Luna remained near Traise’s side as concern and curiosity mingled through the bond, though the moment the words “Mastery Complete” appeared, even her confusion briefly shifted toward excitement.
The system window flickered once before expanding further.
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[Congratulations]
Minor Regeneration
Class: Initiate Low
Type: Passive / Healing
Mastery: Complete
Passive Effects:
Passive healing over time
Reduced bleeding damage
Recovery Rate: 2% Max Health per minute
Pain response reduced during combat, though damage still exists
4 hours of sleep provides the benefits of a full night’s rest
Active Effects:
Consumes 1 mana per second to regenerate 2% max health per second
(Max duration: 30 seconds)
Cooldown: 6 hours
Enhancements:
Double healing bonus (Light Affinity)
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Traise stared at the completed skill for several long seconds while his thoughts rapidly moved through the implications.
The passive effects alone already bordered on absurd compared to what he originally started with after acquiring the skill.
Reduced downtime, reduced sleep requirements, slower bleeding, combat pain dampening… all of it stacked together into something far stronger than a simple healing ability.
And now there was an active effect.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Consumes 1 mana per second to convert into regenerating two percent of my max health per second?
At first glance, the cost sounded expensive considering his tiny mana pool, but almost immediately, another thought surfaced.
The bracer.
Light Affinity.
Traise sat up straighter against the cave wall.
The bracer reduced mana consumption by half.
Light Affinity reduced light skill mana costs further.
If Minor Regeneration counted as both a healing and light-aligned skill now, then those effects should theoretically stack together.
At least… they should.
Only one way to find out.
Traise glanced toward Luna before slowly holding his arm out again.
“One more time,” he said carefully.
“I need to see how the active effect actually works.”
Luna immediately flattened her ears.
“I know,” Traise muttered.
“But I have to know if this will work if my life is ever in danger.”
Reluctance and disapproval drifted heavily through the bond, but after a few seconds, Luna stepped forward anyway before biting into his forearm even more carefully than before.
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[You have received 5 damage]
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Traise winced, then immediately activated the skill’s active effect.
Warmth spread through his body almost instantly.
Not painful.
Relaxing.
Comfortable.
The sensation flowed beneath his skin like liquid heat, while faint golden light briefly shimmered around portions of the wounds along his arm, before fading again moments later.
Minor aches throughout his body immediately started disappearing while the remaining bite marks closed almost instantly.
Traise quickly opened his status window.
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[The Upgrade System]
User: Traise Axton
Party Members: 1
Grade: Initiate
Level: 7
XP: 57 / 115
Health: 53 / 57
Mana: 9 / 10
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His eyes widened slightly.
Only one mana?
Several more seconds passed.
Then:
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Mana: 8 / 10
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Traise blinked.
“…No way.”
His thoughts immediately started calculating almost automatically while Luna watched him curiously from nearby.
The active effect claimed one mana per second, but the actual drain was far slower.
Roughly one mana every four seconds.
Which meant the cost had effectively dropped to about one-quarter of the original amount.
A full thirty-second activation would only consume roughly seven or eight mana total before wearing off.
That was insane.
Traise immediately leaned forward while his thoughts began to race faster.
The bracer alone should only reduce the drain to fifteen mana over thirty seconds.
Light Affinity, cutting the cost in half again, explained the remaining reduction almost perfectly.
So the synergy between the item and the skill really worked.
And if weaker skills already interacted this well together…
What happened later?
The thought lingered heavily in the back of his mind while he stared at the slowly draining mana pool.
Progression fantasy systems thrived on synergy, scaling, and interactions between abilities, and the more interconnected powers became, the more rewarding the progression tended to feel.
But almost as quickly as excitement appeared, another concern followed immediately afterward.
His mana pool was tiny.
Just ten mana, and that was it.
Even with the reduced cost, he could barely sustain the active effect for its full duration.
Stronger skills later would probably consume far more mana than this, especially abilities tied to affinities or higher-grade healing.
Traise slowly deactivated the regeneration effect while the remaining warmth faded from his body. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Health regeneration was becoming one of the strongest aspects of his build already, but without a larger mana pool, future abilities might become completely unusable, no matter how powerful they were.
The thought lingered quietly in the back of his mind while he looked toward the cave ceiling.
Another weakness.
Another thing he needed to improve.
But unlike before, the realization no longer felt discouraging.
It felt like progress.
Luna eventually padded closer before curling against his side while faint satisfaction drifted through the bond.
Traise absently rubbed behind one of her ears again while his thoughts continued moving through calculations, possible builds, skill interactions, and future progression paths.
The chain quest still hung heavily over his head as he repeated the goal in his head.
Level 20.
One lunar cycle.
And somewhere inside these endless forests, the Moonfang Alpha still waited.
…..
Traise leaned quietly against the cave wall while Luna rested beside him, but despite the calm atmosphere inside the shelter, his thoughts refused to slow down.
