Theo followed the river upstream until he found a good camping spot. A tree had fallen over the width of the river, its trunk having shattered from the rot, creating a decently isolated cove where the water crashed into the trunk then flowed around it. The fish Theo had seen seemed to love the small pond that had formed and with a little effort he knew he would be able to catch a few.

  Taking the time to collect branches and using the pot he had brought from the ruins of his home, Theo made a small fire to boil water. While he waited for the water to heat up he washed the set of clothes he had kept from his purge.

  He was tired and had decided to take some time here to recover. Without needing to worry about food and water any longer he decided to save what remained of his canned goods and focus on catching fish that he hoped he could turn into a source of rations.

  While he worked he wondered how long he had been in this place. The ever unchanging grey sky gave him no clue as to the passage of time, and his internal clock had always been messed up when it came to his sleep schedule and trying to go off of when he slept and when he felt tired was a losing game.

  Theo hadn’t realized how oppressive the grey of this world was, and even the flash of color from the fish in the water wasn’t enough to shake the dull feeling that set into him when he no longer had anything to do but sit around and think.

  He had gotten careless. Too sure of himself after so many successful hunts, he had gotten lucky that the apes that had injured him had such an obvious weakness as the flowers. If they had been healthy animals, he had no doubt they would have used their strength to properly subdue him, and it was only thanks to their zombie-like behavior that he had had a chance.

  He needed more weapons in his arsenal, especially if he came across groups of the infested animals.

  Turning his focus inwards he began to practice controlling his mana again. Trying to figure out what else he could do with the energy.

  Grabbing some of the mana with his focus, he tried to push it from his body. Thinking through the various stories he knew.

  It bled from his skin and into the air around him. His control over it completely slipped the moment it left his body no matter how hard he focused on it. After failing to control the mana outside of his body, he eventually focused on trying to improve his body enhancement skill. It was called [lesser body enhancement] so it was safe for him to assume that there was a stronger version. Not to mention if he could find a way to improve his [strike] skill.

  But what he really wanted was some kind of ranged attack. Throwing sticks and stones to make the flowers waste their attacks was all well and good. But what he really needed was a way to disable creatures from range.

  He could probably make a sling, but he was under no illusions that he would be able to use it with any degree of proficiency.

  Over the next few “days” Theo practiced while he gave his leg time to heal and rest. He had been right about the burn on his back and the itching. It drove him crazy, and no amount of soaking or ointment seemed to help. But as time slowly progressed, he started to heal.

  He had always been a fast healer. Cuts and bruises fading faster than any of his friends had expressed back on Earth.

  As Theo let himself heal, he collected a small stockpile of fish, using a long thin branch that he forked on one end to spear them out of the water. They tasted fine, nothing special like the smoked fish he had grown up eating, but without any green plants to properly smoke the meat, it was just a dried and overcooked fish jerky.

  He even explored the area around the river, clearing out any of the flower monsters he could find, and he made a point to patrol around his base camp after every nap he took just to be as secure as possible.

  His practice with his mana control had shown decent progress. The quality that he could control at a time growing ever larger by the day, he felt like he was on the verge of improving his [lesser body enhancement] as he could now force more and more of the energy into larger portions of his body.

  Another trick he discovered, though it didn’t count as a skill as far as the System was concerned, was when he collected as much mana as he could inside of him and forced it from the palm of his hand all at once.

  The effect created a loud “pop” that sent a gust of air out like he had popped a balloon. Far from useful, but he felt like he was onto something and continued to practice the effect.

  The swelling in his leg had gone down quite a bit, and while he still needed to keep it in his makeshift splint, Theo was able to move much closer to a normal walking pace and frequent soaks in the river only seemed to improve its condition.

  He was definitely healing faster than he should have. He had never broken anything before, but he knew it could take months for things to properly heal while being supported with a cast, and Theo wondered if it was a result of his tier up or the constant reinforcing he did with his mana.

  He had to admit as time passed that he was feeling lonely. He had taken for granted how easily it was for him to message his online friends or to go out into the world to get fast food or a snack.

  He even found himself missing work, not that he had enjoyed his job at all. But a few of his coworkers had been fun to talk to and shoot the shit with. Theo thought about his family. Most of them were tolerable. But his brother was someone he enjoyed hanging out with, and he hoped that whatever had displaced him and his home had left them alone.

  What had happened to make this his reality? He remembered his final words the morning he had been transmigrated. Was it his wish? Had some foreign god heard him and sent him on this journey?

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  Had he died and gone to some weird afterlife?

  No matter how many times he mulled over those thoughts no answers came to him.

  When he finally felt recovered enough to continue onwards towards the tree, it must have been at least a week. His leg was still painful. But an extra wrapping of duck tape secured it enough that walking on it barely twitched with any pain. His back had blessedly stopped itching and now with the river to follow Theo was making good progress.

  He wasn’t sure why the monsters were less dense around the river, but he encountered less of them than he had been while walking through the rotten forest. Only when he stopped to take his breaks did he venture out from the river. Being extra careful in his hunts of the flowers in order to continue harvesting the essence they gave him upon their demise.

