You know what? While getting out of the Ashen Ironbark Forest was nice, I still had no clue where to go. I'd been flying for a few hours already, and I still couldn't find any place that could tell me where I was. So if I had to describe the space around me, I would use two words.

Igneous Hellscape...

It was dry, destroyed, and almost everything was covered in ash and blaze. The only interesting things here were the groups of reptilian horses that passed by me from time to time. Really, how long did I need to fly to even find some water? And it wasn't like there was just one single source of water anyway! There were countless pools of water everywhere, but they all looked like someone put them on a shove and set it to boil.

Right now, I could have sworn I saw a huge dragon flying overhead. Doesn't help to look for this stupid Hellfire Isle.

"Are you ok, boyfriend Gazei?" Lianna called out to me over the roar of the wind. "Your face looks a little red."

Not this again! "I'm not your boyfriend Lianna! I just gon' over this over twelve times! I'm your boss!"

"Oh sorry!" The chippy hatchling, white wyrmling, the black and yellow plates hatchling, and finally, the green hatchling that helped killed the Level 8 [White Hatchling]

Maybe bringing them along was a bad idea. But seeing as I didn't really know where to go either, I figured they would be useful. It turned out that having a bunch of pixies to bounce ideas off of was great. Especially since they seemed to get excited when we found something new and interesting.

The others— the survivors from the encounter— had left without me. None of them turned around to try and help us when I confronted the large Wyrmling. They just ran away.

Not that it mattered to me; somehow I knew that if they had helped out, I would have gained less experience from killing it, which would have given me fewer levels too. So I actually preferred that they stayed out of the fight.

Only the green hatchling, who barely talks, by the way, got some exp out of it.

Anyway, it was not like I was happy with the number of levels I gained in the first place. I had tripled my levels, going from Level 3 to Level 6, which meant that I gained five levels worth of experience points. And while that seemed like quite the achievement at first, I still wasn’t satisfied. The large white shithead was Level 8...8! Since I killed it, shouldn’t I be at least Level 8 too?

And that's not the only bad news.

I couldn't evolve my body until I reached the level cap and hunted down certain species of prey.

I still remember the horrible words!:

[Requirements to evolve are not met. Unable to go further.

1. Max level

2. Have 50 points in anyone's stats.

3. Have an eating profile.]

I guess I can't complain... "Zia (I named the white one that) Lianna, and Sett (name of the green one). We are goin' hunt'in for food today."

"Yes, Boss," Zia replied obediently, while Lianna looked up at me with her eyes full of excitement.

"Now listen here. I want you both to stay close to me. And Sett try to smell every damn thing you see so that we can find a good source of meat and water. Got it?"

Both hatchlings nodded eagerly.

I hoped they would do their jobs properly. If they tried to take off on their own, I was going to lose faith in them.

From as far as I can tell, however, the dragon hatchlings that are us. As I call tell we are very basic yet militaristic and not to mention prideful. All hatchlings seem to dislike their own gender or at least not get too friendly as both males and females have their own hierarchy of who is the strongest but it seems they don't mind working with any of the opposite genders. Not to mention births of hatchlings are very low, apparently, no matter the age of the hatchlings involved they can't reproduce together. The system informed me of this after learning I couldn't evolve right away.

"Hey Boss" Zia shook my shoulder with her tail and pointed to the side. Hey, look land. "Horned Rabbit" She flew down straight for the rabbit but the rabbit simply ran from her, both going about the same speed. "Woooowww" Zia stopped to stare at the bunny, while Lianna and Sett followed behind her.

That was pretty smart of the rabbit to run away from Zia. That meant she must have noticed how big the white wyrmling was.

"My turn' I pounced at the rabbit from the front, the rabbit unable to turn in time ended up squashed under my claws. "Gotcha" I grinned 'phew thank goodness I have these claws but even if they work on these rabbits, I will probably need something better for stronger beings'.

"Food" Zia took a large chomp out of the rabbit.

"Hey" I glared at her as she took another chomp. "Don't eat it all by yourself" I dived at her hoping to get at least a bit before she ate it all.

[You have eaten Wu Horned Rabbit]

[+1 to AGI]

[AGI PATH 2/15]

Ok, what is a path?

[Paths are like build my dude. They are affected by many, many factors. Like what you eat, how you build your muscles, the type of body you have, and a lot more. You can increase the size of your paths by feeding it more meat, or building muscle through exercise. You can also make your path smaller by starving it or giving it less food. Eating heavy armour monsters and animals like rhinos or elephants will increase your bone size and density and thus making your path larger.]

So like they different builds? Like in video games. So there are four basic paths, right? The Warrior, Magician, Thief, and Priest. Or maybe there are six because there's a mixture of all of them.

Or am I completely wrong?

Either way, I should probably test this out.

Now, how to improve my mana generation and usage... Maybe Meditation?

Well, not like I had any better ideas. I never really tried to meditate in my last life, so I wouldn't know how to do it now. Still, maybe if I did what every other fanfiction character did in my situation, then it might work? That was a pretty optimistic way of thinking, but it was all I had.

So with that in mind, I tried to remember everything I knew about meditation, fact or fiction. The obvious thing was to relax my body and calm my breathing. All I have to go on is the budda harem manga I read cause girls have nice assets

Now clear my mind and think peaceful thoughts... Think less sinful thoughts and I better get a human skill or I will kill myself If I don't. Aight time for me to make budda proud!

So Meditation here I come… Yay.

...

...

...

"Oh for fuck sake, why is it so hard? Every other gamer in fanfiction just sat down once and got the skill within a minute. Why is it not working for me!?" I whined a bit. Hey, don't judge me, I never was the most patient person.

