Heat flooded my body causing steam to rise from me as the changes began to take place, followed by loud cracking sounds as my bones lengthened slightly before condensing back down becoming far tougher than they had been mere seconds ago. My muscles underwent a similar change feeling like they were about to burst free of my skin before relaxing back down. My skin thickened in places but somehow became more supple overall. Everything became brighter and clearer than it had as well as my senses sharpened. I also felt far better than I should’ve considering my broken arm which began cracking and popping once more as the broken bone started to heal and I quickly grabbed my wrist and pulled on it so that it wouldn’t heal crooked, biting back a scream of pain as I did so.

The other changes were harder to discern right now but I knew that my ability to recall certain events had also increased as well as my ability to process information due to my increased Wisdom and Intelligence. There were of course no obvious effects due to the increases to my Charisma and Willpower right now but that was to be expected from those two Stats, especially Charisma which only really had any effect in social situations which I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to have to deal with until the Yajash arrived.

It only took about a minute for my arm to heal to the point where I felt that it was safe to let go, it wasn’t properly healed of course but it was well on the way and unless I did anything really stupid it would probably be fine.

All in all I felt better than I ever had before in this new body despite the lingering pain from my broken arm and for a split second I resented the fact that people back on Earth were unable to Level Up and become strong like this before I realised that considering the method that one gained the Experience needed to Level Up that was probably a good thing. I was pretty sure that killing another human would provide far more Experience than killing something else which would only lead to detestable people becoming so strong that it would be all but impossible to stop them.

“Still though,’ I muttered under my breath. “I feel great.”

Yeah, I was pretty sure that Levelling Up was going to be habit forming.

Shaking my head to clear the unnecessary thoughts I realised that I needed to use my Unassigned Stat Points and then keep moving so I brought up my Stats and placed 4 points into my Agility for the extra speed. 2 points into both Endurance and Constitution for the extra Stamina and Stamina regen and 3 into Willpower because that was the Stat that I was planning on focussing on the most from now on then looked over my Stats quickly.

Status

Level 2

Exp: 2%

HP: 85/167

MP: 9/272

HP Regen: 15.9 per minute

MP Regen: 20.1 per minute

SP: 42/123

Essence: 11

SP Regen: 10.9 per minute

Control Points: 23.4 (13.4)

Str: 9 (+3/Lvl)

Agi: 22 (+5/Lvl)

Con: 25 (+ 4/Lvl)

End: 17 (+6/Lvl)

Tou: 24 (+3/Lvl)

Int: 39 (+21/Lvl)

Coor: 19 (+7/Lvl)

Vit: 28 (+5/Lvl)

Wis: 28 (+13/Lvl)

Will: 40 (+16/Lvl)

Per: 27 (+10/Lvl)

Cha: 16 (+5/Lvl)

Additional Growth Rate: +11 Unassigned Stat Points/Lvl. +20 MP/Lvl. MP regen increased by 1/min per Lvl.

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

I was much more powerful than I had been before Levelling Up, in fact I was so much more powerful than I had been at Level 1 that it was a little worrying. My Control Points seemed a little off too which along with the symbol blinking in the corner of my vision told me that I had Levelled Up some of my Skills not that I really had time to check them right now. But more importantly than the unexpected changes to my Stats was something else and that was if my own growth was anything to go off of then the thing that I had just defeated should’ve mopped the floor with me, hell the Feathered Chimp should’ve been able to kill me!

Of course, that was assuming that the Growth Rates of the average… wait come to think of it are the things that I’ve been fighting animals or monsters. They sure looked pretty monstrous to me!

“That’s it,” I decided. “If it can Level Up then I’m calling it a monster until I’m told otherwise.”

That little issue solved I returned to my previous thoughts and made my way over to the fresh corpse that I had created. It only took me a little while to discover something odd, a puncture wound that I was certain that I hadn’t made. It was tiny compared to the wounds that I had made, like something thin had been stabbed into the monster’s flesh but was surrounded by a hard lump which reminded me of something that made me very uncomfortable.

