Cel clapped her hands together and rubbed them eagerly.

"Oh, hell yeah! What's the little guy got in mind?"

Don answered the ColoColo by pulling himself out of the rotting tree, unfolding his stiff limbs and doing his best to stand straight. He answered Cel in a more literal fashion.

We spent last night collecting food. We can pay back the debt something like eight times over now. He thought to Cel

Cel was awestruck. she tried to cover up her expression but Don could still feel how impressed she was from the soul bond. It felt good. Now that Don had his companion back, he expected his motivation to flag. Instead, he wanted Cel to see the look on Gaz's face when Don buried him in resources. He grinned.

We're just getting started too. He wasn't wrong.

With an entire night to kill, it would have been a waste to haul the food to the refuge and just wait for Gaz to return. Instead, they set out to find alchemical ingredients. Between Don's knowledge of which ones they needed, Kat's knowledge of the general areas where they grew and Cel's [natural resonance], they swept up herbs en masse. The jungle had transformed into a veritable supply depot and the night was spent harvesting practically nonstop until Don's fingers were stained with juices and they emanated a strong medicinal smell. The most prominent of which was rot fern. Thankfully the inventory did a good job of containing smells. Don's herbalist profession improved by leaps and bounds now that he was harvesting materials with potency scores of two, three and on one occasion even five. That opened up more room in his inventory and they only picked up speed as the unseen stars tracked across the sky.

Herbalist: Initiate 4 --> 8

+16% herb potency

+8 herb stacking in inventory

Skills:

Harvest: Initiate 4 --> 8

You can now harvest plants while preserving a measurable level of potency

Max Potency: 8

When they finally finished checking all the locations Kat could think of, Don had a fully stocked inventory containing no less than 162 valuable herbs. A further 17 were stored in a makeshift pack Kat had made for him and the potion gourds were secured to the same vines which held the pack secure against his body.

The only question now was how to transport all the nuts they had harvested the night before. The hard time limit of dawn was fast approaching and Don was worried that they had gotten too greedy but Kat was confident it wouldn't be a problem. They visited each cache in turn and Don realized for the first time that they were strung out in a nearly straight line. They pointed right back to the refuge and as they reached each one, kat and Don fashioned sacks to hold the food. Once they had looted three caches, The makeshift packs were too cumbersome to carry. At Cel's direction, Don yanked some long branches off of the trees and after they were lashed together with vines, they made for a passable dragging sled she called a travois.

It got stuck on some brambles but Don was able to tear through them without much difficulty using his immense strength. Compared to his own body weight, the sled didn't feel nearly as heavy as it's bulk implied. Kat was occupied with trying to cover their tracks as best he could. While the apes knew where the refuge was, it was a good idea to try and keep it hidden from the search parties out looking for Don.

The strenuous labor paid dividends as well, increasing his strength, agility, and endurance by a point each. Don opened up his attributes to check on his progress.

STR: 19 CON: 19 INT: 16 DEX: 16 AGI: 18 END: 19 WIS: 17

Cel read the screen from over his shoulder and gave a low whistle.

"You are a BEAST." The tone implied a compliment but the words didn't quite match.

I thought I was a Demon.

Cel smacked him upside the head. Don barely registered the small impact.

"Don't be a pain. I was trying to compliment you. You nearly have 3 attributes at their maximum. That's incredible considering Demons can train a full 5 points higher than humans."

Don stopped in his tracks.

What?

"It's one of the benefits of being a demon. You have higher potential capabilities than most other races. The first way that manifests is in allowing you to train to a higher degree while you're level 0. Right now you have more attribute points than a level 3 human who trained to his maximum potential. It's a nice little head start, Good thing I increased your pain thresholds."

WHAT? Don screeched through their mental link. Cel winced.

"Right, heh heh. Well, the thing is, higher pain thresholds let you train your attributes faster and unlock the best professions and Callings. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Cel could feel the anger building in don, ready to explode. She wisely cut him off.

"The maximum is only 50% anyway, That's not too much. The basic setting is 5% so you are training 10 times faster than those casuals."

Don looked up into the branches and did his best to swallow his anger. It didn't work.

You mean to tell me, that I've been feeling ten times as much pain as I would have without your help? Don said through the mental equivalent of clenched teeth, keeping most of his anger restrained.

