Skeletal Dragon Avatar

Level 1

Matt’s breathing gradually stabilized as he calmed himself down, then he grabbed the torn off limb from the bear and tore off a claw from it before he walked over to the carcass of the bear and grabbed its remaining front limb before he pulled it to the left rolling the bear over on its back, then he grabbed the tron off claw and used it to cut open the bear’s chest, as he tore into the skin of the bear the smell of blood and raw meat became overwhelming, still Matt continued cutting until he found it, a small monster core in situated just before he reached its heart, he grabbed it and pulled it out, then he tossed the claw aside and walked over to the river and washed the blood off his body, when he touched his chest he was surprised and muttered

“...Well, would you look at that”

The 4 long cuts on his chest had already closed and had stopped bleeding, Matt speculated that it would take no longer than a few days before they were completely healed, then he looked at the core in his hand and showed a slight smile before he stood up and followed the river downstream again for a few kilometers before he sat down by the sore and crushed the core, the white fog soon emerged from the broken core and Matt opened his mouth and inhaled the white fog. After a few minutes he stood up again and continued walking along the river, he didn’t reach level 1 from the core, but he felt that he had made some progress towards reaching it, though it would take more odd and a lot more blood to get there

“That or just straight 4 years of eating fruits from the forest…”

Matt sighed as he walked onward, there was a couple of reason why he wanted to reach level 1 soon, the first being that he wanted to get stronger, the second came from the information he received in his dream, that was, of course: Skills

Skills were all sorts of supernatural abilities, they came in two kinds: Passive skills and Active skills. Passive skills were rather tame, and would help without any input from the person using them, and were things like resistances and boosts. Active skills was where it got crazy, we’re talking flying to straight up spewing fire out of your mouth, other (more tame) examples included jumping a 2-story building and landing safely on the ground afterwards to magically enhancing the blade of your sword to slice through steel like it was water

“Plus, they will help me to learn why the fuck I am here in the first place…”

Matt shook his head before he continued following the river…

A morning, Matt’s eyes snapped open, rather it was a bit before dawn, the surroundings were filled with distant roars of animals and monsters fighting, but that was normal, and also why he didn’t move around doing the night, but the thing that had made him open his eyes was a faint tingle along his spine, if this was a week ago Matt would have ignored it, but he wasn’t a greenhorn. Not anymore anyway.

‘It’s close…’ Matt shifted his weight ever so slightly on the tree branch he had spent the night, as he scanned the covered forest floor for movement, not even the faintest movement of the undergrowth escaped him, it had been weeks, perhaps months since Matt had arrived in the forest, the reason he was unsure was the time it took him to revive was unknown, so far he had been poisoned, stabbed, trashed, bitten, slammed, crushed and mauled to death by the various plants and animals around, that’s right, not even the plants were safe. Matt thought back to the time he was poisoned by a plant he happened to flee past when he happened to be fleeing a rhino monster the size of a minivan, he only felt a faint sting before his nervous system shut down completely, and then he was mauled by the rhino monster. He remembered several tragic stories that had happened over the course of the time he had spent in the forest, following the river, this kept Matt alert as he scanned the undergrowth for any sign of monsters or just general hostile fauna

‘There you are…’

Beneath Matt was a snake with a length of about 10 meters that slithered along the forest floor, normally Matt would ignore such a creature as long as it didn’t discover him for a fear of being poisoned, but Matt was close to hitting level 1, he silently got onto his feet and waited crouched down as he waited patiently for the snake to slither its way under the tree where he was located

‘Just a little closer…’

The snake was vigilant of its surroundings, yet it failed to detect Matt that were hidden amongst the leaves above it, he had lost count of the number of times he had failed to hide himself well enough and had been killed because of it, as a result he now knew how to hide himself rather well

‘Now!’

As soon as the snake entered his range, Matt jumped silently off the branch and after falling about 15 meters Matt’s heels was planted straight on the crown of the snake’s head, a faint crack sounded out as the snake’s skull fractured under Matt’s perfectly executed dropkick, Matt rolled forwards and hid himself in the undergrowth and listened for a bit, he was still highly alert, only a few moments later did he lower his guard slightly and crawled over to the snake carcass, he once more confirmed that the snake was dead before he found its core that was about halfway down its body, then he bit open the skin with his teeth and ripped open the carcass of the snake before he ripped out its core, he had long since been numbed to taste of blood, whether it was his own or that of a monster didn’t matter. After securing the core, Matt began making his way towards the river again, his experience told him that it was the safest place to consume the core, though it was still not entirely safe, soon he made it to the edge of the forest where he washed the blood off himself and the core before he admired it under the dawning sun, he nodded to himself as he showed a rare smile, growing stronger meant that he would be less likely to die, Matt muttered as a faint ray of hope shone in his eyes

“Let’s hope you can show me the way to level 1…”

Matt crushed the core and opened his mouth before he took a deep breath and breathed in the mist in one breath, then he felt a change in his body as his blood felt like it was boiling, then his eyes snapped open and a deep dark green light shone out from them, then came pain deep in his bones, Matt gritted his teeth in pain as loud cracks sounded out from his body, this lasted until a few hours before noon, then he let out a long sigh before he stood up, then Matt looked down at his palm, then as he willed it a bone spike penetrated his skin from the inside and shot about 5 centimeters

“This sure is freaky…”

Matt touched the bone spike with his other hand, not only was it sharp as a claw, it was also way harder than what he thought possible for a natural body part of a human

“No that’s wrong… I don’t think I am human anymore…”

Matt sighed then he withdrew the bone spike from the bottom of his palm, as he licked the blood off his palm he could feel that several other bone spikes had formed and were ready to shoot out from under his skin on several places on his body

“My knuckles, palms, elbows, shoulders, ribs, kneecaps and heels all of these all have bone spikes now… Neat”

Matt wasn’t disgusted with his own clearly not human changes, the only thing he was thinking about was how convenient these bone spikes were for combat, he stretched making serval ‘crack’ sound out before he felt his strength for a bit and nodded before he muttered

“About half a time stronger than before…”

He nodded, satisfied with himself and his growth in strength, then he once again began following the river downstream…

About half a day after hitting level 1 Matt suddenly stopped walking and glanced into the forest before he ducked down and rolled to the side, as he did an arrow whizzed past and hit a boulder behind where he had been standing, he looked back at the arrow and saw it was made entirely of metal and had sent a spider web of cracks out on the boulder, then he muttered as a dark green light shone in his eyes

“Rude”