When Darren had climbed down enough to be below the canopy of the smaller trees, he saw the Tusked Boar who rammed itself into the tree was still there. Its husk were, for some reason, stuck to the tree.
As Darren closed in to examine, the boar began to squeal, which Darren just ignored for a while. He saw that along the path where the bark and the tusks meet, there were lumps of red, hardened sap.
Before he could comment on anything, Darren found himself getting annoyed by the squeals of the pig, so he prepared to kill it. However, his usual self wasn't exactly keen on slaying a fleshy creature, so he tried activating [Pokerface].
"Please kill the creature without the use of Pokerface." The system announced in his head, barring him from activating the skill.
"What? Why?"
▬▬▬▬Answer to Query▬▬▬▬▬
The user needs to get accustomed to the feeling of blade upon flesh and the sight and scent of blood.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Darren wanted to protest, but he could only press his lips together in agreement.
As he stared at the squealing pig, unable to move due to its sappy predicament, he thought about the cleanest way to snuff out the creature's life. The neck seemed to be the best candidate, but he feared to see a bloody pig head attached to the trunk of some tree.
He wasn't given any more time to mull over it, though, since he could already hear the distant rustles of other boars getting attracted by the squeals.
Darren clicked his tongue and brandished his knife, "Oh, gosh."
Gripping the hilt of his knife tightly, he called out the name of his skill and swung down at the creature's neck, "Slash!"
And with a nasty 'fwip,' the squeals of the boar stopped. The body, now disconnected from its head, collapsed sidewards, as a gush of blood came from both severed body parts.
"Level 7 creature: Tusked Boar killed. You have gained 44 EXP. No items dropped. Materials harvestable."
The sight wasn't too disgusting for Darren, and there was no smell yet, so he only felt slightly uncomfortable. The main reason for this was that his blade really wasn't the one who did most of the work. The [Slash] skill was the one who extended the range of his swing, lopping the creature's head off.
If Darren got the feeling of 'blade upon flesh,' he'd no doubt be in a much worse state compared to now.
Still, other creatures were closing in, so he climbed back up beyond the forest's foliage.
Back to safety, Darren asked the system, "What did you mean by 'Materials Harvestable?' Can I still harvest them?"
▬▬▬▬Answer to Query▬▬▬▬▬
Harvesting materials from a creature takes anything of value from that creature with the help of the system. You need to be close to the target to harvest materials.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
"That wasn't here before, was it?"
▬▬▬▬Answer to Query▬▬▬▬▬
Affirmative. The system is always working on additional features. However, changing existing features will be very rare.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Darren nodded, before asking again, "So, these 'materials' are different from items?"
▬▬▬▬Answer to Query▬▬▬▬▬
Materials are raw, unprocessed objects. They have very little use for the user, currently, and can be sold to the system shop for low prices.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
He was out of questions, and on perfect timing, he received an Instant Quest.
▬▬▬Quest▬▬▬
Instant Quest: Gore Time
Watch the creature you have slain get eaten by its kin for 5 minutes.
Rewards: +3 TEN
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Stunned, Darren couldn't help but utter, "Um, what?"
♦♦♦
▬▬▬Quest Complete▬▬▬
Instant Quest: Gore Time
Watch the creature you have slain get eaten by its kin for 5 minutes.
Rewards: +3 TEN
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Darren couldn't spare the effort to revel in the rewards when he felt disgusted by the very air he was breathing. He imagined the creature's blood and scent mixing with the surrounding air, and all of it brushing against his tongue and nostrils as he breathed.
He held back a retch, before hurrying up to return beyond the forest canopy.
Still, no matter how jarring the sight was, he still thought it was worth it. It was three free stat points after all. He couldn't really tell how much three Tenacity Stat points would help him, but it's one of the main stats, so it had to be fairly good.
"Well," Darren shook his head and gulped, "At least, I know that killing boars isn't that hard."
After calming his mental state for a while, he decided to kill the boars that had not finished dining yet. He was initially worried about how he was going to ignore the mangled mess of the boar he killed, but he discovered that [Pokerface] wasn't barred anymore.
