《[HIATUS] PLAYER: LEVEL 0》


 PLAYER: CHAPTER 1

    ¡®Huh? What is this wet sensation ¡­ did I pee myself?¡¯ Gathering his strength and coming to his senses, his eyelids trembled and opened. What hit his mental state, was the vision that blew his mind.


    ¡­


    Ling Ru used to be a Chinese university student, he could have graduated if he had not failed his tests every time. What had taken his attention, is a question everyone wondered, and the answer was although very simple, but problematic.


    Role-Playing Games, RPG¡¯s, whether it was a single player RPG or an MMO, Ling Ru loved to play, and he was fairly good at it. His family and nearest kin always told him he should study more, and stop wasting time on such stuff.


    The problem was, he liked it. When someone tells you to stop something you like doing, especially when that part does not understand the adrenaline and joy, hatred begins bubbling. After Ling Ru woke up a moment ago, his grieving let him admit that hatred is stupid. It was, after all, what led him to this bizarre scenario.


    Due to having been corrected and judged, looked down on for his gaming habits, for a very long time, he had gone mad. He shouted at his mom, dad and aunt before rushing out the door. It was raining, he had quickly grabbed a blouse, but forgot his jacket.


    It is not like he had much to do, without his computer or laptop, he really did not like studying either. Going for a walk in the rain, he saw a cat on the road, it was quite dark so it was hard to notice, it seemed the road lights had a power outage or something.


    Actually, it had been unusually dark for being inside a town, there was no light at all. Ling Ru did not really consider this aspect because the cat was too entertaining for him. Desperate to have a companion to talk to, he stood on the sidewalk in a shitting position while watching the cat. Similarly, the cat sat on the road and licked its paw while interestingly watching Ling Ru.


    For many minutes time passed, Ling Ru just spoke to the cat, and the cat did not leave. For Ling Ru this was a sign that the cat liked him, in view of the pouring rain, the cat really did have some kind of talent for being still for so long.


    It was only at the last few seconds, that Ling Ru noticed something weird. After the cat had licked its paw, the cat had not moved at all. It was as if frozen in place. Ling Ru made a lot of noise and had tried to get the cat to move, but nothing proved to work.


    A last ditch effort was to go near it and hope for a reaction, as such he did. But the moment he was around twenty centimetres away from the cat, a sudden light had blinded him, and a sound like a truck honking entered his ears. Beyond that, he did not remember.


    It was his last memories.


    Hence when he saw that he awoke in a forest, it was quite scary. Even scarier, is the fact that the trees were not normal, they were purple and thorns were protruding everywhere. The leaves were more than half a meter long!This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Ling Ru¡¯s panicking eyes looked everywhere, the whole forest was a complete visual mess. He could not seek shelter and protection from the trees due to the thorns, and he had a massive headache.


    As he stood up, he noticed how wobbly his body was, it was almost as if he was smaller? Looking down at himself, he was scared shitless by the sight. He could not help but scream out.


    ¡°ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!¡± his scream bellowed through a big part of the forest and raised a lot of attention from the creatures and what else existed there.


    But how could he have known, that he was inviting tragedy with his scream? He had a very reliable guess, that he was drugged and was actually in a very heavy dream, or was hallucinating. Sadly, sometimes such a guess is right, this time it was not.


    Ling Ru started running, but his small and insecure feet led him to fall every time he stood up. His body was all red and slimy as if he was a foster. The panic overtook him, he had never played a game or seen something like this. Despite his depressive state, the notion popped into his head.


    ¡®Could this be real?¡¯


    But more than that, he did not get to think further. A huge horned half lion half snake suddenly stood in front of him, it''s howling mouth clearly had space for the current him. Being in an already weak state, he fainted.


    ¡­


    His eyelids fluttered as he woke up a second time. This time it was not as bad a trauma, he was lying on something, it was not soft but neither was it something hard like a stone floor. It was more like a floor rug place one a few pillows.


    The first thing he saw this time, was him being in some kind of cave. The cave was dimly lit by a primal bonfire. He quickly dismissed this and kept observing. After his near-death-in-his-dream experience, he chose to be an optimist at the moment.


    Beyond the bonfire, there was nearly nothing in the cave, the bed he had slept in was made of unknown grass, purple in colour. This sent shivers down his spine, apparently, he was not dreaming, this grass was identical to the one in his supposed dream.


    Actually, he did not sleep on the grass, but rather on some other form of grass, that had been woven and placed above the grass as a kind of cover. He could see the cave tunnel, and as he was in a dead end, it could only mean that the tunnel would lead him out.


    Ling Ru could not help but contemplate what would be outside the cave, or if he could even traverse in his current condition. He was red, completely red. His current body was very small and very red, maybe he was reborn in another world as another creature? But if he was just birthed, where were his parents?


    It did not really make sense to him, the foreign concept. Travelling worlds is supposed to be something heroic and epic. With thoughts reminding him that he might be the first world traveller, he should be magnanimous towards his surroundings.


