Degritone stops and spins around toward the sound, putting his right foot behind him, holding his left hand stiffly in front of his mouth, his right close to his chest, and his head tilted slightly down.

He stares at where he thinks the sound came from for a few seconds before looking around, keeping his stance. Upon finding nothing, he says, "I heard you, come out if you can understand me."

Multiple seconds of silence as he looks around, and he quickly turns to face his body half way between where the noise came from and the way he was going. Finding nothing different along his path than before, he slowly walks sideways in the direction he was going, not lowering his guard. Every few feet, he turns and faces the opposite direction.

After a couple minutes of this, he lowers his guard and turns to face the direction he's moving. As he does so, a large cat jumps out from beside him, attempting to claw at his throat. Degritone blocks with his chin and jumps away, looking at its name, Ambush Grimalkin lv3.

The creature looks almost like a cougar, but with greenish-brown fur and strangely long limbs. Degritone takes his stance once more as he takes this in, stepping back, glaring at it. "It would be best if you didn't do this," he says to it. It ignores him and charges him, swerving slightly to the side at the last second and attempting to bite his calves.

He kicks his leg toward its eyes. "Fast, can't run. React and counter." It wraps its legs around his leg and sticks its claws into it. He brings his other foot forward and stomps down on its back as hard as he can, saying, "Want my leg? I'll take your back." He puts all his weight into its back, pinning it to the ground.

"Now be nice and release my leg," he says, grunting as he sits down as well as he can onto its back given his leg is taken by its front claws. It tries to wiggle out but can't and bites into his leg, and he winces and grunts in pain. "Release me," he says, punching straight for its eyes. This dazes it slightly and makes it release his leg from its mouth.

He grabs it by the snout and raises its head, revealing its throat. He presses his extended fingers as hard as he can into its throat just above its collar bone as it attempts to get its mouth out of his hand. It manages to get onto its side, bringing its back legs up to scratch at his back.

Sucking in air through his closed teeth, he pushes once more. Status. Add two to strength, he thinks. Finding new strength he didn't have before, he pushes again, breaking its skin. He continues pushing until he has the tips of his fingers in the connective tissue between its throat and its skin.

It continues clawing at his back, ripping off more and more of his skin and shirt. The pain causes Degritone to tense up, pulling its head closer to his body, and shoving his hand further into its throat. He rips apart the connective tissue and brings his hand around its throat. Once he's made sure he has a good grip on it, he begins pulling it.

"How long can you last without air?" He asks through gritted teeth, pulling as hard as he can, squeezing its throat shut entirely. It lets go of his leg and begins frantically scratching at him and attempting to escape his weight and grip. "You signed up for this," he says, feeling a snap and almost falling back from the fact he no longer has any grip on its throat.

He grabs its back right leg with his right hand, causing it to no longer be able to easily scratch him. He breathes deeply and lets go of its head to begin punching it in the side of the neck. "Break, break, break, break," he chants with every punch. After a few seconds, he finds the leg he's holding onto have less power behind its struggling. He releases it and starts punching with both hands in turn.

"Die, die, die, die, die, die," he says with every punch, panting. His chest begins to feel very cold, and he begins breathing hard, his punches losing force. He ignores it and keeps punching, each punch less powerful than the last. The grimalkin's name finally disappears and he immediately opens his status.

Name Degritone Race Human Resources 2.62.../48.33... (+73.57...) 1.89.../53.33... (+81.43...) 79/79 (+74.29...) Class None Experience 0/0 Strength 6 Endurance 5 Vitality 6 Agility 4 Physical 12 Magic 11

"Hooo, boy, what I wouldn't do for about sixty times my regen right now. About 40 minutes to regen my health. At least I'll have my stamina back in like 25 more seconds," He says with a sigh, standing up, warmth coming back to his chest as his stamina refills. "Good thing there's no bleed damage. Or, if there is, this didn't cause it." He reaches back and touches his back, but recoils his hand from the pain, sucking air in through gritted teeth.

