Frank felt like the world was mocking him when his gut woke him before the sun had risen. He was not 100% sure that this diarrhea was a result of the onion, as it could just as well have been from the meat he had been eating these past few days, but it’d certainly fit with the Skill he’d just acquired. Ultimately though, once he had finished his business, he was mostly thankful that he had woken up before tragedy struck. It also gave him some added appreciation for already having made lye soap.

  Having just obtained [Detect Toxin (Natural)], he was curious to check out the onions. When he found them and the other vegetables, there was nothing about them that seemed or felt off, and he could feel that the Skill was active passively; he had checked before approaching the plants.

  There was nothing about the onions that seemed off, but then again, it wasn’t as if he knew how the Skill worked; consciously trying to activate it didn’t do anything. Since the only consequence had been diarrhea, as annoying as it was, he figured that taking another bite was worth it for experimentation’s sake.

  He spat it out with as much force as he could muster the moment it touched his tongue. While yesterday it tasted like a plain onion, today it tasted like some of the foulest shit he’d ever had. The way it worked didn’t spark all that much confidence in him, as he’d much prefer not to touch it with his tongue first, but it was better than nothing.

  Cautiously, he touched the other three onions he had contact-tested yesterday with his tongue. This only cemented the feeling of the world mocking him; they all tasted like slightly variant onions. Not one of them had even the slightest foul taste. “It could of course be that it’s only able to detect toxins I have already ingested, but that would not only make it practically useless; it would also make very little sense considering the name. It’s [Detect Toxin], not [Recognize Toxin].”

  With his mind made up, he took a bite of one of the onions and went back to sleep after he checked up on the smoker, which only had a few embers left. After putting on another piece of firewood, he was done with the stuff he wanted to do in the limited moonlight. “I did wonder why everything had a slightly blue tint, but I suppose a full blue moon should do it. I will have to learn some more about all of these new moons when I find civilization.”

  When he awoke a few hours later, the sun was starting to peek above the tree line. His plan for today was quite straightforward, making some actual hunting gear. Sure, the spear had been a higher priority, but that’s because of self-defense. For hunting, he needed something ranged. That meant javelins and an atlatl.

  With that said, he did not have a lot of experience throwing javelins, and even less using an atlatl as a launcher. Though he did have a little after he made one for fun a year ago. Luckily, making the atlatl would likely be less complex than the spears it would be launching. It was as he thought that that he realized a mistake he had made. Instead of going for an axe or stone-tipped spear immediately, the first proper tool he should have made was a pointed stick.

  Too little, too late; he already had a better weapon, and he had successfully survived an encounter where a pointy stick would have been nice. In that regard, the bite marks had shrunk to about half of their original size, though they only hurt a little less.

  For his atlatl darts, he wanted to use some river cane for the body and then either thinner pieces or sticks for holding the head. This was to reduce the risk of the main body of the dart breaking if something should happen, and it made the tips easily replaceable.

  He only felt comfortable with this plan because he had encountered some cane along the creek when he first explored, though it was quite far away. As such, he made that priority number two on today’s task list. The first priority was checking the snares and handling them.

  To little surprise, the snares closest to camp had not caught anything, and for some, the bait hadn’t even been touched. One of the ones further out had actually been ripped in half. One had caught something about the size of a rabbit, but it had clearly been mutilated by something while hanging from the snare. Only a single one had caught anything Frank considered usable. It had something that looked like a cat with the fur and hindlegs of a rabbit.

  Before going to look for river cane, he skinned and dismantled the animal, before cutting the meat into thin strips to start cooking away on his grill. Since his goal was to dry it out to be as hard and dry as possible, then he didn’t mind leaving it alone while he was away.

  The trip down the creek was quite exciting, though luckily not in a dangerous way. As he walked, a flash of movement in the distance caught his eyes and he instinctively readied his spear. Once he was able to get a closer look, it turned out to be what appeared to be a plain old deer. After an intense, second-long staring contest, the deer turned and scurried away. Even though very little happened, it brought a smile to his face to see some actual life in the forest, or more specifically, life that wasn’t trying to kill him.

