Draven woke up the next day feeling Hungry he pulled out a ration he received from the novice supply package and chowed down on some crispy dry bread that tasted like nothing. After summoning some water to wash his meal down, he carefully inspected his surroundings and after he was satisfied that it was safe he walked out of the hollow. Draven looked to the sun "Well given the sun's position I'd say it's about no idea o'clock…" He laughed at his joke since no one else was going to. He was no Boy Scout, if it weren't for his newfound abilities Draven probably wouldn't last a day in the forest even without all the creatures trying to kill him.
Today's goal is to find another person and hopefully reach some form of civilization. If only this System had some form of Map that would be helpful. As soon as he thought about a Map the screen appeared showing him a Map! Draven nearly jumped for joy but before praising the almighty system he stopped when he saw that the only parts uncovered were the areas he had already been to, which was practically nothing. As of now, this Map was useless to him. "Of course, the one thing that had to be just like the game was having to discover the map yourself that's just great!" He complained to seemingly no one.
Draven decided to just keep going straight ahead in the hopes he could find some running water that could lead him to a town. Those documentaries were finally paying off. Draven walked at a regular pace with his extra dexterity in his feet he carefully avoided stepping on any twigs or related objects that could alert something to his presence. After ten minutes of walking, he could see a lone wolf in the distance walking aimlessly in circles while smelling the ground. "Is that wolf bugged out?" Draven thought to himself.
He looked around the surrounding area and couldn't see any other creatures. Looks like free Xp to me! Draven got a bit closer, after gaining 2 years of knowledge in mana know how he decided that arrows weren't a bad idea, and with a bow, the spell would be incredibly efficient as he wouldn't have to waste mana on launching the arrow. however area of effect or AOE potential was nonexistent if he took the mass of the arrow and stretched it out he could create a razor-thin half-moon shape that would give him more coverage and potentially slice his enemies in half and by pushing more mana into it he could make the half-moon wider which could eliminate a small group at once. Using his mystic eye Draven checked out the Wolf Stats.
Forrest Wolf level 3
Health: 20/20
Mana: none
While looking at the wolf it suddenly stopped walking in circles. Draven thought the wolf noticed him but then the Wolf squatted down and started taking a dump. Draven placed his hand on his face as he shook his head. I guess he wasn't bugged after all, it was just looking for a spot to unload. I felt bad taking advantage of the wolf's moment of vulnerability but it was going to stay still for at least a few seconds now so he formed a thin half-moon out of wind magic roughly the width of the wolf's torso and launched it vertically. Given how thin and sharp the wind blade was it cut through the air with minimal effort and sliced through the wolf's torso splitting it in half.
Beep! You have slain Forrest Wolf level 3!
While walking over to the creature's corpse Draven studied his surroundings to make sure nothing else was running around and quickly looted the Wolf. Before looting all he quickly scanned what it had.
Novice Black Orb 1x
That was it? "Do I not get its pelt or meat just the Xp?" he asked himself. Beasts were not very profitable apparently. The body was still there if Draven wanted to he could attempt to skin and harvest the meat himself but it seemed pretty time-consuming seeing he didn't know what he was doing in regards to skinning. "Skinning!" "Maybe I need the skinning profession like in the game to add it to the loot all system." He remembered the system mentioning Professions so they had to be in this world as well right? Draven was even more excited to find a town now he never understood why you could only learn 2 professions in the game it was unrealistic hopefully in this world he could learn and work on them all.
Knowing his Dad he would probably already have his Cooking maxed out by now Draven halfheartedly laughed as he was reminded that he had no idea where his father was or if he was even alive. Pushing those thoughts aside Draven checked the map again. He noticed that when he walked through a clearing more of the map would be exposed than when he was in a thicker part of the forest. I think as the map opens up as far as I can see maybe I should try climbing one of these trees. Draven thought to himself. He picked a tree that looked to be taller than the ones around it and grew out his claws. Climbing the tree in this fashion was quite easy I really should have thought about this before… Draven reached the top of the tree in no time and had a clear view of the forest.
