Chương 4: Chapter 3: Pioneer of Knowledge

James washed the dried blood from his body in the river until the water around his legs ran clear again. The cuts across his arms and chest still burned, and the deeper wounds pulled whenever he moved too quickly, but they felt much better than they had the night before. The points he had invested into Vitality were already proving their value, because the injuries remained present without controlling every breath or movement he made.

He ate the remains of the previous night's fish while sitting on a flat stone beside the river. It was cold, dry, and tasted mostly of smoke, but James was hungry enough that complaining would have been pointless. The forest appeared calm in the early morning light, although he had already learned that peaceful-looking bushes could contain claws, poison, or some other new bullshit waiting for him to stop paying attention. By the beginning of the second day, James had settled on a goal beyond simple survival.

Somebody inside Tutorial #782-F had reached Level Five before the first night, while he had only reached Level Two, and that difference bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

"That lead isn't going to last," James said as he wiped his hands against his pants. He checked the tree line afterward, because announcing challenges to people who could not hear him was harmless, but announcing them to monsters was less intelligent. James inspected his equipment before leaving the river.

The Feral claw tied to the end of his spear had cracked during the previous day's fighting, so he removed the binding, replaced the damaged point with a better claw, and secured everything with chalk line and electrical tape. The weapon remained crude, but it had already kept multiple monsters farther away from his organs, which made appearance completely irrelevant. His framing hammer still bothered him for a different reason.

It worked well enough against Ferals, but James wanted the sledgehammer he normally kept with his work equipment, because a heavier weapon would make far better use of his growing Strength.

"Could be worse. I could have been transported with a fucking stapler," James said while hooking the hammer back onto his belt. The comment improved his mood enough that he started walking before he could think of several tools that would actually have been worse. The heat became oppressive once he moved away from the river. Sweat formed beneath his shirt despite the shade, and the humid air made the injuries under his clothing itch almost immediately.

"I wonder which attribute helps with enduring heat," James said as he pushed through a patch of ferns. He stopped after two more steps, stared ahead for a moment, and started laughing at himself.

"Enduring heat. Endurance. Jesus Christ, James," he said while shaking his head. The answer seemed embarrassingly obvious once he heard himself say it, but the realization gave him a better idea of how he wanted to develop. Strength helped him hit harder and Vitality kept him alive, while Endurance would presumably determine how long he could keep functioning under heat, exhaustion, and continuous fighting. His other attributes could not be ignored either.

Perception might keep him from walking into an ambush, Willpower clearly mattered enough for the System to measure it, and Agility would become increasingly important if monsters grew faster with their levels.

"I need an actual build instead of dumping everything into hitting shit harder," James said as he continued through the ferns. He still intended to hit things considerably harder, but he wanted the rest of his body capable of surviving the process. Several dark-red berries caught his attention not long afterward. They grew beneath a large oak in thick clusters, each berry small enough to fit easily between two fingers and covered in smooth skin.

James crouched beside the bush, smelled one, and immediately encountered a problem that would have been simple before Integration if he had possessed a phone signal and access to the internet. He had no idea whether the berries were safe.

"An analysis skill would be really fucking useful," James said as he plucked one from the bush. He rolled it between his fingers and concentrated on the fruit while trying commands he remembered from games and fantasy stories.

"Inspect. Identify. Analyze. Appraise." None of the words produced a response, and the berry remained completely ordinary in his hand. James could have walked away. Eating an unknown plant was unnecessary when he still had a river and knew he could catch fish, but the problem had become more interesting than the berry itself.

The System responded to actions, generated class seeds from behavior, and had already demonstrated that humanity was operating under rules James did not understand, which meant those rules might be manipulated if he could determine how. He sat beside the bush and tried again. James imagined energy moving through his eyes, attempted to mentally command the System, and repeated every word he could think of until the exercise began feeling increasingly stupid.

"Analyze. Inspect. Identify. Appraise. Scan. Reveal. Information. Pick one and fucking work," James said while holding the berry directly in front of his face. His eyes began aching after several minutes, but irritation made stopping harder rather than easier. The first hour accomplished nothing beyond giving him a headache. James stood, walked around the tree, drank some water from the small supply he had carried away from the river, and seriously considered admitting defeat.

He sat down again instead, because one of his more useful and more irritating qualities had always been an unwillingness to abandon a problem once he believed a solution existed. The mistake, he eventually realized, might be his obsession with commands. James did not actually care whether the skill was called Appraisal, Inspection, Analysis, or something else entirely.

He wanted to understand the berry, know whether it could be eaten, discover whether it had useful properties, and stop treating everything in the new world as an unidentified threat. James focused on that desire instead of the word. He stopped repeating commands and concentrated on the berry until the surrounding forest became background noise. His eyes watered, sweat ran down the side of his face, and pressure built behind his forehead, but something eventually changed after more than two hours of stubborn effort.

A golden System window appeared. [Congratulations!] [You have successfully learned Appraisal.] [+3 Perception.] [+3 Intelligence.] [+3 Willpower.] [You are now able to perceive the nature of anything upon which you focus your sight.] [This skill scales with level and comprehension.] [Appraisal lvl. 1.] James stared at the golden text before throwing one fist into the air.