The chain quest lingered heavily in the back of his mind while calculations, hunting routes, experience gains, and progression possibilities continued moving rapidly through his thoughts.
Thirteen levels in roughly half a month.
Even thinking about it sounded insane, but then again, he had spent years grinding game systems like this before.
The thought almost made him laugh.
Long nights farming rare drops.
Min-maxing progression routes.
Memorizing spawn timers.
Finding efficient leveling paths while other players wasted hours doing things the slow way.
Back then, it had all been pointless entertainment.
Now those same instincts might determine whether he survived long enough to uncover what waited beyond the forest.
Traise slowly reached into his storage pouch before pulling out another strip of preserved Cloudstrider meat.
Faint silver fibers still ran unnaturally through portions of the meat, almost like thin metallic threads woven beneath the surface.
He tore off a piece before eating it quietly, while Luna watched him curiously from nearby.
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[Intelligence increased by 2]
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The effect hit almost immediately.
His thoughts suddenly felt sharper, as though a lingering mental fog had quietly thinned apart, without him realizing it existed in the first place.
Traise blinked once before leaning back against the cave wall again while considering the sensation carefully.
Useful.
Very useful.
Raw strength alone wouldn’t be enough moving forward.
The deeper forest had already proven that much already.
Planning, preparation, adaptability, efficient progression… all of it mattered just as much as levels now.
And right now, he needed experience.
A lot of it.
Traise quietly opened his quest log again before focusing on the remaining True Hunter requirement.
Thirty-seven beasts of at least Dangerous Threat remaining.
His eyes lingered on the number for several long seconds while his thoughts slowly shifted toward possible hunting methods.
Dangerous creatures rewarded excellent experience and progressed the quest simultaneously, but tracking them consistently carried real risk, even now.
Grinding exclusively through high-threat fights would be slow, exhausting, and eventually suicidal if something stronger appeared unexpectedly.
Which meant he needed efficiency instead of difficulty.
Almost immediately, his thoughts shifted toward the Thornfang Boars.
Moderate-ranked creatures rewarded lower experience individually, but they traveled in large groups and charged recklessly once provoked.
More importantly, Traise already understood their behavior patterns extremely well after weeks of surviving inside the forest.
And unlike before, he already had preparation in place.
A faint grin slowly spread across his face while his thoughts drifted toward the pit traps he spent days preparing earlier during recovery periods between hunts.
At the time, the traps only seemed like basic survival preparation in case stronger creatures cornered him unexpectedly.
Now they looked like the beginning of an actual farming route.
Traise slowly started piecing the strategy together in his head.
Pit traps.
Poison-coated stakes.
Luna redirecting movement from the flanks.
His movement among the tree branches keeping him out of direct danger while attacking from above.
The more he thought about it, the more efficient the entire setup became.
Luna slowly lifted her head while curiosity drifted faintly through the bond as she seemed to understand what he was planning.
Traise glanced toward her before a small grin crossed his face.
“We’re going hunting tomorrow.”
Excitement immediately surged back through their connection.
Not nervous excitement either.
Anticipation.
Luna already understood this wouldn’t be another desperate survival fight.
This would be coordinated, planned, and efficient.
Traise spent the next hour mentally refining the strategy as the moonlight gradually shifted outside the cave entrance.
Thornfang Boars had poor turning speed once charging, and the existing trap line already sat near one of their usual roaming paths.
If Luna pressured them from the flanks while he redirected movement from above through the trees, they could force entire groups directly into the pits.
Anything surviving the fall would already be wounded and poisoned, making cleanup afterward significantly easier.
And if done correctly, they could kill multiple targets almost simultaneously while minimizing direct risk entirely.
Efficient grinding.
Exactly the kind of strategy he used constantly in games before arriving here, except now the consequences were real if something went wrong.
…..
The following morning arrived quickly.
Cold mist drifted between the trees while Traise and Luna moved silently through the forest toward the boar territory.
The atmosphere felt completely different compared to earlier hunts.
They were better prepared, and this time would be different.
More controlled.
Traise already knew the terrain.
He knew the trap placements.
He knew the boars’ movement patterns.
Preparation alone made the forest feel less overwhelming than before.
The first group appeared shortly after sunrise.
Six Thornfang Boars.
Traise remained crouched high along one of the thicker branches overhead while Luna circled quietly through nearby shadows below.
The moment the Lunar Spirit Fox emerged from the darkness, the boars immediately reacted.
Massive bodies tore through the undergrowth while furious snarls echoed between the trees as the creatures charged after her almost instantly.
Straight toward the trap line.
Traise moved immediately.
Quickstep activated beneath his feet while he leaped between two of the branches overhead, keeping pace with the charging herd while drawing one of his daggers free.
Seconds later, the first boar crashed directly into one of the concealed pits.