Still, I would need to try it again. If it didn't work within the next few hours, then either I was doing something wrong or the skill just didn't exist. I really hope that it was the former because meditation always gave some neat bonuses.

[You created a new skill.]

【Meditation (Passive): Lv 1 (0%】

Know your body and mind. An ancient technique used to relax your body and mind, and discover inner peace. Use this skill to truly understand yourself and increase your own abilities.

-Passively increases MAG by 5%.

-When not in battle, you can meditate to recover your MP and HP at a higher rate.

-When not in battle, MP and HP recovery rate increased to 10%/min]

"Bitchin!" I said with a smile on my face. Now if only I could figure out how exactly I needed to do this, then I could start using it properly.

It was already dark, but I finally did it. And the bonuses on this skill were so good. I wonder how much they would increase upon levelling it up. Now that the meditation skill was available to me, I understood it a bit better. It was a bit weird being able to automatically understand things when I had a skill relating to specific actions. Not that I was complaining, any additional knowledge was welcomed with open arms... Sorta.

Ah well, let's just enjoy the benefits.

"Boss! We found a herd of Pryo-Rhinoceros!" Zia pointed to the ground below, and sure enough, there were hoof prints in the dirt.

"Alright, go into hunting formation 12!"

Lianna and Sett nodded and both started to fly towards the herd.

Rhinoceroses were awesome. They had horns that were longer than my entire body. Plus, their meat was as tasty as it was rare.

"Zia zap the herd into a stampede so that Lianna and Sett can catch it easier!" I ordered her over the roar of the wind.

"Yesssss Boss!" Zia flapped her wings and flew down for a direct attack. But it seemed the Rhinos weren't too impressed by the white wyrmling's presence.

The Rhinos are different from the ones I know on Earth. They have small horns compared to Earth ones, and their fur is a lot lighter. Also, they blood fur! In a volcanic place no less!

[Pyro-Rhinoceros are large red-furred rhinoceros whose bodies are mostly covered in ash and sulfur due to the hot and active volcanoes of Ingi Valley, making them appear as though they are made of magma. Even their horns look like they are made of volcanic rock. Their eyes are pitch black and have bright red pupils which give them an intimidating appearance. Its body temperature is very high, so fire attacks burn its skin and can cause its horn to melt. They are also weak against ice attacks since they are cold-blooded creatures. Pyro-Rhinoceros are very aggressive and attack anything that moves. Because of stats viewer Lv 2 you can see their weakness. Weakness is located near the base of their horn.]

"Change of planes target the base of their horns when they start runnin'. Zia do it now!" I commanded her as the three Rhinos started to charge at Zia.

"On it boss!" Zia changed directions quickly and zapped one of the Rhinos. The beast rolled around as if it had been hit by a car.

This caused the herd to stop charging immediately.

"That's that! Let's go catch our dinner!" Sett flew down to the ground, while Lianna stayed up in the air.

"Boss! Follow me!" Lianna flew down and landed beside the herd of Rhinos.

"I'm coming too, boss," Zia called out as she joined Lianna and me.

Lianna used her poison claws on one of the Rhinos. "Here goes nothin'," She said, slicing the animal's horns

"Aaahhhh! Burn!" Another Rhino came at us fast.

"Sett! Hit him with Tail Smash!"

Sett for some reason is the strongest out of the four of us. With me bein' in second place, not by much. Zia in third and Lianna in last. Sett's tail connected with the Rhino's head, causing it to collapse to the ground instantly.

"We got it!" I called out. "Time to feast!" I sliced through the Rhinos' necks with my claws.

[ATT Path 1/15]

[+1 ATT]

"Mmmhmmm, yummy." Both Lianna and I shared a bite out of the Rhino's neck. It tasted great.

[DEF Path 1/15]

[+1 DEF]

On that's givin' me some ideas...

The next day

My grinding came to an end when I saw the shining sun on the horizon. It was a nice sight to see after being contained in the Land of Darkness for a few days. Still, during the night I managed to get three levels in meditation, but I didn't come any closer to unlocking my aura. This was expected so I wasn't mad, just a tad disappointed.

Apart from the meditation, I spammed my feather spears a lot, and to my surprise the skill gained some nice effects.

【Feather Daggers: Lv 5 (13%)】

Fire Dagger-like feathers from your wings at your enemy. It is one of the basic abilities of the Avian Wu Hatchlings.

-Cost: 5 MP per projectile (1% chance of not consuming MP)

-Damage based on your MAG x1.1

-5% chance to inflict bleeding (5 DMG/sec for 10 seconds)

-30% chance to penetrate weak armour]

I never thought that such a basic skill would slowly evolve into something more powerful. While the chance to not consume MP was small, it was still there. Even ten percent on that would be overpowered later on. Then there was the bleeding effect. Again, only five percent, but hopefully later on the chances would become higher.

The only thing I was a bit miffed about was the penetration chance. If level eleven only gave you a thirty per cent chance, then when would I be able to get through something stronger?

[You can upgrade your skill.]

[Celeri Ignis (Rapid Fire): Your feathers travel faster, similar to a submachine gun. You will fire three projectiles at once, and each shot has a 20% chance of inflicting bleeding instead of 5%. The chance increases with your level up by 1% per level. Each individual feather does less damage than before, but the overall amount is increased.]

-

[Gladius Pugio (Dagger Sword): Your feathers changed from daggers to swords. Increase in power and armour penetration. The chance of penetration increase with your level. Each individual dagger deals more damage than before but travels slower now. Also, every attack has a 2% chance of causing a bleeding effect, an increase of the base damage based on ATT and body size.

Which one should I take? What would give me better results? This is where I was going wrong; I had no idea what was best. Then again, the last choice was just as good as the first one.

Question what type of build I should take for myself?