Not bothering about being too careful I make my way to a safer place, far, far away from those disgusting beings.

I’m looking at my map, and I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before, but the towns make a half circle of sorts. The city in the middle and five medium sized towns spread in an orderly line.

Behind the city I am currently in is the open sea. If I went to the other side of the city I have no doubt that we could see some abandoned ships.

Ah to be a sailor on the open seas. A forlorn dream of many men! Not me of course. Salty sea water you can’t drink and who knows what kind of creatures have spawned in it.

Back on point, I think I’ll head to the town closest to the river, I really should name this river. How about? No never mind.

If I keep up a fast pace I might be able to get there in a day or two. The distance feels similar to the trees in Abraser.

Oh! I should have asked those peons in the sanctuary to teach me about distance measurements.

According to the map it says kilometers, which sounds like something I should know right? Meters being a word I know.

Shit if I die again, will I forget calculus? That would leave me to become a simplistic moron, a common plebeian.

It took some heavy soul searching but I eventually figured I should find a library and study some survival tricks and probably pick up an encyclopedia.

Even though I feel I have not forgotten anything else I simply cannot know what I have forgotten. And now I’m just talking in circles again.

Day two of the wasteland. Barely been two days. That is I ran through most of the night, stopped to meditate once to recharge but only for a short while.

I can see the town before me now. This town has smoke coming from three different places. So? Humans? Maybe elves? Who knows man. I can’t be expected to guess what I find out in this nonsense.

Don’t cry about it when you find a colony of mutant humanoids in there, future-self, you wanted to explore. Complaining you were bored.

Trade for skill-books? Oh ye, that’s a great motive for what is essentially a suicidal quest to break the boredom.

Ah, I can’t be too hard on myself. I really am just too loveable. What a hermit needs is a strong foundation of self-love!

As I was making my way towards one of their ‘walls’ and I mean what kind of wall is this? Who is this keeping out?

The size is about my height. I can easily jump it. it is made of various materials, I assume they were salvaged from the houses outside the walls.

I make a quick visit to the top of a house. There is no gate in this impromptu wall. But I can see people walking about, from my perspective they look miserable. Not like the flourishing survivor camp near Abraser.

“Yo!”

I call out to a man leading an animal, it has white fluff all around it and stupid look in its eyes. ‘Meeeh’ it says in clear discontent. What an odd little thing.

“What?”

The man says casually in a tone that leaves me baffled. Is he annoyed that I disrupted his daily walk with his creature?

“Well that wasn't what I was expecting, I’m just saying hi mate. I was wondering if your little town has any interest in trading skill-books. Oh and I got some information to trade as well.”

The man looks and slowly his eyes go wide. What a strange man. Keep it together! You are a post-apocalyptic survivor for love of the all-loving tree.

“No? You don’t trade? Hello? You there?”

“Ah! Oh. Hi, I’m sorry, we haven’t had new people for half a year or so. The only one in control over the skill-book is Jar. But I doubt he’d let you live long enough to trade with you.”

There was a grim look on the man’s face. Oh, so this town has to have a tyrant! I’ve been looking forward to this. No mercy for the wicked. Is that a saying? It is now.

“Interesting, could you possibly inform this infamous Jar of my trade-offer nonetheless?”

Laughing sadly with a certain desolation in his eyes the man nods.

“Give me a moment, I’ll put the sheep back behind the fence.”

So it is called a sheep. Noted.

I check my spears, I am carrying two larger type wooden spears and a few smaller strakes around the length of my legs.

I had to get inventive for traveling, it is easier to move with smaller spears. They are all of course fastened to my back but much less encumbering as my prototypes.

I can see a group of people walking over to my direction. I’ve made sure I can easily start running towards the forest nearby.

The forest should be a good distance away but I can easily make that trip without resting.

A burly man with a mischievous smile on his face is walking over in slow and steady steps. Behind him are five women that look despondent.

There are few other men following behind them, actually there seems to be a fairly large trail of people, maybe thirty to forty.

“Yo! You Jar?”

Jar’s lips twitched but answered.

“I am. And you are? I heard you came here to trade for skill-books and information.”

