When I woke up from my forced nap I immediately felt like I was in danger.

I had yet to even open my eyes but something told me that I should be running.

Very slowly and carefully I opened my eyes and started to take note of my surroundings, when my eyes failed to find the source of the suffocating danger I felt I started to pay more attention to my hearing.

After about five seconds of listening very carefully, I found what was most likely the source of the fear. I could hear not even 10 feet away behind me something rustling around.

Very very slowly I angled my head backward in an attempt to see what was making the noise, and when I finally got my head into position I found myself staring into the eyes of the biggest fox I had ever seen before.

Knowing the jig was up so to say I jumped to my feet and sprinted away from the massive beast. As I ran it became quickly obvious that I was not going to be able to outrun the monster, it was just too fast. So I started to put together a shoddy plan in my mind on the spot. Up ahead I could see a tree with a low hanging but solid limb, I was pretty sure that I could make it to the limb before the beast caught up with me but if I couldn’t I had bigger problems.

So with more athleticism than I had ever displayed before I jumped and pulled myself up onto the limb with the creature right behind me nearly biting my foot off. luckily my plea to the gods of physics had been answered as the now airborne fox slammed headfirst into the tree I was running towards. Knowing I only had a moment I quickly focused on my hand and pushed more life-force into a magic missile than I ever had before.

I was extremely relieved when a massive magic missile launched out of my hand and turned the muscly foxes head into meat paste with a sound that could make a jet breaking the sound barrier cry in shame.

Exhausted from my dash of death I leaned back against the trunk of the tree still sitting on its branch.

I was unsurprised when a blue box popped up in front of me.

Congratulations on killing your first hostile beast!

Monsters such as the lesser forest fox you just defeated contain a Life-Force crystal, these crystals can be absorbed for Life-force equal to a portion of the defeated beasts stats. Life-force crystals also attract ambient Life-Force to them.

Feeling a bit more relaxed I jumped down from the branch I was sitting on and walked up to the foxes corpse. Considering where the crystal might be kept I prepared myself for a rather disgusting search to find it but a last-minute idea hit me.

Opening up my status screen I noticed some changes but I ignored them and instead focused on my Empowerments, Seeking said it was able to find ingredients and there was a high chance that this lifeforce crystal would count as an ingredient.

Figuring it was worth a shot I activated seeking and felt a small amount of life-force flow into somewhere in my chest and eyes before bursting away from my body.

In a fit of luck, a small crystalline shape started glowing from within the foxes skull, looking around I could see numerous objects glowing different colors. Deciding I could do some experiments with the ability later I deactivated it and considered how I was going to get the crystal out of its skull.

Pulling the knife I had taken from my house out of my bag I first tried to just penetrate the corpses head and with a bit of effort I was able to create a sizable gash, doing my best not to throw up I stuck my hand into the crevice and pulled out a small orange-colored crystal. Wiping it and my hands against the ground to clean them of blood I started to look at the stone more carefully.

It was slightly transparent and a bit murky in a dark orange color. Looking at it mentally I could see a flow of ambient lifeforce being attracted to the stone. It wasn’t much but it was something. Putting it into my pocket I started to consider the aspects I had skipped earlier on my status screen.

Status: Name: Jake Voidle

Life-force: 80

Ambient Life-force: 250

Titles:

Rare, sub:Variant: Tutorial, Going Against the Odds - Expand

Rare, Hidden: Lone Wolf - Expand

Affinity: Star Magic, Space Magic

Abilities:

Common: Mental Resistance Lvl.1 - Expand

Rare, sub:Unique: Discoverers Mind Lvl.2 - Expand

Legendary, Unique, Blessing: Astral Empowerment - Expand

Epic, Unique: Otherworld Workshop Lvl.1 - Expand

Stats: Strength: 12 Intelligence: 13 (13.65) Endurance: 12 Wisdom: 16 Dexterity: 16 Charisma: 8 Hidden Stats: (must be discovered to add points) Willpower: 19 (21.85)

Clicking expand on both Lone Wolf and Otherworld Workshop two more windows opened up.

Lone Wolf:

a hidden title not revealed to the owner unless deemed necessary.

this title prevents the owner from joining system structured party, towns and guilds (or creating them).

this title grants the owner Passive: Danger sense, subconsciously know when in danger.

this title is NOT permanent, changes to the owner's mindset could result in loss of this title.

Otherworld Workshop Lvl.1:

On activation, this ability opens a portal to a small pocket dimension workshop. this workshop can be upgraded similar to a town. at level 1 only the user can enter this dimension.

Right off the bat, my title explained one of the questions I had, the danger sense ability was likely what I had to thank for why I was still alive as it had warned me about the fox when I woke up.

I have mixed feelings about the title though. On the one hand, danger sense saved my life and was clearly a valuable ability to have. On the other not being able to join a system created party, guild, or town is a high price to pay for an ability. Strength in numbers is a very real thing, and while I don’t know what the benefits of either of those three things are I assume they do give some sort of benefit.

I was very intrigued by my new Otherworld Workshop though. The idea of having a mobile space to work on projects or experiments was a very exciting prospect and the fact that I could upgrade it like a town was even more exciting.

With some of my adrenaline from my fight wearing off I started to think a bit clearer. Mainly my magic missile made a ton of noise not to mention a bloody corpse would probably attract scavengers. Sticking around where I am is a bad idea.

I also still need supplies, before the events with the portal I was looking for food and water. So once again orienting myself I started running towards the nearest house.

A few miles away a group of four people was fighting a fox similar to the one jake had just encountered.

when the fox finally fell the group started to harvest its crystal but were startled by a giant boom off in the distance.

glancing in the direction of the sound one of the women in the group said "we should probably go check that out."

the group of four walked in Jake's direction and he was none the wiser.