    It was while contemplating that his eyes suddenly saw something weird, every time he looked around, he would see everything change, except something in the corner of his vision. At first, it looked really weird, primarily because he was not used to focusing his vision and mentality to actually be able to see clearly the ends of his vision.


    When he read what it said, he gaped for a long while, stuck breathless.


    [Level 0] Demon Seedling


    ???


    That was all it said, that incomprehensible stuff at the corner, was actually a HUD like in games. But as far as Ling Ru was concerned, Virtual Reality was nowhere near this kind of technology, until now everything kept getting weirder.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 2

    ..


    After realizing it was a hud that was stuck in his eyes, he started wondering. Actually, the stimulus currently overflowing felt nice, adrenaline pumped through him, his eyes glowed vividly under the growing dreams of becoming a prodigy!


    The stimulus wore off after some time, and he returned to a more calm thought process. If he could find out how to level up, would he not be able to overpower everyone? Although he had not seen confirmation of whether or not there were any humans in this world, or if they would accept him with his body.


    He had yet to find something to see his own reflection, considering the primal nature of the cave and the one who put him here, the chance of them having a mirror was unlikely. Suddenly a voice so subtle he almost did not hear it, it was his own voice but without his control.


    [Mental Awareness skill obtained!]


    Skill Level: 0


    Experience: 1/100


    Description:


    The Mental Awareness skill increases the user¡¯s mental ability overall. Ie. better memory, easier handling of thoughts and ideas etc. The skill is trained by thinking.


    This sudden announcement made Ling Ru gape. He could not help but laugh in his mind, what the heck is this kind of skill? After calming himself down, another subtle voice spoke in his mind.


    [Mental Awareness EXP+10 (Manage emotions effectively)]


    Ling Ru cried in his mind after hearing this, levelling this skill was simply too easy. And it might be of good use to him in the future. Mental Awareness if trained correctly, should not necessarily have any boundaries. This skill as a first skill, was truly not a bad one. Clearly he had to appreciate this luck, or wait¡­


    There was still this massive problem, of how to get home ¡­ If that was even what he wanted. Maybe, he should just take it with a grain of sugar, turn some stones before deciding. Being away from the family could create emotional friction, but by training the Mental Awareness skill it should not be a problem to manage it completely.


    Considering, he had already 11 EXP, or actually, it had increased to 17 just by thinking just now. This was truly a magical skill. It seemed more challenging situations would cause the exp he gained to be a lot higher in amounts. Passively thinking would also give him exp.


    He had already accumulated a really good idea of how this skill worked, as a gamer he had actually read something about controlling one¡¯s mental mind before, it was just very blurry since it was not given much thought at that time.


    He knew vaguely about at least 7 or 9 mental skills, he just could not remember which ones they were, but knowing that they existed was already of use. Sitting on the cold cave flooring, he noticed that even though he was naked, his skin was sturdier than most clothes on earth.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    To experiment, he calmly touched himself a few times around his body, he needed to know more of himself before he dared to make assumptions. It could be, human babies looked different in this world, or that they were simply another colour.


    From feeling his face and that he was bald, he had a basic image of what he looked like, but it was not something that he liked to imagine because he had some very weird features. Two small protruding balls where his hair was supposed to be, and it did not feel like hair would grow there.


    Permanent bald, what a joke. How could he, someone destined to be a prodigy in this game be bald. He could only laugh at himself, he started throwing away the mentality of him being from another world and snaked himself towards adapting to this weird occurrence as playing a game.


    He just needed to value life greatly and think of this as an advanced virtual reality game, that had yet to be launched. Right, act as the best tester ever, discover all bugs and exploits, become the most overpowered person in the game, defeat and obliterate others taking on the leaderboards.


    After approximately an hour of thinking and calming his mind and changing his state of perspective, he heard an announcement again.


    [Mental Awareness skill obtained!]


    Skill Level: 1


    Experience: 3/200


    Description:


    The Mental Awareness skill increases all of the user¡¯s mental abilities. I.e. maintaining focus and concentration, controlling emotions and encouraging oneself. The skill is trained by using the abilities.


    After reaching level 1, the skill¡¯s description had changed, and he even had a feeling he could remember more. This feeling was most likely directly connected to the description, it already included 3 of the mental abilities he knew of. Faith, it had to be some kind of faith that his memories felt bound to the skill. For it to already be level 2, maybe he could over level this ability by just thinking everyday.


    Dreams of obtaining psychic abilities, if other could see his face, although it was not very humane and did not look very handsome, they would be able to distinguish the happiness etched on his face.


    Settling in his mind, he chose to temporarily forget all of the choices he needed to make to move forward if he was going to die it would be worth nothing to think. Observing the cave with a simple glance, he went to the cave tunnel that led out.


