The first sensation Elania registered was a chilling cold that seemed to be seeping into her core. It was enough to make her take the first steps toward waking up. Her first restless movement elicited a frantic grab at consciousness as she realized she was still face down in the water.

'I'm not breathing!'

Thrashing into the water, her hand landed on a nearby stone, and she found enough leverage to pull herself out of the calm pool she had ended up floating in. Her first reaction upon leaving the water was to try and take a breath. That had her choking and vomiting a copious amount of the water than had found its way into her lungs.

When she was finally finished, Elania crawled a bit further from the bank, finding a dry spot and sitting against a rock in an attempt to recuperate. A few new messages chimed for attention, but her eyes were fixed on scanning her surroundings.

It was dark, and she could still make out the faint luminescence of the fungus, but compared to before, everything was shades of purple and black that made it impossible to see anything. When she finally opened her [Status], the reason became clear.

[Your power is low. Your toggleable skills have been deactivated automatically.]

[Status]

Name: Elania Reyes

Race: Lesser Demon (S Class Monster)

Level: 11

Power: 26/152

Karma: 24

Titles: [Locked]

[Some functions are disabled due to insufficient requirements.]

[Skills: Elania Reyes]

[Class: None]

[Affinities: Demonic, Mana]

[Magical: Demonic Aura Lvl - 6 (Deactivated), Mana Manipulation Lvl - 13, Battle Concentration Lvl 1]

[Physical: Dodging Lvl - 4, Blocking Lvl - 3, Unarmed Combat Lvl - 2, Darkvision Lvl - 3(Deactivated)]

[Mundane: Identify Lvl - 4, Universal Speech Lvl - 5, Reading Lvl - 4, Writing Lvl - 3, Athletics Lvl - 4, Improvised Crafting Lvl - 3]

[Attributes: Elania Reyes]

[Current Attributes:

Demon Contract (1 Available)

Regeneration (Normal)

Demonic Self-Sustenance

Enhanced Physical Abilities (Strength, Mana Capacity)

Immunity (Darkness)

Resistance (Poison, Mana)

Weakness (Holy)]

Elania stared at the paltry amount of power she was left with, and it was no wonder everything was so dark! Reactivating [Darkvision], everything brightened into clarity. She needed to recharge her power, but a familiar "Glua-Glaa!" had her freezing in place.

Luckily, it had come from the other side of the room, and she quietly slid around the stone she was against to keep it between her and the sound's direction. 'Was it just one?'

She chanced a look, but what she saw wasn't what she expected. There were four Mushroohums, but one was bent over, holding a shining rock.

'No... not a shining rock! My Mana Shard!'

Panic and anger warred in her chest, she needed that Mana Shard to survive, and they were taking it!

More of the Mushroom Men arrived, most of them fixated on the stone, but one fished out a scrap of black cloth from the water with its spear. Elania frowned and checked her pockets. She still had her dagger and makeshift clothes, but that was all. Some of the remaining scraps must have escaped for them to find.

The noise from the Mushroom Men became louder, and she thought they might have been arguing. When they finally broke off into groups, her heart stopped as she felt they might scour the entire cavern looking for her.

She didn't have to worry for long, though, as they quickly filed off and left the cavern—the largest group of five taking the Mana Shard with them. The thought of chasing after them and somehow taking the Mana Shard back was quickly discarded.

She was weakened, and most of her 'Power' had been used up either from [Regeneration] healing her while she tumbled through the water or when it prevented her from drowning.

She wasn't going to let them keep it, though. She had a pretty good idea about where to find the Mushroom Men's lair.

Despite her frantic arrival, the small pool and cavern she'd ended up in turned out to be relatively calm. It had only a few choke points to enter, and while she had heard quite a few noises coming from the connected areas, she hadn't seen any wildlife.

Elania quickly got down to work, gathering lengths of wood from some of the larger growths nearby. When she had a half dozen, she set the largest length shaft aside and began to carve the others into javelins.

Each one gave her the same system message.

[You have gained a level in Improvised Crafting!]

Finished with the smaller javelins, she turned to the longer shaft. 'Let's see if those levels made any difference.'

The fact that the levels had been so easy to get made her doubt whether there would be much improvement. [Identify] didn't seem to change between levels one and two, but...

[Improvised Crafting Lvl - 8]

The making of the thicker spear went well, but it didn't look any different.

[Makeshift Fungal Spear]

It was the same as before, maybe there was some kind of threshold she had to reach before crafting better things, or perhaps the material was too poor. Sighing, Elania set it aside with the growing pile of javelins, her hand coming to a sudden pause over the weapons.

A telltale whisper of a sound had her look toward the entrance and in the shadows a dozen feet away, two yellow orbs glared at her. As soon as she met the predator's gaze, it pounced. Feline in shape, it was the size of a large dog, with black fur and thick limbs.

Elania reacted without thinking, bracing her spear against the rock behind her. As the [Darkwalker] flashed through the air, it impaled itself through the chest.

A loud growl and hiss let spittle fly into Elania's face as the enraged predator swiped and struggled to reach her. Instinctively she reached over and grabbed one of the javelins while trying to balance her rapidly bending spear.

That was a good move because the stressed fungal wood finally flexed and snapped, allowing the creature to close the distance. It did not move as fast as before, having been dealt a mortal blow by the impalement. Still, the snapping jaws were just as deadly, and it went for Elania's throat.

Wielding the javelin like a stake, she slammed the pointed tip into the creature's eye, and it went limp. It still landed on her, at least a hundred pounds of once lethal muscle. She could still feel the heat from the thing's breath on her face as her mind tried to catch up with her rapidly pounding heart.

[Do you wish to absorb the Darkwalker's Essence? Y/N]

It took a moment for her to shove the corpse off of her and then calm down. Thoughts whirled in her head. It wasn't the first time she'd faced death, but at least this time, she had not been badly hurt. The feeling that she was flailing her way through, attempting to survive in this horrible underground world, and not having any real idea of what she was doing, threatened to shatter her earlier determination.

"I guess the least you could do is give me your 'Essence' since you attacked me."

Almost immediately, the corpse began to disintegrate, just as the Bone Demon had.

"Wait!" She suddenly realized her mistake. Since she had finally hunted something, she should have tried to harvest some meat from it!

It was too late, though. Still, a few [Status] messages appeared and clued Elania in on just what absorbing 'Essence' did.

[You have absorbed 4 Power!]

[You have gained a level in Stealth!]

[You have gained Darkwalker Affinity!]

[Consume more Darkwalker Essence to enable Darkwalker Transformation!]

A roil of emotions and more questions assailed Elania. At the very worst, she could survive by hunting things and consuming their 'Essence' and maintaining her self-sustain attribute. She had no idea what 'Affinity' really entailed, but the fourth message...

Was the system telling her she'd be able to turn into a Darkwalker if she hunted enough of them? Did that apply to anything? Was that a unique skill of Demons, or could anything absorb Essence and transform into things?

Looking at the snapped spear, she knew what she needed to do. For what felt like the first time, she had an actual goal.

Grabbing her dagger, she got herself ready for hunting. She needed to get her power back up to maximum.