'Urgh, my head.' After who knows how much time has passed, Aurora finally woke up again, which technically shouldn't have happened considering that she died.
'Wait a second. How am I still alive?' It took her a minute to realize that something was wrong, but once this thought finally appeared in her mind, Aurora became utterly confused.
Still, she tried to think about the matter calmly, and suddenly, a crazy thought crossed her mind.
'It can't be, right?' Deciding to test her theory out, Aurora opened up her system interface and checked for any messages that the system might have sent her while she was unconscious. And sure enough, she found some.
[You have defeated the Iron Wood Berserker level 15.]
[You have reached level 8.]
[You have reached level 9.]
[You have reached level 10.]
[You have reached level 11.]
[You have obtained an item: Basic Nature Crystal.]
[You have obtained an item: Ring of Iron Defense.]
[You have met the requirements to obtain the title: The One Who Cheated Death.]
[You have unlocked a new system function: Titles.]
[You have unlocked a new system function: Equipment.]
[You have unlocked three new system archive entries.]
'Holy! That's a lot!' Realizing her internal outburst, Aurora took a deep breath, calmed herself down, and carefully read through the messages.
'I've leveled up. Four times no less at that.' Aurora took another deep breath as she realized that her crazy theory was probably correct.
'Considering the timing of these messages and the name of that title thingy, it's safe to assume that the system brought me back to life.' As absurd as it sounded to her, Aurora reached her conclusion about the matter.
'I died; I'm sure I did, but I killed that tree before I died. Since it was much stronger than me, I leveled up multiple times, which should have fully recovered me. And since I was dead, that full recovery brought me back to life.'
This made Aurora unconsciously realize something that made her feel extremely uncomfortable. No, she already knew about it, but she deliberately tried to ignore it and not think about it. But she felt like, after this incident, she couldn't shake it off anymore.
She wasn't the owner of her own life; the system was. The system could kill her anytime it wanted, just as it could bring her back to life at a moment's thought.
It doesn't matter how strong she gets; the system can do literally anything with her and her life. It had absolute control over her; even her current life was granted to her by the system.
A sense of dread loomed over her for a minute, but disappeared right after. No matter what, Aurora wouldn't fall into despair that easily, not anymore.
'Whatever, this isn't anything new; I knew this already. Just because I ignored the fact doesn't mean I didn't know it.' Aurora shook her head, regained her cool, and decided to divert her attention to something less depressing: her newly acquired power.
'That thing was level 15, huh? No wonder I got four levels out of this battle, but also two items and some kind of title or whatever. I even unlocked two new system functions.' It was a desperate attempt to lighten her own mood, but Aurora tried to joke a bit.
In the end, she just shook her head helplessly and decided to go in the order of the messages. Directly ignoring the level-up messages, Aurora proceeded to look for the two items that she obtained.
It took her only a moment to locate the first item. Lying next to the roots of the Iron Wood Berserker was a small, triangular-shaped crystal. Its color was the same light green as that of the first crystal she had obtained. Though it was still quite small, it was a lot bigger than a crystal of the simple grade.
'A basic-grade attribute crystal. I wonder how many exp points it will give, but I'm sure my nature soul vessel will at least get to level 2.' Just like before, Aurora crushed the crystal in her paw, and right after, streaks of light green energy flew out towards her body.
[You have absorbed the energy of the Basic Nature Crystal. Your nature soul vessel grows more powerful.]
[Your nature soul vessel reached level 2.]
Right after her body absorbed all of the energy, Aurora got a message about her soul vessel leveling up.
'Only one level-up, huh? I wonder how much exp I got then.' She quickly opened up her soul vessel interference and looked for her nature vessel.
- Nature vessel: Level 2 (Exp: 200/500)
'Considering that I needed fifty more exp points, an attribute crystal of the basic grade is equal to five simple grade crystals.' All in all, by doing a quick calculation, she now knew that basic-grade attribute crystals give out 250 exp points in total.
'I'm sure that my affinity with nature went up, but that's currently useless to me.' Letting out a sigh, Aurora looked at her other paw, with which she was holding a small, wooden ring.
Well, maybe calling it small isn't exactly the right way to describe it considering that it is a normal-sized ring for a woman. Actually, compared to the small size of her paws, the ring looked rather big when Aurora held it.
'A ring, huh? I had no idea such things could drop from monsters.' Aurora looked intently at the wooden ring in her grasp. Even if the system hasn't said anything yet, she was sure that this ring would somehow make her more powerful.
'How does this work though?' But since its size was a little too big for her, she had no idea how to put the thing on. And since she didn't know, she did the most logical thing she could think of and tried out one of the new system functions she unlocked: Equipment.
[Equipment]
[Available equipment slots:
- Head: None
- Necklace: None
- Earring 1: None
- Earring 2: None
- Bracelet 1: None
- Bracelet 2: None
- Ring 1: None
- Ring 2: None
- Ring 3: None
- Ring 4: None
[Total stat boost: -
[Total affinity boost: -
A simple-looking, interference-styled system screen appeared before Aurora's eyes. Its structure was quite basic, displaying a simple outline of a fox and multiple slots on its body parts. These slots were obviously the ones that were currently available for her.
