In the darkness barely lit by a green light you could hear small rocks falling to the ground from the wall, one after another there were falling as I was digging through the Dried Stone, I wasn’t expecting to get anything from digging this tunnel except leveling up my dig skill, but for my surprise just as another small stone fell from the wall a bright blue light shined into my eyes.

It was a crystal, a blue crystal appeared in front of me, it was fifteen centimeters long and it was emitting a beautiful gentle blue light. “What is this?” I slowly dug the crystal out of the wall and held it in my hands, I observed it for few second and then inspected it and its name.

*Lesser Mana Crystal*

-Mana: 25/25

*Lesser Mana Crystal* – Low grade item, can be found in mountains and underground. Formed by slowly absorbing the mana around it for decades, mostly used in staffs, artifacts or as an emergency refill for mana. Some people use small pieces of crystals as a good luck charm or protection against spirits.

Even after reading its properties I still looked at it with sparkling eyes, “It’s so pretty, it can refill my mana if I found myself drained out it can save me, but for now I use it as a lamp.” I said jokingly, I was pretty happy that I found something like this, I didn’t really know why but it gave me a feeling as if it was calling for me. I decided to keep this crystal as a lucky charm and use it only in an emergency.

I didn’t care about its properties for item creation because I just didn’t know how to create magical items, so I just placed the crystal top of my leaves and continued digging with a little happier mood.

After I finished digging I was still little weary of getting back to rest but I did it anyway, this time I didn’t dream anything and woke up at noon. I immediately went back to the trap, maybe it was because of the nightmare maybe it was because of my fun experience yesterday, but this time I was a lot more cautious of my surrounding.

Moving through the forest I fired the detection skill to every direction.

*”Detection” leveled up to Lv3*

I slowed down just for a moment and continued on my way without saying anything, when I came to the trap I checked to see if any monster was trying to dig to the corpse room, or if the door to there was damaged, but I couldn’t find any signs of anything like that.

I replaced the branches and the leaves and spread my berries around, then went in the middle of the small island and waited. The day passed really fast and today two horned bunnies fell into the trap, it was a good hall. I used lifesteal on then even though my health was full, one of the reasons is to level up the skill and the other is because I wanted to feel an amazing feeling that resembled eating.

Most likely leveling up the lifesteal skill would be the hardest thing for me to do, because I could only steal health from monsters. When I just got the skill I tried to use it on various things as mushrooms, flowers, and trees, but even though our bodies were similar I couldn’t take any health from them, because of that I couldn’t level up the skill. My guess was that somewhere I was fundamentally different from them and was closer to a monster than to a tree.

“Yep, I am a monster.” I said while sucking the life force of the small rabbit, when I finished enjoying “eating” it, I placed it with the other corpses of monsters. When I went climbed back out of the hole I saw that I forgot to close the door to the corpse room, I didn’t want to climb back up again, with this body it was only troublesome.

I released my roots from their shape and moved them to the door but I barely couldn’t reach it, “Just a little more.” I said while I tried to exceed my stretching limits, but then suddenly I reached it without a problem, I was puzzled for a second but then I heard the mighty voice.

*Skill learned “Grow”*

“My roots grew longer…” Slowly a smile was forming at my imaginary face I was waiting for a skill like this for a very long time, because of that I inspected it immediately.

*Grow Lv1* – Skill of the plant monsters or rare plants, let the plant grow new limbs from its body for a temporary period of time. The grown limbs will have the same properties as the originals, but will not be connected to the plant life force and will decay after a certain period of time.

I looked at the end of my roots and really found new layers of roots coming from them. It was really easy to differentiate them because they were a lot greener than the old ones. “This is even better than I thought, I can use this skill to defend myself from incoming damage.”

I closed the door the corpse room and then returned back to the tunnel, on my way back I saw that the new roots slowly started to lose their color then to decay and to fell off, “Like shading a skin, not even painful.”

I came back to the tunnel and went to my resting room, there I started to experiment with the new skill. I used it to grow a layer around my hands as boxing gloves, I looked as if I was a small boxing bush that was ready for its ring fight.

I gave out a punch and a smile formed on my imaginary face, “He entered the ring the and crowd cheers: MIGHTY BUSH! MIGHTY BUSH! MIGHTY BUSH!“ I hit my hands on each other twice and scream like an idiot, “Yeah! Yeah! I am ready!” And started to hit the wall.

Just after two minutes of hitting the wall I said, “Yep works great for a shield, I just barely feel the hits.” I could feel through those new roots but it was just the feeling of touch and not pain. “Jokes aside let’s check my stamina, *Self Awareness*.”

-Ontopary bush Lv7-

Experience: 26/55

Rarity: Common

Health: 8/8

Mana: 6/23

Stamina: 1/5

I immediately froze at the spot, “The skill eats my stamina as nothing…” I immediately rooted myself in the middle of my resting room. “Well that will make sense, it’s not like the branches grow from nothing they need some resources, good that I noticed it sooner or I would have needed to use stamina storage skill again and wait to the berries to regrow.”

