Ricardo woke on his stomach, feeling like shit.

A minor part of him told him he should be happy for being alive, but the larger part of him just wanted to die. He felt that awful, like the worst hangover multiplied by a million. Thankfully, that part also refused to give up, just to spite the damn Omniheaven that had made his life hell.

There was something above him. It was slightly heavy, with a texture that felt uncomfortable on his skin. He tried to move it away and his body hurt like hell. As if the pain from his first time in the gym had also been multiplied by a million. He managed to barely move his right arm, but it was trembling and took a lot of effort. He wanted to yell in pain, but he gritted his teeth to avoid attracting anything and kept pushing.

Time lost meaning while he did his best to take that thing from him and sit. He knew he should open his eyes and assess his surroundings, but he just couldn't. He didn't want to know if a beast was coming for him, if his death had just been delayed.

He was terrified.

Eventually, he sat down with his back to the slope and took a deep breath — a painful one — before opening his eyes.

The world was still dark, and the clock on the edge of his vision showed it was a little past eleven — which made him realize the system wasn't visible with his eyes closed. The glowing eyes on the water were gone, and so were the red eyes on top of the slope.

He was alone.

Not that there were no beasts around, they just weren't alive. Carcasses of rats were everywhere, all mostly eaten, and the lower half of a black alligator's jaw was right next to him. The beasts had fought each other in the end.

He identified the thing that had been above him as a former alligator, eaten to the skin. Likely, the only thing that saved his life had been it dying above him and covering his body.

No, that sounded wrong. Thousands of rats wouldn't stop after eating the alligator. These rats could excavate to get to their food in his shelter, so they could just go beneath the beast and eat him too.

Something else had happened, but he didn't know enough to reach a conclusion.

Either way, he trembled at the realization of how close he had been to death. How he was still close to it because of how difficult it was to even move his arm, much less fight.

He needed to go back to safety. He faintly remembered running towards his bridge and when he looked around, he saw it not too far from him. That was his target.

His weakness would be an issue. He had to move the metal plank to bridge the gap to his bridge, and it had required some effort even when he was in peak condition. He didn't know if his handless arm would support any weight on it.

The thought made him sigh. He had been avoiding looking at his stump, but it was time. The sight made him frown. Not only because his belt had disappeared in his sleep — together with the jacket tied to his waist — but also because the flesh was already starting to cover the bone.

A long time ago, his grandfather, who had diabetes, stupidly manned up through a foot injury for weeks without going to the doctor. It ended up with him having to amputate half his toes and, when it got infected, half his foot. It had taken a long time to heal, almost two years, and Ricardo had looked at the stump multiple times throughout the process.

His grandfather's amputation had been a clear cut made with surgical instruments. Still, right after the surgery, the muscle and sawed bone were visibly damaged. It took weeks for his grandfather's recovery to reach the point where Ricardo now found himself.

Right then, a system message appeared minimized. He expanded it to check it out.

Interactive Tutorial: Injuries and Qi

You have noticed a higher healing capability than you should have, and you are right!

This is happening because the system has infused a lot of qi in your world. Some of it was to evolve non-sapient beings, but only 10% of them survived and the Qi used on the dead ones was released on the air. Instead of taking the qi back, the system has allowed it to stay in your world as part of the Species Directive: Crucible of Valor.

Everything in the world is already passively absorbing the surplus qi, especially living beings. It will slowly improve your bodies. Increased healing speed is one such improvement.

There's a limit to how much you can absorb without a cultivation method. Passive absorption will not allow you to reach the next tier in the Regeneration attribute.

The system suggests you take advantage of the extra qi to feel it as soon as possible. The longer you stay in a qi-infused area, the harder it will be for you to feel the difference qi makes when compared to before your world was assimilated into the Omniverse.

It was good to know only ten percent of the animals and plants had turned into beasts. The fewer of them to eat him, the better.

A mystic energy surrounding everything and helping him heal made sense, considering everything he was going through. That it was just surplus energy from failed mutations felt mundane even, as if he were eating the leftovers from a restaurant's kitchen. Something he had done plenty of times before his father hit the jackpot.

The system's suggestion made him feel conflicted.

He had noticed nothing different in the air right when the qi fell on Earth and the animals started mutating. What were the odds of him feeling the difference now? On the other hand, he had been too freaked out and worried about surviving to pay attention to anything.

It wouldn't hurt to try it, he guessed. He'd do it as soon as he was back to his bridge.

For now, he was thirsty as hell and looked around for his backpacks, but found only one of them, the one holding the head. Something had taken the one with his food, so getting back to the bridge had become even more important.