"I should get back to Beltag, or whatever their name is. Can't help me, but can at least 'keep away the annoying pests,' or whatever," he says, taking a step back to where he came from. As he puts weight on his left leg, pain shoots through his body and he nearly falls, but catches himself with his other leg.

He inspects his leg. He can see the bone in the front and can tell that much of the muscle is torn in the back. He winces. "A cane or walking stick would be nice. Hopefully all injuries heal with health. Kinda wish I'd lost something small like a toe to test that. Oh, well," he says, standing upright.

He lifts up his left leg, holding it waist high, and begins jumping back in the direction he came from, toward Beltag. He stops every few jumps to let his regeneration keep up with his jumps, keeping him between 35 and 40 stamina. "I'm really," jump, "glad that," jump, "stamina works," jump, "the way it does," jump, "rather than realistically. I'd not," jump, "be able," jump, "to make it," jump, "back if my," jump, "leg got tired."

Every few jumps, he finds himself able to jump further than before. A few more and he feels the heat in his chest increase. 130 jumps since he started, and he's back to Beltag, who now has a large, eel-like creature laying beside them. "Hey Beltag," Degritone says. "You might want to keep little pests from taking your haul." He sits down beside a tree, visible to Beltag.

"Wow, you look beat up," they say, looking at Degritone. "What got you?"

"Ambush... whatever its name was. Ah, Grimalkin, Ambush Grimalkin," Degritone responds.

"Ah, yeah, those can be nasty to you little ones. I'll be sure to stop any annoying pests from taking my eel."

Degritone smirks and nods. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be talking to myself for a bit. Probably 35 minutes or so."

Beltag nods and goes back to fishing.

Degritone sighs. "Paths."

PP: 10

Initiate 10/10

Hoarder 11/50

Survivor 0/15

"Not Risk Taker?" Degritone shrugs. "Whatever, I didn't make the system." He pauses, taking a deep breath. As he breathes out, he says under his breath, "So, do I want to continue down Hoarder or take a quick detour for..." He stares at the screen, crossing his arms.

"Survivor gives me PP rewards. Hoarder doesn't. The question is how often. Every? Every other? Three? Five?" He closes his mouth and blows air through his lips, letting them flop. "Let's go for it." He puts one PP at a time into Survivor. At his third PP, he gains +1% total health regeneration. He blinks, pauses, and tilts his head down and to the right, lifting his right eyebrow and smiling.

"Oooooo, I love this path. I'm going to have to get everyone this path." He dumps the rest of his PP into it, granting him +1 vitality at 6 and +25% health regeneration from vitality at 9. He looks over his Path screen before switching to his status.

PP: 0

Initiate 10/10

Hoarder 11/50

Survivor 10/15

Name Degritone Race Human Resources 8.52.../53.33... (+108.30...) 58.33.../58.33... (+89.08...) 79/79 (+87.54...) Class None Experience 0/0 Strength 6 Endurance 5 Vitality 7 Agility 4 Physical 14 Magic 11

"Sweet, now it takes me just over 30 minutes to fully regen. As long as I'm not one-shot, I should be regenning pretty decently. Wish it was per minute, though, rather than per hour. Heck, preferably, it'd be at least uh... 0.15, 40... 1.5, 4, 6. 6 per second." His stomach growls.

"So you do need food. Magic berries, then?" He reaches into his pocket and realizes his berries are very squished. "Ew. But whatever, I need to eat." He pulls a squishy mass of berries and berry juice out of his pocket, turning it inside out. "Hopefully has enough whatever the magic is to actually feed me." He eats it.

After swallowing it, he sighs. "I should have grinded my skills since I have a safe space to do so. I let my worry for family overtake me," he says, standing up. "I'm taking down this tree before I continue." He places his fist on the tree he was sitting next to. "They need me. Dying isn't an option."

He takes a deep breath and exhales it before dropping down and doing push ups. Given his newly enhanced strength, it's much easier for him than it would have been mere hours ago. "I'm sorry, Beltag, but I have people who will probably be waiting for me when I get back. I'm staying here for a while to make sure I don't die."

