The amber gem on the staff lit up and a fireball the size of a fist launched out of it, the glowing orb rapidly accelerated in the direction he was aiming. The fireball began expanding as it whooshed towards the monster leaving a trail of fire in its wake, when it almost reached the monster it had grown to at least a meter in diameter.

The lamprey-lizard-wolf monster screeched at the sight of the unavoidable ball of fire, it began to scorch its fur and skin from the intense heat that radiated out of it. The creature was suddenly engulfed in an orange inferno. Time seemed to freeze as the fireball that had struck the creature condensed then rapidly expanded, causing an incandescent explosion that ripped through the woods.

The force of the explosion launched Dante tens of meters until he struck a tree. Several more cracking booms rang out one after the other in quick succession, these smaller explosions were canisters of butane that Dante had left at the feet of the creature while Waya distracted it. The heat from the fireball had triggered a chain reaction of exploding canisters that released metal shrapnel all over the woods.

For a brief moment, daylight returned to the woods. The whole area suddenly came to life as distressed animals ran in all directions, a cacophony of wild animal noises let Dante know of their displeasure at being disturbed so violently. It took a few moments before relative stillness resumed and the sounds of a gently crackling fire were all that could be heard. The smell of burnt flesh and wood spread throughout the vicinity of the woods.

Dante coughed up blood, and smoke rose from his body. His skin was lightly charred and he had curled singed hairs on his face and head. A long whispered “Fuuuuuuuuuuck,” left him before he coughed and spluttered some more, despite his agonised pain, he willed himself to stay awake this time. ‘I’m not passing out, not again! Not this time!’

His body was wracked with pain but he had to see if the monster was dead. Slowly willing himself to sit up, letting his enhanced vitality and constitution do some work for a change.

The smoke began to clear in the woods as Dante sat staring in the direction of where he had shot the fireball from the staff. A charred corpse of the monster sizzled like a barbeque, half of its body was missing and small pieces of metal were embedded all over the remains. A notification popped into his head, causing him to visibly relax.

[ Mutant Humanoid Lamprey level 8 killed ]

[ Gained 857 Combat experience ]

[ Hand to hand combat increased to 17%]

[Spear mastery increased to 4%]

“Thank fuck for that!” he breathed out. All he could feel was the pain and exhaustion from the fight, he started to look around before shouting out “Waya! WAYA?!”

To his relief, he saw the wolf step away from the tree she had been hiding behind, limping towards him, looking how he felt. He sighed and fell back to the floor, steam and smoke still rising from his burnt body.

****

Waya heard a muffled shouting, she peeked out from the tree seeing the burnt corpse of the strange monster that had been chasing them through the woods.

Then she looked towards where Dante had been knocked back from the explosion he had created. ‘How did he use the Kobold leader's ability?!’

She started Limping towards him, exhausted, hurting all over and her ears ringing incessantly. ‘Being around this hideless is bad luck! He does smell quite tasty all of a sudden though.’

Waya watched the hideless, he seemed to visibly relax when she revealed herself. He breathed out in relief then collapsed to the floor. Waya was concerned for his wellbeing, he had taken quite a bit of damage after all. She ran forward to check on his condition, he just appeared to be resting. She barked at him, annoyed for making her worry. Then she saw him magically manifest a white clay pot in his hand, taking the lid off then smearing the contents of it all over his face and the injured parts of his body. “Do you want some Waya?”

She could smell the unusual concoction, it was familiar, she recalled after the church she had woken up smelling of this same stuff. He must have used it on her, and it seemed to have miraculously healed most of her injuries. Nudging her head toward the hand that held the clay pot in confirmation. Dante sat up and began the process of applying the paste to the injured parts of her body, a sudden pleasant wave ran through her, melting away all of her of all her aches and pains.

Once Dante had finished patching them up, they collapsed together in a heap. Dante on his back and Waya’s head resting on his chest, she listened to the comforting sound of his rhythmic breathing and strong heartbeat. He reached his hand to her head and began stroking it. Despite the recent danger, the comforting sensation caused her eyes to close, no longer able to resist the fight against exhaustion. Her worries about her brother’s whereabouts were relegated to the back of her mind. For the moment she was just glad to be alive.

****

It was still dark when they awoke from several hours of rest. Their injuries had already partially recovered, maybe one more application of the medicinal paste and they would be perfectly fine. For once Dante didn’t have to spend Ascension points after a fight, he marked that up as a small success.

The realisation that even his enhanced attributes and abilities still weren’t enough for some of the creatures of this world didn’t sit well with him. Dante vowed to get stronger, immediately following up on that vow. Using his now well-practised meditation techniques, he dumped 2 points in strength, 1 in Agility, 2 in intelligence and 2 in constitution and vitality.

[ You have reached system level 5]

[System notification - Congratulations, Candidate has reached ‘Acknowledged’ stage]

[Unlocking access to ‘Acknowledged’ privileges]

[System ability unlocked: Scan - Tier 1]

[System ability unlocked: Deep Scan - Tier 1]

[System ability unlocked: Map - Tier 1]

“Finally, levels actually do something for once!” Dante whooped in excited at having unlocked some new system related abilities.

