— "Arrrgh."
Feeling horrible pain throughout his body, Edart was awakened. It felt like his body was burning and thousands of needles were being stuck at the same time, all over his body. With every breath he took, it felt like his lungs were burning with a strong burning sensation, the pain was unbearable and with every second it became worse.
Not long after, he passed out from the pain. The last thing he could remember was seeing some words floating in the air, 'It must be some hallucination' he thought.
— ["Starting systems…"].
There, lying unconscious on soft grass, Edart's body began to undergo changes that no scientist on Earth could describe. In order to live in this new world and enjoy what it has to offer, his body had to change, and this change would not be smooth and peaceful, but luckily for him, he would not have to endure all this pain.
…
— "ssssghnnnnn" After an unknown amount of time, Edart woke up and took a deep breath, scared, but remembering the pain he suffered when breathing, he quickly closed his mouth and prepared to endure it, but after a few seconds nothing happened. Surprised by this, but still afraid, he took a small breath and braced himself for the pain that didn't come again.
Relaxing as he no longer felt pain, he began to breathe normally again and with each breath, his body filled with energy.
An energy that he had never felt before in his 19 years of age, it seemed like he was invincible. With this feeling, he closed his eyes and concentrated on this feeling, he lay there for a few minutes just enjoying it.
—["Acquired skill 'Mana Perception (Common) (Level: 1)'"].
— ["Description: When focusing on the world around you, you realize that everything is connected with a strange energy (Mana), from the small ants to the gigantic mountains, everything is filled with this energy. This skill helps in perceiving the surrounding energy, the higher the skill level, the better and easier it will be to perceive this energy"].
- "What the hell is this!" - shouted Edart.
Edart opened his eyes and stared dazedly at the sky. There between him and the sky, there were words written and in his ear, with a soft and feminine voice, he could hear the narration of these words. Slowly, the narration ended and soon after the words disappeared from his vision.
After a while, Edart came to his senses and began to think: 'I'm dreaming, it can only be that, there's no further explanation. I heard that there are people who have lucid dreams. This must be one of them, so this is what it looks like, you can even feel pain like in reality, how scary, but it's just a dream, I should wake up soon' ….. 'Yes, yes, yes, that's it, ahhh what relief, it's all just a dream' …... 'Now I just need to wait, and I'll wake up soon'.
Lying on the soft grass, Edart watched the blue sky and what was around him, hoping to wake up and get out of this dream. In the distance, in his peripheral vision, he could see some trees, which told him he must be in a small clearing.
Turning his attention to the sky, he noticed something strange and out of place.
In the sky, which should have only one moon, there were two, a large and bluish one, 3 times the size of Earth's moon and another gray one that looked like the moon he knew, but was bigger, approximately 1.5 times the size.
Surprised by this discovery, he observed these moons, which brought him a deep sense of tranquility.
On Earth, one of his hobbies was observing the night sky, especially the moon, as he could not afford to buy a good telescope and observe other celestial objects. During this, time passed, and soon it was 10 minutes. 'It's been a long time, I've never dreamed for so long, I should have woken up by now'. After having this thought, another message appeared in his vision with a noise coming from his belly.
— "Arghhhh."
—["Afflicted by status condition: 'Hunger (mild)'"].
— ["Life and Stamina will regenerate more slowly, you must eat something for the effect to be suspended"].
Placing his hand on his stomach and looking at those strange words floating in his vision again, a thought came into his head. 'Don't tell me this isn't a dream, these sensations, this hunger, everything seems too real to be a dream, but I remember well lying in my warm, soft bed.'
With that thought, Edart quickly sits up and looks around. Looking at the lawn, at the trees in the distance, some of which are surrounded by small bushes, at the rocks that appear here and there. Observe how the wind swayed the treetops and how the wind passed through it.
Taking advantage of the wind, he prepared to smell the scents of the forest, hoping for a pleasant scent. "Ssssnnnff." "Coff Coff", but what comes to his nose is the smell of some animal excrement.
— "Damn, damn animal, this is too real to be a dream" said Edart in frustration.
'Where I am? How did I get here? How do I get home? What were those words in my vision? And that voice, is there someone watching me?'. With that last question in his mind, Edart quickly looked around, looking for someone or something that could give him an answer.
Finding no answers to his questions, Edart decided to focus on his biggest problem for now, hunger. He looked at the bushes next to the trees at the edge of the clearing and started to get closer, 'maybe it's a berry bush', he thought.
Getting closer, he could see some red dots among the bushes and started to get excited. Finally, in front of the bush he can see the familiar red mulberries that he ate in his childhood when he went to his grandparents' house in the countryside.
With the happy memories of the past, Edart completely forgot about his situation and started eating the blackberries.
He spent the next 20 minutes going from bush to bush, picking up every berry he saw and putting it in his mouth. As the plants were close to each other, it was a difficult task that resulted in some scratches on his arms and legs.
— "Crack." Hearing branches breaking, Edart straightened his body and looked around in fear. He looked in all directions, but saw nothing, not seeing any animals or living beings, he decided to return to his task of looking for food.