They nod, and Degritone continues his push ups. After a minute, he checks his skills.

Stomp lv2

Running lv3

Improvised Weapon Mastery lv2

Search lv4

Scan lv4

Visualization lv13

??? lv0

Punch lv4

Kick lv1

Jump lv8

"So no 'physical fitness' skill. Or it takes over a minute to get it." He jumps in place 30 times, leveling Jump up. "This is going to take a while. Maybe I can get a very basic magic skill. I felt the mana in my head." He imagines pulling mana from his head toward his out stretched palm, condensing it into a small ball in front of it before it fires forward.

After a few seconds, he's surprised as a ball of blue light does, in fact, fly from his palm. He blinks and pulls his head back slightly before allowing it to return to a resting position. "Huh. I guess knowing where the energy comes from makes it easier than just willing lightning into the world." He checks his new skill, Mana Bolt.

Mana Bolt lv1

Condense your mana into a small ball, then launch it at your opponents.

10 Mana

(85+5*SLevel+Magic)% Strength = 6.06 mana damage

30/(SLevel+Agility*Magic/5) = 3.06... second cast time

He puts on the not bad face. "Wow. Not great for super extended fights, but I can cast 7 in a little over 30 seconds and one a little under every 20 minutes. No Visualization experience? Must be how you're intended to unlock it." He empties his mana pool into the tree, barely scorching its bark, but increasing its level to 6. As his mana pool approaches empty, his head warms up and he starts getting a headache. "Levels pretty fast with its high damage, too."

He rubs his head. "If I weren't used to having a headache nearly 24/7, this would hurt pretty bad. Anyway, let's finish off Survivor now." As he puts 5 PP into it to finish the path, he gains +1 to vitality multiplier for health regeneration and +15 flat health regeneration.

Congratulations! You have completed the Survivor path!

The road was bumpy, but you stayed your course.

"Also, why are Stomp and Kick different skills?" He shrugs. "Whatever. They both currently do the same damage. Wait, no, kick says that damage varies and its minimum damage is 1.86, while stomp is 1.86 flat. Interesting. It also has slightly lower base scaling. Weird. But whatever." He kicks the tree, hitting with the end of his shin. Immediately afterward, he regrets his decision and holds his shin.

"Eeeeeeheheyow," he exclaims. "I really need a pain resistance skill. I wonder how long I was doing visualization. If it was just a few minutes, that would be a great, quick way to train, despite its high level. If it was longer than like 10 minutes, maybe not. I don't have a calculator, so XP per minute calculations will have to wait. I'll just do it."

He lays down and extends his right arm, laying his left on his chest once more. He winces at the pain in his back, but ignores it. And once again, the ground is replaced by raging oceans, the sky covered in nearly black clouds, rain pouring, and wind howling. The golden rope takes its place in his hand. The ocean, wind, and sky are all calm around him.

"If you need time, I'll give you time. If you need specificity, I don't know what to give you. I've only ever been inspired to change you once, very recently," he quietly says up at the hole in the clouds.

He checks his gains every few minutes. The first time he checks, he's gotten Visualization to 15 with 48/129 experience, and the skill to 58%. The second time he checks, nothing changed from his first check.

"So I do need specificity..." He opens paths and dumps his remaining 3 PP into Hoarder. "And Visualization doesn't gain XP unless an image actually updates in the system's database or whatever way I'd describe it. Since I've maxed that out, maybe lightning now that I know where mana is? I don't know how to change mana into lightning, though."

"Ooo, no, mana sword. When I learn to change mana's damage type, I'll be able to easily change my sword to deal different damages. And I'll need armor, too." He begins the process of casting Mana Bolt, with the intention of stopping it and molding the mana into a sword before it fires, but he's stopped by the mana dissipating and a massive headache coming on.

He checks his mana and finds it at 0. "Ah," he says with squinted eyes and a hand on his head. "Then let's run while I recharge." He begins running, going from Beltag's sword and back to his tree and back again.