[Sabre-tooth cat meat added to Inventory]

[Sabre-tooth cat meat added to Inventory]

The prompts fired pff one after another as he dug the dagger into the dead cat’s flesh, trying to aim for the bits with and around bones and avoid the intestines. If it could be done with cows, it would be done with sabretooth cats.

The Goblin had no such qualms about eating, ripping out bits and pieces, fur still hanging from it, and shoving it into its maw. He tried his best not to vomit at the sight, and hoped the Goblin was just starving and that this wasn’t its usual feeding behaviour.

He shuddered as he realised what he was doing. It was still day one, and there he was skinning a sabretooth panther next to a Goblin. His life has gone extremely weird in a single day.

Some of the cuts and pieces finally partitioned, he decided to get rid of the carcass in hopes of avoiding any other surprise dinner guest. For that, he went a bit further out of the camp, trying to find a desolate enough spot to dump the remains in.

It was getting dark and he glanced up to see a notable change in sky colour as the sun had finally begun to set. He had to wrap this up fast and get back to the camp.

He trekked a few hundred meters or so from the camp spot and decided to just leave the corpse there without bothering to bury it. He lacked a shovel and wasn’t keen on doing it with his hands.

He threw the rest of the carcass — which didn’t go into the Inventory, for whatever reason it may be — on the ground and haphazardly tossed some of the nearby foliage on top of it as well as pushing some dirt with his boots, hoping it would do whatever trick he was trying to achieve.

With that done, he set back to the camp, one less worry on his mind.

He glanced at the number of followers. It had gone up from 16 to 18, then dropped to 17 in the time he was fighting the cat.

He wasn’t sure what to think of it. Was he doing something wrong? Is that a good thing, having one fewer potential hunter to look out for?

The trek back was accompanied by him poking at the screens in front of him, trying to make something work.

There was one thing he did manage to accomplish. A small button on the bottom left appeared, with an icon of the star on it. He wasn’t sure when it came into being, but pressing it opened his Skill List it would seem. There was the single entry in it he already saw before. But the number didn’t add up.

[Shield 2]

He pressed on the button, and a pop-up appeared.

[Shield 1 upgraded to Shield 2. Cost decreased to 13. Duration increased to 2.5 seconds]

[Would you like to access the skill shop?

Yes/No]

He pressed the small yes button on the left and was met with a similar view the first time he received the backpack. In it, there were several icons greyed out with the text ‘NOT AVAILABLE’ and a sad emoji, apart from the first icon in the grid.

[Confirm purchase — Skill: Daze]

That seemed oddly inconvenient, considering how the previous fight went. Was he gaining skills based on what he performed with the ones he had?

Daze 1

Attempt to daze a target, stopping it from performing meaningful actions.

Cost 20 MP Duration 2 seconds.

So, for whole 20 mana, he could ‘attempt’ to daze something? What did attempt mean? Would it work ‘some’ part of the time? Is there a hidden counter that says ‘Not today’ when he uses it every third time?

He would have to figure it out as he went. And hopefully it would get better with time. The Shield upgrade was a welcomed change. He could cast it 7 times if he got his mana back to full, and it wouldn't take long to charge an eighth one.

[Skill learned: Daze 1]

[Skill slots remaining: 3]

Oh, that was going to be a problem, for another time maybe, but still a problem.

His trek got interrupted by a rustling in the grass next to him. He really didn’t want any more surprises, and just tried to slowly walk past it and try to not antagonize the ferns.

The rustling preceded a meow as a small black cat stumbled out of the foliage. A small black cat with quite large canines.

Fine, he’d deal with it as he went. He picked up the orphaned kitten that seemed to provide way too little resistance and carried onwards to the camp.