Mitch’s boots crunched against the forest floor as he trudged through endless miles of erald wilderness.
The canopy above filtered sunlight into dancing patches of gold that shifted with each weary step.
His legs ached from hours of walking, but the monotonous landscape offered little respite, only the occasional translucent blob of a sli quivering between the tree roots.
Each encounter had beco routine. The gelatinous creatures barely registered his presence before his makeshift club crashed down, their cores dissolving into wisps of energy.
[8 x Small infant harmless nature sli core converted into 8 points!]
Eight more points toward survival, eight more steps away from the ordinary office job he’d once complained about.
As the sun climbed higher, a familiar burning sensation crept up his throat.
Thirst. It started as a mild discomfort but quickly escalated into a desperate, clawing need that made his tongue feel like sandpaper.
His lips were cracked, his mouth cotton-dry, and every swallow felt like swallowing glass.
The forest around him seed to mock his predicant. Lush green leaves caught morning dew that sparkled just out of reach.
Sowhere in the distance, he could swear he heard the gentle babble of running water, but it always proved to be wind through branches or his own desperate imagination.
His options crystallized with brutal clarity: stumble through this maze of trees hoping to find a stream, or invest his hard-earned points in the [Create Elent] skill.
But that ant twenty-five points, more than he’d accumulated in two days of sli hunting. And the creatures were becoming increasingly scarce, as if the forest itself was rationing his opportunities for survival.
Desperation clawed at his chest as he stared at a cluster of raspberry bushes he’d been passing all morning.
The crimson berries hung heavy on their branches, practically begging to be eaten. But without knowing if they were safe, they might as well have been poison-tipped daggers.
"Screw it," he muttered, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar. He’d been talking to himself more often lately, anything to break the suffocating silence.
With trembling fingers, he accessed his skill nu and spent precious points on [Inspect].
The knowledge flooded his mind like ice water, accompanied by a sharp headache that made him wince.
He approached the nearest bush with the reverence of a man approaching an altar. The berries were perfect, plump, deep red, without a single blemish. He reached out with a shaking hand.
"Inspect!"
[Red Raspberry - A sweet fruit loved by the forest’s inhabitants. Not poisonous.]
"Finally!" The word exploded from his lips, half-sob, half-laugh. "Finally, so good luck!"
The first berry burst against his tongue in an explosion of sweetness and moisture. He’d never tasted anything so perfect, each one a small miracle that seed to bring him back to life.
He ate with the fervor of a starving man, juice staining his fingers and chin as he stripped branch after branch.
When his stomach could hold no more, he stuffed his pockets with the precious fruit, each berry a small insurance policy against the uncertain future.
With renewed energy coursing through his veins, Mitch pressed deeper into the forest. He used [Inspect] on everything now, the rough bark of ancient oaks, the smooth river stones scattered across dry creek beds, the silvery moss that seed to pulse with its own inner light.
The skill refused to work on living creatures, but everything else revealed its secrets to his enhanced perception.
The landscape began to change as afternoon shadows lengthened. The trees grew taller, their trunks wider, their roots more gnarled and ancient. The air itself felt different, thicker, charged with an energy that made his skin tingle.
Then he saw it: a yawning mouth of darkness carved into a moss-covered hillside. The cave entrance was perfectly circular, almost unnaturally so, as if it had been carved by so intelligent hand rather than ford by natural erosion.
As he approached, the tingling sensation intensified. Thanks to his newly acquired skills, he could now sense mana like a sixth sense, and the concentration here was unlike anything he’d experienced.
The energy was so dense it was almost visible, creating subtle distortions in the air like heat waves rising from sumr asphalt.
A dungeon, he realized, his pulse quickening. This has to be a dungeon.
The word carried weight from countless hours of gaming, but standing before the real thing was entirely different. This wasn’t pixels on a screen, this was life and death, with no respawn button if he made the wrong choice.
He stood at the threshold for long minutes, weighing his options.
The logical part of his mind scread warnings about unknown dangers, about his pitiful equipnt and limited skills.
But another part, the part that had been slowly awakening since his arrival in this world, whispered about opportunities, about the power that might lie within.
The potential rewards could change everything. Better equipnt, more points, perhaps even skills that could get him ho. But failure ant death, and he was already barely hanging on.
With thodical precision, Mitch began his preparations. He found a sturdy oak tree and carefully buried his collected sli cores beneath its roots, marking the location with a distinctive arrangent of stones.
If he didn’t return, at least so future traveler might benefit from his efforts.
He selected two branches from the forest floor, each as thick as his forearm and roughly the length of a baseball bat.
The wood was solid, seasoned by weather but not yet rotted. He tested their weight and balance, imagining how they might feel when striking sothing more substantial than a harmless sli.
