"Wait a minute, what am I going to eat...?"

With all that was happening, Noah had forgotten about food completely. Admittedly it wasn't the most pressing matter, compared to everything else he'd been through, and he hadn't felt any pangs of hunger so far. Which, on second thought was strange, considering all the running around and fighting he had been doing.

Noah remembered that the Arcane essence Trait changed his body and focused inward trying to glean its new needs but couldn't figure anything out.

"Do I still need food to survive? What about water?" Noah asked, hoping the system would find it appropriate to help him out.

'Yes and yes' was the answer he got.

"Well, that doesn't help at all. Do I need less food and water to survive, compared to normal people?" he tried again, hoping for something more useful.

'Yes'

"Oh come on! Couldn't you at least tell me how much less?" Noah exclaimed in an exasperated voice.

The system sent him an annoyed feeling and a message that came down to 'Figure it out yourself ' and then went quiet.

"That still leaves the question of what I am going to eat or drink." In his time wandering the layer so far, Noah hadn't seen anything edible or drinkable whatsoever.

"Well, not exactly."

He looked at his hands and focused on the drops of black sludge on them. "OH hell no, I ain't eating that!" Just the thought alone made him want to throw up.

His eyes moved to his injury. His left wrist had been badly chewed by the rat and wasn't a sight for the faint of heart. It looked extremely painful and probably should have been, but wasn't, only comparable to hitting your shin on an edge real hard.

Anyway, the monster's teeth had done significant damage and had severed all tendons, nerves, and vessels, crushing some of the smaller wrist bones and Noah couldn't move or feel his hand below the injury.

Now, in front of his eyes, the bones started popping and growing back to their original shape, the tendons and nerves snaking forward, searching for their severed parts and snapping taut when they had found them.

All in all, Noah had regenerated slightly more than 200 HP before the injury was completely healed, even though it had only done around 40.

Noah also realized that he had, almost without thinking, stopped the blood flow to the severed vessels and rerouted it to keep his circulation in order. His Arcane essence manipulation had certainly come a long way since the initial incidents.

With battles no longer a problem, his only concern was if he could keep it up... during...

" Hey, umm, what about sleep?" he asked again uncertainly.

The system sighted in his head but still answered him in the end.

'Same'

'Shit!! Damn it, I'll think about bodily needs when I actually have any. Now that I think about it I haven't had to use the toilet either... Screw it, it might be days or a week before any of this becomes a problem, maybe even more. I can't do anything about it right now, anyway.'

With his problems ignored and left for future him to deal with, Noah took in his surroundings. He was in a big rectangular-ish room around 10 by 5 meters with four tunnels going out of the corners and the one he had come from on one of the long sides.

On the two shorter sides were Noah now realized, the feeding holes. These were a little bit bigger and wider, allowing for multiple rats to eat at the same time, but not big enough for a level 3 to stick its head inside.

So with five escape routes, good visibility and a good chance of a constant stream of moderately large groups of level 1's and 2's Noah decided to stay and train here.

Noah was currently fighting six level 2 rats. He had seen the group from afar but had been pretty confident about taking them on.

He had been in the room training, for quite some time at this point and had made significant progress. It had taken him just one more try before finally separating strength from dexterity and executing the sacrificial stat skills properly. After that, it had come naturally to him and he could currently use them at about 60% efficiency rate.

Also, Noah had been correct about the constant stream of enemies, bringing with them combat experience and increasing his HP

HP: 533.8/561.4(4% per min / 22.07 HP per min) Total HP regen 1.38 per sec

It was actually surprising he hadn't leveled up yet, but admittedly he didn't know how the system worked, not for a lack of asking mind you, and there was no experience bar.

He had fought twelve groups of rats up to now, this one being the thirteenth. No level 3's had shown up so far and this was also the biggest number of level 2's he had fought at the same time.

Some of the notable encounters included a small swarm walking in while he was fighting another group, both under ten rats, but they didn't attack immediately.

Instead, the newcomers just observed from the sidelines, waiting for an opportune moment and jumped in when he was almost finished with the first group. Noah had been conserving his resources, had his guard up and was ready for it, taking care of them as well.

At one point a group of 15 had appeared, three level 2's among them, but ended up surprisingly easy to deal with. He had ambushed them out of the entrance, sowing chaos and death, and then escaped down the nearest tunnel.

