With the revelation of the existence of the assimilation method, Tanaka began to speculate about what kind of people would even consider killing other players to gain more xp for the sake of levelling up. Had he been too naive and optimistic? Despite Goshem giving them bodies that felt like you were experiencing an FPS in VR mode, Tanatswa had not considered that maybe the other 1000 were not going to be exactly good people. Why would he expect them to be, as if he were any better?

As far as he was concerned, Goshem was probably the true afterlife and everything was supposed to be gregarious and harmonious amongst those who died, but was it going to be that way? There was no confusion of semantics and the word ‘termination’ probably meant ending a player’s life and those players were probably the 1000 select few. He began to ponder about what kind of people he was going to meet, and this made him remember the time he played GTA 5 online, which was a rather egregious moment in his online activities. Everyone was hostile and no one played as a team, even when they feigned interest in doing so, but clearly those were video game characters, amassed with polygons and programming code.

They were not real people, but if there was one thing he had learned before he had died, is that you can never count on all of humanity to make humane decisions. With him being forewarned by the fact that player termination is possible for the sake of gaining xp, he decided to be careful in the event that he would encounter others who had malicious intentions. Regardless of this news, he really hoped that his first encounter would be a special experience.

Shortly after testing the mechanics of the custom goal, he decided to spend his xp. The other stats seemed conditional based so he instead opted for levelling up strength, intelligence, agility and luck. From his current 973xp he spent 300xp on strength, which became 12%, 400xp on luck, which became 2% and 100xp each for both intelligence and agility. As soon as he spent his xp, he instantly felt physiological changes in his body. At strength 12%, intelligence 93%, agility 76% and luck 2%, he got a slight muscle spasm similar to a minor cramp in all his muscles and his mind felt clear. If this were a DBZ episode, it was likely to be the moment that the heroes had taken senzo beans.

The experience tickled his hedonistic fancy and he immediately tested his strength by trying to lift a block of rocks that looked heavy. He dug his fingers into the ground and began to lift the rock and to his surprise, it felt no different from lifting a box full of tissues. His entire face glowed with excitement at this new feat. He knew that he had cheated or at least to him, making gains with xp was akin to bulking with steroids, but this was rather satisfactory. He had experienced a new high he had never felt before and regardless of what he had read about the assimilation method, this completely clouded his mind with confidence. If a 3% percent difference from 9% of strength could make this much of a difference, then he probably would become a fitness god by the time he would max out his strength stats.

Apart from that he was soon going to find out what special ability was awaiting him at level 2. If exercising his physique would passively increase it as well as give him xp, then he was going to see how far he could take his growth. Exploration and devouring different kinds of food gave him xp plus his artistry stat was already at 99%. If he maxed out the higher stats such as agility and intelligence then he would soon see his evolution come to fruition.

Three days were mainly spent on travelling to the Ethereal Woods, discovering new types of foods, experimenting with more custom goals mechanics and working out. Tanatswa felt like a different human being as he tested himself. He pulled off 6 sets of 100 pull ups on a branch, practiced how high he could jump and even climbed the largest tree he could find to see the horizon and backdrop of forestry. His body looked sculpted and was as hard as concrete. Apart from his face, he could barely recognise the flesh that was attached to the rest of his body.

His chest was thick, his biceps, triceps and forearms looked elegant and even his cock had experienced noticeable growth. Holy shit, he had become the man that he had always dreamed of becoming. The athlete’s high was surely getting in over his head, but whenever his stamina bar seemed like it was reaching zero he would recline and laugh at the fact that he managed to make this much progress in just 3 days. As he was glossing over the fact that he was making gains, he also became more self conscious about how he looked. He looked filthy; the nice shirt was drenched in sweat and body odour that could kill the undead.

His pants were spoiled and his crotch had become slightly itchy due to the piled up grime near his balls and groin. It had been 6 days since he had brushed his teeth and taken a bath and as much as his physique looked dashing, his hygiene had taken a turn for the worst. Tanatswa began to wonder how he would properly bathe without soap and clean his teeth without tooth paste. Realizing that he had less than 40km to reach this unknown person, he didn’t want to look like a savage upon seeing them. Tanatswa thus made 3 custom goals of finding the closest place where he could take a bath, and finally, the goal of making something akin to a tooth brush and tooth paste. As he was suspecting, if it was a goal that was possible, the entry results would give him options on how to carry it out.

