As the late summer sun started to set for the evening, Trevor sat with a boulder to his back and a blazing campfire before him. Tonight would be the third night he's spent in this world. After his realization on his first day, he spent a bit of time thinking things over. About his situation and what he would do going forward.

He briefly thought of not going through with his side of the agreement and finding a place to hide out and survive. He didn't know this world, or its people. So why stick his neck out that far to help? He decided against doing that, as nothing in his mind or body felt right about going down that path. It went against everything his father taught him about responsibility, and also because Trevor was slightly scared of what Baz would do to him.

He didn't want to betray his own ethics and morals, as well as face the possible wrath of a true god, but he also didn't want to search for any danger, at least not yet. He needed to train and become stronger, to learn more about this world and the System that defines it. With resolve, he had set out further into the forest.

During the three days he’s been here, Trevor has been experimenting more with the System. He had looked within Skills and discovered a long list of them. Many seemed useful in his current setting, but others were unusable, at least for now. Some examples were Skills directly related to guns, as Baz’s talk of his old world’s ‘comforts’ suggested this new one didn’t have a high level of technology. The same went for his Knowledge: History and Knowledge: Geography, since those two have a prefix that mentions those Skills were directly tied to Earth.

Speaking of different worlds and Skills, he gained a new Skill and learned this world’s name while exploring. The world is called Aldara, according to a new Knowledge: Geography Skill. He was climbing a hill that rose above the treeline, and got a clear picture of the forest and the surrounding area. It wasn’t a massive forest, probably taking 4 or 5 days to cross it at most.

He saw some far-off mountains that ran from the Northeast to West, with a large riverland running between the mountains and the forest. Many islands were located within the rivers of the area, and he even saw a walled village or town on one of them. He saw two more settlements, one just as far as the first but located in the Southwest in an area of hills and plains, and the second was closer and just on the Western edge of the forest Trevor was currently in. But he didn’t want to deal with the locals yet, so he decided to stay away from the village a while longer. Besides, he was pretty deep inside the forest, anyway, so it would take a day or two to get there.

He was also, once again, thankful for his father teaching him and his siblings how to hunt. They were some of his highest Skills, besides his Knowledge-based Skills and Unarmed Combat Proficiency. Those were mostly from his school life, when the other kids would see him studying and bullied him for it. They were good Skills to have, as he wouldn’t be completely defenseless.

Using his survival training to guide him, Trevor went out to find himself food and clothing. While foxes were scavengers with a preference towards meat, Trevor knew they were actually omnivores that could eat many different things. So he went searching for some wild fruit, looking through the underbrush and in the trees for berries and such. He was able to find something similar to a pear hanging close to the ground, and a few wild berries as well.

Before picking each, he searched around for signs that animals or even people had been here. Given his new appearance, it was hard to tell the differences between them. But he did some prints that were bigger than their apparent species, and they were deep and frequent enough to suggest whomever made them picked the fruit. He still performed one more test by licking and smelling them. After several minutes of waiting and having nothing happen, he concluded they were safe and wrapped them in a mesh of large bush leaves he was using as a pouch.

Those same leaves were used to create a makeshift skirt, having them hang by his enlarged hips and new tail. They scratched his crotch with every step he took, but at least he regained some dignity. The experience helped to raise some of his Skill levels, including gaining the Tailoring and Weaving skills.

He also took the time to further experiment and scout with his Forest Pathfinder Ability. Some things he discovered about it were that the entrance or exit doesn't need to be on the ground, having teleported to and from branches within the trees. After doing this about 5 times, Trevor felt exhausted and had to rest. That was when he noticed something he didn't see before, a trio of small boxes in the upper left corner of his view. The top one had a yellow-green color filling it, and about a fifth of it was empty. The middle one below it was almost completely drained, with only a small sliver of blue in it. And the last one fully green without a sliver gone. He had to wait around two hours before the blue one filled back up.

After taking the time to rest and observe as the boxes filled, he determined that they were some indicator showing how much stamina and energy he had left. The top box was probably for his physical capacity, while the bottom showed either his mental or magical capacity. He would need to look at these more often, in case he was in a dire situation.

Messages was mostly unusable at the moment, as when he opened it, it said he needed to ‘spiritually bond’ with someone for it to function. It did show the messages he got for leveling his Skills, so at least he could keep track of that. System Configuration, however, was both helpful and slightly useless. It lets him do things like move around the previously mentioned boxes, reveal their percentages and number totals, as well as disabling all three of them. But it didn’t give Trevor any information on how all of it worked.

For now, he just set the stamina and blue box into his lower left vision and reordered his Skills alphabetically. They were pretty much a jumbled mess and Trevor had a hard time navigating it.

Trevor did a little physical training as well, focusing on his unarmed and knife skills. It took almost a whole day, with him constantly adjusting his style and moves to his body's new shape and change in his center of balance. Trevor was by no means an actual fighter, rarely getting into any fights with the other kids at the schoolyard. Partially because he easily won the first several times someone challenged him and wouldn't let him off the hook when he tried to refuse. Again, Trevor had his father to thank for the lessons, though it also meant most kids were too scared to get near him.

Training for his knife skills was a little harder, because he didn't have an actual knife. So he took a small branch and used his Woodcarving Skill to make a knife. He searched for a while to find something to carve with, until Trevor remembered that he had fucking claws! The knife he made later was sharp enough, but the quality wasn't good and it definitely wouldn't last very long.

