Night 12

I woke up feeling relaxed, and refreshed, for the first time in the past couple of days. It seemed that I finally had a full bar of HP.

'Or not.' I sighed as I checked to make sure that was indeed the case. It was not. My HP only read, [HP: 98/122].

Shaking my head, I began to dig out of my little burrow.

It took me some time to come back to the ground; it seemed I had been more than a little enthusiastic in my digging and had dug deeper than I had intended. Anyway, it was not something of any consequence now.

Thus as a result of my continued digging, I finally resurfaced after removing the leaf from the entrance of the hideout.

Surprisingly, it was night that greeted me and not the shining rays of sun. I frowned. 'Why do I feel so refreshed in the night? Is my species a nocturnal one?'

As I was pondering about my newfound sensibilities for the night, the wind changed direction and passed beneath my wings.

I looked at them in surprise. I had wings. Honest to god wings. Ho- 'Of course, I have wings; I am a moth and moths can fly. Oh. That means I can fl-Me. I can fly. I can fly! I. Can! Fly!'

I laughed. That was undoubtedly the best thing to happen to me since I died; trumping any and all other situations that I had faced since coming here.

Smiling, I lifted my wings and gave them an experimental swing. I was lifted off of the ground. I was fucking lifted off of the ground!

I would have cackled if I could! Even though I had never before flown in this body, I was flying now. Was the skill, {Fly Lv.6}, coming into effect? If it was, thank you title [Reincarnated]. I have never been more thankful for you!

As I flew, I noticed a slight buzz around me, or better to say, emanating from me. I frowned; that would not do, absolutely not. It would be a sigh saying, 'Hey, tasty prey here; come and eat!' to any predator that had above average hearing.

I tried to nullify the sound but I ended up falling and hitting the ground instead.

Perplexed, I looked at my wings? 'Is the sound coming from the beating of my wings?' I frowned.

I tried again, but this time, instead of nullifying the sound I tried to minimize it. It took me quite some time but I did manage to soften the noise. Though, I had to trade my speed for that and the maximum height I could fly to. But, in my opinion, being alive was more important that being able to fly faster.

I sighed. Before I had died, such a statement would have been sacrilege to me but now that I had died, I had come to appreciate the value of life. Sighing again, I flew, searching for food. It seemed I no longer fed on leaves. Instead, my instincts told me that I should find flowers and bugs to feed on.

Searching, as I flew, my antennas caught the sweet fragrance of a flower shining in the moonlight. It was an odd sensation, feeling the scent rather than smelling it. I shook off the feeling and flew towards it. Gently landing on its petals, I crawled in.

As I was drinking the sweet nectar of the flower, I felt a disturbance and immediately activated the skill, {Sensor}; all the while cursing myself for forgetting to activate the skill as soon I had left my hideout. The skill came through and I sensed an insect much larger than me, approaching me from the side.

At the same time, wind shifted and my antennas picked up the scent of a predator. I backed away from it at once, I had no intention of becoming insect chow. As my wings picked me off of the plant, a giant slicer-type-thingy passed from just where I had been.

My heart racing, I turned around. And there it was, a monstrosity that looked a lot like a praying mantis but wasn't. It was at least 10 times as big as me and had a body that looked like it was made out of wood rather than flesh.

I continued to fly and, out of the corner of my eye, kept glancing at the creature. Then, much to my astonishment, and horror, the thing straightened up and revealed its wings.

'That thing can fly!' I gaped. 'I am so very dead!'

And as I had expected, but had hoped to be wrong about, that monstrosity flapped its wings and flew towards me. It had decided that I was its prey and it did not want me to escape its scythe like clutches. Though, for whatever reason, it was slower than me.

Was it because it was bigger than me? Or was it because my {Fly} skill was at a higher level than its. I did not know the answer; I was just thankful for its slow speed.

As it neared me, I dropped all my attempts of making as less noise as possible and, instead, flew as fast as I could.

The creature kept on flying, and tried to beat its faster. Though I was still faster than it and escaped.

Ting.

[Skill acquired, {Scent Lv.1}]

A sigh of relief escaped me as the mantis monster finally fell behind. Thanking my obsessive need to fly in my previous birth, I landed on a branch. Making sure that there were no surprises waiting for me this time, I focused on the skill.

Ting.

[Allows you to recognize and track a scent in the radius of 1m.]

I wasn't surprised by the skill. Animals, after all, have a much better sense of smell than humans. Though, I had expected to get it when I evolved, along with the rest of my skills. I guess it was like the skill {Sensor} and had to be experienced before it can be gained.

Beating my wings, I was again airborne. I flew across the forest, enjoying the wind beneath my wings and the rustling of the sensors on my body. It was exhilarating; way better than flying on a broom. The two feelings weren't even close to one another. It was like I had been trying to see with a really bad prescription of glasses and, suddenly, I had the matched set.

