The Sinful Saint

The sun was gradually setting on the ravenous forest displaying beautiful purples, reds, and oranges in the sky.

As the sun set the forest became quite, the birds stopped chirping, and the bugs stopped their incessant disturbances. It was eerily quite, only the whistle of the wind and the rustling of leaves could be heard. It was unnerving like a scene out of a horror movie.

Si Sheng was unnerved even though he usually wasn't in these kinds of situations. He felt liked the forest had eyes and they were watching his from every angle; he felt n.a.k.e.d in the middle of the forest.

He had found refuge for the night before the sun went down and was staying in a hollowed out tree he found.

He had activated his newly acquired ability and concealed his presence. He was afraid there was actually something stealing him. The ability didn't run for too long as his mana was drained.

After his mana had run out, the feeling of being watched started. He also felt extremely exhausted and faint after using up all his mana. He felt like he had come down with a cold and had a terrible headache.

After this, Si Sheng couldn't stay awake and quickly drifted into a terrible slumber. He slept for an hour or two when he was suddenly jolted awake!

In the times he had slept his mana had recovered and his sick and disheveled self had gone back to normal.

From inside the tree, Si Sheng peered out through the crack he had crawled through to enter this tree. Outside was a large reptile, he thought it was a dinosaur by the size of it, but it looked more like a monitor lizard from Earth. It had stumpy legs and a long powerful tail and a massive maw. He couldn't make out much of the lizard under the dim light filtering through the leaves, but he could tell this was a powerful creature.

He then again activated his concealment ability to at least buy him some time and hope the giant lizard would just walk away. Si Sheng held his breath all the while not wanting to even make a sound and alert the beast.

He waited only a couple of minutes till the creature finally stared to move away from him. In the meantime, he had gone and checked the lizard's information:

[Juvenile Forest Wyrm | Level 9: A nocturnal wyrm species adapted to this forest.]

'Not much to go on, but it's better than nothing. At least I know I have no chance against the Juvenile Forest Wyrm. Thankfully it's just leaving without disturbing me,' Si Sheng thought as he watched the wyrm waddling it's way through the forest. He was glad he hid himself since he would for sure have been dead if he tried to take it on.

The wyrm was screeching a horrible sound, a high pitch whistle-like sound resonated from its throat. The creature attacking the wyrm didn't relent, slashes appeared all over the wyrm's body and in an instant it was turned into mincemeat.

The corpse lay there as just a pile of flesh and bones marinated in blood. It wasn't even recognizable after it had been killed. Finally, the attacker landed on the back of the pile of flesh and started to fly away with it.

Si Sheng was in a cold sweat as this took place. When he peered out at the creature, he saw a large owl lifting off. It's wingspan was easily four meters wide and the body was two meters tall; it stood at eye level with Si Sheng. There were patterns on the feathers that were visible as the moonlight shown down on it. There was a pair of eyes, one eye per wing. The eyes looked like the eyes of the owl, amber and gold, only glowing. There was a lining of black feathers around the eyes of the wings that accentuate the eyes even further, making them feel real and as if they were watching you. The rest of the owls body was covered in feathers that matched the leaves on the ground, it looked like dead leaves were plastered all over its body.

Si Sheng looked at its information and was horrified:

[Ground Stalker Owl | Level 34: A species of ground owl that burrows to make its nest. Has eyes on the underside of its wings.]

He was absolutely frightened by the absurd level of the owl. It would just have to blow air in his direction for him to die. He was glad the owl was after the wyrm and not him.

Despite being terrified of the owl, he thought the information provided was weird. He thought, 'I won't get much information until my intelligence increases, I guess it makes sense the limited and odd information provided. At least I can see their level.' He could only see the basic characteristics of things right now, later he hoped he could see the stats and skills of creatures.

The owl took off into the canopy and disappeared into the darkness. He was glad it was gone and soon found the forest around him quite again. He quickly drifted back to sleep praying nothing more happened during the night.

Faint rays of light hit Si Sheng's eyes as he started to wake up. The creatures had left him alone the whole night after the brief incident, thankfully.

"Water Ball!"

He drank from the floating ball of water and then washed his face to wake himself up.

Time was limited and he wanted to cover as much grounds as possible between him and the mountains before night fell.

Si Sheng set out for the mountains in hopes of finding a safe haven.

***

Si Sheng walked for a few hours and gradually got closer to the mountain.

On his way he was getting hungry so he decided to hunt something. During his time waking he had noticed little rabbits and bugs in the forest. Now that he needed to eat, he wanted to hunt some of them.

They weren't hard to capture, for the most part, they were slow moving and non-aggressive. The rabbit gave him a headache because it would dash away when he was about to catch it. Eventually, he tapped it and killed it. He caught one rabbit and a few bugs.

[Common Forest Rabbit killed: 3 Experience gained]

[Pygmy Centipede killed: 1 Experience gained]

...

Si Sheng set up another fire and cooked his kills. He ate the rabbit and hopper together.

"Mmmm. This actually tastes good. The contrasting textures of chewy and crunchy and the two different flavors. How I missed food that tasted good huhuhuk!" Si Sheng was moved to tears as he ate the rabbit and bugs. They tasted good unlike the fish he had yesterday. Simultaneously, he heard a sound ring in his head.

Diring!

[Common Forest Rabbit consumed: "Skill: Sprint (Basic)" Aquired]

Si Sheng thought the name was fairly simple and went to check its information.

"Identity!"

[Skill: Sprint (Basic) - Using mana you can increase you're speed.

For every 2 increase in Agility, 1 increase in mana consumption.

Max Ability increase: 2.5× Agility]

"Hm, this'll be nifty. I guess the skill acquisition is random then? Such an interesting skill. Also, the experience gained it much different than that fish. Maybe it was actually something special." Si Sheng pondered on the skill and expressions acquired. He only gained a skill from the rabbit and the bugs none. The experience was also vastly different from the past creature. This time he gained a total of 8 experience where 3 was from the rabbit and the rest were from the bugs. He didn't know if size factored into the experience gained but each bug only gave 1.

After finishing the rest of them off, he cleaned up his area and set out for the mountain again. By this time it was midday and he hoped he could get there by night fall.