005

The day after my meeting with the huge leopard, I was quite busy.

I used [Sprint] vigorously and made sure that I scouted every inch of area in a five kilometre radius around my small cave. I obviously left out the lake’s area as I was able to see that far from where I was standing.

I had to stop and rest a few times because I would run out of Qi pretty fast and then it would take a couple of hours for it to completely refill.

It would be near impossible for a normal person to do it, but with the help of the [Sprint] skill which had now reached level 2 finally after continuously using it for more than two days, it was somewhat doable.

Like I thought, the conditions for levelling skills up is very harsh. But they’re totally worth it, as the level up granted me 10 QI points.

Name: Grant Steele

Lv.1 [65/100]

HP: 26/26

MP: 0/0

BA: 0/0

QI: 24/24

DEF: 10

Skills: Sprint Lv.2, Cold Resistance Lv.1

It has been proved to me that it is far more profitable to increase my skills’ levels and the number of skills that I have.

If I’m right about the level up thing, every level up increases my stats by 10%, if I increase my stats before every level up, then I should get good amount of stats. If only I could increase my HP with the help of a skill, then all would be good.

“Is this why it’s so difficult to increase a skill’s level?”

I kept that thought in mind when I continued to sprint around the forest, forcing myself to the limit to get another level up, but even I knew that it wouldn’t be this simple.

By the end of the third day, I had a pretty good idea of what kind of an area I was surrounded by.

I had covered a radius of a few metres around my cave in rabbit blood, this way not one of those things would come by even near to where I was staying. The few rabbits that I had hunted previously were enough for that.

In a way it was a good thing that I met these stinking things this early, who knows how many more nights would I have endured in fear that something might attack me in my sleep.

“Thankfully that isn’t going to happen. Tomorrow I will begin the next phase of my plan.”

I slept quite nicely that night.

…

The next morning I was quite busy as I had intended to spend the entirety of it finding and hunting rabbits, but before I could even hunt even two of them, I had overused my [Sprint] skill multiple times in a few hours finding wood. It was maybe because I was purposefully trying to

[Sprint has reached level 3]

[Qi has increased by 10]

QI: 8/34

Usually I would have to wait for my Qi to recover, but I don’t have the patience or the safety of the cave to wait that long.

Isn’t there anything that I can do to speed it up?

With that train of thought I continued to ponder eventually coming to an interesting thought.

With nothing much to lose, I executed it immediately. I found a fairly nice place to sit, and sat down cross legged closing my eyes, I was still near my cave that was why I could be this carefree.

I began to focus on the process of my Qi regenerating.

I thought I only needed to rest to get my Qi back, but there has to be more to it than that. Now that I was carefully feeling and looking for something, I noticed it very quickly. The energy which I thought was going to be absorbed from the outside didn’t do that, rather it regenerated on its own without the help of any outside energy.

Maybe this was the reason why it was so slow.

I felt how it was regenerated and I thought ‘why not help speed it up?’ It sounded a lot easier in my head.

I noticed it would make a full circulation around my own body before it would slightly increase. This way the cycle of rotation and expansion would continue and gradually my Qi would recover.

But I couldn’t wait for who knows how many hours before that happened. If I continued to wait, then it would be months before I could get out of here, and frankly, I wasn’t a huge fan of this place.

I felt the full rotation a few times before I knew the general path it would follow, then as to take away the automatic control away from my body, I carefully but sloppily at first moved it around.

It felt something like meditation, it was very calming.

“I know I don’t have full control over it yet but that doesn’t mean that I never will.”

I continued persisting and before I knew it.

Ding!

[Skill: Qi Manipulation Lv.1 has been acquired.]

[Qi has increased by 50]

[Skill: Qi Regeneration Lv.1 has been acquired.]

[Qi has increased by 20]

[Qi has crossed 100. Condition satisfied.]

[Quality of Qi has exceeded the host’s current physical capability]

[Making adjustments…]

Before I understood what making adjustments meant, I felt a huge amount of pain in my abdominal area, the origin place of my Qi. The huge amounts of Qi that had gathered in spread around my body and because I was fully focused on moving my Qi before this happened, I could very clearly feel what was happening to me.

The Qi spread out in every single part of my body and it seemed as if it was seeping into them, I couldn’t really explain what was going on. It maybe lasted a few seconds or maybe a minute at most before the pain subsided and all the Qi that I had gathered in the previous hour vanished completely.

I was honestly very sad looking at it, but the next few messages clearly made it better.

[Adjustments complete.]

[Health has increased by 50.]

[Defence increased by 20.]

Name: Grant Steele

Lv.2 [40/200]

HP: 79/79

MP: 0/0

BA: 0/0

QI: 12/108 [0.1/sec]

DEF: 30

Skills: Sprint Lv.3, Cold Resistance Lv.1, Qi Manipulation Lv.1, Qi Regeneration Lv.1

“This..!?”

I was starting to think they would never end.

But my surprise didn’t last long, it was eventually taken over by a huge surge of warmth that flowed within me suddenly.

[Cold Resistance has reached level 2]

[Defence increased by 5.]

“!!”

I was once again left speechless. All of this happened within the span of a few minutes and I had already more than doubled my strength.

I wanted to relish in this feeling of accomplishments a little longer, but I had something to do.

With new power flowing inside of me, I once again started running. I didn’t use [Sprint] as my natural body felt just as light as I did when I used [Sprint].

My feet felt like they were flowing on the ground.

They didn’t hurt no matter how hard I stomped them on the ground, right now I felt that I could go as fast as I needed and wanted to go. My body and senses have become much sharper as well, I could see and hear more clearly.

Looks like the stats aren’t just for show. My health more than doubled and I was already feeling like a new man. Excitement filled me as I thought about my future growth.

I also got a few new skills, but I wasn’t in the mood to check now.

“I’ll check them properly when I get back, right now is the time to hunt.”