Forever

He had a plan, a very broad one, but a plan that felt a little more directed in focus than just learning how to survive in the woods indefinitely. Now he just needed to wait for his body to regain its sapped strength, possibly before something big came and ate him. Bored out of his mind, he was stuck laying on the ground, he knew it wasn’t a smart idea to use his skill to move, so instead he began to mess with it in other ways.

He tried to flex the skill, turning it off and on rapidly, which didn’t have much of an effect except for making him feel sporadically energetic. Then, getting tired of no meaningful results, he started running the skill for a few seconds, basking in the anesthesia it provided, before the skill ended and the pain returned. Surprisingly, he began to feel slightly better after the skill turned off, the pain dulling slightly. It seemed like whatever the energy was, it either worked to reduce the pain he was feeling or was actively fixing his bruised body.

Using the knowledge he had acquired, Salim began flooding his body as much as he could to try and speed up the healing process, while making sure not to get too distracted from his surroundings. When he finally ran dry, Salim had a realization for what [Depth] did, at least partially. His core had slightly expanded since the last time he looked at it, allowing him to keep his skill up for several seconds longer than before.

After his impromptu healing session, Salim found that he had regained a small amount of mobility, able to push himself up against the tree trunk he had laid next to and look around. Verdant greens and deep browns covered his vision, as nothing odd stuck out to him in the forest. Slowly gathering his strength, Salim shifted his body and began cutting into the tree with his nails, drinking the sap, while using [Reinforced Stamina] for as long as possible, before repeating the cycle.

While his body healed at an accelerated rate, the constant use and dumping of energy was making him feel queasy, and even making him dry heave before he decided to take a break. The method wasn’t perfect, and it certainly didn't feel good, but Salim thought it was worth it, as after what felt like hours he was able to rise on shaky weak legs. Despite his reduced state, he felt big, the fact that he went from completely incapacitated to standing in just a few hours made him feel good, made him feel strong like he never had before.

Using your skill, you healed your broken body.

Event has been Logged.

You have gained a Level!

You have gained your tenth Level.

Select Class in Menu.

Salim had been expecting the level-up after his feat of ingenuity, but the second box surprised him. Thunk. Salim slowly slid back down the tree as he made sure not to fall over, quickly opening the main menu and selecting the now highlighted class button.

Classes Available

Traveler

(Upgraded)

Not all who wander are lost, as you have become more experienced in your journey.

Hunter

(Swap)

Hunting is a necessary action for survival, the Hunter sets traps for their prey and stalks the ones who get away.

Gatherer

(Swap)

Edible berries, balms, and incense are all useful with the right knowledge, poisons more so.

The options presented to him made him think about the difference between an upgraded class and a swapped one. The descriptions didn’t explain much more than their general identity, and Salim was already sure he was going to pick [Traveler] on account of [Wanderer] being so useful. But if he picked the other two, would he lose all his skills from the previous class, or would it give him more? He wasn’t willing to figure it out when his survival depended on it, but maybe in the future he would figure it out.

You have chosen the Traveler Class.

The experience of your will guides you

You have upgraded 4 Skills.

‘Wayfind’ -> ‘Navigate’

‘Forage’ -> ‘Keen Eye’

‘Safe Travel’ -> ‘Safer Travel’

‘Reinforced Stamina’ -> ‘Bolstered Stamina’

You have gained 10 stat points.

Huh, that’s convenient, he thought. All his skills were supposedly upgraded, and he had a total of ten points instead of the usual five. After reading through the box, Salim quickly transitioned to the skill menu to try and figure out what had changed.

Skills

Navigate (Class)

Lvl. 1

Guides you to where you want to go while keeping track of where you came from.

Keen Eye (Class)

Lvl. 1

A keen eye watches.

Safer Travel (Class)

Lvl. 1

Hides your trace while you move.

Bolstered Stamina (Class)

Lvl. 1

As long as you are determined to travel, you will never stop.

The changes seemed like a mixed bag to Salim, not completely sure if he understood what the upgrades had done. He couldn’t remember all the descriptions of the skills, but the new [Navigate] and [Safer Travel] seemed to have not changed much from their old counterparts. Feeling for [Navigate] and asking it to find him a place to stay the night, Salim felt the pull, except it came with another feeling that seemed to grip his entire brain.

In his head, he could almost perfectly picture his journey up and through the mountain, like he was looking at a three-dimensional scan of the surrounding land. He could also give a general estimate on how far he had walked, along with knowing roughly where he was in relation to where he had first appeared. All in all, he was impressed with the utility the skill now possessed, the retroactivity of the ability being specifically intriguing.

Trying to find all the changes to his skills [Safer Travel] seemed to have become more general use, whether he was walking around or even just standing, he could feel the skill poking and prodding to make him avoid attention. Again, a very positive benefit that he was definitely going to get use out of. It began to get weird when he tried to use [Keen Eye] despite [Foraging] not being something he could use, his comprehension of the skills' description was proven correct when the skill activated.

Diving deeper into the feeling, Salim felt like he was being sucked into his eye, his core sending a pulse of energy up his spine as his vision sharpened like his eyes had increased in resolution. Quickly shutting the skill off, Salim again felt nauseous from the whiplash of his sight rapidly changing. Resting for a bit so that he wouldn’t end up drying heaving again, he moved on to [Bolstered Stamina].

Messing around for several minutes, Salim couldn’t figure out what changed, everything seemed to work the same even as he tried to push the skill to its maximum output. Not getting any results, he went back to messing with [Keen Eye] for a little while longer. Eventually, Salim stopped when he tripped over a root and smacked his head against a tree while being fixated on a droplet of water he could see on one of the tree’s leaves.

