I woke up shivering. That was terrifying. I was afraid. And just when I thought that I had gotten rid of that feeling. Sitting in a curled up position my mind went numb from fear. My whole body started to tremble violently. What was I supposed to do? I could not think at all. I rearranged my thoughts after a long while.

“What the hell was that thing?”

Not good, my mind is starting to wonder again.

Pinching my hand hard I forcefully broke out of that cycle.

Thinking about it won't solve a thing. I need to come up with a countermeasure. Let's organise every information I have.

First, there is something much stronger than me out there. Never in my wildest dream did I think that I will come across that thing. I thought the tigers were the most powerful existence here. No, I knew there must be something more powerful than these tigers but I did not want to acknowledge that.

I almost died from a tigers passive attack and now I am facing something that can kill the tigers by just looking at them. I need to become powerful. Much more powerful than I am now. Killing is the only way I know that can give me what I need. But The more I kill the more I will plunge myself into it. The moment I lose my rationality it will be over.

Second, I saw a door open and the lion went inside the door. There is nothing on this side that is worth guarding by that thing. That means it's guarding something behind it. Given that this is a dungeon, (everything indicates to that) that must be the boss room. So there must be another door that leads to the entrance. I need to find that door and go up. If I can go up I have hope for going out. If I can't go up then I have to kill all the animals here and see if I can get enough power to fight that thing. If not, I do not know what to do.

Wait a minute, I have not seen any humans up until now. So that means even if there is a way up the boss is probably still undefeated. If this floor's boss is that powerful that means the other floor's boss is powerful too. If nothing else it will at least have ¾th of this boss's power. That is a nothing to scoff at. I can probably run away from that but fighting it will still be impossible.

“What to do? What to do?”

Can I sneak out when it goes for hunt? Not likely. Eliminating the fact that I do not know about its feeding time, the door doesn't show up when it is away. The only way forward is by killing it.

“Looks like the only thing I can do now is collect as much heart as I possibly can.”

Just thinking about all the killing I had to do my body started to tremble in excitement. Savagery filled my heart and mind. Again I was forced to think things through.

This won't do. I can't lose my mind now. I have not pulled through and survived till now just to fall in madness. This new world, I want to see it. I want to go back home if possible. I want to meet the few people I loved. Even though I like being alone. This much loneliness, even a hikikamori like me fears it.

I sat in the lotus position for meditation. 'I need to kill these beasts and I need to do that with a clear mind. I refuse to become an animal myself.' Focusing on the flickering candle light I emptied my mind. The beasts started coming in. One by one. There was it again. The sound of fighting.

This time however I kept my eyes shut and kept watching. The beasts were fighting each other. No one could kill another but they fought fiercely. Those were the source of the sound. Curiosity engulfed me.

Is my mind in this much turmoil? How could I hear them? Is this because of the guilt I felt after killing them to satisfy my hunger for power? My mind wandered around. It was then that I saw something I did not expect to see. I fully expected to see my fear manifest in front of me but it was not that. I could not find the lion anywhere but right in front of me there was me?

'How is there a me inside me? Wait, did I fall asleep while meditating? But this does not feel like a dream. I can wake up from my meditation anytime I want. Is this deep meditation perhaps!' Thinking this I looked at the astral me more carefully.

My body was a bit blurry and there was a white light pulsing through it, sitting there looking lifeless. Like a very well crafted doll. 'Can I enter it?' I tried to do an experiment. That pulse reminded me very much of the same electric pulse I felt during level ups. I wished for it and my vision went blank for a moment then my point of view changed.

There it is. The pulse. It is exactly like the time when I power up, if anything It's a bit more intense and the “I can fuck the heaven" feeling.

I tried to move my body, it moved. I stood up. Suddenly an ice deer not far away from me attacked without any notice. I instinctively moved my body to dodge and punched it on the head. Like a dry ice it turned into vapour and vanished.

“Huh?”

I was startled. So I can kill them in my mind too? Is this some kind of mini game? But, but, If I can kill them all will my anger issue get fixed? Whatever may it do is secondary, if I kill them all I can meditate in peace.

“ Let's do this then.”

Making my mind up I started the slaughter. This felt much nicer than actually killing them. No blood, no gore. Just a punch or two and they vanish like smoke. After killing a few, the beasts started to change their attitude. And attacked me instead of each other. That made my job easier to be honest. Few more minutes passed and I was standing there in the middle of a cloudy stretch. 'Finally, some calm.' Sitting down I busked in the pleasure of the pulse. Its comfort never gets old. I felt violence leaving me.

So it was guilt after all and now that I have literally fought it out I can feel the burden lifting up from my heart.

I opened my eyes in my real body and did not feel that anger or bloodlust coming back unless I wished for it. I stood up wanting to drink some water. As I took the first step I felt my heart swivel. Followed up by an intense electric pulse and I lost control of my body.

‘Huh? Are they coming back to haunt me again?’ Thinking this I braced myself for the impact and fell flat on my face. What followed was pain. Like the first time when I ate the ice deer heart. Not too extreme but bad enough to be levelled as unbearable. I didn't know what to think. I couldn't control my body either. So I concentrated on the comforting pulses and suffered like everyone else.

Midway through the pain I had a vision. In that vision I was cursing the ever living daylight out of the visions protagonist. My anger was justified though. Did he/she really had to show me a vision then of all time! In the middle of hells 7th chamber? Anyway, in that vision I was eating grass, eating meat, biting something, pissing, shitting, ramming all at the same time for some reason. In all that chaos there was one thing that caught my attention. I was concentrating the electric pulse of my body to various parts of my body for different purposes. 'So this is how you do it. Damn I am so dumb.'

