Jack wanted to play around with his new skill but a more pressing concern had to be dealt with. What to do with the angler bulb now?

While his long-term goal was easy, to kill it. The question was when. Did he want to continue studying it and try to get another skill even though he had no idea what other skills the thing may have? If he stuck around to watch it all day, he could be wasting time looking for a skill that might not be there.

Figuring the day could be better spent getting closer to the herd and training skills, Jack picked up the scimitar and went to slice up the overgrown vegetable.

You have slain an Angler Bulb Level: 12

Your contribution 100%

You are awarded 25 Experience

After slicing through the main bulb, Jack was hit with a smell reminiscent of onions. His mouth began to water. After over a week of eating nothing but calorie bars and unseasoned owl meat, the temptation of adding additional flavor was undeniable.

He briefly thought of the possibility of it being poisonous, but quickly dismissed it. Identify didn’t give any indication it might be, and the general reason a plant is poisonous is because it can’t fight back against herbivores that would eat it. Probably not an issue for a carnivorous plant.

Using some of the wood he had gathered and placed in his inventory, Jack started a small fire. He had finally figured out how to use his firestarter while traveling with Kai. Using alternating slices of owl and angler bulb stuck to a fire-resistant stick, he made some very simple kebabs.

As the bulb and owl browned, Jack took a deep breath. He was struck with the gentle aroma of sweet onions, putting a smile on his face. Memories flowed through his mind of nights cooking pasta.

Whenever his D&D campaigns were near their climax, Jack would always like to prepare a big dinner for his friends. Pasta dishes were what most people could agree on wanting. Jack would spend hours making each part from scratch. Rolling out dough to make noodles. Peeling and crushing tomatoes for the red sauce.

One step he always looked forward to was when he would start cooking the onions. As they cook, their strong fragrances would be released into the air. He would always peek out of the kitchen to watch his friends' expressions. One by one, when the delicious smells hit them, they would perk up. Anticipation would build from there as he slowly incorporated more ingredients, but it all starts with that spark when they smell the onions.

He was lost in the familiar scent when an odor smashed into him like a freight train. Gamy but not rancid, like the smell of dark meat turkey mixed with deviled eggs. The smell was so intense Jack almost dropped his kebabs. He leaned back coughing, clearing his airways of the pungent scent.

Just like that, the smell was mostly gone. The owl was no longer overpowering, but Jack was confused as to why the smell hit him so hard. He had eaten the owl a few times now and while it didn’t smell the best in his opinion, it was never that extreme.

With a hunch, Jack focused back on the smell of the cooking bulb. The scent expanded, revealing complexities that he didn’t fully understand and definitely hadn’t noticed before. He stopped his focus, and it was like he placed a filter over his nose. The more extreme complex smells faded away going back to the basic sweet onion-like scent.

Focused senses was definitely going to be an interesting skill to experiment with.

The daily hike was much more interesting now that Jack had another skill he could train while walking. He quickly found some drawbacks to his new skill. While he could enhance a sense temporarily, it did not help him in processing the information. Sure, focusing on his hearing would let him pick up on the slightest sound, but they would all muddle together creating white noise.

The concentration required to use the skill also would give him a headache after a while. He spent the first half of the day with his head pounding from overusing the skill.

In the second half of the day, he learned that he could narrow the range of his skill. Instead of focusing on the sounds around him, he would focus specifically on the sounds of him walking. This took more concentration than just enhancing the sense in general, but he could actually differentiate the sounds. If he got distracted at all though, the flood of sound would come in and overwhelm him again.

The major downside of the narrowed focus was exactly that. Focusing intently on something meant he was ignoring everything else. It only took him walking straight into a tree to realize that.

As a way to train the skill and still be able to hike, Jack decided to work with smell. His first thought was to work with touch but quickly learned that putting his sore muscles under a microscope was a very unpleasant experience.

The first thing he realized when he started enhancing his sense of smell was that he stunk. Over a week of wandering the forest, fighting the occasional monster, and sleeping on the ground was a horrible cocktail of scents. The worst part was that he couldn’t ignore the bad smells unless he deactivated the skill. Luckily for his own sanity, he could only keep the skill up for a few minutes before he had to deactivate it for an hour.

Jack activated Hydraulic Leap. As his legs straightened out launching him into the air, he felt more power behind the jump than usual.

**Skill Up** Hydraulic Leap Level 5

The extra power and notification were enough to throw off the entire jump for Jack, causing his landing to be a messy one. The literal pain in his ass was not enough to deter his excitement.

Hydraulic Leap has reached level 5 and is now able to be evolved. Level 5 is a free evolution and does not require a skill evolution token. Would you like to Evolve this skill? Yes No **Alert** New Skill Evolution Available Choose one Hydraulic Strike Pressurized Fluid Hydraulic Lift

Scrunching his face in confusion, Jack wondered why he only had one option that was the same as Lucy. He distinctly remembered Lucy had an evolution called Reinforced Frame as a choice. He knew he wasn’t going to have Hydraulic Assist since he doesn’t have an exoskeleton, but he didn’t understand why Reinforced Frame was taken away.

It sucked because that was what he was going to choose. Reinforced Frame sounded like something to help him survive longer jumps and falls, effectively freeing up a skill slot so that he could drop Impact Resistance. Having to keep Impact Resistance isn’t too bad, though it's not like he has something else that needs the slot, plus it will make it easier to take a hit.

Pressurized Fluid is what he pictured a ‘charged jump’ to be. Possibly costing extra stamina but being able to go further. He was able to reproduce this effect once while training but didn’t see the short-term benefit of it. He just didn’t have enough stamina to make it viable yet.

