Andrew still moved forward towards the source, his confidence was peaking right now especially as his surrounding was becoming more and more beautiful, a new biome was forming around him. He could start seeing full on ice trees , the ice trees seemed to be made out of ice crystal, his surrounding didn't look as if he was still in a lake , he could obviously tell that he was still in water as he was still swimming around, but the boundaries between a lake and a giant ice forest was becoming quite blurry, especially as swimming had become quite natural for Andrew, so natural in fact that he nearly couldn't tell he was not walking anymore. but what was even weirder was that he could see species that would normally be above water such as rabbits and deer. Foraging for food was easier now than before arriving to the forest, every thing was frozen, but he didn't mind it , it seemed like his ice resistance skill restrained all the damage he would have taken from eating the different foods. Also the food was way more alluring than what was above in the lake, while he was surviving with algae and moss above the lake, now he ate all kind of fruits : ice strawberries, frozen raspberries,... he even found something that didn't exist back on earth, something that was called iceberries, iceberries were square shape bright red berries. The reason they were called iceberries was because while eating it you will feel as cold as if your whole self was becoming ice. Even Andrew that had a quite high cold resistance still felt super cold while eating it. This beries were definitely the good stuff for Andrew because his ice resistance was quite high level, but for any other fish this would have been quite the deadly experiment.
Andrew however was still very careful, he knew from his earthian knowledge that the more beautiful something was the more dangerous it could be. He himself had quite some bad experiences whith a certain poisonnous frog species. Also from what he saw so far, this forest looks really much like some forest that can be found on earth(besides of course the fact that it was fully frozen). And as any ecosystem there should be some predators right?
As if the world was answering his questioning he saw from not so far away a white wolf. the wolf was a very beautiful being, not like any white wolf you can find on earth: The whiteness of its fur was mindblowingly elegant, it couldn't be separated from the snow on the ground if it wasn't as shiny. On earth there was no doubt that this kind of creature would have been hunted to extinction by poachers. The fur would have sold for more than the finest silk. Also its eyes were as blue as the purest ice, if looked as if when it looked at you it could tear away your flesh as you can do nothing but enjoy with delight being the food of such a gorgeous being.
Just as Andrew tried to think of ways to escape from this threat. He saw the wolf jump on a deer that was passing by, the blood flew up in the air extremly quickly, it was a majestic sight, The wolf started tearing through the deers fur,skin and muscles with his ivory like claws. The motion was fast and clean almost as if a well trained war veteran was using a machete to dissect war prisoners. Than with its sharp teeth, it took the body away and started to run.
It happened so fast fast that Andrew was quite starteld by such a scene. Also his mind started fuming, he made a mistake, he was way too easy going with his ventures. He had to start to be way more careful, instead of admiring his surrounding, he had to start to adapt. This game was way more cruel than he thought it would be. He had never anticipated to see such a scene at the beginning of a game, it was so unexpected. But at the same time, why exactly did Andrew think that the game was going to be like any other game where the creatures you encounter would be the same level as yourself. Now that he thought about it, it seems absurd to think that way. The game was sold as an hyper realistic game, and in reality you couldn't control your encounters, the strong preys on the weak and that was it.
Thus Andrew as a quick thinker immediatly changed his mindset, Now the game was about killing or being killed. Andrew regretted his previous choice to not attack any creature above in the lake, maybe if he did he could have gained some attack skills that way, maybe he wouldn't have such a low strenght (0). But anyway he did what he tought was the best before and he wasn't able to change any of it so what was the point of reminiscing about the past. He then started thinking about the skills he gained above and it was obvious from his previous encouters with other beasts that his camouflage skill by far the most useful one against predators . For Andrew it was clear that it was a mandatory skill and that he had to upgrade it a lot in order for it to become one of his main skills. Also his mana sensitivity skill was not too far from level 10 and is nearly able to evolve, maybe at this point it will be possible for Adnrew to use magic as offence techniques , and he will be able to compensate his low strenght with his high magic. Also he has high endurance,agility and intelligences stats, maybe he could use them to his adavantage, while he already used his intelligence to outwit the smallmouth bass, he never really used his endurance and agility. Maybe he could establish a hit and run strategy, where he would attack an ennemy with magic than run away indefinetly. This strategy seemed the most reliable right now as he couldn't possibely 1VS1 any creature with such a frail body.
For now he didnt have any magic, he absolutely needed to hide. Of course hiding was easier said than done as he was a red fish in the middle of a full snow white environnement, the camouflage skill helped him in that sense but it was not nearly enought to escape the view of the local predators. For now he used his advantage as a fish to go up the trees. Since he was still in a lake it was fairly easy for him to swim up the giant trees, which was not the case of all the creatures so far, it was quite interesting from Andrew perspective to see that all these creatures were not able to swim up, it was as if the water became some sort of air for them. Not that Andrew mind it that much, it might suck for them to not be able to swim but if he could easily find a way to hide in the trees it was only a bonus for him. Also Andrew found it pretty cool that from their perspective he must be a flying fish. Anyway after a few minutes of swimming up Andrew was finally on top of a tree, he could see what the forest looks like from above. Honestly he didn't appreciate the sight as much as when he entered the forest. From above it all just looked blue fom all the icy trees.
It was now time for Andrew to finally breath from all this adventure, and settle down for a hours before starting training again...