The ground collapsed beneath it instantly.
Then a third.
Massive bodies disappeared into the sharpened stakes below while furious squeals erupted upward from inside the traps.
The surviving boars immediately panicked, but Luna redirected them almost perfectly, appearing from one shadow only to vanish into another moments later while forcing their movement exactly where Traise wanted.
One of the boars tried breaking away from the hunting zone, but Traise dropped from the branches instantly.
His dagger slashed across the creature’s exposed neck while momentum carried him into a roll across the forest floor.
Blood sprayed violently across nearby roots while the wounded boar collapsed moments later beside one of the pits.
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[You have defeated a Thornfang Boar]
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Notifications immediately started appearing one after another as poison-coated stakes finished the trapped creatures below.
Traise didn’t stop moving.
He climbed back into the trees while Luna continued redirecting the remaining survivors deeper through the prepared hunting route.
Another pit activated minutes later while one of the wounded boars crashed through weakened branches before impaling itself below.
Efficient.
Fast.
Controlled.
Just as they had planned.
After a successful plan, Traise genuinely felt like he was hunting as a true predator would.
Hours passed quickly.
By midday, multiple boar groups had already been wiped out while the forest floor near the hunting grounds became littered with massive carcasses.
Luna moved through the chaos almost effortlessly now, finishing weakened creatures from shadows while Traise attacked isolated targets from above whenever opportunities appeared.
Then the forest suddenly shifted.
Luna froze mid-step, and Traise immediately noticed.
Something large moved through the trees nearby while a sharp hiss echoed between the trunks.
Roc Pythons.
Two of them.
The massive serpents had likely followed the scent of blood and dying prey directly toward the hunting grounds.
One immediately lunged toward a wounded boar still attempting to crawl away from the pits while the second python lifted itself higher through the branches overhead, tongue flicking rapidly through the air.
Weeks ago, encounters like this would have sent panic crashing through Traise instantly.
Now his reaction felt completely different.
“Don’t you dare steal my xp!”
Traise moved first.
Quickstep exploded beneath his feet while he launched himself from the branch directly toward the higher Roc Python like an arrow.
His dagger sliced into the side of the first python before he continued forward and plunged it downward into the second serpent’s skull.
Luna simultaneously erupted from nearby shadows below, claws tearing across the first python’s exposed throat before it could fully recover from the initial attack.
The fight ended almost immediately.
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[You have defeated a Roc Python x2]
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The forest gradually fell quiet again afterward.
Traise landed lightly against one of the branches while breathing steadily, staring down at the dead serpents below.
Neither he nor Luna had suffered a single injury during the entire fight.
That alone would have felt unbelievable not long ago.
Luna eventually leapt back onto the branch beside him before settling comfortably against his side.
Faint satisfaction drifted through the bond while her tail curled loosely against his leg.
The earlier pressure from the deeper forest already felt distant compared to the controlled rhythm of the hunt.
Traise quietly looked across the surrounding terrain.
Collapsed traps.
Poisoned stakes.
Broken trees.
Dead monsters.
The entire area looked less like random survival now and more like a carefully constructed farming zone.
That realization settled strangely inside him while he slowly opened his status window again.
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[The Upgrade System]
User: Traise Axton
Party Members: 1
Grade: Initiate
Level: 8
XP: 70 / 140
Health: 62 / 62
Mana: 10 / 10
Speed: +40%
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Level 8!
Traise stared at the screen quietly while his thoughts gradually settled.
The numbers still looked small compared to the monsters hidden deeper inside the forest.
Compared to the Solhart, the Duskwalker, or whatever existed near the Eclipse Sanctum Dungeon, his current strength was probably insignificant.
But compared to where he started?
The difference already felt enormous.
Not long ago, a single Thornfang Boar nearly killed him.
Roc Pythons once forced him into desperate fights where one mistake meant death.
Now he was planning hunting routes, farming experience efficiently, coordinating attacks with Luna, and ending battles before they could even become dangerous.
Slowly, steadily, he was adapting to this world.
And more importantly, he was beginning to understand how to survive in it.
The chain quest still loomed ahead like something impossibly distant.
Level 20 remained far away, while the Moonfang Alpha was still nothing more than a name attached to something undoubtedly terrifying.
Even so, the path forward no longer felt completely hopeless.
Difficult?
Absolutely.
Dangerous?
Without question.
But possible.
Traise quietly closed the status window before leaning back against the branch again while he listened as the wind drifted softly through the canopy overhead.
Luna curled more comfortably against his side while faint contentment continued flowing through the bond between them.
There was still a long way to go.
More levels.
More skills.
Better equipment.
More understanding.
The deeper forest had already shown him how small he truly was compared to the greater world waiting beyond these woods, but this world also rewarded preparation, persistence, and strategy.
And now that he finally understood that…
The grind could truly begin.