After I wiped down my pants at the river to the best of my ability I looked over my skills again starting with my new class based skills. 

…Holy fuck that seems insanely strong compared to beast tamer. I guess it is the upgraded version of it. Monster taming was very similar to beast lore and taming. With the two skills essentially combining into one it allowed me to level it faster and let me get another skill from my class. Intuition was both danger sense and natural explorer wrapped up in a single skill freeing up yet another slot for more skills. 

 

Losing marksmanship wasn’t much of a punishment as I already had axe specialization. The new astral magic also made up for my lack of range. That ment that tactics, monstrous and forgotten knowledge were net positive skills. None were immediately helpful but I was hoping I could survive long enough for them to make a difference. I looked over the skills I previously had as well.

I lost the cowardly retreat subskill which was a subskill of retreat. It made it so that the more afraid I was of the enemy the more the movement speed would increase. That was most likely for the best. I highly doubted I would be running away nearly as much as I had done in the past. It also allowed access to another subskill for retreat.

 

The way subskills work is depending on how you use the skill there’s a chance for a subskill to appear. The subskill would apply an additional effect to the skill. You could only have one subskill per skill so the cowardly retreat I just lost would have been an incredibly terrible subskill for me to have. Very rarely could you choose your subskill. It was possible but extremely costly to remove a subskill so I was glad it did so I wouldn’t have to remove it in the future.

 

I clicked on traits just to make sure I was classified as human.

Traits could be gained and changed as well. You can even change the racial traits with enough effort. Unlike subskills or titles though, traits can only be changed through conviction. They’re often given out as favors by gods or hard trials and life or death struggles can also permanently add traits. The traits added don’t always have to be positive either.

 

I grabbed a rock and tossed it into the river as I continued to think. Stats could be gained through effort which is why mine were so low. The average for a human that made it to adulthood would be around fifty. That number would quickly go up as you were given a job to do and be trained at. A lumberjack could easily pass a hundred strength and endurance after a short time of working at that job.

 

If I were to compare the average stats of a human from earth they’d be less than a hundred with peak humans coming in at about two hundred. If I were to guess, someone with five hundred agility could outrun a car. I was currently evolution level one which was the lowest tier an adult human could be. We had two low tiers, two mid tiers and two high tiers. When a human reached level one hundred their body would change and they’d become naturally better at just about everything. 

 

A good example of that would be the six foot four sheriff of the town who was also one of the smartest people in the village. I wouldn’t doubt if he was mid tier level one or two. Becoming a high tier human wasn’t an uncommon thing but with each rank you gained you would also increase your lifespan. Most of the nobility were high tier humans that could live centuries so it was best to not become one of their enemies.

 

I looked across the river. I could feel the changes to my magic but I would need to cast them to understand the changes. I cast my light spell and knew that it’s name changed to starlight. It looked very similar. I instinctively lowered the light it expelled then increased it to its maximum. The light spell was set at an exact level of brightness. Being able to change that might not seem like a lot but it would help when trying to be stealthy and by increasing the brightness suddenly I might temporarily blind an opponent.

 

I raised it into the sky and noticed I could also move it about twice the distance I could move my previous light spell. Healing glow became twilight. The AoE heal would weakly heal multiple people and I could instantly tell the difference as it also applied a heal over time. Healing hands became moonbeam which healed and increased healing at that target's location for a minute afterwards. It also switched from touch to ranged and could be used on myself. 

 

Finally the beacon spell which would mark an enemy increasing their damage taken would become sunfire which would burn the enemy as well. The one minute cooldown of beacon was shortened but until I needed to use it repeatedly I couldn’t tell by how much. 

 

I also gained another spell that didn’t have a light equivalent called nightfall. The spell visibly darkened the area and most likely would blind anyone inside for a short period. I felt woozy from casting each spell back to back. I knew that I gained mana at about one per minute. I had mana in equal amounts as my intellect. I had spent about thirty mana so far and it would take about half an hour to top out again.

 

I could take several fights every hour with that since I wouldn’t be using my more expensive spells. Twilight and nightfall both took ten mana while my single target damage and heal took five each. My star light spell only took a single mana but would take another mana every minute making it stop my mana regen while it was active.

 

The rumbling in my stomach made another problem more relevant than sitting around thinking about what to do next. I move to cast sunfire on one of the fish in the water hoping that the water wouldn’t impede the fire… It did, of course. If it was raining, trying to catch someone on fire would be a silly thing to do.

 

When walking back to the cabin I spotted a squirrel. He didn’t have the same resistance to sunfire as the fish and caught fire. He jumped out of the tree and ran back and forth as his brain couldn’t register between fight or flight. I had to keep constant attention on the squirrel or the sunfire would weaken. I knew if I stopped focusing on it for a few seconds the spell would fizzle out.

 

I wasn’t sure if the beacon spell had that same negative component to it. I had to keep within eye contact of things I tried to burn to death. That would make using it stealthily much more difficult. I couldn’t just cast it on a target and then hide or run away. The squirrel finally charged at me but before it cleared half the distance it succumbed to the attack.

 

No victory noise or notifications for killing my first creature. I tried my best to skin a squirrel with an axe. Once again I was pissed at my previous buttwart self who didn’t even ask for a knife. The fur peeled off easily in some spots and was glued to the meat in others from the fire. I put a tiny piece of what I assumed to be cooked meat into my mouth then immediately performed a spit take. My magical fire made anything it burned taste awful.

 

It didn’t have a burned taste, more like someone dumped a bottle of bitrex on it. I instinctively wretched as I spit the meat out. So killing something with sunfire is a last resort if I plan on eating it. I try to work around the meat and cut off the burnt and hair covered pieces. After working on it I managed to get less than half of the meat the squirrel could have provided.

