Anyway, making myself depressed is not the point here.

How do I know it’s a MAX LVL ability? That’s because my ability allows me to intuitively know it’s so! Really, this world is starting to feel very gamey at the moment. I’m pretty sure I should have access to a system or something to see this info, but it seems my instincts are taking care of it for the moment.

I can tell that after a certain accumulation of ‘xp’, or what is actually soul energy, your body ‘Levels Up’. Also, at least in my case, after you ‘level up’, you have the opportunity to choose a new skill or ability. I’m not sure if this is something that applies to all people in this world since the only way my ability works is if I activate it and observe a phenomenon in front of me. Therefore, allowing me to ‘glean’ into it and reveal its secrets.

I tried to ‘glean’ into this system that seems to trigger my instincts, but it didn’t really give me much information on it. However, by also having gleaned at myself as a result, I was able to discover two important things.

First, I can tell that from now on, any skills and abilities I get when I ‘level up’ will be properly scaled to my ‘lvl’ and that I will acquire them at their lowest tier. Meaning, I no longer have access to those overpowered skills and abilities that revealed themselves to me after entering lvl 2, which my instincts had already let me know.

Second, I seem to possess a soul ability called [Soul Devourer] which is at tier 3. Considering the max lvl for skills and abilities seems to be 10, I… really don’t know what to make of it….

It’s not like I have anyone else to compare my abilities and skills with you know?

However, I do know that it’s because of this skill that I can get soul energy from killing other beings with a soul, as well as gain a pretty good chunk of their vitality to boot. 

Pretty good ability don’t you think? I mean, it’s name and what it does is perfect for someone who will be a future Demon Lord!

Soul Devourer… sounds so cool~

Still, after learning about these things and thinking about it for a while, I thought that this situation might be slightly troublesome.

I mean, I reeeeally hope that this is something unique to me. Not because I’m desperate to find something that makes me special and different from the others like a proper main character should, not at all… 

Okay… maybe a little~

BUT! The main reason is that it’d be pretty terrifying to imagine a world where such op abilities and skills, are available to everyone as soon as they level up for the first time. I mean seriously, some of those abilities and skills are reeeeally dangerous and scary you know!

But I guess it’s also for that reason that I don’t believe everyone has them, as I doubt much of a society would exist if everyone had access to such dangerous skills.

Anyway~ 

I can’t help but think that this world works exactly like a game world. At the very least, it seems to work as such for me. But it won’t be until I look at others and use my ability that’ll i’ll properly be able to tell if this is a unique case for me, or if levels and gaining abilities as you level up is an inherent law of this world.

At the very least, if this world is based on a game or something, I’ve surely never heard of or played it.

And even if I knew about it, I probably wouldn’t have played it regardless. This game is shit I tell you! SHIT! Like seriously, can I at least get some slimes with more xp or something to make the grind easier! I’m getting seriously tired of grinding bugs to get meaningless amounts of xp.

The road to lvl 3 is looking kind of far, and at this rate, I don’t even want to think about something like level 10….

Let’s not think too hard about it, there's more pressing things to worry about at this moment. 

Like getting the fuck out of this forest.

Since I can see the flow of ambient mana in the environment, I have a pretty good idea of where I need to go. This barrier is one that prevents things from coming in, but does nothing to prevent things going out. So, it doesn’t really matter where I exit from, so much as I don’t get discovered.

By who you ask?

Well obviously by whoever set up such a strong barrier to keep apparently everyone away! No seriously,  like if you could see what I can, you’d understand that whatever put up this barrier reeeeally didn't want anyone here.

Even though I’ve never seen a single barrier aside from these two in my entire life, I can tell due to my ability, that they’re both really powerful.

As in EXTREMELY powerful!

Seriously, these two barriers are no joke, especially the one deeper inside the forest. So I need to be careful and get my ass out of here and to safety. Pronto!

And thus, relying on my trusty legs once more, I began walking in the direction where the mana density seemed to be decreasing.