More interestingly, two other notifications appear:

[Your actions have led to the creation of a basic secondary skill: Combat Proficiency (Passive). Learn? (Y/N) Cost: 100] [Your actions have led to the creation of a basic secondary skill: Energetic Attack (Active). Learn? (Y/N) Cost: 50]

Ok, damn. It’s just like in the tutorial, except they come with Power costs now. But those prices… I thought I was sitting on a high horse with all the Power I had saved up but if I took both of these I’d be down to 30…

Hmm.

I guess there’s no point in saving now. That would be like hoarding your copper pieces in an MMO, eventually it will build up to something but it’ll handicap your growth compared with others who spend more freely. It's better than dying with a fortune stored up.

These notifications are different than the 'body upgrade' one, which is the only other notification I had a choice in. My attempts at dismissing them just make them fade for a moment before becoming prominent the moment I lose focus. It really wants me to choose now, not later.

I doubt I can just keep a bunch of potential skills in my back pocket if this is the case. While it would be nice to do a lot of random crap and gain potential skills on spec, I can see how it would be a little overpowered to be able to instantly use skills and saved Power to adapt to a given situation.

Fighting an enemy resistant to stabbing? Boom, blunt weapons expertise. Ice elemental? Fire spells. I wonder if there are spells here... Or Ice elementals...

Though my eyes wander while I think, I’m not looking as closely as I should and I fail to notice that I am, once again, not the only living thing in this cave, which makes my surprise all the more visceral when an angry ball of fur, teeth, and claws latches onto my face and knocks me over. Though I can’t see anything through the dark mass attacking my face, I have an intuitive understanding of how much health I have remaining, which decreases at a fairly slow rate despite my being taken completely by surprise. I attempt to pry the stubborn rodent off my head, but its claws are dug in and ripping it off would take a lot of my skin with it.

Fuck fuck fuck. Health just passed ¾.

I try punching the rat, but it’s actually really hard to land a good hit that close, and I found my hits only serving to push the rat more to one side and subsequently tearing more of my face. I reach up desperately to try and choke the rat or something and am met with only a painful bite as a response.

I literally don’t know what to do. My Health just passed the ½ marker and what I thought was a trivial assault now looks like it has every potential to straight up kill me. I REALLY don’t want to die to a fucking rat!

Combat Proficiency. NOW. (80)

In an instant, I’m flooded with new knowledge and instincts, all of which immediately begin berating me for getting in this situation in the first place.

My hand flies to my face, finds the ribs. Crush them.

I squeeze as hard as I can and immediately earn the rat’s ire again. As it twists to bite at my hand, I guess at it being distracted enough and follow up with my other hand to the back of it's neck. It hisses in surprise, but I only tighten my grip in response, cutting off its airway and putting pressure on what passes for its spine.

Using the two points of contact as leverage, I bring my hands together, and the rats head along with it. There is resistance, frantic scrabbling and intense pain, but I'm bigger and stronger than it. The fight ends with a gruesome cracking noise and a suddenly limp rat.

Well that could have- “SKREEE” oh fuck.

I launch the rat corpse at where I think the screech came from and a black mass of fur smashes into it and falls to the cave floor. Not again mother fucker. No more face rats. My health has stabilized around ¼ so I’m brooking no more risk. That being said, I’m not feeling great, and the quick reaction of throwing the rat was probably the last fast movement I’m going to be able to pull off.

That, combined with the obviously different color of this rat (something dark) vs. the previous rats (a light brown?) makes me wary. Maybe these are pack animals and this is their alpha? Mad at me for not dying to the regular rank and file? DODGE.

The word echoes through my mind, and my legs give out without my input. I barely notice the blackish blurr fly past my head as I crumple to the floor. Damn! It almost happened again! Why am I so terrible at this!?

My head feels foggy as I try to focus myself. Losing health is no joke, and it’s honestly only these new Combat Proficiency instincts that have kept me alive this long. Hopefully all the use I’m getting out of it will make it level faster.

The rat must have expected my dodge less than I did and it collides neatly with the wall of the cave, taking long enough to recover that I can also get back to my feet.

I really need a weapon. My stick! I completely forgot! I wasn’t aware it was even on me still after the teleporting, but once I thought about needing a weapon, the stick pulsed lightly, letting me know it had been sticking to the back of my shirt this whole time… held there by fucking magic or something.

Dashing my irrelevant thoughts, I draw my stick, feeling it hum pleasantly in my hand.

I may be the hero of my own story, but I definitely look like a dumbass facing off against a rat with a stick. Especially remembering how many humans had actual weapons.

The rat once again launches at me (not much attack variety), and I give my best impression of a baseball player by smacking the rat's center of mass and sending it careening into the back of the cave. I run after it, seeking to finish off the wounded monster, but it turns out that swinging a two foot long stick, even attuned to my Energy, doesn’t have enough momentum to do any real damage. At least, the angry hissing I receive in response doesn’t sound like dying. Fortunately, I know what does have enough mass.

*crunch*

[Congratulations! Pack Rat was defeated. Gained 20 Power (50)]

…

I’m going to need a way to clean my shoes. They are covered in rat.

Also, what gives? There were 3 rats and I only got two notifications. Does that mean one of them is still alive? I look around for it, but it seems that now that I’m no longer directly in combat, the notification about Energetic Attack is back and blocking everything. I… guess it’s worth it. I do need combat abilities if I’m going to survive, might as well weaponize Energy too. I select ‘Y’ and dismiss the congratulations. (50)

I look around to be sure I’m momentarily safe before finally taking a look at my status:

___________________________________________________________________________

Name: Amadeus

Power: 50

HP: 8/33

H Recovery: + 5.75 / hour

Stamina: 10/33

S Recovery: + 11.5 / min

Energy: 19/21

E Recovery: + 0.48 / min

Primary skills:

Dexterity 18

Strength 22

Endurance 23

Toughness 23

Intelligence 27

Perception 23

Will 2

Secondary Skills:

-Active

Transfuse Energy [Active] (5) - Move Energy through physical contact into living objects.

Imbue Energy [Active] (2) - Move Energy through physical contact into non-living objects.

Energetic Attack [Active] (1) - Attempt to destroy the spirit of a target using your own.

-Passive

Energy Manipulation [Passive] (3) Medium - general ability to move and understand Energy.

Combat Proficiency [Passive] (1) Hard - General combat ability. Improves through not using it in training/combat.

Hand to Hand Proficiency (1) Hard - Unarmed competence. Improves through practice using the body as a weapon.

Peripherals:

Exhaustions - 1

Inventory: Basic Clothing (cloth); Stick;