Strength, Perception and agility. That was the ultimate combo he used in his strategy to deal with the party of Claw-foot rabbits that stumbled on his ‘home’ while following the trail of his blood. He knew that without that extra boost, he had no chance to compete with the higher levelled rabbits with likely superior stats than him.

Even damaging them was an arduous task as he remembered how little damage his normal blows did to the ridiculously strong body of the Level 5 rabbit he encountered in the forest.

So, he used strength to damage their hard bodies, agility to keep up and surpass their speed, and perception helped him in controlling his boosted speed at that moment. Otherwise, he would have likely shot past the rabbits in his dash towards them, wasting the precious boost time and making for an awkward moment overall.

But using perception wasn’t his immediate choice, rather it was a last-minute decision.

He was originally going to put his last point into luck instead of perception however he dropped that idea for one reason. Luck, as a stat was something he couldn’t predict at all.

The information provided by the system gave zero hints towards what to expect from it and rather than fitting well within his plan it might as well have created another situation like what happened with the wolves, making the rest of his plan completely useless as a result.

And even if by some miracle it worked, the “victory” would have left him with bitter feelings at best as in his mind, he would always ascribe this win that came about due to luck.

He was glad he dropped that idea as using perception provided results that were everything he hoped in his little plan.

But…

He was definitely going to reserve this strategy as a last resort if he was going to be feeling this shitty after every use. Every part of his body, from head to toe, was hurting like hell, so much so that he actually discovered a few places where he didn’t know he could feel pain

The pain somewhat reminded him of that one time he got over-confident in the gym and overexerted his muscles with a weight he wasn’t ready for. The alert that popped up in front of his face only further backed his decision of keeping it as a last resort.

Stamina: 23/105 [Exhausted]

Status ailment [Exhausted] detected for the first time

Description: Host will be unable to exert his body until recovering half of their maximum stamina points(SP). Attempts to struggle will result in a decrease in their Health points(HP).

Remark: When being ‘dead tired’ becomes a legitimate concern. >>

This was…understandable to some extent. He didn’t like it, but he could accept that using stat boosts like this had severe drawbacks otherwise any victory in a battle would less about actual skills and more about the accumulation of stat points one had. It was still a nice trump card to have in case things were in deep shit.

‘So using more than one stat boost is a big-no during fights, as I don’t remember experiencing this issue when I used only one stat-boost.’. The more Bharat explored the system, the more he realized that it didn’t want to make things easy for its ‘host’. Even this moderately powerful feature was nerfed to prevent exploitation in any way.

One thing he noticed in passing was that, unlike normal notifications that don't appear unless he opens his status screen, the alert notifications appeared in front of him without any command on his part.

A nice feature, but overall useless in his opinion. He was pretty sure he’d know if he was bleeding in any case.

>

<< Perception: 13

Description: Numerical indicator of how much awareness you have of your surroundings and the extent to which your senses can perceive information. Provides a temporary boost to all your senses after manually adding a point. Explore for more functions

Remarks: Tool for the brain-dead to become… less brain-dead >>

<< You have eliminated a Level-5 [Claw-foot Rabbit]. Experience is awarded according to your contribution. Bonus experience awarded due to perks of the [Newbie] Title. Additional Experience bonuses from the ‘First Find’ Achievement stacked. >>

<< You have eliminated a Level-4 [Claw-foot Rabbit]. Experience is awarded according to your contribution. Bonus experience awarded due to perks of the [Newbie] Title. Additional Experience bonuses from the ‘First Find’ Achievement stacked. >>

<< You have eliminated a Level-4 [Claw-foot Rabbit]. Experience is awarded according to your contribution. Bonus experience awarded due to perks of the [Newbie] Title. Additional Experience bonuses from the ‘First Find’ Achievement stacked. >>

>

>

Status

Name: Bharat Kumar

Race: Human (Tier 0) (Level 2)

Level: 2

Titles: [Pioneer Of World], [Newbie]

Health: 121/141

Mana: 111/111

Stamina: 24/105

Stats

+Strength: 17

+Perception: 12

+Endurance: 13

+Constitution: 10

+Intelligence: 12

+Agility: 11

+Luck: 3

Unspent Points: 3

Abilities:

General:

[Basic Translate (Common)]

[Appraise (Common)]

‘Two Levels in a single day…Is it the system’s way of telling me to get into more deadly situations?’

Looking at his updated status, he had conflicting thoughts. On one hand, he finally got some progress after a whole week of grinding but on the other hand, he felt like he could do without the whole ‘risking his life’ part’.

He couldn’t help it, as his 20 plus years of life till now consisted of zero violence of any kind, not even a school fight. And just one week of hunting wasn’t enough for him to get rid of the civilized mindset he had growing up.

Nevertheless, if he could name one thing he was good at, it was keeping his promises, especially the ones he made to himself. So regardless of his thoughts about it, he wasn’t going to back down now. These two levels would mark as the start of his journey, something he would look back with fond reminiscence in the future after walking this path.