  Eventually, he did arrive at the area with river cane. As he approached, something felt off, though he couldn’t immediately place what. Upon closer inspection, it was the moss growing around and over the cane. There was just something that felt so incredibly wrong when he looked at it, but it was visually just normal, if slightly blue, moss.

  It took him a good moment to realize what was going on. It wasn’t until he prodded at his Skills, like he had done previously, before he realized that it was [Detect Toxin (Natural)] that was going off. To some extent, the feeling he got when looking at it felt like a visual or mental version of when he tried the onion. “Note to self, do not touch that moss. I don’t want anything to do with something that makes the Skill howl without having to be ingested.”

  It was when he pulled back and started considering heading the opposite direction to explore further upstream that he felt a shiver down his spine; a good amount of the canes had clear bitemarks at their tops and the moss had several divots where it had been removed by the mouthful.

  There was something in this forest that lived on plants chock-full of toxins.

  He quickly concluded that he probably shouldn’t head further than the clay deposit when going downstream of the creek in the future. With an initially rapid pace, he hurried away from the cane. Now, he just had to pray that the sheer variety of plant species in this forest would strike true once again.

  Well over an hour later he concluded that luck wasn’t on his side today. What he found instead was arguably worse in the moment than the moss. It was at a long stretch of the creek going straight that he saw a legitimate beast of an animal.

  Drinking water a good 50 meters away stood the largest boar he had ever seen. It was a little hard to make out the proper size of this distance, but it was at least at tall as he was and twice as long. Besides its sheer size, the thing that stood out the most was how the sun glinted off its tusks like it would metal.

  ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I need to get the hell away from here. No chance in hell that I can stop or deal with that. Hopefully it hasn’t noticed me yet or at least that it doesn’t want to remove me itself.’

  Frank took careful steps backwards until it was thoroughly out of sight. Thank the gods that it did not follow him. Once his heart and mind had had a chance to calm down, he actually found himself a little grateful for the encounter. It had reminded him of boar-hunting spears, which was a modification he should probably add to his spear.

  On his way back, he considered how important the atlatl would actually be. While it would no doubt be a big power boost over regular throwing, it would do him well to remember [Lesser Strength]; he was fascinated by how quickly he just got used to it. That Skill alone would allow him to put a lot more force into throws than what he had considered when deciding on an atlatl. Granted, the launcher would still be a noticeable force multiplier regardless.

  Beyond that, he didn’t feel like completely abandoning the spear either. There was a very real chance that if he continued practicing with it, then the System might make it more than possible to hunt beasts like that boar with relative ease. Though, that whole prospect built on a bunch of assumptions and disregarded the fact that something similar would probably happen if he used the atlatl.

  The three main reasons he considered focusing on the spear were primarily because he already knew it; he had gotten a Skill for it, albeit a Basic one that he intended to test out later; and lastly, it seemed more usable for self-defense in the long run post forest. Of course, that required him to survive this forest in the first place. For now, he decided to at least still make some wooden darts and the launcher, just to get in some practice, but he would attempt some spear hunting in the area closer to the Tree.

  Once back, Frank started with some spear practice before doing anything else. The effect of [Basic Spearmanship] was quite similar to his other Basic ones but just combat oriented. It mainly seemed to assist him in executing his intent, be it by making his aim more consistent or edge alignment more precise. However, like the other Basic Skills, it did not do anything game-altering; it just strengthened his foundation. That was fine with him for now, as he already had a Skill to hit hard with.

  That reminded him that there was something regarding [Smack] he wanted to test. Namely whether or not he could activate it with his spear, since it had a sharp head, and [Smack] didn’t sound blunt. He also wondered if reaching Level 3 [Warrior] had increased its charges from 2 to 3 as well. The latter he quickly learnt wasn’t the case.

