The sun was gradually setting on the ravenous forest displaying beautiful purples, reds, and oranges in the sky.
As the sun set, the forest became quiet, the birds stopped chirping, and the bugs stopped their incessant disturbances. It was eerily quiet, only the whistle of the wind and the rustling of leaves could be heard. It was unnerving like a scene out of a horror movie.
Si Sheng was unnerved even though he usually wasn't in these kinds of situations. He felt like the forest had eyes and they were watching him from every angle—he felt naked in the middle of the forest.
He had found refuge for the night before the sun went down, and was staying in a hollowed-out tree he found around a kilometer away from the river. It was a tree slightly larger than the trees around it—about 10 meters taller. The hollowed out space inside the trunk was not that large though. It was enough for Si Sheng to comfortably lay down in, but wouldn't be able to accommodate more than one person.
While in the tree, Si Sheng had activated his newly acquired ability and concealed his presence. He was afraid there was actually something stalking him. The ability didn't last for too long as it quickly drained his mana. The ability consumed 5 mana per second, which quickly drained Si Sheng's mana supply.
After his mana had run out, the feeling of being watched crept back in. He also felt extremely exhausted and faint after using up all his mana. He felt like he had come down with a cold and had a migraine.
After this, Si Sheng couldn't stay awake and quickly drifted into a terrible slumber. He slept for an hour or two when he was suddenly jolted awake!
In the time he had slept, his mana had recovered and his sick and disheveled self had gone back to normal. Si Sheng guessed his previous state was a result of his mana depleting, which he wasn't too keen on experiencing again, he had had enough migraines lately.
From inside the tree, Si Sheng peered out through the crack he had crawled through to enter this tree, to see what had caused him to stir from his sleep. Outside was a large reptile. He thought it was a dinosaur by the size of it, but it looked more like a monitor lizard from Earth. It had stumpy legs and a long powerful tail and a massive maw. He couldn't make out much of the lizard under the dim light filtering through the leaves, but he could tell this was a powerful creature.
He then, again, activated his concealment ability to at least buy him some time and hope the giant lizard would just walk away. Si Sheng held his breath all the while not wanting to even make a sound and alert the beast.
He waited only a couple of minutes, turning the ability on and off occasionally so that he wouldn't get, what he now called "mana exhaustion," until the creature finally started to move away from him. In the meantime, he had gone and checked the lizard's information:
[Juvenile Forest Wyrm | Level 9: A nocturnal wyrm species adapted to "this forest".]
'Not much to go on, but it's better than nothing. At least I know I have no chance against the Juvenile Forest Wyrm. Thankfully it's just leaving without disturbing me,' Si Sheng thought as he watched the wyrm waddling its way through the forest.
He was glad he hid himself, since he would for sure have been dead if he tried to take it on. Even if he were found and he tried to run away, he wasn't confident that he could escape, and seeing the wyrm getting further away from him let the tension that was piling up on him slowly recede.
When Si Sheng thought all was good, loud rustling of leaves sounded from above. Suddenly, a black streak flashed towards the Juvenile Forest Wyrm. It struck the wyrm with large curved talons that gleamed in the moonlight.
The wyrm hissed in pain; three large gashes had appeared in front of its hind legs and behind its front legs, perpendicular to its long body. In an instant, it was covered in a bath of blood gushing out from the six wounds on its body.
The wyrm was screeching a horrible sound—a high pitch whistle-like sound resonated from its throat. It didn't sound like the pained hiss the wyrm had previously bellowed out. This was more like a warning shout to say "hey, you shouldn't mess with me." But, the creature attacking the wyrm didn't relent, despite the wyrm's attempt to ward off the attacker.
The shadow darted back down towards the wyrm and aimed for its head this time, trying to quickly end the fight and carry its loot off to safety. However, as if the wyrm was expecting this, it quickly whipped its long and powerful tail up and met the shadow with a loud crack.
Crack!
Squeaak!
The shadowy figure squealed and was knocked to the ground beside the wyrm where it quickly recovered from the shock and launched itself back into the air before the wyrm could try anything else.
Seemingly enraged that this wyrm had dared to hit it, the shadowy figure flew even faster than before, to the point that Si Sheng could no longer keep track of its movements. All that was heard was silence and the wyrm's huffing and wheezing. The shadowy figure, along with its high rate of flight also possessed the ability to fly silently.
At this point, the wyrm had been bleeding heavily for a while and was quickly losing strength. It looked like a slight breeze would be enough to knock it over, let alone the giant shadowy figure somewhere above.
Seeing the disheveled wyrm, the shadowy figure darted down for a decisive attack. With its blade-like talons primed and ready, it aimed at the wyrm's head again ready to snatch it away. This time, the talons lacerated the area behind the wyrm's head, spraying a fountain of blood as they passed through. The shadow, happy with its victory, landed and went over to claim its prize.
Just as the shadow loomed over the tattered wyrm, the wyrm's whip-like tail once again slapped the shadow away from it. The shadow got knocked to the ground with a hefty thump, while the wyrm that had just used the last of its life to get one last hit in, slumped down as the air whistled out of its body.
Even more enraged than before, the shadow immediately perked up and began thrashing the wyrm's corpse to appease its anger. Only until the corpse lay there as just a pile of flesh and bones marinated in blood, did the shadow finally relent its mutilation.
