Once I had collected the wood, I suddenly realised that checking with Tane before starting the fire. You know since my new friend was a tree and trees are kind of flammable.

“Hey Tane,” I said I dropped the sticks that I had collected a short distance away from the entrance to the hollow that I was going to live in from now on. “I want to start a small fire would that be okay?”

‘Why would you want to do such a thing?’ Tane asked in the same monotone mental voice that the tree always used. Unsurprisingly these words were quickly followed with a slight sensation of worry that soon disappeared as the massive tree regained control of its emotions. This was the way that the tree usually communicated words followed by emotions instead of both at once. It was a little bit odd, but I was starting to get used to it.

“Don’t worry Tane I only plan to make a very small fire and I’ll make sure to keep control over it,” I explained quickly. “I do have a good reason for it as well.”

So, I explained why people cooked their food. I made sure to mention meat specifically since that was what I needed to cook and eventually Tane agreed to allow me to make a small fire several meters away from the entrance to my new home. I made sure to explain what I was doing while I set up the fire and once I was done, I started the fire. Once I was sure the fire wasn’t just going to sputter out, I started cooking the bug meat which sizzled in a rather pleasing way as I sat down to watch it. Then tossed what remained of one of the bugs to my Amoeba and drained the Essence from the rest. The stripped corpses probably weren’t worth much Essence, but it would be better than nothing.

While the meat was cooking, I decided to have a look at my new Skills and Skill increases. In the corner of my vision both the Skill Increase and New Skill symbols were blinking insistently at me, but I decided to start with my new Skills first.

Fall Resistance Unlocked!

Fall Resistance increases your ability to fall from great heights without injuring yourself.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Toughness

1 Aspect point awarded for unlocking Fall Resistance

Telepathy Unlocked! (Specialised)

Telepathy allows you to communicate with other beings using your mind.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence and Willpower

2 Aspect points awarded for unlocking Telepathy

Okay, so Fall Resistance was similar to my Poison Resistance Skill and it was pretty obvious why I had obtained it. Embarrassing but obvious. Thankfully I would be able to have my admittedly rather petty revenge when the bug meat was finished cooking. More interesting to me was my new Telepathy Skill which I was guessing I received from communicating with Tane.

After all, Tane was a tree and while there was that rumour that plants reacted to human emotions and speech. I was pretty sure that it had never been conclusively proved to be true so Tane was probably actually reading my surface thoughts while I spoke. Or at least that was my working theory for now even Tane wasn’t really able to give me a clear answer when I asked. However, it was definitely an interesting and useful Skill. The Growth Rate increase it provided was useful as well.

Deciding to move on I brought up the list of Skill increases and grinned as another long list of increases appeared on front of me.

Skills increased!

Running increased to Lvl 14

Dark Vision increased to Lvl 6

Zoology increased to Lvl 7

Mapping increased to Lvl 8

Mana Manipulation increased to Lvl 12

Botany increased to Lvl 7

Telepathy increased to Lvl 4

Spell Targeting increased to Lvl 7

Axe Mastery increased to Lvl 4

Knife Mastery increased to Lvl 3

Dodge increased to Lvl 5

Growth Rate increased by 1 Agility

Observation increased to Lvl 5

Growth Rate increased by 1 Perception

Minion Control increased to Lvl 5

Growth Rate increased by 1 Willpower

Create Giant Amoeba increased to Lvl 4

Essence Drain increased to Lvl 3

Available Aspect points increased by 26

Total Aspect Points: 55

Whoops, looks like I forgot to use the rest of the Aspect Points that I had earned on my way here and holy shit did I have a ridiculous number left. I mean, I had just met a giant talking tree so I guess I have a pretty decent excuse for forgetting but I might not have been quite as badly injured as I had been if I’d used them before going. Also, I had finally Levelled Up my Essence Drain Skill and twice at that, which meant that I must’ve been really close to Levelling the Skill up before.

However, it was at this point that I smelt burning and was forced to remove the meat that I had been cooking from the fire. After waiting for a few seconds to let it cool I took a cautious bite. I don’t know what I was expecting bug meat to taste like, but it was actually pretty good. Sort of like chewy chicken with just a little bit of a nutty aftertaste. After checking my Stat Sheet to make sure I wasn’t eating poison I quickly finished off the rest of the meat that I had cooked and sighed as I happily patted my stomach finally felt full again. I would have to be a bit more careful the next time I went hunting but it would seem that I had found a partial solution to my food supply problem. It was only a partial solution though as I was pretty sure that an all meat diet wouldn’t be very good for me, so I had to find some fruits and vegetables to balance things out. Hopefully the Yajash would be able to bring some grain foods with them when they got here though because I didn’t think that the surrounding area would be able to support an entire village of people foraging for food, or at least not for very long.