  What he found when he used the Skill against a tree – notably without using a lot of force to keep the spear safe – was that so long as he was aiming with either the shaft or the flat side of the head, he could activate it. Now, where it became interesting was when he attempted to shift his attack after the activation. Not only was there some amount of resistance from his body when doing so – something he hadn’t noticed previously – but when he did do it, it felt like all effects except the increased speed disappeared.

  After practice, Frank did a few things out of the norm. He sought out some long, straight saplings with as hard wood as he could find and made darts from them. Each of these “darts” was roughly the same height as himself and about as thick as a broom handle. After cleaning them of branches, he heated them over the fire to allow him to gradually straighten them. Once they were straight, he carved a basic tip that he could eventually replace with stone tips later. Lastly, he went over all of them refined them to be about the same weight with a similar balance point, and a small divot at back end.

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  The atlatl was even simpler. It was a stick close in the length to his outstretched arm and a bit thicker than what was comfortable to grip. He made extra sure to pick a heavy piece of wood. At one end, he carved a basic handle with a small flair at the bottom to indicate direction and to stop his hand from slipping. At the other end, he carved a channel that went into a spur, which would fit together with the divot made in the darts.

  All he then had to do was load a dart and gradually refine the handle down to support a comfortable balance. His goal was to have the dart tip tilt down ever so slightly, as in his slight experience, he had found that it was a little easier to aim like that.

  With that all done, he just had to get training, but it was already starting to get a bit late, so he’d do that tomorrow. Instead, he went ahead and ground up incredibly dry meat from the cat-rabbit, or cattit, as he found it funny to call. The smoker had also finished, so he now had some jerky to store away, and he got a batch of cattit meat going there.

  Besides that, he finished up with some more pottery and shapeshifting practice, and then it was off to dreamland.

  If Frank had to guess how long it’d be before his leg was fully healed, he’d say maybe two or three more days. Considering the damage and constant use it had experienced, it healing in just over a week was crazy, and it only seemed to accelerate as the wound shrank.

  Yesterday, he had only sculpted one thing, which was an even larger pot, closer to a basin in size. He had intentionally waited with firing it, because he wanted to take some more pottery first and let it dry longer. He now had enough pottery that it was no longer a hurry to make more, though this one was a little special. It was made larger because he wanted to start tanning some of the hides he’d been gathering, so he didn’t want to wait too long with firing it either.

  As such, he spent the first hour of the day forming some more pots, lids, bowls, and even two tripods to place his cooking pots on. Once formed, he set it all to dry by a fire once more, as while it’d still be a little rushed, he wanted to fire them tonight.

  With that handled, it was practice time. Though just as he was about to start, he recalled yesterday. “Actually, I should probably get the spear ready to handle charging beasts first, so I can get used to using that.” So, he got a sturdy stick and chopped it down to about 15-20 centimeters long. Using both sinew and cordage, he tied it to the spear a hand or two down from the head. This would help to stop the beasts from charging all the way up the spear, taking out the both of them in one go.

  Following that, the next long while was spent on a mixture of atlatl practice, throwing the darts like javelins, spear practice, and shapeshifting practice. The latter was mostly used when he needed to give his body a rest, though he had long since learned that his Skills, of note [Lesser Constitution], helped him keep going for longer periods at a time.

  The biggest issue with the atlatl wasn’t not knowing how to use it, he actually had a decent idea of that, it was instead applying that knowledge. Everything from loading the aiming to the launching were largely unfamiliar motions for his body, so he kept doing it poorly. That said, he was able to notice a distinct improvement over the day. Though he remained far from either accurate or fast. The same held true with the javelin method, though to a lesser extent.

  The spear practice on the other hand went a lot better. He was quickly getting used to the extra weight from the crossbar, and he gradually moved about more, though he still spared his legs too much rapid movement.

