Waking up, my body felt as if it was on fire, my shoulder numb, every breath is a struggle.

I opened my eyes, I’m lying in a very awkward position. Under me are broken branches as well as on top of me.

I’ll be honest, I’m very surprised that I’m not dead. I don’t have the energy or frankly the will to move at the moment.

Good news is that the system finally made a proper entrance.

There is a window floating in my peripheral vision, I reach out with my hand to touch it.

Which of course doesn’t work. So I focus my attention to it and it expands to my proper field of vision.

It’s a quest. Holy mother of the ever expanding tree, it is actually a quest! Huhuhu! I see, I see. Humph, of course. To be honest I feel like I knew this all along.

Well no, I pretty much gave up on the system a while ago but my ego still makes me jump through various mental gymnastics to keep itself a float or even bloated.

Ah the quest, right. It reads | The Forest | simple, just like the system likes to roll. And to continue

The Forest

You have found and conquered two safe zones with close relation to each other, you will now always respawn in either one of the two safe zones. This is true until one spawn point is destroyed or you take over an unrelated safe zone.

Am I shivering? I feel like my soul is quivering. Shit, I’m so excited I’m rhyming. There is more by the way, you feeling pumped up? I’m rocking a raging one right now.

I’ll keep reading the quest log, I think I have a problem with attention or focus.

Currently in control of two safe zones.

These safe zones are located in the Abraser forest.

With each consecutive zone that is captured, you increase your overall skill progress speed by one point one percent.

When all zones are under control, you gain an extra ten point two percent increase.

Drop rate is increased by ten percent. Overall body function is increased by ten percent.

Further rewards will not be disclosed until all zones have been captured.

I mean, the rewards seem good but currently it’s what? Two point two percent skill proficiency increase.

Not going to complain, the best part is the respawn point anyway.

One thing is for certain. I cannot bring that chick over here. Ah, you forgot about her too? Understandable, the person is like a ghost.

It’s almost to a point where I think I might have made her up, like an imaginary friend.

Owh, owh, owh. Shit, I just tried to move, one of the branches rolled off and hit my shoulder.

I thought it was numb, but nope. It is one hundred percent fucked up though, excuse the language.

Due to my impressive pain tolerance, I manage to crawl out of the debris. Which was just a few light branches, but an enormous feat nonetheless! Owh, owh. Shit.

I got another small window in the top left corner of my vision.

Well corner? Top left sphere in my peripheral vision. I‘m trying to bring it down but the mental commands are all guess-work so far.

For example the quest window didn‘t pop-up. It didn‘t come into view until I had tried thinking quest-log. Still works.

I got a working theory on some stuff, since I’m just lying here we might as well go through them. Might come in handy or we could possibly unravel some of the mysteries about the system.

So my theory about abilities are as follows. You can‘t just get active skills by repeating a motion over and over again.

It has to be from a skill book or something you have a deep connection to. Something like a sword-slash-esque move from a swordsman that lives for his sword.

Can‘t be confirmed but that theory is a work in progress.

Now since I got a quest, finally, after I don‘t know how many months we can start speculating.

Since there are no NPCs or quest items I’ve come across. I can only assume that they appear once you trigger an event.

There clearly is some kind of land ownership or something in that general direction. So anything amazing in an area, might be a safe-zone trigger.

That town outside the forest might be a safe-zone but they might need to conquer another area for it to trigger an event. Maybe like a kingdom. And the forest is my version of a kingdom.

After a struggle with death itself I manage to get into a seating position, with my back against a part of the tree. Can‘t see the snake yet.

Last thing I remember was a feeling of being ripped open. I threw my spear in the air with enormous force, a vine was tied around it and my left arm.

Never doing that again. My whole left arm is aching and just dangling there.

I can‘t do my meditation practice, because it requires both my hands moving according to the skill-book’s instructions.

I might have to do a whole movie-like scene where I pop my shoulder back into place. And that does not sound pleasant.