“Me? Hmph! I am the Jade king, the hermit of the canopy. I also go by the philosopher of the forest, the prince of greenery among many other names. And yes I have come to trade for skill-books.”

Staring at dumbfounded then for some unattainable reason anger swells up in him. But I continue before he responds.

“I got a skill-book with a skill that strengthens your eyesight and a skill that creates a spherical energy shield around you.

I also have information on how to gain more skills but it might require something special. Now what do you have?”

Oh, he calmed down and is deep in thought. But suddenly he channels energy under his feet and bends his knees. Clearly he’s going to jump

“Die.”

Hahaha, what? Die? No thank you. I nimbly throw the small stake in my hand towards him.

“Aaaaaaaah!”

Now this is just awkward. I just shot him in the shoulder but he’s screaming like it cut off his little general. And after that impressive leap.

Too bad I can clearly see him channel that energy. Again Nature affinity truly is useful.

He finally stopped writhing on the ground, the stake went straight through leaving behind a hole profusely pouring out blood.

“You really shouldn’t challenge the soon to become deity of the natural world. In fact, now you have two choices. One, I kill you right here and now or two you try not to die while I kill you right here and now. Make your choice.”

This is so much more fun than running for days on end only to find that sanctuary filled with those things.

The women have been screaming for the whole time since the man got impaled by my stake and the men and just stare at me in fear.

Or I think it's fear, it could be veneration or maybe they just don’t care. Well I am not one too shy to kill a person in a world where people respawn.

If he is lucky, he ́ll remember how to use his leaping skill or whatever that was.

I throw another stake and pierce his heart, he died on the spot.

“Now, I assume he was your beloved leader so by law that makes me your leader now. Right?”

No? That’s how this works right? I killed him and now I have usurped him.

“What? It is my birthright!”

My, these people have no sense of humor, do they plan on being so dry and gloomy for the rest of their lives? This really is no way to live.

“Alright look, no one else has to die, I just want the skill-books he had. Oh and if you have silver or gold, I’d appreciate that. If you got any request from me, in case you are NPCs I’d be happy to consider it.”

I think that is straight to the point, they should understand that. Maybe they died too many times and have forgotten many things, becoming savages. That would explain this shitty wall.

Finally one of the men walked a step forward with a slight determination.

“Jar, uhh.”

He glanced at the emancipated body of their former leader before continuing.

“Jar had two skill-books but could only manage to use one of them. None of us has been allowed to touch either of the books.

We will let you have the books and anything else you want but we have no gold or silver. Also there are no NPCs in the camp, we have not even seen one ever.”

We exchanged some words about menial things like how long they have been here and often they died, seems some of them had died too often and had realized their lapses in memory.

There was even a beautiful woman that had died so often she forgot how to speak but picked it up again with the help of the people in the town before Jar took it over.

Even after being freed from Jar’s reign the five women still looked down. One of them even mourned him.

Melodramatic in my opinion. He’ll just respawn, right? But I do understand their fear of death, losing your entire memory is exactly like dying.

If you are reincarnated but don’t remember your past, you are already dead. At least who you were is completely gone. So in a way, amnesia is partial death.

I sat down in the biggest house, it still looked like the big city’s houses, as if nature had decided to have its way with it.

The inside were nice and comfy with a fireplace and everything. No running water though.

Their main source of water was from an abandoned well they managed to dig further down into. I guess they can’t fight those wandering creatures near the river.

Right! The skill-books let’s get this right, this has to be recorded properly

So I turns out the jump skill is called Empower: leap

Empower: leap

You channel energy through the soles of your feet and use it in a short burst that propels you forward depending on energy used. The height is lowered the heavier you are.

So that’s great but it makes me think, how far do these empower skills go? If I can channel energy through my soles can I not do it for literally every place of my body?

It is piss easy to learn them from books but doing it the other way around is a struggle if I haven’t seen it done in person.

When I saw people use the skill in the survivor camp right by Abraser it came to me easily but anything else seems to need some kind of ancient monk type enlightenment.

Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen monsters use any of these skills. Maybe if they become smarter they’ll have them.

Also there have been no squishy caster mobs. No magic at all at this point. Though this energy feels like what Qi or mana should be like.

“Hey! Hey, girl, you.”

