Noah stopped at a T-shaped intersection after sprinting for about 15 minutes straight. He had taken random turns whenever he had the choice in the hopes of losing the swarm. He hadn't seen if they moved over the dead nest after the patriarch's ungodly screech, too busy running away at the time. Thankfully they hadn't caught up, but they still might be hunting him right now.

Remembering he had a status now, Noah checked it.

HP:443.7/443.7(3% per min / 13.3 HP per min) Total HP regen 1.65 per sec

Stamina:53.9/200(0.2% per sec / 0.4 per sec)

'So about twenty minutes of sprinting before I run out of steam, thirty after I'm done with Arcane essence manipulation'

His stamina was running a little low, but he wasn't feeling that tired or even sweating, which was strange considering he had his winter jacket still on. He was also wearing his winter boots. Thankfully he decided to put them on instead of his sneakers. The latter probably wouldn't have lasted long here.

Out of habit Noah tried to push his glasses up his nose and realized they were gone. He hadn't noticed before that, because he could see perfectly fine. Actually his vision was even better now than it was back on Earth with glasses on. He saw the rat patriarch and could somewhat make out individual rats in the swarm from hundreds of meters away.

'The rest of my body got improved, it is logical my eyes got the same treatment' he thought.

Noah sat down. The T-shaped intersection was a good place to rest. The tunnels on all three sides stretched for hundreds of meters straight, so nothing was sneaking up on him here. And with three sides there was less of a chance to pincer him in, although going back the way he came here from, was a last resort.

After seeing the patriarch and his swarm Noah was ready for drastic measures, which meant improving his arcane essence flow. It would give him an immediate and massive overall improvement, and he had to do it at some point to progress. It would also help with making his skills work. What had gotten him so scared, was that it involved stopping his heart and circulating the arcane essence himself.

Noah looked inward and submerged himself in his bloodstream. For all intents and purposes, his blood was now arcane essence and his body wasn't quite normal after the change. It still worked like it was though and that is where the inefficiency came from.

The arcane essence was pulsing through his arteries in time with the beats of his heart, the flow through the veins was sluggish, and there were large amounts of blood just sitting in the spleen, skin, and liver. What he needed was a smooth flow, throughout his body and all of his essence actually circulating.

'I've been here less than an hour and I'm about to stop my own heart. How the hell did it come to this?'

"I need you to be very clear with me System! This isn't going to kill me, RIGHT?" The system laughed and sent him an image of Shia Labeouf screaming "JUST DO IT!".

"That's a meme! Are you meeming at me? How do you even now that? Are you going through my head?" He got back an apologetic feeling and then an excited 'MEMES' one.

Noah shook his head, ignored the system for the sake of sanity, and got back to work. He had a layer full of killer rats to deal with and a heart to stop.

He focused inwards, feeling the arcane essence and then submerging himself in it. The first thing Noah focused on was the blood just sitting in the reservoir organs, mainly the spleen, liver, and skin and slowly adding it to the general flow.

Then he started working on his veins, from the periphery to the heart, increasing and smoothing out the flow. When he got close to the heart, Noah let the inertia and pressure from behind carry the essence, for now staying away from the vital organ.

After that, he started working on the arteries, slowly smoothing the pulsations in the smaller ones, and working his away to the bigger arteries. He was getting closer and closer to the hearth and at the same time increasing the flow in the capillaries and dilating previously constricted ones to support the increased circulation speed and volume.

Noah had been focusing inward, his whole attention on his heart and circulation, but now his concentration started waning. His consciousness emerged from his arcane essence and into the outside world, only to register scratching and squealing.

Noah looked down and to the left and saw a rat sluggishly struggling out of the wall, not even three meters away from him. He was still manipulating his circulation, most of his mental faculties on it, so it took him a few seconds to realize what was happening. But when he did he jumped up and shifted his attention to the threat at hand.

That turned out to be a big mistake. When he let go of his arcane essence all hell broke loose inside his body. Without his control, the flow in his veins stagnated back to its previous pace. The pressure from the increased amounts of blood too much for the less elastic vein walls to handle and the flow in them stopping.

The capillaries he had started opening, now constricted again, trapping the arterial blood in the vessels. With his heart sending a few big beats before the blood flow from the veins stopped and the pressure in the smaller arteries skyrocketing, they just burst open.

HP:156.9/443.7(3% per min / 13.3 HP per min) Total HP regen 1.65 per sec

Noah's everything was in excruciating pain, his head spinning and his vision darkening. He tried to grab the wall to stabilize himself but in the end, met the ground face first.