On a lighter note, all wounds caused by my fall have been healed and I can stand up again. Every movement hurts because of the arm though.

After a few hours of speculation and some procrastination, I formulated a plan to pop my shoulder in place. A very crude way. I am no doctor.

I rammed into a tree, screamed in agony and fainted again. Now, on the second try it finally worked. And I can finally move it.

Healed remarkably fast after it got into its rightful place. Right after I woke up and found it in its right place so I began meditating.

It was painful but healed a lot faster. So it‘s time to finally look around the area for that snake.

After a quick search around the tree, I didn‘t find anything. It wasn‘t until I looked down I saw the head of the snake plunged into the tree on one of the sides.

After some thought I was going to drag it up to me, but I quickly abandoned that idea. The thing must weigh a few tons.

Instead I lower myself down, rappelling down with vines in great quantity.

After an hour of work, I finally managed to dislodge the great guardian. I pay homage to the great beast.

A non-existent tear drops to the ground. I realize now that I should have looked for loot before making it fall down. The ground shook when it landed.

I’m worried that the snake crushed the loot. I make my way down slowly. It has to be said, the tree is enormous.

I looked around the area and found a new skill-book, of course this one isn‘t readable either. All just gibberish. I‘ll have to study it like the last one.

There was also packed up meat like last time. Which is like a godsend, I am starving.

But the best part is the green shoes, almost missed them. They blend into the greenery. If I put them up against the tree. It changes patterns and color.

Makes you think. What use are boots that have a camouflage function? No idea. My entire body will still be visible.

There is no way to see stats or anything but when I put them on I feel lighter. When I focus on running, they shine with a slight green hue.

My running speed has at least increased by an uncertain amount.

I skinned the animal, it took the majority of the day. Not sure what to do with all this meat. I can‘t possibly eat it all.

Just like last time, it seems I have to use creative methods to get rid of it. Tragic part is that the meat makes me feel stronger.

Not instantly just over time it's hard to describe. Maybe like doing a light work out and feel like you are stronger?

I kept eating the other snake from the other tree and I swear, it made my body slightly stronger. Of course I could only manage to eat a portion of it.

I need some kind of fantasy inventory, an interspatial bag or something of the sort. Sadly, nothing has emerged.

...

…

…

A few days have passed, occasionally I read the book. But the headache is intolerable. It‘s even worse than last time.

Most of the time I just try to make clothes out the incredible amount of snake leather I have. Still to this day, I haven‘t made a presentable piece of clothing.

But I feel my gentle hands becoming more effective. I made like ten spears so far. They keep piling up. I haven‘t had to leave the tree, I got a lot of food with me.

It might be worth mentioning I can‘t light this tree on fire, actually I can‘t light any of the living trees in the forest on fire. They just make hissing sounds and the fire gets put out. But I can still burn branches I saw off.

Every time I meditate I can feel the connection between me and the tree and eight other entities. I assume those must be the other trees I have to conquer for my quest.

Nature affinity hasn‘t upgraded in a while but is constantly giving me the feeling it is doing a little bit better after a few hours of meditation. Guess it gets harder to improve the further along it gets. Understandable.

…

…

…

I feel like I am forgetting something. It‘s been three weeks now. I am halfway through all the leather.

The food is scarce again, but I am not worried. It is easy to hunt small critters. Especially around the tree.

Only small creatures get close to the tree. Guess that’s because they are neutral. There are too many questions of how the system works. And never any answers.

I have to set some time to try and figure how to gain more passive skills. They don't seem to be as hard to get, compared to active skills.

I am seriously starting to doubt vines' viability as a string, to tie together leather. Not that it is the main problem with my humble dream of getting a leatherworking profession. Honestly starting to doubt there is a profession.

Not sure why I was convinced there would be one. But it makes sense. My main reason is that there are items with apparent stats or effects, like my new boots.

