Flesh still sizzling uncomfortably and clothing finally ruined, Felix sat behind some trees and chewed yarrow while attempting to meditate. He was too distracted though. He was furious with himself.

 

The copse grub had used an area of effect skill to launch acid in a burst all around itself. Felix got a full dose, all over his chest and face. He barely survived, and his shirt didn't. It finally had given up the ghost and dissolved off of him, only a few scraps of once-white cloth remained. He had shoved those in his pocket.

 

So now he had an acid burned chest, tattered pants, and--

 

 

 

Ah yes. Blood poisoning. Felix grumbled as he ate another mushroom. Luckily he had found them growing from nearby trees, a strain called witchcaps. They purified blood while providing minor healing. He saw a debuff icon blinking in the corner of his vision, a drop of blood half colored black. As he finished the witchcap, Felix watched the icon flicker and disappear.

 

Finally. He sighed in relief. He only had three witchcaps left.

 

Metaphorically out of the woods, yet still unable to meditate, he focused on his notifications which had piled up in the past two hours.

 

 

 

Felix waved away the battle notifications. He already knew he took a crazy amount of acid to the chest and face. His nearly depleted stash of yarrow could attest to that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Felix pushed past the pain and focused on breathing and chewing more of his yarrow stash. He was lucky these magic herbs regenerated skin and blood and muscle so quickly or else he'd be disfigured beyond recognition. The amount of acid that grub ejected was astounding. At first, Felix figured it had killed itself and tried to take him with it, but then he saw the damn slimy bastard slip down into the log. It had burrowed away!

 

Breathe. He reminded himself. Breathe in, and out. I can't do anything about it until I'm back at full here. Hell, I can barely do anything at my best.

 

Even a giant gummy worm kicked his ass.

 

On the bright side, he had gained another Survivor Title and his resistances were leveling very quickly. Probably had something to do with stress, but his Skills and stats all improved better while in combat. When his life was on the line.

 

What did that say about this world?

 

Felix let that thought go as he meditated; the past was unchangeable. There was just now, this moment, where he can recover and try again. And again. As many times as it takes.

 

Some time later, Felix blinked open his eyes.

 

 

With a smile, he stood up. The smile quickly faded as he observed his naked, pudgy torso and his beat up jeans.

 

"I've gotta get more clothes." Felix turned and looked around the trunk of a conifer, seeing a familiar grub sitting back atop its log. "But first I have to do this smarter."

 

 

An hour later Felix was back in the gully, and the grub was still there, munching away. The log was almost half gone, and a quick Analyze told him it's level had increased to 14.

 

It gains levels by eating trees? So weird. Felix stepped forward, out of the trees and toward the gully, a collection of rocks in his arms.

 

Felix had realized something while he was meditating. This dangerous, deadly world was misleading. He could die from the smallest misstep from even the weakest of enemies here, and his first instinct was to turtle up and hide. But without risk there was no reward. If he didn't push himself to the edge of his capabilities, over and over, he would never escape this forest. He would never get home.

 

Felix climbed down the shallow walls of packed earth, sliding slightly.

 

No. He was done hiding in a tree while monsters prowled the woods.

 

He dumped the rocks out on the ground around him, hefting two out of the pile. They were softball sized and colored a faint shimmering gray where the sunlight hit them.

 

Let's do this.

 

The first two stones flew true, hitting the grub square in its back.

 

 

 

Felix dodged to the side, just barely in time to miss a stream of acid. The grub lifted onto it's hind portions, wiggling it's stubby limbs at him as a glowing green sac began to grow beneath it's clacking mandibles.

 

Felix snatched another rock and hurled it as fast as he could.

 

 

 

The rock struck the grub right in the sac, and acid squelched out and upward from its mouth. Felix pumped his fist and reached for another rock. Movement in his peripherals made him turn the reach into a tumble, but he felt his leg become engulfed in a wet heat that bloomed into agony.

 

 

 

Pushing away the pain, Felix took quick aim and threw. The rock flew wide, hitting the log to its right, causing the grub to twitched toward the sound. Felix took a chance, limping forward as fast as he could.

 

Toward the grub.

 

He was tired. Tired of being burned and bitten and sliced. Tired of hiding and waiting and running. He wouldn't be a victim, anymore. Now he was the monster.

 

And monsters had teeth.

 

Felix pulled two pieces of stone out of his pockets, lifting them up as he hop-limped toward the grub. He got within arms reach of it before it twitched back to him, mandibles spread wide and a harsh hissing noise coming from its throat.

 

Felix thrust downward with both stones, inexpertly sharpened. Both improvised blades struck true, sinking into the resisting, gooey flesh of the grub and causing it to release a hissing screech that hurt Felix's ears.

 

 

 

Felix didn't stop. He pulled the crude stone daggers out of the grub and started stabbing again, and again. The brittle blades broke quickly, but then he was just hitting it with his fists. The grub screeched over and over, but it had fallen over in Felix's flurry of attacks, and it couldn't maneuver its stubby limbs to move.

 

Acid and thick blue ichor splattered with every strike, raining down on the both of them.

 

Then it was over.