Keeping my Status Screen up I opened my Aspects screen next to it and took a look.

Unlocked Aspects

Aspect of the Warrior 0/25 (Locked until Lvl 10. Aspect of the Crafter 0/25 (Locked until Lvl 10). Aspect of the Wizard 0/50 (Locked until Lvl 25). Aspect of the Sage 0/50 (Locked until Lvl 25). Aspect of Vitality 1 (0/25). Aspect of Intelligence 1 (0/25). Aspect of Willpower 1 (0/25. Aspect of the Prey (0/50). Aspect of the Predator (0/50).

Aspect Points: 55

Personal Aspect

Aspect of Evolution

110

“Huh,” I grunted as I looked over the blue screen that had appeared in front of me. I seemed to have unlocked several more Aspects than I had been expecting which was actually a good thing as far as I was concerned because if I hadn’t, I would have run out of Aspects to spend my points on and my growth would have been severely hindered. If I had to guess I had unlocked Aspect of Vitality, Intelligence and Willpower when those Stats had reached 25. Aspect of Willpower was looking particularly enticing considering how important that Stat was to me right now.

Still in the end I decided to place 50 of the Aspect Points that I had into Aspect of the Predator which would complete it in an instant and would hopefully massively increase my power.

The now familiar ocean that existed in my internal world appeared around me once more and I looked around for the current subject of my visit only to find myself surrounded by a smack of jellyfish. There was a surprisingly large variety of these gelatinous creatures surrounding me and I honestly felt a little uncomfortable as I recalled some of the stories that I had heard about people who had found themselves in this exact predicament back on Earth. However I knew that I wasn’t actually present in a physical form so it wasn’t like they could actually hurt me in any way so I quickly acclimatised and instead just appreciated the fact that I could view such a sight without any fear for my safety.

But all good things must come to in an end and soon enough I was whisked off to the next big event in the evolution of my internal world which turned out to be, eels or at least fish that looked like eels which were honestly a little anticlimactic compared to the jellyfish. Still I was pretty sure that they were still the first example of vertebrates that I had seen in my internal world which was pretty impressive in its own way.

Not long after this, the unfortunate looking creatures were replaced with similar looking creatures that actually resembled eels even more than the previous creatures had which made me think that they had been part of the same family of primitive fish as hagfish and lampreys. However, I also noticed something else slowly making its way across the ocean floor that resembled a ball of spines. This strange creature was of course a type of sea urchin which I was pretty sure mostly ate algae but if I recalled correctly there were some omnivorous species as well.

Once again, the word spun and changed around me at speeds multiple times faster than my mind could progress before slowing to reveal a bunch of strange fish with bony plates on their heads. There was quite a large variety of these strange creatures each with their own unique headgear from small unobtrusive things to ones that looked like something that a German soldier would’ve worn in WW1 or even earlier. You know the ones with the big spikes on top.

Thankfully this was the last vision that I had, and I opened my eyes to see the new notifications floating in front of me telling me what I had earned from spending my Aspect Points.

Aspect of the Predator has been completed!

Smaller predators are prey to those who are larger and stronger than their own. As such these smaller predators often share traits with the prey that they hunt.

Coordination increased by 2!

Predators often bring down their prey with a sudden brutal attack to a vital point.

Strength increased by 3!

Predators must be able to spot prey even when it attempts to hide and track them down over long distances.

Perception increased by 3!

Where most prey animals are able to outrun a predator over longer distances predators can outrun them over short distances.

Agility increased by 4!

Predators often have to work together to bring down the larger animals that they hunt as prey. However, this is not always the case and those that don’t are the most dangerous creatures that you will ever encounter.

Intimidation Aura Unlocked!

Intelligence increased by 2!

Charisma increased by 2!

Coordination increased by 1!

Growth Rate increased by 3 Coordination, 3 Strength, 3 Perception, 4 Agility, 2 intelligence and 2 Charisma!

Aspect Points: 5

Soul Aspect increased to Level 160!

The first true jellyfish have evolved in your internal world. These strange creatures don’t age quite like other organisms and some species can live for hundreds of years if they aren’t damaged by outside factors.

