some of the gold had not gone down well, and he kept giving him suspicious looks just like those he had been giving Lyra after her, according to him, misuse of gold.

Lyra waved as she made her way up the rise and Rain let the shadow cat sink into his fur.

“I found what we’ve been looking for. You know, I really think this was a little unnecessary.”

Rain promptly climbed to his feet and set off down the hill, ignoring the sheep girl who had to make a surprised about-face and hurry to catch up, going back the way she had just come.

“It’s important, I can’t go on like this, you have no idea,” said Rain.

“Wha- It’s not that important! I should know I have fluff!”

Rain turned back to her.

“You’re not the one who is filthy right now, and besides you don't have fur all over. Now show me where the hotspring is or I’ll put you in a tree and leave you there.”

“You wouldn't dare! Wait- h-hangon!”

“Red. Show me.” said Rain, switching to the Kobold as Lyra was being far too slow for his liking. The Kobold jumped in surprise, then seeing Rain’s serious steady gaze scuttled off into the woods.

Rain followed, pushing tree branches aside and kicking through the undergrowth. Being so large made going through forests a touch more inconvenient than being human sized. Still, he kept the flashing red scales of Red’s back in sight and after a ten minute walk, with Lyra frantically trying to keep up behind, they came out into a gap in the trees.

It was a small glade filled with steaming turquoise water, the warm summer sun streaming down onto the pristine pool surrounded by lush long grass a vibrant emerald in colour, bright blue butterflies fluttering through the warm air.

Rain felt a little emotion well up in him as he eyed the water, it was good for tired eyes to see such a thing.

He approached and carefully dipped his toe. It was the perfect temperature, easily as good as the baths in the Ranker’s mansion. Without preamble he slipped into the water, or at least, that was what he had intended, being so large it was more like a kersploosh! Sending a wave of turquoise to slop over the edge of the pool and wash up through the grass.

To his surprise he found the pool deeper than he expected, much much deeper, and he was soon well below the water line. He blinked and looked up, the shimmering dance of the summer sun on the rippling water above was almost hypnotising and he found himself after a time becoming calm, truly at peace, the warmth of the water soothing the aches and pains of his body in a way that left him a little unravelled, and then, as he slowly relaxed, his thoughts turning inward, introspective..

He could sense and direct the dark hungry thing in himself now, whereas before it was just out of view, uncontrollable. And after the Demons he had also gained a better sense of what that hunger wanted. It didn't just want to feed, it wanted… everything, to consume the world, it was the purest form of predator, a predator without limit.

He moved his claws in the water and a small shadowy catfish shimmered free from his fur before circling around his paw in curiosity. He’d seen catfish growing up in his past life, like their counterpart-in-name on land they were ruthless and successful hunters who ruled the streams and ponds they inhabited. He watched it for a moment then let out a mental sigh, a few bubbles escaping his lips with the motion.

He wasn't sure how to feel about any of this, especially what had happened after he had slaughtered the demons, he had thought of things he was sure he wouldn't normally and it had raised an uncomfortable thought: If he could manipulate the hungry darkness that was a part of him, who was to say that its hunger could not influence him back?

Nibbling his lip he let the catfish disintegrate and become a nebulous cloud of shadow. He made it move around, drifting, then he had it split becoming two smaller clouds that spun around each other, then split again. It didn't seem very useful in this form but he did have excellent control over it. He let the clouds of darkness slip back into his mane. He could sense them there, rejoining the darkness inside, filling him, a mass of terrible shadows, overwhelming everythi-

He paused. That... wasn’t true. Even now as he extended his senses inward he could sense the leveling system still there, trying to survive, being continually shredded apart by the monstrous darkness he now knew it was buried in, building as fast as it was torn down, unable to co-exist.

Curious, and not sure exactly what he was doing, Rain pushed his will into the darkness inside himself, commanding it to move. The darkness resisted, unwilling to change in such a way. He furrowed his brow and forced the matter and after a moment a dot appeared, a dot inside himself that was clean and clear. He worked at it and after a difficult struggle the dot expanded, becoming a sphere, a bubble of nothing in the suffocating dark.

A bubble that surrounded the leveling system and isolated it.

A place where the leveling system could function.

The colourful chromatic menu blinked fully into existence in his mind’s eye completely of its own accord and so suddenly and abruptly that Rain flinched back, losing his breath, a stream of fat bubbles rising to the surface. He choked and realising he could either rise to the surface, or stay and drink the hot spring dry, he struck out, his feet striking the water bed and shooting him up like a cork, much like when he had originally left the lake at the bottom of the dungeon.

He broke the surface with a gasp and drew in air, padding water as he floated, the turquoise waters rolling around him.

Still not quite believing it was true he took in the menu in his mind's eye.

It was… well a functional leveler system, one that seemed to be better than the one of his human life. His name, his spe- well it didn't give his species, that part was still a mess of artefacting. But it did give his Mana, a grand total of two out of two mana, which was not a heck of a lot, but he hadn't even had that metric in his past life, in fact he knew it was something usually reserved for those that acquired a mage type Class. For his Class it had N/A much as it had been in his human life as he had never attained a Class. For Level he was Level 2.

