Afraid of what he might see, Max kept his eyes shut for a few moments longer. But from under his eyelid, he could tell it was bright. There was also a fresh breeze gently blowing across his face. Taking in a small breath, Max could almost taste the sweetness in the fresh air. Finally opening his eyes, the new world was revealed to him for the first time.

He was standing at the top of a cliff and could see miles in front of him. Below him, there was a sea of green trees, with speckles of yellow and purple trees sprinkled in. And further out, there was an actual sea. In the distance, Max could see the sun, it was bright orange, just peeking over the horizon. He guessed that it was dawn or else he would have noticed the light sooner when he was in the cave. The sun had painted the ocean and the clouds a bright hue of orange. It was magnificent.

By all accounts, this was an amazing sight, even on Earth. Most of Max’s life was spent in the city and had never seen such a breathtaking view. This view was the definition of a morale boost for him. He went from a dying bedridden, senseless person to stuck in a dark cave and now to this. The change in situations gave him emotional whiplash. Back on Earth, his outdoorsy friends always raved about watching the sunset and sunrise, Max never understood. Who would want to wake up at the crack of dawn to just see the sun for a few minutes? To him, this extra hour would be much better spent in his soft warm bed catching some Zs, if Max was lucky he might find a nice bountiful woman in his dreams.

But now, he had a newfound appreciation for this view, maybe even more appreciation than a nice bountiful woman.

Stunned by the scenery, Max just stood there taking it all in. It was minutes before his brain caught up and started back up. He also noticed that the sun was now a bit higher on the horizon.

‘I was right, it is dawn.’

Looking behind him, Max was curious to see what the formation looked like from the outside. It turns out that the formation did exactly what it said it would do. It looked like a normal cave entrance. At the angle where the light was coming from, he could even see a few feet into the cave. However, there were a few areas that seemed to be darker than the rest, they seem to be the same places where the runes were fading and were letting the light in.

Trying to Analyze it, the same notification came up. Idly wondering if he would have been able to Analyze it if he didn’t know it was there. It was just another question he’ll need to add to the list.

Poking his hand into the cave entrance, it just disappeared to the wrist. His hand didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. Taking a step back in, the darkness encapsulated him again and the sun was nowhere to be seen. There were the same couple of streams of light as before albeit a bit brighter. Curiosity satisfied, Max exited the cave once again.

Taking some time to collect his thoughts, he started to plan out the next move.

Digging deep into his memories, Max remembers the late-night browsing sessions where he got led down the apocalyptic survival rabbit hole. There was a guide that had drilled the importance of finding water, food, shelter, and fire into him. At this point, the order was a mystery to him, on top of what the guide had mentioned he also needed clothes. While liberating for some to walk around in the nude, it was still somewhat off-putting.

He kinda had shelter and water. Even though counting the cave as a shelter felt a bit of a stretch. There was also some dripping water in the cave, which was what initially woke him up in this world. It might not be enough. He was in the cave for quite some time and he heard the water droplets maybe three or four more times. And in terms of fire, he was basically sitting at the top of a forest so finding dry wood shouldn’t be a problem. There should also be plenty of food in the forest down below, he just needed to figure out what was edible.

Before Max went off exploring, he looked around for any container-shaped objects. Not finding any, he made one himself. Picking up a fist-size stone by the cave entrance, Max used the smaller of the two Chi-infused rocks to carve out a hole in the center. The Chi-infused rock was extremely sharp, after about ten or so minutes, a small bowl took shape. After dusting the new bowl off, it was placed on the wet spot inside the hole. He hoped the bowl would catch some water for him.

At the top of the cliff, Max surveyed the immediate surroundings. The cave entrance was situated at one side of the cliff and to the left, there was a dirt path that sloped downwards that led to the forest. To call it a path was giving it too much credit, it was more a collection of loose rocks. With no other path to take, Max headed in that direction. Before he started the climb downwards, he left the smaller of the two Chi-Infused rocks at the top of the slope. He wanted to keep one of his hands free in case he needed to use it to balance himself. Taking it slowly, Max made sure that his foothold was secure before taking the next step. Some of the rocks seemed extra sharp and could easily cut his still bare feet.

Not even a quarter of the way down, his legs starting to cramp up, and want to give up already. Because of how steep the slope was, he had to lower his center of gravity putting a lot of pressure on the lower body. Taking a small breather, Max found a relatively flat rock to rest on.