"Come on, you'd only have like 12's or 13's in your attributes if it wasn't for that little tweak."

Change it back! Don thundered. Cel held up her hands and flew a little further away.

"Sorry, no can do. Once you start the game, your pain settings are locked. Otherwise, people could jack up the pain for training and then cut it off for the main game."

Don fumed at the fairy and tried to burn a hole through it with his eyes.

"What's really incredible is this" Cel said, pointing at Don's Attribute screen in a thinly veiled attempt to change the subject.

What now?

"How did you boost your wisdom from 13 to 17 in just one day?"

Her fairly obvious attempt worked somewhat. Don wasn't about to forget about this latest revelation but he had some questions about that attribute. He had completely forgotten about them when Cel respawned but this seemed like a good chance to get answers.

I meditated. What exactly does that attribute do?

Cel ignored Don's question.

"You, meditated?"

Yeah, what does that attribute do?

"Meditated."

Rust it Cel! Yes, I meditated, it was kind of nice, I gained lots of wisdom. Now can you please tell me what that means?

Cel shot straight up into the air, spinning and glowing brightly as she shouted in joy.

"Woohoo! I knew you had to have some redeeming quality."

Don wasn't liking this answer. Sensing his irritation, Cel came back down and hurriedly explained.

"Meditation is an extremely difficult skill to master. Not many people can do it for more than a few seconds at a time. It boosts mana and stamina regeneration like crazy but people usually only learn how to do it from taking magic-related professions. HooHoo! This is awesome. I've been wondering what to do about your remaining profession. You need a combat class but don't have access to any weapons. I thought I was going to have to resort to Brawler but this opens up the possibility of getting the Monk profession!"

Cel, wisdom, what does it do!

She looked considerably put out but finally answered Don's question.

"Wisdom is primarily used by mages to regenerate their mana pools. It also helps them cast complex spells more quickly by increasing their processing speed. High wisdom scores let them perform the calculations required to form spells faster. This can also let them act on incoming spells, weakening or even redirecting them if their wisdom is high enough. Warriors will usually invest as little as they can into this stat because they don't rely on mana and it doesn't matter if you see an attack coming but are too slow to dodge or block it."

That was a little more than Don was expecting and it still didn't answer his underlying question so he was more direct.

Does it slow down time?

"Not really, it just makes you capable of thinking at a higher speed, that includes how many frames of data you can interpret per second. That might make it look like stuff is slowing down, but you're the one speeding up."

Kat had caught up to them by this point and urged Don forward, reassuring him that the refuge wasn't far now. He also took that time to surprise Don with another stop before reaching the nest. They stopped at the same open field they passed through on Don's first excursion outside the refuge. The lone, burned-out tree stood at the center of the clearing.

"We have done the impossible tonight but Gaz still won't truly recognize someone's value until they have hunted and killed," Kat said.

Don didn't like where this was going and he headed off Kat, drawing a hard line.

"I'm not going to kill anything Kat."

The ColoColo looked confused

"Why not?"

Don didn't expect to have to explain this and he struggled to express his feelings on the subject. His stomach flipped just thinking about it.

"Because it's unnecessary, and it just feels, wrong... mean."

"But, rabbits are food. If we don't eat them, they just go to waste." Kat pointed out. It was really that simple for the little monster. Morals didn't come into the equation at all, just utility.

Cel who was listening in on the exchange piped up.

"You know, the animals here aren't real..."

What does that mean?

"They are computer programs designed to imitate life, but there's no life there, no sentience, just directives. You won't be killing anything, just think of it as deleting a file, one of a million identical files."

The thought of that rabbit kat had pounced on sent a shiver up Don's spine. It certainly looked like it was struggling for its life. But the way his physical and mental abilities had grown over the last week made it clear that this world worked by very different rules than the one he came from. He took a deep breath. If he was going to ever hope to stand up to the giant apes, he was going to have to get some fighting experience. Better to start small and work his way up than jump in unprepared and end up like Gregory. Don tried to channel the brash confidence Sonja displayed.

"What do I have to do?"

Apparently, Kat hadn't selected an ordinary game trail for Don to perch over, waiting for an unsuspecting rabbit to come along. He had brought Don to the home of the local 'king of rabbits' as he dubbed it. According to the scout, the best way to impress Gaz and get him to stop messing with Don was to show him that Don was indisputably the superior hunter.

