The mists spun away, returning the world back to normalcy. The lake, the blades of grass, the stones, the fishes in front of him were all back.
Michael frowned. Was his conversation with the system real or was it just a hallucination? How would he even know?
Well, the answer was simple.
Why not try to use the skill he had received from the level up? If he could do it, then his experience in the white space had been real. If he could not…
Well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
"So how do I do this? I don't have skill activating commands like in the Video games."
Michael tensed every single muscle in his body and squinted his eyes as if he was suffering from a particularly stubborn bowel movement. Nothing happened, aside from a fart.
"Let's see what's next."
He tried various hand gestures, even the iconic one from the spiderman. That was stupid. He couldn't shoot out a skill named [Life Detection] like spider man, could he? Still, he tried other gestures used by other superheroes and superpowered beings in various franchises. Nothing worked.
"How do I do this thing?"
Then a light bulb flashed in his mind. He remembered what the system had said to him before. How to choose his class? Verbally. Could it really be that Simple? But most things were, Michael knew.
[Life Detection]
Michael knew he had spoken, but the words did not come out of his mouth, as if something stopped him. Yet it worked. It actually worked. Why didn't I think of it before?
His perspective shifted. No, it did not shift, it expanded. Most of the things around him turned into a scale of grey. Black and white, if you will.
He did not have to look around, for he could see in every direction. He had a 360 degree vision, albeit black and white.
The living beings or living matter around him, however, were not on the scale of grey. They were various shades of green. He saw every fish that swam within his perception, every blade of grass, even its roots deep into the earth and the worms wriggling inside the earth. He even saw the ants moving in and out of that hive.
Incredible. This power was incredible. How he could take this much information without being disoriented, he did not know. He welcomed it nonetheless.
The feeling was … he could not put it to words how he felt. If he had to compare it to anything, then it would be a feeling of euphoria after doing drugs. Of course, he had never done drugs before, but he had known a few people who did. Nairobi was one of them. Thank god his older siblings weren't.
He took in every information he received from the skill, running about to change the scenery in his perspective. The world may have gone dreary and drab with his skills, but the information he received was incredible.
As he ran about in every direction, his vision returned to normal. The sudden and unintended shift made him stumble over his own foot and fall face flat on the grassy surface.
"Aw, what happened? Where did it go? Come back."
Michael tried to use the skill again.
[Life Detection.]
This time, the words came out of his mouth. Nothing happened. So, there was a limit to how much he could use the skill.
How long before I can use it again?
He had to figure these things out if he wanted to make full use of his new ability. Even if he was alone, away from his family, away from his home, the thought of gaining new abilities that every child dreamed of was indeed exhilarating.
He could not wait for his ability to return and use it again. But for now, he was hungry. He had to figure out the way to eat the fish he had caught.
He looked around, but there was nothing that could help him gut a fish and cook it over a fire.
Oh, he knew how to start a fire in the wilderness. He had seen it more than enough times on TV, but the thought of trying to start a fire in such a primitive way made his head spin. And that still left the question of how he would gut and clean his fish.
Perhaps there was something in the cabin that could help him. However, there was little to no chance of that. He had already seen everything in the cabin. Don't forget the disappearing fish. The memory made him shiver.
"Dont think about it."
He might have missed something in the cabin. Besides, he needed to go up there before the nightfall anyway. So be might as well do it now.
"How will I ever get the fish up there? I don't even have clothes on, for God's sake."
Well, he had seen a multiple survival course on TV. In one of them, he had seen a man weave a rope or something equivalent out of grass. Perhaps he could do the same. That way, maybe he could carry the fish with him.
So he did just that. The rope he wove out of the grass was barely worth calling the name. It was crude and flimsy. But it was better than nothing.
He poked a hole in all three fishes using a sharp stick he had found and tied them together with the rope he had just made. Michael looped the rope around his neck, not his waist, mind you. He was still naked, after all.
With that done, Michael stood before the rope that could take him back to the cabin. Unless he fell, hit his head and died, or worse, survived. My, but I do have great thoughts, don't I?
"Okay, you can do this. You can do this, Michael. You have done it before. And that was by accident. Right, no pressure."
Michael grabbed the rope and ascended. He blinked, looking at his hands. He was climbing faster than he thought he could. Michael did not remember having such a good upper body strength.
"How is this possible?"
But did he have to ask this question? Wasn't it obvious? He had levelled up, hadn't he? It must have improved the constitution of his body, increasing its strength in every way, just like in games.
Michael marvelled at the unexpected strength, but having a greater strength than before did not mean that he was fond of hanging from a rope, so he climbed faster. He did not even look down. He knew he would fail if he did.
He reached the top of the rope fairly quickly. But his arms ached again. With a heave, he pulled himself onto the firm ground once more.
"That was not so bad, was it?"
Then again, Michael did not think he would do that ever again. Unless he was hungry and needed to catch fish again, that was. Michael laughed, rubbing at his arm that was pulsing with pain.
Back home, he would not even think of doing something so dangerous. Now, he was thinking of doing it again, because he wouldn't stop going hungry. This place had changed him, and it hadn't even been a single day.
What a joke it was.
And they said people did not change that easily. That day, Michael understood something. Not that people did not change easily. It was simply they did not change until and unless they had no choice but to or suffer for it.
Michael laughed until he cried.