Tanatswa found a nearby stream just by the outskirts of the Ethereal Woods which he used to cleanse himself. It was really his first time indulging in the natural waters and the experience was rather uncanny. He stripped nude and began to scrub wherever he could, but not having soap really made it feel like he had skipped on a crucial step. Tanatswa then proceeded to add making soap to his custom goals list and he assessed the 3 options he was given from the entry results. Essentially he had figured that if he wanted to learn or find ‘Goshem life hacks’, he just had to create objectives like he was searching for tutorial specific videos on YouTube. As long as it was within the bounds of achievability, he would probably get results.

He decided to make a primitive handmade clay pan, a past activity he learned back when he was still in primary school. He gathered dirt close to the edge of the pool of the stream and moulded something similar to a frying pan made out of sand. He left the clay out to dry and proceeded on to the next task on the list. Tanatswa went through the process of gathering fallen twigs and branches that were readily available in the area as well as making a tinder’s nest from some of the dried up straw and vegetation he had found on top of the trees.

He used two stones that he picked up and rubbed them against each other, and through the friction, it in turn caused a spark that made a fire. All these methodical transitions to the next steps seemed rather impromptu, but Tanatswa was pretty much trying to make the most of the day time before it would get dark. He climbed a tree that had something akin to coconuts and dropped 3 fully grown brown ones. He then took a brick sized rock and smashed it into the coconuts. They were all cracked open but in a rather tasteless way. He then poured the white flesh into the clay pan and then blew out the fire he had started. He took the ashes by quickly tossing them into the clay pan as to avoid possible burns and began to mix it rigorously with the coconut flesh using a random stick. The solution became a concoction of ashes and coconut juices which he then mixed with water and left it to boil upon starting another fire and leaving the clay pot to seethe with heat. As the concoction coagulated, Tanatswa gathered fruits in the mean time, killing time and updating his stats while he was at it. As soon as the contents of the pan looked as described by the steps on the custom goal, he removed the pan and placed it close to the edge of the stream to cool down.

Tanatswa ripped off a part of his shirt with ease and used the unused coconut juice as his alternative for tooth paste. He felt like he had regressed from contemporary civilization as he scrubbed his gums and teeth with his forefinger pressing on the nylon from the piece of his torn shirt. He then rinsed using the water in the stream and felt somewhat relieved by the fact that the weird taste and some of the food caught in his teeth were gone. It wasn’t as effect as a tooth brush but I guess he would have to go commando for now. After he was done, his right peripheral vision had an icon suddenly appear that had a smiley face emoji. Upon focusing in on it, a dialogue box appeared which stated, “Custom goal: make alternative tooth brush and tooth paste is completed.”

This amazed him and he was now 100% sure that if you made a request and followed one of the advised options you were more or less guaranteed to accomplish a custom objective. Tanatswa immediately went for the clay pan and opened it. The end result looked like factory soap and the ashes of the dry wood more or less acted as the alternative to lyre. Tanatswa took out the coconut soap and then jumped in excitement. He screamed out, “Fuck yeah, this is so lit, I just followed the instructions and it worked!” In that moment he began to remember the times when he was learning how to produce music using both FL studio and Abelton Live and the joy that came with reproducing the exact sound that he wanted based on a tutorial that he watched.

Those were fun moments before things had turned for the worst, but soon enough he intentionally averted that memory of his past and gave his attention to the new notifications that appeared on his peripheral vision. His inventory icon was pulsating and he promptly accessed it, and what he ended up seeing put him in a mental brain storming session. Another slot on his stats was created and it had the category crafting at 10%. Did this stat come as a result of him making the clay pan based on the instructions he got and if so did it mean he could unlock stats based on trying out new activities? He had thought that he would just have the 8 fixed stats and that would be it but apparently there was more to the mechanics than what he had initially projected.

This opened doors to many new possibilities and it seemed as if exploration and experimentation was encouraged for you to gain new stats. He ended finally diving back into the pool of the stream and began to wash himself with the soap. At the same time he also hand washed his clothing using it. The colour of the pool slowly changed from its clear look to a brown oil spill hazard. If there were any animals that subsisted from drinking water from this source, they would have to contend with imbibing the filth of his body.