Don thought about drinking his only healing potion, but Cel's earlier assurances of Don's strength convinced him to save it. The regeneration probably wouldn't come into play if the fight was as short as Don hoped. Kat had managed to take out a rabbit with ease and he was tiny, only coming up to Don's knees.

Don dropped his makeshift travois and pack before boldly stepping into the silvery circle of gently waving grass in nothing but his loincloth. It flapped in the breeze, not quite as inspiring as a cape but Cel surreptitiously filed the memory away as a keeper, giddy with expectations for her student.

Don made it halfway to the tree when two shining dots appeared in a crack at its base. There was a warning squeak but Don boldly stepped forward, ready to face the rabbit, ready to... delete it. he was just going to delete it. There was nothing sinister about that right? Don paused, unsure if he was doing the right thing.

This wasn't just about putting Gaz in his place anymore. If Don wanted to save Kat, Grey, and Sik, he would have to face the apes. This was the first step down that path. With his motivation reset, Don took another step forward.

A shrill squeak sounded out in response and the local 'king of rabbits' bounded out from the shadows under the tree. In the clearing, bathed once again in the predawn light, Don saw what a huge mistake he had made.

A sleek brown creature, almost as tall as Don's waist shot towards him on all fours. It covered four meters in that first jump and now that it was moving, its powerful hind legs launched it two meters further on its next jump. It's most striking feature was the crown it wore. Antlers sprouted from its head, forming an imposing barrier just in front of its absurdly tall ears. The antlers branched out into a dozen sharp tines, each one gleaming in the dawn's light. At the end of its second leap, it had covered over half the distance to Don and built up considerable momentum in the process. Don's innate time sense let him know this all happened within a single second.

Don's improved wisdom allowed him to appreciate the way its muscles rippled under its hide with its third bounding leap. It hurtled through the air like a furry meteor. Its legs pulled in so they were tight against the rest of its compact body and well protected behind its natural weapons. The creature and its gleaming antlers were set on a trajectory to slam directly into the Demon's chest.

Don realized with a start that he was falling backward. His legs had buckled at the surprising aggression and speed of his opponent. All he could do was lean away from the rapidly approaching antlers in horror. His wisdom stretched the fall into a lazy descent, it felt like one of those nightmares where everything is moving slowly, but inevitably towards disaster.

With all his attention fixed on the monster, he barely noticed as his hands rose up of their own accord. The instinctive motion was too slow to block the antlers, but just fast enough to catch the curved underside of one of them, forcing the sharp tines upwards enough to miss Don's face by bare centimeters. In the next moment, they collided, hard.

Don was thrown down into the soft grass but the rabbit spun off wildly into the air with a squeal. Don's lucky parry had saved him for the moment, making the charge backfire.

"Holy crap, that's a Jackalope!" Cel called to him, then added something worrying "Run!"

She didn't need to tell Don twice. He was already scrambling to his feet, pulling up handfuls of grass in his haste. Don bolted away from the monster, unfortunately, he hadn't taken the time to plan his escape and found himself charging deeper into the clearing. He veered towards the burnt-out tree, hoping against hope that the monster couldn't climb.

He only made it halfway there before the enraged Jackalope caught up to him. Cel's warning turned Don around only so he could take one of the antlers in his side. The unexpected impact emptied Don's lungs in a rush and the two monsters tumbled to the ground. That's the only reason he didn't scream as the violent fall pried the antlers loose, inflicting further damage.

His HP fell by a third and continued to drain slowly as black blood pumped out of the wounds. Don rolled to his feet and tried to keep moving. This time when Cel called out a warning, Don spun instantly. The monster didn't have as much force behind its leap this time and they were moving in the same direction. Don reached out and caught it by the antlers. One hand found its intended target but the other was impaled by one of the sharp points. The hit took Don below half health and it was still dropping but he managed to keep the antlers from piercing anything too vital.

Their combined momentum carried them for a little over a meter and a half. The grass tore, revealing black soil underneath as Don's feet sank into the ground. His prodigious strength and Constitution eventually won out and he forced the monster to a stop, holding it at arm's length.