The rats actually ignored him and proceeded to feed, on the same side nonetheless, and were caught completely unaware when he jumped out with his resources restored a minute later.

There was a similar encounter, but with two dozen rats, five of which level 2's. Some of the rats pursued him when he escaped, making it even easier to take them out. The rest tried setting up an ambush, that ultimately failed, Noah growing suspicious as there were no sounds whatsoever coming from the room.

During all of that, he had used the Sacrificial stat skills multiple times, getting more familiar with them and his body, better at using what he had. His movements had become more agile and accurate, his strikes, stronger and more explosive, to the point of one-shotting level 1's in the correct circumstances.

Back to the fight at hand, there was something different about the current group. Noah had noticed it from the start, when instead of them just rushing in and attacking him, just two of the monsters, scouts Noah assumed, slowly walked in.

The rats looked tense and on high alert, surveying the room and him, before giving a signal and the other four following in. The fight that followed was much more strategic than usual, the monsters trying to pincer him, skills were used more scarcely, but with a bigger impact.

It was all due to the sixth rat, that one staying back and directing the others, joining in at the most opportune times, making the most effective attacks and being the biggest threat as a whole.

On his end, Noah was maneuvering around them, positioning himself in such ways, so the monsters would get in each others' way and trying to disrupt their formation as a whole.

He had used the same clearly telegraphed maneuver three times already, and when he used it again the rats took appropriate countermeasures. This, of course, was what Noah was aiming for, sacrificing 40 HP for strength and dexterity each, increasing them both by around 25 points.

He changed direction mid-motion, made barely possible with his increased stats, bypassing the other monsters and rushing at the leader.

His enemies were not prepared for that, the rest ended up in a heap when they tried to replicate his maneuver and the lead rat was caught in an unfavorable position. It received five strong punches to the head, flattening it, but not enough to be lethal.

Noah grabbed the rat by the hind legs and used the tried and tested method of smacking its brethren with it. The others, suddenly left without a leader, couldn't adjust to the situation fast enough and perished soon after.

You have killed Dark Rat Leader LV.2

You have killed Dark Rat Warrior LV.2

You have killed Dark Rat Scout LV.2

You have killed Dark Rat Scout LV.2

You have killed Dark Rat Warrior LV.2

You have killed Dark Rat Warrior LV.2

You have reached level 3

Name: Noah

Level 3

Arcane essence-50

Strenght-20

Dexterity-20

Endurance-20

Intellect-20

HP: 568.8/662(5% per min / 33.10 HP per min) Total HP regen 1.48 per sec

Noah immediately added his 10 free points to Arcane essence and stoped the HP drain from the increased cost of Mana sacrifice health regen. Now that he was level 3 Arcane Incorporation would give him only 0.01 HP for every level 1 rat slain and those were the majority of his kills so far.

The Leader type was new, multiplying the danger instead of just adding to it. Multiple leaders in a big swarm might be trouble, not to mention their higher-leveled variants.

Noah wanted to increase his HP above 700 before picking a fight with a level 3. The problem was, they wouldn't be alone. It was hard to tell what a battle like that would be, a larger swarm of level 1 and 2's or a smaller one of just level 2's. They might even move in elite squads of just level 3's.

Noah felt that the reason he hadn't met any stronger monsters yet was himself or more specifically his explosive arrival. In the first few hours, he had barely met any rats at all, with the frequency of the encounters and the strength of the rats steadily increasing. In fact, more than half of the fights in the current room had taken place during the last third of his time here.

Anyway, the last fight had been challenging but at the same time satisfying. It clearly showed Noah's astounding progress, which he had his three Arcane essence related Traits to thank for. Their compounding and multiplicative effects giving him a fighting chance.

The corpses in the room were quite literally mounting up at this point and Noah had taken to throwing them near the walls, as to not get in the way. The dead bodies had formed a few mounds near every wall by now, although they weren't as big as they should have been, considering the numbers so far.

Noah had a theory the monsters were dissolving or the dungeon was reabsorbing them, but wasn't about to go and dig through the corpses to find out.

He had just finished throwing his latest victims on one such mound on the wall with the tunnel he originally had come from when from that same shaft a swarm of rats came out.

This particular group consisted of six smaller rats and three bigger ones. The only difference was the small ones were slightly bigger than a level 2 and the bigger ones were dog-sized and had to be at least level 3.

