Lebowski woke up to a blue box floating in his vision. He was getting increasingly used to the boxes magically appearing.

Congratulations on surviving your first day in the Introduction! Honestly, you are one of the lucky ones. Now, since most of you humans have died already, the rest of you have been deemed worthwhile enough to spend some energy on. So please hold your applause…thank you.

Anyway, you can now gain levels in Cultivation! That’s right. Levels are just like out of a video game.

Ok, you can applaud now.

Lebowski snorted and dismissed the message. Levels, huh. That would have been nice to have yesterday.

Actually, would it have been? What benefits are there to levels? It didn’t say. However, what it did say was that most of the humans had already died. That number could have been in the hundreds, the thousands, or even the millions. Maybe even the billions. Lebowski had no way of knowing. Regardless, this message indicated that there was a mass loss of life. How tragic.

Untying the rope wrapped around him, Lebowski sat up and looked around. It was his first morning in this new landscape.

As big as it was on Earth, the sun was rising over the distant tree line. The first rays of sunlight glistened through the leaves, reflecting off the purple bark. Climbing higher, Lebowski got a better view of the landscape around him.

Trees. As endless as the ocean of green and purple trees. The amount of green stretched beyond him was almost overwhelming. There was no escape from this jungle. It encompassed all. Lebowski’s stomach flipped in excitement.

What a nice vacation. It would have been nicer with a gun, but still, it was lovely. There was no denying that.

Settling back into the branch he slept on, Lebowski thought about everything that had happened to him.

The light - the bright blinding light - then the darkness where the Voice asked for his name.

Since this god-like being asked about Lebowski’s name, it implied some importance to names. Why else would that Voice put him in an isolated space and ask for it? So, again, the only logical explanation is that the name itself was important. But why are names important?

Lebowski had no way to know, so he dropped that train of thought.

The animals in this jungle seemed strangely aggressive. Of course, Lebowski only has met one animal so far, but it left a big enough impression for him to assume the same thing applied to the rest of the animals. Fucking bastard boar. He was happy he killed it.

What a wild and jumbled-up mess of events. It was like there was no plan whatsoever. But then again, why would there be a plan? Who would plan this adventure of Lebowski’s out? It sure as hell wouldn’t be Lebowski, and it didn’t seem like the Voice would. So, no, there would be no plan. Besides, planning it out would take away the adventure. Lebowski didn’t much care for lack of adventure.

Instead, Lebowski decided he wanted more points and to kill things. Luckily, those two objectives coincided. The Hawaiian shirts were calling his name, after all.

Leaping down from branch to branch, Lebowski landed on the jungle’s floor. He then promptly fell over a stone. Getting back up and taking out his cane from the black ring, Lebowski picked up the rock, tossed it into the air, and smashed it with his cane like a baseball player. It sailed into the trees with a much higher speed than Lebowski thought possible. A moment later, Lebowski got a notification.

You killed a sparrow. A sweet, innocent sparrow. Indeed, you are a badass.

Reward: 10 points

Huh, that notification was unexpected but welcomed. Free points were always welcomed.

It was interesting that he didn’t get experience from killing the sparrow. Lebowski assumed he would get XP, and once he got enough of it, he’d level up. Like in a video game, as the Voice said. But then again, the Voice didn’t say that you could level up through XP.

Thinking of his status, Lebowski looked over stats.

Name: Lebowski Lebowski

Titles: Boss Slayer

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Class: none

Stats:

Strength - 13

Agility - 15

Vitality - 12

Intelligence - 13

Wisdom - 9

Luck - 16

Skills: none

Race: Human

Cultivation: 0

The only thing that had changed was that his Cultivation now said 0 instead of none. Regardless, Lebowski had no way to guess exactly how to level up, so he let the matter go.

Picking a random direction, Lebowski began to walk. The jungle felt alive as he moved between the trees and underbrush. Low hanging vines draped across the lower branches of the trees, and bugs chirped in the distance. Rays of sunlight pierced through the thick green and purple canopy, showing the dirt, fallen leaves, rocks, and sand littering the ground.

Surprisingly, the jungle was incredibly wet. Lebowski would have assumed that it rained just a few hours ago, judging by the amount of dew on the ground and moisture on the leaves, but he knew that it didn’t.

Just another little mystery to fill his idle thoughts, Lebowski supposed.

Lebowski began to skip, jumping over bushes and rocks, quickly passing through everything that didn’t interest him. His cane spun in time with his skips, swinging through the air, whistling with the wind.