He tried to push the monster's face into the dirt in an attempt to immobilize it but the jackalope struggled fiercely, tearing into Don's forearms with its sharp antlers. It dug up the ground behind it with its powerful hind legs, trying to drive its antlers into Don's stomach. Don roared while simultaneously complying with its wishes to charge, taking a large step back before spinning out of the way and assisting its jump by throwing the Jackalope bodily into the tree which was now close at hand. He howled in pain as the antler that had impaled his hand was wrenched free.

The Jackalope was stunned for a few precious seconds and Don took the chance to scale the tree like he had seen Kat do so many times. he ran up one of the sloping roots, hopped to a knot and made a leap of faith, just barely clinging to the underside of one of the few remaining withered branches. He kicked wildly until he got his feet up and around the branch as well. Don had a flashback of his first attempt at climbing trees, Just like then, he had trapped himself with nowhere to go.

The difference, of course, was that he now had an irate Jackalope impatiently waiting for his stamina to run out. It leapt at Don a couple of times, trying to reach the trespassing demon but fell short each time. Don was safe for the moment, or so he thought.

Crack.

Don's stomach leaped into his throat as the branch he was holding snapped in half. The break happened between the points where his arms and legs were wrapped around it. With no more support, his body swung away until he was hanging upside down. his legs slipped and he was falling.

He seemed to hang in the air, hardly picking up speed as he fell nearly 5 meters to the earth. Despite the tricks his wisdom played on his perceptions, the momentum produced by his massive body was undeniable, and the scream produced by the unfortunate jackalope was a chilling testament to the power of applied physics.

With a rage-filled mind set on attacking, it didn't even think of avoiding the heavy Demon. It managed to score another hit on Don's protectively raised forearms with its antlers but Its spine snapped when the impact forced it's head back to meet with its rump. The immovable earth acting as an anvil to the demonic hammer.

Don only had a little less than a quarter of his health remaining at this point. He scrambled away from the mewling beast. One of its forelimbs twitched but it was otherwise completely immobile.

Not knowing the extent of the damage he had caused and still fearing for his life, Don snatched up the fallen branch in a panic before screaming and bringing it down on the Jackalope. He bludgeoned the creature, again and again, battering it until there was no chance it could rise again, or be recognized.

The lumpy pile of biomass and a small but growing circle around it was stained as red as the end of Don's club. Only the antlers were recognizable in the mess of pulped flesh and splintered bone. When Don's wits returned, he turned away, feeling his bile rise. He choked it back down, His health had dropped to 13 points and showed no sign of stopping. This was no time to get distracted.

He nearly shrieked as a few notifications surprised him.

+20 EXP Congratulations!

For defeating a rare horned creature in single combat while still level 0, you have unlocked the Aspect of the Ram.

Aspect of the Ram

Effect 1: Your horns are reclassified as natural weapons.

Each horn is granted +1 damage and +10 durability per character level.

Effect 2: You can challenge rare horned creatures to single combat.

Victory awards you a portion of their strength.

Gain +1 of your opponent's main attribute for every 5 of its levels.

Limit: 1 Aspect of the Ram bonus per attribute

The Aspect of the Crocodile and the Aspect of the Panther have been permanently locked. Aspect of the Ram

Opponent: lv 5 Jackalope

Main Attribute: Agility

Reward: +1 Agility

Don didn't have the time to mess with screens now and waved them away without reading them.

Don pressed a hand over his ribs. The blood wasn't stopping and his health dropped another point. It was draining more slowly than when he was first injured but it was still a serious problem. He opened up his inventory and pulled out some blood moss. He had no idea if it would work for this but it was the only ingredient he had with healing properties. He slapped it over his wounds, even going so far as to stuff it into the worst ones like a cork. Don gritted his teeth against the pain. The moss took on a black coloration as it absorbed his blood and Don focused on his intuitive feel for his health, sighing in relief when the bleeding abated a few seconds later. He was left with only 8 health remaining.

He felt extremely vulnerable and cursed himself for risking his life without taking every advantage he had at his disposal. He turned towards the trees. Kat was already running towards him with his healing potion. Then Don heard something he didn't expect and what little blood he had left ran cold.

