"Fire." An arrow shot from a bow and nicely nailed its target to the tree it was crawling on.. at point plank range.
"I'm hopeless." A boys voice whined. He sounded young but not too young, he was 16 years old but he looked and sounded younger than he actually was.
He sat by a river staring at the ant he had just shot with his arrow.
"Man these things really have grown. It must have been 4 years now huh?" For it just being a simple ant it was rather large, about the size of your average bowl.
Yes that's the best analogy I could think of.
It's black exoskeleton shined in the sun as it slowly stopped moving and went limp. A message appeared in his mind.
" Ant Executed. Egzi gained: ." The boy's eyes were filled with shock and sparkled bright blue out of happiness.
"I-I got an egzi?! But why is it blank?" The boy was incredibly happy to see this. An Egzi was a type of item gained from killing creatures. The strength of an egzi was dependent on the rank of the creature with simple being the lowest and divine the highest.
He called out, "Status window." A panel appeared in front of him, technically it was in his head and he couldn't physically interact with it but it was there. The panel showed his stats.
{Name: Nallef. Rank: 2. Status points: 0. Stats: strength-6 agility-6 intellect-4 senses-4. Egzi: . Inventory: 26/50 items stored.}
"Hmmm. It's just blank. Why though? It says I have one, it just doesn't say what it is." The boy thought to himself.
He was incredibly confused and somewhat worried but not enough to render him completely motionless of confusion. Maybe there was an extra step that he wasn't aware of.
He chose to ignore it and looked up at the sky. He saw the sun was just past it's peak.
"Maybe I should go back before it gets dark." The boy ripped the arrow out of the tree to put back in his quiver. He put the ant's corpse into his bag. "*Ding* Added item to inventory."
Nallef looked around to make sure he had gotten everything and walked off into the distance.
By the time he made it back to the sanctuary the sun had already collided with the horizon.
He threw up his hood and tried to sneak by everyone and not be noticed.
"Well if it isn't our little weakling." A man smirked at Nallef, getting everyone's attention. Everyone began to stare in disappointment. "He's really in the same sanctuary as us?" "I heard he can't even kill a warrior beetle!" The crowd whispered to one another mocking Nallef and laughing.
Nallef was known as nothing but a pathetic weakling as he could barely kill anything. He was only able to kill simple bugs that anyone could easily squash with their thumb. He just tried to ignore them and moved on while everyone laughed and laughed.
In his room he took the ant corpse out of his bag and removed the exoskeleton to get the meat. He threw the exoskeleton into a pot of water and lit the burner to make a soup from it. He threw the meat in there too so that would add more flavour and food all together.
He opened his status window and stared at his egzi. "Still blank. Why was it just named 'ant' though?" he wondered. Normally all creatures had proper names like the warrior beetle, doom toad, crystal viper. So Nallef found it odd that it was just vaguely named 'ant'.
"Guess I'll just go to sleep after I eat." Some time passed and finally the 'soup' was finished. Nallef tossed the exoskeleton and poured the 'soup' into a large bowl where he consumed it all quickly.
He sat there in thought, wondering what to do. He talked to himself like he normally does saying his thoughts out loud, "If only I had some better equipment, then I could take on stronger creatures." Still staring at his status window in his bed looking like a depressed little-
he heard a ding and the window shifted colours. It shifted from a deep blue to a pure gold right in front of his eyes. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
{ Player: Name pending. Level: 0. Status points: 0. Stats: Strength-4 Agility-5 Intellect-3 Senses-2. Egzi: Rihno NK3, Hyper XV1, Aito SR9. Inventory 26/#. XP: 0. Active Quest: None. Lives: 10. [SYSTEM PROMPT] ( Welcome, Player. Please, announce your name. ) }
Nallef stared in confusion, unable to believe what had just happened. But he would soon find out, he would be a weakling no more.