He just lied there for a few seconds, until his regeneration fixed the worst of the damage. Groaning, he got on his hands and knees. The rat was still trying to get free and Noah moved towards it. Even with his brain scrambled, he realized what had to be done.

Shakily, using the wall for support, Noah got up, now standing above the rat. Punching it, while on all fours would be easier, but he was unwilling to put his head and neck so close to the monster.

It finally noticed him and started madly clawing the ground, trying to get out. A familiar white glow drifted around its front legs.

Noah's eyes grew wide. He unsteadily lifted his right foot and stomped on the rat's head. His current condition, combined with the realization he was about to crush a living being's head led to him missing the mark.

Still, Noah managed to graze the monster and interrupt the skill. The rat woozily lifted its head in his direction. It screeched at him, its black eyes turning a reddish hue, its fur standing up and its nails extending.

Noah looked at the rat and his own foot still next to it. The white glow appeared again, this time around its teeth and it bit down. He tried to pull away, but the monster was faster than him this time. Thankfully it only managed to tear a chunk of boot, leaving him unharmed.

His leg in the air, Noah screamed "HNGHT". What came out of his throat was a cross between a whine and a pained moan. Nevertheless, it got the job done and his heel met the rat's head.

A stomp like that would have certainly killed a rat back on Earth, but when Noah lifted his boot this one was still alive. It was considerably flattened and barely moving but still clinging to life.

Managing a real scream this time, Noah brought his foot down again. There was an audible 'crunch' and this time he got a notification.

You have killed Dark Rat LV.1

The whole thing, from noticing the rat to finally killing it had taken less than 20 seconds, most of which Noah spend recovering on the floor after losing control of his arcane essence. To his muddled brain, it felt much longer.

He got a feeling from Arcane essence combat mastery that told him everything wrong he had done during the fight, which was, well, everything. He hadn't realized that helping him improve his fighting included that, but it was welcome nonetheless.

Noah stomped on the rat again to make sure it was dead and then sat on the ground next to the crushed body.

HP:193.8/443.8(3% per min / 13.3 HP per min ) Total HP regen 1.65 per sec

He just sat there for a minute, recovering from the damage, until his head finally cleared.

During that time Noah saw that the front of his jacket was covered in blood and realized he had bled from his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. There was also a wet feeling both on the front and back of his pants, which turned out to also be blood. All in all, he had bled from all possible orifices.

He looked around, checking all three tunnels for enemies. He had neglected his surroundings when he submerged himself in the arcane essence and suffered the consequences.

Still, the rat hadn't snuck on him, it had literally popped out of the wall. Noah grabbed the dead monster and pulled. After being flattened it wasn't stuck anymore and came out easily. He threw the body to the side and stuck his hand in the wall.

The hole was just big enough to fit a single rat inside and there were no other exits. After rummaging around to make sure and confirming it, Noah took his hand out.

"Did it just spawn in the hole?" Noah asked, but got no answer from the system. After a brief pause, he asked another question "Do monsters spawn in this world?" This time he got back a positive feeling.

"What about the baby rats then? Do they just spawn around the matriarchs? Maybe when a matriarch and a patriarch are in the same place baby rats just start popping into existence."

The system laughed at him and sent a series of feelings. In the end, Noah understood that monsters could both spawn and multiply naturally. With further prodding, he was relieved to find out monsters rarely spawned more than one at a time.

The important part was that the rat he just fought, most likely spawned in the hole. For a second there, Noah was scared of a system of secret passages running through the walls that the rats were using for ambushes.

HP:443.8/443.8(3% per min / 13.3 HP per min ) Total HP regen 1.65 per sec

With his HP restored and all the damage healed, Noah got back to Arcane essence manipulation. This time though he didn't fully submerge his consciousness. He went through the same steps as before but slower, at the same time paying attention to his surroundings. Luck had saved his life consecutively in a very short amount of time and he was scared of running out.

Noah got to the point where he got interrupted before. The only part he wasn't in control right now was the immediate area around the heart. As the central organ of the circulatory system and its close relation to blood, Noah felt he had some control over his heart through Arcane essence manipulation. Enough to do what he had to.

He felt it was best to do it fast, like ripping a band-aid off. Noah took a deep breath and went for it. He mentally grabbed his heart and squeezed, forcing it to a standstill. At the same time, he took control of the arcane essence in it and completed his circulation.

His heart kept trying to restart, but Noah didn't let it. There was a slight problem when his brain registered his heart had stopped and initiated the "Guess I'll just die" protocol but aborted it soon after when circulation continued uninterrupted.

