With what I believe to be the decorum of a king I stare them down. Either they are still in shock from previous events or simply flabbergasted by my kingly aura.

There seems to be a slightly awkward silence for a while before the woman decided to speak up. “Abraser?”

she stopped for a second to think before continuing. “We are from the Nis’ha survival camp, we were on a hunting trip before we got attacked by that monster wolf”.

Nis’ha huh? Odd name. “Ohh, I see. So that’s the name of your little camp. I’ve been wondering, are you all this weak?”

To be honest, I don’t think I am far superior to these people in physical strength, but my use of rapid hand movement makes me deadly.

Don’t think the ability was easy to get used to either! We have to release it at the right moment. As you should know, you’re me.

If I had to explain it, it would be like releasing the spear at the moment it hit its apex. Any slower and it loses its speed dramatically. I throw it before it hits the apex.

There are a lot of improvements to be made. I have to make sure the throw goes right. But even if I only get like fifty to seventy percent power. It is still amazing.

Shit, didn’t mean to derail like that, but if I forget about rapid hand movement, we might need to train in it again. So it’s not a waste of time to explain it.

“We are not weak.” She is glaring at me. Huuu, didn’t expect the attitude. I clearly killed the wolf in front of them. Doesn’t that tell them I’m not someone to mess with?

“And there are stronger people than us, with more skills. We just have one of many they allowed us to have.”

Well that explains pretty much everything I needed to know. They train hunters but keep the skills they can learn in check.

Maybe everyone can learn the skills. Assuming they have the skill points for it. Which shouldn’t be too hard, I got quite a few after killing the weaker wildlife around.

Thinking it over for a bit I decide more information is necessary if I am to enter their little camp. “So how does your camp work? do you take in random strangers? I was thinking of seeing if your camp would be a nice place to stay.” I put an honest expression, or what I believe is an honest expression.

The man and woman look at me with suspicious eyes. People are getting too jaded in these apocalyptic times. Can’t even accept a perfectly friendly and likeable individual like myself without prejudice.

She lets out a defeated sigh “It’s not like people aren’t welcome. But everyone has to pull their own weight. If you want to, you can join the farmers or hunters. But you’ll have to choose either or you won’t be allowed in. You get to choose one of two skills to train in if you are a hunter and all farmers get a skill to help grow our crops.”

This sounds a bit too easy, but then again people do realize they will respawn if they die. There is no need to be overly careful.

I would never allow random people into my tree! Ah, expect for that girl, which I am not even sure exists anymore. Did she ever exist?

“Cool, cool, cool. Then I’d like to join you on your way back. See what your great community has to offer royalty such as myself.”

No need to ask for special treatment just because I am essentially the crown prince of Abraser. “Oh by the way, you going to bring this big ass wolf with you? I’m not sure you’d be able to carry it.”

This has been one hell of a day, I really do hate talking to people. I should start focusing on my silent but strong type persona.

A question here and there won’t hurt but even listening to answers gives me the feeling of ants walking on me.

The woman stopped talking but unfortunately the man found his inner goddess at some point and wouldn’t shut up.

All sorts of questions about how I killed the wolf and how long I’ve stayed alive so far. Which has become a sort of seniority system among the survivors in the settlement.

At least among the hunters. Which kind of sucks, since I died like one or two days ago.

Entering the town, we carried some of the animals they had killed, but left the wolf. There was no issue whatsoever in me entering the camp.

The place isn't too big and only takes a few minutes to walk through the whole thing. The place looks a bit gloomy at parts but generally the people here seem content.

Since new people arrive all the time, they hardly even bat an eye at a newcomer. I get introduced to some strong looking guy, real manly, unlike my handsome almost delicate beauty looking self.

He is one of the hunting trainers, I can see that he has both the hand and foot skills from the barely visible hue.

I asked the man why he had both the skills, he gave me a surprised look. Apparently they themselves can’t see the glowing energy around their hands or feet. It probably has something to do with my nature affinity skill.

Ah, right. I get to choose one of the two skills. Apparently only higher ups get access to both and he hinted that there might be more skills in circulation.

Which makes sense, my skill-book didn’t disappear after I acquired the skill. Maybe they are some sort of currency.

As it turns out, they don’t know about the skill-book menu. So they don’t even know the name of the skill.

