Fight. Level. Survive.

Monsters and beasts appear all over the world in many different forms, from the Dragons who rule the mountains to the sea creatures who lurk in the depths. The words 'Monster' and 'Beast' are often used interchangeably, but there are significant differences between the two kinds of creature.

Beasts are naturally occurring animals born from this world. Monsters, however, are far rarer creatures, either made entirely of Chaos Magic or displaced from their own world and bought to this one. ACTs are the most common cause of Monsters appearing, but there are also certain rituals that have the same effect.

Monsters are often far more intelligent and can often assert control over the more simple-minded Beasts.

Excerpt from 'The Beastiary: A non-exhaustive guide to Beasts and Monsters. Volume one' - Page 2

Chapter 16 - BUKARK

You have been poisoned.

You will lose 5 HP per second for 30 seconds.

200 / 220 HP

"Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck” The spider had clamped its jaws down on his arm, in his panic, he had dropped his dagger. In intense pain, he drew back his other arm and punched the spider in the face.

His fist impacted the ugly bastard hard enough to dislodge it from his arm; unfortunately, it hadn't opened its mouth, meaning the spider took a sizeable chunk of Mason's arm with it.

175 / 220 HP

With no time to drink an antidote, the spider leapt at him again. Ducking under it and grabbing his dagger from the floor, he turned and shot three Magic Bolts in the spider's direction. One landed and caused a noticeable gash over several of its eyes.

Mason kept half his attention on the spider and used the dagger to free his feet from the web. He carefully repositioned himself to avoid getting stuck again.

110 / 220 HP

The spider, now more cautious of Mason, started to scurry off into a tunnel. Not wanting it to come back with friends, Mason chased after it shooting several more Magic Bolts In its direction. Scoring a lucky hit, he had managed to slice off one of its back legs, throwing it off balance and allowing Mason to catch up and squish the little fucker. He stomped down on it and felt an oddly satisfying crunch.

*DING*

You have slain – Beast – Level 5 Stone Eater Spider

You have received 50 XP.

Breathing heavily

He waved the notification away.

Opening his inventory, he withdrew a health potion and put it to his lips.

Warning! Drinking more than one potion at a time will cause the Toxic effect. You can currently drink one potion every 20 minutes. Increase your Resilience stat to reduce this cooldown. You have 4 minutes until you can drink another potion.

"Fucking perfect." With the poison and the chunk of flesh he was missing, he was down to 25 / 220 HP. The effect of the poison had ended, and his HP had started to tick up slowly, but he had come pretty close to death once again.

He considered leaving and coming back when he was stronger, but he convinced himself he could do better, he knew what he was facing now so he would be fine as long as he didn't get bit again.

Waiting for his HP to fully regenerate, he turned off his Camo so as not to waste MP.

At 12 Vitality, he seemed to be regaining HP at roughly a point a second while not in combat and half that while fighting, meaning after a few minutes, he would be fully healed and ready to head off. He watched the skin on his arm reknit itself like he was some Deadpool rip-off.

As he waited to be fully healed, he walked over to the spider and used 'Identify'.

Beast – Level 5 Stone Eater Spider - This young Stone Eater has seen better days, it seems to have been stomped to death. You know, some other systems might get turned on by this sort of thing.

Rolling his eyes at the strange description, he looted the body.

Loot Received:

Venom gland

3 Bronze coins

Spool of silk

Fully healed, he reactivated his camouflage, picked a tunnel at random and crept into it. This time, being far more careful about where he stepped.

Moving slowly through the darkness, he thought about how far he'd come in just a few days. This time last week, he had been sitting on his ass arguing with hotel guests about whether or not they had bought X-rated movies on their room. Now he was walking through a spider-infested cave, trying to level up his magical powers and thinking about it. This was crazy! He had just killed a dog-sized spider and was now looking to kill the rest! Before this train of thought continued much further, the tunnel he was following opened up into another cavern.

This particular cavern was massive and contained several notable things. First, a beam of sunlight shone through a crack in the ceiling, lighting up the cave enough that mason could remove his shades. Second was the shimmering lake in the centre of the huge space. The last thing that this section of the cave contained were several dozen spiders.

The sheer number of them made Mason's heart race. He mentally cursed Viv for sending him here. From what she said, he assumed it was a simple quest to clear out a few spiders that probably weren't even bothering anyone anyway! In reality, he counted 32. In all, some bigger than the one he had killed, some slightly smaller.

He started to back away, planning on a tactical retreat, when he heard a very loud noise. This noise was one he did recognise, one he had heard before, many times. His measly 21 Intelligence could not come up with a reasonable scenario as to why he was hearing this noise in a cave full of giant spiders.

"BUKARK!"

He wasn't crazy, right? That had definitely been a chicken.

At the third cluck, 90% of the spiders all headed for the same tunnel. Unfortunately for Mason, it just so happened to be the tunnel he was currently standing in. They moved fast enough that he had no chance of getting out of the way in time. He moved to the side of the cave and pressed his body tight against the wall. He closed his eyes and prayed for it to be quick. He felt things move past him at speed. Opening his eyes, he saw the last few spiders skitter past him. Apart from being jostled a few times, the spiders had somehow altogether avoided him despite the fact he was close to being invisible.

In his world, Mason had never believed in God. He had always thought the idea of an all-loving, all-powerful being caring about whether he masturbated or had sex before marriage to be ludicrous. In this world, there were many gods, and they were all apparently terrifying and malicious, but he had prayed and been spared, so he looked to the ceiling and gave a nod, just in case.

