Chapter 2 – A New System
It felt like he blinked.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Verification confirmed.]
[Welcome to The Upgrade System]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
When his vision settled again, the system interface was still there, hovering exactly where it had been before, but everything else had changed.
The endless white space that had surrounded him had vanished, replaced by a dense forest that pressed in from every direction, trees rising unevenly with thick trunks and deeply ridged bark, their roots breaking through the ground beneath his feet in twisted lines.
The air felt heavier here, warm and damp, carrying the scent of soil and decaying leaves.
Traise remained still for a moment, his gaze shifting slowly across the environment as the reality of the transition settled in.
There was no dramatic pull or fall into this world, it was as if the previous white world itself had been rewritten, all in the span of a single blink.
The system flickered once in front of him and then disappeared, leaving Traise surrounded by the forest’s constant, subtle motion of leaves brushing together overhead, while he could feel something deeper within the trees shift with presences that were most likely unfriendly.
A bit of panic sank in as he realized he didn’t have any survival skills.
He hadn’t even been camping in his previous life.
He had to take a deep breath to calm himself, then lifted his hand, turning it as he flexed his fingers, noticing the difference.
It didn’t feel like his old body.
His grip was weak, his arm shorter than he recalled.
Proportionally, everything felt smaller, as if everything had been scaled down without changing anything else to compensate.
He felt mildly aware of the truth as he lowered his eyes to notice that the rest of his body was smaller, like that of someone who was 15 or 16.
At least a decade younger, as far as he could guess.
He shuffled forward, planting each step carefully as roots and rocky dirt required him to slow and steady himself.
There were no signs of people or paths around.
He didn’t see any buildings or roads, nothing that suggested civilization had ever reached this place, only wilderness stretching outward in every direction, dense and unbroken, each section of forest blending into the next in a way that made it impossible to tell how far he had come or where he was going.
He turned slowly, scanning from one direction to another, but nothing changed.
The environment offered no guidance, no direction, just seemingly endless trees that made the world feel larger the longer he took it in.
As time passed, the light began to shift, the scattered brightness filtering through the canopy fading gradually as shadows stretched across the ground and merged together.
The warmth in the air gave way to something cooler that settled against his skin, and when he finally looked upward through a gap in the branches, the sky had already begun to darken, the last traces of daylight slipping away as night took hold.
His gaze stilled when something unfamiliar came into view, and he found himself staring longer than expected at the sight above him.
There wasn’t just one moon.
Two pale shapes hung in the sky, one slightly larger than the other, their dim light enough to make the difference unmistakable.
Traise stared at them longer than he meant to, his mind struggling to reject what was right in front of him even as the answer became impossible to deny.
He wasn’t on Earth.
The thought settled heavily in his chest as the breeze moved through the forest again, colder now than before, slipping through his clothes and settling against his skin.
The sounds around him felt different after that realization, sharper and easier to notice, every rustle carrying more weight than it had moments ago as something large shifted somewhere deeper within the trees.
A slow, hollow sensation began to form in his stomach, subtle at first but steadily growing stronger, accompanied by a dryness in his throat that made swallowing slightly uncomfortable.
The realization followed naturally, layering over everything else as he exhaled slowly and adjusted his stance, his attention shifting from observation to survival.
Hunger.
Thirst.
Cold.
And no shelter.
“…Right,” he murmured under his breath, forcing himself to remain steady as his thoughts moved away from confusion and toward problem-solving.
Standing still would not help, and panic would only make things worse.
His gaze lifted again, scanning the forest for any potential threats before shifting his thoughts to a more important matter.
The system.
He focused, recalling the interface, and spoke more deliberately.
“Status.”
The air in front of him rippled faintly before unfolding into a layered display, expanding outward into a complete interface that settled into place with sharp clarity.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[The Upgrade System]
User: Traise Axton
Grade: Initiate
Level: 1
XP: 0 / 10
Health: 10 / 10
Mana: 10 / 10
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Attributes]
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Endurance: 10
Willpower: 10
Luck: ???
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Abilities]
None
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skills]
Mimic
Class: Special
Type: Growth / Replication
Current Mimic Slots
3 / 3 Available
Current Mimic Skills:
None
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Notes]
System Integrity: Unstable
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He read through the interface slowly, taking in each section as the information settled into place.
The structure felt familiar enough for him to understand immediately, but the details made his situation painfully clear.
He had no abilities, no combat skills, and only a single skill that depended entirely on finding something worth copying first.
Even the unstable warning beneath the system notes felt like a reminder that something about all of this had gone wrong before he ever arrived here.
As he focused on the skill on the screen, another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skill Description]
Allows the user to learn and replicate observed abilities.
Skill Rules:
Target ability must be directly observed.
Cannot replicate a skill if the base skill is above the user’s current grade.
Replicated abilities improve through repeated use and practical understanding.
Maximum Mimic Slots at Initiate Grade: 3.
Higher Grades will increase the maximum skill count.
Mastery Effects:
Repeated use increases skill understanding.
Fully mastered skills become permanently integrated.
Permanently integrated skills occupy an active mimic slot and cannot be removed.