My tree, these people are jumpy. One of the five women I pointed at came forward while shaking and knelt down like she was some mid-century knight.

“Yes, my lord?”

“…”

What?

“Look, it’s all cool, alright? No one is going to rape you or any shit like that. Or at least not me while I stay here. By the way, does this town have a brothel?”

Forgot one of the primary, no uhm. I mean one of the obscure non-relevant reasons I started this journey of never ending bullshit.

Oh damn it, now she has these teary eyes barely able to look at me. This is why you should become a hermit, take over a forest or some awesome area and just kill everything there while training.

“Look, do you want to train in any of these skills? Actually anyone who wants to can but I am going to need some guards to stand by my door while I meditate, I can feel my skill is about to level up and I kind of lose track of time when in the trance. Also I need some water ready at all times, because I get seriously dehydrated even though my metabolism crawls down to a snail's speed.”

Hahahaha, look at them, wide-eyed looking at me like I was some sort of deity. Fantastic, this’ll work then.

Oh! By the way, I might actually go back to that twilight zone sanctuary and search for a library there. Can’t believe I didn’t let those pieces click when I was there last time.

I left them empower: leap, eye and feet. I would let them read the energy shield one but I mean I have been building up my energy pool, even though I can’t see it, I can feel it.

I watched over the first timid girl learn the leap skill after she succeeded, took her three hours. Amazingly slow. But what are you going to do?

After that, I left them to their own devices and went to meditate. Since I can’t properly feel things around me when I am in my trance so I had them place some guards outside my room.

When I first came out of my meditation, I felt like someone had sucked all the life out of me. I still hadn’t increased the skill level but I felt even closer.

I opened up a can of tuna-fish and gobbled it and then ate three more with some not so tasty smoked meat.

I walked outside the room, grabbed water they prepared and went straight back inside after telling them to refill it.

The guards had a strange fanatic light shining in their eyes while they were shouting loudly “yes sir!” by the ever loving tree, I’ve become an aloof clan patriarch. Back to meditation.

Huuua! I did it mom! I’ve come level eh something meditation qi level! This time I am only a bit famished.

After coming out of my room I sat in a comfortable chair in the room I told them to read the skill-books, I strictly told them not to take the books out of the room.

There were some younger children around ten or something, I don’t know if they all look the same.

Apparently every abled body in this tiny camp has learned at least two of the skills, only a few managed to learn all three.

Not sure what kind of block is in place for learning skills but what are you going to do? Ah, Skill-points, of course.

Flipping through the other skill-book I got from former tyrant Jar I got a slight headache but from experience I can tell it won’t take me more than a few days to learn it.

Putting down this torturing device disguised as a skill-book, I flip open my map of the area.

It covers a fairly large area, reaching to the sea and a generous fair distance up the river, it is all wasteland around but if I had strayed further left or right of I’d find flourishing land from the looks of it.

Actually not even far from the Sanctuary there are areas that look like I could easily hunt and sell stuff in the sanctuary. I might actually do that before heading back.

I’ve been wondering, should I take these ragtag teams of survivors with me towards the sanctuary.

I'll eventually need subjects to rule over in my ‘sooner or later to be kingdom of Abraser’. Fuck it why not? Could be fun.

I gathered the people around the village, it has a fair size around three hundred people, and they all look starved.

I told them about the sanctuary and how they could possibly survive there. Hell they might even be able to become farmers.

But worst case scenario they would have to take one or two days' trip towards one of the let's just call them hunting areas and sell off the stuff there to live in their super cheap hotels.

It came as no surprise that they jumped at the opportunity when I told them they had water and electricity.

We didn’t go straight for the sanctuary as they actually need something to sell and even eat on the way there so I took them towards a large green spot on the map, which was about the size of a medium or large sized town. Don’t even get me started on how to rank a town size, alright?

At dawn we made our way, it only took a few hours before I could see the lush greenery on the horizon with empower: eye. Fan fucking tastic! Green stuff is life. The smaller creatures on the way barely feed ten people.

Right, getting into the small jungle area, what is the difference between a jungle and a forest? No one knows.