“This thing was poisoned,” I muttered quietly as a chill suddenly ran down my back. I had to get out of here. I really didn’t want to meet something with venom strong enough to make something that was three Levels higher than me weak enough for me to defeat with a single dose. Even with my Poison Resistance Skill I knew that the chances of me being able to survive something like that were limited. I also knew that me using my Essence Drain on this corpse would be a bad idea which was unfortunate as I was sure that I would receive quite a lot of Essence from it. Essence Drain essentially turned whatever I was using it on into a mummy, draining out anything useful and leaving only a withered husk behind. If I did that then whatever had poisoned this monster which was almost definitely following it would likely start hunting me instead.

Standing up I immediately started running in the same direction that I had been going earlier, following my amoeba which thankfully still seemed to be fine. The excitement and heat that had filled my body upon Levelling Up had now both faded to be replaced only with a sense of danger and foreboding. This world which had for a brief moment seemed so eerily beautiful to me as I ran through the dark now had me watching every shadow for movement once more.

It was only about half an hour later that I finally started to relax a little and marvel once again at how fast I was moving and how little I felt like I was going to run out of breath. I had never really been that interested in running even before I had injured my leg, except under certain circumstances. My family had owned a small house that had originally been built by my grandparents and right outside the house there had been this massive forest that had multiple biking and running tracks. We went less and less as I got older but back when I was in primary school, we went up there every other weekend. When I was a kid I preferred riding my mountain bike to running but every now and again I would go for a run through the woods on one of the tracks that was a little bit too narrow or had too much loose earth to really be safe to ride on at my age and level of skill. It didn’t happen often but when it did, I would be gone for hours exploring the various tracks that I had never seen before, running until I couldn’t any more before slowing down to a walk until my breath returned at which point, I would start running again.

I never really understood why I enjoyed running through the woods like that back on Earth, but I could feel that same sense of wonder and peace fill my body tonight as I bounded along. I wasn’t sure why this sensation was hitting me right now, but I felt my breathing become easier and every step that I took felt faster and longer than the previous ones. I was catching up with the amoeba quickly now, it was still a considerable distance ahead of me but at the speed that I was moving now I estimated that it should only take me about an hour to catch up if we both kept moving at a similar speed, even factoring in any time that I needed to rest and recover my Stamina.

Now that I felt less like I was running for my life I started appreciating the alien scenery like I had been before I stopped noticing all sorts of things that I could never see back on Earth. It would be even more interesting to see this place during the day but with my Dark Vision Skill which I was willing to bet had Levelled Up several times since I had started my late-night flight through the jungle. In fact, I was certain that I was missing a lot of interesting stuff even with my massively increased Perception. Still it wasn’t like I could stop now to admire the scenery, there were plenty of predators on earth who could easily track someone over the sort of distance that I had run. Especially if the person that they were tracking was moving as fast and leaving as obvious a trail as I was, unfortunately I didn’t really know any ways to cover my tracks that wouldn’t slow me down considerably so it wasn’t like I had much of a choice but to keep moving instead and hope that anything following me would just give up or find something else that it’d rather hunt instead of me.

Lost in my thoughts I saw light glinting off of something that had been strung between two trees, causing me to react instinctively and slide underneath it, my speed carrying me for about a metre before my foot caught in a root bringing me to a sudden stop.

“Holy shit!” I snapped. What the hell was that!?”

Looking back the way I had come I frowned when I couldn’t see the thing that I had almost run into and clambered to my feet grumbling irritably as I did so. After patting myself down to make sure I hadn’t lost anything I turned back towards the way that I had come.

“It was probably just a bloody spiderweb anyway,” I muttered before freezing as I remembered both that I wasn’t on Earth anymore and the monster that I had fought earlier had been poisoned by something. These two things weren’t necessarily connected but I was really starting to feel uneasy. Walking a little closer to where I could’ve sworn, I saw whatever it was I stopped once more wen a beam of moonlight passed through the canopy revealing the thread that I had been expecting to see.

