Chương 9: The Mist-Veiled Grove

Mercifully, my stamina bar refills in about forty-five minutes. Which means I am now obligated—nay, destined—to cut off the stars mid-argument by springing to my feet like an overcaffeinated opossum. I caught maybe three words of their debate. Pretty sure the last topic was "crunchwrap ethics." I regret knowing that. I will leave such matters to the professionals—the stars… apparently—and instead do something infinitely more noble: Slaughter innocent wildlife and possibly vegetarian monsters. Again.

And thus, with the grace of a dramatic stage exit no one asked for, I step toward the treeline, leaving behind only a few charred moss patches as proof that I was here and mildly irresponsible. I make it two seconds into the woods before a vine wraps around my ankle and tries to introduce my face to the ground. Unforgivable. Inspect fires immediately. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Whisperroot Creeper (Level 6 | Tier 0) Species: Mistborne Flora A predatory plant found only in the Mist-Veiled Grove.

It ensnares passing creatures with silent tendrils before draining them of vitality. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ So there are environmental hazards now? Charming. Astral energy flares, starfire curling around my ankle. The vine is reduced to ash in half a heartbeat—though disappointingly, the system does not reward me with a kill notification. Meaning that wasn't the main body. Annoying. Insulting. Possibly grounds for deforestation via forest fire. But I refrain. For now.

There are still other people in the Tutorial, and I am—of course— magnanimous. So I will graciously allow them to experience the joys of this questionably placed stealth zone.

"You just want them to suffer because it would be hilarious." My tail flicks in dignified disagreement. Like I said: I'm generously allowing them to enjoy the forest. To the fullest. Perfect logic. Flawless, even. That being said, this place is… spooky. Between the misty "silent horror film" visibility and now the environmental hazards, sprinting at full speed seems like the absolute worst idea— —so naturally, I do exactly that. Running skill won't upgrade itself.

I expect another long trek before an encounter, like the last zone. Instead, barely five minutes in, a feathery missile dives directly toward my face. I jump left with the efficiency of someone who sees responsibility approaching and refuses to acknowledge it. The feathered attitude adjustment vanishes back into the mist, giving me no time to Inspect it. I wait a few seconds—nothing. So I stomp once, offended, and continue.

A few minutes later, the flying menace returns, and this time I get my scan: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Mist-Feather Owl (Level 6 | Tier 0) Species: Avian A stealthy ambush hunter native to fog-covered regions. Its keen senses and rapid diving attacks make it dangerous to the unwary. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I nod. Acceptable. Now that I know what it is, I can kill it with a clear conscience. The stealth-attack pattern is mildly concerning.

My improved Dexterity and Perception can keep up— for now —but once enemies get faster, things might get dicey. Several minutes pass. Another owl commits to the same bad life choices as its predecessor. This time, the instant it dives, I compress gravity along its flight path. The moment it touches the invisible field, it nosedives with a surprised, indignant squawk and detonates into a cloud of feathers and poor decisions.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You have slain Mist-Feather Owl (Level 6 | Tier 0) A slight experience bonus has been awarded for slaying a monster 2 levels above you. You have gained 10 Tutorial Points. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I disable the gravity field and stare down at the owl-pudding I've created. I meant to simply knock it out of the air—not convert it into forest pâté—but apparently its vitality stat was held together by optimism and duct tape. Which… does not bode well for pure Dexterity builds.

My gaze drifts to my status. Dexterity: 34 Vitality: 10"..." I shrug. Sure, being killed by accidental self-inflicted physics damage would be humiliating—but I am, after all, the greatest genius alive. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Obviously far too intelligent to yeet myself into a tree at terminal velocity and become Lyn paste. Probably. With that fun thought in mind, I continue my noble quest to disrupt the ecosystem.

It takes about ten minutes—and one additional owl forcibly introduced to the ground at high velocity—before I find something new: a suspiciously glowing flower. For once in my life, I choose caution over impulse and Identify before charging it like a puppy spotting a mailman. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dewdrop Lantern Lily (Level 6 | Tier 0) Species: Mistborne Flora A predatory plant found only within the Mist-Veiled Grove.

Detonates into toxic pollen when approached, paralyzing prey before slowly draining vitality. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I nod, grateful that future-me doesn't have to explain "death by flower" upon reaching the afterlife. I don't think I have a counter to poison—unless covering myself in starfire works.

"It would."

"Huh." Good to know—but I'd rather not set myself on fire just to prove a point, so: alternative murder strategies. Running around it would work, but that forfeits EXP. Unacceptable. So. How to delete the floral war crime? Fire: no, I can't get close. Gravity: useless. If a 30% gravity increase kills a flower, I'm retiring. Which leaves: light. Illusions won't do anything here—(mental note: test those on the next owl)—so I shoot a beam of radiance at it. Shockingly, that works.

The flower detonates into a cloud of pale lilac pollen that drifts harmlessly to the ground, having failed spectacularly at hitting me. … awkward. Three more beams later: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You have slain Dewdrop Lantern Lily (Level 6 | Tier 0) A slight experience bonus has been awarded for slaying a monster 2 levels above you. You have gained 10 Tutorial Points. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Four beams. Twenty stamina. To kill a flower. Ridiculous.