Tanatswa tested his strength for the last time before heading out into the Ethereal Woods which had giant towering trees that looked like they were engrossed in a bdms with thick vines and a self contained fog. He had hoped that he would have maxed out everything before proceeding, but he was still happy with his current xp cash out and passive stat growth. Settling in at intelligence 99%, agility 90%, artistry 100%, crafting 10%, luck 4%, charisma 1%, influence and infamy being constant and finally, strength at 48%,

Tanatswa had now prepared himself mentally to face what lied ahead head on. Despite the warning he got for this route, his current build and the excitement he got from the challenge, got his blood pumping. He packed up his belongings, held his cardigan satchel tight and bolted down past the creek that separated the gargantuan forest from the rest of the land. His speed was inhuman and he could tell that his shoes would not last very long if he kept this up, but he still sprinted gloriously into the woods with new found confidence.

The humid scent of death and decay enveloped the trees as ghostly spores rose into the sky. The forest had its own ecosystem and things like gravity and what Tanatswa had come to understand were not what he was seeing here. The vines behaved like veins that were circulating blood, pulsating as if they were directly reacting to the pulse of a heartbeat, but there was no way he could see such a thing. There were trees growing from trees and some of them were vertically positioned and others were horizontally sprouting from the barks of other trees.

The fog was thick like a smoke machine that was left unattended, polluting the environment with no sign of stopping. Even though he had found much delight in his new found physique, it was rather hard to see and all he could hear were the subtle sounds of insects as if he were in the Amazon rain forest but only arriving during its precipitation phase. There were definitely dead things in here and at one point he came across bones of that of a devoured unicorn. Trotting about and mostly relying on his navigation point to lead the way, the young man became agitated as he got deeper into the territory. At one point he could see life bar levels of something swinging from branch to branch, but its level looked almost like an 8 or maybe it was a 6 that he confused for an 8. The fact that his vision was really struggling in this fog made put him on edge.

A slight nudge or nick from a branch made him instantly attack aggressively with a kick or a punch. He had kicked heavy blocks of rocks in his way like soccer balls, but still felt a little pain in his tip toes when he did it ever so often in his paranoia. The spores would sometimes come into full view and they looked like ginger bread men wearing death’s uniform. As he got deeper into the woods, he began to experience a thick miasma that began to affect his breathing. It was as if the air was being drawn out from everywhere and there was no way of telling what was causing that. Tanatswa even began to notice for the first time that his health bar was dropping. With that alone, he knew he had to get out of the heart of the fog and seek refuge.

Tanatswa launched himself upwards and latched onto one of the trees. Using his fingers, he clawed his way up wards, trying to reach the very top so that he would get access to the air above the fog line. He catapulted himself to the very top and began to cough vehemently as he hung onto the top large branch of the tree he was on. He noticed that his stamina bar was recuperating but his health bar wasn’t. Like a shocking realization of the future, his health bar slowly reduced and this scared him. Why wasn’t it stopping? He already escaped to the top which was just above the fog level of these woods, but the bar kept on declining.

Tanatswa glanced at his surroundings and realized that the woods stretched out for quite a distance and he had no way of really gauging how far they reached from his current elevation. As the life bar crossed the ¾ mark of his health he began to feel a bit light headed and began to cough up blood. Some kind of build up of inflammation had begun to spread in his lungs and he began to sweat heavily. Not knowing what to do, he decided to hearken to his favourite cheat code, the custom goal mechanic.

Barely having the strength to talk, he managed to speak out through the pain and gave this request, “Surviving these woods!” The results came out instantly which stated, “Avoid the black miasma of death at all costs and jump from tree to tree until you escape. Do not fall into the black miasma.” As soon as it was done, only one description appeared and it became clear to Tanatswa that he had fucked up and should have taken the warning seriously ::

Jumping from tree to tree above fog level and avoiding being caught in the black miasma – Difficulty: Legendary.