Non-mastered skills may be replaced.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
His gaze lingered briefly on the empty skill slots for Mimic before he dismissed the screen with a thought and looked back into the forest around him.
The darkness between the trees suddenly felt heavier than before, each distant rustle carrying enough weight to remind him how vulnerable he really was right now.
He still didn’t know what existed in this world, and with no real abilities to defend himself, even something small could probably kill him if he wasn’t careful.
Traise exhaled slowly and began moving again, keeping his steps deliberate as he pushed through the undergrowth.
Roots twisted across the forest floor beneath his feet, forcing him to pay attention to where he stepped while branches brushed against his shoulders and arms as he moved between the trees.
The deeper he went, the quieter he became, his attention constantly shifting toward every unfamiliar sound around him.
Somewhere in the distance, something heavy moved through the forest before falling silent again, and the sound alone was enough to make him tighten his grip unconsciously.
I need something useful… fast.
The thought lingered in the back of his mind as he continued forward, scanning the darkness carefully for movement.
Several minutes passed before a faint rustling sound reached him from nearby, softer than the heavier sounds from earlier but close enough to make him immediately stop moving.
His body tensed as he crouched slightly behind a thick tree trunk, peering carefully toward the source of the noise.
Something small pushed through the brush ahead before hopping into a narrow clearing.
Traise blinked.
The creature looked vaguely like a rabbit, but only at first glance.
Its body was larger and leaner than any rabbit he had ever seen, supported by long, powerful legs built more like a hunting animal’s than something meant to burrow or flee.
The metallic gold fur covering its body shimmered faintly beneath the moonlight, strands catching the pale light like polished fibers instead of natural fur, while its eyes glowed with an unnatural blue that stood out sharply against the darkness around it.
It sported a single on the center of its head.
One of its hind legs was injured, a long cut running along the side as dark blood stained the golden fur beneath it.
The creature slowed as it reached the center of the clearing, lowering its head to sniff cautiously at the wound.
Then Traise saw it.
A faint glow spread across the injured leg, subtle yet unmistakable, as the torn flesh slowly began to pull itself back together.
The bleeding stopped first, followed by the visible closing of the wound itself as the damaged skin repaired itself right in front of him.
Regeneration?
Traise’s attention locked onto the process completely, his earlier caution briefly forgotten as he watched the injury disappear almost entirely within seconds.
The creature flexed its leg experimentally before giving a small hop, the injury already looking noticeably better than before.
Then something spoke.
[Observation complete]
[Target ability detected: Minor Regeneration]
[Would you like to select this ability?]
Traise flinched hard, his head snapping toward the trees as his eyes searched the darkness around him.
The voice had felt nearby, close enough to sound like someone standing beside him, but the forest remained unchanged.
Nothing moved toward him, and the strange rabbit-like creature showed no reaction at all, continuing to sniff cautiously at the ground as if it had heard nothing.
The realization came quickly as his breathing steadied again.
The voice had never come from the forest.
It had come from the system.
His gaze shifted back toward the floating prompt as the answer became obvious.
Mimic could copy abilities.
The realization sent a sharp pulse of excitement through him, quickly pushing back some of the fear that had been building since he arrived in this world.
It still wasn’t strength, and it definitely wasn’t safety, but for the first time since waking up in the forest, it felt like he had been given something he could actually use.
The decision came instinctively, the same way it would have in a game, confirmed silently with just a thought.
Yes.
[Processing…]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skill Acquired]
Minor Regeneration
Class: Initiate Low
Type: Passive / Healing
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The system updated immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skills]
Mimic (Class – Special)
Class: Special
Type: Growth / Replication
Current Mimic Slots
2 / 3 Available
Current Mimic Skills:
Minor Regeneration
Class: Initiate Low
Type: Passive / Healing
Mastery: 0 / 100
Current Effects:
Passive healing over time
Reduced bleeding damage
Recovery Rate: 1% Maximum Health per minute
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise stared at the updated screen as the information settled in.
The change was subtle, almost impossible to feel directly, but it was there all the same.
He still wasn’t strong, and he was still stranded in the middle of an unfamiliar world, but now he finally had proof that the system worked.
More importantly—
He finally had a way to grow.
A sudden movement snapped his attention back toward the clearing.
The strange rabbit-like creature had frozen in place, its glowing blue eyes fixed toward the darkness deeper within the forest as its ears twitched sharply.
Whatever calm it had shown moments earlier vanished almost instantly, the creature’s body tightening before it abruptly turned and bolted into the undergrowth with surprising speed, its long legs carrying it between the trees in a blur of metallic gold.
Traise barely had time to process what happened before the forest fell silent again.
Then he heard it.
A slow crunch somewhere deeper among the trees.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
Far larger than the creature that had just fled.
The sound came again, followed by the faint shifting of branches as something moved through the darkness beyond his sightline.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t rushing.
It moved with the steady confidence of something that had never needed to fear what waited in these woods.
Traise’s body stiffened instinctively as the cold weight of realization settled in his chest.
The rabbit hadn’t run from him.
It had run from whatever was out there.
And now—
It was time for him to run too…