It was just so freeing.

So I flew and flew until by body reminded me, with a slight burn in my stomach, which I needed to eat. Grimacing, I looked around with all my senses, which now included, my eyes, my antennas for the skill {Scent} and the sensors on my body for the skill {Sensor}.

Soon I zoomed in on a spider trying to build its net. It was small, almost a quarter my size and of a non-descript color. As I was observing, it, I remembered the skill that I had bought, though accidently and cursed myself for forgetting to use it on the mantis monstrosity.

I couldn't use it earlier because I didn't have any MP but I sure could do now. 'Observe.'

Ting.

[Spider.]

'What. The .Hell.' Was that all?! I spent all my points –or whatever they were- on this useless thing! 'No! No way! This is bullshit! I call bullshit!'

I fumed and bitched about for a while before I began to calm myself.

Still, I scowled as I calmed down and thought more deeply about the skill. There was no way such a useless thing could cost all my points of whatever it was that it was. It had to be good, it just had to be. And I was not hoping about it. No. Not one bit.

Thus there was only one option left for me. I just have to level it up!

With that in mind, I began to use the skill, on everything my eyes fell on.

Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting.

Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting.

Ting.

[Skill {Observe Lv.1} has leveled up to {Observe Lv.2}]

Finally! I turned back to the spider. 'Observe.'

Ting.

[Poisonous Spider.]

I scowled. 'That's all? Again? That's all that I get for using all of my MP to level up the stupid skill? Addition of one measly word? Well. Fuck You Blue Screen. Fuck you sideways.'

Still scowling I nodded. I had to level up this skill so that it could give me more information. That was the only course of option left for me.

'Huh. I guess the title [Stubborn] does suit me after all.'

Shaking my head to clear it, I focused on the task at hand. For now, at least, I knew about the poison and make use of that information. I can get back into my routine of leveling up the sub-skill of poison resistance so that I can make more kinds of poisons.

Now, if only I knew how to hunt spiders.

So I flew around, trying to think of a way to kill the spider while incurring the least amount of HP loss possible; all that, without getting tangled in its web. Yeah, it was hard.

I came up with the idea to use the spell {Expelliarmus} but that would cost me 20 MP; MP that I would rather use in leveling up the damn {Observe}.

So, obviously, I dumped that plan; I was going to level up that {Observe}, no matter what.

Finally, I decided to create some Mild-Poison, the plant one, and covered a leaf with it before putting that leaf on the spider when it was away from its net. Not the best plan, I know, but I could only come up with it, given my limitations.

So I did just that. I created the plant poison and bit a small leaf off of the plant and rubbed it over my body to collect as much poison on it as I could and then I bit into it again as I flapped my wings to the take off.

I lifted off the ground before wobbling in the air for a few moments and then crashing and tasting mud.

The leaf was way too heavy for me to fly with.

I grimaced. Still, I could not just abandon all my hard work that I had put in this plan. So with a sigh, I began dragging the leaf towards the spider that I wanted to hunt.

When I was satisfied with the distance between my prey and me, I activated another one of my skill, though with a grimace. I activated the skill, {Ant's Will}.

Ting.

[-10 HP]

[Strength has been doubled for the duration of two minutes.]

Still grimacing at the HP loss, I lifted off of the ground, with the leaf in my mouth, much easily that I had before. Though, still wobbly, I controlled myself as best as I could and flew toward the spider that was still preparing its net.

Trying to be as silent as I could, I reached near it; though, by this point, I was pretty sure that it knew of my presence as it was a little skittish but wasn't threatened by my presence. 'Am I not a threat for it? Huh. Typical.'

As I reached over the spider, I took a sudden plunge and hit the hanging spider with the poison covered leaf. I heard hiss of pain but continued the plunge and hit the ground.

Ting.

[- 10 HP]

I felt the spider trying to wiggle out of the leaf but I used all of my weight and the strength from the Skill {Ant's Will} to keep it down. It continued to struggle but the forceful hit to the ground and the poison took their toll on it and it finally stopped moving.

Ting.

[You have Leveled Up! Level up bonus of +1 HP and +1 MP granted.]

Ting.

[You have Leveled Up! Level up bonus of +1 HP and +1 MP granted.]

I sighed in relief. That had been hectic.

A small frown morphed on my face. I had gained just two levels, so that meant the spider was above me in food chain, but not all that much, and that I was just a minor threat to it. That explained its skittishness but over all non-threatened behavior when I had hovered over it.

Nodding to myself, I began to drag the leaf away from my food. As I returned after putting the leaf away, my eyes fell on spider and the delicious scent of fresh meat hit my antennas.

I crawled closer.

The tough spider carapace had cracked from when the spider had taken the involuntary dive with me and had hit the solid ground. The thus released scent tantalized my antennas but I didn't dare touch the spider now. This spider was poisonous and if I ate it on the ground, then who knew what effect it will have on me. So no, I had to eat it below the ground.

