Zok was having a pleasant time walking around the wilderness hunting insectoids. Because those were the only kind of beasts he felt comfortable in hunting at his level. They were small, easy to kill and provided good stats, especially agility, something he was always in need of.
After spending a couple of days in the wilderness fighting beasts, Zok realised one thing. The things called his 'classes' were heavily dependent on two stats, agility and control. Increasing agility was easy as most of the insectoids were agile creatures and thus by focusing on killing the insectoids, his agility had been increasing at a steady pace and was now at 35 points.
His control stat, however, was stuck to being 0. In the end, Zok had to put the unallocated points to increase Control points. Surprisingly, whenever he added one unallocated point to control, it increased by 2 points instead of one. However, the same wasn't true when he tried adding the pints into other stats. In fact, he couldn't even add points to increase his knowledge for some reason.
As a result, the rest of his stats had also increased by a bit over the time he had spent in the Wilderness but only by one or two points. As for his level, he gained 2 more levels since killing Taheton's wolf. The only unexpected increase he had was in his knowledge stat as it had gone from 1 to 3 without any apparent reason.
But there was a reason for the sudden increase that Zok wasn't aware of. Knowledge stat wasn't like the other stats which could be increased just by killing beasts. The only way to increase knowledge was to gain it. In other words, the more Zok got to know about the world around him, the more his knowledge stat would increase.
For the past two days, he had learned a couple of things regarding the insectoids including the use of their carcasses and hence his knowledge had increased a bit. However, it was still too low for him to be aware of why it was increasing. He was just doing the things he felt like doing while also completing the tasks the 'system' was generously giving him every now and then.
Moreover, he wasn't the only one growing. Kaira was gaining just as many levels as him because of their shared EXP. She too had grown by two levels and unlike him, her stats increased in her own unique manner. Whenever she levelled up, she got a couple of stat points just like he did, but on top of that whenever she levelled up, she would also get a random stat increased by 2 points.
However, as much as fun he was having there, he could not let go of one thing... his anger. Whenever he was genuinely having fun while hunting the beasts, it almost felt like he shouldn't be happy in the first place. In his mind, he had lost the right to be happy anymore and it felt the only way for him to find happiness should be in killing those shamans and anyone else who collaborated with them in the quest to kill him. And whenever he got angry he started killing more and more insectoids and levelled up faster, thus he had taken quite a liking to being angry most of the time.
But slowly, he got bored of killing the insectoids. Those creatures were easy to kill but they did not taste good and since he had been hunting only those creatures, he was forced to eat only them as well. Their flesh was gooey, nothing like the tender meat Zok was used to eating while he was still a member of the Zukiras.
Even Direwolf meat didn't taste as good as Zok had thought initially, still, it was edible. As for Kaira, she didn't seem to care whether the meat she ate came from an insect or some other beast. She ate whatever Zok did without any complaints.
As for their living arrangement... there was none. He slept on the ground under a tree. On his first night, he tried to light up a fire using stones and sticks but failed miserably as he had never done any of that before. But all thanks to his spear, he somehow managed to glaze the flesh of the insects before eating them. Otherwise, he would have to eat the wild berries which he wasn't comfortable with either.
However, it seemed Zok had gotten rid of the worst of his deadbeat habits... sleeping in a comfortable bed. Kaira's soft fur was enough for him to sleep on and considering her size, there was more than enough room for Zok to sleep next to her. Still... he couldn't sleep much anymore. Whenever he shut his eyes, the laughing face of taheton would flash in front of him accompanied by that of the shamans. Also, it was safe to say he had learnt to sleep with one eye open.
The slightest of rustling was enough to wake him and then there was the fact he slept with his spear in hand, not knowing when he would be attacked in the open wilderness. And tonight was one such night when Kaira slept like a log and Zok's eyes were wide open.
"I need to do something about my sleeping arrangement... I can't keep sleeping under the stars without any protection. Kaira is strong, but there are stronger creatures than her here." Zok mumbled while looking at the starry skies above him, "... Why did my life have to go to hell? All because of those fcking shamans!"
But as he was busy complaining about his fate to Okun, he heard some rustling sounds and they were coming from near. Kaira had picked it up as well and was up as fast as lightning. Zok followed her suit and got up as well, and then he froze. There was a gigantic black serpent right in front of him and it looked like it had been there for quite some time but due to its colour, Zok could not see it until now.
'Shiiiiiiiiiit!'