1.3.1 Level Up

The sand beneath his feet was a breath of fresh air to Michael. After everything he had endured—dangling in the rope—the touch of earth was like his mother's embrace after weeks apart.

It was home. It was safe.

Michael let go of rope and relaxed. He did not just relax, but collapsed into the earth, finding solace in its damp smell. He released every tense muscle in his body and rolled onto his back.

He took a deep breath. "I can't believe I did it. I actually did it."

That was probably the most athletic thing he had done in his entire life. Now that he was down to earth and safe—the entire experience strangely felt exhilarating.

A laughter rang out of him from the very depths of his soul. It lasted for minutes. Oh, he had wanted to continue longer, but the pain of his parched throat was too much.

"I need water."

And there was plenty of it.

Michael righted himself and dived into the lake. The icy water of the lake sent shivers down his spine, but it did not matter. He welcomed it. It was the chill of the cold, not fear of impending doom. Something normal. He deserved normal.

"I am no hero in a story. I don't want this."

His friends always talked about wanting superpowers to go on an epic quest. Insane, that's what they were for their dreams.

Watching characters go on an adventure on TV was well and good, but experiencing it in real life? It wasn't fun and games. Even if you weren't fighting monsters and were "just" hanging from a stupid rope on a stupid cliff. No indeed.

With a shake of his head, Michael waded deeper into the lake.

Both his forearms burned as soon as it touched the water. He must have bruised it when grabbing the rope during his fall. It had turned an angry red, and some of his skin was flaking off. Thankfully, there was no blood.

Michael ignored the pain in his arms as he picked up a round stone, scrubbed his hands clean with it to the best of his abilities, and scooped up water to wet his lips.

He did not know how much water he drank, but not even the coughing fit stopped him from drinking the water for too long.

Once his immediate thirst vanished. He remembered his hunger. But for now, he was content with cleaning himself in the water.

After he cleaned himself to his satisfaction, Michael looked closely at the lake. The strange creature that stared back at him made his jaw drop.

"What the?"

Michael started and stumbled on his own foot and fell backwards, slamming his back hard into the water's surface.

That image—it had to be his imagination. It must be.

He needed to take a look at it again. He had to make sure what he saw was not an imagination. But he was afraid of the thing that would look back at him.

Michael mustered his courage and looked back at his reflection. The reflection that stared back at him was a foreign creature.

Something unfamiliar to him.

Oh, he had the same angular face and the pale complexion. He even had the same birthmark below his right eye, shaped like a bird. Perhaps it was a star? He could never decide.

Everything else about him was different in one way or another. For one thing, half of his hair had turned white. And not in a way like those in some anime characters, half white, half black on either side. Or at least with some symmetry to it.

No, he had patches of white in his head and they had no symmetry to it. Wonderful!

And his eyes. One was light red that shone like rubies. Another blue like the sky. That could not be possible. His eyes had always been deep brown, almost black.

Those were the glaring changes. There were small things too.

The plain gold earring that hung from his earlobes was the same, but his ears had somehow grown smaller. His once rounder, flat nose had now grown pointier.

Ever since he woke up and crawled out of that egg thing, everything had changed for him. But this one, this change, was far too much. The world spun around him. Something wet, something cold embraced him. Dragging him deep.

When Michael woke up, he found the lower half of his body submerged in water, the upper half resting on the sandy shore. The lake water lapped at him every few seconds.

Michael righted himself and watched his reflection. So it wasn't a dream. His heart pounded and his breath grew heavy.

"Calm down, Michael. And breathe. Yes, breathe."

Ever since I arrived here, I've only been reacting to the situation instead of making a proper decision. No. It was not since I arrived, was it?

Even back home, he had never made his own decisions, had he? It's about time to stop that.

"For once, stop reacting and make sound decisions."

Michael stared at his reflection, focusing on his birthmark. That was a star, not a bird. A simple decision, insignificant even, yet it calmed him, firmed his resolve, changing something deep inside of him.

"When you are alone," Michael spoke. "Look for water and sustenance. And then a shelter. And when you have all those things, find a weapon to defend yourself."

Michael looked down at the lake. Fish of every colour swam in the mass of water. "I have plenty of water and foods should not be a problem either."

He looked up. Beyond that cliff was a cabin. "I even have a shelter. The only thing I need to find now is a weapon."

He looked back down at the lake and eyed the swimming fishes.

"For now, focus on the fish."

After all, having a source of food and hunting it for sustenance were two different things. He had gone fishing with his father before he had died. And even knew how to gut one.

But I don't have any fishing equipment here.

He raised both his hand before his eyes and closed them into a fist. He had no luxury to whine at the things he lacked. Besides, there were enough fish in the lake that he thought he could catch them with bare hands.

It was time to get his hands dirty, or, in this case, slippery.

All Michael did was stand still in an area of the lake highly populated with fish. At first they would slip away, swimming as if they were being chased by monsters. But over time, they came back, trying to nibble at his legs.

Michael pounced at them with his hands.

The slippery things were too nimble for him to catch them on his first try.

His failures did not matter, or perhaps it did. It taught him how to catch them better. For only after minutes, he had a fish between his palms. It squirmed, trying to slip away from him, flapping wildly.

The fish was gold with stripes of white. Michael did not recognise the species. In fact, he had no knowledge of any species of fish. Even if he had gone with his father to several fishing camps, he never bothered to learn about their various species. He barely knew how to catch them.

He hurled the fish further away from the shore of the lake. It landed, breaking the blades of grass and disappeared from his sight.

Michael memorised the area.

He caught two more fish in the next hour. And hurled them away likewise. He had nothing to carry them in, and carrying them in bare hands wasn't ideal.

He waddled out of the lake, and it did not take him long to find all three spots where his fish had landed and gather them up.

The golden fish was dead. The others were still alive. One flapping weekly, another more energetically.

"I'm sorry, little guy, but I'm hungry."

He grabbed a stone to kill them with. Their death was not quick. He had to bash their heads with stone multiple times to kill them. That must have hurt terribly.

"I'm sorry, It had to be so-"

His right earring hummed, stopping him. Something within the earring tugged at him, at his soul. And it was so insistent, so demanding.

Michael resisted this sensation. It could not be anything good.

The tugging sensation intensified, and a constant tune rang in his head, pulling at his very being.

If he tried to resist it any further, he knew, the ringing would only intensify, giving him a terrible headache. He stopped resisting.

The world swayed. Then everything exploded into a cloud of white; the lake, the grass, the stones themselves, as if someone had dropped massive bags of flour. Everything went white.

Conditions Met.

It was not so much as a voice, but a feeling that came from within him. He thought he could almost see the words floating in front of him. But that had to be his imagination.

You Can Choose Between Two Classes.

A Level 3 [Fisherman],

Or,

A Level 1 [Hunter].

Choose wisely.

You Can Choose Not To Take Any Of These Classes And Remain A Mundane Human. Your Choice.

Please Give A Verbal Response.