The moment the rats entered the room one of them, probably a scout, gave an ear-splitting screech, turned around and rushed back the way they had come from.

Noah felt something was wrong the moment he laid his eyes on the new enemies, his instincts screaming. He dive-roled in the direction of the nearest tunnel and then jumped inside it. During his roll, he glimpsed with his peripheral vision a faint white glow and now heard impacts and nails skidding on the rock floor.

Just as he was rising up there were two consecutive impacts on the sidewall of the tunnel behind him and he ducked again. Two bodies flew through the air above him, landing on the floor in front of him, leaving him face to face with the level 3's.

Noah stood up and rushed the rats. Their brethren were behind him and would enter the tunnel any moment now. He used a similar tactic to the monsters, jumping at the wall and pushing off it to get over them.

The oversized rodents reacted with angry screeches and rushed after him. They were soon joined by the smaller ones, making Noah's attempts to keep them at bay exceedingly harder.

The level 2's were slightly more, well, everything than the ones he had fought so far but they weren't the problem. It was the level 3's sheer strength on top of directing their smaller brethren.

The rats weren't bunching up enough for Noah to justify the usage of Sacrificial nova. He'd have to get all of them and hard to do that. Also, they were covering each other too well and Noah couldn't use Sacrificial strength and Sacrificial dexterity effectively.

He was still missing HP from the last battle, but that would change soon and he'd have to do something to not to his regeneration. For now, he was keeping the rats away with kicks and sweeps, while also throwing punches at the level 3's, since they were that big.

In an unexpected maneuver, the monsters managed to change sides with Noah and started pushing him back towards the big room. They were constantly putting pressure on him but had already missed several opportunities to push harder and weren't even using skills.

Finally, just before forcing him back in the room, the rats managed to outmaneuver him and one of the level 3's took a big bite out of his lower right calf. There was a distinct snapping sound and Noah lost strength in his heel and foot.

With his Achilles tendon severed Noah's chances fell drastically, but the swarm just kept pushing him back without pressing their advantage. Noah had his suspicions before but now was sure the rats weren't trying to kill him, but just stall and keep him there.

He soon realized he was shepherded towards the same tunnel he and the rats had come from. Trying to veer off course elicited a strong reaction from the rats, which came down to angry screeching and doubling their efforts until he was back on track.

A plan started formulating in Noah's head at that point. He entered the tunnel the monsters were pushing him towards, waiting for his HP to regenerate and his leg and tendon to recover. He had noticed the rats bunching up whenever he diverged off course and now saw his chance.

When he was ready, he turned around sharply and started running down the tunnel. The rats squealed behind him and followed, but didn't bother attacking him since he was going the way they wanted him to.

Then with another sudden turn, Noah rushed back, throwing the rat formation into disarray and then using the wall to kick off and fly over them.

At that point, the monsters were all tangled together and Noah turned yet again, coming face to face with the now bunched up rodents, kneeling and leaning a little over them.

What followed was a 500 HP Sacrificial nova that drained him, but he had no time to be weak right now. The rats were crushed into the ground and ended up even more tangled up.

As the nova was exploding and expanding Noah had reached out and had grabbed the head of a level 3 that was sticking out of the pile. He had to move fast now. With the rat head in his hands, he moved forward stepping on its back and sacrificing 100 HP to Sacrificial strength.

Noah hadn't tried sacrificing 100 HP to a single stat before, the biggest amount being 50. Now he felt he had almost screwed himself over as the increased strength nearly tore his muscles and broke his bones.

He was holding the level 3 rat's head in his hands and stepping on its back. He then pulled and twisted with all of his strength. There was a satisfying crack and he felt the skull separate from the spine, killing the rat on the spot.

You have killed Avenger Rat Warrior LV.3

Noah let go as soon as the message appeared, even though he could have ripped the head off completely. Those were theatrics he didn't have the time for now.

He still had more than half a second of herculean strength and focused on the other level 3. It was lying two steps away with its rear end towards him and the smaller rats strewn around and on top of it.

Noah literally didn't have the time to get to its head and repeat his previous action, and on top of that the monster was now getting up.

He rushed to the rat and stomped its back, producing a painful popping sound and a squeal from the rodent that was now pinned to the floor.

With time running out he just grabbed it by the rear end and tail and folded it in half, producing a sharp crack and a screech. It had been harder to pull off than the head maneuver, what with the bigger and tougher vertebrae, and he had barely managed it before Sacrificial strength dissipated.