"YES! You stubborn glowing bastard, I knew that would work," he said before remembering that shouting inside a monster-filled forest was probably poor survival technique. He immediately lowered his voice and scanned the surrounding trees while listening for anything attracted by the noise. Nothing charged him. James focused on the berry again and reached for the unfamiliar mental sensation associated with Appraisal. This time, a normal blue information window appeared almost immediately.

[Forest Vitality Berry] [A common vitality berry that can be consumed for sustenance.] [Consumption carries a minuscule chance of permanently increasing Vitality.] [May be used in alchemical crafting.]"That is fucking useful," James said as he examined the berry with considerably greater appreciation. Food alone made the plant valuable, while even a tiny possibility of gaining permanent Vitality meant gathering some would be worth the effort. Another golden window interrupted him before he could test the taste.

[Special Achievement.] [Through will alone, you have independently learned a skill.] [You are the first individual on Earth to accomplish this.] [Title granted: Pioneer of Knowledge.] [Willpower increased by 10%.] James reread the announcement several times. Being the first person in his tutorial would have been impressive enough, but the System had specifically said Earth, which meant nobody across the entire planet had independently learned a new skill before him.

"Okay, that is actually fucking awesome," James said as he stood with the berry still between his fingers. He kept his voice lower this time, although his excitement made the final word louder than intended. Branches moved nearby. James closed his eyes briefly.

"Of course they fucking heard me," he said while reaching for his spear. Two Battleground Ferals burst through the undergrowth before he had time to regret celebrating. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The first Feral lunged low, but James had fought enough of them to recognize the movement. He stepped aside and drove the spear into its neck, twisting the shaft before pulling it free.

The second monster attacked while his weapon was still caught in the first body, forcing James to release the spear and draw his framing hammer. The hammer struck the second Feral across the jaw. James followed the hit immediately, recovered his spear from the first corpse, and drove the claw point through one of the remaining creature's eyes before it regained its balance. Both monsters stopped moving within seconds, and blue notifications appeared above them. [You have slain a Battleground Feral lvl. 1.] [Experience awarded.] [You have slain a Battleground Feral lvl. 1.] [Experience awarded.]"That barely felt like a fight anymore," James said while checking himself for fresh wounds. Neither Feral had managed to cut him, which would have been almost unthinkable during his first encounter the previous day. He cleaned his weapons and harvested the best claws before returning to the berry bush. James ate several berries cautiously at first, then increased the pace once his stomach failed to protest.

They were sweet enough to be pleasant, and he eventually consumed more than fifty while hoping the tiny chance of increased Vitality would trigger.

"Come on, just one point. I've eaten enough of you bastards to qualify as a grazing animal," James said while swallowing another handful. No attribute increase appeared, and after several more attempts he accepted that minuscule apparently meant exactly what it said. He filled his pockets with additional berries rather than stripping the bush completely. Food that required no cooking was valuable, and leaving some fruit behind meant the plant might remain useful if he returned to the area later.

More importantly, Appraisal had opened an entirely new way to interact with the forest. James used the skill on nearly everything he passed. [Common Oak.] [River Stone.] [Wild Thornvine.] [Black Soil.] Most results were simple, but the information still mattered. Plants stopped being completely unknown, materials gained names, and every successful use helped James practice activating the skill more quickly.

He began testing mushrooms, roots, bark, stones, insects, and anything else that remained still long enough for him to focus. The forest itself became easier to appreciate once he understood more of what surrounded him. Massive trees blocked much of the summer sun, birds called from high branches, and the constant machinery and traffic noise James had lived around for most of his life simply did not exist here.

The place remained extremely dangerous, but danger did not make the clean water, fresh air, and enormous stretches of untouched forest less real. James found himself thinking about something beyond immediate survival. Humanity's old world had been transformed, millions or billions of people were probably fighting through tutorials of their own, and nobody knew what Earth would look like in thirty days. He still wanted to see it.

Whatever happened afterward, James wanted to survive long enough to find out what the new world could become. Movement ahead interrupted the thought. James lowered himself behind an oak and watched a fox-like creature move through the undergrowth. Rust-red fur covered its body, while three long tails extended behind it and moved independently. Each tail ended in a narrow metallic point sharp enough that James immediately stopped thinking of the creature as an ordinary animal. He activated Appraisal. [Iron Fox lvl. 3.] [The Iron Fox uses its sharp metallic tails to hunt prey.] [Highly aggressive and territorial.] James smiled as he read the level. Ferals had become manageable, which made fighting them safer but less useful if he wanted to close the gap with the tutorial leader.

"Level Three. Now we're getting somewhere," James said while remaining behind cover. The creature's tails also looked significantly better than the Feral claws currently serving as spearheads. He backed away and built a second crude spear from a spare Feral claw and another branch. The new weapon only needed to survive one throw, so James focused on making the point secure enough to penetrate and the shaft balanced enough to travel in roughly the direction he aimed.