His pockets bulged with berries and smooth stones, the only projectiles he had. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had.
The cave entrance yawned before him like the throat of so primordial beast. As he peered into the darkness, he noticed sothing that made his heart leap: a soft, ethereal glow emanating from deeper within.
Bioluminescent moss covered the ceiling in patches, creating an otherworldly constellation that provided just enough light to see by.
Without that natural illumination, exploration would have been impossible. He didn’t have the skills to create fire reliably, and grinding enough sli cores for the necessary abilities would take days he didn’t have.
Taking a deep breath, Mitch stepped into the dungeon.
The descent was gradual at first, a gentle slope that seed almost welcoming. But with each step, the temperature dropped, and the air grew thicker with mana.
The moss above pulsed with a rhythm that almost matched his heartbeat, casting dancing shadows that played tricks on his eyes.
After what felt like an eternity but was probably only minutes, the narrow tunnel suddenly expanded into a corridor wide enough for five people to walk side by side.
The walls were smooth, almost polished, and covered in the sa glowing moss that had guided his way down.
At the far end, the corridor opened into a vast chamber that took his breath away.
The ceiling stretched high above, lost in shadows despite the moss’s glow. And scattered throughout the space were slis, dozens of them, each roughly twice the size of the harmless creatures he’d been hunting above.
But these were different. Where the surface slis had been uniform in their translucent green appearance, these creatures displayed a rainbow of colors and characteristics that spoke to specialized abilities and dangers.
One sli crackled with miniature lightning, its translucent white form pulsing with electrical energy that made the air around it hum with static. Tiny bolts of electricity danced across its surface like trapped lightning bugs.
Another resembled its surface cousins but was significantly larger, its green form more substantial and predatory. It moved with purpose rather than the random drifting he’d observed above.
The third type was completely different, brown and opaque, with a consistency that looked more like clay than gel. It barely moved at all, resembling a boulder more than a living creature.
"Who do I fight first?" Mitch whispered to himself, his voice barely audible in the vast space. "Will they all attack if I engage one?"
The question hung in the air like a physical weight. He needed information, and there was only one way to get it.
With careful aim, he lobbed stones at each type of sli, watching their reactions with the intensity of a scientist conducting a crucial experint.
The stone sailed through the air and struck the electric sli dead center.
The mont it made contact, arcs of lightning erupted from the creature’s surface, shredding the stone into powder in milliseconds. The sli didn’t even flinch, the destruction was as automatic as breathing.
Definitely not touching that one, he thought, his mouth suddenly dry again.
The green sli absorbed his projectile completely, the stone disappearing into its gelatinous mass without a trace. No reaction, no damage, just... absorption.
The earth sli, however, proved the most interesting. The stone bounced off its surface with a sharp crack, ricocheting like a rubber ball hitting concrete.
The sound echoed through the chamber, and for a mont, Mitch held his breath, waiting to see if the noise would attract unwanted attention.
"Looks like the green one is my best bet," he murmured, gripping his makeshift weapons tighter.
Fortune favored him in that the slis seed to cluster by type, with clear spaces between each group. The green slis occupied the left portion of the chamber, far enough from their electrical and earthen cousins to allow for isolated combat.
Mitch approached the nearest green sli with the careful steps of a hunter stalking prey. His heart hamred against his ribs as he raised his branch weapon, muscles coiled with tension.
The first strike connected with a wet, satisfying thud. But instead of the easy destruction he’d experienced with surface slis, this creature resisted.
It’s form compressed under the blow but imdiately began to reform, and he could see his weapon had barely penetrated its outer layer.
As he raised the branch for a second strike, confident that persistence would win the day, agony exploded through his right leg.
"OW!!"
The pain was imdiate and severe, shooting from just above his ankle up through his entire leg.
He looked down in shock to see a sharp, thorn-covered root retracting back into the chamber floor like a serpent returning to its den. A line of crimson blood seeped through his torn pants where the root had sliced clean through fabric and skin.
Mitch stumbled backward, his leg screaming in protest with each step. The green sli followed him for several ters, its movent suddenly more aggressive and purposeful, before losing interest and returning to its original position.
"What the hell?!" he gasped, limping toward the entrance as quickly as his injured leg would allow. "I can’t even kill the weakest mobs... This is so unfair! I hope that root didn’t infect my leg."
Back at the cave entrance, afternoon sunlight felt like a blessing after the dungeon’s oppressive atmosphere.
With shaking hands, he tore a strip from his shirt and wound it around his leg. The bleeding stopped quickly, but the pain lingered, a constant reminder of how unprepared he was for this world’s dangers.
He looked up at the darkening sky, clouds gathering like an audience for his mont of despair. The words ca unbidden, raw and desperate:
"God... if you’re out there, just send ho. I’ll stop complaining about my boring job, I’ll get in shape, donate to charity, just please get out of here."
