He looked around the tunnel. How the hell would he remember this spot? There was nothing but grey-green bricks all around, it was completely identical to the other tunnels. He needed to make some sort of sign, something to remind himself of this spot.

He took one of his arrows and leaned it against the wall. The entrance to Folum’s home was to the beside the arrow. With that setup, Arne looked around. He could go either right or left and chose to go left.

The tunnel continued. Shadow woke up and barked. The bark echoed through the hollow tunnel. Not a single response. The air felt heavy and still. There was no sound beside his steps.

Arne got the feeling that he was far below the ground. Why was the dungeon so big? Arne continued travelling down the tunnel, which eventually became a crossroad. He took another right and continued walking.

His stomach growled. He saw a cockroach crawl over the wall. He imagined Folum eating it, his appetite disappeared. He continued walking forward.

He had a lot of rats to kill before he could exit. Arne thought about what the most effective strategy was for killing giant rats. Did he have any options. He could only shoot single shots, was there even any strategy to this? But that wasn’t the hole truth.

Saying, Archers only shoot arrows, is like saying swordsmen only swing swords. There’s a lot more to it. Many different techniques with their own benefits and downfalls. A swordsman didn’t have to be weak at ranged battles whilst an archer didn’t have to be weak at short battles.

Arne heard squeaking deeper in the tunnel. He stealthily walked closer. There was a group of three rats. He’d have his first battle now. He activated focus. He could activate it without saying anything now.

He shot his arrow and it landed on rat 1.

“Bow mastery 12.3/1000”

Rat 1 jumped in shock, blood began pouring out. Rat 2 & 3 quickly spotted Arne and charged him. Shadow growled, but hid behind Arne’s leg. The two rats continued running, pink tails dragged against the ground.

Arne fumbled for another arrow but before he could get another shot of the two rats leaped onto him. Rat 2 grabbed onto his chest and bit through his skin like paper. Rat 3 grabbed and pulled his right leg. He fell onto his back.

Whilst rat 3 mangled his right leg, he wrestled rat 2 off himself. Rat 2 fur felt dirty and rough, it scratched against his palms. It barred its two white front teeth , they were split apart like palms. It jerked left and right trying to escape his grip.

“Shadow help!” He shouted.

In his mind he heard a whimper, “Scawwy rats.”

“Shadow!” He screamed.

Shadow hesitantly bit into Rat 3 and pulled him away. They began wrestling, rolling all over the ground. They were equally matched. Arne wrapped his free legs around Rat 2, restricting its movements. He grabbed an arrow with his free hand and stuck it into the rat. Blood wetted the fur, the rat slowly lost its strength.

Arne threw off the corpse and went to aid Shadow. Now 2 on 1, the rat died. Shadow was especially furious and wouldn’t let go off its neck even after it had turned lifeless.

“+4 Xp”

“+4 Xp”

“+4 Xp”

“Level up!”

He laid on the ground. His leg hurt, his chest was wet and warm, blood still flowed out. It had begun making a puddle around him. The system didn’t kid when it said that his vitality was 1. He felt incredibly weak.

Shadow dropped the rat, slowly walked towards Arne, licked the blood. He went over to Arne and licked his face, Shadow whined. Arne brought his warm hand and pet Shadow before passing out.

He woke up. He was practically in a pool of now cold blood. Shadow lay asleep beside him. He looked at the timer to his top right.

“Time remaining 04:07:39:57”

He had been out for nearly two hours. He brought his hand to his chest, it was dry, and cold. Actually, his hand was also cold, it looked strangely pale. The tattoos on his arms looked more vivid than ever.

His mangled leg had not healed one bit. He would have problems hunching his way forward, let alone walking with this leg. He needed a healer but there wasn’t one.

He got up. Strangely the rest of his body didn’t feel sore at all. Arne thought, “How am I still alive? I was sure I’d bleed out.”

He asked the system, “What happened?.” Hoping to clear out some of the confusion.

“Error!”

“What happened?” He asked again, slightly annoyed.

“Error!”

He hit his fist into the ground, it hurt like hell. He hit his hand against the ground, it felt like it would shatter. His body was incredibly weak, getting stronger could become a hindrance.

He said, “Assignment.”

----

Assignment:

Points to distribute: 0

Powershot: 0

Rapid shot: 1

Focus: 1

Shadow bow: 1

Shadow warp: 0

Shadow shot: 0

----

Luckily it worked. He didn’t know what he’d do if this didn’t work. In four days time, he needed to have slain at least 10 goblins. He needed to become stronger, and fast. Otherwise he was dead.

He thought about the abilities. Shadow bow was an interesting ability which had the potential to become strong. If he got a shadow shot then he’d have practically an infinite amount of arrows.

That could prove very useful in this current scenario. He still wasn’t sure what shadow warp was about. His other two, more basic skills looked useful as well, especially rapid shot considering how many rats there was.

It was either shadow shot or rapid shot, and right now. He went with a rapid shot. Considering that he had arrows, but not enough time to shoot them.

He tried standing up. He couldn’t. He couldn’t waste time, he needed to continue. He thought about it, thought about a solution. He brainstormed and stopped just before his head would burst. He had an idea.

The system had listed that he could change his race. He could change into a race with healing abilities. He opened the system and scrolled through the options.