‘These appear to be some incredibly useful abilities. Let’s take a look at them.’ Dante rubbed his hands together in excitement as he checked through the expanded information of his newly acquired abilities.

[Scan - Tier 1: Scan provides basic information about targets such as level and species.

Restrictions: Information may be restricted due to system tier, or system-level difference.]

Dante scratched his stubbly patchy chin, looked at Waya and thought ‘Scan’

[Direwolf - Level 4]

“A DIREWOLF?! I knew you weren’t normal, come here beautiful!”

Dante rushed towards Waya with his arms held wide, Waya was disturbed by his crazed look and darted past his grasp. He collapsed to the floor laughing, “Sorry Waya, I got carried away.”

‘So what’s the difference between this and deep scan?’

[Deep Scan - Tier 1: At a variable cost of mana, a more detailed scan is made of the target.

Information revealed:

Name, System Level, Class level, Titles, Species, Current state of mind and health.

Restrictions: Information may be restricted due to system tier, or system-level differences.

Warning - Targets of a higher level can potentially sense being scanned and perceive it as a threat. Use with caution.]

Once Dante had finished reading the information regarding ‘Deep Scan’, he was a little torn about how to feel about it. It provided information that he was sure would be invaluable for combat, but the price could be steep as he currently had a limited pool of mana. There were also concerns around his propensity to always want to know more, he would have to hold himself back from scanning strangers in fear of reprisal. ‘Well, at least I have ‘Scan’ still, of course, I can’t resist trying it out.’

‘Deep scan’

[Name: Waya Zephyr]

[System Level: 4]

[Class: None]

[Title: Friend of man]

[Species: Direwolf - Zephyr Clan]

[State: Healthy, Hungry]

“Zephyr huh? That’s interesting. Also, you have a title similar to mine. I wonder if you receive attribute benefits too. And why are you always hungry?!” Dante yelled at Waya playfully. He took some cooked deer out of his spatial ring and tossed it to her. Despite her confusion, she was more than happy to accept what was offered.

‘Well, it’s not like I’m disappointed, the information might be the difference between life and death. I can see the benefits of knowing the temperament of what I’m scanning as well. I guess I was hoping for a little more, like enemy attributes or something…maybe in the future.’ Dante pondered the future possibilities of the ability, thinking that when he had higher system access it might unlock additional information that could be retrieved using the scan.

‘Let’s take a look at this map then’

‘Map’ Dante mentally projected the idea of a map, intrigued by what he was about to see.

In his mind a grey globe of Earth appeared, almost everything appear to be obscured. A blue glowing spot indicated his current location. He focused on the glowing spot in his mental image, the image shifted and began to zoom in to his current location. Colour sprung into his mind as the vivid images of woods gradually appeared. Areas he hadn’t visited yet were surrounded by a grey fog that obscured the boundaries. It appeared to only display places he had visited before, inside the boundaries were the locations he had visited. He saw where he first arrived when he woke up in the clearing, then his journey into the woods and through it. It revealed a town that was reclaimed by nature, then his current trail through the woods to his current position.

To his immense disappointment, it didn’t reveal anything else, he still didn’t have a clue where he was heading as the map refused to reveal areas he hadn’t visited. There were no points of interest such as marked towns, cities or anything else. ‘It’s still kind of cool I suppose. What does the system have to say about it?’

[Map - Tier 1: This is a projection of the world and universe as you know it. Maps only display information that you have access to.

You can expand unexplored boundaries by gaining access to existing Maps, visibility of some areas are still restricted as determined by system level and permission to access the information.]

‘Seems about right’ A thought did occur to him regarding the system level and permissions, he wondered what areas might be restricted and why, but he figured he was way out of his depth to even be thinking about that.

‘Back to checking my upgraded attributes, Status.’

[ Name: Dante]

[Species: Human]

[ System Level: 5 - Acknowledged]

[Title’s: Reject of Earth, First Kill, Natural Born Killer, Tree Dweller, Man's best friend]

[Mana: 7 / 8 (10 max)]

[Reserved Mana: Spatial ring (2)]

[Mana Mastery: 7]

[Strength: 8] 6 → 8

[Agility: 7] 6 → 7

[Intelligence: 6] 4 → 6

[Perception: 5]

[Vitality: 8] 6 → 8

[Constitution: 9] 7 → 9

[Total System Attributes: 50]

[Combat experience: 445]

[Ascension points: 0]

[Abilities: Mana claws - T1, Mana bolt - T1]

[Skills: Hand to hand combat - T1 - 17%, Spear Mastery -T1 - 4%, Tracking - T1 - 5%]

[Production Skills: Crafting - T1 - 5%]

[System abilities: Status, Attribute upgrade, Map, Scan, Deep Scan]

[100% bonus barehanded melee modifier]

[20% bonus combat]

He was satisfied with his fast progression, but these increasingly dangerous encounters made him realise how much further he would have to go, it would be a while before he could even begin to feel safe in this world. ‘That fireball saved us back there, I’m down to 1 trump card now. I’ll have to store another two powerful mana bolts, 6 mana each to reach the 20 mana cap of the staff.’

