After hitting my poor face in the hard floor, I could see the place where I was before… inside the stone wall. Why I was there or even how I didn't die by being locked there, those thinking's come to my head but for now I chose to ignore.
Looking to my surroundings, I could see a cavern-like environment. The place where I was locked, was the wall inside an underground tunnel? Or some… ruins? Hmm? Ruins… for some reason I feel that I know quite a bit about those words, but my memories only go to the word…
Trying to remember, I discover that many things inside my head was like that, mere fragments of memories. Most of them only words, some go to a strange sensation of a familiar voice or feelings, but every time I try to focus in one to gather more details, my head start hurting as hell. No, now that I calmed down, I can say this for sure, my head was hurting, my body feels weak making me feel lethargic.
While trying to ignore the headache, I walked around the tunnel. Climbing a rock with quite an effort thanks to my weak body, I could get a better look in this place. On the middle of the tunnel, there a strange mark going from a side of the tunnel to the other… as if something VERY big passed here… wait.
Shit! The roar!! M-Maybe the one that caused those marks and another thing fought here? Now that I think about, I can't hear any roars since falling from the stone wall, them are fighting while running or one was hunting the other? Well, who cares? At the very last them aren't here anymore, but this is a problem… to which way did they go?
Damnit. Remember, I don't to end walking behind some scary and giant being. Which side did I hear the last sound? Shit, my head is hurting again, my breath was even getting rough… I get! To the left!
Then while holding my head between my arms, I waited the headache to calm and got to the right way of the tunnel.
Thanks to the marks in the floor of the tunnel, was like walking in a road… damnit, another empty word. Ignoring this strange feeling of remembering only a minor part of the things that I think, I finally got some attention to my weak body while walking.
A four-legged body, without a tail, my head feels light on weight, although my headache makes feel otherwise, if I had to choose a comparation between the fragments in my memories, would be a puppy? The claws in my pawn aren't abnormally strange or big and by what I could feel by trying to give some weak bites in my frontal leg, my teeth are a bit different from what I can feel from my memories.
Is really a strange feeling, the way of moving my body and walking are natural to me, but the memories in my head makes me feel strange, was my former body too different? In any way, I need to learn how to live with this body from now on.
Then, from some time, all that I did was walk the "road" of trails and try to get more information from the fragments of memory. To my surprise, I get to reveal one of them that make me stop walking. Information about the so-called system in the memories, status, stats, skills and others information's come to my head so fast that makes me hold my head between my pawns from pain.
After the pain stopping, I finally could remember without pain about the information related to the status, and by following them, I opened my status.
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Status
Name: Yuurin Gender: Male Age: 0
Race: Imus Class: Common
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Level: 1 GP: 0 SP: 0 PR: 3
HP: 10/10 MP: 3/3 EP: 4/10
Strength: Rank 0 – Low [0/3]
Physique: Rank 0 – Low [0/3]
Agility: Rank 0 – Mid [0/3]
Mana: Rank 0 – Low [0/3]
Control: Rank 3 – High # [3/3]
Sense: Rank 1 – Low [0/3]
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Title:
Gift: <****>
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Traits: [Dark Vision=Low] [Improved Nose=Mid] [Improved Ears=Low]
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Skills: [Growth Controller=New]
[Bite Lv 1] [Scratch Lv 1]
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Using my memories as a guide, I could understand the data in the window. The first part, name, gender, age, race and class are my basic data. And I could see the name of the being that I become, "Imus".
The second part are about my rank as a being and data related to my body and capacity's. Level got up by earning experience be by killing another being or earning achievements in things related to your class, by leveling you earn GP and SP that are, respectively, Growth Point and Skill Point.
Growth Point's can be used to improve the stats Strength, Physique, Agility, Mana, Control and Sense; or be used in transition stages to improve parts of your body, in a better wording, Traits.
Skill Point's are used to change for skills or to upgrade the already existing skills, although not all skills can be improved like that and some need real training.
The PR are Power Rating of the being, a value that count the number of stats of Mid or more stage as one-point x the rank value, like this:
Rank 0 – High (0 PR) + Rank 1 – Mid (1 PR) + Rank 2 – Low (1 PR) + Rank 2 – Mid (2 PR) = 4 PR.
By understanding this, I can say that I am VERY weak now. The only stat that earn me PR are Control that by some reason is quite high to my level.
