Three days. Three Epiphany Points.
Kael sat on his cot, the two copper coins a cold, hard weight in his palm. The math was a brutal, unblinking overseer. If three days of dawn-to-dusk grinding in the Whisperwood—of scratched hands, aching muscles, and the constant, low-grade fear of something stronger than a Moss-Rat finding him—only yielded a single EP, then his quest for ten would take a month.
A month. The thought should have been despairing. Instead, it was a challenge accepted. He had nothing but time.
On the fourth day, he changed his strategy. The Vitality and Spirit build had been good for survival and gathering, but it was passive. He needed to be more aggressive to improve his yield. When the daily reset clicked over at dawn, he allocated his points not for defense, but for offense.
He moved one point from Vitality to Strength, and one from Intelligence to Agility.
[Current Distribution: S:5, A:4, V:4, I:5, Sp:1]
The change was immediate and electrifying. The leaden feeling vanished, replaced by a tense, wire-like springiness in his muscles. He felt faster, stronger. The world seemed to slow down just enough for him to feel in control. This was the body of a low-level hunter, not a gatherer.
He returned to the forest, his skinning knife feeling more like a weapon and less like a tool. He found a Moss-Rat almost immediately. This time, when it darted, his body reacted. His lunge was still clumsy, but it was faster, covering more ground. His strike with the knife had more force behind it, ending the creature in one clean motion instead of a messy struggle.
The efficiency was palpable. He spent less energy per kill. He covered more ground, checking his snares and foraging with quicker strides. By midday, he had bagged three Moss-Rats and a handful of herbs. He felt a surge of triumph. This was better. This was progress.
But the forest, he was learning, was a place of balances. His higher Agility made him faster, but it also made him noisier. His footfalls were less careful, his passage through the undergrowth less discreet.
In the late afternoon, while tracking a game trail, he heard a low growl from a thicket. He froze, his new stats making his heart hammer a frantic rhythm against his ribs. A creature emerged—a Forest Strider, a canine-like beast the size of a large dog. It was far beyond a Moss-Rat. Its eyes held a feral intelligence, and its muscles coiled with a strength his 5 could never match.
This was not part of the plan.
The Strider lunged. Kael's heightened Agility saved him. He threw himself sideways, the beast's claws tearing through his tunic instead of his flesh. He scrambled back, his mind screaming. He couldn't fight this. His 5 Strength was a joke against it.
He ran.
His 4 Agility was just enough. He weaved through the trees, the Strider's hot breath on his heels. He didn't try to lose it with speed; he used the terrain, ducking under low branches and jumping over fallen logs, relying on his smaller size. After a heart-pounding minute, the beast broke off the chase, unwilling to stray too far from its territory.
Kael collapsed against a tree, gasping for air, his body trembling with adrenaline. He had lost his pouch in the flight, with all the day's harvest. His HP was untouched, but his morale had taken a hit. The aggressive build had increased his yield but also his risk. The forest demanded respect.
As dusk fell and his stats reset, he felt a profound weariness. He had nothing tangible to show for the day's work. Yet, as he walked back to his empty hut, a prompt appeared.
[Skill Level Up: Basic Survival (Lv. 2)]
Your repeated successes and failures in the wild have honed your instincts.
Effect: Moderately increases the yield and quality of foraged materials and small game. Slightly improves stealth while moving in natural environments.
And beneath it, the one he had been working for.
[Epiphany Points (EP): 4]
He had lost his harvest, but he had gained a level in a skill and, crucially, another point. The failure had been a lesson, and the system had still rewarded his overall effort and accumulated experience. The grind was not just about success; it was about persistence.
He had earned his fourth grain of sand. And he had learned that every stat allocation was a trade-off, a delicate dance of risk and reward on the slow, slow path to power.
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Kael's Status
Name: Kael
Race:Human (Latent)
Titles:None
Health (HP): 30/30
Mana (MP):5/5
Attributes:
· Strength: 4 (Below Average)
· Agility: 3 (Deficient)
· Vitality: 5 (Average)
· Intelligence: 6 (Average)
· Spirit: 1 (Crippled)
Essence (Stat Points): 0 (Daily Reset Available)
Epiphany Points (EP):4
Skills:
· Basic Survival (Lv. 2): Moderately increases yield/quality of foraged materials and small game. Slight stealth improvement in natural environments.
Active Quests:
· The Grind Begins: Earn 10 EP. (Progress: 4/10)
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