Vitality increased by 2!

Cellular Regeneration Unlocked!

Strange new creatures with strong skeletal structures inside their bodies have appeared in your internal world, these are the first bony fish. While they are simple creatures at this point in time it is clear that they have certain advantages over creatures with an external skeletal structure.

Toughness increased by 3!

Growth Rate increased by 1 Toughness!

Two very different types of creature have appeared in your internal world. One is a type of primitive eel-like creature and the other resembles little more than a ball of spikes on the surface but is in fact a living creature that eats various forms of detritus that it finds on the sea floor.

Coordination increased by 3

Spine Armour Unlocked!

Where once they were few there are now a much greater variety of bony fish that come in many different shapes and sizes as they evolve to fit into certain places within the ecosystem of your internal world quickly becoming one of the dominant types of creature in the seas.

Constitution increased by 2!

Toughness increased by 2!

New forms of various creatures appear in your internal world from more advanced species of fish to two new types of land-dwelling arthropods. Both of these new creatures are very dangerous predators with their various methods of attacking and strong armour.

Constitution increased by 1

Unassigned Stat Points increased by 1

Please choose between these two Skills:

Create Harvestman

Or

Create Primitive Scorpion

Once I had finished reading about the changes that had taken place in my internal world, I brought up the two new Skills that I had unlocked. Once I had done that, I would have to choose between the other two new Skills that my Soul Aspect had to offer me. I was actually really excited about these tow new Skills. Mostly because I felt that things like insects and arachnids were actually a really good fit for summoning Skills. There were quite a few things that we actually got from insects and arachnids like silk from silkworms and spiders. You could also eat them in a pinch. Besides that, insects and arachnids could survive in just about any place on Earth and were stronger and faster than mammals or reptiles when you scaled them up to a similar size. There were also several types of insect that lived in colonies and for some reason I got the feeling that I would get a Skill related to that if I went down this route.

After thinking about the two options for a while I ended up deciding on Create Primitive Scorpion. This was mostly because I knew more about scorpions than I did about harvestman spiders. In fact, what I knew about harvestman spiders was limited to the fact that they were poorly named since they were actually more closely related to mites than spiders and that they weren’t venomous. There were several myths floating around that suggested that harvestman spiders were extremely venomous but couldn’t bite humans for some reason or another, but this was actually false. Harvestman spiders didn’t even really have fangs to bite with in the first place. Having made my decision I selected the Skill and then brought up the descriptions of all of the Skills that I had just learned.

Intimidation Aura Unlocked! (Specialised)

This Skill unleashes an aura of bloodlust that affects the minds of nearby enemies causing weaker ones to panic. (Please beware that using this Skill on enemies that are stronger than you could have the opposite effect to the one desired)

Cost 20 MP and 20 SP per minute

Growth Rate increased by 1 Willpower and 1 Charisma

Cellular Regeneration Unlocked! (Rare)

Cellular Regeneration allows you to regrow lost limbs, organs and even extend your lifespan.

Increases HP regen by 1

Growth Rate increased by 3 Vitality

Spike Armour Unlocked! (Specialised)

Spike Armour allows you to cover your body in sharp spines that injure anything that comes into contact with them.

Cost: 20 SP per min.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Toughness and Endurance

Create Primitive Scorpion Unlocked! (Primordial)

This Skill allows you to create a large scorpion-like creature from Essence that will follow your orders.

Cost: 30 Essence

Requires an upkeep of 20 Control Points.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Unassigned Stat Point

Well now this was certainly interesting set of Skills. Intimidation Aura looked like a Skill that I would have to be very careful with. I could see that there would be times where it would be useful, but I would have to choose those times very carefully.

Cellular Regeneration was perhaps even more worrying than Intimidation Aura and the other Skills, moral implications of sending creatures that I created to fight for me aside. With this Skill I could now recover from injuries that would’ve either killed me or left me mortally wounded before. This was actually quite a chilling thought now that I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to properly recover from injuries like that, even though I could heal much faster than I could back on Earth.

However, the slightly more worrying part of the description was the bit that suggested that this Skill would decrease the effects of aging. Now I was actually quite afraid of dying again but that didn’t mean that I wanted to live forever. Of course, the Skill didn’t actually make me immortal, or at least not yet. But even if it didn’t and all it just made me age slower all that really meant was I would be living as a decrepit old man for longer (assuming of course that I survived long enough to become an old man) which didn’t sound particularly pleasant either really. Still I couldn’t deny that the Skill would be useful, I just wasn’t sure how I felt about some of the implications is all.

