For the next couple of days, Bharat set up a schedule for himself to follow, which included his hunting, training eating and exploring the system for more clues. On a side note, he also started marking days on the walls to better track the time he spent here on this training program because he had a feeling he was going to stay here for a long time.

The schedule itself was a very simple one, likely due to his lack of ideas and knowledge about most things.

He started his mornings with a simple breakfast of two berries, followed by meditating and tinkering with his mana till he exhausted himself. The second time he did the exercise, he couldn’t feel any more different than yesterday but he was certain that it would eventually bore fruit.

After this daily exercise, he would venture inside the forest in search of easy prey to get some experience, both literally and figuratively. He only visited the rabbit territory for now, as other zones were a bit too dangerous for the current him, but while he couldn’t hunt there, he made sure to mark the areas belonging to different species in his head. It might help him navigating these woods in the future.

In the following days that he hunted in the forest, he discovered that the area he woke up on the very first day was very closer to the territory belonging to the howling wolves. Of course, he didn’t dare risk getting closer to confirm this fact but the sounds of howls that he managed to hear a few times convinced him that his deduction was spot on.

Similarly, he marked the areas occupied by other various creatures in his mind-map. There was the area that the boar-horde occupied which was right next to the rabbit zone. Then there was the location he found the bear-like creature. Which was adjacent to the wolf zone.

As for the actual hunting, he was getting better with every kill, though that wasn’t saying much when he considered his targets. He didn’t transform into a professional hunter overnight, but every little progress was a huge achievement for a guy who, just a few days ago even struggled to kill a fly.

He still used the same strategy, which was sneaking up on his target and then breaking their neck after ambushing them, but he was getting quicker with the process, he started to make less noise while tailing his target and he was also getting used to walking and running on the uneven forest ground.

Evenings were reserved for exploring the system for its other functions and to hopefully discover some hidden element that would help him get more levels or stats easily, but sadly it didn’t show signs of producing any results. For instance, he found through experimentation that doing as many push-ups and squats as he could do in a single session only resulted in very sore muscles and didn’t provide any additional stats.

So he decided to stick to rabbit hunting.

’Baby steps Bharat. Sooner or later, you’ll so badass that all these animals will flee at the mere sight of you.’

Most probably later, as even after four days and killing about 15 of the little rabbits, he hadn’t had a single level under his belt. Either his pace was too slow and killing them only provide very little experience or the gap between level 0 and 1 was just that large.

‘If it is the second option, then reaching a respectable level of power is going to take me months or even years!’

Another detail he noticed on the 4th day was that he stopped getting bonus experience from his ‘first find’ achievement. So, assuming that the bonus from the ‘howling wolf’ ended a day before, he concluded that every first find achievement will give bonus experience for only 5 days which was understandable as if it was a permanent bonus that this System was broken.

He was still getting the bonus from his [Newbie] title though.

Day-9

Bharat started his day the way he’s been doing for the past week. After completing his morning rituals and having breakfast of 2 berries, he sat down for his daily meditation session, which he was looking forward to. The reason being, he had a breakthrough the previous day. He always got a slight warm feeling whenever he reached towards what he called his ‘mana core’ but in yesterday’s session, he got the feeling that the mana inside his core was moving, albeit very slowly.

But he fell out of his meditative state before he could inspect it further and noticed that he used up about half his mana, more than what these sessions usually consumed. So today he was hoping to investigate the phenomenon a bit further and also to make sure that the last day wasn’t just his imagination

In his meditative state, he reached his senses towards his core, the process which was getting a lot faster the more he practised it. In 30 minutes, he reached his core and just like last day he noticed that the mana in it was in slight motion, or to be more specific, it was revolving very slowly around his core.

Feeling his concentration break, he broke out of his state and laid on the ground in exhaustion but with a large smile on his face.

This was indeed a breakthrough which could have a lot of ramification in the future, and he felt that if he managed to control and direct this mana, he could finally perform magic.

“My days of watching anime weren’t wasted after all! Take that Mom and Dad!”, Bharat shouted in the air, feeling very pleased with himself as the idea of core and flowing energies was something he gained from his anime knowledge.

Who would've thought that his endless anime binges and frequent visits on the fandom sites will inspire him in such otherworldly circumstances?

But after calming down, he glanced at his status and realized that he would need to do something about his mana capacity if he intended to progress further in this training.

Mana: 33/93

‘A drop of 60 mana, even more than the last one.’

Bharat shook his head and slowly got up, getting ready for hunting. He decided to let the matter of mana be for now.

Exiting his camp, he entered the forests and made his way through the, now familiar path that he took every day for the last six days. But this day, he decided to go a bit deeper than the usual area he chooses for his hunting.