After Noah snapped its spine the rat's back half went limp, while the front end was spasming and clawing at the floor. He grabbed the body to use as a shield, the monster still screeching, and went around stomping and kicking the smaller rats.

Now that the warriors were gone, the level 2's couldn't pressure him without attacking for real. They still tried using the same tactic as before but failed miserably. He saw them struggling with their instincts and apparent orders, to the point of activating and then canceling their skills multiple times.

You have killed Avenger Rat LV.2

You have killed Avenger Rat LV.2

You have killed Avenger Rat LV.2

With only three left, they finally had enough and started enraging. Noah had noticed a drawback to the skill, which was that it required about a second of standing still to take effect. He suspected there were even more negative effects since the rats only used it as a last resort.

During the fight, his meat shield had gone progressively limper and quieter and was now just sporadically spasming. With the remaining level 2's conveniently lined up and standing still while their skill took effect, Noah slammed them with the warrior in his hands.

You have killed Avenger Rat Warrior LV.3

You have killed Avenger Rat LV.2

You have killed Avenger Rat LV.2

You have killed Avenger Rat LV.2

HP: 103.6/662.8(5% per min / 33.10 HP per min) Total HP regen 1.49 per sec

Noah was feeling the aftereffects of sacrificing 600 HP in the span of 1 second, but that wasn't all. He had gone through two challenging fights back to back, especially the second one, draining his stamina. Most draining of all were the two stunts he pulled with the level 3's, while under the effect of Sacrificial strength.

Stamina:43/200 (0.2% per sec / 0.4 per sec)

Stamina might become a problem going forward and force his next skill choice to be Sacrificial endurance. Noah was thinking about picking it anyway but at that point, he might not have a choice. If he'd be able to satisfy his increased stamina needs with the skill and his regeneration, was another question.

He gave himself ten seconds to catch his breath, after which he slit his wrists on one of the warriors' teeth. Getting up Noah started walking towards the feeding room, leaving behind drops of his blood.

"Can monsters evolve and level up under stressful conditions or strong emotions?" Noah urgently asked and the system immediately gave him an answer.

'Yes'

"And can the followers or underlings of said monsters evolve together with them?" he followed up with another question and got the same answer again

"Shit"

Noah walked through the big cavern and into the tunnel he had jumped in initially. There was already some of his blood in there from when his calf got bitten and now he sprayed some on the floor and the walls further in. He was using his Arcane essence manipulation to keep the wounds open and release a reasonable amount of blood.

Noah didn't know how good a rat's sense of smell was and it was even harder to tell now with the levels and the scout variants, but he hoped his pursuers would take the bait and go down the bloody tunnel.

It was a good thing the arcane essence dissipated almost immediately after leaving his body, or he would have been more reluctant to leave so much of his blood lying around.

When his wounds closed and he made sure no more blood was dripping from him, he rushed down the tunnel on the opposite side.

After the fight was done, he had looked closer at the new rats. Their eyes had the red hue even when not enraged, and the fur around them looked like they had cried tears of blood. That, combined with the name, and the fact they had clearly been after him, tipped him off and then the system confirmed it.

The patriarch from the nest he had squashed when arriving had evolved and his whole swarm had followed. Now they were actively searching for him, but not to kill him, not immediately at least.

When the group had seen him, the scout had rushed back while the rest had tried to stall him and even push him back where they came from. But why? There was only one explanation Noah could think of.

The evolved patriarch wanted to deal with him himself and he might already be on his way, thanks to that scout.

Noah's goal when he left that trail of blood down the tunnel was to confuse and misdirect his pursuers and throw them off his trail.

This new development changed his situation completely. Now he knew for sure he was being hunted and his pursuers were even stronger than expected.

Level one Dark Rats had turned into level two Avenger Rats and the level 2's had evolved into level 3's. That meant the rat patriarch was now at least level 5.

Noah hadn't gotten any Skill or Trait points so far but was willing to bet, something happened at level 5, even though the system remained silent on the topic. That made his pursuer even more dangerous with a possible extra Skill or Trait.

That meant no more staying in one place for training and moving even with missing health. Noah was even willing to descend into the second layer and risk the stronger monsters that weren't actively hunting him but had no idea how to do that.

For now his plan included getting as far away as possible from the feeding room and hoping his misdirection worked.