Heat blossomed on to her eyelids, closed as they were. The enveloping warmth of a morning sun covered her like a blanket--her arms, legs, body, and head could all feel the loving caress of sunshine.

She awoke, seeing a tall wisps of grass covering the majority of her vision. Her head felt heavy, and dull, as the sideways world greeted her. Recovering, and slowly sitting herself upright, a sharp pain coursed through her body, originating from the side of her abdomen.

Looking down, she noticed an inky black knife wedged deep into her. Dried blood covered the wound as a mixture of congealed blood, mud, and whatever else kept the wound closed, preventing fresh blood from leaking out.

Her breath hitched a bit, speeding up as her eyes went wide upon settling on the weapon lodged in her. Even her reactionary breaths sent small ripples of pain through her body, the blade torturing her posthumously.

Many questions whirled through her mind; where was she, why was she naked, what had happened? Alas, none of these received any imminent answers.

Instead, upon her realisation of the situation and full lucidity returning to her, a strange, ethereal image actualised in front of her eyes. She turned her head to and fro, focusing on both near and distant objects; no matter what she did, the strange image stayed centre in her vision and never fell out of focus.

Name Unnamed Level 0 Health 14/80 Stamina 76/100 Power 4 Constitution 4 Endurance 5 Vim 6

This raised even more questions in her mind; a bunch of mysterious values, gauges, and words which she understood all independent of one-another but, in this amalgamated context, eschewed any attempts of comprehension.

Finally, however, her mind settled onto one conclusion; this must be a game. What else could it have been?

Working with this axiom in mind, the variables must, therefore, be stats; numbers quantifying her physical abilities. This seemed the most likely case--the names were similar or even identical to ones that games used.

In a settled state of mind, she was sure she’d find herself immensely curious in what had just appeared before her one very important detail caused her to reevaluate her priorities; her health was less than a quarter of her total health. This was dangerous.

She glanced back to her side, needing no help in working out why she was in such a weakened state, before remembering that she’d best leave the blade inside her. Taking it out would only worsen her health.

And it was at this realisation that she noticed something else--gauges. Just on her peripheral vision, to the point where if she had not focused on them, she wouldn’t have even seen them, were two bars, one a quarter empty and red while the other was three quarters full and yellow. It only took her a quick moment between connecting those with her health and stamina.

Useful, She thought; being able to see her health and stamina quantified whenever she wanted seemed like something anybody would want.

However, once again, she shooed such errant thoughts away as she tried to focus on the pertinent issue; doing something about the knife in her.

She laid down what she needed to do:

Number one, clean the wound. With all the dirt and mud that had caked the wound, who knew what diseases and insects may have entered into her bloodstream. The thought was horrifying and disgusting but it was a real and possible problem.

Second, find a way to bandage the wound. Simple cloth would work well enough but, as luck would have it, she was naked. The closest thing that she’d be able to find in this forest was leaves, unless an unlucky camper had forgotten their clothes nearby.

Third were basic camping priorities; food, water, and shelter. Add to that clothes as well.

Cleaning the wound would require water, knocking out two birds with one stone, and so, she decided upon looking for a running stream.

The forest was lush and dense, foliage peeking up everywhere. However, they were mainly trees; few shrubs and bushes dotted the ground floor but there was plenty of space to place her bare feet, feeling only dirt and old leaves underneath.

This forest didn’t resemble a rainforest but rather one found in a temperate climate. That meant that the trees, being alive, needed water and water they’d get either from streams and rivers or regular rainfall.

It wasn’t the best reassurance but she settled on her goal being to find a river within the day. If not, prepare equipment to catch rain. She’d even settle for desalinating salt water if she was on an island.

And so, she thus began her arduous trek throughout the forest, carefully placing her feet and moving with slow, methodical steps, cautious of both hurting herself from the environment and causing the weapon in her side to deal her even more pain.

Her wanderings were aimless but focused at the same time; she tried to keep the faint shadows to her back and continue on in the same direction. I have to avoid walking in circles.

