The bird that tried to kill him a moment ago was up in the sky again. As more and more adrenaline went through Alexes bloodstream, the more focused he got on his current enemy. It was around 2 meters tall with a wingspan of at least around 5 meters. It was black all around with a wrinkly bald head.
Its eyes were glowing blood red, and with closer inspection, you could see that its beak was full of sharp fangs that look like many karambit knives sticking out of its mouth. The bird on the other hand was quite furious that it missed its prey. Which was well observed by the ear-piercing shriek that it gave off? "CRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
"Jesus Can't You Be A Little Quieter. You Stupid Ass Bird!" Alex yelled back at the bird-monster at the top of his lungs. However, as if the bird understood him it gave another ear-piercing shriek at it's maximum power "CCRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" This time Alex had to put his hands on his ears to protect himself from the shriek, as it nearly blew his eardrums.
The Bird immediately took advantage of its prey losing its focus to cover as much distance and gain as much speed as it could. In a second it was going from 0 km/h to 50, it wanted to kill this prey really badly as there weren't many living things out during the day, and it was hard to hunt at night.
As the bird was only a couple of seconds away from Alex, he slapped himself managing to get out of the shock that he was just in, and immediately got into position to throw his knife. He didn't know of any way that he could get close enough to the bird to strike it and dodge at the same time, as it was always attacking really fast. So he just thought that it would be good to use its speed against it.
When the bird was by Alexes estimate around two seconds away, he threw the switchblade with all his might and all his experience with throwing knives from his past. By the time the bird realized that the little claw of the creature was not a part of its body it was too late to dodge. It tried to move away as fast as it could but from its own speed, the small distance, and the sudden surprise the object was already deeply stuck at the bottom of its long neck.
Alex jumped and rolled to his right as soon as he threw the switchblade which was lucky as the bird changed its trajectory and crashed with a loud BOOOOM to the left of where he threw the switchblade from. If he decided to roll to his left he would have been hit by a flying animal that weighed at least around a ton, going at around a whopping 100 km/h, which was quite fast for the distance it had, to accelerate.
Alex didn't waste any time to catch his breath and immediately stood up in a cautious manner. Being unsure if the monster-bird was still somehow alive, he waited for the cloud of sand from the crash to disappear.
Not to Alexes' surprise, the bird left a long blood trail in the sand. He decided to follow the trail for about 10 meters to where the bird lay motionless. When he was right next to the bird he tried to listen to any kind of breathing or signs of life but not too much of his surprise, the bird's head was crushed to mush because it head dived straight into the not so liquid sand.
Right, when Alex went to kick the bird he heard some weird sound in his head. It was like a jumbo jet accelerating, which reminded him of his PlayStation for some 'unknown' reason. At the peak of the sound, a Ding came into his head, and out of nowhere a white screen with black letters poped in front of Alex's eyes.
He could not help but exclaim loudly "What in the world!" Before he could think of anything a voice came into his head, "Congratulations Abyssal Ascender #42069 for completing your first trial. You have unlocked major system functions. To view the system main screen, wish for it to appear, to coordinate around the system use your mental power. If you don't possess any mental powers you can operate it with your physical body. "
Alexes' first thoughts were, that god set his number to be that on purpose. The second thought was, woah am I in a video game or something, but he dismissed that idea immediately as from the fight earlier this world proved to be very much real. He truly didn't want to find out if he could respawn or not.
Dismissing his thoughts and focusing on the screen in front of him, he got into serious Alex mode. This thing might be the only solution for his current predicament which was that he is in the middle of a fucking desert.
Looking at the screen in a full display he was kinda happy. As if he had achieved what many wanted but couldn't get.
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Main Screen
- Status - !!!
- Equipment - !!!
- Skillset - !!!
- The Universal Encyclopedia - !!!
- Lucky Draw - !!!
- ??? -
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Trying to wish for his Status to open up nothing happened. Trying some other ways to use the system nothing seemed to work. Alex realized that he needed some kind of power to be able to use the system with his mind.
Realizing that his efforts were in vain he just pressed status with his finger. What he didn't expect was that when he pressed status it was like pressing on a phone screen, it was smooth and solid. He didn't want to dwell on how it was floating, as he had seen enough crazy shit already. So he just focused on what the screen was displaying now.
