For my surprise after just a few leaves that turned pitch black, the withering stopped completely and with it, a mighty voice resonated inside my head.

*Skill discovered “Stamina Storage Lv2”*

“What the hell?” I asked myself in confusion, after that I just started at a wall without even daring to breathe, in fear of becoming a dried tumbleweed, but a minute passed with it another and my scariest fear didn’t come true, after that I gathered my courage and checked my status to be sure that I am not dying.

-Ontopary bush Lv5-

Experience: 11/45

Rarity: Common

Health: 2/7

Mana: 14/17

Stamina: 4/4

“My stamina is full…” I said with disbelief, after confirming that I immediately checked the new skill that I acquired.

*Stamina Storage Lv2* – Give the user the ability to store stamina in specific areas inside its body, the user can consume the stored stamina whenever he wants.

“What?” I still couldn’t understand what’s going on, “Just a few minutes ago I was sure that I am going to die, but now I discovered new skill?” I felt like I dodged a bullet, but I couldn’t understand how.

So I just stayed like that and blankly stared at my body, my focus has returned and I said, “I guess I found a new way of getting skills, interesting, inspect *skill discovery*.”

*Skill Discovery* – Different races and body types have different skills that are available from birth, few of those skills can be hidden and not available, they can be activated when specific requirements are met. The discovered skills don’t always start at the first level, their level depends on the body of the user.

“So there are could be hidden skills that just waiting to be activated.” I exclaimed as I started to fantasize on all the hidden possibility that my body could have, but then I remembered something really important. “I have a body of a normal bush, I guess that the best skill that I ever discovered if I am lucky maybe I get an advance photosynthesis skill as well.” I said with a little bit of mockery.

But I didn’t mind that I don’t have another hidden skill, because now that I have my stamina back there no way that I die in this ditch. So without further ado I continued my digging, the speed of my digging was a lot more faster than I thought, but sadly that wasn’t the problem the problem was that the mana consumption of the skill raised as well. “Even though I dig much more faster than before, the progress hasn’t raised be much.” But even so, I was sure that the next day I will able to get out of this deadly cage.

A day passed and at evening I almost reached the end of my great tunnel, I took another fast nap and woke up in the middle of the night. I was digging for days as a robot, so it wasn’t a surprise that I just continued to digging without thinking about anything, but then I remembered something important.

The stupid mark still presents on my body, just as I thought about it I immediately pulled my roots from the walls and started to back off, when I started to pull my roots my mind screamed with fear because at any moment the panther could come here and slash me from the outside.

I backed off a few meters from the exit just to be sure, but after that nothing happened the big scary panther didn’t come and my life wasn’t in danger. “*Sigh*.” But just as I sighed in relief yellow scary eyes opened up near the end of the tunnel.

“It was always there, waiting for me to get closer…” I said with a low voice as my body slowly shaken. I looked at those yellow eyes that looked right back at me from the darkness for a few minutes. The feeling of the curse was nothing compared to the real thing, I could only hope for the eyes to vanish as if they were a bad dream.

A low growl came from the panther as it opened its mouth and left. At that moment I wanted to swallow my saliva as an instinct but couldn’t, it left me with a weird feeling in the end. “Looks like the panther really found a way off the cliff, I should think about a way to deal with it, or better just to deal with the mark.” I didn’t see much hope on killing that beast.

This time I didn’t go to sleep even though it was night, I stayed for few hours looking to the end of the tunnel with fear and said, “It shouldn’t have a way to get to me, so I should be fine.” I tried to assure myself of my safety, but I just couldn’t make this disgusting feeling go away no matter what.

I almost stayed till morning, but then I could feel that my mind was getting weaker, from all those hard days of digging, I found out a way to sense when my mana was at its lowest. With it, I knew that I need to go to rest and it would be safer if I went back to the beginning of my tunnel, where I fell.

I did exactly that after I moved back there, I rooted myself into the walls and continued to stare at the end of the tunnel, I didn’t need to wait for long after just fifteen minutes my view went black and I lost my consciousness.

