The battle was long over but my stomach still felt like shit, and that vomit inducing feeling caused my legs to feel like they're burning whilst feeling numb at the same time. That, and I'm pretty sure the arm that I used to stab into the monster's throat got dislocated.

I lifted my head and saw my chest weakly heave up and down as I desperately took in air, and to make matter's worse; there's a tear on my coat and cold air started hitting my exposed wound, I could feel my wound close, but not the way I way I wanted it to- frost was starting to build up in the damn thing.

And with my body heat leaving me even faster than before, the slow build up was sure to hasten and continue, the wound was minutes away before it turned into a deadly frostbite that would force me to remove even more skin: I just hope that the bite isn't deep enough to force me to remove layers that would directly expose my intestines, which, when it comes to most living animals- usually means death.

The hell can I do? Nothing. I can't move, I couldn't move my muscles and the ground felt like stone.

Accepting my fate- I took a deep breath, causing even more freezing air to enter my esophagus. My throat started to feel dry as I released a sigh.

Then, in quite literally the most cliche manner possible, green light started to envelop my body- the mortal wound on my stomach fully healed and my vigor along with my body heat came back, enabling me to move again.

But still, I was exhausted, not physically, but mentally. The searing pain from the thought of death had somehow still affected my goddamn mind, I was scared of my patron. Why?

Whatever the reason was, I did not want to die.

"And yet here I am," I grit my teeth as I pushed my body off the cold ground,

"and as stupid as it sounds, I somehow feel stronger." I said as I caress the place where my wound used to be, and yep, it has been healed. And so far, it showed no sign of scars.

After that, I checked my entire body; I flexed my arms, my legs, jumped up and down, moved my jaw etc. Everything seems fine. well, except for one thing; my tail felt heavier than it did before, something was causing drag each time I swung my tail. And when I looked at it to check as to whether or not I had tumors- I was pleasantly surprised to see tail spikes. I found five of them growing on my tail, they grew out along my spinal cord, they looked like dorsal fins that had somehow stopped growing at the middle of my nail.

"I'll check if I can shoot them or not later, but for now..." I said as I looked at the already rotting corpse of the monster, the sheen on it's armor had been lost, and it's teeth had already started to go black, even my spear at it's throat had slumped downwards, an indication that the flesh was starting to lose it's shape.

Overall- the corpse that died a few minutes ago looked like it had rotten for months on end,

That's what happens when you take a monster's life force. The voice inside my head said,

or perhaps in a term that you would be more familiar, their EXP.

"Yeah, not really one for video games, just tell me what this is all about"

Very well, monsters, as you may know; aren't exactly natural, they are intelligent creatures that possess the village destroying strength of beasts. Monsters are created, or spawned when an area has an abundance of life. The bones of recently deceased creatures would reshape and bore flesh, and the resulting animal born from them would be a monster.

Now that I think about it, I just suddenly popped out of nowhere didn't I? Curious, I asked the God. My voice trailing off "Am I?.."

No, you are not. I'll get to that. So, due to the monster being born from nothing but a sliver of life force, their souls are unstable and very, very easily influenced, they can eat and kill and immediately grow upon consumption, sometimes even possessing the old traits of their recent prey. The stronger life force of the animal, the more traits they gain. The god continued to explain as my eyebrows furrowed,

I looked at my tail spikes, "yeah, that whole stealing traits thing doesn't really help with denying my prior question at the moment."

I shall get to it! So, monsters are, in essence, just a lump of life force that should've been dead long ago, and of course, when one kills a weaker monster, then yes- the life force will indeed lose it's identity, dissipate and become pure, joining the natural cycle once again. But, stronger monsters that have lived for a long time will, of course, just not sit by and idle when they die; the fleshless life-force will do it's best to live on, even if it means joining their very own killers.

"And this is what happened here?"

Not quite, like I have said, you are a special case.

"Thank you?"

Regular beings that live and belong in this world have stable souls and will not accept any other life force, except their own. But beings like you? Heroes so to say, do not exactly belong here. But, you all possess a stable soul. Or atleast, as stable as it can get. Nevertheless, because of your soul's rather weird nature; it can in take and assimilate the stray life force into itself, letting you heroes grow more in power with each monster slain, and this power assimilation is infinite; with the only thing stopping you from growing even more powerful being the fact that some monsters will simply be took weak for your soul to even consider taking in their life force.