Hydraulic Strike is also something he’s been able to reproduce in training. Trying to use the skill but with his arms as a medium. It works about a quarter of the time but costs two to three times as much in stamina. The worst thing is it costs the same regardless of whether it works, and his heart is always pounding afterwards. The times it worked though he was wielding his staff and it would break chunks of bark off of the trees, a feat he has yet to reproduce with his standard strikes.

Hydraulic Lift sounded like a standard hydraulic machine, it helps you lift heavy things. While it could very well help in niche situations where he needed to move something heavy, the idea scared Jack. Normal people could hurt themselves by lifting something they could actually physically carry with their strength. What if, using the skill, he tried to lift something he normally couldn’t and his body gives out like a bone snapping? This one was going to have to be a no unless he can get Reinforced Frame with it.

It looked like his best option would be to choose Hydraulic Strike.

**Alert** Hydraulic Leap has gained the evolution Hydraulic Strike

His two hours of walking between breaks were down to around an hour and a half. That was because of him doing a Hydraulic Strike with his staff every five minutes.

Between strikes, he would twist his hair into different gravity-defying shapes and styles. Holding his hair in such unnatural ways took quite a bit of concentration. After having his hair stand straight up for ten minutes, Jack began developing another headache. This was a different type of headache from the one he would get from overusing Focus Senses. Focused Senses would cause an overall throbbing pain near the center of his head. While Hair Manipulation would cause a straining pain, almost like stretching a muscle around two inches above his right temple.

He just had to be careful when using his skills, juggling them so as to not overwork any one in particular. Over the rest of day four without-Kai, he slowly developed a steady rhythm switching from skill to skill.

**Skills up** Hair Manipulation Level 7 Impact Resistance Level 4 Staff Mastery Level 4 Wanderer Level 4 Focused Senses Level 2

Day five without-Kai was going very smoothly. It was around midday and Jack was twenty minutes into his current hike when he noticed a weird formation of bushes. A huge dome made of dense bushes, twenty feet wide and tall. An Archway large enough to drive a van into was leading into the dome. It was like an igloo made of plants. A few feet past the archway, there was a wall made of what looked like living shadows blocking the view to the insides of the dome.

**Alert** You have discovered The Blooded Woodlands.

Jack turned to Lucy, “Look, we found a dungeon.” He was honestly very surprised, he was under the impression that they were relatively rare. Kai said one of the things he looks for while hunting is dungeons. They were one of the best sources of higher level monsters for him, but they were hard to find. Kai was very excited when Jack shared the location of The Spider’s Den with him.

Now he just stumbled upon another dungeon? That didn’t make sense.

While Jack was pondering the probability of randomly finding a dungeon, especially on the path that Kai had sent him on, he noticed movement at the top of the dome.

Spell Seeker Level: 19 Current mood: Tired

A grey wolf that has gained the class Spell Seeker. While most wolves hunt and live in packs, a Spell Seeker by its very nature travels alone. A Spell Seeker has one purpose in life: find and absorb mana. Usually, this means finding a location with a high density of mana and claiming it as its territory. The only thing that will make a Spell Seeker leave its territory is being attacked or if they sense a creature with a large magical affinity. Its class ability to absorb most spells thrown at it makes them the bane of mages.

Age: 12 years.

Highest attribute: Perception.

Highest skill: Sonic Howl. **Skill up** Fear Resistance Level 2

The wolf stood up, reaching a shoulder height of five feet. The act of standing broke branches off of the bushes that seemed to have been growing around it, making it very hard to notice. The wolf looked lazily towards Jack and Lucy as if it was still waking up.

Trying to take advantage of the wolf being slow to act, Jack looked around. There was no way he was going to be able to outrun this enormous wolf. He briefly considered escaping into the dungeon, but that would only trap him inside. Glancing at the surrounding trees, he saw, as with most of the trees in this forest, the branches were around fifty feet high. His current level in Hydraulic Leap lets him get around thirty feet in the air, not enough to make it.

The wolf began shaking the broken branches off of itself.

With an idea, Jack crept towards the nearest tree. Panic was rolling off of him and he knew Lucy could feel it, as she was giving off her own feelings of fear.

With a big stretch, the wolf let out a yawn.

Current mood: Hungry

Jack crouched down, preparing a leap. With his experimenting and the info that there was an evolution called Pressurized Fluid, he knew there was a way to charge the skill to jump higher. So far he had only done it once and it was an accident, but he knew if he focused, he could get it to work just like how he could use Hydraulic Strike before the evolution.

Right before his skill normally activates for a fraction of a second, he can feel a powerful pressure in his chest as if it's going to explode, then all that pressure rushes to his legs and he shoots off. This time he tried to hold that pressure in his chest for as long as possible.

For a full second, he held the pressure and then released it to his legs. Instead of leaping, his legs just straightened out, leaving him standing next to the tree. His heart was pounding from the failed activation.

The wolf noticing his sudden movement jumped off the dome, landing with a heavy thud. Lowering its head and letting out a low growl, it crept towards him.

Jack quickly crouched again. He tried to delay the activation again. The pressure built up in his chest.

One second.

His lungs burned like he was holding his breath for too long.

Two seconds.

He began to tremble. The wolf, now a dozen feet away, got into its own low crouch.

Three seconds.

Just as the pressure became too much to bear, the wolf pounced. Jack released the pressure, shooting himself into the air. The wolf landed right on top of where he was a second ago and let out a nasty snarl.

Jack not only made it the fifty feet to the first branches of the trees, but he overshot it reaching a full sixty. As he was nearing his peak, Jack grabbed a thick branch about as wide as he was and pulled himself on top of it.

He immediately felt sharp stinging pains in his legs. Looking down, he saw purple splotches underneath his skin rapidly spreading until most of his legs looked like they were bruised.

He was worried about what happened to his legs when the wolf below let out an angry howl that shook the entire tree.