Time has passed and it was already morning, I woke up and immediately activated my magic perception skill. I moved my view around with unease, trying to find something suspicious and out of place at the tunnel and its end, but there were nothing out of place.

“I should calm down a little.” I took a breath of fresh air and tried to calm myself, my body got a little bigger and then returned to its original size, of course, I didn’t exactly could breathe so it was just the movement of the leaves.

*”Calm Mind” leveled up to Lv5*

“Oh, I thought that this skill should level up sooner or later, even if this skill not that useful, at least it helps me to not go completely insane.” I wasn’t sure but this skill gave me a weird feeling, its effect was just weird, it didn’t help me to cope with fear or even do what its name suggested. So just to be sure I inspected the skill again, to check if something changed with its explanation.

*Calm Mind Lv5* – Increase the resistance to stress and mind attacks.

For my surprise, the skill explanation didn’t change at all. “It just held my sanity together, right? And what is mind attacks? Inspect mind attack.” I checked it to see what it meant.

*Mind Attack* – A mental attack to the mind.

“Wha? That’s it… That all the explanation, I am really confused.” Even though my inspection skill leveled up to a fourth level it still didn’t change anything at all. My hope for the skill was just as a roller coaster, ride ups and downs all the way.

I didn’t mind it anymore and cared about the more important stuff, like the devil cat that trying to eat me. Half an hour then an hour passed, but I still couldn’t think about a way to deal with it, but then as if a light bulb was lit inside my head I said, “Wait do I even need to deal with it?” Of course, it was a stupid question, but it was a correct stupid question.

I really needed to deal with that monster or it will kill me, but at the same time that monster could only locate me at night, that meant if it’s not around at day I had a chance for survival. First I needed to make sure that the panther does not come out at day.

I approached the exit of the tunnel, dug the last part of the cliff to the exit and started to stretch my body back from it as far as possible, when I couldn’t stretch anymore I embedded my roots into the walls far from the exit.

My body with leaves was popping a little from the tunnel and my roots were less than a meter away half embedded into the walls, that was my fast escape plan in case of danger, all that I needed to do is push myself back with my hands and with a pulling of my roots I would make a fast escape to a safe distance.

With my great escape plan, I waited there for the day to pass, time slowly passed I used my detection skill every time I could, but at the same time, I tried to conserve my mana I had all the day to stay here.

The day passed without an accident, not only the panther didn’t come, but even other monsters didn’t approach the cliff. Even though I didn’t pick any presence with my detection skill I still saw some movement in the distance, I knew that it wasn’t the panther because the size and the shape were different.

“Looks like my detection skill is really limited by its range and ability as well.” My detection skill not only was lacking in range, it also couldn’t detect stronger foes, and that placed me at a huge disadvantage against them.

The sun was already starting to get behind the trees, so I returned back to the deeper part of the trench and hidden there. After some time I noticed that the mark creepy feeling was getting stronger more than usual, yesterday I didn’t notice the sudden change because my mind was elsewhere, but today I was focused and could notice it immediately.

“It’s getting closer.“ I Looked at the darkness and couldn’t see anything, I even used my detection skill but got no response, with that in mind I said to myself, “It’s surely there, just waiting in the darkness for it to get a chance and kill me.”

With the help of the mark the panther could locate me, but at the same time, I could somewhat know it’s relative location as well, the two-sided transmission was great for me. After a while, I could feel the gaze distance itself from my body, and with that, I could know that the panther went away.

After an hour I went to sleep, I continued doing the same activity for another two days, this time I was really cautioned to not make any mistakes because most likely I won’t be lucky as last time, I am sure to die after meeting the panther at least once.

I continued the same behavior for another two days, now that I had the stamina full, I didn’t need to be afraid of withering. I discovered that my berries didn’t return to their original form, if I was correct I needed to be connected to a good soil for an entire night for that to happen, but for now, of course, it was impossible. In my observation, I found out that monsters do not approach the cliff at all because there no food near it.

The panther only comes to check on me at night. I still couldn’t scratch the idea that it won’t come after me at day, but it was my best bet and I couldn’t do anything about it. So after a third day of waiting, I wanted to go out in the noon into the forest to replenish my stamina.