At this point, the stats don’t even matter, this leather is very durable and strangely heavy. It should be good protection against various physical attacks. Not sure if it would stop piercing attacks. Maybe I should do some tests?

…

…

…

The days blend together and I’ve lost track of how many days have passed since I settled into my new tree.

I am planning on going to the next tree, or at least exploring a bit. I wonder if all the trees have snakes acting as their guardians or maybe it was just a coincidence that large snakes made the trees their home.

I strap five spears on my back. At least I managed to make a belt with leather straps on the outer side of it. Just big enough to put a spear into it. They don’t allow for a lot of mobility, but I consider myself somewhat of a patient hunter these days.

So the journey began and I’ve been travelling towards the third tree. It should take a few days but it’s taking longer as I am going a lot slower than last time.

I can hear the ambient music getting a little bit higher and I slowly try to triangulate its origin, which is impossible straight off the bat, it’s like a surround speaker.

But just wandering to and fro, eventually I get the general area where it starts to get louder. It is by no means very loud but there is a clear increase.

I find the creature, I say creature. But it is a glowing ball of light surrounded by swarms of glowing balls of light.

I got a few of them in my bag actually, I try to grab them every time I see them in small groups. But this thing is huge in comparison.

I am sneaking along the treetops, trying to hide my presence as much as possible. I stared at the thing for the better part of an hour but all it does is float around.

The other balls of light go back and forth, I think they are gathering food for it. Looks like it is a herbivore.

I didn’t move at all so I decided to find a place nearby to hide once I have killed it. The reason I haven’t killed it yet is because those small lights are in the hundreds, and that kind of swarm is no joke.

I don’t have any way to do area damage. I can’t just wave my spear around hoping I scoop up a fair amount of them before they devour me alive.

After a little search, I found a small river, it’s about two or three meters wide. I’m following it upstream.

Didn’t find what I was looking for so I move back downstream. Luckily I found what I wanted.

I am standing in front of a one meter waterfall. Tiny, but close enough to what I wanted.

I start digging out a small hole behind the waterfall, just big enough I don’t have too much trouble moving around in it. After making it tilt a little upwards I dig down.

This process takes me a few hours. Because I took a lot of breaks. Eventually I have what I want. I doubt the glowing balls of light will follow me into the waterfall.

Oh, by the way, they look like humanoid insects up close. You just can’t see them because they glow every minute of the day.

After I meditate in the hole for a few hours, which counts as my sleep. I make my way towards the giant glowing insect-type monster.

Still in the same place, the ambient noise is now drowned by the incessant buzzing sound. A sound that wasn’t here when I came yesterday.

They are probably doing something special, but that doesn’t matter to me. I gathered all my strength into a throw.

The spear leaves my hand. The wind pressure rustles the trees, some unlucky smaller insects get pushed around by the wind and some even get hit by the spear's pointy edge.

Boomshakalaka! It went straight into the ball of light. But something is odd. The buzzing noise just continues as if nothing happened.

My breathing is a bit heavier after throwing the spear. Proving I gave it everything I had. But no, the spear vanished.

The swarm spreads out, presumably looking for the attacker. I calm myself down and meditate.

When I meditate I am a lot closer to nature, so I think I become harder to notice. This hasn’t been confirmed, and it would be too dangerous to try it on strong wild animals.

A few minutes pass, nothing happens and the swarm calms down. I am trying to come up with why my spear vanished, one theory is that it got burned up instantly by some magical glow radiation power.

Or that it did really hit and just can’t see it on the other side. I haven’t seen a lot of magic from creatures but these guys seem to be the type to use it.

It could have been some kind of shield. Maybe using a wooden spear wasn’t the best choice.

Let’s look for a stone that I can hold in my hand like a spear. It doesn’t need to be long but it needs to fit in my hand like a, well you know. Otherwise I can’t activate rapid hand movements.