We hunted some of the small critters in great quantity. It was mainly me throwing miscellaneous stakes and branches that fit in my hand. We had a great barbeque. It is amazing how good fresh roasted meat tastes.

I taught a few of the women and men how to skin the animals so they wouldn’t ruin the majority of them.

After that I went deeper to look for some of the bigger beasts, only they are worth any money after all!

Staying almost inside the canopy I jumped from tree to tree, oh how I missed this.

I made some shoddy disposable spears. But even if I say that, they were better than my first spears.

Gentle hands really does help with crafting, just drains a bit more energy every time it is improved. But at this point it is almost negligible.

There has been near inaudible ambient music playing for a while and I’m trying to find the source. I came across a small cavern enough to walk into but I noped right out of going into that death trap.

I kept finding smaller and smaller caves that varied in sizes, I ignored almost all of the flying beasts since they don’t even register as a threat.

I jump to the top of the canopy to see how far I’ve gone in. I’m like at a halfway point to the middle layer of the forest.

There is a clear line somewhere, if you find the sweet spot you can jump back and forth and the ambient noise suddenly gets louder or lower depending on which direction you move. And I just found it.

I ́ve been moving a lot more cautiously now and silently since there might be some sleeping bastards around in the trees, you never know.

I learned the easy way that sleeping monsters don’t cause the ambient noise to appear. Back when I killed that guardian snake.

I’ve been moving in a triangle now finally closing in on one big bad creature. I can hear some snarling and the ambient music is about as loud as it gets now. Finally I see two beats in a standoff staring each other down.

One of the beasts is a large snake-like thing but not a snake, it has that tongue action going on, jotting in and out but it has four legs with scales covering its body.

I can’t believe these creatures, first those mutants then that bizarre ‘sheep’ now this.

The other monster is the same size as that snake like thing. It has giant arms and brown fur. It has been pounding its chest and roaring.

I was planning on letting them fight then kill the winner but thinking it through wouldn’t that lower the value of the leather?

Actually can I even carry that much with me? I’ll have to check how much physical strength I have now.

Breathing out and then inhaling sharply. I broke my hidden presence doing this but the beasts don’t take notice of me at all.

I take up two spears in each hand and go channel energy to my arms into the spears than into my hands.

It took far longer than I expected, it is really hard to do both at the same time.

I focus and breath out and throw the first spear, quickly after the spear leaves my right hand, I focus on the second beasts and throw it soon after.

Even if I feel that I acted fast. The spear had already landed and pierce through the head of the brown furred creature before I let the second spear fly out of my hand.

As per procedure I wait a while before jumping down and checking the loot and skinning the beasts.

Nothing comes up so I leap down like a leaf falling to the ground. My latest nature affinity upgrade has an incredible effect in lush areas.

After looting the packed up meat and leather I start to tie the two beasts together with all the vines I can find in the nearest vicinity.

I bend my knees and try to lift up the oversized beasts. Surprisingly I can barely manage it.

After taking a few steps in the direction of the camp the ambient music starts getting louder and louder before it is at maximum volume.

Nearly shitting my beautiful home-made leather pants I drop the heavy load and look around me but nothing is in sight.

I throw a stake tied to a vine slamming into the higher points of the tree, grabbing the vine I start running in a semi-circle and jump with empower: leap.

Midair I can feel my back heat up but I can’t look back at the moment as I am swinging up towards the tree tops at incredible speed.

I won’t make it to the tree branch so I let go of the vine and almost shoot up above the canopy before crashing back down.

I landed awkwardly after spinning uncontrollably through the air. What the flying fuck was that!?

I can see blood flooding down my back so before anything else I start to meditate, hopefully I won’t die again. Fuck I actually had high hopes for some decent food in the sanctuary.

Just In case I bleed out or whatever just ripped me apart finds me lets recap real fast.

| Nature affinity |

| Rapid hand movement |

| Gentle hands |

| Hide presence |

| Energy regeneration |

| Energy shield |

| Empower: Eye |

| Empower: Hand |

| Empower: Foot |

| Empower: Leap|

| Strength and dexterity increase |

That’s it right? I should occasionally go over every skill I have. Fuck I haven’t learned my skill-book. Please oh mighty all-encompassing treeity save this son of yours.