It was one thing to see evolved animals, but things like the echo that could mess with his mind, and a freaking ball of light that killed alligators as if it was nothing were a reality check he hated. The world hadn't just ended; it had changed beyond his understanding. Someday, he might be walking somewhere only for a ball of energy like that one to appear and kill him before he could put up a defense.

And at the same time, at that moment, he felt something he had never felt before.

The thrill of the hunt.

That was a beast worthy of him. Hunting that would bring him glory. Standing over its corpse would bring safety to his home and prove his power to the world.

He wanted it. He wanted to hunt the ball of light. He wanted to triumph over it.

Not now, his instincts told him. Not even soon. But one day.

The thrill brought him out of his misery, and he stood up. He saw an echo on the other riverbank and then saw the surrounding grass suddenly grow. Like roots, they held the thing, which struggled desperately until it was buried under the earth.

That gave Ricardo goosebumps, but it also brought curiosity. What manner of beast was that? How did he kill it?

He was surprised to find himself so connected to his instincts that they could override his default reactions to things. The obvious answer was that the more he acted like a Hunter, the more the instincts became truly his. He had spent the day before only observing beasts and planning — like a Hunter. It kind of synchronized his Hunter self with his Earthen one.

He only briefly wondered if he should be worried. The answer was obviously no. He couldn't survive without changing, and the change the Hunter brought was the one he had chosen. It resonated with him.

Ricardo would become a Hunter, and it felt right.

Speaking of which, he would hunt the next day, and his Hunter instincts told him to be well-rested for that. He went back to his shelter and wondered if the mind eater would keep appearing every now and then. He just hoped it never found him.

He meditated once more to calm his mind fully and went to sleep.

Ricardo's morning routine was the same as the day before: eat, meditate, check on his injuries. His stump was mostly healed, and his foot didn't hurt anymore. He even put his shoes back on with ease.

He thought he had been smelling something foul since yesterday, but his own body odor was strong enough to make it hard for him to pinpoint it. Today, however, the smell was strong enough that he found its source as soon as he left his shelter: the hound's head.

He had left it in the backpack in the middle of the bridge, unattended. It was proof of his stupidity, and he didn't want to face it. But today he would search for a weapon and needed it to keep beasts away, though he wondered if the smell of the decaying thing would help with that or make them more interested in him instead.

There was nothing he could do to decrease the smell. Well, he could remove the head's insides through the cut neck with a spoon, but it would just make him smell even more because he had no safe way to wash. He could also try to scrape the skin on the ground or with pieces of concrete, but he also wondered if it might impair the head's ability to keep beasts away.

He would keep it at least until he found his weapon, then he would decide what to do with the damn thing.

Ricardo finished his morning ritual with a meditation session.

Skill improved: (Uncommon) Mind-Cleansing Meditation 2

+2,997 XP — 26,312 total

He finally leveled the skill up. The XP was about the same as if he had killed five G-2 beasts, not too shabby.

Unfortunately, his experience with the Qi Sense and Qi Control skills had already shown him further leveling skills up wasn't so easy. To make matters worse, the Mind-Cleansing Meditation, an uncommon skill, had taken a lot longer to level up compared to his common ones. The system gave XP outside of battle with skills levels, but it wasn't easy to get it.

He had also realized that leveling up only meant he had mastered the previous level, not that he had gotten much better at a skill. It signalized he had to change his approach, and gave him a small bonus for mastering the former level, but nothing more than that.

He would be lying if he said he hadn't been expecting skills to be more game-like, as in being activated at a thought, but he should have known better from the moment the qi gave him the skill grid on the bottom of his vision. They weren't buttons to activate the skills, just reminders.

Anyway, it was time to find himself a sweet fire ax.

Ricardo stood up, put on the smelling backpack with the hound's head, placed the alligator's hide on himself like a cloak for extra safety, and went to the West end of the bridge. That was the side where the rat swarms lived, but also the only one he knew where to find a fire department. He cleared a small part of his wall of piled concrete and tentatively held the metal plank with one hand while also putting a lot of its weight on his left arm. It hurt a little, but not enough for him to drop it. That made setting the plank down much easier than sitting on it and pushing.

He traversed to the other side and pulled the plank, turned North, and started walking.

He felt naked with no weapon on hand except for a piece of concrete he brought with him. All the metal around had been eaten by the gargoyles, and he couldn't even grab some random metal scrap to protect himself with. The buildings' debris might contain buried metal, but it made no sense to waste time digging when his fire ax was only twenty minutes away by foot. He would be as vulnerable here as he would be vulnerable walking.

