Morning in the dragonkin camp was extremely tense. Movement could already be seen on the edges of the camp. The fires were lower, the air colder, and the circle of bodies around the centre had turned into a clear meeting of respected members, many of which holding hands on swords. Ray stayed outside it. He didn’t sit close enough to be invited, and he didn’t sit far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening. He watched mouths move. He watched Layla’s tail twitch every time someone raised their voice. He watched Vaeldren’s stare pin people down without him lifting his volume at all. It was all too much for Ray.

  Miu paced the edge of the camp like a living tripwire. She kept to the shadows, naturally untrusting of those around her. Her presence brushed Ray’s mind in small, constant checks, a tether that kept him from drifting too far into himself. You’re standing wrong, she sent once, blunt and practical. If they rush you, your sword will catch on the sack strap. Ray adjusted himself for better positioning… just in case. He didn’t want to be seen as incompetent, even though they probably already knew he was. In fact, he would rather not be seen at all right now.

  Layla could see him though. She watched his posture, the way his shoulders were set like he was about to bolt, and she started walking over with intent. She was three steps in when Vaeldren placed himself in her path. He put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

  “Leave him be, lass.”

  Layla’s eyes narrowed. “He’s going to do something stupid.”

  “Aye,” Vaeldren said, calm as a stone. “But he clearly wants to do it alone. He needs time. Lass, go guard the perimeter, watch for him return.”

  Layla looked like she wanted to argue, then exhaled hard through her nose and turned away with a mutter that sounded like a promise to bite someone later. Ray watched her go, felt the strange relief of not being approached, and hated himself for it. Then he stood, adjusted the sack strap across his chest, and walked out of camp without a word.

  He didn’t run. He walked until the fires were behind a fold in the terrain and the voices became something distant and dull. He walked until the smell of broth and smoke vanished and all that remained was scrub, stone, and the cold scent of morning. Only then did he stop and force his status open, because if he didn’t anchor himself to numbers he was going to start thinking about Teddy again, and his chest was already tight enough.

  The thing that hit him the most… Unallocated Points: 20.

  Ray stared at the screen. Had he really been holding twenty points as dead weight? He knew he had levelled, but he honestly hadn’t really paid that much attention. He’d been previously relying on Teddy, possibly even too much and he’d only been on this planet a short time. Teddy had been the plan. Teddy had said things like don’t overthink it, just survive, and now Teddy wasn’t here to absorb the blame if Ray picked wrong. Ray closed his eyes for a second, opened them again, and allocated anyway because staying frozen was its own choice.

  He spread the points the way he’d been living, not the way he wanted to live. More into Body and Vitality because poison and bleeding and exhaustion had been his whole world. A few into Strength because he’d learned what it felt like to swing a proper sword until his shoulder burned. A few into Agility because getting hit less was the cheapest healing he could afford. He kept Intelligence and Mind steady for now. He didn’t have the breath to build a future today. When the points hit, it wasn’t a rush of power. It was a quiet settling, like his bones had been tightened with wire.

  Ray opened his character sheet again with satisfaction.

  Closing his window, he was happy with his decisions.

  Can you still hear me? Miu sent, and there was a new edge to it, the kind that came when she was testing something, not just checking him.

  Ray started walking again, further this time. He kept going until the bond thinned, until her presence in his head became faint and patchy like a radio station losing signal.

  Miu?

  A pause, then her reply came weaker, delayed. …I can hear you. Barely. Stop.

  Ray took three steps back the way he’d come and felt the connection firm up again, warm and clear.

  That distance, Miu sent. Don’t go past it. If you do and something happens, I can’t reach you.

  Ray nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. Stay at the edge. If I don’t come back by dark, go to Layla.

  Miu’s response was immediate and sharp. I’ll go to Layla when I’m dead. I’ll drag you back myself.

  The stubbornness hit Ray like something familiar. He didn’t laugh, but the tension in his jaw eased a fraction. Just test the distance, he sent. That’s all. Be smart.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  Fine, Miu replied, offended by the concept of “smart” being a request. But if you die, I’m biting your corpse.

  Ray kept walking.

  By the time the sun climbed higher, his walk had turned into a run. He had no destination in mind, he just wanted to get away… needed some time. The first use of Speed Burst came when his legs started to lag and his breath turned rough. He triggered it just to feel what it did.

  The world surged forward. The ground slid under him faster than it should have, and his body snapped into a pace that felt like it belonged to someone fitter, someone cleaner, someone who hadn’t been half dead in dirt yesterday. Ten seconds later it dropped away like a rug pulled out from under his feet. Ray stumbled, caught himself, and swore under his breath. The drawback of slowing down felt heavy and unnatural.