I choose the hand-related book. Of course! It might synergize with my spear throwing. The book looks identical to my other two books. And it’s all unreadable.

But it is much easier to decipher compared to my energy affinity book!

Oh I got to get into a bit of theorycrafting. Because you know, that skill was only supposed to be energy affinity, I think.

At least according to the skill description. It took me half an hour to get the hand skill. Turns out it isn’t even a proper active skill. It’s a pseudo-active like my hidden presence.

Empower: hands

Scratching on the surface of energy control, you manage to unconsciously awake hidden powers of your own energy. Increase in hand strength is measured by a percent of your current energy pool

Okay! So now I am wondering. If I mimic the same feeling in my feet or any part of my body, will I acquire the skill related to that body part? I’ll try it later.

The skill doesn’t seem very strong. But all the skills I’ve gotten so far haven’t exactly boosted my powers immensely.

Aside from Rapid hand movement, which I managed to get through blood, sweat and other undisclosed bodily fluids.

I’ve been introduced to so many people. I can’t be bothered to even remember their names. I don’t plan on staying here anyway, I just wanted the skills, hehehe.

Socializing with the people here is already making my head spin. I want to find out what skills the farmers get.

I asked if I was allowed to learn the skills. They said I’d need ‘rank up’ which is some kind of merit system they have here.

I didn’t get into it because I am obviously not going to get involved in it. I Watched over the farmers do their work and their skill really drains them.

Half of them look like pale zombies. In a wide area the plants grow faster and the soil gets a richer feel to it.

I am trying to figure out the process. I assume they nurture the ground with energy of some sorts. I can probably try and replicate that.

People have nowhere else to go so they aren’t worried that people will get up and leave, hell I don’t think they’d even care. They still have guards on small platforms that allow them to survey the surroundings.

The settlers have made great use of vines and leather here. I ask around and get pointed in a direction. Moving towards a wooden house, more like a shack but whatever.

There are a group of five women sitting in a circle sewing clothes. Turns out, they cut the vines into very fine threads then spin them around each.

This makes the vines more workable. And here I was just looking for thin vines when I was trying to work on my leather-working skills.

I watch them draw lines in the leather then cutting it. They sow it together with their vines. And boom! You got pants. This had been very educational.

I spent two days in the camp, mostly with a group of women. One of the women actually has a tailoring or leatherworking skill. Or at least I think she does. There is a glow around her hands when she sows the leather together.

Everything is starting to make sense now. It is very simple. You simply use energy, mana, power or whatever you want to call it. And pour into the thing you are doing.

Maybe it’s not an active skill but a pseudo-active passive skill. You don't get any pop-up window when you learn a skill but you can kinda feel it.

This should be very valuable information. If they get their hands on a skill like my nature affinity, they’ll have a lot easier time becoming stronger.

I went on a hunt with a group on my third day. There are fifteen of us. A pale looking guy with black hair is leading. He doesn’t look strong but has this diabolical look in his eyes.

By the way, people don’t spawn in the camp if they die. Thought I’d mention that in case I forgot. As soon as we entered the forest. It's the closest place to hunt. I slip out of the group and quickly climb up a tree.

I don’t intend to stay with them any longer. I am really hyped about trying to make new leather clothes!

I managed to get a hold of a simple knife in the camp. They gave it out to hunters. So, my first blade! Wohoo! I’ll still only use wooden spears to kill stuff though. This will be great for cutting up leather!

If you are wondering how I have been skinning the animals so far. Well, it has been difficult. Like unwrapping an unearthly strung together banana.

I entered the holy tree, the girl wasn’t here. She probably died and respawned somewhere. Or she never existed in the first place.

I am heading towards the new tree, I gather some light supplies, mainly cooked meat. Make a few spears and rush as fast as I can towards the other tree. I need to name the trees at some point.

I am faster than before, why? One because I’m not making vine pathways, second. I channeled energy into my legs and got | empower: feet | amazing right? So easy, I tried channeling into a single finger but that didn’t do anything.

I stopped to rest once on the way, it still took me two days to get there. My Empower: feet leveled up, even though the increase was hardly noticeable, I am sure because it took two skill points.

I only have seven now. Four points went into each empower then two to the upgraded empower. So that was ten, I got two points for killing that wolf.