Moreover, he had drunk the last of his water, so he had to avoid making too much effort before he secured more.

Ricardo walked crouched, trying to avoid drawing any attention to himself. Unlike his first foray outside his bridge, he didn't walk upright to feel better about himself. That had been way too stupid, no matter how wise he thought it was at the time.

During his observations the previous day, he had seen no beast nest from his bridge, and with all buildings down, he could see far. The fire department was also by the river, so he was relatively sure that the road was safe.

He paid extra attention to his hearing as he moved, and kept moving from building debris to building debris, even climbing them a little when the only alternative was moving through open terrain. He hated the gargoyles once more for eating all the cars, though he could see some in the far distance. That would make his movement stealthier and safer.

His decision was proven right when a pack of a dozen mutated cats came walking from behind a fallen building. They made no sound that he could hear, they just appeared. He hid quickly, his back to a huge concrete chunk that stood between the cats and him. He clenched his piece of concrete and hoped for the best.

His heart was beating so hard in his chest he could swear it would break free at any moment. Or explode. Probably explode, if his bad decision-making skills extended to his body.

He didn't dare to move. He didn't trust the hound's head ability to keep the cats away, and he didn't want to test how far the cats could hear. They could probably smell him, but for once, he was grateful for the head's decay, as it should be enough to hide his own smell.

Time passed slowly. The clock on his vision made it hard for him to focus on anything else but counting the minutes. He didn't dare meditate here to calm down, as it would hinder his awareness of the surroundings. Not to mention he had to learn to deal with situations like this; it would surely happen many times again in the future. It was the damn apocalypse, after all.

Half an hour later, he believed it was enough and dared to take a look. The cats were gone. He sighed in relief, recomposed himself, and resumed his journey.

He found uneaten cars halfway through the fire department, and with them, metal debris. It was a joy to exchange his piece of concrete for a metal scrap as long as a baseball bat. It was slightly bent and didn't look like it could withstand a long fight, but he was glad for the extra range.

He stopped and hid once more when he heard something moving from behind another building's debris. He waited for ten extra minutes the steps moved away to get out of hiding and keep going.

One hour after he left his bridge, he reached the fire department.

The place was built like a big hangar with a big open parking lot, which was good news. Since it had had a metal ceiling instead of concrete, it would be easier to search for stuff in its debris. Three beautiful firetrucks carcasses were parked in the lot, and he almost ran at them, but he had to cross an open area to get there, so he stopped himself.

Instead, he watched the place for another hour to make sure it wasn't some beast nest. Only when he was satisfied with it did he move, and he did it fast. He ran full speed to minimize his exposition time in the open.

Ricardo didn't believe when nothing went wrong. Even better, when reached the firetrucks, the first thing he saw was a pick head ax, which had an ax blade to one side and a small pick to the other. He could only imagine how useful the pick would have been against any of the big beasts he had faced to date. He had hit their heads but hadn't damaged their skulls, but with this, he probably could.

There was even a wonderful tool for moving debris close by, a beautiful Halligan bar. Even better, he was in the ruins of a fire station. He was confident he could find not only more bags in there but also clothes and boots.

Really, that place was heaven. He should have thought about coming there before. He even silently thanked the system for giving him the Hunter class, and himself for picking it, because he was sure as hell the Mind Handler one wouldn't have made him prioritize coming here.

The rest of the morning went by in a flash. He scoured the fire department as well as he could with his Halligan bar, and by lunch, he was a new person. He even only had to stop and hide three times for beasts to pass, much less than he had expected.

A little after lunchtime, Ricardo wore firefighter's clothes, a helmet, a thick glove on his hand, and amazingly comfortable firefighter boots. He wielded a fire ax and had a firefighter bag on his back. Inside the bag, there were three extra bags, the Halligan bar, three hoses that he believed he could use as ropes, another fire ax, a small thick hammer, his alligator hide, and a spare change of the entire clothing set, helmet and boots included. He now wore his old backpack in reverse, in front of his body.

As if the alien gods of the system were smiling at him, it even started raining a little after he was done, making him not feel so hot in the outfit.

Now, it was time to find himself some water.

Or maybe not. Maybe it was time to fight instead. The gods had stopped smiling.

The mutated cats he had avoided before suddenly appeared from all directions.

He was surrounded.