Getting out of his funk, he focused on the increased stats his two levels provided. The actual benefits individual stats provided to his health, mana and stamina were largely unknown. The only thing he could confirm as of yet was that agility increased his stamina by 6 points and strength increased his health.

He wasn’t sure of the actual numbers or maths involved as the circumstance he used the stat boost didn’t let him sit down and observe the changes they each bring forth. But now that he had enough unspent points, he could experiment.

And it wasn’t as if he could move from his position so it was time for some mathematics!

‘Yay…’

>

<< You are affected by status ailment [Exhausted]. Forcefully increasing your stats in a short period will lead to depletion of your remaining stamina points(SP) and you will be affected by the status ailment [Knocked out]. Do you still wish to proceed?

Y/N >>

…Or not, as his attempt to put a point in endurance resulted in another screen popping up in front of him, this time a warning.

‘Of course, status ailments won't mean shit if you can circumvent the effects by forcefully increasing your stats yet again.’

So in the end, with nothing else to do while in his incapacitated state, he decided to meditate, and felt relieved that another warning didn’t pop up as a result. He noticed that now that he had an increased mana pool, the process of reaching his core was faster by a small margin.

Reaching the core, he noticed that he could 'see' better now. Considering that just this morning, he could only get a small feeling of its motion, that was a marked improvement in his books.

The effects of increased stats were already showing themselves even though he hadn’t tested the physical ones yet. But, he doubted that every increase will bring about such improvement. It was easier to notice an extra 10% than a measly 1% after all.

Back to his meditation, he saw that the mana he felt before were actually a countless number of strands revolving around his core. Before he could reach out and ‘touch’ them though, he was broken out of state with only 40 points remaining in his mana.

Now feeling truly exhausted both in body and mind, he decided to get some shut-eye as his stamina recovered.

The next time he opened his eyes, he saw that it was already dark outside. In his exhaustion and after going through all the events that happened that day, he hadn’t realized just how tired he was and as a result slept more than he thought.

But he didn’t regret that decision one bit, as he felt he could think without feeling gloomy and depressed every next minute.

Getting up, he instantly noticed how light and strong his body felt. He felt he could run twice as long as before getting tired and at faster speeds too. Getting excited he looked down at his stomach in expectation.

Nope. No six-packs yet. A bit smaller belly, but he guessed that it was likely due to eating only berries for a week.

Thinking of berries, he felt hungry as he realized that he hadn’t eaten anything since morning. But before he could go fetch some for himself, his nose was assaulted with a strong smell of rotten flesh.

“Oh right…Totally forgot about them”

In his exhausted state, he didn’t get the chance to dispose of the three dead Claw-foot rabbits. But he was confused after taking a look at the rabbit whose head he had crushed with the rock.

This was because the carcass was not supposed to smell this bad in only a few hours. He couldn’t chalk it up to different physiology either as the rabbits he hunted the last few days only started smelling after two days minimum.

Bharat was even more alarmed after noticing the current state of the carcass. It seemed to have shrivelled up and was releasing blood and other contents all over the floor in only a scant few hours, a process that should take weeks! And in his observation, he suddenly heard a familiar system notification sound.

*Ding*

>

<< Title: Investigate the strange phenomenon

Description: A strange encounter led you to discover the existence of mutations in a species inside the forest, which is changing the physiology of these creatures and making them far more dangerous

Objective: Investigate and determine the cause of strange mutations happening in the species of [Swift-foot rabbits]

Reward for Success: One Random [Rare] Equipment, Clues about the next stage of the training Program.

Punishment for Failure: None

Do you wish to accept?

Y/N. >>

A Quest. And this time an optional one. Reading through the contents, he accepted it without hesitation as he saw the last part. It was zero-risk, high reward stuff, and he reckoned he’ll figure something out.

<< Quest accepted! You can view the details of your current and past quests in the ‘Quests’ menu. >>

“A Quest huh…?”, he muttered to himself as he observed the carcass closely as if the answer would jump out of its body any moment.

‘[Appraise].’

*Ding*

Item: Dead [Claw-foot Rabbit]

Description: Dead [Claw-foot Rabbit]

Remarks: Dead [Claw-foot Rabbit], if it wasn’t clear by now.

“Worth a try.”

Quickly losing interest, he picked up the carcass of the level 4 and nearby level 5 rabbit and brought them outside, throwing them into the woods as far as he could.

Going back into the cave, he went toward the third one, the one he had sent crashing against the wall. He went to pick it up but paused in his steps when he caught sight of a faint light that was coming through a crack in the cave wall, a crack that was likely made after the rabbit hit the wall.

‘What is that…?’

After removing all the rocks by slipping his fingers inside the cracks that were spread all over the point of impact, he finally got a good look at what exactly was emitting such light, and the results left him surprised.

Hidden behind the cave wall, there was a small cubic space and inside that space, there was another stone altar.

But different from the one through which he was teleported here, this one was far smaller in size, and upon this altar was the source of the white light which turned out to be small gems embedded on a wooden chest.

‘[Appraise]’

<< Item: Loot-Box (Common)

Description: A common rarity loot box containing items that will be very beneficial for whoever finds it.

Remarks: Everybody likes loot boxes! >>