As he was bending down to start looking for more lovebirds, he felt a strong impact against his chest. — "Bamm", which pushed him out of the bushes, falling on his butt. — "ssssghnnnnnn". With the impact, the air was knocked out of his lungs, so he took a deep breath to regain the lost air.
The impact was as if someone had kicked a futsal ball very hard into his chest, as he was not prepared for it, he was taken by surprise and lost his breath. Bringing his hand to his chest, he began to rub it against his chest, and soon the pain subsided.
Raising his head and preparing to get up, at the same time as he looked for what hit him, he saw among the bushes a small figure with white fur and red eyes. He had an angry look, and in his vision he had Edart as his target.
Scared, Edart moved away from the creature by crawling backwards, he couldn't get very far, less than 1 meter later, he crashed into a tree. There, he stared at the rabbit, trying to understand what was happening, and unconsciously felt the ground in search of a weapon.
As if understanding that Edart couldn't escape anywhere, the rabbit began to run forward with the intention of attacking. In an instant, he closed the three-meter distance between them and jumped to end Edart's life.
Edart, who was terrified and felt the ground in search of something to defend himself, felt something in his hand that he could hold. When the rabbit jumped on him, as if his body reacted without him telling him to, his hand wrapped around the object and his arm described a horizontal arc.
By a stroke of luck, the object he caught was a tree branch about 60 cm long and 4 cm in diameter. It hit the little rabbit squarely and sent it flying straight into a rock about two meters away.
He followed the rabbit's trajectory and saw how it hit the rock and lay there trying to get up, without success. Edart got up and began to advance towards the rabbit carefully. When he arrived, he saw how the rabbit was suffering, due to hitting the stone and Edart's blow, something must have broken. The rabbit was still a cub, having a weak body, but it still managed to hit him hard, which didn't make sense to him.
Seeing him suffering, Edart decided that he should put an end to it, so that the rabbit no longer suffers. With a strong blow to the head, the rabbit's pain and life were gone, leaving only a red mass at the site. Then the increasingly familiar voice and words appeared in his vision.
—["You killed a 'Blue-eyed White Rabbit (Young)(Level: 3).'"].
— ["You gained 15 XP"].
— ["You leveled up, now your level is 2"].
— ["You have gained 2 attribute points to distribute freely among your main attributes"].
— ["You removed the first wild animal, job 'Hunter (Common)(Level: 1)' is available"].
Edart was stunned by this information, it felt like he was in a game, but he didn't have time to think as the notifications kept coming without stopping.
— ["Acquired skill: 'Tracing (Common)(Level: 1)' "].
— ["Description: You have become a 'Hunter' and in order to hunt, you need to track your prey. You can find and follow trails more easily.
This ability increases your perception as you evolve. Perception +1."]
— ["Skill acquired: 'Club Handling (Common)(Level: 1)' "].
— ["Description: You tried to use a tree branch as a weapon and discovered that you could. Your understanding of how to use clubs as a weapon and the damage inflicted increases the higher the level of this skill.
This ability increases your strength as you evolve. Strength +1."].
Soon the notifications stopped, the voice disappeared from his ear and the letters disappeared from his vision. Edart stood there, stunned, in front of the dead rabbit for a few minutes, trying to understand everything he saw. If he had another rabbit, he would be dead, and he wouldn't even know how he died.
— "That… I joined… some game, but what if it stopped with reality, but there's this thing about levels… that's… so confusing."
Meanwhile, a smell of blood began to rise and hit his nose, and he looked down.
— "I better bury this, I could eat roast, it says rabbit tastes like chicken. But I don't have a fire, and I don't even know how to clean it. And if there's any illness… okay, let's start by burying the rabbit and then get out of here, I don't want any bigger animals to show up."
Using the branch as a shovel, Edart quickly dug a shallow grave 10 cm deep, 20 cm long by 10 cm wide. The rabbit was a baby and not very big.
Afterward, he returned to the clearing and went to the opposite side, holding his club firmly in his hand and watching for any movement, ready to fight back. The clearing is around 200 meters in diameter.
Arriving at the tree line, he saw the same bushes as before, still feeling hungry, he went into the bushes in search of more blackberries. Unlike before, he was much more cautious and with his club he poked the bushes and waited to see if anything came out of them. When he was sure he had nothing, he began to look for it and eat it.
— ["Removed status condition: 'Hunger (slight)'"].
— ["Life and Stamina will regenerate normally"].
Seeing this warning, he didn't stop, he kept looking and eating for another 10 minutes.
— "ahhhh… I'm satisfied, now I have to understand my situation better, but I'm afraid of staying here and being attacked"
Edart started looking for a tall tree that he could climb. Not far away, he found a 12-meter tall tree, its lowest branch was 1.5 meter high, they were thick and would support his weight and other animals would have difficulty climbing it, he thought.
After a few attempts, he managed to climb up and stopped at 8 meters, upwards the branches began to become very thin. Sitting with a branch between his legs and the tree trunk on his back, he began to think about what had happened so far.
— "It hasn't been 2 hours since I woke up, but it feels like I spent a week here…".
With a place to rest, he began to think about the strange messages.
— "This looks like a game, don't I have a status tab or something."
When he was thinking about this, many words began to appear in his vision.