At this point, the corpse wasn't even recognizable, with its skin flayed here and there, bones poking out from every angle and fluids oozing out of its gut. The sight was gut-wrenching, to say the least. It would've been a horrible sight to a normal person from a more peaceful world like Earth, but Si Sheng wasn't phased by such a thing. He had seen many horrible things on Earth, so this wasn't that much to him.
Finally, the attacker climbed on to the back of the wyrm now turned pile-of-flesh and started to fly away with it, unaware of the prying eyes that had witnessed the whole battle.
When Si Sheng peered out from within the tree at the creature, through the light the moon provided, he saw a large owl lifting off. Its wingspan was easily seven meters wide and the body was two meters tall; it stood at eye level with Si Sheng. Looking at the owl, Si Sheng could see patterns on the feathers that were visible thanks to the moonlight shining down on it. There was a pair of eyes, one eye per wing. The eyes looked like the eyes of the owl, amber, and gold, only they were glowing. There was a lining of black feathers around the eyes of the wings that accentuate the eyes even further, making them feel real and as if they were watching you. The rest of the owl's body was covered in feathers that matched the leaves on the ground, it looked like dead leaves were plastered all over its body. The owl was built for assassination in the forest.
Despite the whole situation, Si Sheng looked at its information and was quite shocked:
[Ground Stalker Owl | Level 34: A species of ground owl that burrows to make its nest. Has "eyes" on the tops of its wings.]
He was absolutely frightened by the absurd level of the owl. It would just have to blow air in his direction for him to die just with the level alone. He was glad the owl was after the wyrm and not him.
Despite being shocked by the owl's level, Si Sheng thought the information provided was particularly odd. He thought whilst looking at the hovering information page, 'I won't get much useful information until my intelligence increases. At least I can see their level, though.' He could only see the basic characteristics of things right now, things that were obvious at first glance, like the giant eyes on the owl's wings. Later he hoped he would be able to see the stats and skills of creatures since this would be useful for combat, as well as his Gluttony skill—being able to see creatures that had skills he didn't have.
The owl took off into the canopy and disappeared into the darkness. He was glad it was gone and soon found the forest around him return to the normal quite of the bug's quiet singing, again. He quickly drifted back to sleep, hoping nothing more would happen during the night.
***
Faint rays of light hit Si Sheng's eyes as he started to wake up. The creatures had left him alone the whole night after the brief incident, thankfully. He got up and used some water magic to get a nice cold drink of water in the morning.
"Water Ball."
He drank from the floating ball of water and then washed his face to wake himself up.
Time was limited since he wanted to cover as much ground as possible between him and the mountains before night fell once again. With that in mind, Si Sheng set out for the mountains in hopes of finding a cave near the base of the mountains.
***
Si Sheng walked for a few hours and gradually got closer to the mountain.
On his way, he had gotten hungry due to the arduous trek through the forest. So, he decided to hunt something. During his time waking, he had noticed little rabbits and bugs in the forest. Now that he needed to eat, he wanted to hunt some of them.
They weren't hard to capture. For the most part, they were slow-moving and non-aggressive. The rabbit gave him a headache though, because it would dash away when he was about to catch it.
Eventually, he trapped it and killed it. He caught one rabbit and a few bugs.
[Common Forest Rabbit killed: 3 Experience gained]
[Forest Hopper killed: 1 Experience gained]
[Pygmy Centipede killed: 1 Experience gained]
...
Si Sheng set up another fire and cooked his kills. He ate the rabbit and hopper together.
"Mmmm. This actually tastes good, unlike the rotten taste of that overgrown fish I had yesterday." Si Sheng was pleasantly surprised by the taste these little critters stored. They tasted good, unlike the fish he had yesterday. As he swallowed a mouthful of rabbit, he heard a sound ring in his head.
Diring!
[Common Forest Rabbit consumed: "Skill: Sprint (E)" Acquired]
Si Sheng thought the name was fairly simple and went to check its information.
"Identify."
[Skill: Sprint (E) - Using mana you can increase your speed.
Minimum 5 mana per second: Increase Agility by 10 when active.
For every 2 increase in Agility, 1 increase in mana consumption.
Max Agility increase: 2.5× Agility]
"Hm, this'll be nifty. I guess the skill acquisition is random then? Such an interesting skill. Also, the experience gained is significantly less than that fish. Maybe it was actually something special." Si Sheng pondered on the skill and experience acquired. He only gained a skill from the rabbit, the bugs didn't provide any skills, to his dismay. The experience was also vastly different from the past creature. This time he gained a total of 8 experience where 3 was from the rabbit and the rest were from the bugs. He didn't know if size factored into the experience gained but each bug only gave 1 experience.
Going to his new skill, Sprint could be one of his trump cards where he had an instantaneous burst of speed catching an opponent off guard, at least for the moment. It would also be helpful for catching those pesky rabbits if he ever saw them again. But, it had the drawback of being, even more, mana intensive than Presence Concealment, meaning, he couldn't use it constantly and only in short bursts.
After finishing his meal, Si Sheng cleaned up his area and set out for the mountain again. By this time it was midday and he hoped he could get there by nightfall.