Stepping out of the portal, I blink my eyes to acclimatise to the bright sun. It appears to be late morning, based on the position of the sun, although it could be early afternoon, it seems unlikely that I slept that long. Looking around the clearing, some signs of the fight yesterday still remain - a few marks in the grass, as well as a few dried blood patches, standing out against the consistent green of the clearing.

Thinking back to my original purpose, the clearing is a perfect place to build a shelter, and is also presumably why the dimension was created here. After all, it seems to build onto and edit a version of reality, not create its own new landscape. However, obviously, there are no materials for a shelter within the clearing itself. Which means venturing into the forest, which, if based on the random rabbit from yesterday is not even close to being safe.

However, after my night's rest, I also am, technically, much more powerful than I was then, due to the eventual addition of the large amount of stats I had gained from the titles and traits I had unlocked back on Earth, and the couple I got when I arrived here earlier. So, it should, theoretically, be much easier for me to kill such a monster, despite it still being more powerful than me in levels alone.

Taking the risk, I walk out into the relatively dense forest, mentally marking where the clearing is. From my experience reading back on Earth, I know what it's very easy to lose your position in a dense forest, so, pulling out the daggers I got from the rat king, I score a mark on the inward side of the trees on each side. Therefore, I can know the exact pathway I took, if I stumble across a tree with these marks. On every 5th tree on my right side, I draw an arrow, to show the direction I am currently walking in, so I know to head the opposite direction to get back.

In the dense forest, I can see a few things that would be useful for making a shelter, even just a few meters from the clearing. For example, there are some flexible-looking vines clinging to the trees, which I of course identify, even though each only gives me 1 XP, of which I collect 10 3-meter long strands, each about a centimeter thick, while only ranging about 15 meters into the forest. I head back and drop them off in the clearing, before heading back out. The main item I need for the shelter is some form of structural material, which in a forest is almost always wood. Luckily, when I was younger I spent quite a lot of time building small shelters and such, so I have a basic idea of how to put one together, and so, I know what I need to have, in principle.

I collect any long pieces of deadwood, even if they're not straight, and carry them back to the clearing, separating them into piles based around what they are - usable wood in one pile, potentially usable in another, etc. Luckily, up to this point I have managed to not run into any dangerous animals, although I have heard some noise in the underbrush. Though the noise in the underbrush is vaguely worrying, it is probably just small wildlife scattering at the noise I was making.

By the point that I have enough materials to be able to construct the beginnings of my shelter and work on most of the structure in general, it is already approaching evening. At early afternoon I went back into the dimensional shelter for some water and a late lunch of cold, canned food, which was horrible, before getting back to work, and after this point I had to begin using my knives to cut off more pieces of wood, but now only those which seemed useful for building the shelter with.

At this point, it is nearing the end of the day, so I decide to put off assembling the shelter itself - an act which could take a while. Alternatively, I decide to go into the forect to prepare some materials for a fire tomorrow - after all lighting one now would be pointless. I head out into the forest, setting off down a new direction than where I went earlier. After walking about 50 meters, carving the lines into trees as I go, I come across a fallen tree, with some dead underbrush beneath - the tree is quite wide, so parts of the plants underneath died as they grew in a different direction to get sunlight. I collect some of the dead, dry pieces of the plants, so that I can get a big enough fire to light some larger wood when I start the fire.

I begin to head back to the camp, walking in the now near-darkness, and gat about halfway back. I freeze in terror as I hear a pained hiss and a raised area beneath my left foot, and cast Identify into the darkness;

Large Forest Snake - Level 15 - 67/67HP

A common predator in most forests in this region of Terrae, the large forest snake is a large constrictor species which is partially nocturnal. These snakes are not innately aggressive, however if provoked they can be vicious, often willing to fight to the death with whomever awakened it's wrath.

'That is one powerful snake... which I just appear to have provoked...' The snake is still hissing at me, and I slowly step backwards from it in the darkness. As it moves, it's shiny scales catch a partch of now dim light, showing a three meter long body with forest green scales. Backing away slightly faster, I move about two meters away from the snake before it launches it's body at me, hitting me in the chest. Just after the point of impact, I manage to jump backwards slightly, preventing the snake from coiling around me. However, I still lose some health and my chest aches from the impact.

Seeing no way to get past the snake and get back to camp, I decide to attempt to kill the monster. With it's tough scales, it is unlikely that the blunt damage from the whip of the slime queen will do much damage at all, and so I decide to attempt to kill it with the rat king's daggers which I already have in my hands. While the snake is recovering from it's diving strike at my chest, I jump forward with a slash from my right hand dagger. I hit the snake near it's head, but only manage to draw a shallow wound on it's scales - even the sharp rat king's daggers nearly just bounce off.

Backing off once again, the snake, biding it's time, follows my every move. I raise my left arm slightly higher up into a more guarded position, and at this point the snake strikes. Diving forward again like earlier, it targets my arm now, rather than my chest like earlier, displaying a higher intelligence than I would expect from a snake. It catches my upper arm with it's two non-venomous fangs, deeply penetrating into my bicep. Using the momentum from the diving motion, the snake wraps it's body around mine, tying my left arm to my body along with most of my right arm, leaving only my lower arm free.

Now, the snake begins to constrict, cutting off my air supply. Collapsing on my side, I manage to wound the snake with my trapped left dagger, forcing it to loosen it's hold slightly. I force my right arm to loop around and stab between it's coild into it's left eye, tearing up it's brain inside. Thankfully, this does enough damage to kill the snake, and it's body collapses to the floor, leaving two deep gouges in my arm. Thankfully no arteries or veins seem to have been severed, by some miracle, however it is still excruciatingly painful. I also dump my passive mana regen as well as my mana pool into mana regrowth, which closes the wounds a bit, and speeds up recovery

I head back to the camp, firewood long forgotten, and head into the dimensional shelter. I wash the wounds in the small stream, before taking a shirt from my inventoryand tearing it into strips. I use these to bind the two wounds. Luckily I'm not losing too much blood anyway, however it is much better to be safe than to die from blood loss in my sleep. Then, trying to ignore the pain, I let my already exhausted body lie down where I did the night before, and rest to try and heal the wounds overnight.