A squeak came from the tree behind him. Then there were dozens. Don looked back just in time to see a frenzy of tan fur spill out of the tree. Unwilling to go through a similar ordeal unarmed, Don gripped his branch and raised it high overhead. He barely had enough time to start swinging it before he was swarmed by the rodents.

For a minute, Don swung wildly, screaming at the endless horde of fluff. Then it was over as suddenly as it had begun. Don sank to the churned, bloody, and battered ground with his stamina reduced to 8/95. It was only then that Don realized none of the rabbits had tried to attack him. Eight of the critters lay broken around him, courtesy of Don's wild attacks but hundreds must have streamed around him in that minute. A new set of notifications popped up and Don briefly acknowledged them.

+16 EXP

Congratulations! You have unlocked the Brute profession!

Would you like to become a Brute?

[Yes] [No]

Don't even think about it. Hard pass. Cel broadcast the thought into Don's head to make sure he got it. Don looked around at the carnage that had prompted the offer and shuddered. It wasn't a difficult choice to make. He didn't want to make a profession or even a habit out of such wanton violence.

Kat appeared at Don's side with his pack and potions. Don snapped the stringy bit of frond securing the gourd of healing potion to the pack and drank it down gratefully. He would never go into a fight without his potions again.

That being said, the potion was slow to take effect, It took nearly 30 seconds before his HP increased by a single point. He would fully heal over the next hour but it was going to be a long hour. Cel directed Don to loot the rabbits. Apparently, that meant he had to touch them.

He was hesitant to touch the gory corpses but the rabbits disappeared as soon as he touched them and clean, whole chunks of meat and pelts were left in their place. The Jackalope even left one of its antlers behind when he touched it. He thought absently that 'delete' was a pretty decent description for what he was doing to the rabbits. He dropped the antler into the new 19th slot in his inventory and stuffed the rest of the dropped items into his pack, pelts first in an attempt to keep the meat and herbs separate.

As Don's stamina recovered and the thundering heartbeats filling his ears quieted, he could hear Kat gushing.

"-Incredible! I've never seen anything like it. Do you know what Gaz's hunting record is? 3 rabbits in one night! You tripled that in just a few minutes and killed the rabbit king to boot! This is going to change everything! There's no way Gaz can ignore you now!"

Don found himself not caring. He had nearly died over a stupid grudge. He should have just brought the resources to the ColoColo. He already had enough to feed the clan for weeks. Why did he have to put himself in unnecessary danger to get more?

A roar answered his question. They had spent too much time out in the open and they hadn't exactly been quiet about it. Don locked eyes with Kat and he downed his stamina potion. His body kicked into overdrive as he sprinted for the trees. His breathing eased as he was filled with crackling energy and an overwhelming urge to move. He would be damned before he left the travois and their work over the last two nights for the apes. He got to it and hauled.

Don surprised himself with his burst of energy and nearly fell on his face. He quickly compensated and started running through the jungle in an all too familiar scenario. He had grown much stronger and faster since the last pursuit but he wasn't hauling hundreds of units of food with him that time. Don's muscles strained and the scratching thorns were a real threat in his injured state. His healing potion just barely kept up with the damage they were doing as Don had to abandon all finesse due to the travois.

When they arrived at the entrance to the refuge, Don grabbed two of the makeshift packages and leapt into the water. Kat was close behind him with another package of food. The buoyant nuts fought him but his constitution helped him again and in seconds, he was throwing them into the entrance chamber before ducking back down into the water.

He tried to struggle against the current for a few seconds but it was too slow. He let it carry him downstream before pulling himself out of the water and running back upstream to the sled. The roaring was very close by the time he made it. he could hear the trees groaning under the monster's weight. Don pulled the largest remaining bundle off of the sled, unstoppered his stink bomb and poured the contents over the remainder. Even if the packaging didn't protect the food from the vile potion, the shells should, and it might keep the apes from stealing them. He called out to Cel who flitted into his hand before he jumped back into the water. Don caught a glimpse of a massive shape in the trees just before he went under. He frantically felt out the entrance and pulled himself through.

Water cascaded off his body and out of his pack as he scrambled as far from the entrance as he could get. Don expected a repeat of that nightmarish first encounter with an ape trying to force its way through the too-small entrance but it never came. Instead, a prompt confirmed that the immediate danger had passed.

+6 EXP