    His body was still unstable, at least his control of the body was improving rapidly, walking in a stable manner became easier by the seconds. When he reached the part of the tunnel that was no longer reached by the light, he hesitated.


    He clenched his fist and was about step out when he picked up some sounds, it was near, it sounded like people. It was inaudible, but he was reminded of when you could hear people behind a wall, mumbling and laughing.


    If he was really saved by people, even if they were a bit barbaric and primal, it was still what he hoped for, a connection. He could not help but take a step, then another step, he kept going.


    After running for more than ten seconds, he reached a bend, but he increased in speed a little because some light could be seen landing on the cave walls. Hope was flourishing, it felt like ages before he reached the bend, and when he came around it, he fell.


    His motor skills were not the best at the moment, control of the body was not stabilized either, but neither was the reason for him tripping. What entered his vision had scared him, shattered his hope but also enlightened him.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 3

    Six creatures looking demon like sat around a fire and ate directly from some animal that was cut and roasted above the fire. The meat did not even look roasted yet, but they did not care. They were muscular, naked, five males and two females.


    They all had black pupils and a broad but not long nose, they were even quite big, most likely taller than the lion-snake creature. These were not humans, it was more likely that these demons had taken him in because they were of the same kind. The female demons looked more or less the same as the males, they just had breasts and was ten centimetres shorter.


    Luckily they were covered with some beast skin, it was not much but enough. This cavern was most likely their home, and the beast looked a bit like the lion-snake beast. When he realized this he exclaimed a ¡°Holy Shit!¡±.


    Due to him being a relatively young demon or a demon seedling as the HUD said, his speech was nowhere near his normal, it was complete gibberish. But it caught the other demons attention.


    He was not really scared of them though, and when they were all looking at him, he felt a strange fondness. Maybe being raised by them would not be bad? Ling Ru questioned himself but had no plans to answer just yet. Surprisingly, he could not help but be forced by instinct to look at the almost rawly to be roasted beast, and his stomach was aching for food.


    ¡­


    After looking at Ling Ru for a while, one of the men stood up and walked towards Ling Ru. Seeing this Ling Ru felt weird about it, he was not scared but he still felt like he messed up. When the demon neared, all he could think of was how small he himself was at that moment.


    He tried to stand up, but for some reason he was anxious, it made it even harder to control his body. The giant demon towering in front of him kneeled down, and with one hand he picked up Ling Ru and walked back to the fireplace.


    Then he sat down and placed Ling Ru on his lap, this was really poking the limit for Ling Ru, it felt gay. But he did his best to calm himself, clearly, sincerity was the demons were showing him, the demon he sat on was even ready to feed him.


    The other demons were very curious, they who ate like mad beasts before was actually taking small bites and observing Ling Ru. Ling Ru decided to become familiar with the one he sat on, for Ling Ru that meant to be able to know who he is amongst the others.


    ¡®I will call him Baba, his scar on his nose is enough to differentiate him from the others..¡¯


    As he was thinking of this, Baba stretched out an arm and plucked a notable piece of meat from the beast, withdrawing his arm, he stopped it right in front of Ling Ru. If Ling Ru wanted to eat, he would just have to open up his mouth and bite down.


    This was still hard for Ling Ru, to eat almost raw meat. The optimist inside him told him he would probably gain some skill, being able to eat everything or something wild. But this was not how he felt like doing it, instead he stretched out both arms to push away the meat, and jumped off Baba¡¯s lap.


    What he chose to was of course to cook the meat he ate better, to a roasted level. The beast was raise too far above the fire to even really be affected. They probably only used it to get the meat a bit hot, intelligence did not seem to be in their favour, heated meat was already a gold find for these primal demons.


    Or actually the fact they are able to make fire is notable, their uses are just not developed yet. Ling Ru stretched out and tried to reach for a piece of meat, Baba looked dumbfounded but raised him up with one hand, he was curious about Ling Ru. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    With Baba¡¯s assistance, Ling Ru could reach the meat, he took off something that looked fresh and unaffected by the low heat, fewer bacteria. After getting down from Baba¡¯s hand, he looked around for a stick or something, he was exasperated to find something looking like spears made of wood.


    He ran over and speared the meat, and went back to the fireplace. By this everyone was dumbfounded, they had never seen a demon seedling acting like this. Demons are not stupid, they actually know how to communicate, they were just looking at Ling Ru because the initial days of a demon seedling usually determine its strength.


    Ling Ru had already seated himself close to the fire, it was closer than the other demons were because the demons were bigger and had longer reach so it was no problem for them to sit further away. The heat did not affect them, Ling Ru guessed that the weird feeling earlier when he sat on the floor, was in accord with their weird skin.


    Their skin was very hard in comparison to the normal human skin, resilient and hard, but also flexible. It was actually quite enjoyable to move around in the body, the feeling was very good. After Ling Ru sat down, he held the spear in over the fire, just high enough not to be charred, but there was a visual distance between the meat on his spear and the meat that was placed above the fire.