Trying to stand up brought a ridiculous amount of pain. Although his hand's skin was healing well- wait, that reminded him, what about the bites? He checked, and the skin had healed, although the flesh the rats had eaten away was still missing. There were many extra bites too, so they had gotten to him while he was asleep, before he was saved by whatever happened.

Anyway, although his skin was healing well, he felt like something was piercing the very bones of his right foot. It made him sure all the running had made his toes even worse. Qi wasn't helping with the internal injury as much as it was the damaged skin. Something to remember.

The pain made him decide on waiting a little more before making a push to the bridge. He wasn't in any more danger in here than he would be while limping all the way there.

With nothing better to do, he opened his Experience Window, to see what he had exchanged his hand for.

Experience Module

Total: 21,312 points

Power:

G-2 » G-3 — 5,994 XP

Lifespan:

F » E — 1,057,342 XP

Regeneration:

G » F — 117,482 XP

Talent:

D » C — 12,688,099 XP

If he remembered well, he had a little under eight thousand XP before, which meant he had received around thirteen thousand XP for his troubles.

That was the price of his mutilation. Crippled for life to increase his XP by a pitifully meager amount.

Now that he knew how dangerous it was to hunt for XP, he realized how ridiculously expensive the prices to upgrade his stats were. Those stats also didn't have levels between the tiers, which made it even more of a challenge to accumulate the required XP. He was glad he could grow his power through smaller steps.

But even those small steps were hard to take.

He realized how naïve he had been, wanting to use a small window of opportunity to farm for some quick and easy XP. But XP should be earned slowly and steadily. Safely. Developing himself was a long-term project, not something to do on a whim during a single walk.

He laughed miserably as he remembered he couldn't even use the damn XP.

That said, while thirteen thousand might not be much in the grand scale of things, it was an enormous amount for the current him. He had killed a lot of rats, but G-1 rats only provided 5 XP and he hadn't killed so many of them. Curious about it, he checked the top defeated enemies' list.

Top Defeated Enemies

[Being — Power — Experience Points Received]

1. Mutated Saber-Toothed Hound — G-5 — 4,050 XP (new)

2. Mutated Capypard — G-4 — 2,592 XP

3. Evolved Wicked Rat — G-4 — 2,592 XP (new)

4. Mutated Long-Limbed Pigeon — G-3 — 1,242 XP (new)

5. Evolved Strong Rat — G-3 — 1,242 XP (new)

6. Mutated Rat — G-2 — 594 XP (new)

7. Evolved Rat — G-1 — 5 XP

In his chaotic run, he had killed at least one G-4 and one G-3 rat. Together with the new G-2 rat entry, it helped draw a picture of where all that XP had come from. He also tried checking the Experience Gain Backlog, but of his last ten kills, one was a G-3 rat and the others were a mix of G-2s and G-1s.

He took a deep breath. It was time to think about what he could've done better, how to improve, and what to do in the future.

The more he thought about it, the more pissed with himself he became. He had lost a fight to a bunch of rats. It didn't matter how many they were; it was pathetic. If it wasn't for him lucking out in finding the alligators, that would have been the end of his journey, his story, his existence. Some weak beasts would've gotten rid of him for good. Even his survival had come at a steep cost.

His hand was gone. His life almost had been taken too. His reality had become hell.

Suddenly, his heartbeat increased, and his breath became ragged. He forced himself to breathe as deeply as possible. The last thing he needed was hyperventilating or becoming emotionally unstable.

It took him a while, focusing on breathing, concentrating on not falling apart. His mind tried to drift, to think of death and carnage. His body in pieces. Intelligent beasts binding body and drinking his blood, feeding him so he could live a long time like a blood bag.

He fought against it.

He thought of the pleasure of winning against the hound. Swinging his wrench with abandon. Raising it into the air and letting out a primal roar from the depths of his soul.

His situation sucked, yes, and he had lost a hand, but he would thrive. He would come out on top. He would face death in the eye time and time again in this apocalypse, and victory would be his.

That's who he was. The thought of the sweet release of death had been nothing but a fleeting thing. He was more than that, better, forged through a thousand social battles and ready for the physical ones on his way.

He would learn from his mistakes and improve himself. His errors would become lights in the darkness to show him the way to greatness. For if he didn't fix them, darkness would consume him.

He would survive.

Eventually, his breath normalized, and the internal pep talk also gave him the strength to stand up.

Inch by inch, manning through the pain, he stood on his feet. He got his backpack, his wrench that wasn't too far, and started walking. He hung a corner of the alligator's hide on top of the wrench and pulled it with him.

His bridge awaited. His new place in the world. His new corner of safety.

Home.