“SCREECH”

An ear-piercing screech echoed overhead. Looking up he saw a hawk-like bird diving towards him. It was moving too fast for Max’s eyes to follow, before he knew it, the hawk was already mere feet away. It was the largest bird Max had ever seen. With its wings outstretched it was easily the size of a car. The hawk was missing one of its talons, but the one it did have was large enough to grab his entire face.

On instinct, Max hunched down and threw up his arms in an attempt to shield his face. And it was a good thing that he did. In the next moment, all he could feel was a hot searing pain across the forearm. If he hadn’t ducked down, half his face might have been torn off.

-3 HP

Right after the pain, he felt the hawk's talons latch onto his left shoulder, digging deep into his chest and his back.

-9 HP

Status Effect: Bleeding, -1 HP/minute

Blinded by the pain and fear, Max’s flight or fight response kicked in. He didn’t want to die, this was his second chance, he had already died once on Earth and the helplessness almost drove him insane. He had just tasted freedom in this new life and didn’t plan on just giving up. Indignant rage filled him, this stupid bird was trying to steal his second chance at life from him.

Luckily, Max’s right hand was still free and it held the Chi-infused rock. Making sure that sharp end was pointed outwards, Max started to indiscriminately stab and slash. But it proved to be ineffective, the hawk’s feathers were too thick to do any damage, he might only have scratched its skin a couple of times. Without any better options, the struggle continued. If the hawk wants to eat him, it’ll have to work for it.

The hawk’s favorite way to kill prey was latching both its talons onto the prey and pulling the prey into two pieces. It found that by doing this it was easily able to get into the juicy innards of its prey. But recently, it had lost one of its talons in a fight with another hawk. The hawk could see its prey was damaged and was leaking from mere swipes. Fearing that the prey might escape, it dug deep into its prey with its one talon. Using its other weapon, the hawk dove in with its hooked beak, hoping to drill some holes into the prey.

As the hawk dived in with its hooked beak, Max scored a lucky hit on its eye. Max could feel the Chi-Infused rock along his hand sink into something squishy. Seizing this opportunity, Max held onto the talon embedded in him as support and stood up. This increased reach, let him push deeper into the hawk’s eye socket. The hawk started violently shaking and Max lost his footing and started to tumble down the slope along with the hawk. There were a few times when his arm hit the ground just at the right angle to push his arm deeper into the hawk’s head. At the same time, the hawk’s claws also made the holes in Max’s chest and back bigger.

-11 HP

Status Effect: Bleeding, -2 HP/minute

Both Max and the Hawk hit the even ground hard with the Hawk on top of him. Somehow during that entire tumble, Max managed not to get hit in the head and was still conscious. Max pulled his right arm out of the Hawk’s eye socket. It must be dead, the arm had been elbow deep. And as soon as it was fully out of the Hawk, a notification popped up.

Enemy killed. For killing an enemy above your cultivation, you gain additional experience.

+60 experience points

Level Up.

For leveling up, you gained the following:

+2 free stat points

Max stood up and felt dizzy on his feet.

Status Effect: Bleeding, -3 HP/minute

-3 HP

WARNING HP CRITICALLY LOW, SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY

“Fuck”

Max opened the character sheet to see his HP at 3/29. In another minute his new life would be forfeit. Seeing that he had 8 Free Stat Points, he dumped all of it into Constitution. Even though this was his first time adding stats, it was very intuitive. With each point added into the constitution, Max saw his current HP and max total HP increase by 2 points. He could feel the two holes in his chest and one on his back start knitting itself close. It didn’t close all the way, but enough so only a small trickle of blood was flowing down. In addition, to the holes, he could also feel the bumps and bruises he got from tumbling down the path also mend themselves.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Max looked over the character sheet.

Name:

Max Oxford

Level:

4

Cultivation:

Body Tempering 3rd Stage

Age:

23

Progress:

24/86

Progress:

5/150

Status:

Weakened Body

Titles:

System Pioneer

Realm Walker

Cultivator

Traits:

Quick Learner

Cultivation Body

Skills:

Analyze

Common Tongue

HP:

23/49

SP:

8/53

CHI:

NA

Stats (Multiplier:1.3x)

Strength:

9

Perception

13

Constitution:

20

Intelligence:

22

Dexterity:

11

Spirit:

1

Endurance

13

Vitality:

9

Free Stat Points:

0