"Oh yeah, when you said that monsters are born from an animal's corpse, what happens when... let's say, two animals die and their corpse turns into a monster?"

That's how demons are born. And you, I'm afraid, are one of them. You are a mythical being usually associated with death gods such as myself- a scavenger that digs up corpses to give to the grim reapers so that they can pass unto the afterlife.

"That's pretty cool! So I'm like, unique on this world? Like, I'm a only supposed to be a myth or something?" That's a nice thing to know, especially when I can somehow call upon reapers to assist me.

In a way, yes. Your species only spawns when I want them to.

"Neat."

Considering that our one-sided conversation was over, the death god stayed silent after that. And, looking over the horizon where brown clouds drifted in the clear night sky; started walking home to start making preparations for the upcoming storm.

When I got back, I immediately started a fire, hanged my torn clothing, ate, then once I was heated up- I immediately went to work. Which, due to cold weather, was hell.

I grabbed my new pots and went by the small creek to fill them up with water, and I got to fill in three when I was done. Then after that, I grabbed a few rocks, pulverized them, then mixed the powder with dirt, the resulting blocks were very weak, but since they'll be placed above the ground; they should have no problems supporting weight.

The three pots of water resulted in a 4x4 meter 1 foot tall foundation, good enough to protect me from both the storm and the flood I think?

After eating once again, I fed my campfire more fuel, then slept.

Thanks to my "Level up," last night, any energy I had lost was completely replenished and I woke up full of energy beside a dead fire the next morning.

My bones popped as I stretched, and after that, my morning routine consisted of me getting more water from the creek, as I have stored my food on my newly weaved baskets, I got to fill up Five Pots this time.

The sun managed to reach the middle of the sky once I was done storing and gathering water. So, grabbing my spear and smaller thatch-pack full of meat, I ventured into the woods under the heat of the sun and the coldness of the wind.

First and foremost, I followed where the creek led, the slope started to get slippery on the way down, but I did find something noteworthy; a pond of sorts, filled with Dragon-Fly larvae the size of my fist (didn't know they existed here), and small amphibians that looked like a mixture between frogs-and newts, their little babies swam on the pool below them.

After mentally noting my stop, I continued to follow the larger stream that led more downhill, eventually finding a water fall with - at best - a 17 foot drop. More than thrice the size of my current height.

Still, the gravel below this water fall was more than worth it, the stronger and sturdier bricks that I needed can be made using them.

So, despite the dangerous and rocky trek below, I made my way down anyways.

A large river greeted me once I reach the bottom, and from there- I made a makeshift sift using small branches and leaves, and started another campfire- which, below the burning sticks was a new clay pot starting to harden. After that, I made even more stuff: I started to carve out a gear for a pulley, tied ropes, created hangars, and the like.

I looked at the moving sun, then at the storm on the horizon "I'll be staying here a while," I muttered.

With a sigh, I ate my smoked deer meat, then started to dip on the cold river, filled my sift with gravel, then got out.

I shivered on the fire for a bit, and once I was warm enough to move and feel my legs, I immediately got back to work, can't waste time after all.

Preparing to fill my newly dried clay pot- I separated the larger and smaller rocks using my sift, after that, I throw out the pebbles and got back down in the river to repeat the entire process. I camped there for 1 day before the entire clay pot was filled with the sand sized gravel I needed.

I rested for a bit, mentally encouraging myself that going up and down the slope tirelessly to install the pulley was worth it. And, it seemed to have worked as before I knew it, I moved passed the small pond while carrying the pot filled gravel.

Back at camp, I chopped a small tree and shaved it to create a square mold for my bricks.

Pulverized a few more rocks till they were actually fine dust(to the point that they dwarfed the gravel), then mixed them to create mud; I was able to fill my mold 14 times before I ran out of gravel, and I must say, the only thing that encouraged me to even go back down there and repeat the entire process was the cold winds that constantly hit me.