And I'm up! 

That was my third successful sleep after coming to the labyrinth and am I happy or what. The plan to hide the tunnel entrance was a success. The following two days I've been trying to reinforce it. There were a few creepers growing in the forest and I've made use of those to make the makeshift door more stable. 

But it wasn't all smooth and easy. The monsters never gave me a respite and in the past two days, I've had to put down a wersok and two poison fangs just to get the necessary items to reinforce the door. Poison fangs were the worst. They hide themselves and rarely come out in the open, which also means it waits for the prey to come to it. And I was the alleged prey twice, but luckily I managed to subdue them.

And in those struggles I managed to level up. Yay. Right now I'm level 4 and I've managed to store up to 3 pure energy. I had to use one monster to heal me up and the other two were converted into energy. And my coalesce is at 4 points. What are they used for is still beyond me. 

The only two positives that I've observed after coming here are one I don't need to eat or drink anything as long as I'm absorbing monsters. I believe that has to do with my nature as a tree but at this moment it is a wild guess. And the second is that I haven't died!

I get up from my makeshift bed which is literally a rock and proceeds to do some stretches. 

Being in the best shape is very crucial to survival here. And today I have something important to do. I've decided to explore the forest, something which is very crucial in finding my way out of this place.

After prepping myself up I push the 'door' to my tunnel a bit and poke my head out. I could spot two monsters fighting in the open, far from my place. Carefully, I close the tunnel behind me and  head straight to the woods.

My only pair of clothes were in a pretty bad condition. My shirt was torn in many places but my trousers were in a better condition. The many fights had destroyed a lot of its fabric but it still resembled a trouser, unlike my shirt. With no way to get a new set of clothes I put that issue to the side. I've not used clothes for the majority of my life. So it doesn't matter if I didn't get a pair anytime soon.

The forest is quite big, with lots of trees, vines, shrubs and many boulders. And because of this it was quite easy to move while hiding behind boulders. I had decided to map out this place in the counterclockwise direction along the cavern edge. So whatever happens I could retrace my steps to my lair. 

The trip increased my knowledge about the labyrinth by miles. First off, the rule of this place is either kill or get killed. I haven't yet found any creature who is a herbivore. Everything eats everything and the only deciding factor which determines the difference between prey and predator is your levels. It's a mayhem when more than two monsters come together. It's a massacre, the victor usually eats all the other dead monsters.

Second strange thing I noticed were the trees, they weren't the normal trees one would find in the surface world but rather a different type. I couldn't pinpoint what exactly it was, but somehow they felt different. I tried to make a stake out of one but the moment it was broken from the tree it lost its sturdiness quite a bit. It couldn't be used in fights, that i was sure.

I would have to study them closer if I were to understand it, but in my circumstances I couldn't do it.

I kept moving through the forest to find monsters locked in battle, feasting on other monsters. One monster was even sleeping on the floor. 

Wait, what?

I'm sure nothing here has the time to sleep in the middle of a survival of the fittest death match.

Observing the monster keenly from behind a tree, I notice visible changes taking place on its body. The wersok's fur grew at least a few centimeters, it's sharp fangs extending longer. It's whole body became larger compared to its usual size. It's black and brown fur changed to a mixed pattern with brown shades in the full black fur coat.

And it opened its eyes.

It shook its body once and let out a howl, which shook my very soul. This new wersok looked stronger and more ferocious, no doubt. 

Once it finished howling it stared in a direction opposite to me. After a few seconds it got up and headed that way. With the wersok gone I slumped back into the ground in equal parts relieved and amused. 

What did I see back there? It somehow became bigger and probably better too. So it......upgraded?

I didn't know and even though I wanted to find out, I had to push it to some time later because a Poison fang had found me.

Crap.

I turned as soon as possible on hearing the screech they usually make, but wasn't fast enough and it's tackle hit me on the left  leg. Getting hit was not an issue as long as I didn't get bitten by that thing. Getting poisoned would be bad, I have seen a wersok getting weaker by the second because of that. I pushed my body up and had to roll over to the side to create some distance between us. A Poison Fang usually attacked with body tackle or a poison bite. Luckily all the monsters I had faced didn't use any magic skill like the salamander I saw. That one could breath fire out of its mouth. Yikes.

The rat monster once again rushed at me with it's sharp teeth poised to strike but I jumped over it. Since its height came up to my thighs I could do that. My height helped me get an advantage whenever I fought these things. When I landed behind the monster I quickly spun on my heels to turn around and brought my right leg swinging at it's ribs.

CRACK.

The sound confirmed my hit was a success, but it was far from killing it. The creature let out a squeal of agony.

It once again charged at me which I was unable to avoid. It hit me right in my left knee, which brought me down in a fit of pain. I grabbed my knee as the pain was overwhelming. It was a simple attack, but a direct hit from a forty kilo monster was excruciating.