Following, HP are about my health, MP about my mana and EP my energy or stamina. To say the truth, I don't know if I should feel more despair my reading those pitiful values or my low stats.
In the stats section, are separated by stat – rank and stage – value need to upgrade the current stage. The values of the last field only change the amount need after going from a rank to another, so the same amount you need in Rank 1 – Low are asked in Rank 1 – High.
The stats have the simple to understand and the complex ones:
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Strength: how strong the being is in physical power and carrying capacity. Are related to the muscles of the body, but while a being can show an immense strength above his body can hold, his body may break if the Physique stat can't support.
Physique: how good the body of the being are in exert himself, endure damage or weight, recover from fatigue and injuries and his immunity to things like poison.
Agility: how fast one can move and the speed of his movements. A better Agility also improves the reflexes and reaction of the being and can influence in a battle thanks to having a better evasion, movement and attack speed. Are used as a parameter stat in stealth-type skills that use the body to works (not related to something like invisibility and illusions, those fall under Mana and Control)
Mana: the amount and quality of the mana that the body can hold. Is essential to magic users and those skills that consumes mana instead of stamina. While is good to have a great amount of mana, one shouldn't try to go up his max capacity, after all, mana is one type of energy and how much one can gold depend of the body its ways of storing mana, the called cores. Trying to force the limit may burst the core, which may end killing the being.
Control: how good the being is in controlling his body and energy, be mana, stamina or even foreign substances in the body, like poison. In martial styles, technics and magics, all then require a good amount of Control to show a good performance. Some researchers call this stat as "Spirit" thanks to being able to manage his functions even when paralyzed or sleeping.
Sense: how good the perception or awareness of the being is, be to physical things or energy. The way that this stat works varies by each being and the amount of the stat, the senses of vision, hearing, smell, touch, taste and special senses related to traits and skills. A low Sense being will have problem to sensing the world around him, while those with a high Sense can feel about things on the ground or through walls by many meters, some can even link his senses in special ways to feel through kilometers and know if something like a spell was casted thanks to his energy perception.
The systems show about the limit capacity (# symbol) and when the being is abusing the stat (! symbol, the more have, the dangerous become)
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Titles are about names, jobs or positions one hold in the world. Is very related to the fame that the being hold but can also be something given from a being of a certain rank like a king or god, sometimes the system itself can give a title by accomplishing or doing something.
Gifts are great things given to the being by a superior being, things like a blessing of a god, or the grace of nature. Some people hold those gifts from birth while other earn then through achievement or by holding a good impression from the superior being. Those gifts can help the user in many ways, some give specials powers while other improve the already existing power or traits.
Traits are about the special and abnormal things in the body of the being, a skin resistant to flame, a poisoned blood or flesh that causes damage to enemy's that drink or eat. Many call the change in traits of the beings as mutations, and the non-humanoids being are the ones that change the most. A strong teeth or deadly claw, a different or special organ and gland that can give the being new traits to his body. Traits can be got through three moments, when evolving and reach the mid stage of his race (use GP as resource), and in special occasions, like extern contact with a different energy that forces the being to adapt or die trying. By changing and upgrading traits, the stats of the being also changes.
And lastly, the Skills sections that are the specials powers, techniques, magic or actions of the being. From simple actions like bite or punch too things like throwing acid or flames. Hold the data about the ability's of the being like craft or special type of senses. In general, skills can be bought using SP to those that are showed to the being, earned by succeeding in doing the process of a not learned skill or given by external factors (Gifts for example).
While most skills can be upgraded through SP, some of then are special and aren't rank in levels from 1~10 but in five stages: New, Low, Mid, High and Max; those ranking can be by following how much the being understand the skill process and characteristics or can be ranked by how much the user hold access, in other words, a locked skill. Most of those locked skills come from bloodline and failing to unlock the upgrade signifies that the being reached the limit he could by his actual bloodline, needing a bigger amount of the bloodline or a superior one.
After processing the amount of information about the status, I feel tired and depressed knowing how bad my actual body and capacity. My best stat that reached its limit is Control and don't really seems to help me now, while my traits and skills are quite useless to a good start.
If I have to say, this skill [Growth Controller] are strange. Don't seems to be something unique to my race, but at the same time I don't know from where I earned this skill. Let's try to get more data about those things.
[Growth Controller=New: let the user store the growth energy earned by eating as GP. Rank-up by upgrading the Control Stat and Level. The higher the rank, more the user can control his growth.]