He looked as far as he could in all directions given his new sight it was pretty far. He opened the map and sure enough, a large portion of the map was now exposed. He was very accustomed to reading the map in-game and immediately noticed a strain of blue, east of here leading out to the unexposed portion of the forest. Draven looked in that direction and had to squint to see a trace of water behind the rows of trees. He would have never seen it had he not known where to look. And seeing he was traveling north he probably would never have come across the river. Draven climbed back down and made his way eastward. The Map came in handy for that as well without it he would have no idea which direction east was. On the map, he was represented by a dot with a pointy tip pointing in the direction he was facing.
Draven quickened his pace he walked for about an hour and killed three stray wolves on the way. It's common knowledge that wolves are pack animals so Draven was always on the lookout for a group of them to be walking around. He also hadn't encountered any more goblins either it seemed he was just really unlucky to manage to waltz into a large group like that. But without further incident, Draven found his way to the river. Looking at the map it looked as if the river flowed from the north and curved here heading towards the east. The forest was getting thinner towards the east so might as well head that way. Draven decided on the spot either direction would more than likely take him to a town if there were any sooner or later but he wanted out of the forest and going north would put him in the thick of it again.
Draven walked for a couple of hours alongside the river he saw a few regular animals drinking such as deer and some critters that naturally ran away as soon as they saw Draven. He didn't bother hunting them he still had some rations and didn't want to waste his traveling time trying to skin and butcher something. The river at this point had gotten much wider and seemed to be deeper as well before it was about waist deep but now he could swim in it if he wanted to and could no longer tell how deep it was by simply looking into the water. Draven decided to sit down for a moment and eat another ration. It's called a daily ration but it was not enough to keep you going for the whole day.
Like before it was super dry and he summoned some water to wash it down he did not need to risk drinking the river water. Draven was about to stand up when he felt something pinching his left arm Draven looked over and saw a very large crab that had its claw gripping his arm. Draven quickly stood up and tried shaking it off but it was locked in good. Draven having enough of this grew out his claws on his right hand and severed the crab's claw from its body it fell to the ground and made a weird clicking sound as it stared him down. Draven easily removed the claw from his arm now that nothing was tightening its grip. "Don't look at me like that crab you attacked me first so don't get mad it didn't turn out the way you thought it would."
For some reason Draven felt the need to lecture this crab maybe he was losing it or maybe he just wanted to have a conversation with anything even if it was just a crab. Shaking his head Draven turned around to continue walking along the river and the crab started to follow him as it continued making the clicking sound. It wasn't very loud but loud enough to annoy Draven. He wasn't petty enough to kill the crab just because it was annoying he had no plan of eating it and it wasn't a threat to him. Even in the game critters didn't drop anything. He continued his path reassuring himself that the crab would stop following him sooner or later.
After a few more minutes of walking, he started to hear multiple clicking sounds coming from behind him he turned around and sure enough, there were 4 more crabs following him. Draven was starting to feel a bit creeped out now, as he stopped moving they stopped as well and just stared at him with their black beady eyes. Still not wanting to kill them he decided he would just go at a faster pace and lose them that way, he began to turn around when he felt a familiar feeling of being pinched on his ankle he looked down and sure enough another smaller crab had his foot in its grip.
Draven sliced off it's claw like he did last time and began jogging down the river to get away from the creepy crabs. After having jogged a quarter mile he turned his head around thinking he had left them in the dust but to his surprise, they multiplied there were like 20 of them now sprinting after him, and looking around he saw that more of them were coming from the river. "This was getting out of hand now." Draven thought as he decided to get rid of them before he was swarmed. He formed a wide half-moon wind blade and hurled it horizontally toward them given how low they were to the ground he didn't get all of them but he got a good portion as the system rang out.
Beep! You have slain Murky Crab level 2
Beep!...
…
Draven ignored the repeating messages. "These things were level 2? I thought they were critters or something. I didn't feel any pain at all when it grabbed me." Draven said looking genuinely confused "These scales must be really tough!" He thought to himself. The remaining crabs were now all furiously making clicking sounds. "This must be how they communicate, like the Goblins they must be calling for backup," Draven muttered in a low voice while contemplating an idea. A grin formed on Draven's face "Let's farm some crabs!"