There were ten slots in total: one for a head accessory, one for a necklace, two for earrings, and two more for bracelets. To top it all off, she had a total of four ring slots.
'I mean, it's great to know that I can equip the ring, but rather than knowing if it is possible, I need to know how to equip the damn thing.' And since the function was a bust, Aurora simply opened up her archive and looked for the entry that held information about equipment.
[Equipment]
– Special items created by the system. These items range from weapons all the way to various accessories.
- The user can obtain them by defeating powerful opponents or by finding them in various places.
- These items grant the user a variety of different bonuses, like extra stat points, increased attribute affinity, or even special skills.
'You know, this is some great information and all, but how the hell do I equip the damn ring!?' Though the archive provided her with a lot of useful information, it still wasn't the information she was looking for.
'Can I just equip this thing already!?' Suddenly, the wooden ring disappeared from Aurora's paw, and right after, she felt a sudden surge of power entering her body.
'Don't tell me...' Realizing what most likely happened, Aurora quickly opened up her equipment interference again, and just as she thought, there were some changes to it.
[Equipment:
...
...
...
- Ring 1: Ring of Iron Defense
...
[Total stat boost:
- Health: 5
- Intelligence: 0
- Mana: 0
- Strength: 0
- Agility: 0
- Defense: 15
[Total affinity boost: -
'Are you for real?' Aurora stared blankly at the screen right before her eyes. This lasted for about ten seconds before her eyes started to twitch and another internal outburst erupted in her mind.
'Are you kidding me!? So all I had to do was want to equip the damn thing and think of equipping it with the intent to do so!?'
Previously, Aurora thought of equipping the ring and wanted to do so, which resulted in the ring getting equipped. Just like with the system functions, it was all about intent and thought.
'Anyway, rather than that, are you for real when you say that this little ring gives me a total of twenty stat points?' If what the system said was true, then the Ring of Iron Defense gives Aurora an amount of stat points that's equal to more than three levels.
To see if it was indeed true, she quickly opened up her status to check. Aside from all of her stats going up by four points that she gained by leveling up, two of her stats also had a little plus sign next to them.
[Stats:
- Health: 20 (+5)
...
- Defense: 17 (+15)
By now, it was obvious that the ring did indeed increase her defense and health, just like it said in the equipment interference. Heck, even her HP and SP went up, so there's no doubting it.
'Isn't that a bit too much? I mean, I get that later on, twenty stat points won't be that much, but for the current me, it's a huge amount!' Perhaps Aurora may have been overreacting a bit, but it was indeed true that right now, a total of twenty stat points is indeed a lot for her.
Be that as it may, after checking her stats, Aurora glanced down at her paw. The ring that was definitely way too big when compared to her body now shrank down to a perfect size to fit on one of her fingers.
'Tsk, the system really can do anything it wants.' Aurora grumbled internally for a bit while she looked at the next message in line.
'A title, huh? Sounds like something important, not gonna lie.' Not thinking about it much, she used the second new system function she unlocked: Titles.
[Titles]
[Title list:
- The One Who Cheated Death
"Pfffft."
Seeing what was probably the most empty system screen she had ever seen, Aurora couldn't hold back a laugh from escaping her mouth. Well, if you can call it a laugh, after all, at the end of the day, she was still just a fox.
But it was indeed a bit comical to see such a large system screen basically empty. Except for some dividing system terms and one singular title, it was completely empty. In fact, as if hearing Aurora's mocking laugh, the system screen soon shrinked itself to a fitting size for the little amount of text it had.
"Phew, phew."
She even had to take several deep breaths in between her laughs just so she wouldn't run out of air. This was the first time she laughed like this, or at least the first time she remembered, of course.
Actually, despite knowing what the feelings she felt at the moment were, they felt quite foreign. After all, though it was only two weeks, she mostly focused on hunting monsters and growing stronger. There weren't many things that could make her feel amused like this.
'Alright, calm down, Aurora.' But all good things must come to an end. Deciding that she laughed enough, Aurora quickly calmed down, took a few more deep breaths, and focused back on her new title.
Or rather, titles in general, as instead of looking at exactly the title she obtained, she rather opened up another new entry in the archive.
[Titles]
– They are a form of special reward given to individuals who complete certain requirements. Titles grant the holder various effects and bonuses.
– Depending on the difficulty of obtaining the title, the strength of its effects also varies. This means that higher-ranked titles are more powerful than lower-ranked ones.
'Hmmm, so pretty much a passive boost of sorts.' Aurora thought about the information given to her by the system for a moment before she began to think about something different.
'The system never told me what the requirements to obtain the title I got were, but its not like I need to tell me, do I?' At the thought of this, she couldn't help but feel a bit bitter. But that lasted only for a moment before an expectant smile formed on her face.
'Die and come back to life, or something similar. It is said that the more difficult it is to obtain, the better the title will be. Well, dying sounds easy, but surviving death doesn't sound exactly simple, now does it?'
Without wasting any more time, she focused on the title's name to open its description.
[The One Who Cheated Death]
...
...
...