“Now should I wait for tomorrow to replenish my stamina or should I go and do it today?” I asked myself quite the interesting question, it wasn’t that late so there shouldn’t have been any problem to me to go out but after the weird experience and the nightmare something change in me.

Even though I knew that this world was real, till yesterday deeply inside I still tough that this world was some sort of game or just a stupid dream, I never really was afraid of dying for real because I tough that it was just a delusion and nothing bad will happen to me.

But the more I was living in this world, the more those thoughts started to vanished and slowly the feeling or real fear was starting to be born inside me, the feeling of being afraid of death, the feeling that all living things have but for some reason I lacked till now.

“I don’t know should I go out or stay? It is starting to get late anyway, I think it will be better if I just stay.” I chose the safe option, but in reality, I knew that if I have left I wouldn’t be in any more danger than tomorrow.

This time I didn’t dig the tunnel and didn’t do my training, I just went to slept till noon. I woke up and even though it was already noon I didn’t want to leave the cave so soon, I stayed for another hour doing nothing and only after reassuring myself that everything going to be alright I left to the trap.

On my way I didn’t stop because even though I really needed stamina I found it unsettling to restore it here, I checked the trap for monsters then restored just a little of my stamina and got it ready as usual.

While staying on the small island I started to think about the future, what will happen to me? Will I able to defeat the panther? And even if I will, what next? All those toughs were making me more and more gloomy because I didn’t have the answers to them and the answers that came to my head weren’t positive at all.

Few hours have passed and a rabbit entered my view, “Oh, a prey.” I looked at the bunny that was jumping towards my direction while picking up some of my berries. “I should stop thinking about this nonsense and just enjoy a good meal, yes future is in the future I should think about the present.”

I used my stealth skill to hide from the bunny and to let him come closer to the trap. Then after he saw me and started to approach me he fell into the trap with a *squeak* cry, as the bunny fell into the trap the mighty voice rang inside my ears.

*A new Title have been acquired “Novice Trapper”*

“I got a new title!” I shouted with a smile. “It was so long ago that I got the clutz title, I already started to think they are almost impossible to get… Wait why did I get the clutz title so easily then?… Damn you stupid system.” I said with a low voice, I didn’t know if the system was making fun of me or it was just normal, after that I inspected the title.

*Novice Trapper* – The title given to those who use traps frequently, usually those who begin to work as hunters get this title.

Effect: More easy to conceal simple traps.

“More easy to conceal simple traps? This is great, tough there weren’t even one time that someone did saw through my trap..” I smiled inside, as I moved my roots to the hole where the bunny fell too. The bunny was impaled by two spears, it twitched and tried to escape but couldn’t move at all. I used my grow skill to extend my roots with a new layer and inserted them into the horned bunny wounds.

“Thanks for the meal.” I said as the bunny released a weak cry while struggling but slowly the struggling stopped, once again the hot amazing feeling of stealing someone’s life entered my body through the roots, “I really can use the new grow skill as part of my body, but still I should be careful with its stamina usage.” I commented on the use of my new skill and returned my focus to my roots.

But just as I did it deathly feeling came for another visit and again like from nowhere I felt death’s scythe around my neck, I immediately froze in place and didn’t move, while frankly moving my view around to find where it was coming from. At every moment that passed my instincts were screaming to me: “You are dying, you are dead!”

My body started to feel colder and colder as if I am taking my last breath, “No, no!” I screamed inside in fear not knowing what to do, but just as the creepy feeling appeared from nowhere it suddenly vanished to nowhere. My view still was moving around but I couldn’t locate anything exactly as last time, without thinking too much I immediately started to retreat to the tunnel.

I didn’t care about the berries that were still located around the trap, or even about the carcass of the dead horned bunny that was still impaled in the trap. I just wanted to return back to my safe place as soon as possible, I ran without stopping even for a second because of fear.

When I got to the entrance I immediately went inside and squished through the narrow tunnel, I entered my room picked up the blue crystal that was in the corner and rooted myself in the middle of the room while holding the crystal strongly with my hands. Hours passed but I was still shaking nonstop, not releasing the crystal out of my hands not even for a second.

It was getting darker and darker until night came in, my leaves started to shine in a low green light and the disgusting feeling of the mark came back to haunt me, I started to tremble even more as I remembered the dark eyes of the panther from my nightmare, while screaming inside my heart, “No, please no…”

Few more hours passed and I a feeling of emptiness went through my body, it meant that my mana was going to get depleted soon. I just stayed in place and continued to tremble in fear, slowly my vision started to get darker and darker until it completely turned to black. With it my conscious was slowly drifting away as well, I tried my best to hold on to it but of course, I couldn’t and just like that I feel to sleep.

I didn’t know how much time passed but I found myself standing in a dark forest surrounded by withered trees, while hearing that something huge was coming towards me from behind, each step it made shook the ground and trees around, *THUD!* *THUD!* *THUD!* I moved my view towards the immense creature, it was the twenty meters tall panther with two black eyes that could suck in all the world, it opened its huge mouth and dark smoke could be seen slowly drifting from it, then it gave out a huge roar that shook the ground and the trees around it.