He woke up what had to have been several hours later, a splitting headache told him that his head, indeed, ached.

  With a grunt he lifted himself up from the position he had fallen in when he had received that strange message. It was still there, it now had an extra one that informed him that his experience had been adjusted, thanks to his levelling.

  So, with a sigh he crossed his legs, started rubbing his eyes, and seriously thought about what he would have to do next. After several minutes of this, he surmised that rubbing his eyes would not make any of the problems go away.

  Instead, he looked around, blinking away the spots that applying so much pressure caused. He saw the same clearing, the grass swayed quietly, and he heard animals in the woods around him scurry about.

  From his very uninformed view, nothing had come up to him, no predator at night tried to bite him and he could see no disturbances to his clearing. Looking to the sky he saw some clouds rolling around, an orange hue tinted with yellow, had him make the guess.

  It was definitely morning.

  Sitting up he looked at the messages in front of him again.

  He had reached level 14, the only skill that went up was Appraisal, and his statistical points as the message said, had been increased. He didn’t see any way to choose where the points went.

  Instead, he simply got a message “Your patron chooses for you, grow at ease, grow in strength, don’t bother trying to be a boring piece of cheese”

  “That’s just…annoying. What does that mean, I don’t get to choose?”

  There were no messages popping up to his question.

  Looking at the grass moving in a slight breeze he appraised the field again.

  Annoyingly it seemed the skill was on to his grand scheme.

  A field of grass. Experience gained 0.1.

  Please appraise more complicated items to increase experience gain.

  Alternatively, use traditional means of experience gain.

  The first thought that went through his head was simple, Fantastic. The second thought was combined with the third, fourth, and slew of expletives. He could imagine that traditional experience gain would be something annoying, like killing something or worse, having to learn things.

  His line of thought kept growing and changing when a rumble that shook his entire being caught his focus.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  With his stomach aching he got up on his feet, and started looking for anything to eat. His appraise skill would hopefully be able to show him if something is edible. At the edge of the clearing there were some bushes growing. On them he saw what he assumed are nuts or berries.

  “Appraise”

  Forest nut.

  Common nut that grows in forests. Inedible for humans.

  1 Experience Gained.

  He sighed and started moving into the gloom of the forest.

  As he went he appraised new things he saw, only gaining one experience point for his trouble. He didn’t know if level 14 was high or not, he hoped it was. At the same time, there wasn’t a single fruit or berry in this forest that he could actually eat.

  Instead, everything popped up as inedible.

  That was, until he accidentally appraised something unexpected.

  Hidden Squirrel

  A squirrel that lives its life on one tree, the size of a large hare this squirrel spends its day hunting small insects and eating the bounty from nearby bushes and its bonded tree. Can be processed.

  20 Experience Gained

  He stopped and stared at the tree he was looking at. There was nothing different on it than any of the other trees around him. Yet when he appraised again he got the same readout.

  So, he went closer to the tree and nearly ran away screaming when a piece of bark on the tree suddenly opened to reveal to black eyes that were staring at him. He took a step back and the squirrel followed him.

  He took another step back and head the crack of a branch as he did so.

  The two black dots narrowed and then it jumped. Heading in a straight arc towards him. Without thinking, without knowing even why, he punched with his left hand.

  Now, this is the part where you expect Thaddeus “Bennie” Poundsworth to miraculously kill a simple squirrel with one hit.

  Reader, that is not this story. I would recommend going almost anywhere else for that.

  You see, instead, something altogether different and not what he would have expected happened.

  His fist went out, curving cleanly through the air, he had no idea he could do this, he had never tried hitting anything.

  And when it hit the squirrel he swore he would never try again, at least not without a metal glove that was heavily padded.

  First it was a sharp pain, then followed by a distinctly dull pain as it felt like he had just hit a solid wall. The squirrel’s mad jump towards him, legs open, mouth ready to bite into what he hoped was only his arm, did get interrupted.

  Not only that, he had managed to completely confuse it too. As it went entirely off course with a sharp yell that could only come from a rodent the size of his chest flying through the air can make. He yelped and immediately cradled his hand.

  He couldn’t move it and before his eyes it started turning all different colours of green and purple. Hearing a crunch and then a gurgle he turned to look at the squirrel. It had hit another tree, now it was spasming on the ground, its head crushed not by the force of his own fist, but the force of its head suddenly hitting a tree.

  “Appraise”

  Dead Hidden Squirrel

  A dead hidden squirrel, crushed by its own force when hitting a tree.

  Can be processed?Yes/No?

  “Yes?”

  Processing…

  He didn’t know what had just happened or what was going to happen, but at least he had killed something?

  Thaddeus “Bennie” Poundsworth didn’t know anything about gutting or killing animals. But at least he had killed one, right?

  All of my Free subscribers are awesome, but being a Paid one has benefits.

  Like, for example, READING these chapters 2 weeks ahead of time! Yes, you read that right, the Sock0Puppet patreons are on DAY FREAKEN 4! Also, they met someone, New.

  Christ M