Roll, crack, and transform.
The Boulder, which ignored Tetsu, transformed into a four-legged monster down the hill. By luck, Tetsu survived yet another opponent. Not realizing the fact, he stupendously walked toward his previous opponent.
The mysterious mind tree still showed its alien form. Except for the missing coffin it weaved for Tetsu, the rest stayed the same as Tetsu remembered. He wasn't confident about fighting this tree, not at all, he barely could fight a single grassling. He just wanted to test a theory and so he approached it with gusto.
Tetsu places his hand over the trunk and exerts mana. Still unable to control any aspects of his mana, his entire body fumes out mana. He checks his mana pool to have dropped by four points, while his fatigue increases by ten. With a mental note taken, he observes the magical tree for more input.
Unlike the grass, this majestic tree didn't even flinch. Not even a scratch appeared on its bark. Tetsu planned on punching it next but withdrew the idea, not wanting to provoke the tree or hurt himself.
He looked around for a single grassling, but they always grew in tufts. Some of them were also accompanied by elephant grass, which Tetsu marked off as dead zones, never to enter.
"So…" Tetsu gathers his results. "Mana is the key." He opens his screen, concentrating on his mana pool. "After all, that one factor is enough to change this world into mine."
Tetsu sits below the tree, confident it won't attack. According to his theory and many video games, players and MPC have certain attributes. Archers can't take on heavy-weight class in a head-on battle and vice versa. Similar to that and stressing over the tutorial and training aspect of the system, Tetsu deduced that the tree had only illusionary powers. If it had more, he would've been screwed a long time ago.
Also, by the law of nature, even though the nature over here is fucked up and everyone was a predator, completely fucking up the ecosystem. In the same way, you are scared of a wild animal, even the wild animal is scared of you. Unless they are scared, hungry, or protecting something, they wouldn't attack.
So, Tetsu renamed the tree his safe house and meditated under it to understand mana. Seconds into meditating, Tetsu imagines himself from a third-person perspective. A naked kid, meditating under a magical tree that tried to bury him alive.
Tetsu bursts out in laughter, slapping the floor and rolling around, unable to delete the image from his mind. "So funny, ha-ha, ha-ha." He laughed until his stomach squeezed him to stop.
Flat on his back and finally calmed, Tetsu admired the beauty of the majestic trees. It looked like individual thick roots spun together to form the tree. Shades of red turned crimson as they went higher up the tree trunk. The dark branches complimented the pale blond leaves, giving them a calm, soothing exterior. If he wasn't under constant threat, He wouldn't mind settling down here forever.
"Stop fucking with my head." Tetsu glares at the tree. "You need to be more imaginative than that to trick an overthinker." He frowns.
Done admiring the tree, he flips on his belly. "One." He pushes off the floor two feet and lands back with a bang.
Tetsu tried the gym to impress his crush several times. Yet after no visible gains, he quit. Not being able to do one decent push-up after two months of constant training left a deep scar on his pride. While his natural metabolism and a balanced diet between his first mom's high-calorie meal and his second mom's low-calorie meal kept him healthy, he never really needed the gym.
"Was that an explosive push-up?" He doubted himself. "Two?" He pushes off again, this time around sticking to a decent landing.
Tetsu didn't fly off the ground, he barely pushed himself two feet on his first try, and after his third rep, he lost his explosive power. With his system notifications tweaked, he had a constant eye on his stats. He notices his fatigue cross seventy and his body refusing to take off. The more force he used, the greater the number raised until his body tapped out, refusing to move above a negative number.
Fatigue: -1
Below the small hill, yet another predator found Tetsu fascinating. At first glance, Tetsu would've named it a Wobbly-Rino. The same way he named the grasslings, vengeance grass, his current safe house, the mind-fuck tree, and the boulder Roll-on. This weird naming system helped him, and only him, to mark, understand, and take notes over the many predators.
Similar to his previous names, this Wobbly-Rino was built like a Rino from the waist down. Like always, he would've ignored the metallic gleam and the various gemstones that formed its lower half.
The wobbly in the Wobbly-Rino name came from its upper body. Like a jelly served over a plate, its entire upper body was a transparent pink jelly that wobbled. With a gaping hole in place of its horn, Tetsu would suspect humans have already infiltrated the tutorial.
Wobbly-Rino found the weird creature interesting at first. Along with its advanced threat detector, a general sense of his opponent, and Tetsu's stupidity, it scoffed over the possibility of him being a threat.
Now and then, Tetsu spooked the Rino by realizing a sudden burst of mana or with a battle cry, which screamed more like help rather than attack. He did push-ups until failure, rested, went sprinting around the tree, rested again, and finished with pull-ups.
Lacking a potion for instant stamina or skills that boosted his natural recuperation, Tetsu pushed his body to its limit until it collapsed. Later, he would wait for his fatigue levels to decrease before he repeated the entire process.
--------------------P.B--------------------
Kaboom! A loud explosion originates from below the hill. Mid-air between his explosive push-up, Tetsu gets blown away to the opposite side. He goes rolling down the hill as several more explosions occur.
"What the fuck is it this time?" He screams, rolling down.