It still amazed him how fast his mana recovered, it seemed as though its rate of recovery had improved, when his mana jumped from 5 to 10, his recovery rate had doubled as well. Recovering 2 mana an hour on average. He followed up on this plan to store his mana bolts by placing a charged 6 point mana bolt spell directly into the staff, he would do the remaining one later.

Waya had fallen back asleep, satisfied after having eaten and bored of Dante’s antics, he had been spending too much time inspecting his new system abilities and attributes.

Dante gently patted Waya to wake her up, her legs were twitching and she seemed to be in a dream. She woke with a yelp. ‘Seems it was a nightmare, I don't blame her, these past few days have been awful.’

Getting up they walked over to inspect the corpse of the mutant lamprey, it was the strangest creature he had ever seen in his life. The still smoking remnants of the partially blown up creature was laid before them. Waya sniffed then walked away showing no more interest in it.

Dante moved closer and inspected it, the monster seemed to have taken on the characteristics of its prey. Somehow this Lamprey had partially evolved into a humanoid, somewhere in this process it must have gone wrong, but he wasn’t sure how or why. The creature appeared to be able to steal characteristics of things it ate, it must have been an ability or something. It had taken on characteristics of a wolf and Kobold, possibly something else was in the mix too. He couldn’t tell between the charred flesh and fur. 'If there are more creatures like this out there, the horrible combinations they could make. This fucking universe…'

He stood up then gave the creature a kick for good measure, he hopped around in pain, surprised at how sturdy the creature was. Kicking its corpse was like striking a boulder. He swore he heard the wolf laugh at his stupidity, a wolfish huffing howl had given her away. She turned her head pretending not to know why he was looking in her direction.

“Yeah, laugh it up Waya!” He grumbled to himself ‘Just watch me save you from the next monster!’

Setting off again, the sun gradually began to rise, the light gave woods a more tranquil and safe air. Knowing they couldn’t easily be ambushed made Dante feel safer. Dante saw that Waya was occasionally turning her head and staring back into the woods with a forlorn look, the occasional whine would leave her. “Don’t worry, there doesn’t seem to be any more monsters” His comment didn’t seem to appease her, throughout the day she would keep looking back with concern.

****

Several Days running through the woods passed, Waya leading the way. His stored supply of food and fresh water was slowly dwindling. Waya’s behaviour was progressively more erratic, she would occasionally sneak off while they were supposed to be resting. When she returned, they would carry on with her leading as if nothing was wrong. He hoped that she was still leading him to the correct place and that there hadn’t been any miscommunication.

Not sure how much longer they had to travel, Dante’s steps came to a halt. He saw an opening in the trees, he sprinted forward and found himself leaving the woods for the first time in days. He burst out from some trees, running into an expansive field. There were luscious green grass, beautiful wild and exotic flowers, sporadic trees and small bushes for miles around. They were finally out of the dense woods.

“Oh Yeahh!!” Dante whooped and cheered running through the grass, he was just pleased to be out of the woods. He turned and saw Waya poking her head out of a bush like she wasn’t comfortable with the thought of leaving somewhere she had called home most of her life.

Dante waved his hands after her, encouraging her to come forward into the expansive area. She slowly, reluctantly left the woods, taking a last few peeks back towards the woods.

****

After the initial relief of surviving the fight against the monster, Waya’s concerns went back to her brother. She led Dante through the woods but she couldn’t get her concern about what might have happened to Maikoh. Recalling the dead wolves littered around the woods, hunted by the monster, she knew deep in her heart her brother wouldn’t allow himself to be caught so easily. ‘He has to be alive!’

She remembered they had agreed that if they ever got separated they would leave markings that wouldn’t be obvious to anyone else, they were something unique to them and no one would know what they were looking at.

As she was leading Dante ever closer to the hideless village, she would occasionally sneak off and leave the agreed upon markings, directing Maikoh towards her planned destination. The hideless man didn’t seem to suspect anything and would allow her the periodic privacy. As they approached the edge of the woods she would have more difficulty providing a trail for her brother should he find her markings. ‘I hope he understands where I am going, I’m sure he will

Hesitantly stepping outside of the woods, the only home she had ever known, uncertainty and worry warred in her mind. Dante had encouraged her to come out but he didn’t seem to understand her real cause for concern. How could he? They couldn’t speak, as much as they attempted to communicate, their attempts were primitive and lacked substance.

Whenever they wanted to convey something, their crude exchanges only resulted in the occasional sparks of understanding. Just enough to maintain and develop their budding friendship.

Waya wondered what her brother would make of it all, he would probably poke fun at her. She hoped one day, preferably soon she could introduce him to Dante. She thought Maikoh and Dante would get along, they seemed to bizarrely share a similar sense of humour, crude and boyish. They also seemed to share the same ferocious protectiveness over those they cared about. At least that’s what she perceived from the times she paid attention to Dante in battle, especially given that he had saved her twice now, despite overwhelming odds.

She felt safe with Dante, he compensated a little for the void her missing brother left. But he couldn’t replace Maikoh, he was the last real family she had in the world.