All of that allowed Trevor to gain over 30 levels worth of Skills. Increasing his Skill levels also allowed him to find out that the number next to his overall level is the amount of Skill levels needed to increase it. This followed by gaining another Personal Level, and 10 more Attribute Points.

Name: Trevor MacFerris

Age: 19

Species: Beastkin (Fox)

Level 14 (4/140)

Strength: 30

Agility: 45

Constitution: 36

Mind: 43

Perception: 35

Charisma: 25

Attribute Points: 0

Trevor finally took the time to allocate his points. At first, he didn't know what Attribute Points were, but with some more experimentation he found out how to assign them and placed a few points into Strength. He was amazed with the results when he felt energy coursing through his muscles, hardening and strengthening them. The increase was minuscule, but even just by assigning a single point it was enough for him to notice.

He used up all the points increasing his Attributes, making his Mind and Agility Attributes his primary focus. He knew, based on the Abilities that were given to him, that Baz wanted him to become some sort of mage or wizard. While he was experimenting with his Attributes, he discovered that increasing his Mind and Charisma strengthened his mana, the former twice as much so. Constitution and Strength, respectfully, do the same thing to his stamina. But while the idea of becoming a true wizard was tempting for him, he needed to focus on surviving. So he made constitution his secondary Attribute and strength wasn't that far behind it.

There was a moment that happened while he was practicing with his wooden knife, and Trevor went into a small tirade. While training, he had received a message that said he had gained a 1 point increase to his strength Attribute. This led to him shouting a bunch of curses to the sky. He had wasted 19 points increasing his strength when he could've gotten the same result from doing push-ups for several months. After calming down, though, he realized that assigning points is definitely the faster way to go. He will just add some ordinary exercises to help raise his Attributes even further.

The last thing on his list was finding a place to set up shelter, which his current location provided. It had some defensible terrain in case of angry predators, a good amount of food and game around, and there was a river close by for drinking water and bathing. Washing himself was something he had to relearn to do, because of his fur and how easily it clumped together.

Leaning over to the fire, Trevor took a stick skewering the cooked meat of a rabbit he had hunted earlier. He wasn't a good cook to begin with, and without anything to spice it with he didn't think this would be the best thing he's ever had. Still, meat is meat and Trevor bit into it. The rabbit meat was better than he expected, a little overcooked but was still enjoyable. He finished it off, but he still felt terribly hungry for more even though he was full, his stomach rumbling as if to agree with him.

Skill Gained!

Cooking - Level 1

Skill Level Gained!

Cooking increased by 4

Trevor wasn't even surprised as the message appeared and largely just ignored it and sent it away. He's noticed that even if he has knowledge of a Skill from his past life, it doesn't always count as him having it available. When that happens, he needs to physically show he can do it. It was a bit annoying, to be honest.

Putting the stick down, he leaned back onto the boulder and looked up to the gathering stars. There was one thing he was having some trouble with, and that was finding out how to activate Mana Attunement. He knows that not all of his Abilities need him to consciously focus on them for them to be active, as he noticed when he first found the rabbit and it had a tagline above it saying it was a Level 8 Rabbit.

He just can't figure out how it works though. Even when he focuses on the Ability, he doesn't feel anything happening. When he looked, he could see that something was distorting in the air in front of him, but he could neither control nor shape it. Mana Attunement is one of the core Abilities Trevor needs to become a wizard, he can feel it. But without learning how to use Mana Attunement, he can't use Mana Conversion and then he can't use any sort of magic besides his Forest Pathfinder Ability.

He took in a deep breath and sighed. He needed to think about it in a different way. Aldara works with slightly different laws than Earth does. A System created by a god that allows people to gain power and great skill. Together, it creates a fantasy world where magic and mana exist. He just can't see it... or rather feel it.

What if mana isn't something people are naturally born with sensing. What if it's just another Skill that they need to obtain and train so that they can use mana. When Trevor thought on how he could do that for himself, his mind went to what he had read on meditation. An ancient art to increase your sense of self as well your sense of the world around you. He's never done it before, and he didn't know if that would work, but it's worth a shot.

He closed his eyes and relaxed, opening up his senses. With his increased perception, there were many things he noticed that he couldn't before. The crackling of the campfire, distant insects and birds going about, even his own quiet breath.

Several minutes passed, then thirty, and then an hour. He could feel night fully setting in and hear the fire starting to go out, but he didn't give up. He needed to figure this out.

Switching tactics a bit, he remembered the feeling he got whenever he would use Forest Pathfinder. The feeling of connection to the forest, to all of life itself, and turned it inward instead. Something started to stir within Trevor, something very deep. He was confused, but also curious. Could this be it?

He reestablished the connection, once again feeling the slight twerk within himself. He focused more on it while slowly getting closer, forcing it to shake even more. It was like a balloon that was filled to the brim, and he just needed to pop it open. It shook so hard that it blurred without any definition, and then it popped.

Trevor felt a large amount of pain, the source unidentifiable. He fell down to the ground, coughing and retching while his arms held him up. But he liked the reward that came from it.

His senses flooded open, making him feel like he's been blind his entire life. He could feel and sense the mana around him, and could almost physically see it. It was in the plants, the trees, the rocks, even in the dimming campfire. It was all around him, and even inside him. Mana was everything, and it was life itself.

A grin formed on Trevor's face as he saw two new messages come up.

Skills Gained!

Mana Sense - Level 1

Element Control Efficiency: Mana - Level 1