He exited the tunnel as fast as he could. Looking around, he saw that only three spiders were remaining. He reckoned he could probably manage three. If he took one by surprise and finished it quickly, he might even be able to kill the thing without the other two noticing. His Camo skill mentioned something about a damage increase if he was undetected. Hesitantly he whispered, "Help, Camouflage skill damage increase."

Immediately a message appeared.

Help - Camouflage skill damage increase.

Attacking an enemy while staying undetected will increase the damage done. The damage increase is decided by the Perception stat. Current damage increase: 25%

"Hmm, not too shabby." He whispered to himself. Assuming he could hit it without being detected the damage he'd do with his super sharp dagger should, hopefully, one-shot the thing.

Moving slowly over to the smallest spider, he used 'Identify' once within range.

Beast – Level 4 Stone Eater Spider - This young spider is too young to have developed its venom gland yet. Its bite will still hurt like a bitch, though.

Level 4, so a level weaker than the one he had already killed. Not knowing much about the physiology of a spider, he wasn't entirely sure where its most vulnerable spot would be. Putting his intelligence stat to good use, he decided to stab it in its face.

He decided on this area of attack because, in Mason's ranking of places he would least like to be stabbed, the face held second place. He wasn't sure if spiders had balls, so, face it was.

Taking a breath, he plunged the dagger into the monster's face with all his strength. It sank into its flesh like a hot dagger through butter, and the spider collapsed. Making a slight thud as its body hit the ground.

Looking over, he saw the other spiders hadn't reacted at all.

He felt his soul momentarily leave his body as he heard the loud,

*DING*

You have slain – Beast – Level 4 Stone Eater Spider

You have received 40 XP.

He mentally gave the system the finger. Its bad timing had almost made Mason shit himself.

Not wanting to be discovered, he took the spider's corpse into his inventory; in doing so, he found that it automatically looted the creature.

Loot Received:

2 Bronze coins

Spool of silk

Done here, he slowly crept over to the second spider to try and repeat his success.

All went well until he moved into position. He had tripped over a jagged rock and ended up falling onto the spider.

Mason struck out with his dagger the moment he regained his balance. Luckily, the spider was too slow to process what had happened and hit the floor with a thud same as the last spider.

He waited for the notification this time, not wanting to be surprised by it again. It didn't come. Worried, Mason bent down to check the spider was, in fact, dead an-

*DING*

You have slain – Beast – Level 5 Stone Eater Spider

You have received 50 XP.

Level up.

You have reached level 7

Stat points allocated.

He jumped about a foot into the air, the noise startling him just as much as it had earlier.

"Fuck you, dude!" He whispered to the system. Quickly taking the spider's corpse into his inventory, not getting anything new. He decided to wait to spend his point until after the third spider was dead, and he was slightly safer.

Feeling far more confident after two kills using the same method, he decided to change it up a bit. He wanted to try out his new bow. He had never tried archery before, but he had seen it done and figured it couldn't be that hard.

He moved over to his new target, the biggest spider yet. He took out his bow and a single arrow, trying to figure out how to hold the weapon. Managing to get it to feel at least somewhat right in his hands, he pulled back and released. The arrow hit the target! Admittedly he had been standing so close that it would have been more of a challenge not to hit the mark, but still!

The arrow penetrated the spider's body but didn't seem to have done much damage. It didn't even turn around to investigate what had hit it. Moving cautiously, he returned to his true and tested method of stabbing in its face. He drew back his hand, but before he stabbed, he noticed the spider was making an odd low chittering sound. His Universal Translation skill wasn't powerful enough to translate the sound, it did, however, manage to convey that the beast was deeply distressed and was whinging.

He opened up his inventory and looked at the bow's description.

Bow of the Dreadwood Tree (Uncommon) - In a distant land, there exists a graveyard. In this graveyard, a single tree grew. This tree absorbed all the hatred and sorrow of the dead buried around it. From a branch of this tree, this bow was crafted. Landing a hit on an enemy with this bow will either cause rapid necrosis or spontaneous depression. Undead are immune to these effects.

Mason felt kinda bad. He must have inflicted spontaneous depression on the spider. He felt the odd urge to deactivate his Camouflage skill and try and make the beast feel better. He had been depressed before and knew how crappy it could get. Of course, he didn't try to comfort it as he was well aware that the only use he could be to the beast was as a snack. He decided to put it out of its misery and stabbed it in its face.

He made a mental note not to use the bow unless he really needed to and put it back into his inventory.

Placing his hand on the spider's body for a moment he…

*DING*

You have slain – Beast – Level 7 Stone Eater Spider

You have received 70 XP.

"Son of a bitch! Stop doing that! Fuck!" Stopping whatever he was going to do, he put the spider into his inventory, gaining him.

Loot Received:

Spider tears

Venom gland

5 Bronze coins

Spool of silk

Surprised he had gotten the tears, but ultimately over his brief display of emotion. He bought up his menu and put all three points into Intelligence, prompting another notification.

Your intelligence stat has reached 25.

Your skill Magic Bolt (Basic) has been upgraded to Magic Missile (Advanced).

Magic Missile (Advanced) – Call upon your immense, mystical power and unleash it to strike down your foes.

Active effect: Focus a portion of your Mana into an attack in the form of a small Missile of kinetic energy which explodes on contact. Damage dependant on Intelligence. Scales with Intelligence.

"Awesome!" Mason exclaimed in a whisper. He wanted to try out his new ability immediately but thought that a cave might not be the best place to try out an ability that causes explosions. Being trapped under tons and tons of stone didn't sound very appealing.

Hearing a slight scuffle, he whipped around and looked towards one of the many tunnels. He saw a flash of orange, and then it was gone.