Day 11

Inside a small forest clearing, slightly illuminated due to the dim lighting provided by the evening sky, a swift-foot rabbit hopped inside and approached a bush laden with blue coloured berries. And as if it hadn’t eaten anything in days, started feasting on the delicious looking berries without a care in the world.

So engrossed was he in his task to stuff himself silly, that he failed to notice when the bushes behind him rustled slightly before settling down, and completely missed the point of an arrow that was poking from the bushes, pointing in his direction.

But it did notice when he felt a sense of impending doom, something that it had felt only a handful of times in his short life. Hie ears perked up as he became alert but it was already too late by then.

Before it could run away, an arrow struck the side of his head and cleanly went through the skull due to the force with which it was released, killing him instantly.

And out of the bushes emerged Bharat with the bow in hand, another arrow already nocked to prepare in case the rabbit still managed to evade his powerful [Concentrated shot].

*Ding*

<< You have eliminated a Level-5 [Swift-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. >>

After a whole day focused solely on hunting these little critters, he discovered that these rabbits were mainly in the level range 1-5 as he hasn’t encountered a single level-6 rabbit as of yet.

Before this, he thought that there were only two types of rabbits in this area, those being the Level-1 Swift-foot rabbit and higher levelled Claw-foot rabbits. But that turned out to be false as he had found several higher levelled normal rabbits and even managed to find level 1 claw-foot rabbits which he killed gleefully.

Approaching the dead rabbit, he gazed at curiously for a moment as if pondering something. After a few seconds, he nodded to himself as if coming to a decision and picked up the dead rabbit, carrying it all the way back to his cave.

“This success calls for a celebration.”

A few days back, he finally understood the mistake he made while skinning his first rabbit but didn’t see the point to try again as the berries were enough for him.

The mistake he made was he forgot to loosen the skin before cutting its hide which made the actual cut on its bowels and ruined all the game.

Ironically enough, he remembered this was also the part that was mentioned to be done carefully but his idiot self somehow managed to forget the most important step at that time.

But now the whole process went seamlessly which left him with a rabbit hide and pieces of rabbit meat. Starting a fire was easy enough as rubbing two stones over some dry branches did the job.

Finally, he roasted the meat over the fire until he felt it was decently cooked, and then bit into the meat with a pleased smile on his face, a smile that was turned into an upset frown when he actually got the taste of the meat, or perhaps the lack of one.

Soon enough, that frown changed into an expression of disgust as Bharat went outside the cave and spitted out the half-chewed meat from his mouth. He somewhat expected the meat to tasteless delicious as it wasn't as if he had access to spices in this forest, but the lack of any flavour still caught him off guard.

‘If raw meat is going to taste this bad, then I will stick to berries thank you very much!’, Bharat thought to himself as he tried to wash down the meat by drinking water from the pond.

Day 12

Bharat was once again inside the forest, experiencing the joy of hunting and gaining experience at a steady rate and his repeated actions also showed their results in his bow mastery. Little by little, he was starting to lose his hesitation in holding a bow, becoming more confident in his aim and improving it at the same time.

The whole process of drawing and shooting was becoming more smooth with less rigid movements on his part. Occasionally, he would encounter a higher levelled rabbit, on which he would use his [Concentrated-shot] and then recover for a few minutes.

He still stayed away from larger groups of Claw-foot rabbits though, not quite feeling that he could tackle that situation without using stat boosts. But he knew he had to make that choice sooner or later regardless as he noticed that these rabbits had become aware of the presence of a hunter in their territory after his last couple of days of relentless killing.

He knew it was only a matter of time before they noticed it but their response to that still caught him off guard. Once again, these animals showed hints of higher intelligence in their response to the dangerous situation. And the strange thing was that both variants of the species reacted very differently from each other.

Before when he hunted the normal Swift-foot-rabbits, they tended to ignore most sounds for movement in their vicinity while eating but now they tended to flee at the slightest movement on his part, which made hunting them a bit difficult, even the 'level 1' ones.

The Claw-foot rabbits on the other hand were the ones he was most concerned about. Instead of fleeing or actively searching for him inside their territory, they started to form larger groups that made finding lone targets a tedious process.

The situation was still manageable to an extent, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he stopped getting lone Claw-foot rabbits and searching for normal ones starts taking too long.

There weren’t an infinite number of animals in the forest after all. The thinning of their numbers in the outer edges of their territory already showed that to him. And going out to hunt some other animals were also a big no, as a slight curiosity on his part led him to discover that the boars, who had their territory adjacent to the rabbits, were of more than level-5.

Therefore, as Bharat killed his latest target, a level-4 swift-foot rabbit, with a [concentrated shot] to its head, he decided that it was better to tackle the issue now rather than later because If the ratio of Claw-foot rabbits became too large, there was a slight chance that they may congregate at a single location.

And if they did that, he would be no better than a sitting duck at that point, with no way to advance.