I rushed up my still secure pulley and sat down in the tree. I still have a lot of leather to work with from the snake, I plan on working on it and reading the skill-book when I can.

Maybe if I get bored, I’ll look for my lost boosts. Hopefully they didn’t get destroyed.

After a meditation session, this one lasted a lot longer than usual. Or I think so, easily lose track of time when I meditate. If it wasn’t for the clock the system gives me I wouldn’t have any idea.

But this time it must have been at least a day considering how hungry I am coming out of it.

Back on point, I started laying down a cut out square of snake leather. I did some rough measurements with a stick and drew a basic design unto the leather piece then cut it out with my knife.

I put down the leather and pick up the thickest piece of vine I had, I slowly let the knife slice off a thin thread.

I did this over and over, until I had a nice pile. I tied three very thin threads to a stick and started weaving them together or whatever you call it.

I finally managed to make six threads all five or six meters long. Now the real game starts, I picked up a small wooden branch and started to work it down to a small needle.

Not going to lie, it took me a few tries to get it right, the problem was making the small hole at the end to put the thread through it.

Finally I got to the last part. I poked tiny holes along the ends of the leather. Picked up the needle and tried to imbue it with nature energy.

After a few hours, I felt my mind getting dizzy and had to stop, I am going to have to continue tomorrow. Putting the needle down, slightly disappointed I got something to eat and started meditating.

Days passed one after the other and I only left the tree to get more food. I either tried to imbue the needle and string while sowing. Or I would try and read the book.

The skill-book is a royal pain in the ass. Blistering headaches come after I read for a few minutes, forcing me to stop.

After what seems an eternity of sewing, I finally managed to get a skill, a pseudo-active skill!

Energy imbuement

Channeling mana through items rather yourself has given you the ability to strengthen materials

As always, the description gives you the bare essentials. But who cares! I did it! The theory is pretty much confirmed.

I am guessing all skills depend on energy of some sort. Hell, hide presence probably hides my energy aura or something.

Finally, after channeling energy through the needle and thread, I use my other hand to channel energy through the leather.

My strength is leaving my body at an alarming rate, I start to work fast, I sew as fast as I can. Good thing I made holes beforehand.

After fifteen minutes. I finally finished my prototype pants. They give off nature energy feeling. There is no hue but they are clearly something special. I almost passed out, completely out of energy. Time to meditate.

When I come out of meditation, I can feel my body brimming with energy and the screaming pain of hunger.

I must have spent two or three days meditating this time around. Also, I only have one skill-point left. So I must have leveled nature affinity!

After eating some leftover fruits I set up a stone pot and light a fire under it. I am swiftly making my way down then swinging on a vine when I am far enough down.

The swing takes me into another tree, a smaller tree. I quickly find prey, throw an imbued spear.

Unexpectedly the prey sort of blew up by the impact, half of it has scattered around. Kind of disgusting. Still enough for a good meal though.

I used my active empower and imbued the spear with energy. Still not sure if that even does anything. And of course I used rapid hand movement. I may have to tone it down a bit.

…

…

…

At least a week has passed since I made my first pants. From there on I made gloves, boots, a jacket and for fun a mask.

Because I can’t check any stats on items I have to slowly try and figure out what the items do, but I am sure they all give me some sort of boost. Even the mask.

Thinking about it now, I could have made a mask ages ago. The skill-book is only halfway done so I am not in a hurry to push that along.

Especially since I don’t have any skill-points. If I don’t have skill-points I won’t be able to improve or learn any new skills. So it’s time to hunt something more challenging.

I am not going to bother with the lost boots anymore. I don’t want to accidentally lose all my new items.

Over the last few days, I’ve been heading into what I think is the middle of Abraser forest. The thing is, the ambient music is always on now.

If I take a look into the distance, all I see is fog. I had assumed that there would be a tree in the middle but I can’t see through the mist or whatever it is at all.

I am hundred percent sure that the closer I get to the fog, the more dangerous creatures get.

There are no longer any small critters, only two to three meter sized bears. Everything looks vicious.

I’ve been shooting them with my spears in the safety of the trees. I killed a giant looking bear. Only took three spears. First spear sort of glanced on his fur. After that I imbued the spear with my energy.

But the bear wasn’t going to stand there and just let me throw another spear. He roared at me, even anticipated the next spear and swatted at it. It bore into his pawn.