Spike Armour also looked like quite a useful Skill, a weird Skill but a useful one. It would be especially useful against weaker enemies. It didn’t look like it would actually increase my defence as such but its low cost (in SP which actually made it more useful) meant that I could use it far more often and for a much longer period of time than I could my Earthen Armour spell.

But my second summoning Skill was most interesting to me. I had enough Control Points to summon it already, but I still needed more Essence before I would be able to use the Skill. I was hopeful that this new minion would be able to fill the role of tank with the amoeba being a sort of damage dealer. This might change in the future but for now that seemed to be how things would work. Either way hopefully I would be taking less damage once I could summon a scorpion.

I knew that the five points that remained probably wouldn’t be enough to get any more bonuses from my Aspects, so I decided to save them up for now.

‘Excuse me but may I ask what you just did?’ Tane asked me suddenly making me nearly leap out of my skin.

“Uh what?” I grunted intelligently.

‘You suddenly got quite a bit more powerful,’ the tree replied. ‘I just wanted to know how you managed it.’

Okay now this was interesting. Not only had I just found out for certain that Tane could sense power levels, but it also told me that it either didn’t know about or couldn’t use the System and Aspects.

“I’m honestly not sure how to explain this,” I sighed. “But I guess that I can try…”

So, I explained how the System and Aspects worked as best as I could to Tane who unlike me had no point of reference to help them understand how the various concepts like Stats and Skills worked. About 15 minutes later we had gone over things enough that Tane had some idea of how they worked but for some reason the tree didn’t seem to be terribly interested in testing out whether it could use the System for itself.

‘I just don’t think it would be terribly useful to me at this point Rick,’ Tane said. ‘I have lived for a very long time without using this ‘System’ so unless something changes dramatically, I don’t feel any need to use it.’

“Well things are going to change when the Yajashian refugees arrive,” I reminded my new friend. “I just don’t want you to be caught off guard if something goes wrong. That’s all.”

‘Do you think that something could go wrong?’ Tane asked.

“I honestly don’t know Tane,” I sighed. “I don’t even really know why they’re trying to come here.”

‘Hmm, I’ll think about it,’ Tane replied.

Right then, time to figure out what Skill I was going to pick out of Create Primitive Scorpion or Create Harvestman. Both were summoning Skills

“Sounds good,” I agreed as I brought up my Status Screen to have a look at what had changed.

Status

Level 2

Exp: 57%

HP: 198/198

MP: 272/272

HP Regen: 23 per minute (+1)

MP Regen: 21.6 per minute

SP: 133/133

Essence: 21

SP Regen: 16.3 per minute

Control Points: 25 (15)

Str: 12 (+9/Lvl)

Agi: 29 (+11/Lvl)

Con: 28 (+ 4/Lvl)

End: 18 (+8/Lvl)

Tou: 29 (+7/Lvl)

Int: 38 (+28/Lvl)

Coor: 28 (+7/Lvl)

Vit: 28 (+8/Lvl)

Wis: 26 (+14/Lvl)

Will: 41 (+25/Lvl)

Per: 26 (+16/Lvl)

Cha: 18 (+9/Lvl)

Additional Growth Rate: +13 Unassigned Stat Points/Lvl. +20 MP/Lvl. MP regen increased by 1/min per Lvl +5 Control Points/Lvl.

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

Just as I was about to return to my training I suddenly yawned as a wave of exhaustion washed over me. I had only had a couple of hours of sleep in the past couple of day and it was only just hitting me now.

“Ah, stuff it,” I muttered to myself. I wasn’t really going to get anything done when I was this tired, so I decided to call it a night. I was pretty sure that I was safe here under Tane’s boughs. I could be wrong, but the tree hadn’t lied to me so far. Hell, I wasn’t even sure that Tane even knew how to lie which was actually pretty refreshing considering some of the people that I had known back on Earth.

After gathering some leaves to use as a makeshift bed I made my way back to the small hollow that I had chosen to use as my temporary home. Thankfully as it turned out the floor was pretty dry pretty dry, so I laid down to go to sleep. I still had a bit of the bug meat left over so in the morning I would take another look around and see if I could find any fruit and then I would start making this area a bit more suitable for human or rather Yajashian habitation.