Okay, so I found a stone. It barely meets my requirements and I had to work a little on it. I am sitting in a different tree from last time.

I got a clear shot on the glowing ball. I am a bit closer, I can’t handle stone as well as the spears. No practice with it at all.

Also my nature affinity works well with the spears from the big trees. Far better than other trees.

Aim! Hold! Hold! Fire!

The stone flies through the air, it’s a bit off target but manages to go in the right direction. The close proximity really helped.

Boom!

The stone hits it’s side. There is an incredible light, like a dying star. But it isn’t dead and from the high pitch screeching sound, it is most likely angry. The light threw me off and they notice me. It didn’t help that I was so close.

I turn around intending to run. As great I am in traversing the trees, my spears really slow me down.

While I am in the middle of a panicked leap, one of the spears snags onto something and throws me off balance.

Instantly I am surrounded by an incredible amount of glowing balls of light, there is nothing but light. The heat is insufferable. I am being burned alive. The pain is too much I ca-.

I wake up, lying down in a tree. Shit. I died.

Looking around, I see I am back at home base, the original home base. The place is filled with far more leather pelts than before. Oh right! There was someone else living in my tree. Let’s take a look at the skill-menu to make sure nothing is missing.

| Nature affinity |

| Rapid hand movement |

| Gentle hands |

| Hide presence |

| Energy regeneration |

Hmm, looks like everything is here, I’ll try and skim over passed recordings to make sure they are all there. Okay, well it is impossible to remember something you forgot.

You can figure out some things like if you remember being in two places, but can’t remember how you got from one to the other, it is right to assume you forgot something in between.

Everything looks fine, guess I’ll just go hunt something to eat. Oh damn it! All my items! The skill book is still in the other tree but my boots have either been burned to crisps or still somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

No, if they are still there I should be able to follow the vines to the general area. I can’t rule out that the system protects items. Afterall, it can recreate me.

Good thing you always respawn in some clothes. My last pair had already been weathered down quite a bit.

Should I look for the girl that has been babysitting my tree? No, I need to make new spears to hunt for something to eat.

Didn’t take too long to make an adequate spear and hunt some small-time game.

It’s now been a few hours since I respawned but the girl still hasn’t come back. Maybe she went back to that settlement.

Hmm. I should go take a better look at it tomorrow, and skim over my recordings to see if I forgot any skills.

Okay, so I forgot my strength and dexterity passive. It was fairly simple to get it back. I just exercised and stretched a bit. Didn’t stop until I was exhausted.

Rest of the evening was spent pondering various questions about abilities and quests. Meditating for a few hours to get my dose of sleep. One thing at a time.

I head towards the edge of the forest. My pathways are still holding strong. This feels just right, just rushing passed the tree tops.

When I get to the edge of the forest, I watch over the settlement. There are some definite improvements.

The number of people has increased to at least five hundred. Their walls have been extended, it is just a field, so the walls have to be built around their whole perimeter.

I am planning on watching them for a few days. Nothing sinister in mind, just want to know the general strength of these people.

I’ll wait for some of their people to go outside the walls. If they are weaker than me, maybe I’ll go check out the town.

It took a few hours before I saw someone outside the walls, sadly they were coming back, and it was a group of around twenty men and women.

They were carrying various small-time game, I say small-time but that just means the creatures aren’t stupidly strong.

They even have a bear. Since it is getting late, I'll keep a watch after tomorrow. I quickly make a suitable place to meditate and start my usual routine.

At dawn, I start my watch. Snacking on some cooked meat and some fruits I’ve deemed harmless, a nice trait of the whole nature affinity. I would love a better explanation of skills and their effects.

After a couple of hours, I see a group of people moving towards the forest. It seems to be their hunting ground.

They aren’t moving in my direction so I start moving along the treetops like a veteran ninja. With just one spear I am far more agile.

The whole five spears thing really backfired. I also made the spears smaller. More suitable for throwing, since that is all I do with them. About double the length of my arm.