It let out an ear-thrumming roar. But the spear was in its front paw. While ripping it into pieces I had time to throw the third and final spear. It instantly killed it. Went straight into its skull and stopped.

I of course, being extremely cautious, didn’t jump down to look for loot. I stayed for a few minutes before another beast then another and another and another came.

Utterly terrifying, the beasts just growled at each other. Shortly afterwards the creatures bowed down one after the other.

A black tiger had arrived and I could see a slight glow around its entire body. It was only half the size of the other beasts. And it has to be said, some of the beasts were quarter the size of the trees.

And the trees keep getting taller the deeper I go into the forest. I am at least sixteen meters up now. Hold up, how long was a meter again? About this much, right?

The beasts quickly dispersed and I just watched the black tiger devouring the enormous bear that was twice its size.

Only a large pool of blood was left behind. Turns out, it only dropped some meat, and like always, it was neatly packed in green leaves.

The tiger completely ignored it. I got two skill points for killing the bear, which leaves me with three points.

I think I need like ten or fifteen for the skill-book skill. Actually, how much was the nature affinity one? I should look it up. Ah, worst case scenario, I’ll have to go kill more stuff.

After the black tiger went away, I started to meditate. It really drains you to combine all the skills at once.

I’m not sure if it's because they all take so much energy or if they all take more energy when used together. It might be either or, I have to test it somehow.

Stopping to think, I put some things together. First of all, I haven’t ever travelled this deep into the forest, at most I travelled one sixth of the distance between the two trees I’ve already conquered.

And there are already so many monsters here. I’ll backtrack a bit and hunt in a safer place. Just thinking about going deeper makes me break out in cold sweat.

I hunted quite a few strong looking monsters, but they all died in one throw of my spear. All it took was a bit of patience.

I had to wait for them to stop moving and then it was easy to put nearly all my strength into a single spear.

I had to stop every now and then to make a new spear. Sometimes they’d shatter on impact. All the monsters so far were basically bigger and stronger than their smaller counterparts.

So bigger bears, stronger tigers and so on. None of that mutated freak in a house of fallen trees or glowing insects.

Not that I didn’t see any, I just kept away from them. No need to take risks on unfamiliar enemies. Maybe if I ever see them fight something.

I always get two skill-points at a time. At first it was for every kill then every second kill and now every third. There is definitely some kind of rule of thumb.

I’m up to twenty seven skill-points now. Got two new skill-books and three items. All belts for some reason. So now I’m wearing three belts.

They all gave me a slight boost I think. I’m not really sure. Maybe they are. It really is difficult to gauge these things. Placebo?

Alright, so I got three unlearned skill-books and enough skill-points to hopefully learn them all.

There is a little issue I am worried about. If I learn too many skills, it might be too hard to level them up or even learn new skills in the future.

Especially since I can’t even see what skills they are until I have learned them. Should I test it on some people? Though I haven’t seen anyone for, huh? How long since I went to that camp?

Hopefully I get more passive skills from the books, they seem to synergize the most with my rapid hand movement.

But I am not sure if I’ll always be able to rely on ranged combat. I’m not that worried about dying since I’ll always respawn in one of the trees.

But all my items will drop, which is a pain in the ass. I might even forget where I died in the process. Can I somehow mark my location in this log?

Okay, I think it’s time to head back. In this area the ambient music is always on full blast. I’ve actually been caught unaware by some smaller animals whilst hunting.

Just one close call though. I managed to throw a spear in their faces or run away most of the time.

It took me the rest of the day to get back to the tree, I decided it would be better to focus on reading the second skill-book first and leave the other two for later.

Since I can only read for a few minutes before my head starts to split open, I meditate most of the time. I also make extra sets of leather outfits as that just drains my energy.

I’m on the last page of the skill-book, should finish in a few days. Everytime I finish a page it’s like the feeling after sneezing. Pretty good.

I’ve made outfits out of every bit of leather I had, even the ones I got from my hunting trip. But the leather is all worse quality than the snake leather.

I have thoroughly settled in as hermit. It is a fantastic feeling. It is too bad I can’t grow a long beard.

If I didn’t have verified proof, I would think I was female. Also then I’d probably have a skill called rapid hand rubbing. That doesn’t sound useful at all.

Ahh, I kinda miss that girl, the moments we shared when she was bathing in that river stream.