The reminiscent pain, omnipresent with every step she stook, was a constant haze in her mind, a fuzz preventing her from wholly focusing on any one thought. She walked for a long time but how long? She didn’t know. She was in a timeless prison of foliage.

Eventually, however, after what felt like an hour that had been stretched an inconceivable amount, something stirred.

So far, the forest had been silent; not an animal was around nor was there even a wrinkle of breeze flowing between the trees. She had journeyed in silence except for the lumbering footfalls of her own two feet, coarse and dirty that they now were.

But something once again stirred; a shuffle of leaves, a disconcerting tapping of feet. She didn’t know what she heard--only that she heard something. She lowered herself, hunched over and crouch, trying to make herself a smaller target, and waited.

It was quiet, save for sounds so inaudible she doubted they weren’t just in her head.

And then they got louder. And louder. And louder, They volume amplified until she could firmly make out what they were; the frantic galloping of a large animal.

By the time her mind had registered what it was, she was stunned as a hulking, pitch-black boar burst through a brush occluding her vision. It was as dark as night, reminiscent as the weapon in her side, but its eyes were as red as blood. There was no depth there--only ferocity.

Reacting quickly, she shot to her feet, instinctively putting her hand to her side as she watched her health bar dip ever so slightly. The boar was focused on her and only paused momentarily before charging again.

As soon as it was within ten metres of her stationary form, a translucent, blue box appeared over its head.

Skir Boar, Level 2

Shit; it’s two levels higher than me. I need a weapon.

She was low on health and the four, sharp tusks sticking out of the boars snout made her doubly sure she did not want to tangle with it.

By the time she had gathered her resolve for what she was about to do, the boar had already covered half the distance between them and it did not seem to be the patient sort.

As the imminent death approached, she closed her eyes, grasped the firm, wooden handle of the dagger, and gracelessly ripped it out of her. Even with her eyes closed, her health bar remained and she watched as it plummeted.

Is it empty? She couldn’t tell, but there was no longer any visible sign of red that she could see, though she easily felt the strength leave her body rapidly.

Weapon in hand and eyes now open, though barely, the boar was right in front of her. As fast as humanly possible, she threw herself to the side, narrowly avoiding a razor-sharp tusk from stabbing into her. Without thinking, she plunged the dagger into the bar, not even bothering to aim.

She felt the blade cut deep into the flesh, sinking down with such ease she’d think it was butter. However, the boar didn’t stop; now connected with it, it felt like her arm was being wrenched out of its socket as the enormous mass of the boar barreled on, unable to stop.

As she was forced to let go of the knife, she slumped to the floor, watching as the boar skidden and then tumbled head-first into a nearby tree, shaking both it and the ground. The strong reverberated exemplified the incredible force behind that charge, and cemented her conclusion that pulling the dagger out was the right decision, even as strength finally left her and her eye closed shut.

She must’ve slept for an ungodly amount of time for, as she awoke, her stomach was gurgling, her throat dry and parched, and her reopened wound had already sealed itself shut with a new layer of dried, congealed blood and dirt.

However, the state of her body wasn’t the first thing she noticed. Instead, three, bright blue box appeared in front of her:

Level up!

You have been awarded 5 stat points and 1 skill point

As you died the same time you gained your first level stat points were automatically added to Power

You died in order to kill another entity

You have gained the Life aspect

She stared wordless at the non-physical apparitions, struggling to take it all in.

I-I died? Immediately, she went to check if that was true.

Name Unnamed Level 1 Health 86/180 Stamina 43/100 Essence

4/4 Power 9 Constitution 4 Endurance 5 Vim 6 Essence

1 Spirit

1

Everything checked out; she was one level higher than before--finally level ‘1’ and not ‘0’--her power had risen by five whole points.

In fact, this new, ‘level 1’ stat block, had many interesting additions; her power had only increased by 5 but her maximum health had increased by 100. Her current health also increased, though she didn’t know if that was because adding points to power gained her health or sleeping recovered that health.