He was Level 2.

He was Level 2.

He froze up in incomprehension and dipped below the water again getting a swift mouth full of hotspring. Choking and spluttering he flailed and managed to regain the surface, blinking water from his eyes.

The dream of his previous life, what he’d struggled for so long, he had it!

But how??

It took him a moment to understand. The Leveling system had only managed to penetrate his monstrousness when he had touched the level orb allowing the system a way in through his human part. He hadn't actually killed a single monster after that point, that is… that is until he had sent his dark wolf teeth to hunt those birds. He hadn't even registered them as monsters in the moment, just weird regular birds with… teeth. Okay in retrospect they were quite monster like, if veering closer to the animal side of monsters. In any case that had been enough to take him from a level 1 to a level 2, he just hadn't noticed under the chaos of the system continually disintegrating and reforming.

He returned his attention to the menu with a fury, quickly scanning for more, which he quickly found. Under the Skills section he had a Skill, a very very basic Skill, which was about all he would have expected outside of having a Class, but a Skill none the less, his first ever Skill! A wood chopping Skill! He could use a Skill to chop wood! He almost wanted to weep, to finally have a Skill, it was almost too much.

He needed to use it, as soon as possible, he couldn't wait.

He lunged for the shore and climbed free, water sheeting off his fur. He ignored the peculiar looks of the others and approached an enormous oak tree. Now, how to use it?

Focusing on the Skill in his mind's eye it shifted and imparted more information

Chop Wood: A Skill used to ease the chopping of wood.

That… wasn't particularly helpful. Still, he could sense it was a consciously used Skill and so he summoned a dark paw.

“Hmm. Not very axe like,” he muttered looking over the paw. Well, there wasn't much he could do there, trying to form an axe shape out of the darkness was fruitless as an axe simply didn't embody the concept of a predator. He couldn't make an axe, and they hadn't brought one with them. Frustrated, he settled on making the scythe like claws on the dark paw larger, significantly larger, until they were unwieldy and at least felt a little axe like with their weight. He clacked the over five foot long blades together by waggling his digits then he pulled back and activated the Skill.

Power, pure power rushed through him, and his paw swept down with an incredible force, much much more than he could normally apply, red lines streaking out behind the scythes as they swept forward whip-like in speed. They touched the oak tree and the base of the oak tree Exploded turning into a solid spray of shredded wood that blew out in a cone from the tree leaving the tree momentarily suspended half a dozen feet in thin air, entirely unattached to the ground. Then it began to fall.

Rain tottered on his feet, trying to keep himself upright as his swing unbalanced him. He almost fell again as the enormous oak tree fell to earth with an earth shaking boom! The hot spring splashing up behind him as the ground trembled. Then the tree groaned and began to fall. He stepped back in surprise expecting it to fall in his direction. But fortunately, it fell the other way. Onto the nearest other tree. Which promptly collapsed under the weight.

By the time the almost painfully loud creaking and splintering sounds of breaking stressing wood came to a stop a dozen trees had fallen or had partially collapsed making a small hill of leafy canopy.

Rain blinked at the suddenly slightly expanded clearing around the hot spring.

“...”

That was not how he had expected things to go. What in the hell?! When he thought ‘Level 2 Wood Chopping’ Skill he tended to think of a poor low leveler swinging his or her axe into a log and every so often using the Skill managing to get five swings deep in one blow making their lives a little easier… not cut a tree in half, or explode it!

It occurred to him that there was no Leveler in existence who had his current strength at Level 1 or 2, not even slightly close.

If this was the effect of his body using a basic Skill then what else could he do? He had thought it would be quite some time until he got a Skill of any actual use to himself as it took a long time to Level up to the more useful Skills, but with his body like this? His monstrousness was synergising with the low level Skills!

He suddenly wanted to level up, to find out more, to unlock more Skills, find a Class, become stronger, more powerful, gain magic, discover more abilities, how many monsters would he need to kill? Where could he find them? He could feel himself practically salivating at the opportunities, seeing his numbers change, more levels, more Skills, more mana, more power!

He paused.

To see his numbers change? He had heard those words recently, they had come from Bane’s mouth… That thought made his skin crawl and he snapped back to reality.

The Ranker had clearly, very clearly, been hopelessly addicted to Leveling and seeing his stats go up, and then when he had suddenly hit an unexpected Level cap specific to his Class he had been instantly deprived of what was essentially his ‘Opium’, his fix, and had gone half mad with the search for an alternative. Rain was elated just at the prospect of leveling, he could well imagine an entire life chasing that leveling high would change a person's priorities, change and warp them. He furrowed his brow. Did he only recognise that because he had spent his previous life essentially outside that structure? He wondered now.

He turned to ask Lyra and found her with her hands on her head and Opal alongside with her arms up in the air.

“What hell are you doing!?”

Rain glanced back at the destruction.

Ah.