Tanatswa was now really afraid of his current predicament, but somehow he managed to keep his nerve despite realizing that he was going to have to perform Hollywood blockbuster level death defying stunts, to survive. The health bar was still decreasing and staying in this environment wasn’t going to cut it. Tanatswa thus decided to trust in the navigation point provided by the custom goal which essentially pointed out which tree he was supposed to land on like a foreshadowed quick time event, even though truthfully, he would have to make sure he didn’t miss at all. Tanatswa pulled himself together after panting and sweating and stood on top of the top branch of the tree, got into position, tensed his legs and then launched his body towards the intended tree. He had managed to jump so high that he could see above the fog line and got a glimpse of the vastness of how far it extended. From up above he could now see slight hints of life bars that had high numbers, higher than level 3 and above.

The black smoke like texture that had penetrated the vast grey like fog looked like a blade that was cutting through and changing everything to pitch black. As Tanatswa began to lose his air time, he had not accounted for his velocity and thus collided against the intended tree like a boulder striking an infant. He crash landed into the grey part of the forest, levelling some of the foliage with his brute strength. If it wasn’t for him being at level 48% of strength, he would have probably been ripped to shreds upon impact. He was indeed strong and the bruises he got felt light, but still the effects of the miasma poisoning were mightier than his might. Tanatswa panted and noticed that his landing had created a disturbance within the air and for a moment he could see a clear a path before the fog resurged. He ran like a machine and then jumped up wards, passing through the fog line and seeing a bit of the top of the trees again.

As he darted his head backwards, he noticed the black miasma which seemed to have been travelling in the opposite direction, rerouting and now moving forward towards him. As he noticed this, he gazed ahead and slammed against a tree trunk without preparation. The impact hurt slightly as his cranium literary smashed into a tree bark upon head butting it. Tanatswa didn’t have the time to cry over the pain and quickly climbed up to get above the fog line by reaching the top branches. He embarked on another jumping feat and continued a rather punishing process that gave him multiple cuts and scars.

Tanatswa had not accounted for the creatures he could hear that were within this mist that he probably couldn’t see. He had a feeling that he had butted heads with something upon crashing time and time again, but regardless of him running pretty much blind, he afford to entertain these things. His jumping off from tree to tree was only made possible by the large width of each branch which actually gave him the chance to get more momentum from each charge before catapulting himself into the sky. For each jump he probably covered over several hundreds of metres before crashing back again. Tanatswa did this all until his stamina bar maxed out and he fell limp, luckily, just outside the forest. His cardigan satchel and all its contents were gone and his life bar was now less than half. He had finally cleared the Ethereal Woods but at what cost?

His body was battered; stamina was at zero and his health was now less than half. The other side of this forest looked like a jungle but this time its topography was flat and the air was clear. It was now dawn and Tanatswa mustered the strength to crawl away from the entrance of the forest. Behind him he could hear what sounded like heavy thuds and the sound of precipitation. The miasma was still on its way, out for blood and because he had really exhausted his reserves it was the end for him. What was he going to do? Was he going to die? Die again but this time as a result of his carelessness rather than his willingness to taste death by his own means?

No there was bound to be an alternative to this ghastly predicament and when he looked at his peripheral vision, he realized that his experience points had maxed out at 1000xp and were awaiting expenditure. I guess going through that trial was an insane experience warranting such a reward, but in this dire situation what was he going to spend his points on to save himself? This time he believed that he had to make a quick decision instead of referencing the custom goal again. It was now or never because the thuds behind him became heavier and he could sense the blood lust behind him. Tanatswa thus decided to spend it all on his strength. The strength stat boost instantly restored his vigour and his stamina bar had returned, however, his health’s attributes did no change.

He quickly rose from the ground and began to run straight ahead, this time with even greater speed and tenacity than before. He was a human bullet, fired by his own will to survive. At this point he began to contemplate why he even bothered to take this direction and why he even took the effort to seek out this unknown person who is the reason behind his current battered state. He could have taken the safer routes but as always, he would have rather taken a short cut to life rather than to take the long safe and boring route. He didn’t know why he was thinking these thoughts as he ran, but maybe he wanted to punish himself by self berating his logic.