  He checked his updated status, confirming that 25 mana had been used. He could naturally faintly feel the emptiness in his body.

  Ray stood still until the adrenaline bled out of his hands, staring at the numbers like they could tell him what he was allowed to feel. One minute of cooldown. Ten seconds of speed. Twenty-five mana like a tax he could not afford. It was stupid how comforting it was, seeing limits he could measure, seeing costs that made sense. Teddy had always had an answer ready, always had a rule of thumb, always had that way of turning terror into a plan. Ray realised he’d been waiting for that voice to cut in, to call him an idiot for burning mana on a test run, to tell him to stop gawking and keep moving. The silence after the thought landed was worse than the emptiness in his mana bar.

  He forced his legs to start again, not fast, just steady, and let Identify fire on anything that held still long enough to be named. The world became a list of small truths. Stone. Sap. Rotten wood. A plant with leaves that looked harmless until the System tagged it as irritant. The more he scanned, the less room there was in his head for the cave, for the sound of skittering, for the half-second of Teddy hitting the ground. Ray kept the sword loose in his grip and pretended the tightness in his chest was just the cold.

  Twenty-five mana for a single usage was huge. What’s more, with his current stats, it would take almost an entire day to regenerate that mana naturally. He really needed to invest points into Mind and Intelligence to ensure better natural skill usage. For the time being, it would likely have to be a last resort. The tick of mana was so slow that he couldn’t even feel it.

  He came here to grind any skill and level necessary. He used Identify every chance he could. Scanning the world is safer than scanning his own thoughts. He needed to learn, understand and implement. He identified anything he could. Rocks and their minerals, plants and herbs, broken items in the dirt. When he finally found his first real threat, there was no dramatic entrance. It was a movement in the scrub that simply didn’t match with the winds.

  A lean, half-starved beast sprang at him from a low branch, fast and desperate. Ray didn’t even get a clean look. A blur of teeth flash towards him. He swung his sword. It hit… hard and ugly, blood spurting. The second strike missed as the beast scampered back and he finally got a look at the thing.

  ====================================

  Identify: Ironbark Bunny

  ====================================

  Level: 7

  Rank: F

  A bunny with sharp teeth. Uses it’s hind paws to bounce off branches at a fast pace.

  ====================================

  Ray waited for the bunny to lunge at him a second time. With slower movement, and bleeding profusely, the bunny lunged. Ray stepped in and finished it with a downward chop that jarred his wrists. He stood over it for a second, panting, then realised his hands were shaking. This felt like a big moment for him. He had finally had a controlled battle by himself and gained no injuries.

  [Ding! Congratulations, you have reached level 11.]

  [Current unallocated stat points: 5]

  Ray stared at the message. It felt like as he was levelling, he was becoming more attuned to the System. He was getting more information. It was now telling him as he levelled how many stat points remained unallocated. He was proud of his kill, but he knew Teddy would be urging him on. No breaks.

  The middle of the day blurred into a chain of small fights and worse near-fights. A pack of scavengers that tried to test him and learned he’d stab first. A slick patch of moss on stone that nearly sent him down a slope hard enough to snap a leg. A shallow creek he crossed because he wanted the cold to hurt him in a way that wasn’t grief. He used the blowgun once, not to kill, but to make something hesitate long enough for him to put distance between them. The poison on the dart didn’t feel clever. It felt like Teddy’s hands guiding his, except Teddy wasn’t here, and the absence made Ray’s throat tighten until he had to swallow hard to keep the sound inside.

  When the second level came, it came attached to a mistake. Ray had been watching the ground, scanning for tracks, and the thing that hit him didn’t come from the ground at all. It came from above, a sharp, hooked motion that grabbed at his shoulder and tried to drag him sideways. Ray saw feathers, saw a beak, saw eyes too intelligent for a bird, and his brain offered one clear thought: If I go down, I don’t get up. He didn’t have time for a clean strike. He triggered Speed Burst without thinking.

  He slipped out with a burst so fast, it felt like the world around him snapped. His shoulder screamed. The creature’s talons raked empty air where his throat had been. Ray turned, swung, and felt steel bite into something. Hitting cartilage or bone, he didn’t know. The bird hit the dirt and thrashed, wings beating at the ground, trying to lift even while damaged. Ray didn’t give it any time. He stepped in and took its head with a brutal sideways cut.

  He stood there, chest heaving. He had now used Speed Burst twice. That was fifty mana used. The regeneration barely trickling in. He could use the skill four more times before being empty. A worrying thought.

  [Ding! Congratulations, you have reached Level 12.]

  [Current unallocated points: 10]

  Ray would wait to allocate his points. He knew he needed more in his Mind and Intelligence stats but he didn’t trust his judgement while he was tired. He would do it, just not immediately.