Apart from all that, there were two new stats as well as another gauge in her vision; essence and spirit. Disappointedly, both were at 1 but maybe because she couldn’t see them when she was level 0, they needed a requirement and so were rare?

This was all just her stats, and thinking it over, the fear that had welled up inside her over hearing that she had died was quickly replaced with a childish-giddiness. Next up was investigating whatever this ‘life aspect’ was.

Thankfully, that wasn’t hard to do; she easily discovered that there were more blue boxes displaying her ‘innate abilities’, as they were called. All of her senses, such as touch and sight, were listed, as well as things like internal temperature control (which she imagined meant she was warm blooded).

However, beneath all of that was something listed ‘Aspects’ and it was there she found the solitary ‘life aspect’.

As it turned out, the life aspect meant that life-related skills had lower requirements.

Though it didn’t show it, she hypothesised that it also gave her access to essence and its corresponding stats.

As she struggled her way back onto her feet, a pang of pain rocketed from her side again, the familiar feeling grounding her from the euphoria of discovering the effect of stats. Even though her health was so much higher now, the wound was still there and hurt just as badly as it did when she woke up. At least there was no longer a knife lodged inside, now.

Her thoughts were all over the place as she began to move; it was like her mind was split in two--one part wanted to learn and experiment and find out more about stats and skills and what-not while the other was focused on survival.

She lumbered her way over the corpse of the boar, nearly tripping over her own feet, while she was busy thinking about this strange system that had been given to her. Even as she withdrew her balde from the eye socket of the vicious beast, she had discovered a seemingly endless list of different skill trees that she had access to. She scrolled through them as her hands began to methodically cut and slice at the creature, tearing off its hide to reveal the bloody flesh underneath.

And then, she found the auspicious tree of life skills.

0th Tier

Heal (1/10)

Restore 5 points of health every second to a living entity

1m range

Cost: 1 es/sec

Leech (1/10)

Drain 10 points of health every second from a living entity

1m range

Cost: 1 es/sec

Cleanse (1/10)

Cleanse an entity from any toxin, disease, or contamination

Cost: 1 es

There were only three unlocked for her, and they were listed as ‘0th tier’ (presumably, foundational skills). Apt for something called ‘life’, both skills seemed to bestow life.

At first glance, the skills seemed quite different though there was more nuance there. From what she understood, heal allowed her to bestow 5 points of health every second to any, single living entity she targeted. That presumably included herself, though the skills didn’t offer any additional clarification, which was annoying.

With leech, she could drain 10 points of health. What did that mean? Well, drain probably meant that an entity would lose 10 health points, though it wasn’t explicit in where the points went. Did they go to the air? She thought it was unlikely; with a name like ‘leech’, those points would probably go to herself.

Considering this was all a game, that seemed to make sense to her; by losing the flexibility of heal, you’d gain efficiency with leech.

Cleanse was also a tempting proposition; there was a niggling worry that walking around a dirty forest with an open wound--not even including literally lying down in a pile of dirt and dead leaves--left her with infections. Cleanse would ensure that issue would no longer be something to worry about.

The important question was, therefore, would cleanse be more worthwhile than leech? After careful deliberation, she decided that it was not--at least, for her first skill, leech would be better.

Seeing how killing one boar garnered her a level up, she could probably level up again quickly just by hunting animals for food--should it come to that--and leech would serve her better in hunting animals, both able to damage them and sustain herself. Cleanse was more of a long-term skill while leech was better for her imminent survival.

Maybe, if I had a weapon and was better at hunting, I'd take cleanse in that situation.

This seemed like an easy decision to make, in her eyes; her top priority was not dying and leech would do a better job at that than heal would.

And so, she obtained the leech skill at the cost of only one skill point.

Now, all she had was the issue of actually learning how to use this new skill. Upon purchase, information flooded her brain, both a small, preliminary understanding of life skills in general but also specific information on how to use leech. Except, she couldn't follow it.

