Byron appeared in a lush forest, vibrant and teeming with life, massive trees so tall that they pierce the clouds, Bugs the size of his hand.

It all terrified him.

The forest made him feel small, the bugs he squashed as a kid now could kill him, Byron’s desire to become stronger intensified.

He looked around, checking his surroundings for any type of danger, seeing that there wasn’t any at the moment he relaxed a little.

Ding!

[Welcome to the first test! Survival! In this test, the system will test your ability to survive certain situations with minimal to no tools at all.

The system has randomly placed all 5,000 participants in a random spot on the map, killing other participants will grant you random temporary rewards.

Worry not! The system will respawn killed participants killed in the test and have their memories wiped so they won’t be truly dead only 4,000 can move on to the next round. The system will shrink the map every day until the requirements are met. Good luck!

Note: Hunting monsters gives xp]

Byron nodded silently. The system wouldn’t kill that many users so easily, since that would be illogical.

He had already expected something similar to what the system had said to happen.

He picked a random path and took off he knew to survive, he’d need water, food, and a basic shelter to shield him from the elements.

Byron knew that much, what came after though? He wasn’t so sure, but he would deal with that later. Using his skill drain-life, he moved quickly, leaving a trail of dead plants and bushes behind him.

He continued to move until he reached one of the massive trees he saw in the distance.

Its smallest root towered over him, Byron placed his hand on it and activated his skill Drain-life. The area in contact with his hand lost its color slowly, soon it became dry and semi-brittle.

He punched it with his enhanced strength, easily breaking through the semi-brittle layer.

He repeated this until he had hallowed out a space big enough for him to live in comfort with ample space.

Satisfied with his work, Byron searched the area to ensure it was safe. After searching for a while, He found no signs of danger, so he moved on to the other plans.

Byron used his drain life skill whenever he could, taking full advantage of the jungle’s abundant life to hone and maybe level up his skills.

In just a few hours of using it, it hit level three while searching for a source of water.

Ding!

[Drain-life is now level 3.]

‘Status’

[Name: Byron

Int:20

str:20

Mp:20

Hp:200

Skills:

Super strength (1) Improved intellect (1) drain life (3) Burn life-force (1) summon shadow (1)

SP: 0]

Byron sighed, his happiness was now replaced with mild depression.

How could he have forgotten he had the summon shadow skill? he needed to have a better memory.

He knew forgetting a skill might mean death when in a fight, every second was precious and having a skill that could stop an enemy’s attack or counter it could turn the tides.

Forgetting you had such a skill means certain death.

Byron wanted to test it out, but he needed a dead body first. He had encountered no monsters so far, so he didn’t have any, but he was okay with that.

On his way back from searching for water, he drained a few small bushes.

Then, using his enhanced strength, he crushed them to dust and threw them on the ground in his hollowed-out tree root until it felt comfortable to sleep on.

The time was already getting dark, and he didn’t find any food or water, but as a level 2 he could last a few months without foot but he’d be incredibly weak in that period so it wasn’t worth it unless he didn’t have any other choice.

Byron was planning on traveling further tomorrow in the direction of the root he was in faced.

He knew trees needed water and with such a massive tree nearby, there had to be water close.

Unless it was feeding off the system’s mana and using it to sustain itself, but Byron remained optimistic. He had somewhere to sleep, only food and a clean source of water remained.

The lack of light didn’t bother him.

He was used to living in darkness after years of work in the sewers, though having a source of light was nice and useful but also dangerous, he didn’t know if it would attract the monsters on this map to his place of rest while he was asleep and defenseless, but didn’t want to find out.

Byron closed his eyes, the outside world fading away as he entered a meditative state.

………….

……..

…

..

Sometime later, Byron opened his eyes and stood up, dusted off himself, stretched a little, and headed left, moving briskly. The sun still hadn’t risen fully, so he guessed it was still morning.

Byron had heard adventurers say that most monsters would not come out in the mornings before the system descended.

He wasn’t sure if it changed that, but all he could do was hope that if he encountered something, it wouldn’t be too strong.

Ding!

[Congratulations, you survived day 1. Welcome to day 2! Monsters will become more active, chests will appear in areas with high ambient mana.

Chest ranks

1 common

2 uncommon

3 rare

4 [Locked until test 2]

5 [Locked until test 2]

1% of the map has been taken away

500 test participants died on day 1]

Byron cursed inwardly, the system wanted this test over quickly.

The number of people dying would only rise as now people have something valuable on them if they found a chest.

He sped up using burn life-force to enhance his speed. He coated his fingers with drain life to get an extra grip as he ran alongside the tree’s roots like an agile spider.

Only stopping to rest and recover MP.