I tried to move it but it was heavy, it was no damn leaf. With the skill {Ant's Will}, I could move it but it would take a lot of my HP and I did not want to lose anymore of my HP than I had already lost; it took a lot of time to recover the damn thing.

With a sigh, I began to dig then and there. I didn't have much else of a choice, now did I?

Finishing digging up a hole, as fast as possible -as I did not want the scent of raw flesh to attract predators- I dragged the spider carcass in. After covering up the entrance with a leaf, I dug in the flesh. It tasted much better than I had thought it would, even though the scent had been hinting that it would be delicious.

As I finished eating the meat, I waited for the pain to hit. And after a few more minutes, it sure did.

Fuck! OWW!

It was like I had been hit with a blunt weapon, all over my body and then I had been hit again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

It was hell; much worse than what I had been experiencing with the plant poison. Whereas plant poison had been like a single bolt of pain, this felt like I had that bolt of pain racing all over my; that and many more such bolts, all racing and pacing over my body again and again. And again. And aga-

The pain lasted for quite some time but finally it was over and I was left gasping for my breath. I tried to take a few deep breaths but my body didn't understand that instruction and tried to reach for more breath while it exhaled.

It was hell.

Finally, I was able to take control of my body and nearly whimpered; I hadn't received any notification about either gaining or leveling up any skill, meaning that I had to go through that who knew how many times to just receive that!

Still taking deep breaths, I decided to rest for a few hours; I was in no condition to go out. So I closed my eyes and began to meditate.

In.

Hold.

Out.

In.

Hold.

Out.

Repeat.

Approximately two hours later, I heard a tell tale sound.

Ting.

[MP recovery complete. You have a full bar of MP.]

It was already full? Hmm. {Meditate} at Level 5 gave an extra regeneration of 5MP/hour, so that meant my MP regeneration was 10 MP/Hour; pretty good, considering my HP regeneration which was an abysmal 2 HP/Hour.

Feeling much better than I had been originally, I crawled out of the hole and began searching for more spiders to hunt and raise my sub-skill but not before I used all of my MP to {Observe} the shit out of everything I saw. I wanted to Level up that skill as soon as possible.

Was it stupid to use up all of my MP for a single skill? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I don't know. All I know is that I have to level up this skill.

Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting.

Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting.

Stupidly stubborn.

I know.

With the last notification, I had used up all of my 23 points of MP, even the two new points that I had gained with the level ups. Satisfied with my work, I moved onto the next thing on my to-do-list; I began looking for more of my new prey.

I didn't have to look too far to find more spiders. It seemed as if this place was somewhere near a spider colony or something because there were a lot of spiders here. I found my next prey soon enough; it was a spider that had just begun spinning its net.

I decided to use a different technique this time as I didn't want to use {Ant's Will} and lose my Hp for no good reason. Trying to make as little sound as possible, I landed on the branch that the spider was hanging from and crawled closer to where its thread was connected to the branch.

Ting.

[Skill gained, {Stealth Lv.1}]

Reaching my destination, I began to secrete the plant poison, which was much stronger than my own, right above the spot where the thread connected to the branch. Soon my body was glistening from all the poison that I had secreted. I lowered my body and landed just next to the spot.

My poison, due to gravity, began to slide down of my body and started forming a puddle very near to the thread. I let the puddle form without changing anything. Slowly, the puddle began to grow as more and more of my poison slid down me.

I watched the puddle carefully and when it seemed like it would overflow and run everywhere, I gently, very gently, guided it to the thread. There, I put one of my many limbs, vertically, and stopped the movement of poison, letting it collect behind my limb.

Of course, the spider immediately sensed that not only had something -or someone- had touched its thread but that it was continuing to touch it and, being the stupid thing it was, it decided to investigate.

At that moment, I lifted my limb and let the massive drop of poison, which had collected behind my limb, slide down the thread. As soon as I was done with that, I began guiding the rest of the puddle down the thread and drop by drop, more and more of my poison began to slide down the thread.

I knew exactly when my poison hit the spider, as it began to shriek and struggle wildly, causing the thread to wave unstably and shake. As the shaking continued, some of the poison was thrown off but the rest continued to hit the spider and, the stupid thing that it was, it tried to struggle even more instead of just dropping down.

As the spider continued to struggle, the thread with which it was hanging, finally broke and the spider sped towards the ground. It hit the earth and didn't move further.

Ting.

[You have Leveled Up! Level up bonus of +1 HP and +1 MP granted.]

Ting.

[You have Leveled Up! Level up bonus of +1 HP and +1 MP granted.]

I grinned. One hunt and not a single loss of HP. Now that's what I called being awesome!