Both the information for life and the information for leech specifically utilised terms that she didn't know and concepts that had barely entered her mental paradigm until recently; any attempt at commandeering contemporary understanding of the magic in this world would just fall flat for her mind--a mind that was predicated on classical axioms one could intuitively understand rather than ethereal, metaphysical energies she couldn't even see.

So, she thought about going about this a different way; analogies.

Leech, probably because it was of the 0th tier, seemed relatively simple; the aid given by the system in utilising it was short and--she presumed--not too complex. If leech was meant to be a fundamental way of exercising control over essence, as her respective knowledge about life bestowed by the system, then, in theory, the skill should function in an intuitive way.

The first thing that came to her mind was heat. Leech, fundamentally, was draining health and giving it to another. Her knowledge made her understand that a link was made between two entities and the link required essence to be constructed. In a way, when leech was in effect, a closed system was established.

Visualising health as heat and the 'essence link' (as she termed it) as a closed system, that'd naturally mean health would diffuse from one entity full of health to an entity lacking health.

She focused on the effect of health--repairing muscle, infusing strength. She visualised the sinew and tendons that made her up, the blood running through her. How nerves controlled every action, and how she was merely a composition of cells.

With all this in mind, she focused on a plant less than a metre in front of her, barely within the limit of the range of the skill. She pictured in her mind all those visuals she saw when diffusion had been explained to her--particles of health drifting from the plant to her in an erratic but continuously pattern.

And, slowly, just like that, an unknown, foregin feeling entered her body. It felt like an injection right to her head but then began to spread outwards, enveloping her whole body like she was being submerged in a viscous substance. After a whole second, she pulled up her stat block to see if anything was changing.

Name Unnamed Level 1 Health 96/180 Stamina 41/100 Essence

3/4 Power 9 Constitution 4 Endurance 5 Vim 6 Essence

1 Spirit

1

Yes; I'm restoring health! This is magic. I'm actually performing magic. This is... this... I can't believe it.

The excitement too much to bear, she collapsed onto her back, unperturbed by the dessicated, dry leaves and insect-filled dirt. For a normal person like herself--who was content that running a marathon being the best achievement that she had accomplished in her life--supernatural joy overwhelmed her. An entirely new frontier to life had just opened itself up and her situation, for just a moment--being lost in a forest without food, water, clothing, or shelter--seemed just a tad bit brighter.

Eventually, however, she pulled herself upright when the elusive feeling finally left her body, leaving her feeling oddly... Empty. Not only that, a dull throb began to emerge in her head--a lingering pressure behind her eyes that suffused her being and occluded her mental lucidity.

Looking to the bars that were both present and not present in her vision, she noticed a new addition--this one empty. Her health was the highest it had been (nearly full), her stamina about half full, and the third one, which she assumed to be essence, had barely the smallest sliver of blue filling it up. She wasn't even completely certain there was a blue sliver and it wasn't just her imagining it.

More startling, however--and perhaps she should've seen it coming--was the plant that she had been targetting for life; the previously lush green plant was now limping, wilted, and had patchy, yellow discolourations dotting its leaves. She could think no better word than 'dead' to describe it.

I guess that plants have less than 40 health, then. What even is health, though? I drained health but the plant looks like it died due to dehydration and nutrient deficiency. Does that mean leech also feeds me? Gives me water? I need to investigate more.

More and more questions popping up into her mind over how this all worked, she trudged her way back to the half-skinned corpse of the boar, the meat looking no less unappetising as it did before. The blade she held in her hand was double-edged and without serrations; it wasn't the best for preparing food but it'd have to do.

Actually, if I took cleanse, I wouldn't need to cook food either, since the skill would take care of any possible infection or disease. Not that it matters much; I can just make a fire.

With knowledge of this strange, mysterious system in her head, a weapon in her hand, a skill that could heal her and potentially more, as well as food right at her fingertips, she thought that maybe, just maybe, she could survive this.