 

I was about five minutes walk from the house so I decided it was far enough away that even if something saw the flames from a fire I could retreat with no problems of being followed. Starting a fire wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be either. As I used sunfire on sticks the fire didn’t spread quickly. It took casting it three times before the magical fire finally spread to the dry kindling around it. 

 

That meant that I didn’t have to limit myself since the magical fire didn’t spread quickly. I blew on the fire and almost put it out but the fire quickly spread after blocking the wind. Soon enough I could cook the squirrel on a spit. It tasted truly delicious but I knew I could do better. The amount was the biggest problem though. After losing half of the squirrel to my fire I barely felt the pit of my stomach fill. 

 

I wish I remembered all the bushcraft techniques my dad tried to teach me when I was little. My memories just weren’t there unfortunately. I might have been able to make a snare from memory but at this time what would be the point? If I could see a little critter I could cook it alive. Without me noticing, a group of wolves approached me.

 

The subtle growl was the only reason I could turn to see them before they attacked. I didn’t waste time, putting my axe between myself and them as I cast sunfire on the one in the front. The spell didn’t immediately start a fire but gradually built up over a few seconds. The wolf could tell something was wrong and unlike the squirrel it’s first instinct was to attack.

 

It lunged the remaining distance as its fight or flight defaulted to fight. I swung down at it too early only smacking its nose with the tip of my axe. The wolf yelped out in pain as it continued forward with its attack. The two wolves warily watched the fight between us. One of them found the meat I tossed aside and started eating it.

 

The alpha wolf finished its lunge at me. I barely got the axe handle up between its jaws before it bit down on my neck. He thrashed with the handle in its mouth, almost pulling it from my hands. It took what seemed to be minutes for the fire to finally affect the wolf. It backed away startled and in that brief moment I swung my axe around striking a true hit directly on its head. The axe smashed into the skull rather than cut as it was more of a maul for splitting wood than for fighting. 

 

The instant change in atmosphere as I did so was obvious. The wolves who thought I was going to be an easy meal suddenly looked warily at me. At least one did, the other side eyed me as it puked up the magically charred meat. The remaining uninjured wolf started to loudly growl and move closer. Sunfire wasn’t off cooldown yet, if I had to guess it had a thirty second period I couldn’t use it between. 

 

I prepped my weapon and feinted strikes. It closed the distance and this time I swung so I was prepared to swing again if I missed. I didn’t miss this time and clipped its mouth. It howled in pain and knowing it was a losing fight it scurried away. The vomiting wolf let out another wretch as it stared at me before following behind the injured wolf. 

 

I panted heavily from the fight. Adrenaline pumped through my body and my hands shook like I was about to collapse. I truly didn’t feel fear. I felt unbridled rage at this useless body. So much wasted potential, I knew that every single point of strength and dexterity was lost from my level resetting. If I had trained at all I wouldn’t have lost those stats. I ran over to a tree and started punching it out of frustration at this useless body, at this useless person who put me in this situation. 

 

I barely punched the tree but my thin skin punctured and was leaking blood. I healed myself as I started to calm down. My frustration was because it wasn’t my fault I was in this situation. I took in another breath and fully calmed down. Even though I was put in this position I can’t keep getting mad over it. I need to take what I got and make the most out of it.

 

“Alright then.” I whispered to myself as I started to butcher the wolf. Shit, having a cool wolf pelt cloak would be nice but I didn’t know how to cure leather. I think it had something to do with salt but I wasn’t sure. I wouldn’t be able to get salt in the forest anyways. My thoughts led me to think that maybe I could go back to the town.

 

It was too risky. It would take days to get back and if they did kick me out again I would have to come all the way back out here while foraging the entire time. Fuck, I really wish I practiced making jerky more in my previous life. I had a teacher who taught us a little bit during my welding class but I could only remember how excited he was for how it was seasoned.

 

I think if I cooked it low and slow it would last longer and I should cut it as thinly as possible. I spent the next hour trying to make a grate out of sticks to sit a few strips of meat on. The sticks lasted about fifteen minutes before they fell into the fire and I cursed as I tried to poke the meat out with another stick. I need a box or something to catch the smoke. I think curing meat is just putting it in a bunch of salt but once again I didn’t have any here.

 

I brushed off the pieces I tried cooking and they were still undercooked on one side so I skewered them on a stick and finished them for now. God I wish I had seasoning. The squirrel tasted amazing because I was so hungry but the dirty meat tasted exactly like you would expect dirty meat to taste like. I tried a few more things and got maybe a pound of meat smoked before I heard a howl from close by. Alright, I don’t want to test myself against an even bigger group of wolves. I took what I made and headed back home. 

 

When I made it back I took stock of everything I had. About a pound of smoked meat, I wish I had more time to make more. A big satchel style bag with two smaller pouches for storage. An axe, a bow with three arrows, the clothes on my back, a blanket and a single gold coin. Why the hell did I bring a gold coin instead of spending it in town for supplies? Because this idiot thought this was going to be a walk in the park.

 

To be fair I doubt having fifty feet of rope or climbing pitons would have saved his life but a fucking knife and some armor might have. What a fucking moron I was. All of his wealth added up to an amount someone could spend with just a week of drinking and partying every day. Well there was one good thing I could use this coin for. 

 

The reason gold was more expensive than copper or silver was its scarcity on Earth. Here on Thera it was more expensive for another reason. It was great at absorbing mana. The previous me never had a need for a quick and dirty enchant. With this I can put a lackluster enchant on my weapon that might save my life.