Traise remained motionless against the thick tree branch while the forest shifted quietly around him.
The adrenaline from the earlier chase had mostly faded now, leaving behind soreness that spread through nearly every part of his body.
Even so, the cuts across his arms and shoulder no longer hurt as badly as before.
Minor Regeneration had continued healing him steadily while he rested hidden among the branches.
Then the system spoke again.
[Health restored: 11 / 12]
[Minor Regeneration Mastery increased: 5 / 100]
Traise stared at the message quietly while flexing his injured shoulder slightly.
The deep claw mark from the Moonfang Stalker already looked smaller than before, the torn flesh slowly pulling itself back together beneath the fading blood.
Several more minutes passed in silence before another notification appeared.
[Health restored: 12 / 12]
[Minor Regeneration Mastery increased: 6 / 100]
Traise let out a slow breath through his nose.
So that was how mastery worked.
Minor Regeneration didn’t improve simply because he possessed it.
It improved because it actively healed damage.
That meant the only way to make the skill stronger was to actually survive injuries severe enough for the regeneration to matter.
“That’s a pretty terrible training method…”
Still, it explained why the mastery had increased alongside his health recovery.
His stomach tightened faintly as he looked down toward the ground below.
The fight between the two monsters not long ago had already made one thing painfully obvious.
He was weak.
If those creatures had focused on him instead of each other, he would have died almost instantly.
Running away forever wasn’t going to work.
He needed experience.
And to get experience, he needed to kill something.
Carefully climbing down from the tree, Traise kept one hand wrapped tightly around the trunk while scanning the surrounding forest for movement.
The moment his boots touched the ground again, the tension immediately returned to his shoulders.
Every shifting shadow between the trees still felt dangerous after everything that had happened earlier.
Before moving too far from the area, he searched through the undergrowth for anything useful.
Most of the clearing where the monsters had fought remained torn apart from the battle, but eventually he found a thick fallen branch partially buried beneath crushed leaves and broken dirt.
The wood felt heavy enough to function as a weapon, even if uneven cracks along one side made the grip awkward.
Still, it was better than nothing.
Traise tested a few careful swings while walking through the forest, the branch cutting clumsily through the air as his shoulders adjusted to the weight.
The improvised club felt crude and unbalanced, but after several minutes, he slowly found a more comfortable way to hold it.
At least now he wasn’t completely defenseless.
The deeper he traveled, the more unfamiliar the forest became.
Pale vines wrapped around enormous tree trunks while strange glowing plants spread across the undergrowth in uneven patches.
The air itself felt damp and heavy, carrying unfamiliar scents that reminded him constantly that this world wasn’t Earth.
Eventually, something small moved near the base of a nearby tree.
Traise immediately lowered himself behind a cluster of bushes.
The creature looked similar to the golden rabbit-like animal he had encountered earlier, though this one was smaller and covered in silver fur instead of metallic gold.
Two short, horn-like protrusions curved backward slightly from the top of its head while pale blue eyes reflected faintly as it sniffed through the grass.
The moment Traise saw it, he immediately understood something important.
This thing looked much weaker than the Moonfang Stalker.
His grip tightened around the branch instinctively.
The rabbit-like creature still moved carefully, twitching at every distant sound while searching through the undergrowth for food.
Even so, it didn’t radiate the same dangerous feeling as the larger monsters from before.
Traise slowly circled through the trees, trying to stay quiet while keeping the creature within sight.
His movements remained cautious and uneven as he stepped around rocks, fallen branches, and patches of exposed earth one careful step at a time.
Then his foot snapped a twig.
The silver creature instantly bolted.
“Damn it!”
Traise lunged forward instinctively as the rabbit-like animal shot through the forest with surprising speed.
He nearly lost sight of it several times while forcing himself through bushes and low branches, his improvised club swinging awkwardly at empty air as the creature zigzagged around obstacles faster than he expected.
The rabbit suddenly changed direction near a fallen log.
Traise reacted late, nearly tripping before throwing himself sideways and bringing the branch down with both hands.
The impact struck the creature hard enough to send it tumbling across the dirt.
The rabbit-like animal screeched loudly and tried to flee again, but one of its hind legs failed beneath it.
Traise rushed forward before it could recover and slammed the branch downward a second time.
The creature stopped moving.
Then the system appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[You have killed a Silverhorn Hare]
[You have gained 2 Experience]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise stood there breathing harder than expected while staring down at the small corpse lying in the dirt.
Silverhorn Hare.
So that was its name.
Another notification appeared immediately afterward.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Item Acquired]
Silverhorn Meat x1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise blinked as the item appeared inside his inventory.
Did all monsters drop materials after death?
The thought immediately reminded him of grinding creatures in games, though standing over an actual corpse made the comparison feel far more uncomfortable than before.
His status quietly updated in the corner of his vision.
XP: 7 / 10
Still not enough.
Traise looked deeper into the forest again before tightening his grip around the branch.
“Again.”
The second hunt went slightly smoother.
Traise still scared the Silverhorn Hare once before catching it, but this time he anticipated its movements better after observing the first one.
Instead of blindly chasing it through the trees, he cut sideways through the undergrowth and intercepted the creature near a moss-covered stone before striking it down after only two swings.