Maybe starlight scales better later, but right now its offensive output ranks squarely in F-tier, right beside poking something with my finger and hoping it dies from embarrassment. Another four owls, two flowers, and one creeper later—(thankfully the main body this time)—something finally happens. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You have slain Mist-Feather Owl (Level 6 | Tier 0) A slight experience bonus has been awarded for slaying a monster 2 levels above you. You have gained 10 Tutorial Points.

Your race has leveled up to level 5 Your class has leveled up to level 5 Skill Selection Available ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Same process as always: open status, dump points into Dexterity, and save the skill decision for when it matters. I also managed to test illusions—and much to my annoyance, I need line of sight to use them. So… nearly useless here. Perfect. Somewhere between vaporizing my tenth sentient lily and punting yet another owl into the ground, time stopped being real.

Everything blurred: identical fog, identical enemies, identical murder method. My emotional range flattened to a single universal constant: Bored. Based on the tutorial timer, I had been at this for nearly 3 hours. Doesn't matter. Time is a polite suggestion anyway. Fourteen kills later, I level again—along with the realization that maybe the only reason I've seen nothing but owls is because everything else spawns during the day.

After spending points like always, I check my full status: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Lyn Health: 100 / 100 Stamina: 424 / 460 Race: Foxkin (Level 6 | Tier 0) Class: Warrior [Common] (Level 6 | Tier 0) Aspect: Star Traits: [Starborn] Titles: Stats Vitality: 10 Strength: 22 Dexterity: 46 Perception: 22 Charisma: 10 Free Points: 0 Class Skills (3/8): [Slash (Common)] [Lesser Dexterity (Common)] [Improved Dash (Uncommon)] General Skills (5/8): [Inspect (Common)] [Running (Uncommon)] [Nascent Sword Style (Uncommon)] [Footwork (Common)] [Lesser Astral Manipulation (Rare)] Racial Skills: Vulpine Senses Special Skills: [Universal Translation] Tutorial Points: 405 Tutorial Countdown: 48 days, 15 hours, 12 minutes Skill Selection Available ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Starborn truly is absurd.

I've spent hours sprinting, blasting light, and smashing owls into various objects, yet my stamina has barely dipped. Also: Dexterity is now officially double my other investment stats. Hooray. I guess. I should feel accomplished, but this area is painfully repetitive. The owls are suicidal rats with wings, the flowers are stationary disappointment grenades, and the vines are just slow, passive-aggressive noodles. And the zone is huge.

I'm moving at double the speed I was in the first area, and after nearly three hours of nonstop running, I still haven't hit the next transition. The only mercy: The stars Their nonstop commentary is like having access to a chaotic, unfiltered podcast recorded live in the world's largest padded room. Which is, to say, endlessly entertaining. Still not entirely sure how they transitioned from discussing bovine aerodynamics to outlining a detailed world conquest plan in under four sentences, but… impressive.

Even geniuses recognize greatness. Eventually, even my eternal, incandescent spite runs low. I should sleep. The pent-up irritation is starting to sharpen into a very specific flavor of madness, and there is only so long a person can listen to a passionate debate about dictatorship infrastructure logistics before their soul starts yawning. So I look for a tree to sleep on— —and discover with mounting horror that none have accessible branches. No low branches. No climbable branches.

Not even a polite knot in the bark pretending to be helpful. Just tall, smug columns of wood. I search for over twenty minutes. Every tree is the same: tall… branchless… mocking me. I blink slowly. Then—gracefully, delicately—I throw both hands in the air.

"Where am I supposed to sleep then?! The ground?!" I give the glowing moss an agonized look. The glowing moss offers no emotional support. It just… sparkles at me. Rude. I briefly consider headbutting a tree. Then I stop considering it and transition seamlessly into action, elegantly slamming my forehead against the nearest trunk. The sound that comes back is… wrong. Not solid wood. Hollow. I freeze, betrayed by reality and also mildly concerned I may have concussed myself.

Then, out of curiosity—and fine, maybe desperation—I cast Inspect. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Hollowstone Tree An ancient species native to the Mist-Veiled Grove. The trunk is hollow, accessible only through its dense outer bark. Monsters are known to avoid proximity to these trees. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"…" Ask and the universe provides, I guess.

I pull out my sword and give the trunk a test swing— —and stop mid-motion as my blade slides through the allegedly dense outer bark with the structural resistance of warm pudding. Ah. False advertising: still a timeless constant across realities. A few more swings and I've created what can only be described as a crime against architecture. A door that looks less crafted and more chewed through by an ambitious beaver with emotional problems. Tragic for the tree.

Imagine existing for centuries—minding your business, filtering sunlight, photosynthesizing peacefully—only for some fox girl to wander over, carve you open, and declare squatter's rights like a sentient raccoon with a superiority complex. Honestly, it should consider itself honored. Housing the most brilliant, beautiful being in the world is an upgrade. A blessing. A gift.

Naturally, I step inside, take a brief moment to admire the hollowed space above me, and then curl up into a compact ball of smug exhaustion on the wooden floor of my newly claimed bedroom. Sleep drags me under faster than expected—apparently irritation burns energy. But not before I quietly smile at the soft chorus of goodnights from the stars overhead. … Not that I will ever admit that part out loud.