  Late afternoon was when the world started feeling wrong.

  It wasn’t a monster, or sound. It was a tremor under his boots. It felt like an earthquake but it was… off. The ground shuddered once, subtle, as if a portion of the earth had split below the surface. Ray stopped. The scrub and brush around him stilled. Creatures went quiet. Even insects and crickets stopped chirping… yes, Ray had learned that this world still had crickets. Ray waited for a second tremor. None came, but something tugged at his boot, faint and dragging. It felt like the soil was grabbing him for a heartbeat.

  Ray stepped back slowly. Whatever this was, it was well above his pay grade. He backed away until the shifting ground faded, turned and ran. He didn’t want to waste mana if unnecessary. He continued his hunts elsewhere and pushed his body in a steady grind until the sun started to lower. He found a lot of small threats, dispatching them quickly. Everything from wolves to boars. The grind felt like it was slowly paying off.

  [Ding! Congratulations, you have reached Level 13.]

  [Current unallocated points: 15]

  By the evening, he had fifteen points to allocate. Ray sat on a flat rock and opened his status again. He took some time.

  He allocated his points slightly differently this time. Focusing mostly on Mind and Intelligence. He thought about what it would be like to be a mage. What Layla must feel throwing fireballs and creating large walls of fire to stifle the enemy. Ray thought about how she had fought, as if using mana didn’t really matter. How high must her Intelligence be? He recalled a conversation with Teddy, about how it was important to know which stats suited you the most, but… honestly, Ray felt like all of them were of benefit… except maybe luck. Fuck luck, what had it done for him so far?

  The thought of Teddy landed with a soft thud. It dragged his mood down… but Ray knew he couldn’t be like this forever. He had to get over it one day if he was going to be able to grow in this world. Surely he would see more people come and go, die… The thought hit him. This wasn’t a safe world, every turn was dangerous… every moment a chance at his throat.

  Staring at his stats, he resolved to become a balanced fighter. To try anything and everything at his disposal. He resolved to listen to Teddy and grow, not necessarily by levels, but by training, understanding and moving forward, for that was the only way he would survive and perhaps, find a home.

  [Ding! For having an epiphany, you gain +1 Intelligence. Try not to burn that puny mind of yours all in one place.]

  Ray smiled. The System insult actually felt nice. He looked at his screen one last time before moving on.

  Satisfied, he turned and continued forth. Tears dried on his chin. He would try his best to think of the teachings Teddy had given him, without thinking about the horrors that lay beyond.

  Miu, he sent without thinking, and the bond answered immediately, a warm flicker in his head.

  You’re too far, she replied, then corrected herself as she felt him turning back. No. You’re closer. Where are you?

  Ray swallowed hard. I’m coming back.

  There was a pause, then her presence pressed gently against his mind, careful and steady. Don’t run yourself dead. If you fall out there, I can’t drag you alone… you’re a heavy one you know?

  Ray took a breath. Another. I didn’t want to think, he sent. I thought if I moved all day it wouldn’t catch me.

  It caught you anyway, Miu replied, blunt as ever.

  Ray stood, stuffed the cloth back into the sack like it was contraband, and started walking toward the camp with the last of the light. His legs felt heavy now. Not from exhaustion. From everything he’d been holding up with movement. When he got close enough for the bond to feel strong again, Miu’s relief hit him like a weight shifting off his shoulders, and it made his chest tighten in a different way.

  He reached the dragonkin camp after dark, not stumbling, not dramatic, just arriving like a man returning from a place he shouldn’t have survived. A few heads turned. A few eyes tracked the sword at his hip and the dried blood on his boots. Nobody clapped. Nobody welcomed him. Ray didn’t want either. Layla saw him and didn’t walk over. She just watched for a second, then nodded once, like she’d expected him to come back even if she wouldn’t say it.

  Vaeldren noticed too. He didn’t ask where Ray had been. He didn’t ask what he’d killed. He gave Ray a long look, then spoke as Ray passed.

  “Still breathing,” he said, like it was both approval and warning. “Good.”

  Ray didn’t answer. He found the edge of camp where Miu held her perimeter, laid out his bedroll, set the sword within reach, and kept the sack strap across his chest because taking it off still felt like betrayal. Miu circled once, then pressed against his side, purring low, not playful, not happy, just present.

  You’re back, she sent.

  Ray stared into the dark, eyes gritty, throat raw. Yeah.

  Did you do something stupid? Miu asked.

  Ray’s mouth twitched. It wasn’t a smile, but it was close enough to hurt. Only all day.

  Miu huffed through the bond like she was offended by the understatement, then pressed closer. Sleep. If you don’t, I’ll bite you.

  Ray closed his eyes. Alright.