"Is there a way to change this?" Kyne murmured to himself.
The idea was crazy but fascinating. What if he could "save" a better state? If he could, after each death, he would return completely revitalized. Fed, hydrated, rested. It would be the perfect cycle.
Live, explore, die, and return in ideal conditions.
If he were hungry and had nothing to eat, he could just kill himself and return to normal.
Kyne smiled. It was exactly the kind of system exploitation he would love to test. But later. For now, there were more immediate needs.
He began to walk toward the lake but stopped almost immediately. To his right, a low shrub displayed clusters of small purple fruits that glowed softly in the light of dawn. His stomach growled in response.
Kyne approached the shrub with caution. The fruits looked innocent. Round, shiny, with a light, sweet fragrance that made his mouth water. He extended his hand, picked one, and examined it.
"There's no survival manual in this world." He murmured.
"So… the trial-and-error method is the most correct."
He bit into it.
The flavor was explosive. Sweet like honey, but with a citrus tang that made his eyes widen. It was hundreds of times more intense than any fruit he had tasted on Earth.
Juice ran down his chin as he devoured the fruit whole in three ravenous bites.
Kyne didn't wait. He picked five more, eating one after another with an almost animal pleasure.
The hunger that had haunted him since his transmigration began to subside, replaced by a warm, sweet satisfaction.
He was on the fourth fruit when the numbness began.
At first, it was just a tingling on his lips. Kyne stopped chewing, his eyes narrowing.
The tingling turned into numbness, spreading quickly across his jaw, his tongue, and his throat.
"Ah." He said, but the word came out distorted, his tongue already heavy and uncoordinated.
The fruit fell from his hands, the penultimate one he had bitten but not finished. Kyne tried to spit out what was in his mouth, but his facial muscles didn't respond.
The numbness traveled down his esophagus, reaching his stomach.
A wave of nausea hit him, followed by a sharp pain that seemed to pierce his insides.
He fell to his knees, then onto his side, his limbs already weighing like lead.
His heart began to beat irregularly. Fast, then slow, then fast again.
His vision blurred, dark spots dancing in his field of view.
Kyne tried to take a deep breath, but his diaphragm was paralyzed. Each attempt to inhale was a herculean effort that yielded only small, shallow gasps.
'Ah. I hit the jackpot. They were poisonous.'
It was his last conscious thought before the lights went out.
…
[You have died from poisoning.]
[Poison Resistance updated to Rank F]
[You will respawn in 3… 2… 1… ]
Kyne woke up in the same position he had fallen, his face pressed against the damp forest soil. For a moment, he just stayed there, breathing in the fresh dawn air, feeling the soft blue grass beneath his skin.
Then, without thinking much, he sat up and picked up the half-eaten fruit that had fallen beside him. The bite mark was still visible, the juice still lightly dripping.
He looked at the fruit, then at the shrub. Of the six fruits he had picked, five seemed to have been normal. Delicious, even.
Only one, the penultimate one he had bitten, was poisonous.
"Let's test it." He murmured and bit into the fruit again.
The same sweet and citrus flavor flooded his mouth. But this time, when the numbness began to form on his lips… it stopped there. A light tingling, nothing more. His tongue remained agile, his throat unobstructed, and his stomach calm.
Kyne finished the poisonous fruit with a satisfied smile.
"It works." He said to no one in particular.
"These resistances really work."
He devoured the two remaining fruits from the shrub, both safe, easing his hunger a bit more. The juice helped quench his thirst, but not enough. The lake was still necessary.
As he walked toward the water, his mind worked.
"Hmmm. Maybe if I find a river and follow it, I'll find some civilization." He thought out loud.
"In places where there is water, there's a good chance there are people…"
He paused, reconsidering.
"If there are people in this world at all. I have no idea what this place is like. Are there other races? Are there humans? Are they like me?"
The questions piled up, with no answers in sight. A world with two suns, luminous blue grass, animals with metallic characteristics… who knew what kind of intelligent beings could have evolved here?
"Well." He concluded, reaching the edge of the lake.
"It's not that important right now. What matters is… yes, I'll keep dying and gaining experiences while becoming stronger and stronger. Then I'll face more types of death."
The lake's water was crystal clear, perfectly reflecting the sky now blue with the two ascending suns. Kyne knelt and drank directly with his hands.
The water was cold and clean, with a subtle mineral taste that was strange but not unpleasant.
As he drank, his eyes scanned the surface of the lake. Silvery fish with luminous fins swam in the depths. Aquatic plants of a green hue that swayed gently with the current.
"The system apparently wants nothing from me." Kyne continued his monologue, now speaking to his own reflection in the water.
"But I highly doubt that anything would be given to me for free… I think the right thing is to evolve my existential rank, but how do I do that? I have no idea."
His reflection didn't respond, of course. It just watched him with its gray, almost silvery eyes, which now seemed brighter, more alive.
Kyne spent some time looking at his appearance. He had never cared much before, but now, for some reason, he did.
"I… am somehow extremely handsome, aren't I?" Kyne suddenly said, raising a hand to his chin.
Indeed, he was a tall young man with a fine and handsome face and extremely pale skin, but without the sickly look from before. His eyes were no longer dull either.
The only thing that detracted from his appearance now was his extremely messy hair. But he was satisfied.
Kyne stood up, water dripping from his chin.
"Existential Rank F-." He repeated.
"The most fragile and basic form of existence."
His gaze swept across the surrounding forest, the distant mountains, and the sky with its two suns.
"Well." He finally said, a determined smile forming on his face.
"I'm really starting from zero. Everything from here on is progress. And somehow, that's as interesting as it can possibly be."
He turned, his back to the lake, facing the forest that stretched toward the unknown horizon.
"And well. I know a way to progress."
His fingers lightly touched the spot on his chest where the knife had entered in his apartment.
"Through death."