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Friday, XX/XX/XXXX | maybe morning |

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Name: Ivan Weiss

Race: Human

Level: 1

Citizenship: class-III citizen

Job: ???

Active Skill: Lesser Sprint I

Passive Skill: Assimilation

Spells: None

Talent: None

----Attributes----

HP: 200/200 (+512) MP: 120/120 (+158)

ATK: 4 (+176) (+8 Dagger)

DEF: 4 (+76) (+3 Mantle)

RES: 15 (+63)

MATK: 15 (+74)

STR: 15 (+29,5)

END: 15 (+23)

AGI: 15 (+31,8)

INT: 15 (+4,7)

WIS: 15 (+6,5)

Did he go crazy? There were numbers beside his original attributes! Plus, he got himself a skill!

What was going on?

Ivan took his time to examine his status window. Yup, this wasn't a dream. His status just skyrocketed without him knowing why. To his understanding, a game wouldn't let the player getting stronger without slaying enemies since the player needed EXP to level up.

But was he wrong to associate how this world worked with games?

But if his assumption was false, then there must be some kind of trigger to this phenomenon. Was it spending a night in the wilderness or somewhere with huge level a gap between him and the monsters?

No. If either of them was the case, then he should've seen this window the moment he opened his eyes.

Then...

Ivan stared at the stick he used to fried wolf meat with. The answer was neither surviving a night in the wilderness, nor spending a night in a place full of insane-leveled monsters. The status window popped up just as he finished his meal.

"...this is the answer," he murmured to himself.

His skill was the ability to absorb the attributes and skills of animals he ate.

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Friday, XX/XX/XXXX | maybe morning |

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"This is rad!"

Ivan smiled ear to ear at the revelation. Damn, he sure was lucky and got himself a cheat skill! With this, he should be stronger in no time without much effort! All he did was just eating to his heart's desire!

But being a careful boy that he was, he quickly composed himself and analyzed the situation. This passive skill of his was too good to be true. To balance things, there must be some sort of drawbacks to this broken skill...

Crossing his arms over his chest, Ivan examined his status once more. He imitated the High Priestess by tapping at his only passive skill. A smaller window popped up above his status window, read:

Assimilation

A s#4kjl where !%n^=* except 12&inan*984 objects, to [email protected] o(74kjh2 ka!2yd ^3487d ERROR

"Hmm?" Ivan spotted something underneath the gibberish information.

Two-horned Wolf Assimilation 12,5%

Total Assimilation 99,8%

W...what the heck is this?

12,5? 99,8?

Ivan now understood what it felt to fear the unknown. No matter how much he spend his time thinking, he couldn't figure out what the figures meant. They were simply ominous to him.

Then again, what actually was >? To his understanding, assimilation meant absorption of food and nutrients. There might be more definition to this, but if only his English was decent...

Based on that understanding, could it be that 12,5% here meant the total absorption of two horned wolf's status into his own? What happened if he reached 100% assimilation? He grew as strong as a two-horned wolf or something?

But what about the Total Assimilation? Why did it begin from one hundred instead of zero? Where did the 0,2% go?

Ivan let out a frustrated growl. The more he used his brain, the more complicated things were.

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Friday, XX/XX/XXXX | maybe morning |

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To hell with these numbers, Ivan seethed after spending a long time thinking that yielded no result.

As long as he could take revenge on them and return to Earth, he'd do anything, even if it required him to dance with the devils. Everything would be worth it if he could see their despair as they lie helplessly!

He'd teach them the anger of a kidnapped person left to die!

Ivan chomped the meat as if he was a beast then proceeded to cook another piece of meat.

He needed more. More. More.

More!!

He needed more meat to get stronger!!

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Friday, XX/XX/XXXX | maybe morning |

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Ivan frowned as he examined his status. It stayed the same as before no matter how much food he stuffed inside. Thanks to that, he felt rather sick and wanted to puke.

Was his assumption wrong?

All of a sudden Ivan found himself screaming in pain as an unknown force pushed him from behind. He crashed into a tree face first, but thankfully he managed to shield his precious body part with both arms.

He felt as if his back bone was broken into two and the after effect of slamming himself against a tree made him dizzy. With sheer will he managed to turn around, albeit slowly, to see what kind of prick attacked him from his blind spot.

It was a big, blazing red gecko-like monster, with two pairs of forward-facing horn and protruding black scales acting like some sort of menacing, natural armor. Its eyes are black like coals with red slit that gave it a demonic appearance.

Ivan shivered.

By instinct he knew that the monster was too strong for his level. He felt like a newborn deer before a pack of wolves, powerless and scared. His fear grew the longer he maintained eye contact with it until he averted his eyes due to untold terror.

Why that thing's here...?

Then his eyes snapped to the cave nearby. No wonder the beast attacked him. He camped right in front of his home!

As they said you couldn't cry over spilled milk, Ivan decided not to treat himself too harsh. Blaming himself couldn't change the fact that he had invaded the beast's territory. He must face the consequence.

Whether to fight or to flee, Ivan already knew the choice and determined to make it come true.