In that moment of weakness it bit me on the left ankle. I used my right leg to kick the creature as far as possible. I struck on its face pushing the creature a good two metres away from me. I wobbly stood up, putting most of my weight on my right leg.

I probably broke my knee and the poison would kill me within a few minutes. I had to finish off the opponent as soon as possible.. I haven't been in such a bad condition in a while, the last few fights gave me small wounds while now I'm on the brink of death. I had to do something and there was only one way I could think of. 

When the monster charged at me once again, I pushed my body to the limit to jump up, helping me to dodge the attack and also allowing me to grab hold on the creature's fur. Once I grabbed it I pulled myself onto its back and used my only good leg to get a lock in its body. I used both my arms to choke its neck. The moment the creature realised my intention, it started to thrash around. It pushed itself onto the boulder with me on its back. Each hit hurt me more and more but I never released my grip. This was my final gamble, I had to win no matter what. It kept running from one tree to another, from one rock to another, each time it did I had to endure the impact of colliding with one. The pain was overwhelming me, but i couldn't let it control me. I had to hold on. 

With each passing second I came closer to death, the poison working its way inside me. But so did the monster.  Each second it didn't breath the closer it was to passing out. Shortly the creature got slower and slower till it stopped, falling to the ground unconscious. I was relieved but I was not out of trouble.

I couldn't stand up, my legs failing me at this crucial time. I raised my hands punching the monster in its chest where I had broken the ribs earlier. I punched again and again with each hit the flesh opened up a bit more. I kept repeating it till I was able to cause enough damage that the side collapsed. I plunged my hand inside and crushed its heart.

<You've killed a level 7 Poison Fang>

< You've gained enough experience.  Level up.>

< You've reached the maximum level.>

< You can now Evolve. >

The notifications rang in my mind but I didn't focus on them. I needed to heal as soon as possible. The poison was still inside.

"Absorb," I said weakly. The monster was right inside my arms so I didn't need to move an inch.

My leveled up absorption skill had increased its proficiency by a small fraction. The monster slowly melted into a goo and my skin absorbed it in a few minutes. If some monster were to find me now, I would probably be its food. 

But to my relief nothing happened other than my body getting healed. This poison fang was a level 7 monster and by absorbing it I was healed completely, except for the pain in the knee.

Now that my life is not under immediate threat, I need to get back to my hideout. I quickly retraced my steps trying my best to avoid the monsters. But my best was not enough, sadly. One of the wersok found me hiding behind a tree. I had to fight and subdue it to continue my way back. But thanks to that I could heal myself completely.

I got back to my hideout without much hindrance and after a quick search of the surrounding I closed the entrance. The notification said something about evolution, let's see what that is.

I calmed myself down and focused my mind inwards.

Species - Human level 5.

Stats -

Vitality - 12

Mana - 10

Endurance - 7

Will - 13

Coalesce - 4

Skills - 

Absorption level 2.

Character points - 1

< You've reached the maximum level.>

< You can now Evolve. >

But before that let me use that point.

< Increase coalesce by one point? >

"Yup"

< Coalesce increased by one point. >

Okay, now I'm all set to evolve. Let's see what this is.

Suddenly my mind gets enveloped in what I can only assume is the System. It shows me the path forward, something akin to an evolution tree. 

At the very beginning is me with some pathways in front of me leading to a node. These nodes in front of me are obscured.each path leads to a node and then it again proceeds forward to reach another set of nodes. From my position I can see many paths which split and combine and some even stopping abruptly too.

Maybe this is the guide to evolution?

The issue is I cannot see the information at each node, but the moment I focus on it I get a glimpse of what it is. But it is just a flicker of information that comes and goes out of my mind.

The node in front of me is a regular evolution or that's what it feels like. It gives an overall improvement to the basic stats and that's it. Nothing much different from me other than the fact that I'll be better in all four categories. I cannot get a reading on how much the increase will be, but i guess that's how this system works.

The node immediately to my right is a melee type. The vitality and endurance stat gets a boost in that evolution. I could be quite a tough opponent with that evolution. The one to my left is much more inclined towards the magical side yet I don't feel like it is a pure magic based evolution either. A pure magic built would be something akin to using many magical attributes, is what I 'feel'. The information from the System is too short living to actually grasp what it means. This evolution puts a significant amount into the magical side while also improving the vitality and endurance by little.

I think for a while and quickly come to a conclusion. I decide to not go with the first two options. Sure I'll be able to take large amounts of damage when fighting but what I want is to kill the opponent as soon as possible and I hope the magically inclined evolution will help me with that. I didn't want to spend character points on mana or will at first because I didn't have any related skill, but i hope this evolution might change that. I've seen how the fire breathing salamander was able to kill off enemies easily.

With that decided I lock onto my choice.

< Commencing evolution. >

"Let's go," I trail off as my mind blacks out.