  Regarding [Person of Many Faces], he had concluded that the transformation was likely permanent until manually altered, as his pinkie had remained feminine and off colored. While he had left his pinkie alone, he had used most breaks from practice on some shapeshifting practice, which had confirmed that part of the previous issue changing had indeed been a lack of skill on his part; he was already at the point of being able to alter his entire hand at just a slightly slower speed than the initial pinkie before needing a break.

  Throughout the day, he had been cautiously snacking at the fruits he gathered two days ago. Since his Skill has shown an immediate reaction to something seemingly really dangerous, he decided to trust it enough to skip the skin-contact test, at least for now; he was moving around a lot, so the more food he had available, the better.

  To minimal surprise, almost all of the fruits were safe to eat. After all, they and berries were usually meant to be eaten for their seeds to be spread around, and his abilities probably handled minor toxins. The only thing that had had that foul Skill taste was a plum looking fruit with flesh more like that of an apple.

  Using the last hour or two of the day, Frank started the firing before heading out to chop down and drag back more trees. He was not only starting to run low on wood, but he was also on the lookout for pine or oak like trees for their bark. The last bit of light was spent debarking them before setting the bark aside to be used later when he had a few hides to do at once.

  When he went to bed afterwards, he was so physically and mentally exhausted that even the hard and uneven wooden bed felt almost comfortable.

  [Warrior Level 4]

  [Skill – Locate Missile obtained]

  The first thing Frank did after completed with all of the routine morning stuff was test out his new Skill. The name had initially confused him a little, at least until he recalled that “missile” could also mean any thrown or launched object. So, it likely related to his darts in some way, though the word used gave him hope that it would affect more than just his darts.

  The other word, “locate” was more ambiguous. Locating something sounded straightforward enough, but as he thought more about it, he encountered a bunch of questions. Say, how exactly would the locating work? Would it be missiles in general or just his own? Would it be limited to flying missiles or would it include the grounded ones? What was the range? And so on.

  He loaded a dart onto the atlatl and activated the Skill with a mental command, making this the third active Skill to work this way. He could immediately tell that it was not only on a short timer, but it did not activate on any of his unfired darts. That, however, changed the moment he launched the dart, as he had a relatively accurate intuitive feeling about where the dart was in relation to himself, even after it had landed.

  Since he didn’t have long, he went on to a distance test. He had not practiced long-distance throws yesterday beyond a single round of four darts, as it lost a lot in accuracy and he prioritized learning to hit first, but his increased strength allowed him to reach 50+ meters without a lot of practice.

  And out of range he managed to shoot it, though the range was quite generous. It took until the dart was slightly over a meter off the ground before it vanished from the Skill sensation. He estimated the distance to be 30 to 40 meters, if not more. Notably, he could still sense what could best be described as an afterimage of where the dart had left his range.

  Curious, he tried to move towards it quickly, since the Skill already felt half gone. After just 10ish meters, the sense of where it had left the range disappeared and was replaced with where it had landed. He used the butt of one of his two remaining darts to quickly mark where he stood; that should be a good range measurement for after the Skill had turned off.

  He estimated that he had about 15 to 20 seconds left, so he tried to just throw a dart like a javelin, and it was noticed. He barely managed to grab two stones to throw as well, and both registered. For the second stone, he closed his eyes and could still follow its path through the air without much issue; it was a weird sensation.

  The first thing he noticed when the Skill ended was that it didn’t end…? He still knew where each thrown missile was located, even as he moved out of what should have been the range. It was only when he picked up one of the stones that it vanished from his intuition. He tried to throw another dart, and it wasn’t picked up.

  A closer feel at the Skill revealed that it was more like “half active”. And this half active state also had a duration, but it felt a lot longer than the previous one, which he suspected to have been about a minute long. Though he would have to test that later once the Skill had recovered for use, because he currently couldn’t reactivate it.

  Another thing he wanted to do on the next activation was to throw another shot out of range and see what happens once it ends. On that note, he walked from his mark to the faraway dart and estimated it to be shy of 52 steps, so in the ballpark of 50 meters.

