Eli pulled up his status as soon as the notification faded.
He read through it carefully, forcing himself to stay focused instead of letting the level-up distract him.
Status
Name: Eli Merlin
Level: 1 | 0/10 EXP
Race: Human
Physique: Lightning PhysiqueBloodline: Black — Stage 9
Vitality: 8Strength: 6Agility: 8Stamina: 9Willpower: 9Perception: 7
Free Stats: 1
The changes were there.
Not dramatic. Not enough to make him feel safe. But real.
His arms still hurt. The scratches still stung. His breathing was still heavier than he wanted it to be. Whatever the level-up had done, it hadn't erased the fact that the first fight had nearly gone badly.
Eli looked at the free stat point for a few seconds.
He thought about mana. He thought about trying it just to see what would happen. Then he let the idea go.
Not yet.
He didn't know enough, and this wasn't the time to gamble on curiosity. If something changed later, he might need that point for something more immediate.
He closed the screen and checked his arms again. The wounds were still there, but they looked a little better than before. The bleeding had slowed.
"Level-up healing," he said quietly. "Or close enough."
That helped, but not enough to relax him.
He stood and looked toward the next clearing. Through the trees, he could just barely make out the faint shimmer of another barrier.
Same setup.
Same trial.
Good.
He could work with repetition.
The second fox looked almost identical to the first.
It was lying in the center of the clearing, still and harmless-looking. Eli stopped just outside the barrier and watched it for a few seconds anyway.
He didn't trust appearances anymore.
He adjusted his grip on the branch and stepped in.
The fox reacted at once. Its head snapped up, and a low growl rolled out before it lunged.
Eli moved sooner this time.
He kicked first, catching it in the front of the body and knocking it sideways. The fox hit the ground, twisted, and tried to recover, but Eli was already moving. He closed the distance and brought the branch down hard.
The fox thrashed.
He dropped the branch, grabbed for its neck, and forced it down.
It fought just as hard as the first one.
That was the part he had underestimated.
Even when he knew what was coming, killing it was ugly. It scratched. It twisted. It made small, desperate sounds that made the whole thing worse.
By the time it stopped moving, Eli was breathing through his teeth.
He stayed crouched over it for a moment, one hand still on its neck.
Then he let go and sat back.
"Still bad," he muttered.
The notification appeared.
[You have killed: Common Fox][Experience Gained]
[Trial Progress: 2 / 25]
Eli stared at the dead fox without feeling any satisfaction.
The first kill had felt like survival. This one felt heavier.
He understood now that repeating something didn't make it clean. It just made it familiar.
He looked down at his scratched arms and opened his status again. Halfway to the next level.
Useful.
That was all.
He leaned against a tree just outside the clearing and closed his eyes for a minute. Not to sleep. Just to slow his breathing and let his hands stop shaking.
Then he stood up and kept moving.
The third fight went a little better.
Not easy. Not smooth. Better.
He stepped in, baited the lunge, and hit the fox while it was still coming forward. It recovered faster than he wanted, but this time he stayed on his feet and kept control of the angle. The branch helped. Distance helped.
Planning helped most.
By the end of that fight, his arms were shaking from effort. His chest felt tight. His throat was dry.
But he was alive.
The fourth fox left a bite mark on his forearm.
The fifth nearly slipped past his guard when his branch caught on a low branch overhead.
The sixth ran wider than the others and forced him to reposition before he could finish it.
That was when Eli stopped thinking of them as simple copies.
They were the same kind of enemy, but not identical. Some recovered faster. Some committed harder to the lunge. Some circled more before closing in.
He filed each difference away as he moved.
The forest became a pattern of short, brutal routines.
Spot the clearing.Check the barrier.Control the angle.Strike first.Do not lose your footing.Finish it quickly.
That last part was still the hardest.
When the next level came, it didn't feel exciting.
It felt necessary.
[You have killed: Common Fox][Experience Gained]
[Level Up][+1 Free Stat Point]
[Trial Progress: 6 / 25]
Eli opened his status again.
Status
Name: Eli Merlin
Level: 2 | 0/20 EXP
Race: Human
Physique: Lightning PhysiqueBloodline: Black — Stage 9
Vitality: 9Strength: 7Agility: 9Stamina: 10Willpower: 9Perception: 8
Free Stats: 2
He studied the numbers for a moment.
The improvements were noticeable now, but only in the sense that he could feel himself recovering faster between fights and reacting a little more cleanly under pressure. He still didn't feel powerful. He felt less inefficient.
That mattered.
He kept the stat points unspent.
The urge to test mana returned when he saw the blank space where it should have been, but he ignored it again. He could be curious later.
Right now, he needed to stay alive.
He rested for a few minutes against the base of a tree, keeping the branch across his lap. His eyes stayed open this time. Every sound in the forest made him look up.