The system appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[You have killed a Silverhorn Hare]
[You have gained 2 Experience]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Item Acquired]
Silverhorn Fur x2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise slowed slightly while staring at the notification.
Different drop this time.
The realization immediately shifted his thoughts toward the inventory system again.
If creatures could drop different materials, then stronger monsters probably carried rarer items as well.
That also meant equipment might not appear often.
His movements already felt slightly more controlled than before, and after spending time tracking the creatures through the undergrowth, another message suddenly sounded.
[Intelligence increased to 11]
Traise slowed slightly.
“…Intelligence?”
The timing confused him until he thought back through the last hour.
He had stopped rushing directly at the creatures after the first failed chase, instead studying how they moved and trying to predict where they would run before attacking.
The system had apparently counted that as improvement.
“That’s honestly kind of creepy.”
It meant the system was watching almost everything he did.
The third hunt proved harder despite his growing experience.
The Silverhorn Hare spotted him almost immediately and fled deeper into the forest before he could close the distance.
Traise spent nearly twenty minutes tracking the creature through dense undergrowth while repeatedly swinging the heavy branch hard enough to make his arms ache from the strain.
Eventually, another notification sounded.
[Strength increased to 11]
Traise glanced at the message briefly before refocusing on the fleeing creature ahead of him.
Between carrying the heavy branch for a prolonged period and repeatedly swinging it during the hunts, the system had apparently decided the effort counted as meaningful physical strain.
Soon, he cornered the creature between a steep rock wall and a fallen tree before finally killing it after another exhausting struggle.
The system appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[You have killed a Silverhorn Hare]
[You have gained 2 Experience]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Before Traise could fully process the notification, another screen suddenly expanded in front of him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Level Up]
Level 1 → Level 2
Maximum Health increased by 5
Health: 17 / 17
You have gained 5 Free Attribute Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Warmth spread through his body immediately afterward, stronger than anything he had felt from the temporary Endurance buff earlier.
The exhaustion weighing down his muscles eased noticeably while the lingering soreness in his arms faded slightly as well.
Traise stared at the screen quietly.
He actually leveled up.
The feeling wasn’t overwhelming, but it was real.
His body genuinely felt stronger than before.
Then another notification sounded once more.
[Temporary Effect Expired]
[Endurance decreased to 11]
[Maximum Health decreased to 16]
Traise blinked.
“The meat buff wore off…”
The heaviness lingering in his muscles returned slightly, though nowhere near as badly as before leveling up.
Even after losing the temporary enhancement, his body still felt noticeably stronger than it had earlier.
Then another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Item Acquired]
Silverhorn Bone Dagger
Grade: Initiate
Effect: +1 Dexterity
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise immediately pulled the weapon from his inventory.
The dagger materialized directly into his hand.
Unlike the crude branch he had spent the last several hours carrying around, this weapon actually looked crafted.
Pale silver bone formed the blade while dark leather wrapped tightly around the handle.
The edge wasn’t perfect, but compared to a broken stick, it felt incredible.
A real weapon.
Traise turned the dagger slightly beneath the moonlight before letting out a quiet laugh under his breath.
“Okay… this definitely feels more like a game now.”
He quickly returned it to the inventory system before opening his updated status screen.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[The Upgrade System]
User: Traise Axton
Grade: Initiate
Level: 2
XP: 1 / 20
Health: 16 / 16
Mana: 10 / 10
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Attributes]
Strength: 11
Dexterity: 14
Intelligence: 11
Endurance: 11
Willpower: 10
Luck: ???
Free Attribute Points: 5
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skills]
Mimic (Class – Special)
Class: Special
Type: Growth / Replication
Current Mimic Slots
1 / 3 Available
Current Mimic Skills:
Minor Regeneration
Class: Initiate Low
Type: Passive / Healing
Mastery: 9 / 100
Current Effects:
Passive healing over time
Reduced bleeding damage
Recovery Rate: 1% Maximum Health per minute
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Beast Digestion
Class: Initiate Low
Type: Passive / Survival
Allows safe digestion and absorption of foreign biological material from monsters and beasts.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise stared quietly at the screen while distant movement echoed somewhere deeper within the forest around him.
Less than an hour ago, he had been hiding in a tree while monsters fought nearby badly enough to shake the ground beneath him.
Now he had levels, stats, skills, equipment, and a system that rewarded him for surviving.
The whole situation still felt insane.
Traise lowered the status screen slowly while tightening his grip around the dagger.
The exhaustion from the hunts still lingered in his body, but it no longer felt overwhelming the way it had earlier.
For the first time since arriving in this world, he no longer felt completely helpless.
Weak, yes.
Still completely outmatched by most of the things hiding in this forest.
But not helpless anymore.
Then another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Level requirement met]
[Quest System Unlocked]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise straightened slightly.
A new screen unfolded immediately afterward.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Generating Quests]
Quest: Kill 10 Silverhorn Hares
Quest: Kill 3 Moonfang Stalkers
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
For several seconds, Traise simply stared at the words.
The system had more functions…
Before, it merely reacted to what he did.
Now it was actively giving him goals to grow stronger.
A slow grin spread across his face.