    Baba and companions all started acting normal again, like they were before Ling Ru came. Ling Ru listened attentively while they were communicating, it was actually like they were telling each other stories, or something alike.


    As time passed, he got more and more used the language, it was imperceptible at the speed he learned the basics of the language, meanwhile, he was even sparing some attention on the meat, to roast it properly.


    After hearing a lot of their speech, Ling Ru gradually understood it, he had his doubts about how he could just suddenly learn to speak another language in around twenty minutes, but it was a delightful thing. Being able to communicate with them would make a world of difference to the present Ling Ru.


    Looking at his meat, he drew the spear closer to him to carefully check for raw spots, but to his surprise, it looked really good. It was not red at all, and with his first bite, he went to wonderland. He let out a ¡°Mmh¡± sound to the best of his demon capabilities, this meat was ten times better than pork. A chicken''s meat was not even a match for this, it did not even need spices to taste so delicious.


    It was right after Ling Ru had taken the bite, and being mesmerised, that he heard another announcement.


    [Basic Demon Language Learned]


    Skill Level: 1/5


    Experience: 1/20


    Description:


    Language skill unlocked the Demon Language, and you can now speak the basics.


    Right after this announcement, Ling Ru felt enlightened. ¡®20 experience points to level up!¡¯ He noticed something very important about this language skill, it was very easy for him to progress in learning it. It could be natural affinity due to him being a demon, maybe it was quite normal, he needed to maxlevel it quickly if he wanted to help these demons become smarter.


    After unlocking the language skill, Ling Ru ate his meat and listened to the stories of the demons, he learnt a lot of the ecosystem and the beasts living outside, as well as the strength and prowess of the demons. Time passed slowly, and Ling Ru found his eyelids closing automatically for longer periods of time.


    He felt very secure about falling asleep here, so he leaned on Baba to use him as a cushion, and due to his fatigue of the day being so abnormal, and the stress of his mind, he fell asleep within moments. It needs to be said, Ling Ru had slept for a long period of time before being transferred to this world and waking up, but he had maybe been awake for four hours since coming to the cave, due to the stress and abnormal occurrences, he was very tired from fatigue.


    The younger someone is, the more sleep they need, it¡¯s common knowledge, and the same goes for Demon seedlings. Apparently.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 4

    After waking up, Ling Ru remembered the details of yesterday, he had fallen asleep. Looking around, he instantly made the cave out to be the one he woke up in yesterday, there was a hole at the top he did not notice before, it brought in some light.


    It was the same bed, he remembered falling asleep leaning on Baba, he even felt embarrassed to have fallen asleep on another man. But since Baba had brought him here, he probably did not care. Stretching a bit, he contemplated today''s adventure, it was after all his first real day in this world.


    After stretching his arms, there was something annoying him, a strange feeling. Looking around himself, there was something different. Choosing to get out of the bed, he stood up, and he finally knew what was wrong with him. He had grown at least a few centimetres.


    To think the growth of demons was this insane, humans could grow quickly too, but not such a noticeable amount in a night. He focused on the hud but was dispirited when seeing he was still a level 0 demon seedling. He quickly gave a dismissive smile as he encouraged himself, of course, you would not level up by idling!


    Since he had just woke up, he walked around a bit and got familiar with his body, and then chose to head for the main cave. The main cave was what he called the bigger cave he was in yesterday night. Like a living room, his current room was a bedroom. Making that analysis, he thought of a bath, Ling Ru could use one.


    Reaching the cave, only the two female demons were there, so he walked around the cave to look at the other caves inside the tunnel system. Before he got far, the female demons caught him, since he was still so young, he did not want to let them know he understood their speech. They were basically just cuddling him and chatting about how cute he was.


    From this interaction, he already got to know that what he had thought, was right. They had really saved him at the perfect time, it was not normal for a demon seedling to be left behind by their parents, this logic seemed reasonable for a human. He also heard something very interesting, these six demons, were a bit barbaric and primitive, but they were actually considering his origin.


    This could have a few points to consider, one of the most important ones being that they know that there are other demons in the vicinity. They also make it sound like there was almost a demon city, maybe they were just behind because they did not have the resources, and the people to build. He would have to explore this in the future, after establishing and growing a bit.


    Since he got a bit tired of being held around and listening to their chatting got boring, he contemplated whether he should speak or not. There was really no reason not to, he learned the language quickly, but he did not know if this was normal, or if they even cared.


    A while went by in his mind, the two female were surprised when they heard Ling Ru¡¯s words, his question.


    ¡°Where are the males?¡±


    It was not human language, so it was hard to ask a question for Ling Ru without asking for the wrong point, but after contemplating he thought this question would work. Seeing the stunning appearance of the females, he could guess speaking while so young was not normal, but they actually just waved it away and answered his question.