So, without hesitation, Darren activated the skill and went down the tree yet again, before taking his time to kill the cannibalistic boars one by one.
"Level 8 creature: Tusked Boar killed. You have gained 55 EXP. No items dropped. Materials harvestable."
"Level 7 creature: Tusked Boar killed. You have gained 43 EXP. No items dropped. Materials harvestable."
"Level 8 creature: Tusked Boar killed. You have gained 48 EXP. No items dropped. Materials harvestable."
Still keeping [Pokerface] active, Darren crouched near the beheaded corpse of a Tusked Boar and tried muttering, "Harvest materials."
Immediately, the corpse he was targeting became enveloped in a white light, before a panel appeared before him.
▬▬▬Harvesting Materials▬▬▬
Creature: Tusked Boar
Select Materials:
►Tusk
►Rawhide
[Harvest]
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
"This is nice," Even while Darren was under the effects of Pokerface, he couldn't help but feel happy from the new feature. That's not to say that his expression budged, though.
He chose to select both of the available materials, and used his thoughts to finish the harvesting process.
The white light around the corpse of the creature vanished, and its tusks and hide were now gone, making for an even more grotesque sight.
▬▬▬Materials Harvested▬▬▬
►2 Calcified Tusks
►3 Tough Hide
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Darren dismissed the panel, but another panel showed up.
▬▬▬Notice▬▬▬
Always harvest these materials when killing creature: Tusked Boar?
[Confirm] [Dismiss]
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Wanting to harvest the materials of the other boars soon, Darren just confirmed it with his thoughts. And after finishing the job, he went back up the tree and recovered some SP. He looked at his stats and found that his EXP had reached 47%.
He sighed, before peering downwards to see what was happening on the ground. The blood-soaked ground around the tree made a knot in his gut, but he felt less bothered by it compared to before.
He then muttered to himself, "More creatures should appear and I should level up as soon as possible, so that I have a better advantage against the forest creatures."
"Or," Darren thought about it some more, "I can just run until I find another one of these trees."
He checked the map and found that such trees were scattered throughout the vastness of the forest.
"That would work, but I really do want to level up." Darren shrugged, "I still have quite a lot of time anyway."
After spending the next hour repeatedly killing off the creatures that were attracted to the stench of corpses surrounding one of the big trees, Darren finally leveled up to LVL 6.
When the announcement of his level-up finished, a notice panel appeared before him.
▬▬▬Notice▬▬▬
A new branch in the Skills Tab is now available.
[Open Skills]
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Although Darren wanted to check for the new branch immediately, he wanted to get away from the mess he made first and find another big tree to use for his SP regeneration break.
When he did, he climbed it and found a good spot, before opening the Skills Tab. And indeed, there was another branch, integrated into the other five branches that were highly connected to the five stats. In both the active and passive skills, there was only one skill available yet.
▬▬▬Skill Details▬▬▬
[Active]
►Dash: Dash towards a chosen direction
SP Cost: 1 SP
Cooldown: 2s
Costs 1 Skill Point
[Passive]
►Pace: Decreases SP Drain caused by running by 30%
Costs 1 Skill Point
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
"Oh, wow." A grin began to take over Darren's lips. He found the [Pace] skill truly sweet, but he didn't particularly understand what was so special about the [Dash] skill. He tried asking the system about it, but he still didn't understand it completely. He was more attracted to [Pace] anyway, so he immediately chose to spend his only Skill Point and learn that skill.
He also invested all of his stat points into BRU, for the extra oomph and extra SP.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
◄[Status]►
LVL 6
EXP: 1%
HP: 542/550
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
SP: 67/130
▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒
Status Points: 0
BRU25 [+]
DEX15 [+]
VIT 15 [+]
SPR10 [+]
TEN33 [+]
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
"Well then, I guess I should focus on the quest now." Darren took a deep breath, before marking the next three giant trees that was close to the path marked in the system maps. He was planning to see how further the [Pace] skill could take him.