The branch Barry left me on didn’t extend to anywhere, and I had to jump from it.

I jumped and landed on a leaf, which cushioned my fall, and I didn’t have to use feather fall.

I looked around but didn’t see anything moving in the surrounding, but remembering things like the ant lion which hide inside the ground to hunt, I decided to not take any risk and used both sneak and silent steps to move.

I checked my map to see where I was and which direction I needed to go, and started travelling.

Moving along the branch, I moved forward without making any sound, and jumped once again after reaching the end.

The sound of those bees fighting the hornets soon lost to the silence of the forest, and for the first time I stared at the forest in its full glory.

{Perception has risen to lv 10}, {Sensitive hearing has risen to lv 6}, {Patience has risen to lv},

{Perseverance has risen to lv 8}, {Map2.0 has risen to lv 6}

{Perception has reached lv 10 and is gaining a new ability.}

*Ting*

[Ability: Aura detection gained.]

Aura detection: Passively allows you to perceive the strength of the one you are observing.

‘It didn’t give me an option?’ I thought.

Tier 2 skills gain a passive ability at level 10. This ability doesn’t evolve or gain levels.

Understanding the stuff I continued to observe the view, but the unusual calm of the forest and the various ominous presences lurking in it made me tense.

I walked moving in the shadows, and finally crossed three trees. My map showed me how close I was to the mound, which made me very happy, but then I sensed a huge presence to my left.

I hurriedly stopped and hide behind a leaf and controlled my breath.

{Silent steps has risen to lv 10}, {Sneak has risen to lv 10}, {Breath control has risen to lv 9}

{Silent steps has reached its maximum level}

And is presenting you with the choice to focus on:

Silence or Steps

I understood that choosing steps would give me an ability to fight and move better, but what would they have mattered if I had died.

*Ting*

[Skill: Ghost steps gained.]

Ghost steps: Allows you to traverse with absolute zero sound, and increases your agility by 10% per level.

[Sneak (10) has grown into Stealth (1)]

I gulped, and peeked behind the leaf, and saw something which gave me the scare of my life.

It was cylindrical and long. Very long, no, it was too damn long. I promise, even If I had gone in front of it, it wouldn’t have given a damn about me. It wasn’t a giant, but a colossal which I couldn’t ever dream of having strength to fight against.

And following its face I saw what it was looking at.

Another being, which was also a fucking giant.

It had a short snot, big yellow eyes and long hind legs. It sat on its hind legs as if it was ready to jump at any given moment.

{Examine has reached lv 10}

{Examine has reached its maximum level}

And is presenting you with the option to examine:

Yourself or others

It was a hard decision to take. On one side I wanted to find more about these transcendent beings and on the other side I wanted to know more about myself. To know how I would be able to grow past this limit of my body.

At one side was the knowledge that would come with examining the entities and on the other side was the benefit that could be had with examining myself.

And in the end I choose to grow past my own limits than to gain knowledge.

*Ting*

[Skill: Soul search gained.]

[Soul search: Allows you to search the memories of beings you have killed. Clarity of memories increase with the skill level and willpower you have.]

I once again looked at them and felt goose bumps rising over my shell. I wanted to run away, but following my instincts as an ant, I decided to wait and see what it was about to do.

I quickly appraised the two beings, but other than their names nothing came up.

Corn snake (Common)

Blue streaked bull frog (Rare)

{Appraisal2.0 has become lv 2}, {Overwhelm resistance has risen to lv 13}

Then I noticed the snake getting in action. It coiled on the branch like a spring, as if accumulating power in his muscles and just as the frog thing got distracted by a bug, it charged at him.

Its head sprang forth with enough momentum and speed that I felt a small wind blowing my way.

Its body following its head flew right in front of me, and reached the frog in matter of seconds. It covered the distance of tens of meters between them.

Opening its mouth it bit the frog, and for some reason the frog croaked like it knew its end was near.

The frog didn’t jump around to save its life. It didn’t fight back, nothing. Actually it did absolutely nothing. His situation was the same as the time when the bee had stung me.

‘Maybe the snake poisoned it?’ I thought and the skill up confirmed my conjecture.

{Intermediate knowledge has reached lv 9}

I couldn’t clearly see what the snake had done, so I moved a little closer and used [Clarity]. But the only thing I saw was the frog’s expression as it turned lifeless.

The relentless nature made my soul shiver. I understood a new lesson that day. Every predator has a predator, and the thing which happened next proved it right too.

The snake coiled around the frog and with each passing second tightened its grip.

I stopped breathing when the snake opened its mouth and started engulfing the frog starting from its legs.

I understood why my scavenging partners said that the world was a dangerous place. But that wasn’t it.

I suddenly felt killing intent coming from right behind me and I felt a huge presence standing behind me.

My face paled and I tried to move my body, but it declined to react. I wanted to do something, but before I could even move, that something jumped from behind me, and flew toward the snake.

{Overwhelm resistance has risen to lv 15}, {Fear resistance has risen to lv 20}

The snake was too busy in enjoying its meal and didn’t notice it.

It opened its spiky arms, and timing its strike right, directly held of the snakes head in its spiky arms.

By the time the snake could react its arms had already dug inside its skin and grabbed onto it.

The snake tried to get out of its hold but instead of getting out all of its struggles only made things worse for him and then the thing started eating the snake… alive.

{Willpower has risen to lv 4}, {Meditation has risen to lv 7}, {Clarity has risen to lv 6}

I couldn’t believe my eyes. “At least kill that thing!” I yelled out loud and it reacted.