I am close enough to hear them now but their chat is kind of pointless, I’ll of course mention the important stuff if it comes up.

I am intrigued. They all got similar glowing hues around either their hands or feet. This must be a skill-book that they share between the villagers or maybe just warriors.

Makes sense. But if they don’t fight the really dangerous animals, I doubt they’ll be able to stock up on powers. And since no one has both skills, they must meet some requirements or maybe they don’t know how skill-points work.

I got lucky when I discovered how to summon my skill-menu. Talking of skill-points I got fifteen now. That should be enough to learn the skill from the new skill-book.

But that is assuming I don’t upgrade any other skills in the meanwhile. Since I have little control of when they do level up it will just eat up the skill-points.

I can’t say I can feel how strong they are, they just gang up on animals. Overwhelming force, there is no element of danger in this. Time to play a little with the invaders! This is my forest!

I head in a straight line, trying to pick up some ambient noise, it takes me good thirty minutes to find something.

Another fifteen to confirm its location. Finally a normal monster! Well normal is relative, but it isn’t some kind of mutant or a glowing ball of light. Just a huge wolf. It’s eating some mangled animal, can’t really see what it is.

Working fast, I start to head back to the general direction where the group of hunters were. Took me less than ten minutes to find them. Let the games begin!

I am currently running away from a very angry wolf. Some howls and growls and bloodthirsty eyes aimed at me.

I might have bitten more than I can chew, the wolf easily managed to jump up the tree branches I was running on. But luckily it isn’t as agile up here as it is down there.

After some struggle, we are steps away from the settlement hunting party. Hehehehe, this is going to be good! As soon as I pass the group the wolf changes targets. I get in position quickly to watch the fight.

It wasn’t much of a fight, more like screams of terror and people dying. A guy’s lower body got swallowed whole.

Some are missing limbs after being torn off by Wolfy. They spread out and run, the ones that tried to fight got quickly stomped on.

This really isn’t a game, I mean I can probably one shot this wolf from safety. But I definitely can’t kill it in melee combat.

Thirteen of the fifteen man group are dead, just a man and a woman running in the same direction. Guess it’s time to make my appearance.

“Shit shitshit shit fuck fuck fuck.” The man is screaming at the top of his lungs. The woman turned terrified but still has a glow under her feet, slightly ahead of the man. She calls out “Keep running! Don’t look back!”

Before the man gets swallowed up, I quickly take a position and throw my spear with the assistance of my whole body weight and rapid hand movement. The soaring spear makes a whistling sound as it forces its way forward splitting the air.

The trusted wooden spear nails into the wolf, somewhere in the chest area, it really is too hard to aim for the heart or head.

Especially when I am using my full strength and the target is moving. Luckily the target this time is large.

The woman sees the wolf getting thrown off balance and slumping miserably to the ground, it is now whimpering.

I take out one of my smaller stakes, tied firmly to a vine. Throw it at its now non-moving head. It pierces it and disappeared into the skull.

There was no point in tying the vine around the stake for that but I it was already tied as a precautionary measure in case I needed it.

I jump down and smile at the man, who's now lying on his back, breathing heavily. The woman with her hands on her knees, doing the same thing.

“Heya! You gotta be careful in Abraser forest.” They just watch me for a moment while picking up some leather gloves that magically came into existence. I leave the meat.

“Who are you!?” the woman looks at me like I am some kind of savage. How rude, sure I haven’t cleaned myself in a few. Uh. How long was it? Weeks?

No wait I respawned, shouldn’t have been so long. Maybe it’s my long flowing hair and unshaven face, although I barely have any facial hair.

“I am the leader of the forest nymphs, protector of the almighty tree-mother!” before they speak up I continue. “The Abraser forest is my domain, under my control and here I reign supreme. Now who are you?”

I can’t help but laugh, that should give them something to think about.