His voice cracked on the last words, and for a mont, he was just a scared, injured man far from everything he’d ever known.
The forest around him continued its eternal dance, wind rustling through leaves, distant birdsong, the subtle sounds of a world that existed entirely separate from his human concerns.
There was no answer. There never was.
But as the mont of despair passed, sothing harder settled in its place. Reality. Acceptance. The understanding that prayer might comfort the soul, but survival required action.
That night, he gathered large leaves for bedding, creating a makeshift shelter against the growing cold. He ate the rest of his berries slowly, savoring each one as if it might be his last.
The dungeon remained quiet throughout the night, and nothing erged from the forest to disturb his restless sleep.
When dawn broke through the canopy, Mitch woke with crystalline clarity of purpose. He would grind points and earn the skills he needed to beat the dungeon. Not because he wanted to, because he had to.
The next day passed in a blur of systematic sli hunting. He moved through the forest with chanical precision, no longer the desperate wanderer of days past but a focused survivor with a goal. Each encounter was efficient, clinical, and necessary.
[18 x Small infant harmless nature sli core converted into 18 points!]
Combined with his previous earnings, Mitch now had 30 points—enough to purchase the skills that might make the difference between life and death.
[Congratulations! You bought "Create elent"!]
[Congratulations! You bought "Create common weapon"!]
The knowledge flooded his brain in twin waves of information and pain. The headache that followed was more severe than before as if his mind was struggling to accommodate the new abilities. But when it passed, he felt... different. More complete.
He raised his hand with the confidence of soone who knew exactly what would happen.
"Create elent water."
A sphere of pure water, roughly the size of a ping-pong ball, materialized above his palm. It hovered for a mont, defying gravity, before splashing to the ground with a satisfying splat.
"That was aweso!"
Like a child with a new toy, he experinted with other elents.
Fire created a small but intense fla that ward his face. Earth produced a dense ball of soil that crumbled at his touch.
Wind generated a swirling miniature cyclone that dispersed after a few seconds. Lightning created a crackling orb of energy that made his hair stand on end.
He also tried rarer elents, rembering the wheel that had brought him here. Light, shadow, and the two he’d been blessed with: holy and space.
Most failed to manifest, but holy and space responded to his will.
The holy elent created a golden sphere of energy that pulsed with warmth and life.
On impulse, he pressed it against his wounded leg, and watched in amazent as the skin began to knit itself back together.
The process was visible, fascinating, and slightly disturbing, like watching ti run in reverse. After five seconds, the spell fizzled out, leaving him with a pounding headache but healed flesh.
[Mana Points: 0]
The limitation was clear, but so was the potential. He’d discovered that mana regenerated at a rate of 1 point every ten seconds inside a dungeon, and 1 per minute outside.
He waited for his mana to refill and completed the healing process, marveling at skin that looked as if it had never been injured.
The space elent proved more mysterious. It created a black orb that seed to absorb light rather than emit it.
He could push his hand through it, throw rocks at it, even strike it with his branch, but nothing produced any visible effect. It simply existed, a pocket of nothingness that defied explanation.
Maybe I don’t understand its use yet, he mused. Or maybe it needs a higher-tier skill to unlock its potential.
When he attempted [Create Weapon], nothing happened. The mana cost was apparently too high for his current reserves, but he suspected that would change with ti and practice.
And so he trained. Hour after hour, he created fireballs.
He discovered that by channeling two points of mana instead of one, he could create larger, more powerful flas.
Each experint taught him sothing new about the flow of energy through his body and the delicate balance required to shape raw mana into useful effects.
His persistence paid off when the familiar voice announced his breakthrough:
[Congratulations! You have a disposition towards mana, you can manipulate mana, even though it is just a little!]
[You got „Apprentice mana manipulation" 5 mana and a little help with mana manipulation!]
Na: Mitch (human)
Level: 1 (tier 1)
Class: None
Divine blessing: Creation system ★★★★★★★★★★
Body: 6
Mind: 9
Mana: 15
Achievents: Otherworlder ★★★‚ Divine luck ★★★★★★★★
Skills: [Gather], [Inspect], [Create common weapon], [Create elent]
Passives: [Apprentice mana manipulation]
As he stared at his updated status screen, Mitch felt a surge of confidence he hadn’t experienced since arriving in this world. He was no longer the helpless office worker who’d stumbled into a nightmare. He was becoming sothing new, a survivor, a warrior, perhaps even a hero.
The dungeon waited in the distance, its entrance a dark promise of danger and opportunity. But now he had options, tools, and most importantly, hope.
Tomorrow, he would return. And this ti, he would be ready.
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