Ah, I almost forgot my stats, he thought. Trying to push his new powers out of his mind to avoid getting sidetracked in experimentation, Salim pulled up the menu. He quickly slotted the points into his physical stats, while making sure to keep some points for his [Depth], since it proved itself very useful.

Lvl. 10

Stats

Confirm

Might: 20 (25)

-/+

Finesse: 15 (18)

-/+

Resilience: 25

-/+

Acuity: 15

-/+

Resolve: 15

-/+

Depth: 10 (12)

-/+

The burn from the stat increases hurt, but it was far less than his first time applying ten points at once.

Maybe I’m getting used to the feeling? Or maybe it’s just that my body is more resilient. Whatever, doesn't matter, I need to level up. But where to go? Thoughts bounced around his head as he looked around.

Scratching his head unconsciously while musing about direction, Salim eventually decided to walk directly away from the mountain with the use of [Navigate]. While the mountains were the only obvious distinguishing landmark he could see, the new skill let him cheat without having to climb a tree to orient himself.

He trotted off, asking the skill to find something ‘interesting’ he was surprised when it actually worked. Salim wasn’t sure what a skill would consider ‘interesting’, but it latched onto something. “Who am I to deny its wanderlust?” his raspy voice sounded out with a sardonic grin stretched across his dirt covered face.

So he walked.

And walked.

And slept under the moonless starry sky.

And walked.

For five days Salim trudged, shuffling from one foot to another, stopping only to gather food and water or to sleep. It was boring but contemplative work, moving through a forest alone gave Salim a lot of time to think about himself, although most of it was taken up by absent-minded humming. He also figured out why he hadn’t seen many animals, it had bothered him since the forest was buzzing with audible life, tucked right out of his sight.

They were all hiding incredibly well, at least better than his untrained eyes could pick up. He only noticed what looked like a squirrel after he had used [Keen Eyes] to look at a tree for nuts, only to notice it blending into a branch with its fur acting as a natural camouflage. After hat, he had taken to looking around for local wildlife whenever he had spare energy to do so, just to stem the boredom that he was feeling.

Several times he had been approached by what looked like predators, once by a wolf-looking creature that he had avoided by hiding up in a tree, and several times by strange gigantic insects. Thankfully, they backed off whenever he stood his ground after his stealth failed him, although he wasn’t sure why they were hesitant to approach him while that first insect had charged.

Marveling at what the stats had done to his strength, he could easily throw large logs around, with it only taking a few kicks to start bending a small tree. His points in [Resilience] had also done him well, the welts that formed on his legs were now calluses, and while they looked ugly as sin, they didn’t hurt whenever he brushed against a bush or tree.

On the fifth day, Salim was growing more anxious, the feeling from [Navigate] wasn’t growing any stronger, and while he conceptually knew that he wasn’t walking in circles, it still felt like it. He also hadn’t received a single level up from his journey, he had theorized that the difficulty of a single level was scaling with the points he received, but he didn’t have proof. An increase in leveling difficulty sucked, but he still didn’t have a full grasp on what caused him to level up.

“Maybe I need to risk my life to get another level up,” Salim chuckled to himself. He had begun talking to himself over the past couple days as a way to hear a voice, even if it was his own. It felt like he was getting wound tighter and tighter by his need for social interaction. It wasn’t bad at first, just slight discomfort that he didn’t have anyone to talk about all the crazy stuff he had experienced yet, but he had been living in the forest for over a week. He wasn’t close to breaking down and going crazy by any means, but he could tell that his mood had considerably worsened.

He could still hear his family and girlfriend in his mind giving words of reassurance, but it was honestly getting hard for him to remember what they looked like. His memory had never been good, and the life-threatening situations this body had been put through several times throughout the week felt like it burned through what memory he had left.

Setting down another leaf bowl that he had put together, Salim stared down at his feet, the gross ugly things had seen better days and his legs that were slightly better off. He was so different from just a week ago, both mentally and physically. Clenching his hand into a fist, Salim watched as the muscles flexed with immense power, eyes wandering over the weird discoloration of his skin from patchwork sunburns.

Feeling anxious about not getting anywhere, Salim decided to push through the night, using [Bolstered Stamina] to push through the exhaustion. It wasn’t a smart thing to do, but it made him feel better that he was making progress, especially when he thought [Navigate] was getting a tiny bit more insistent.

The slow march continued.

Sleepless nights slowly became a bad habit that Salim didn’t feel like changing. The skill let him delay exhaustion until it was released, and thankfully stopped any more from piling up, but he still felt the remaining sleepiness creep in whenever he let go for even half a second. A more unfortunate side effect of overnight hiking sessions was that he lost track of time as the days began to blend.

His focus on keeping the skill up also leads to a certain amount of carelessness. After several nights of not seeing anything, he decided that speed was more important than staying quiet. However, a few hours later he was hiding out in a bush, rapidly reconsidering the approach.

It had all happened quickly. Salim had gotten a bad feeling and had used [Keen Eye] to scan the surrounding trees before spotting several wolf-like creatures that he had seen several days prior, stalking behind him as they slowly crept up.

Having a flashback to his previous life, Salim didn’t plan on running, as he doubted he could get away from the large wolves. Standing up out of the bush, he turned to them with the large walking stick he had been using. Seeing that he had noticed them, the wolves stalked out of the treeline, slowly encircling him before beginning to move closer.

I just hit them with the stick, and they’ll run off, right?