When I came to my senses it was dusk. It's always dusk. I had a refreshing feeling. Like when you sip tea under a tree in comfy autumn weather, that kind. I hurriedly checked my body for new deformities. To my disappointment, there was none. Non, not even the once that I had.

My nails are like a human, my dick is like a human (It turned into one like a dog so I didn't talk about it. You can't blame me for leaving that out) and my hair, it's gone. Gone, gone, gone , every strand of hair on my body is gone.

“Noooooooooooo, I don't want to be like one kick man.”

My soft furs were all gone. I started crying. After crying for a bit I remembered that my dick was back.

Ah, my dick is finally back. I will trade my furs for my dick any day. All right enough talking. First thing first. I started....

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“AHHHHH.. THAT FELT GOOD"

That was a massive load. Can you imagine not having your own gentiles for a month? I thought I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. For a virgin like me it was a half death sentence. You may be thinking that I could make do with that. No, I do not have that kind of hobby. And yes it did get bigger if you are wondering. Not too big but definitely bigger than before. If this trend continues by level 100 I could probably woo myself a hot woman. I thought.

“What am I doing with my life?”

“Look at me jerking off in a damp corner of a dungeon”

I Knew it was coming, but I couldn't help myself from saying it out loud. After a bit of self loathing I sat up.

I wanted to see if my theory about magic is correct or not. Concentrating on my body I felt the pulse. Mimicking the tigers feeling I experienced during my short vision I tried to extend my claws. Without making any sound my fingertips changed into claws. Not the nails changing into claws that I had previously. This time the whole finger tip extended sharpened and formed the claws. It had the same metallic lustre as the tiger claw.

I could feel it's sharpness. I could feel the pulse forming a claw pattern. 'So this is how you use magic!' I was doing it wrong all along. I tried to gather a bunch of it in a place to do something with it without any clear instructions. Now that I know how a tiger does it I could do it too.

My previous transformation into a semi bestial form may also have something to do with it. Now I have a proper weapon I can use.

I tried to play with it for a bit, shaping the claws. 'Looks like they can change the shapes but I cannot make them bigger.' I shaped my claws like karambit knives. It had a better feel to it then the tigers claws. Sure they are pointy and sharp but they are no blades. After That came the leg. I shaped my foot claws like bent leaf blades so that they would not let go easily. 'Now I can probably climb walls.' Applying a bit more mana into my fore limbs I could feel the force and strength or my swing increase. I had decided to call the electric pulse 'mana pulse' and the liquidy electric feeling ‘mana’. I knew that word and it did basically the same thing too.

Following my success in using fortification magic I was over the moon. 'Enhancements are good and all but they are not real magic. For me real magic is throwing fireballs or making water out of thin air.' With that in mind I started moving my mana mimicking the deer's antler ice magic. Anticipation filled my heart. I felt a tingle in my forehead. Then, nothing happened.

“ I knew it. I didn't have any horns back then. Goddamnit.”

Why? Why did I not have horns? Now that is a mystery. Is it because Tiger is more powerful than the deer or does it have something to do with those vapour beasts. That brings up another question. What are those? Are they soul remnants? But it would be too much to see my soul so easily. The me inside me felt mana pulse much more clearly so it's safe to assume that it was either made out of mana itself or some kind of projection. After killing them I got their memory of how to use their special moves. If it was soul I could have probably seen their entire life story. That makes sense (to me). So let's call them ‘mana remnants’ and my body ‘mana body’. Hmm…., I need to do some more experiments. But man today was full of surprises. First was the big thing and then in a desperate attempt to free myself from curse I learned how to use mana. I even got my body back.

After some practice in tirate (tiger + karate) and some running practice I stuffed myself with food and water. The deer meat tasted worse than before so I used the tiger's eating technique and it tasted much better. I ate some moss too. Moss tested like moss.

“Let's sleep for now. I will do some experiments tomorrow”

A good night's sleep later, I woke up feeling refreshed. After doing some morning routine it was time to catch myself some tiger. Roaming around for a bit in the tiger district I found a good one. 'Ok, time to test out my new found strength.' I approached the tiger from front.

Seeing me coming at it like I own the place it did not even falter for a bit. It took a step back then jumped on me. Taking a side step I sliced on its left forelimb and pushed it aside while slicing deep into its bones. The tiger roared and tried to bite me. I answered it with a straight knife and impaled its head. The majestic tiger died in 2 hits.

Remind me again, but why does the tiger have its tail on fire again? I have never seen them using it, not even in the memories. Did evolution play some kind of prank with them? No shit they are so angry all the time.

I took the whole carcass back to my cave front. Took its heart out and went inside.

After eating it I sat in meditation and focused on my mana body. It appeared and I entered it. In a few moments fog appeared and materialised into a tiger. I punched it before it had the chance to complain thus ending its miserable existence. During power up I did not feel any pain. No memories were shone either.

'Hmm, curious.' I hunted a second tiger. It put up a much better fight than the previous one. I thought the tigers were all similar in power. Apparently not though. This time I did not kill it's mana remnant before the power up. And low and behold, I got angry before powering up.

Now I know what caused all that suffering for me. To be honest though if someone tried to eat me to power up I will be angry at them too. But, killing them after the power up yielded results. I got a memory flashback. I got some extra mana too. Looks like killing them after levelling up is the way to go.

Now that I have some insight on how the levelling up thing works. I will search for the door while killing the tigers. I will avoid the deer side for now.