    ¡°Hunting¡±


    The one holding him set him down, it was the other female who had answered his question since they were a bit stunned by the happening, it was not on purpose, but they still distanced themselves a bit from Ling Ru. However, to him, it did not really matter. It was clearly only temporarily until he grew up, then it would be normal to speak.


    Turning around he gave up on the exploring of the cave, because he got an idea. Since the males were hunting, he had seen their spears. Since they had spears, they also had something sharp to cut the ends with, maybe he could unlock weapon craft and just keep making the same gear to become incredible at it, before making insane weapons!You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    This idea was truly awe inspiring, but before he got far he remembered to ask for their names. He was a bit taken aback when they told him they have no names, they are demons. That was all there was to it, so Ling Ru continued to walk outside. It was easy to find out which way it was, because of the main cave, or the living room, was not far away from the exit/entrance, therefore one could see a hint of the outside from the main cave.


    His steps were getting more and more stable, he did not hesitate from leaving the cave when he reached the exit, he was a bit blinded by the light since it was quite dark in the cave. His eyes just needed to get used to it. When they did, he saw the same purple trees close to the cave, the cave and tunnel system was inside a huge mountain wall, unclimbable.


    The mountain wall declined a bit, so naturally it should have been possible if it was a bit rough, but the mountain wall was incredibly smooth, like a huge sword cutting it in two. One problem with this hypothesis, there was no second part of the mountain, so this was naturally impossible. It was likely able to be reasoned with the weird landscape of this world, just like how the trees are purple and huge, the wall is smooth, two differences, even the grass was not even normal grass, it was purple and thin but tall and very thick.


    Ling Ru knew there would be many differences from earth, especially after listening to some of the stories the men shared yesterday. He also got the feeling that they did not always live in the caves, together with what he heard from the females, he had an idea of how they gathered. The highest likelihood was that they were all kicked out of the demon city, if that was so, with his intelligence he might be able to negotiate for them to get back!


    He owed them for saving him and taking care of him, without them he would be dead, the transition from another world or not, he was still doomed at that time. What gave him hope was not them, it was not that he slept well or woke up in a bed, it was ultimately because their actions showed affection. This means they are capable of rational thought and love, with how they have developed for now he will be able to help them lots.


    He might have failed university exams twice, but he has a lot of knowledge especially game wise. If he just unlocks enough skills and levels them enough, he might be able to make demons one of the most advanced races in regards to technology. Another problem with this though, is he know nothing of other races, or even how this world looks like as a continent.


    For now Ling Ru needed to focus on Weapon Crafting, so he just walked around in the vicinity to the cave and explored. He looked at all the stones he found, if any of them was sharp he picked them up, there was only 3 stones that could be used to sharpen wood. For now he stuck to the idea of crafting spears, they should count as weapons.


    While walking around, he found a good sized stick lying near a bush, so he went over to pick it up. When he bowed down to pick it up, he heard a small roar. He did not panic, because he could hear it was not close to him. He knew that there was nothing behind him, he did not enter the forest so he was actually still up at the mountain wall, he simply walked along the wall.


    Raising his head to look at a spot above the bush, he first eyed the probable cause of the roar, a small boar like a beast, it looked like a tiger boar. It had a boars'' round body and long mouth with protruding horns from each side of the mouth, except the boar had two sets more so it was equipped with six horns, its legs were bigger and it had a tiger''s tail as well as a golden fur.


    Blood flowed from its right eye, it was currently fighting something. Ling Ru could not find any other beasts, he could only see the tiger boar, this gave him a sudden extra heartbeat because it made him think of a possibility.


    As he slowly motioned for his body to turn around, he also turned his face to look behind him. The tension inside him grew, but when he turned around, there was nothing. A sigh escaped him in relief as he turned his attention back to the currently wounded tiger boar. When he looked back into the forest, the tiger boar was gone.


    Raising his shoulder slightly as to answer his own question of ¡®Where did it go?¡¯ with a ¡®I don¡¯t know¡¯ shoulder motion. He picked up the stick, and evaluated it to be perfect as one of his first test objects. He walked around for some time more and picked up a few more stick he could make spears out of, and chose to head back to the cave.


    When he entered, the females were also gone. He sat down near the fireplace, even though the fire had died long before. He put down the three sharp stones, they were to act as sharpening tools for his work, and he also put down the sticks, he had found seven that would do as a spear. They were straight sticks, quite tough and smooth, perfect to stab or throw.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 5

    After fidgeting with the stone and sticks for five minutes, he managed to sharpen one of the ends on the spear, it was not really perfect or really sharp, but it did manage to fit the description of a spear. When he looked down on the remaining sticks he found a problem.


    It could take long before he actually managed to unlock the skill of weapon craft, and he only had so few sticks. Sharpening one end might not be enough crafting work to be sufficient to unlock the skill. Contemplating for a while he looked at the spear in his hand.