When he started moving again, his pace was slower—but steadier.
The next few fights blurred together.
He won because the foxes were small enough to manage one at a time and because the barriers let him control when each fight began. That was the real advantage of the trial so far.
Not strength.
Structure.
Without the barriers, this would have been much worse.
That thought stayed with him.
By the time he killed the tenth fox, Eli's shirt was damp with sweat and his arms felt raw.
The latest notification appeared while he was still catching his breath.
[You have killed: Common Fox][Experience Gained]
[Level Up][+1 Free Stat Point]
[Trial Progress: 10 / 25]
He opened his status screen again.
Status
Name: Eli Merlin
Level: 3 | 0/40 EXP
Race: Human
Physique: Lightning PhysiqueBloodline: Black — Stage 9
Vitality: 10Strength: 8Agility: 10Stamina: 11Willpower: 9Perception: 9
Free Stats: 3
Eli stared at the screen for a long moment.
Three unspent points.
Mana still empty.
He hesitated.
Then, finally, he made a choice.
"One point," he said. "Just one."
He put a single stat point into mana.
The change was immediate, but subtle.
It wasn't pain. It wasn't strength. It was more like becoming aware of something that had already been there.
His body felt slightly less closed off than before, as if the air around him had texture now and he had only just noticed it.
He stood still and waited for something dramatic to happen.
Nothing did.
No spell appeared. No power rushed into his hands. No revelation arrived.
Eli let out a breath.
"…good to know."
Mana mattered.
That didn't mean it was useful yet.
He left the other two stat points alone.
The trial kept going.
Eli moved from clearing to clearing, repeating the same process and trying not to waste motion. He stopped swinging wildly. He stopped rushing the finish when he didn't have control. He used the branch until it split, then replaced it with another.
His kills became cleaner.
Not easy. Cleaner.
At some point, the forest stopped feeling like a place and started feeling like a system of distances, obstacles, and angles. He noticed which patches of ground were uneven. Which trees blocked his swings. Which approaches gave the fox a straighter line toward him.
He was learning.
That was the only reason he was still alive.
By the eighteenth fox, Eli could feel fatigue settling into everything.
His legs were heavier. His hands ached. Even his breathing took more effort now.
He had improved, but the trial was wearing him down faster than the levels could restore him.
Then a new screen appeared.
[Trial 1 — Time Remaining: 01:00:00]
Eli stopped.
He stared at the message.
"A time limit."
He should have expected that.
Of course the trial wouldn't just wait for him forever. Of course there was another layer to it.
He checked his progress.
Eighteen out of twenty-five.
Seven left.
One hour sounded like enough. It probably wasn't.
He took off toward the next clearing at a faster pace.
The nineteenth fox took too long to find.
The twentieth took too long to kill.
By the time the second one dropped, Eli knew the remaining part of the trial would not be as simple as repeating what he had already done.
The new message confirmed it.
[Congratulations. Trial Progress: 20 / 25]
[Barrier restrictions will now be removed.]
[Remaining foxes will actively hunt the participant.]
[Good luck.]
Eli stared at the words.
Then he looked up at the forest around him.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
"Right," he said under his breath. "There it is."
The barriers had been the trial's structure. The one piece of control he had.
Now that control was gone.
He started moving immediately.
Not running blindly. Not yet.
Thinking.
Five foxes left. No fixed clearings. No guaranteed spacing. If they were hunting him now, then standing still was a bad idea—but crashing through the forest at random was worse.
He needed to change the rhythm before they did it for him.
Eli moved toward the nearest clearing he could remember and stopped there. Open ground was dangerous, but at least he could see better.
He listened.
Nothing.
Then he heard movement to his left.
A second rustle answered from farther ahead.
Eli tightened his grip on the branch.
"Two," he said quietly.
That was bad.
Still manageable.
Maybe.
The first fox broke through the undergrowth low and fast.
Eli stepped into it and kicked hard, knocking it off line—but before he could follow through, the second one lunged from the side.
It hit him high and drove him to the ground.
Pain burst across his shoulder and neck.
Eli twisted hard, grabbed for the fox on top of him, and rolled with it instead of letting it pin him. He got one forearm between its mouth and his throat and felt its teeth scrape skin instead of sinking deep.
The first fox was already coming back.
No barrier.
No reset.
No space.
Eli forced the fox in his hands sideways and slammed it into the ground, then threw himself over it, using his weight to crush its movement before it could get free. His fingers found its neck and locked down.
The second fox hit him a moment later.
Its teeth sank into the side of his upper back.
Eli shouted and tightened his grip harder.
The fox under him bucked wildly, then weakened.
He did not let go.
Not until it stopped.
Then he rolled, half-blind with pain, just as the second fox came at him again.