After testing the weight, he circled the Iron Fox until a thick oak stood close enough to provide cover. James threw. The crude spear struck the fox along its side and penetrated several inches. The creature shrieked and spun toward him with all three tails lifting behind it.

"Yeah, I'd be pissed too," James said as he drew his hammer and primary spear. He moved before the fox could choose how to attack. The fox was faster than a Feral even with the wound slowing it. James struck the side of its head with the hammer and drove his spear into the injured flank, but three metallic tails immediately snapped toward him in response. He avoided the first, felt the second cut through his shirt without reaching skin, and threw himself aside before the third could enter his stomach.

James regained his feet and changed tactics. The fox was bleeding heavily, and continuing to trade attacks only gave it additional opportunities to land one of those tails. He moved behind the nearby oak and forced the creature to come after him. A metallic tail punched deep into the tree trunk where James had been standing a moment earlier.

"Holy shit. Definitely not letting that hit me," James said as he circled the oak. The fox followed and attacked again, but the large trunk prevented it from bringing all three tails against him effectively. James continued moving instead of trying to finish the fight quickly. Each failed attack cost the fox energy, and blood continued running from the wound in its side.

"Come on, you three-tailed asshole. Keep wasting your strength," James said while moving around the opposite side of the tree. He watched its footing rather than its face and waited for the movement to slow. The fox eventually stumbled. James remained behind the oak until the tails dropped and the creature's legs could no longer support its weight. Only then did he approach, keeping the spear ready until he was absolutely certain the monster was dead. [You have slain an Iron Fox lvl. 3.] [Experience awarded.]"That's more fucking like it," James said while allowing himself to breathe normally again. The battle had been far more dangerous than fighting Ferals, but it had also given him something better than another pile of claws. He knelt beside the corpse and began studying the metallic tails. Each tail was several feet long, flexible near the base and increasingly rigid toward the pointed end.

James removed one carefully, cut the damaged Feral claw from his primary spear, and began modifying the weapon around the better material. The process required several adjustments because the tail did not sit against the wooden shaft the same way a claw did. James carved a shallow seat into the wood, tightened the chalk line, reinforced the connection, and tested the balance repeatedly.

His years of construction work mattered more than any fantasy knowledge during the process, because the problem still came down to load, leverage, and preventing two materials from separating when force passed through them. The finished spear looked strange, but the point was much sharper and stronger than anything he had used before. [Action recorded.] [Class seed progressing.]"Whatever class you're building, I hope it comes with a better fucking hammer," James said while testing the spear against the ground.

The shaft held, and the metallic point entered the soil with almost no effort. He packed the remaining usable tail sections and continued north. Twenty minutes later, four snakes appeared across a broken section of forest floor. James stopped the instant he noticed them, but one raised its head before he could retreat. The other three quickly followed. Appraisal confirmed the problem. [Forest Snake lvl. 2.] [Forest Snake lvl. 2.] [Forest Snake lvl. 2.] [Forest Snake lvl. 2.]"Of course there are four of you," James said as the snakes began moving toward him. He turned and ran, using thicker terrain to prevent the group from surrounding him all at once. James angled between roots, rocks, and fallen branches until the snakes began separating. The first caught up alone, and the Iron Fox spear proved its value immediately when the metallic edge cut through its neck in one clean strike.

Two more arrived close together, forcing James to throw a rock at one while meeting the other with his utility knife. The third snake recovered faster than expected. Its fangs sank into James's calf.

"FUCK!" James shouted as the snake wrapped around his ankle. He grabbed it behind the head and drove his knife downward twice before the creature finally released him. [You have defeated Forest Snake lvl. 2.] [Experience awarded.] [You have defeated Forest Snake lvl. 2.] [Experience awarded.] [You have defeated Forest Snake lvl. 2.] [Experience awarded.] Heat spread rapidly from the bite. James staggered backward while his calf cramped and dizziness made the trees shift in his vision.

The fourth snake had stopped several yards away and, after looking toward the bodies of the others, turned to escape. James should have let it go. Instead, pain and anger won the argument.

"Oh, no, you fucking don't," James said as he forced himself after it. He caught the snake between several large roots, threw himself forward, and pinned part of its body beneath his weight. James grabbed directly behind its head and raised the utility knife. The snake fought violently for several seconds before becoming completely still, and when James looked down, he saw fear in its eyes.

He hesitated with the knife raised because the reaction felt different from the blind aggression he had seen from most tutorial monsters. The desire to kill it disappeared. James slowly loosened his grip. The snake immediately twisted free and moved several yards away, but it did not vanish into the brush. It turned and watched him while James remained on one knee, breathing through the poison burning up his leg.

"I'm sorry, little one. You can go," James said quietly as he lowered the knife. The snake continued staring at him instead of leaving. A blue notification appeared. [Action recorded.] [Class seed is growing.] James frowned at the message. Before he could decide what sparing a snake had to do with his future class, another System window opened. [Forest Snake lvl. 2 wishes to become your familiar.] [Do you accept?] [Y/N] James stared at the snake. Then he stared at the prompt.

Despite the poison spreading through his leg, a grin slowly appeared on his face.