“Alright so what does that mean?” I asked myself to make sure to take a look around, both to see if I could see any more of these strings or whatever it was that had made it. However, it was only when I looked up that I saw any real sign of any of these things causing me to spit an oath as I leapt backwards in surprise.

Tangled up in more of the same string that I had avoided earlier was something that looked sort of like someone had taken a pterodactyl and then added another set of wings to it. All four of these fragile wings looked like they were broken leading me to believe that much like spider-silk whatever these strings were made of was a lot stronger than it looked. Something that was driven even further home by the fact this the pterodactyl thing was about the size of a smallish cat or more relevantly a bantam, both of which were considerably larger than anything that even a bird eating spider hunted which didn’t bode well.

“Yeah, dodging that was the right call,” I muttered looking around once more just in case as I tried to decide what course of action to take. For all I knew this entire section of forest was covered in these threads so just running on through wouldn’t end well.

Recalling something I concentrated and brought up the mental vision of the map that the amoeba had made as it travelled through the woods and sure enough this area was one of the ones that it had avoided which told me that even though it wasn’t very smart it was quite good at sensing danger.

“Alright, I’ll go around,” I decided. There was no point in risking going through an area that could be covered in traps in the middle of the night, so I ducked back under the thread that I had noticed earlier making absolutely certain not to so much as brush it. After all if whatever the thing that left it there was anything like a spider then the thread could be acting like an early warning system letting it know that something that it’s threads couldn’t hold on their own had entered its territory so touching it was a bad idea.

Jogging in the same direction that the amoeba had gone I made sure to keep an eye out for any other threads crossing my path as well as for anything watching from the trees. I kept being reminded that despite the beauty of this world it was far more dangerous than my own and it wasn’t like I had any experience of the more dangerous places back on Earth either so I couldn’t let my guard down even for a second.

As I followed the route that the amoeba had scouted out for me, I noticed that it had stopped moving and slowed slightly as I focussed on whatever it was that connected us. I had told it to keep moving through the forest until I caught up so it shouldn’t be stopping unless something had gone wrong. But to my surprise it didn’t seem to be in any danger right now just confused by something, thinking quickly I decided that instead of forcing it forwards it would be a better idea for it to find somewhere to hide while I caught up. This of course shortened the length of time that I had expected that it would take me to catch up with it to about twenty minutes, but it also meant that if anything was following me, I might actually be able to gain a slight advantage which would be nice. Casting magic at the Crawlers from behind the barrier aside I always seemed to be getting myself into situations where I was at a disadvantage, as far as I was concerned the main reason that I was still alive was that I kept getting lucky. That had to change and fast if I was going to survive the rest of the month here by myself.

Levelling Up had massively increased my available MP which would allow me to use most of my spells without fear of running out of MP unless the fight dragged on for a significant length of time or I used Earthen Armour. In fact, I was even able to use either Mana Edge or Shared Senses constantly without running out of MP thanks to my MP regen. It would, however, be a long time before I was going to be able to keep my Earthen Armour active constantly in a fight which was one of the few drawbacks of the powerful spell. Using in brief spurts like I had in the last fight would work but in reality, I probably should’ve used my Mana Barrier spell instead. If that thing hadn’t been weakened by the poison running through its veins, then even one of its attacks could’ve killed me.

Getting to the point where I could actually use Earthen Armour properly was definitely something that I needed to work on which meant that I needed to increase my Wisdom as well as my Willpower. God dammit juggling all of these Stats was difficult. It was just so tempting to focus on increasing one Stat and become really good with Skills that used that Stat but if I didn’t increase things like my Constitution as well then taking even one hit from a monster would kill me. Min-maxing was a common thing in games, in fact pretty much everyone did it but here it would only lead to the death of me. The only real saving grace was that my Soul Aspect gave me a lot of Physical Stats, both immediately and over time as an increase to my Growth Rate. In fact, now that I had finally Levelled Up, I finally felt like I truly appreciated the fact that the Growth Rate system even existed. I had always thought that it was a very useful system that allowed for very organic growth based off of the Skills that you actually used instead of you simply getting a certain number of Stat Points automatically assigned for you that might not necessarily suit the build that you were trying to make which wasn’t unusual in a lot of the video games that I had played.