Noah jerked up and looked around. The last part had required his full attention and he lost awareness of his surroundings again. Thankfully there wasn't a swarm of rats rushing at him.

He got up. He had stayed in one place for too long. He had thought about leaving after the fight but fixing his arcane essence circulation needed to be done as soon as possible.

Speaking of, Noah was getting used to the feeling of controlling his own blood flow. It was requiring less and less attention from him by the second and would soon become second nature to him.

He picked a tunnel and started walking. At first, staying alert and keeping up his manipulation took all of his concentration, but as time passed the latter required less and less of it.

At some point Noah started shadow boxing, trying to internalize the correct way of hitting things and build up muscle memory. Even before, he knew that proper punches and kicks required you to put your weight behind them and rotate your body a certain way. Now he was actually doing it, or more accurately, trying to.

Coming out of the bend at the end of the tunnel, Noah noticed a rat's ass sticking out of the wall. What got his attention was the fleshy, pink tail contrasting with the cave floor.

Taking five big steps he lifted his foot high and stomped on the monster. There was a quiet squeak that Noah's second stomp silenced. It was much less mentally challenging, attacking something that wasn't trying to actively murder you or struggling and screeching at you.

You have killed Dark Rat LV.1

This time Arcane essence combat mastery had a little bit less bad things to say.

Noah again pulled the body out and shoved his hand inside the hole in the wall. He still wasn't convinced there weren't secret passages full of rats inside the walls.

Again his hand ended up in a small hole with no other exits or entrances. The insides of the hole were covered with an oily, slimy and sticky substance. Noah felt a shiver go down his spine at the feeling and almost pulled his hand away, but in the end, he persisted in his search for the elusive wall rat brotherhood.

When he was finally satisfied he removed his hand from the hole, and found it all covered in a black substance. Looking at it for a few seconds he made his mind and took a sniff.

What followed was the strongest gag reflex he'd ever felt in his life. He was dry heaving on the floor for the next 30 seconds, while wiping his hand on the wall. The stench was so bad, he'd almost lost control over his circulation.

Noah shambled away, putting distance between himself and the pit of liquid evil. He wanted to erase the smell out of his memories but knew it would haunt him in his darkest nightmares. The interesting and miraculous thing was it didn't smell from a distance and only up close.

It took him some time, but Noah put the circulation of his arcane essence under control. It had been thrown into chaos the moment he smelled that vile substance.

With that taken care of, he got back to walking and shadow boxing.

He encountered 3 more rats, two of them woozily crawling out of a wall and the third with his head in a hole. He took care of all 3 without problems, just stomping them to death. He checked the first two holes, finding nothing again. When he pulled the third rat Noah saw black sludge on its snout and walked away without sticking his hand in.

He was getting over his initial aversion to killing another living being. Keeping up his arcane essence flowing required almost no focus now and he felt a noticeable improvement in his strikes thanks to Arcane essence combat mastery. That combined with the continued success was giving Noah confidence.

At some point, he started experimenting with Sacrificial nova since it would be most useful out of his skills right now. To make it work he had to take a chunk of health away from his pool, energize it so it was volatile and damaging and then make it explode out.

The skill came with a simplified version of a manipulation trait to make it work. It was useless to Noah, since arcane essence was totally different, compared to ordinary health, but Arcane essence manipulation did a much better job anyway. Thanks to that the first part came naturally to Noah.

The second part as it turned out was useless to him. When he tried it, he ended up with a lesser version of his arcane essence. He went over it a few times to make sure he was doing everything right, and he was. The feeling he was getting from the skill told him the lesser arcane essence he ended up, was even better than intended.

It made sense since Arcane essence was much more potent than normal health. That meant the sacrificial skills would be more powerful when he used them compared to other people.

Noah decided to just skip the second step and use his arcane essence directly. He thought about trying to energize it even further using Arcane essence manipulation instead of the skill but remembered what happened when he lost control of his circulation and gave up for now.

The third part was giving him problems. He had started by sacrificing small amounts of HP, between five and ten, to get a better feeling of the first part and while experimenting on the second. Trying to explode it out, though just wasn't happening, the power just harmlessly dissipating

He tried increasing the amount of HP sacrificed, going up by 1 or 2 points each time until finally feeling a reaction at 20 HP. Power gathered in the center of his chest and pulsed, before dissipating again.

HP:353.4/444.1(3% per min / 13.3 HP per min) Total HP regen 1.66 per sec

At this point he was down almost a quarter of his HP and with 20 or maybe even more HP per try, it would quickly get dangerously low if he continued.