    ¡®That is it!¡¯ he quickly found a solution while looking at the end of the spear, the spear has two ends, but he only needed to sharpen on of the ends to make a spear, sharpening both ends would not only be an upgrade, it would be more work.


    This might be the way to unlock weapon crafting with few resources, upgrading the weapons should be able to give more experience too. A smile suffused his lips as he began sharpening the other end of the spear.


    He had realized something that was important too, while he hid it from himself, the sharp ends of the spears, were not really that sharp, almost blunter. His skills at using the sharp stones to do this was really poor. He did not really mind because if he could unlock the skill, it should improve by just doing it again and again. This was also a way for him to be of use to the male demons for their hunting. If they had more spears they could throw some and then fight when they only had one left, that would give them an advantage and a safety measure to not fight in close combat all the time.


    Ling Ru felt quite smart for coming up with this, especially since he was two or three days old in this body, and to be of use to his new community felt really good. He worked hard with his mentality set on finishing the work fast.


    After working through sharpening all the ends of the sticks, he put down all the spears on the floor and picked each up to finish them with a bit of review work. After finishing sharpening them some more because he was unsatisfied, he could finally sit down and smile at all the spears. When he acknowledged his work, the announcement he awaited finally came.


    [Poor Basics of a Carpenter Unlocked]


    Skill Level: 1/50


    Experience: 70/100


    Description:


    Woodwork and wooden structural labour.


    His fists clenched, and a slight tear dropped from his left eye. He was in pain, in his heart and in his mind. He who had worked hard to unlock the weapon crafting skill became af****** carpenter! How would he ever live with himself¡­


    After relaxing himself again, another announcement flickered in his mind.


    [Mental Awareness skill obtained!]


    Skill Level: 2


    Experience: 10/300


    Description:


    The Mental Awareness skill increases all of the user¡¯s mental abilities. I.e. maintaining focus and concentration, controlling emotions, encouraging oneself, visualisation and imagery. The skill is trained by using and practising your abilities, as well as assessing your proficiency.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    This time the skill changed again, and this time the change was more significant, his head was much clearer and he could even control his emotions. Mildly said, that was just an insane ability. To be able to motivate and encourage himself more and more, ignore emotions, use more realistic dreams to gain experience as well as increase proficiency in all other skills, this skill is just too heaven like. It also made him a bit smarter.


    With this skill, he suddenly realised something about his carpentering, he could build wooden structures. If he built crossbows with his carpenter skills, wooden slings and cannons, it would most likely unlock the weapon crafting skill, or in actuality, woodwork and metalwork are just different ways of crafting everything.


    No need for a weapon craft skill, if the carpenter skill can make something better. He had at most used two hours, so still had a lot of time to level up the new skill, 7 spears with 14 spear ends, each spear gave 10 exp, or rather each spear end he made gave 5 exp. For him to level up he would need three more sticks to make spears out of.


    Sadly it was already getting dark outside, so it would be problematic and probably also dangerous to go out. He either woke really late, else the sun is quite fast. That reminded him, he had never seen the sun or the moon, he could not make assumptions about their existence in this world.


    Back to the deal at hand, so to get experience, he would need to find sticks. But he did not want to go outside because of the dangers unless the males could help him, but they were still not home yet, hunting takes time. Being in a terrible situation where you just want to level up, but cannot find out how is problematic for a gamer, but Ling Ru was quickly reminded of something he said earlier.


    I will just need to upgrade the spears, that should give experience too. He recounted some of his memories of spears, and how spears were also made with stones, he could his sharp stones as a spear head, and by breaking the spears he could make them smaller and have one sharp end, and one stone end. He would only be able to make three of them, but it would be worth it.


    With his newfound idea, Ling Ru stood up and went on a search in the caves, what he needed was something he could use as a string, a tough and resilient string. He found out that there were actually only 3 cave-rooms other than the main cave, his current bedroom, the males supposed bedroom and the females supposed bedrooms.


    When he noticed this, he had thoughts of the males and females having intercourse, some would like this train of thought, but Ling Ru was a bit scared when thinking of it, especially due to the fact that he kept imagining whatever he thought in better detail than ever.


    The imagery was due to the Mental Awareness skill, it undoubtedly increased his mind proficiency, but especially for things like this, it should be stopped. He controlled himself to think of the situation at hand, and kept rummaging through the two caves. When he found nothing, he went to his own room, which only had a homemade bed.


    It only took a quick glance to decipher the secrets of the room, one bad, and all nothing. This room was empty, nothing he could use. Before he turned around, he glanced at the bed and realised that grass in this world is different from earth, it might be good enough.


    He walked up to the bed and picked out a few straws of good thick and long grass. Bending it a bit and playing with it, it broke too easily. This grass looked really strong and flexible, but it was useless, it¡¯s only use was for vegans to eat, if it is not toxic, who knows.