*Ding*

<< You have eliminated a Level-4 [Swift-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. >>

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Status

Name: Bharat Kumar

Race: Human (Tier 0) (Level 4)

Level: 4

Titles: [Pioneer Of World], [Newbie]

Health: 159/159

Mana: 121/129

Stamina: 95/123

Stats

+Strength: 19

+Perception: 14

+Endurance: 15

+Constitution: 12

+Intelligence: 14

+Agility: 13

+Luck: 3

Unspent Points: 9

The notification of another level up was a pleasant surprise for Bharat, as he had spent a week trying to gain a single level in the forest before, but now he’d gotten four just in the last four days. And a large part of it was due to the ‘first find’ achievement, which was the reason he was hell-bent on using it to its full extent until it wore off.

After resting for a while to let his stamina recover, he stood up from the ground and went back into his search for viable targets. Catching sight of one through the shrubbery a few minutes later, he was about to get into position but one clear look at the scene in front of him had him turn around and look for another one.

He may need experience and had no qualms about killing these animals for levelling but even he would feel bad about interrupting them in the middle of their ‘business’, as back in the area he just left, two rabbits were going at ‘it’ like, well, rabbits.

Right now, he was inside what he had dubbed the inner area, inside which, the numbers of both normal rabbits and Claw-foot rabbits were almost equal, for now at least. There was also the core area which he hasn't visited yet but the numbers of high levelled Claw-foot rabbits were sure to be even higher there, so he refrained from stepping into that area until he reached level 5

That would net him about one additional point to each stat, not counting the additional points he would get. He felt like at that stage he could confidently tackle level 5 rabbits, even if they came in small groups.

But for now, he was stuck with finding viable targets to slowly reach that level. Just as he was about to go back to the previous location to kill those two rabbits anyway, their 'business' be damned, he caught sight of another pair of rabbits some distance away.

This time, they were two Claw-foot rabbits feeding on the flesh of a Swift-foot rabbit that lay dead between them.

[Claw-foot Rabbit - Level 4]

[Claw-foot Rabbit - Level 5]

The information provided by his [appraise] put Bharat in a tight spot as he thought about the pros and cons of attacking this duo while they were distracted. He felt that he would be taking an unnecessary risk, or that's what he told himself, while in truth, he was still afraid of them to an extent.

His first fight with a Claw-foot rabbit had left a deep impression on his mind due to which he still hesitated while facing it, even when it was all alone. The reason he fought those three rabbits on that day was that he had no other choice. They were already at his ‘doorstep’ by the point he discovered them and trying to make a run for it by then would have been stupid.

But…

The situation of these Claw-foot rabbits gathering in large groups was only going to snowball from here if he only focused on killing the normal ones and stayed away from the Claw-foot ones.

Besides, he was a lot stronger from before he faced them and he still had some unspent points saved up in case thing went south

Hopefully, it won’t come to that.

Making up his mind, he got into position behind a tree that was closest to their location but far enough that they won’t take notice his presence. Drawing the string of his bow, he gripped the arrow that was nocked on it and aimed at the head of higher levelled one among the two. Activating his [Concentrated shot], he waited till the process of charging was complete and then let loose the arrow.

Just like before, the arrow went cleanly through its head, and as he was shooting while in standing position this time, the impact kicked up a cloud of dust and debris behind the now dead rabbit as the arrow impacted the ground below due to the angle.

He did that in an effort to distract the other rabbit during which he felt he could draw his second arrow and shoot that one too, all before it could react.

*Ding*

<< 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 >>

But alas, things rarely went the way he wanted them to as the other rabbit barely gave his now dead ‘brother’ a glance before running straight at the location he knew the arrow came from.

While the rabbit was rushing at him, Bharat was desperately trying to aim at the fast-moving target but he had absolutely zero practice in shooting at a target in motion, as correctly aiming at a stationary target was hard enough as it is. In fact, whenever he missed his aim the first time, he rarely tried to shoot it again.

And now that inaction was biting him in the ass as his attempt to hit the rabbit failed terribly, missing three arrows in succession. The rabbit was only halfway to his location when Bharat finally got desperate and dropped one point in perception.

‘Fuck it.’

The next moment, the world slowed around him and the moments of rabbit became more clear to him. Drawing the string back, another arrow already nocked, he activated [Concentrated shot] once more but, likely due to his high perception, he felt that the skill was taking too long so he had to release the arrow before it could charge to its full power.

Thankfully, the half powered concentrated shot was still powerful enough to kill the airborne rabbit, only, instead of the arrow going through its head, it ended up blowing its head to bloody bits, some of which ended up on Bharat’s bare torso.

*Ding*

<< 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 >>

The moment the perception boost ended, he lowered the bow and heaved a sigh of relief. The satisfaction that should be there due to his victory was somewhat overshadowed by the fact that he once again had to take assistance from the stat boost.

What should be his trump card was being used as the only way he was winning even slightly tough battles, which frustrated him as he felt he wasn’t trying hard enough.

But there were no two ways about it in his current situation. He had already decided to train in all areas and cover all his weakness, a process that he knew was going to take a long time.

So, until that day comes when he wouldn’t need that extra boost to attain each victory, he would bear the wound to his pride and use it as motivation to train even harder.