The reason being, for the last two days, he noticed that the numbers of rabbits in the outskirts were decreasing, because of which he only managed to kill 4 more rabbits with only a single rabbit the previous day after searching for a long time.

He could’ve done this a bit earlier, but he didn’t see the point of that when he was already getting a decent number of kills daily. But now he had a reason as he felt that his pace was getting too slow. Not in the actual killing process though, mind you. It only took about 10 minutes but the actual search took away a lot of time.

Regardless, he needed to step up his pace, now that he had another reason to advance. His mana capacity likely won't grow unless he gained some levels. So, as he reached the usual spot, he went past it and ventured deeper into the territory. After walking for some distance, he decided to stop after he believed himself to be deeper enough and then started his search.

Not even 10 minutes in, he found his first prey feasting on the berries as usual, ignorant of the fact that it would be his last meal. Bharat got into his usual plan of action. He sneaked into the closest bush to the position of rabbit and got ready to ambush at the perfect opportunity and not give the prey a sliver of a chance to escape.

But something strange happened that took Bharat by surprise. All those times he hunted before for the last few days, he always encountered lone targets feeding on these berries which made planning a perfect ambush a piece of cake but also reduced the number of targets he could kill in a single day. So, the sight of another rabbit approaching his target filled him with mixed feeling.

On one hand, this somewhat proved that in deeper areas, the creatures occupying a territory will be more densely packed which made finding them much easier. But on the other hand, this also meant that he could encounter more than one target at the same time, just like what happened.

More targets meant a smaller window of opportunity for him to strike though, as one single mistake could end up startling both of them into escaping and his previous failed ambushes proved that it was very hard to catch them once they were so hell-bent on running away.

But, he reasoned to himself that he should not rely only upon single target ambushes to progress. He would have to confront more than one opponent in a head-on fight someday. After all, there were other, more dangerous creatures than these spineless critters in these woods.

Making up his mind he changed his position so that he was in a blind spot of both of the rabbits, then waited for the perfect moment when both of them were focused on eating at the same time.

Truthfully, he felt like some character in a first-person game who was trying to memorize AI patterns to make a perfect shot without alerting the target.

But Alas, real-life had so many additional factors that the games did not consider, or had no way to include in their mechanics.

*crack*

For instance, the small piece of wood on the ground that he overlooked, which made a loud crack echo in the silent clearing, and instantly alerting the creatures of his presence. For a moment both parties froze and looked at each other in surprise, but it only lasted a moment before the rabbits made a run for it in random directions.

‘Shit’, he cursed himself for his mistake and picking one of the two directions, made a mad dash after one of the rabbits fleeing, hoping to get at least one kill. Unknown to him, the direction he chose led deeper into the rabbit territory.

While chasing after the rabbit, he felt that it was running a bit faster than its previous brethren but couldn't be sure.

Suddenly the rabbit made a sudden dash into thick bushes ahead in hopes to shake off its pursuer but Bharat was unfazed by its move and followed after him, already used to such action by previous experiences. Moving through the thick bushes, which took about 5 seconds, he exited to the other side into a small clearing and saw the rabbit with its back to him, wrongly assuming itself free of its pursuer.

Bharat slowed down his steps and approached the rabbit as silently as he could, not noticing the unusual movements of the rabbit, or the fact that it was a bit bigger in size. When he reached about 5 meters away from its position, the ears on top of its head twitched and the rabbit slowly looked back at Bharat.

Taking one look at the rabbit, Bharat instantly felt warning bells ringing in his head and realized the situation was very very wrong.

All the rabbits he encountered so far looked the same, with the usual dirty-yellow coat of theirs and small beady black eyes. But the rabbit he was looking at right now looked a bit different from them. Its coat was still dirt-yellow but a tad bit darker, its eyes were red with a faint glow coming from them and its face was set into an unhinged look rather than the cute look it should have.

But two things put him off and made him raise his guard. That being the presence of claws on its limbs and the fact that its face was covered in blood, the source of which was the dead rabbit it was feasting on before it was interrupted, very likely the same one he was in pursuit of earlier.

Having a slight hunch, he mentally used appraise on the creature

[Claw-foot Rabbit - Level 5]

*Ding*

>

<< Name: Claw-foot Rabbit

Description: The evil counterpart of their cute looking siblings. Tired of the oppression they faced from other creatures in the forest, they took on the path of very creatures they resisted and kill their own to gain power. Extremely vicious when provoked.

Remarks: Don’t Bully the little guys! >>

‘This description is not exactly filling me with confidence!’

Bharat took a hesitant step backwards, dagger poised in front of him with shaking hands as a flimsy defence and gulped nervously. All of a sudden, the rabbit let out a vicious snarl and jumped in his direction which was his cue to get the fuck out of here!