[Bite Lv1: improves the damage caused by using the teeth of the user]
[Scratch Lv1: improve the damage cause by using the claws of the user]
[Dark Vision=Low: improve the vision of the user in dark environments]
[Improved Nose=Mid: improve the sense of the smell of the user]
[Improved Ears=Low: improve the hearing of the user]
[Gift – ****: ?]
Well, with this I can have a better idea of my resources to survive. [Growth Controller] may be related to the unknow Gift or to my Control stat, in any case I can't do nothing with those now and [Growth Controller] now are a passive-type skill.
Changing my focus, I tried to put my improved senses to work and find more about this place. By hearing I failed earn something while my vision is quite weak apart from being able to see in the dark, but my nose gets something. In truth, is a smell that I have ignoring till now thanks to my headaches and problems, but let's try to follow.
Bit a bit, I tracked the smells by walking in the right way of where I come from the wall. The close I get from the origin of the smell, the more I feel something inside me resonating, is a strange feeling.
When I finally get a look in what I was tracking, I stranded locked in the ground. The origin of the smells that tempted me to follow, was a bloody arm. In the arm, I could see some bite marks as well some burned parts, but the arm itself are at least the double my puppy size.
Seeing this strange size and remembering the road-like trail that I have walked till now I was forced to remember the noises from when I was stuck in the wall. The being that let this trail in the floor was, without doubts, hunting something so much bigger than me. I could feel my breath getting rough with fear and anxiety going up my head, but after some time, maybe no even two seconds, I feel that something inside me resonating again.
Together with that strange feeling, my fear and anxiety being suppressed by another feeling. Hunger. An abnormal feeling makes me understand that the weakness in my body will disappear by letting this hunger act for me.
When I get to understand this, the resonating seemed to go through a new level, and I started to hear a message in my mind.
("Move, Fight, Eat, Evolve, Survive")
At first, was quite a small noise, but was getting more and more clear to the point where I had to do my best to stop my body of following the voice.
Why I was trying to suppress this comforting and exciting feeling? At start, I acted by reflex but now I am sure, there something in my memory screaming to not let myself be controlled by those emotions.
In the end, I stood there, staring insanely to the bloody and juice arm while trembling. The message now, was already screaming in my mind, my eyes are bloodshot from my strain in control myself and my mouth are salivating like crazy.
I could feel my belly contorting with pain while trying to ask, "why aren't you eating?". My mind, body and reasoning are all being strained only resist the insane temptation of going free to my emotions.
With the bit that I could use to think, I wondered. How much time has passed? 10 seconds? A minute? I couldn't know, to me each moment was like a hell being prolonged infinitely. After some more time, I could feel myself tiring, my reason and will are already in tatters while the floor being covered by my saliva and sweat.
When I thought that I would fail to hold myself, something inside me changed. As if a piece falling perfectly in the right place, the damned message disappeared, my mind stopped hurting becoming clear and peaceful while a new window appeared in my mind.
[Unbreakable Will=Low: a will capable of going against even the worst storms and resisting the worst experiences without letting be controlled. Upgraded by going through great mental strains]
Just what exactly was all of that? On the moment that I calmed myself, another window appeared.
A title? And this message… the fucking Dungeon itself tried to control me? Wait… that fellow, the Demon King had said right? That controlling me for a long time was impossible, then why… maybe, because I get in the Dungeon as a newborn monster, the protection that I had in the past failed or couldn't work at it best? So, the headaches I had was because from the moment I get out of the wall I started resisting the will of the Dungeon.
Now that all of this stopped, I feel delighted and at ease for being able to go through this experience while feeling restless and threatened by the Dungeon that almost changed me in a random and salvage monster only using its will.
But then, now that the insane urges stopped, the natural ones come. This time, without trying to hold myself, I got next to the bloody army and started biting. The strange taste of flesh and blood overpower me, and I let myself in this moment of bliss, that is, till a new window appeared.
Looking to this window, I thought of the data from my status while eating. Sadly this poor body of mine was too small and I only get to get a 1/4 of the bloody arm, but only with that amount my EP (stamina) get to the limit and the lethargic feeling was gone. Another thing is that I get 2 GP by eating and if this amount continues, I should get more +6 only with this arm.
By biting and pushing with all my puny strength, I hide the arm in a secluded hole and hide the blood trail by licking or throwing soil. With this, I don't need to worry about food for a day or two… I hope that this body of mine don't be the hungry type.