Yes I was still having to assign quite a lot of my Unassigned Stat Points to Stats that weren’t really ones that I wanted to assign them to right now but that was okay because the Stats that I really wanted to increase were already being increased by my Growth Rate so in a lot of ways using the Unassigned Stat Points to cover my weaknesses was actually a pretty good idea.

In the end I had to slow to a jog to conserve SP as I approached the area where the amoeba had hidden itself. My SP and my Running Skill might have increased but that didn’t mean that I could run at full speed non-stop forever. Not yet anyway.

As I jogged onwards, I finally realised why the amoeba had stopped when the trees started to thin slightly. I had told it to escape through the forest and it had followed that order to the best of its ability. However, it could no longer follow that order when there was no more forest to escape through. I had finally found the edge of the massive jungle that I was starting to fear covered the whole continent that I was on.

Stretching out in front of me for as far as I could see was a massive plain only broken by the occasional hillock or strange plant that seemed to mostly be long leaves. And by long, I mean that even that even the shortest leaves of the one closest to me looked like they were longer than I was tall. I could also see several dark shapes just standing in the middle of nowhere like they were asleep. I couldn’t see them very clearly but whatever they were they were considerably larger than I was so I decided that approaching them carelessly would be a bad idea. I was guessing that these things were some sort of herbivore but there were plenty of herbivores that were dangerous if you pissed them off back on earth and if they could survive in this world then these things would be even more so.

For the first time since arriving here I had a clear view of the night sky, so I took a moment to admire the unfamiliar stars that were shining down on me. As I had expected I couldn’t see any constellations that I recognised which filled me with both a sense of apprehension and excitement. While there were other people that had been brought here by the admin, I doubted I would find any of them until after the Yajash arrived so as far as I was concerned I was the first person to look up and this sky which was truly an odd feeling. To my surprise there was also a single moon that was far larger than the one back on Earth making me dread what the tides must be like here on Edra. But then I remembered that I still had things to do tonight so pulled my gaze away from the unfamiliar heavens.

Calling out mentally to my amoeba I turned to where I knew it was hiding just in time for it to slip out of a hole where water had washed away the earth around a root. The hole that it had hidden in was tiny, but the amoeba’s soft body easily slipped through, it didn’t have any bones or even really any organs that it could damage which was actually the thing I was most excited about. This ability would allow it to hide from anything more powerful than it while still letting me know what was coming or get the drop on something that was weaker than it.

“Alright then,” I said as I reached down to pick up the amoeba, noticing as I did so that it had grown larger again. “I suppose we should get to the top of one of those hills over there and have a look around.”

Picking my path carefully to avoid the massive beasts that dotted the landscape I made my way across the plains towards one of the larger hills. Once I reached the top of the hill I looked around once more.

In the distance I could see a small river but other than that the plains seemed to continue on for miles without a sign of anywhere to hide from predators. I could see some massive mountains in the distance but I knew from experience that they would be further away than I thought they were so there was little point in even considering trying to reach their foothills in the hopes of finding a better place to set up a settlement.

Which meant that the best place to create a settlement probably lay back in the forest behind me. Which actually made more sense to me anyway as I recalled that the Yajash seemed to like living in forests anyway. Turning back to the forest with a sigh I marvelled at the sea of green that spread out to both the left and right as far as I could see. I knew that it was a very dangerous place but there should be places where I could hide a few small buildings somewhere in there.

Frowning slightly, I noticed that there were several trees that simply towered over all of the others to an extent that I had never seen before even back in thee kauri forests in the North island. For some reason I felt like one of these trees might be a good place to set up some sort of settlement even if it was only temporary. I wasn’t sure why I felt this way, but it wasn’t like I had any better ideas.

Bringing up my mental map I drew an imaginary line between me and the largest of these trees, like the mountains it was probably further away than it looked but if I was going to do this then I was going to do it right.