'Good thing my regeneration is so high. I'll just wait a minute until I'm topped off and get back to it.' Noah thought as he walked but noticed something different.

He had been following a tunnel for some time and now it opened up to what seemed like a bigger room. He slowed down allowing his Hp to regenerate. It was the first time he encountered something like that, so Noah moved as silently as possible, carefully going forward.

He was about to enter the room when a rat rounded the corner. It was a LV.1 and they both froze in front of each other. Noah had just stepped forward with his left leg and was in a perfect position to just kick the rat with his right like a football.

And he did just that. The poor monster was too slow to react, shooting out like a cannonball, hitting the opposite wall and bouncing back to the middle of the room. Noah followed and just as the rat was getting up he kicked him again with similar results.

You have killed Dark Rat LV.1

Getting some feedback from Arcane essence combat mastery Noah stood victorious over his foe.

His victory lasted only a second thought, because to his right stood another three rats, all LV.1. They were staring at him frozen and uncomprehending what just happened.

Noah decided to use his newfound strategy and took two big steps towards the new threat. The first rat was introduced to his right foot, shooting at the wall and bouncing off of it.

The wall wasn't directly behind it this time, so the rat didn't bounce back towards Noah, but forward and sideways ending up at the other side of the room.

His buddy, who was now on the outside of his right leg got spared for now. His other buddy though, which was to the back and left wasn't so lucky. Using the build-up momentum Noah continued his movement and swung his left leg. Rat and boot met, but they were not meant to be together, and the cruel fate, or in this case, the laws of physics, sent the monster on a collision course with the wall.

Noah didn't get to follow them and finish the job, because the third rat, the one next to his right foot, bit his calf and then climbed up. The bite ripped a hole in his jeans and removed a patch of skin, but the pain was tolerable.

The problem was the rat going up his leg. It was quite fast too, getting past his thigh and about to go up the torso when Noah slapped it away.

It bounced off the ground and landed a few meters away, the familiar now white glow swirling around his teeth and paws.

Noah knew what was coming and tried to evade. The problem was he tried to duck and dodge to the side at the same time and ended up falling on the floor on his side.

In the end, it got the job done, since the rat sailed through the air above him, but put him in quite the uncomfortable position, in a room with three murder rats, no less.

In the process of getting up, currently on all fours, Noah felt an impact on his butt, which was now occupying the space his head had been in just a second ago. It was accompanied by sharp pain and the feeling of something, clearly one of the rats, going up his back towards his neck and head.

There was a second impact on his ribs, this time coupled with the sound of his jacket ripping. This rat also climbed up and went for his head.

Noah, now with two monsters in close proximity to his neck, just rolled and squirmed on the ground, while trying to slap them off. He did manage to keep them away from his head but couldn't get them off.

At some point the third rat joined in too, climbing over his leg. With three of them, it was harder to protect himself and one managed to get to his neck. It bit him but only managed to tear a part of his collar away.

Noah was getting frantic. The rats were crawling all over him, his heart was hammering in his chest, his body suddenly felt weak and his vision blurred.

Right now he was on his back, with two rats on his chest and one on his crotch. Noah reached for the Sacrificial nova skill and tried sacrificing 200 HP, in the hope that the sheer amount of health would make the skill work and do enough damage to just kill the rats.

He was met with a resistance pushing against him, not letting him sacrifice the amount he wanted. In the end, he ended up giving up 120 HP to the skill and the energy started building in his chest.

The volatile nature of his essence worked in his favor and combined with his need and terror the skill required just a little push to explode.

A crimson sphere of raging power expanded from the center of his chest. One of the rats on his chest was a little to the left of the skill origin point and shot out to the side impacting the wall with crushing force.

You have killed Dark Rat LV.1

The monster on his crotch was farther away from the center of the explosion, which quickly lost power as it traveled and was just pushed off of him.

The third rat that was right above the center of the nova was launched straight up, hitting the ceiling and falling back down, still alive. It must have been the one he did not kick in the beginning.

Noah tried slapping it as it fell towards him but ended up hitting nothing. With his vision blurred and spinning, his depth perception wasn't working properly.

He did manage to catch it by the tail on the second try and slam the rat in the ground.

You have killed Dark Rat LV.1

Noah got up to a sitting position, his heart beating erratically. The last rat was by the wall on the other end of the room, facing his way. His vision was still blurred but he picked a reddish hue lighting up.

Out of options, Noah just threw the dead rat, he was still holding by the tail, with all the strength he had. He actually managed to hit the other monster and a blessed message popped in his mind.

You have killed Dark Rat LV.1

He just collapsed backwards.