'I woke up for the third time again.' Zheng sighted in disbelief. 'My bruises are hurting like hell.'

Zheng leans his weary body in the nearby tree. He looks up and stares at the enormous trees around him.

["Hosts body condition is now recovering."]

["Host is now free from danger."]

Two notifications sounded out on his mind. Zheng ignored it as he closed his eyes. 'Wait a minute. I think I remember something from the system a while ago.'

Zheng immediately opened his eyes as he hurriedly opens the menu screen. Zheng was shocked because another menu appeared after the Mini Shop, Skills.

He hurriedly reaches the Skills menu as another window screen appeared in front of him.

["Welcome to the Skills Menu, Master Zheng. Here you will find different kinds of skills that you earned. Skills are the spells and abilities you utilize while in combat, assisting others in combat, or providing benefits and other useful temporary powers to you or others outside of combat."]

Zheng listened to System's explanation seriously. In the Skills Menu, there is one skill listed on the Passive column, Swift. Zheng easily understood the meaning of it and quickly touch the Swift skill to view its description.

["Swift (Passive) - (1) Increase agility by 1 point. (2) There is a chance that your agility increase by 30% for 10 seconds. (3) There is a minuscule chance that your stamina recovered back to its original state."]

Zheng's eyeballs nearly fall on the ground as he read the details of his newly acquired skill. He closed the entire screen with a smile on his face.

He stood up and asked System in his mind, "How should I know if I explored the forest?" This thing worried Zheng the entire time. According to the mission's condition, he needs to explore the forest and nothing else.

["You can view the completion rate of the mission at the bottom of mission details."]

"Really? I never saw that thing." Zheng was somewhat surprised.

'Oh yes! I never open the Mission Menu in the beginning!' Zheng slaps himself in shame.

["Welcome to the Mission Screen! Missions are categorized into different ranks, based on the mission's possible danger or level of importance."]

Zheng touched the only mission currently listed on the Active Mission column. Then, a screen appeared hovering in his view.

[Rank: G

Mission #1: Explore the unknown forest!

Reward: 1000 Power Stone points!

Completion rate: 90%]

For the second time, Zheng's eyeballs nearly fall out on the ground! His mouth wide open. "90%!" Zheng could not contain his emotion as he suddenly screamed.

Zheng could not believe what he had read. He was happy but that was only temporary, he was caught in a dilemma. 'There's only 10% left to finish this mission. But how could I fill that missing percentage?'

Zheng's memory is vague, there's no way he can remember where he ran. He just moved his weak foot randomly in fear.

'There's no other choice but to ask.'

Zheng hurriedly close the Mission Menu and said, "System, is it possible to know the area that I already explored?"

["Yes it is possible. Just say 'Show Map' in your mind to open the Map and say 'Close Map' to close it"]

"Great! Thank you so much for your help!"

["No problem, Master Zheng."]

In the top-right corner of his vision, a small circular map suddenly appeared. Zheng curiously tried touching the Map and suddenly it grew bigger obstructing his entire view. Zheng was startled! He tried touching the big map and fortunately, the map returned to its original size. 'I will never do that again. I will perish quick.' Zheng keeps those words in his heart.

["The yellow dot you see on the map is your current position. A red dot indicates an enemy. The green one indicates a friend or someone else not hostile to you."]

Zheng nodded. All of Zheng's question were all answered by the system. 'System's explanation is clearer than a crystal.'

["On the map, you'll see a place covered by a fog. This indicates that place is currently unexplored."]

Zheng focused his eyes on the map as he tried fidgeting over it. Then as if water poured out on him, Zheng shouted: "This is...!"

Zheng saw it clearly. The fog that covered a portion of the map was actually right in front of him! Zheng ecstatically stood up as his eyes shone in excitement.

Zheng quickly ran to the place where he had never been before.

Few minutes of running in the forest, he saw something in the middle of the clearings. A pale-skinned man, sitting with eyes closed on the slab of rocks. He had spiky, shoulder-length, pale brown hair, with a chin-length, braided lock hanging in front of his left ear. He also sported a goatee, which was short. The pale-skinned man had a pair of horn-like protrusions extending from either side of his forehead. He wore a white, full-length kimono with a pattern of six black magatamas around a high collar, beneath which, he wore a necklace which was also made up of six black magatamas.

Zheng checked his map and saw that the place where the pale-skinned man is sitting in the final area that he needs to explore.

Zheng's heart beats wildly as he made a resolute decision and that was to approach the pale-skinned man silently.

Zheng's foot was shaking as he moves them towards the pale-skinned man's place. Looking at the pale-skinned man, Zheng's breathing became unstable.

Shhhh...

With that final step of his left foot, Zheng arrived in front of the pale-skinned man.

Zheng stared at him with a question on his face. 'Is this real? Why is there's a man sitt...'

Zheng's thoughts were disrupted when the old man's pupilless white eyes opened wildly.

"..."

There was a dead silence on Zheng and then, "Yah!!" A scream loud enough shocked the entire forest.

Zheng stumbled backward. He wants to run but his legs were not listening to him at the moment.

The pale-skinned man sat up and stretched his back. Then, he began to walk towards Zheng.

'I'm in big trouble this time.'

Zheng felt that his life would end. But contrary to what he expects, the pale-skinned man said something surprising to Zheng.

"Oh, another one. What is your name, young kid?"