A rustling to his left was all Lebowski heard before a wolf jumped out at him. The wolf pouncing by itself would have been enough to bring a smile to Lebowski’s face since it should give him points. But, unfortunately, Lebowski was caught mid-skip by the wolf.

Knocking the wind out of him, Lebowski and the wolf fell into the underbrush.

Simply through good fortune, Lebowski managed to get on top of the wolf, their rolling coming to an abrupt stop due to a tree. The wild beast under him bared its fangs, snapping at him, trying to get a taste of human flesh.

Lebowski’s cane was caught awkwardly between his body and the wolf’s, so he willed his cane back into his ring before making it reappear in his hands with a much better grip. The wooden handle came into his palm, and he pressed it deep into the wolf’s open, yapping mouth.

The wolf’s teeth crunched down onto the wooden cane. The cane held up against the powerful bite without any issue. The wolf, though, had some problems: it could no longer fully close its mouth - the cane barred it from doing so. Also, Lebowski’s body pinned its paws to its chest since he put his total weight on top of it, preventing it from moving.

Reaching out for the cane’s handle, Lebowski pulled. The sword unsheathed from the cane, the stainless metal reflecting the bright sunlight. Panting like the wolf under him, Lebowski angled the blade downwards to pierce the wolf’s neck, but he didn’t have enough leverage to force it down.

Lebowski’s other hand let go of the wolf’s fighting paw and smashed down on the sword’s rounded handle. An inch of the blade sunk into the wolf. Lebowski smashed down again. More of the edge went in. The wolf thrashed and kicked. One of its paws caught Lebowski across the stomach, throwing him off. Thankfully, a tree butted against the pair, intercepting Lebowski before he fell.

The wolf was gurgling and drowning in its crimson blood. The visceral liquid poured out of the small hole in its neck, gushing onto the ground. Lebowski, cane-sword still in hand, limped to the wolf’s head. He punched a hole through its neck with his blade. He cut into the beast repeatedly, cutting and slashing, cutting and slashing, brutalizing it.

Macabre and guts spilled out into the jungle, and Lebowski’s mad laugh reverberated through the trees. The wolf’s pain fed into his frenzy, and in his delirium, Lebowski felt alive. The rising excitement he felt at the dawn of the apocalypse bubbled up inside of him. His laughter grew in volume and madness.

Eventually, Lebowski stopped slicing into the bloodied, mangled corpse. Giggling to himself, he moved over to where the rest of his cane was, picking it up and sheathing his sword.

In the corner of his vision, he saw that he had a notification, so he left the corpse where it was, no longer interested, and climbed into the purple trees.

Sitting down, he opened the notification.

You are a sick bastard! Luckily for you, that’s very welcome in this place.

The reward for killing Rogue Jungle Wolf: 1,000 points

Lebowski’s giggling stopped as he read the blue box.

Again, he was rewarded points for his kill, but nothing indicated that he grew his path of Cultivation. After pulling up his status screen, Lebowski saw his Cultivation still sat at 0.

Closing everything, Lebowski was about to resume his wandering when he felt a pain in his side. The adrenaline wore off, and he felt every scrape and slice the wolf left during their brawl.

Lifting his bloodied, tangled shirt, he saw a gash run across his chest where the wolf’s paw hit him. Pulling up The Store, Lebowski scrolled through the catalog until he found what he wanted. He spent 750 points on a medical kit.

So, you got a little roughed up, huh? What a surprise.

This pack will contain ten bandages. Wrap the bandages around the wound, and it will begin to heal rapidly.

Cost: 750 points

A small first aid box appeared in his ring. Storing his tooth-marked cane and trading it out with the medical supplies, Lebowski opened up the box. Inside were ten long pieces of white cloth. The cloth smelled like honey and ambrosia.

Taking one out, Lebowski wrapped it around his side, covering the wound. The pain went away, and the bandages filled his body with warmth. It was like riding a high of a drug. What a wonderful feeling it was. Lebowski took out another cloth and wrapped it around his leg, even though he had no wounds there. The feeling was blissful and dominating.

Before he could grab another, Lebowski stopped, slapping himself across the face. The fog in his mind began to wash out. He didn’t stop hitting himself until his face was red, and all he could feel was a stinging, tingling pain overwhelming him.

Lebowski let the pain wash over him, focusing him. It was much better than having his mind wander into insanity. Or was it? He didn’t know; this environment seemed to cater to insanity.

Regardless, his body felt much better. However, he needed more points if he was going to survive, and he only had 330 as of now.

Still wearing his clothes stained in blood, Lebowski adjusted his straw hat, unbuttoned the remaining buttons on his Hawaiian shirt, and began to waltz, hunting through the jungle, a smile plastered on his face.