That was what he was used to doing before he had died in his past life, but despite the changes he made as a person in Goshem, he would still fuck up time and time again. Why, because he secretly believed that the world was rigged against him and that he just had the short end of the stick, but that wasn’t true at all. Just like how he ignored the warning sign because he wanted a short journey, it was no different from how he always ignored the warning signs in his past life. These negative thoughts piled up and contrasted with his drive to run and indeed, he didn’t know how to feel about himself. He would rather return to his self wallowing and self loathing antics to berate his foolishness. As he dashed ahead, he noticed from his navigation point that he was close to reaching them.

Only a few hundreds of metres remained but then he heard a loud roar behind him. This brought him to a halt as he turned to look at the source. It was a man or what seemed like a man in a dark outfit covered in a flaming veil and hold a sceptre that was attached to a scythe. He was riding an anthropomorphic serpent that looked more ripped than the most bloated body builder he had ever seen. Tanatswa was at a distance from this being that was positioned at the entrance of this Ethereal Woods. The being began to bait him as if it were calling him for a one versus one. Tanatswa could see the level of the serpent which was at level 10 but as far as he was concerned, the life bar reflected on top of the head of the dark figure’s head stated on his peripheral vision that, ‘You are too many levels below to read their level.’ The being seemed rather enthusiastic about taunting him and began to get frustrated when he didn’t fall for its antics. It began to indicate impatience as indicated by its constant battering of the ground and black miasma emissions. Tanatswa wondered whether or not it would pursue him, but as far as he was concerned he was a reasonably distance away from it. If the being made a move, he would run until kingdom come, but then he finally remembered something. What if he ended up endangering the life of the other person who is the reason why he made this choice in the first place, no, that wasn’t his problem or was it? With his life bar dwindling and him waiting to find out what call this dark figure would make, Tanatswa was beginning to feel cornered.

The dark figure taunted him and then let out a loud powerful roar is if its decibels were going to shake the heavens. The dark figure looked down and then turned away, heading back to its domain. Just as Tanatswa was about to sigh in relief, four wild carnivorous animals quickly came bolting out of the woods with killing intent towards him. They made their way out of the woods, heading his way, probably sent after him by the dark figure whose level cannot be read. These wolf like creatures were running just as fast as him, if not, even faster. Without batting an eye he gladly returned to his sprint but these things were closing the distance between him and them.

Even at 56% strength, he was nothing at all. The wolves were going to gang up on him and devour his flesh and there was nothing he could do about it. As he knocked away rocks as well as tree trunks that were in his way, he could see straight ahead that there was an end to the jungle. He wasn’t sure if it would undulate ahead beyond his point of perspective, but there was a chance that it was actually a dead end there was a ridge behind the absence of vegetation ahead. Tanatswa began to scream as he gave out his last ounce of strength. His health was close to zero and his muscles began to cramp at this point. As he began to lose speed and momentum, he suddenly heard a voice calling from above. Ahead of him, he managed to get a slight visual of a woman dangling a rope that was 50 feet away from him.

He wasn’t sure if he could trust this person but with the blood thirsty wolves on his tail, he made a leap of faith and jumped towards the dangling rope. The wolves had already leaped forward to pounce on him, but as soon as he got a hold of the rope, as if by some unfathomable might, the girl who was inclined next to a tree trunk on top, yanked him up so fast that Tanatswa’s body became like a pebble in sling shot. The wolves that failed to grab him landing on the ground only to have the earth underneath cave in. It was a trap and the wolves’ momentum plunged them into their death. The sharp rocky spikes placed there eviscerated and totally butchered their limbs into shards of flesh. The girl managed to capture Tanatswa mid air and then fell to the ground with him.

The way down hurt more so for the girl than for Tanatswa, but she managed to get herself together and tended to the incapacitated Tanatswa. She gave him a real look of concern, but his eyes became hazy and before he passed out, all he could see was his life bar reaching critical levels. She immediately recognised his symptoms and took out a bottle that had a translucent pink slime. Tanatswa’s body was now convulsing, but she pressed him down and tried to force him to drink the solution. In her attempt to induce him with the substance, one of his hands twisted and turned violently and hit her on the face. She began to nose bleed and also got another jab in the gut which really hurt. She held him down and forced the substance down his throat. She felt like she was trying to wrestle a wild animal in that moment, but once he calmed down, she wiped away the blood off her nose and dragged his heavy body away from their current vicinity. It was really a chore but she was now happy that she was no longer alone in this deadly world of Goshem.