Its head moved from the snake and towards me at such a speed that I was left dumbfounded at first, but still managed to react, and got my head behind the leaf I was hiding at.

“Phew. Safe.” I took a breath of relief, and decided to look back one more time and… It wasn’t there.

‘Fuck it.’ I didn’t hide behind the leaf, and directly jumped down from the branch, and when I looked up, it was standing there at my position, looking down at me.

I couldn’t understand how it had bypassed my perception, and come behind me without showing even the slightest amount of Intent.

I did a quick appraise and this came up.

Asian giant barbed Mantis (Rare)

I looked one last time into its eyes, and then concentrated on my fall. Using feather fall, I easily touched the ground, and then went away into the grass.

{Feather fall has risen to lv 8}, {Perseverance has risen to lv 9}

Above the trees there was still light, but down below there was nothing but complete darkness.

I prayed to god to help me out of this place, but no blue boxes depicting my pray was listened came.

Tired, I started walking. I didn’t walk blindly and instead used my map to look around.

For some reason the map allowed me to see even in the night as if it was day and because I had hawk vision, I was able to see more than my eyes alone allowed me.

Walking forward I didn’t take any risk, and took the long route.

I didn’t want to pass through the ant lions area, and unwillingly choose the grass forest controlled by the choppers.

Though I have to say that it was a very exciting time, to sneak around like a thief at night, but the rate my heart was pumping blood at clearly showed that I still didn’t have enough willpower to withstand such pressure.

I went through the grass silently, but then I heard the very distinct sound of the choppers.

*Tri* Tri*

I checked the map, but because of my own limitations, I couldn’t see behind the radius of 3 meters around me.

But sensitive hearing allowed me to hear everything clearly.

“Haaha… today is a fine night for some trophy hunting. What do you say bro?”

“Yeah, I also think this is a very fine night.”

{Grass hopper language gained.}

“So what do you two want to hunt tonight, big brother?”

“Me? I think that it would be better if I found a lone bug or something. What about you?”

“Nah, I want to find those ants and shove them into those ant lions funnels!”

“Heehe, yeah that’s great, but I don’t want to see blood tonight.”

From their conversation I understood that there were three of them and were probably brothers.

“You know me. I think it will be great if a beautiful monarch butterfly asked me to fuck her.”

“…”And I couldn’t believe my ears.

{Grass hopper language has risen to lv 2}

“Pfft! That’s the shit bro, that’s the shit.”

“Haaha, a monarch would ask you!! Pfft… elder brother is so delusional.”

“Stop laughing you two! If I want…”

“What happened, why did you…”

“Sush! little one! I can smell something.”

“What? What?”

“Shh… I can smell it too.”

“Yeah it’s the …” he took a strong whiff and made some peculiar sounds with his mouth as if he was tasting something, before saying, “It’s the smell of a fresh virgin.”

I almost shat myself at that moment. I couldn’t believe that they could even smell that!

“From Where? Big brother, where is it coming from?”

“No need to get so excited little one. The smell is still fresh and too clear. So, it’s probably near somewhere.”

“Looks like we found a prey boys! Though not a monarch… but we’ll still get to enjoy ourselves tonight. Hee!”

And my already beating heart climbed out of my mouth. I checked the map and slowly, but surely the trio walked toward my direction, and after a minute of my failed prayer, they stood perfectly in front of the grass blade I was hiding behind

{Map2.0 has risen to lv 7}

“There it is. Look it’s so scrawny. What are you afraid of little one, let big brother take care of you for one night and I promise tomorrow, you will be begging me for more. Hehehaaha…”

“Heehe… No, no, let this little brother take care of you first. You are two small! If big brother used you first, then we won’t be able to do anything with you. You’ll be too ruined. Come on; say you choose this little brother.”

“Fuck you too, I get to go first this time! Even last time you both gave me an already filled pest. She was so beautiful when we found her and you two destroyed her completely. This time I’ll go first.”

Their diabolic dialogues left no clue to what they wanted to do with me. I knew that even if I tried to run now, they would catch me. But there was no way I would let them play with myself. I chose to either successfully run away or die trying.

‘We’ll see whatever happens next when it happens, and until then…’

But just as I was going to run, a fifth voice, too thin and loud to be a man’s, shrieked somewhere near my ear and before I could understand what was happening, a small spider jumped over the grass growth I was hiding behind, and ran away in front of me.

“Haha… I love to chase girls!”

“Me too bro! Me too!”

“Okay, work first and talk later. Move before she hides somewhere.”

And I looked wide eyed at the spectacle as the trio ran away following the lady right before my eyes.

{High luck has risen to lv 4}

I controlled my laughter as best as I could and went to the opposite side of the leaf.

I laughed silently till tears started coming out of my ears, before I stood up and started walking away from them.

I hurriedly moved to run away to the opposite side, but unfortunately a small twig broke under my feet and attracted their attention.

The trio flinched hearing the sound, and stopped for a second.

“What was that?”

“Did we miss out on one more potential piece of meat?”

I clearly heard their voices with my sensitive hearing and didn’t slow down, but then the ground underneath my foot gave away, and I fell down into a pit.

“Hahah… looks like a cub really did fall to our trap.”

“Let’s go see what it is?”

“Little brother you go follow the lady. She was too beautiful to simply let her get away.”

“Okay, brother.”

“Let’s go big brother and see what we have caught!”

“Yes.”

{Dig has risen to lv 4}