You never know what you have until you lose it, huh. If I didn’t meet that woman from the survivor’s camp I doubt I’d remember what a woman looks like.

Maybe I should kidnap some women. No! I am a proud hermit now, I can’t go back on that. I’ll just find a brothel or something.

Does the world have brothels though? Okay it has been decided, once I am done learning these skills, I am going to the nearest big city. There are bound to be cities, right?

Huhu! Finally I finished reading this torturous book! Who said reading didn’t hurt anybody? No one? Okay but still!

Energy shield

From the profound teachings of |****| you have learned to manipulate energy into physical form allowing you to fend off kinetic energy as long as you supply enough energy.

Check it out! A spherical hue surrounds me, I give off a nearly invisible force-field! Since it surrounds me, I now see the world with a greenish hue.

The reason it has a green hue, like all of my abilities, is probably because of my nature energy. I don’t know if this is stronger than normal energy or whatever but it’s cool as hell!

It also gives me an idea, if I can form something that repels kinetic force or in other words physical attacks. I might be able to create an energy spear in the future.

The dream is becoming real! Energy spears! Swoosh, swaaah! Waaam! Zzzuuum! I could be like a Jedi!

Okay, now the bad news. The shield holds up for twenty seconds before I collapse. It drains an unreasonable amount of energy.

But if I use it right. I can turn it on and off just when I am being attacked. This will probably take a lot of training.

More bad news. The second skill-book was the empower skill, but! Luckily the third skill was empower: eye

Empower: eye

Channels energy to the optic stems. Improves eyesight

Okay! So empower eye, I can’t really see much of a difference. It’s like getting glasses, but your vision wasn’t so bad in the first place.

Good part is, I can pretty much keep it on at all times. Until I run out of energy, that is. But I feel that’ll take a few days. And I meditate every day anyway, so it is not an issue. I hope.

Right now it would be a good plan to train energy shield a bit. But I am starving for some adventure. As exciting hunting is. It gets old pretty fast.

Now before the world changed, I lived in a very small town. With approximately two-thousand people. Since then I have died multiple times, respawned just as often. So I have no idea where I am.

This isn’t a problem though! There are still remnants of roads. So I can just travel alongside them. Eventually I must find a city.

And I would do that. But I am going to follow the river that flows from the lake near the almighty tree-mother. I am only worried about the food situation. Worst case scenario, I die of starvation and respawn in either of the two trees.

The quest might seem important, but the last part is to go into the middle of Abraser forest. And to be honest, I don’t think I’ll be able to sneak about over there.

And if I do? I am pretty sure whatever guards the tree in the middle is no joke. I’ve already been lucky with the other two guardians. The others might even be stronger. But hopefully not.

So I think it is best to go on a lone adventurer style journey and look for a city. There are or were a few billion people in this world.

Some of them must have been able to reclaim a city. Though I have some concerning thoughts about those.

They might be like the forest, with a guardian in it. Most importantly, I want to try and trade my skill-books for different skills. Also! Adventure right!? No? Okay. Well I’m excited enough for all of us.

…

…

…

This adventure idea wasn’t so good after all. Starving is one of the most painful things I’ve experienced.

Right up there with dislocating my shoulder and being burned alive by what I think was friction or some kind of radiation.

I’ve been travelling for two weeks now, sometimes an area is filled with beasts and sometimes it is a wasteland.

Right now I am in a wasteland, not a desert or anything, just nothing alive for vast distances. Hell not even the river has fish or fish-type monsters. I’ve long since eaten all my meat.

I can finally see some vegetation on the horizon. I can smell the greenery. I activate empower eye.

Movement! Movement means food! I start sprinting and reach for my spears. I am still way off in the distance, the image becomes clearer.

Dammit it is some kind of mutant beast. Beggars can’t be choosers, I throw my spear with everything I got.

This is one of two spears I have on me right now. It disappears, I can’t see it anymore. There is no sound.

I am still in full sprint. The creature falls down and the surrounding creatures are startled and run off into the thick greenery.

I’m not going to starve! I hope it isn’t poisonous.

| Nature affinity |

| Rapid hand movement |

| Gentle hands |

| Hide presence |

| Energy regeneration |

| Energy shield |

| Empower: Eye |

| Empower: Hand |

| Empower: Foot |

| Strength and dexterity increase |