  He felt like he was approaching another threshold. The essence flowing into him, condensing his mana further and further with every hunt. While his progress was slower because of his injured leg, the green in the distance grew closer and closer. He has vastly underestimated the distance to the tree from his scouting early on his arrival. The tree was truly gigantic. The term that came to mind was “world tree”. Each of its wilted leaves likely could have blanketed entire blocks of his home town, and the wind that caused them to shimmer must have been incredibly strong to make such large movements in its branches.

  Whenever he strayed from the river, the monsters were growing truly numerous. Groups of five or six that Theo had to back track to avoid wandered around mindlessly between the stumps and fallen trees. Each of them showing the tell tale signs of the parasite flowers as lumps on their backs.

  Theo only picking off any stragglers he could find in groups of at most two. Using the sound from thrown branches to distract them or ambushing them from behind cover as they passed by.

  His bag had filled with the cores he had bothered to harvest, and he started to discard any of them that didn’t match his affinity. Sure he had no use for them at the moment, but maybe in the future he’d find a use for them.

  Theo was practicing with his mana during a rest when he finally got the system message he had been hoping for.

  [Skill Evolved: Body Enhancement]

  “YES! FINALLY!” He couldn’t help but shout. It had taken a lot of effort, but he managed to distribute his mana throughout his body and enhance every part of himself at once.

  It felt like he had doubled his speed when using the skill now, and instead of just one part of him. All of him was enhanced, allowing him to fully use the strength that the skill gave. It was also easier to use than before. The skill no longer required as much focus and timing with each step. Letting Theo focus more on moving his body than the mana inside of him.

  He felt like a superhero with how fast and far he could move in short bursts. It was tiring, but even a light jog felt more like a dead sprint. And when he tried to move he really moved.

  His throwing arm had also improved so when he fully enhanced his body, stones and branches he threw impacted with enough force to shatter wood or embed his projectiles into the soft wood of a rotten stump.

  Finally regaining some of his confidence Theo decided to try for a larger hunt. He was still going to target the weakest group he could find, but the call of progress and the excitement he was starting to feel again was motivating beyond words.

  Setting up a base camp to come back to, he set out looking for a good group to target.

  Theo held his breath as he watched the group of flowers odd behavior. It was a rotten pack of dog sized deer. Their antlers broken and jagged from their butting against the rotten stumps around them.

  It was four of them, and they mindlessly trotted around. Their bodies in various states of ruin. Only one of them seemed to be “healthy” more freshly parasitized than the others, while the rest were limping or dragging themselves with broken limbs.

  Theo wanted to target that one first, and knew he would only have a few moments before the flowers breach from their backs and started to shoot their poison at him.

  He had found a rotten sheet of bark that he turned into a makeshift shield. It was unwieldy and left him with only one hand for his spear. But something to put between himself and the flower’s attacks did a lot to make him feel safer and with his [body enhancement] he felt confident enough that he would be able to use it to take at least a few shots before closing the distance to his targets.

  Taking slow steady breaths, he focused himself before dashing out from his hiding place. The world around him blurred as he used [body enhancement] to close the distance to the healthier of the deer.

  They noticed him instantly, their backs swelling as the flowers reacted to his presence. But he was so fast it hardly mattered as his first [strike] found its mark. The blade of his spear chopping deep into the lump of the healthiest deer. It stilled instantly and he grinned in savage triumph knowing he had severed the stalk of the flower inside.

  Continuing his charge he jumped over his first victim and charged the second just as the flower breached its back. He threw out a heavy kick into the creature's side. Using [strike] and his momentum to send the creature sprawling, swiping and severing the flower from it as he ran past to the cover of a nearby tree.

  His breathing hard, he listened as the two remaining deer moved in his direction. The worst of the group, they dragged themselves where they had last seen him and Theo went around the opposite side of the tree.

  When he came around, the flower of the closest deer reacted to his movement and spat at him. He didn’t even bother dodging. Using his awkwardly shaped shield to absorb the attack as he rushed it down.

  Another swipe and Theo was left with one target. He yelled at it, the flower on its back sending blob after blob at him. Each of which he moved his shield to intercept. When he drew close, he finished it off with a quick stab through its pistil.

  Theo double checked that there were no other creatures nearby before finishing off the two flowers that weren’t quite dead yet. Basking in the essence they gave him.

  Theo had needed that. It was such a clear cut victory that gave him a much needed boost to his confidence. With his improved skill, he was fast. And the anxiety and fear that the encounter with the apes had dulled.

  ‘I can do this...’ he thought to himself as he examined the area around him. ‘Hell. I might even be good at this.’.

  He enjoyed his victory. Not bothering to harvest the monster cores. With animals of this size, the cores were bound to be small. And the previous ones he had killed hadn’t given him the wind aspected cores he was collecting.

  Instead he made his way back to his camp and enjoyed a small victory feast of fresh roasted fish and one of his cans of sweet corn.

  He could do this.