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Status
- Body Status
Body type: 100% Human Average points for the adult male of its species
Vitality: [85] points - [100]
~ Recovery speed,
Recovery of stamina,
Life expectancy
Intelligence: [125] points - [90 to 110]
~ Memorization ability,
Problem-solving,
Processing speed
Agility: [110] points - [90]
~ General speed, Flexibility,
Acceleration speed,
Visualization speed,
Eye to hand coordination
Constitution: [90] - [110]
~ Body toughness,
Bone density,
General power
- ??? -
Overall Evaluation: Tier [1]
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Hmm, so it seemed that Alex was above average in some things while lacking in others compared to an average human male adult. Especially with his vitality, he was almost below average. That is probably due to his smoking habit. It also seemed that his IQ was above average, nothing crazy good but not bad at all.
After reading over his stats he went back to the main screen by clicking the back button. And he decided to check out the equipment tab next. What he saw were countless black boxes covered by chains. Only one box was without chains and was just gray in color. He assumed that he could use it so he pressed on the gray box to see if anything would happen.
And a message popped up, as another screen on top of the main screen. "To put any items in your equipment slots you have to have physical contact with the desired item and wish for it to be stored. To take an item out you have to click on the icon of the desired item, reach in and take it out. If the item is too large you can wish for it to come out after you have pressed its icon and it will appear in front of you. There are no restrictions on the size or the weighed of the items. Living organisms cannot be placed into any slots at any time."
This seemed very useful, it was like a bag that he could put stuff in and not have to be worried by the weight or the size of the object. It was also nice that he got an explanation on how to use this system as he was lazy to experiment with it on his own. Alex didn't want to dwell on this screen any longer after testing the legitimacy of the system by trying to put in his cigar box in and out which worked very well, so he just moved onto the skillset tab.
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Skillset
- Close-range combat skills:
~ Kickbox mastery {Beginner - High}
~ Knife mastery {Beginner - Mid}
- Long-Range Combat skills:
~ Throwing Knife Fei Tao / Fei Dao mastery {Beginner - Mid}
~ Gun mastery {Intermediate - Low}
- Specials:
~ Adrenaline rush [Passive]:
{In the moments of an adrenaline rush, focus and concentration are increased by 50%, pain reduced by 50%}
- Knowledge:
~ Languages:
Human Mastery {English, Serbian, Russian}
~ Survival:
General knowledge {Beginner - Mid}
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"What good is gun mastery going to do me now that I don't have a gun. I should have just practiced more with my knife" Alex was kinda bummed out after seeing that most of his skills that he has practiced for years were said to be the only on the beginner level. But he got a motivation to improve as soon as he could, so his mood improved as well.
The next thing on his menu screen was the Jurnal tab, and that is what he pressed. When he opened it, he saw just one sentence in front of him 'The Universal Encyclopedia'. Clicking on the sentence he saw an image of the bird that he just killed and a description of what it was.
Most things that he observed about the bird were close to the mark but not perfect like the encyclopedia told him. Plus it told him things that he didn't know like the type of the bird and its statistics. It also gave a quick explanation of how to gather information, which was pretty much to just kill anything to get its info quickly. The only thing he needed to be careful about was the skills of his enemies as those need to be observed to be recorded.
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The Universal Encyclopedia
- Living Organisms:
~ Tier [1] - ??? -
~ Tier [2]
* Blood eyed Vulture Tier [2] Intermediate
Height 2.45-meters
Wingspan 4.78-meters
Vitality: [200] points
Intelligence: [30] points
Agility: [190] points
Constitution: [225] points
Skills:
High Pitched Screech:
Reduces enemies' focus, the possibility of damaging hearing organs/body parts.
~ Tier [3] - ??? -
- unknown -
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Alex was satisfied with the functions of the system that he could see for now as they all seemed very useful to him. The one that he was happiest with was definitely the equipment function as he could store items in it. He liked it more than the others as it was practical and more convenient. But there was still one more tab that he didn't explore just yet which was the lucky draw!!!