Grinning, I dragged the carcass back to the new hole that I had made just for the purpose of eating these corpses. Covering up the entrance with a leaf, I dug in. The meat, as I had expected after last time, was delicious.

Finishing up the spider, I waited for the pain to kick in, which it sure did sooner rather than later. The bludgeoning pain hit me as if I had been hit with a hammer all over my body and, even though I had been expecting it, it somehow managed to surprise me.

It took its sweet time racing over my body and making me scream all sort of things, especially curse words, but it was finally over and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Ting.

[Sub-skill, {Poison: Bug: Resistance Lv. 2}, has leveled up to become {Poison: Bug: Resistance Lv. 3}. The effect of the poison has been decreased. A tinge.]

I grinned at the screen in glee. I didn't have to gain it from the start! I gained one level for free! I laughed. Not caring why I skipped a level when I had not done so with any other skill.

Ting.

[Title gained {Masochist}]

Eh?

Wha-!

I am not a-

Wha-!

Why would i-!

'FUCK YOU BLUE SCREEN! I am not a masochist! No matter what your bluey-screeny self says I am not a masochist! I do not take pleasure in my pain! And certainly not any kind of erotic pleasure! Fuck you! I was grinning because I gained a level in the sub-skill not because I was enjoying pain you fucktard of a blue screen! Go fuck yourself! Go fuck your self in your bluey-self!'

I ranted.

I raved.

And then I tried to calm myself. Taking a deep breath, somehow I controlled myself and focused on the title.

Ting.

[You take pleasure in your pain. The erotic kind. Grants the skill, {Masochism Lv.1}]

'Fuck you too blue screen, fuck you too.' Grumbling, I focused on the skill.

Ting.

[When in pain, HP regeneration increases by the level number. Current regeneration increase: 1HP/Hour.]

Scowling, I dismissed the windows. Even though the skill obtained was good, it definitely wasn't worth having the title {Masochist} in my status.

I sighed. But nothing I could do about it now.

I crawled out of the hole and headed for my hideout. After all the excitement that I have had just in 4 hours today, I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. And now that I didn't have the title {Hungry} anymore, I could do so without feeling like my belly would burn itself up if I didn't eat.

So I did just that, I reached my hideout, dug around to make it fit my new size and then crawled in.

Ting.

[Skill, {Dig Lv.6} has leveled up to {Dig Lv.7}. Digging speed has increased.]

Dismissing the screen, I used {Survive}.

Ting.

[-63 HP]

Tired all the more now because of {Survive}, I called up my status screen.

[Name: Unnamed]

[Species: Poisonous Forest Moth]

[Race(s): Insect]

[Level: 6]

[HP: 43/126]

[MP: 0/26]

[Titles: {Sentient}, {Reincarnated}, {Survivor}, {Bullheaded}, {Master of Death}, {Masochist}]

[Skills: {Trap Lv.2}, {Poison Resistance Lv.7}, {Crawl Lv.10}, {Poison Creation Lv.4}, {Pain Resistance Lv.4}, {Sensor Lv.5}, {Dig Lv.7}, {Molting Lv.3}, {Survive Lv.2}, {Ant's Will Lv.2}, {Observe Lv.2}, {Fly Lv.6}, {Night Vision Lv.3}, {Stubborn Lv.2}, {Meditate Lv.5}, {Animagus Lv.1}, {Beast Tamer Lv.1}, {Occlumens Lv.7}, {Leglimens Lv.2}, {Apparate Lv.6}, {Invisibility Lv.1}, {Rise Lv.1}, {Scent Lv.1}, {Stealth Lv.1}, {Masochism Lv.1}]

[Spells: {Lumos Lv. Max}, {Expelliarmus Lv. 10}, {ExpectoPatronum Lv. 10}, {Protego Lv.10}, {Reparo Lv.9}, {Incendio Lv.9}, {Aguamenti Lv.9}, {Stupefy Lv.9}, {Episkey Lv. 9}, {Immobulus Lv.9}, {Lumos Maximus Lv.8}, {Confundo Lv.8}, {Fianto Duri Lv. 8},{Protego Maxima Lv. 8}, {Repello Inimicum Lv.8}, {Accio Lv.7}, {Bombarda Lv.7}, {Petrificus Totalus Lv.6}, {Diffindo Lv.6}, {Reducto Lv.5}, {Wingardium Leviosa Lv. 5}, {Transfugiration Lv.5}, {Silencio Lv.4}, {Glacius Lv.4}, {Confringo Lv.3}, {Alohomora Lv.3}, {Sectum Sempra Lv.2}, {Imperio Lv.2}, {Muffliato Lv.2}, {Crucio Lv.1}]

I sighed; just 43 points of HP left. 'This skill is taking far more HP than it is worth. At least I have 20 hours to recuperate the loss.' With that I fell asleep.

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P.S. Unbeta'ed but edited to the best of my ability.