    Ling Ru gave up and just dumped the grass on the cold cave floor, turned around and headed back to his spears. When he sat down and looked at his spears, he felt down. How should he progress in carpentering without resources?


    Bordering on depression, although temporary, one day of waste, Ling Ru did not want to accept this, he wanted to accomplish something at least before the males came home. He looked up to ensure himself he would go outside and look anyway.


    When he looked up, his eyes automatically looked at the beast they ate yesterday, there was almost no meat left, but there was plenty of skin. There would not be a need to skin the fur, he could use the tough skin from it to make strips that can bind the stone to the spear, it would be perfect.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 6

    ¡­


    After a bit of a struggle, he managed to tilt the support that held up the beast, so that the cadaver fell to the ground. He was simply too short to reach it otherwise. After it mildly crashed down onto the floor, Ling Ru started looking at the remaining skin that had not been ripped apart.


    There also landed a quiet note in his mind reminding him of how strong demons are when they are fully grown, or grown-ups. But he was focused on the work at hand, and how strong he would be physically in the future would be useless if he could not even solve what was in front of him.


    He needed a way to cut off the skin, he tried pulling at it, but it was quite nasty and he kept touching the lion-snake rib bones, they were slimy and filled with leftover muscle tissue and other ¡­ nasty stuff.


    Ling Ru was able to loosen the skin from the body but was not able to get it off, he needed to cut it. He looked back at his pile of sharp stones, while they might not be able to cut the skin, maybe he could smash it. He walked over to his sharp stones and picked up the sharpest stone he had.


    As he stood over the big beast, he hammered the sharp stone on the beast skin, it actually made a hole. If he did this in straight lines on the skin, he would be able to cut out strips of skin. As such, he kept hammering.


    ¡­


    A whole hour passed with hammering, he took a few breaks because of the numbness and pain in his arms, he was still very weak, for a demon. Also, he only managed two strips in that hour, because he was unable to keep going due to the fatigue and lack of energy. Hunger was not a problem, he just did not have energy without food, demons were very special and he was still learning how his own body worked.


    Ling Ru lied down for a while to relax, after ten minutes he sat up and took one of the spears, he broke it in half and used his stone to make it a more of an abrupt break, removing splinters. He chopped with the stone into the side of the spear around five centimetres down the wood, and also chopped in the middle of the top of the wood. This created a kind of rectangular spot, he would put the stone here and bind it around the remaining wood, which could act as support.


    He pressed the stone onto the missing rectangular spot in the wood and began binding the strip of skin around the wood and the stone. He quickly noticed how it would not work, the strip was not tight enough. After pondering for a moment, he remembered watching a television show, they even crafted something very similar just with a knife.


    He made a quick decision to use his own weight as a counter force and bound one end of the strip of skin to his foot. Then he wrapped the skin around the shaft and the stone, and then he pulled as hard as he could to tighten the wrap, while his own weight was keeping the strap to the ground so that it was tightened to the best of his abilities.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    His feet was almost stopped from getting blood, but he managed to get through with it because of his tough skin. The line was taut enough to keep the stone to the spear. He made a simple knot and was finally done.


    Ling Ru was quite surprised with how good his spear looked, it was sharp in one end, and had a sharp stone in the other. It was already many times better than the not so sharp spears that the males used for hunting. He needed to make three more to have enough to give each of the males a new spear.


    The females would also have been amazed if they had seen what he had done, but they had gone out to search for some other food, meat is not everything. When they returned later, they saw that the beast was on the floor, and Ling Ru who was sweaty lied on the floor taking a break. He had just finished his second spear, and he had no more straps of skin for now.


    When the females saw the spears they were very curious, they even went up and picked up one each. They looked at Ling Ru for a while before praising his work, their praise was very simple, but they were actually quite stunned. Demons possess an innate high intelligence in comparison to beasts, and they had seen similar weapons in the Demon City.


    Only that when demons tried to wrap the stone to a spear or a stick, it would be wobbly and not tight, it would also look weird to have a stone to the site of the spear, but the spears Ling Ru made looked like the stone was almost an extension of the spear. They were on par with the quality from the demon city.


    This also made them question his origins again, how did this little demon become so smart, but since he was clearly too young to have been taught anything from his parents, they decided to not ponder the matter. They did nothing else than praise Ling Ru before they gave the spears back and walked to their own room.


    Ling Ru was a bit stunned, they even recognized the worth of the spears, they were really smart. He could even teach them to make this, if the males learnt it, it would be easier for them to survive. At some point the experience gained from spears would not be enough for Ling Ru, he was already at level 2 for the carpenter skill with 25 experience.


    The first spear had levelled him up, but after levelling up the second spear gave 5 experience less, this meant that the appreciation of his work in accord with experience would be less every time he levelled up his proficiency at a skill. It challenged him to make better work. His second spear was even much better than the first, he had done some small regulations to make it more flexible, and had even done a very good job at wrapping the stone to the spear.