On the opposite end of the hill, a Dandelion and a Rino faced off.
By the time Tetsu stopped, cursed, and climbed back, the battle was about to conclude. He hid behind his safe house, witnessing a Wobbly-Rino and a freakish Dandelion fight to the death.
True to its name, the Dandelion consisted of a two-meter-long stem that was planted in the ground. A round seed head on top, and many ethereal white pappus engulfing its head.
Tetsu wasn't sure who caused the explosions, but both the Rino and Dandelion hadn't had a scratch on them. Rino took a defensive stance, while Dandelion crept forward, bashing Rino with incredible speed.
Roots spread as the Dandelion moved from place to place. For each strike, the Dandelion swung with all the might of its stem. The Pappus striking Rino was rock solid, giving out a booming sound with every strike, while the other half of its pappus acted as a spring, bouncing its head back and forth between the floor and Rino.
Rino's gelatinous body giggled without splattering over. Dandelion's attacks doubled and tripled in power every time it bounced off the ground. Yet it struck above Rino, unable to reach its actual body. There seemed to be an invisible shield protecting its gelatinous hide.
Rino strode ahead, forcing Dandelion to uproot and back away. This time the Dandelion grounded its roots in a circular path, raising itself off the ground. With a longer reach and a controlled swing, it increased its power, striking multiple places in a split second.
Even then, Rino stood its ground. None of Dandelion's attacks even phased Rino. Its body jiggled like a jelly but the rest stood steadier than rock.
"Well, the rest of it is rock." Tetsu shrugs. He wondered if the jelly part shook because of vibrations. "Invisible shield? Is it holding the shield or is the attack moving through?"
A slight change tensed the battlefield. They bled the atmosphere dry—The air felt heavier. Good twenty feet away, Tetsu's eyes closed on reflex, while the heat waves torched his skin. He fell back, clinging to the tree, not wanting to miss the action. There was a lot to learn and he'll be dammed before he missed such an opportunity.
Risking his eyes and possibly second-degree burns, he peeks another time.
The Rino had already gathered its jelly body at the center as its lower half seeped upward, forming into teeth, horns, tails, and a hump. The transformation was slow and clumsy. Rino must have anticipated the attack beforehand, as it completed its transformation before Dandelion commenced its next attack.
Tiny white dots dispersed from the Dandelion's head while it shook it vigorously. The wind carried these dots surrounding the battlefield around Rino, sucking the essence of light. In a flash, Tetsu figures out who was behind the blasts and what was about to happen. He dives to the bottom of the hill, while another set of explosions takes off.
Before he dives, Tetsu catches Rino unveiling its invisibility spell from the corner of his eye. Its horn, ever-present, covered Rino's entire gelatinous body from its nose to its tail. Turns out it only used a skill to make its horn invisible. Which could be used to both trick and lure an enemy.
"Smart stupid Rino." Tetsu grunts.
Under pure adrenaline and witnessing an epic showdown, Tetsu forgot he neither had any clothes to cushion his fall, nor the reflexes to control his descent. Once his brain foresaw the explosion, he dived out of the way as if he were about to dive into a pool. Mid-air, he realized his stupidity, but now he could do little to recover. Crawling his way back, he praised himself for his quick thinking and cursed himself for not thinking enough. "Why don't you swan dive on your head next time, you stupid mutt?"
On the other side of the small hill, the Rino buckled down in full defense. With its transformed spiky legs dug into the ground for stability, it covered the rest of its body with its horn. Unlike a traditional horn, it grew from the Rino's nose but covered its entire upper body.
A perfect, impenetrable ball.
Dandelion swifts its position, seemingly ready for this stance. Now present at its tail, the Dandelion grounded itself one more time. With focused and explosive strikes on the Rino's tailbone, it flipped the Rino upside-down. Tetsu noticed the trade-off dandelion made. It scorched itself to gain an opening. An opening it took full advantage of. With its final attack, the Dandelion claimed victory.
Molten parts of the Rino fell apart, like a rock without life. While the pink jelly, which represented its true form or its core, was splattered around the battlefield.
After a while, the wind carried away the Dandelion. Maybe it waited to confirm its kill before it flew away; Tetsu could only guess. For he knew for certain that this wasn't a game anymore. Even the little hope he had to wake up one day died in this battle. He took down notes if he ever had to face the Rino one day. But for the Dandelion, his gut told him it had even more hidden secrets.
After the effects of the battle died down. The atmosphere took a breather before the next calamity hit. A sudden chill occupied the surroundings. A deadly calmness doused the atmosphere. Tetsu calculated his odds of survival as he held most of the system's knowledge, a few scenarios where he tested the tutorial grounds and a decent understanding of his opponents.
"Survival rate: Zero-point one percent," Tetsu concluded. "That's if I'm lucky while running away." He added, clenching his fist in anger. Tears filled his eyes, about to spill over. "I might be royally fucked, but don't you dare drip over." He warns his tears.
He looks at the horizon, the sun crawling up his back. The battle took less than ten minutes, yet blew his eyes wide open.
"Zero-point one." Tetsu smiles with tears dripping down his cheek.
═─┈─{═E═}─┈─═