  Since next time around would be when he counted the duration, he decided that it would also be when he’d count the aftereffect’s duration. So, for now he chose to see what happened when he picked up all of the missiles. The moment he picked up the last one and inspected the Skill, he could feel that it had turned off fully. Now he just had to wait for it to recharge.

  As such, the next half hour was spent on more practice all around; that was how long it took for it to recharge. He had only really thought of one more test during that time, and it was just to lob as many sticks and stones as he could to test if it had a limit, or at least one he could reach.

  So, having prepared a small pile to throw while he counted seconds and loaded one dart, he activated the Skill and shot the dart out of range. The results were that he did not hit a limit; the duration was, accounting for human error, likely a minute, with the aftereffect lasting 10 minutes; and lastly, even when he entered within range of the spear during the aftereffect, its location did not update.

  He was overall not too sure what to think of the Skill. It was a neat ability and would reduce the risk of losing his darts in tall grass, but that seemed to be about it. It could potentially help him track down something that’d flee after a dart gets stuck in it, but that seemed pretty limited when the duration was only a minute. Whether or not it was limited to just whatever he threw was a test that had to wait until he could get ahold of other people.

  But most of all, he felt a little disappointed with it. For a [Warrior] Skill, then it did not feel like it would meaningfully contribute to a fight. But at the same time, he only hit Level 4, so he’d probably get stronger abilities over time. Though he hoped it was both sooner as well as later.

  With that taken care of, Frank decided that it was about time that he gave [Tree Climbing] a try. He had until now refrained due to his leg, but he figured that a quick test would not do much harm at this point. He just shouldn’t climb anywhere dangerous; no reason to risk dropping down many meters because his leg decided to hurt too much.

  The effect was immediate when he started climbing, though it wasn’t innately obvious. He started climbing like he usually would and didn’t notice anything beyond the Skill activating. It was only when he shortly thereafter found himself at one of the larger top branches of the 10-meter-tall tree that he realized what had happened.

  The Skill was incredibly basic in effect, though that was not necessarily bad in this case. It just gave him a great intuition on where he should place his hands and feet to get where he wanted to on the tree. To some extent, it also seemed to help his dexterity and precision in getting to each hold as well.

  Arguably the most impressive part about it was how it made it really easy to descend as well, which was the part he usually found the hardest to do safely. Granted, he had also found himself a warped tree with a lot of branches all over, which made it much easier. A quick test on a straight tree afterwards confirmed that the Skill also helped descending those.

  Satisfied with his tree climbing tests, Frank went and did the complete opposite. Rather than scale the trees, he spent the next few hours bringing them down to his level and hauling them back. He was starting to reach the point where he had a large number of projects getting ready to work on, so he’d need a lot of lumber. As such, while he mostly went for straight trees of 5-7 centimeters in diameter, he also brought down a few that were twice that.

  Not only did they take a while to get down, but they were also a pain to bring back. However, at the same time, when a taking down a fir tree of that width, then it brought a height of 15+ meters with it. In short; a lot of wood. One of the three larger trees he fell was of a species he had confirmed to contain a lot of resin, so he wanted to make use of that at some point. The other two were standing deads of similar dimensions but were more like tall and skinny oaks; they would serve well as fuel.

  Using some of the thinner logs and cordage, he constructed two frames that he could hang pelts out to dry on. Each frame’s side was about long as he was tall.

  The remaining daylight was spent checking, resetting, and the snares, replacing the two damaged once. This was followed by skinning the caught beast: a very young, six-legged fawn. This time, however, he put a lot more effort into getting the pelt as clean as absolutely possible, because he finished by hanging it up to dry on one of the frames. For the other, he cleaned the largest other pelt he had, which belonged to the cattit, and strung it up.

  As he felt it might be a little too humid for them to dry properly, he made a small campfire in the space beneath the root less than a meter from the foot of his bed and leaned a frame on either side. This would help it dry out faster as he slept, which he proceeded to do.