 

Falling limp to the ground, Felix fumbled a handful of yarrow out of his pockets. He shoved it into his mouth, past caring that a large dose of blue blood and green acid went in too. For the next few minutes, he ate yarrow and witchcaps and the last bit of flitweed to replenish his flagging Stamina.

 

 

The thought was dull and heavy, like the rocks all around him. As the herbs did their thing, he turned inward, meditating to stay afloat of the damage that the poison and acid was still doing to his body. Slowly, so slowly, his thoughts sharpened. Meditation began to gain ground, and Felix felt like he had escaped from a dark hole.

 

He opened his eyes.

 

Sunlight, bright and golden, shone down through a break in the clouds and illuminated the gully. All around him the wood and rocks were sizzling and pitted by acid, and the savaged remains of the copse grub oozed slowly down the side of the log. Felix took a deep, exhausted breath...and doubled over coughing. The air was filled with the acrid tang of acid and boiling blue ichor. He stood up and stumbled a few steps away from the corpse.

 

 

He shook his head. He was starting to get a little loopy. Focus. He toggled his notifications.

 

 

His Small Blade Mastery leveled to 2, Unarmed Mastery leveled to 3, Acid Resistance leveled to 10, Pain Resistance leveled to 8, Poison Resistance leveled to 6, Dodge leveled to 2, Acrobatics leveled to 3, and he earned a level in Improvisation back when he made his sharpened stone "daggers." His Endurance, Agility, Strength, and Vitality all went up by 1, while his Willpower increased by 2.

 

Overall, an impressive amount of stats and skill levels in a ten minute span. Felix supposed his theory about stress and skill levels was correct; the greater the difficulty and need, the greater the growth.

 

Now if only it didn't hurt so much. He groaned as he rubbed his tender chest, still red and raw from acid burns.

 

 

 

The pain dimmed as Felix felt a rush of power flood his body. His blood buzzed in his veins, his muscles squirming as his skin tightened and shifted. It was painful in a different way, like he was being stretched beyond limits he didn't know he had. After a few moments, the feeling faded, leaving him shaking on the ground.

 

"God damn," he managed, his breath puffing dust from the dry gully. "Leveling didn't feel like that last time."

 

Was it because he leveled up twice? If so, he didn't plan on doing that again. Felix could just imagine how that would work mid-battle, he'd get killed in seconds while he writhed on the ground.

 

But still, I feel stronger now. He pulled up his Status screen.

 

"Dang." No wonder his body ached from his level up. Combined with his stat gains and Title bonuses, his stats were getting up there. Well, everything except his Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Perception. They were still his lowest, most not even above ten.

 

Felix still had no clue on the average baseline for stats, especially for natives of this place. Assuming ten was average, he definitely didn't want anything below that. He had 10 stat points to allocate now, and he mentally set aside half of them to get all his lagging stats up to ten.

 

Where should the rest go?

 

Vitality was linked to his Health, obviously. Each point in that seemed to add five points to his maximum Health score. Endurance was definitely linked to Stamina, but something else was mixing in there too...perhaps Strength? Same with Mana, with Willpower being the driving force, with maybe Intelligence adding some extra?

 

So increasing those would increase his three main attributes. His Mana was largely useless, and his Race and Omen bonuses took care of both Willpower and Intelligence so increasing it was pointless at this time. Health and Stamina were always good to have, especially since he kept nearly dying. But both Vitality and Endurance were pretty high already, and he was still getting the shit kicked out of him.

 

His natural instinct was to avoid damage altogether, and that would mean increasing his Agility which seemed to affect speed and flexibility. Maybe upping Agility and increasing his Dodge Skill? Maybe. He had theory-crafted for many different games in his day, but making decisions like this when his actual life was on the line was hard.

 

Felix took a breath and allocated his points.

 

A rush of energy filled his body, the stat points altering his muscles and nerves and who knew what else. It wasn't painful this time just weird, and immediately after his entire body felt oddly tingly.

 

He called up his stats.

 

So Strength definitely affects the Stamina total. It adds, what, one point of Stamina per two points of Strength? He nodded to himself, happy to have solved that small mystery.

 

Felix stood up and stretched. His joints popped and he could have sworn his muscles creaked. He flexed his hands and looked down at his fleshy torso and tattered jeans. Was he getting more defined? It was really hard to tell without a mirror. He felt stronger, he thought, and his movements felt smoother maybe?

 

Shaking his head, Felix looked at the grub. It's body was battered and mashed to bloody pulp on the log it was born in, though it's face was mostly intact. This was due to the strange hard pieces all around it's face and jelly-like eyes. Having left his walking stick back at the treeline, he found a thin discarded branch to poke at the corpse, pushing its face...until two jagged pincers latched onto it.

 

"Ahh!" He stumbled backward, letting go of the stick as he groped for another stone.

 

But the grub didn't move.

 

He drew closer, and the grub was just as lifeless as before. Its pincers were fixed firmly around the stick, holding the piece of wood nearly vertical. He must have hit some muscle or something, making it latch on. Felix grabbed the stick firmly and tried to yank it away, but the pincers were lodged nearly halfway through it, about a quarter of an inch. A few sharp tugs and the stick broke.

 

 

Felix looked at the broken branch in his hand and back at the pincers. He had a weird idea. He didn't know if it would work, if it was even possible, but he did know one thing:

 

"This is gonna be gross."