    Yet it had given less experience. Ling Ru pondered for a long while before he decided to go outside, just outside the cave should be safe, Ling Ru thought. He went outside to stretch and feel the breeze, it reminded him of how good the air felt in the morning when you woke up early. It reminded him of Earth. After stretching for a while, he sat down leaning on the mountain wall while looking up. There were stars, but there was no moon. He did not know what gave the light, but there was some just like how the moon illuminated earth at night.


    This light though, seemed like it came from nothing, or maybe the stars projected some kind of light in this galaxy. He could not research it, he had no prior knowledge of astrology or similar stuff. He chose to abandon this thought of train and instead he dozed off.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 7

    ¡°Mhm¡±


    Ling Ru woke up because of the scent, it was cooking! delight filled him as he woke up bit after bit, so when he woke up to see a beast above the fire, he was in a bit of a melancholy due to the reality that awaited him, but he pushed it aside when he remembered what had actually happened.


    He had been dreaming of home, of his family and how he actually did not hate them, he tried to say goodbye but whenever he did, no words came out. He could practically talk with them like usual, except say the words goodbye. Ling Ru had gone to sleep in this dream, and when he smelled food, he had an innate longing for it to be his mom¡¯s cooking, and his family he would wake up to.


    Harsh reality hit him when he woke up and saw the beast. This beast was similar to the other tiger-snake beast, it was probably the same kind. The beast that was on the floor when Ling Ru went out, was gone. Baba and the other male demons had removed it, Ling Ru just sat up and noticed how Baba had placed him so that Ling Ru had been sleeping while leaning on him, it was quite an emotional thought.


    Baba had no reason why, but he liked this little fellow, after hearing from the females about the spears, he had appreciated his work. He himself was the group leader, and bringing in Ling Ru was his decision. He wanted to speak with Ling Ru himself, since Ling Ru could speak at such a young age, and even make weapons like that, he was definitely someone special.


    But for Ling Ru, speaking to these fellows was hard, he had already gotten a bit of exp in the language skill, but the fact that the language sounded like gibberish to him, yet it felt like it translated automatically when they spoke, it was really weird.


    ¡°We caught a beast, eat.¡± Baba tapped Ling Ru gently on his head and pointed to the beast. When Baba was at Ling Ru¡¯s age, he had been fed by his dad, but after the incident last night he knew Ling Ru preferred to do it his own way. Ling Ru nodded gently to Baba and then he went to get a spear he had created himself, of course not with a stone attached to it. It would be stupid to use a good weapon to cook meat, especially since it was his own creation.


    After picking the shabbiest of the wooden spears, he went back and stood in front of Baba, he still could not reach the beast that was above the fire, so he needed to ask Baba to raise him up. While he had learned the language, the weirdness and obscurity of it made it hard for him to make specific sentences, it took him some time to come up with the right sentence.


    ¡°Baba, can you help me reach the beast?¡± Ling Ru asked a bit awkwardly, and if he was not red all over, he would have red cheeks, he had just busted himself in naming Baba, he had accidentally said it out loud. Baba raised an eyebrow as he looked interestingly at Ling Ru.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    After a few seconds of time, Baba gave him an answer. ¡°I will help you if you tell me what Baba means.¡± He was very straightforward in his manner of speech, considering the weird demon tongue language. Baba was very interested in the word, mostly because of the tingling in his tummy when he looked at Ling Ru, it was a form of curiosity and relations. Not love, but more like a familial relationship, like dad and son, or uncle and nephew.


    ¡°Baba is the name I gave you.¡± this sentence was relatively easy to output, it was three words in the demon language which had the same meaning as that sentence. Baba was a bit stupefied, he pointed at himself. ¡°I am a demon, I have no name.¡±


    Ling Ru shook his head and spent some time thinking of his wording when he was done he turned around and looked at all the demons in the cave. ¡°Names are personal, demons have names, demons are a race, not a name. I am Ru, Baba is Baba. Names are used to know who is who, it is good to have names.¡± The wordings was a bit special because it was hurried.


    It was like he was talking to a baby when he spoke, he tried to keep it simple. After he finished speaking, the other demons looked at him, before sharing interesting looks between each other. Oneof the females was first to respond, she even stood up and wore a playful grin.


    ¡°Ru, I want a name!¡± her voice was enigmatic and a small fire was burning in her eyes. Ru was right from her point of view when they lived in demon city, demons had no names. Stories were often told about humans, also about fairies and other races, and they had names. Why was it wrong to assume that demons should have names too? It was wrong to assume that demons could not have names.


    The surge of energy in her words had Ru smiling, he really liked that kind of personality, be it, first come first serve. ¡°Okay, I will name you Red! You are the only one with such a clean and light red skin out of all of us.¡± When he finished, Red mumbled her name and looked at herself and the others, it was true, her skin was in a way a unique red when compared to the others.


    She nodded and said ¡°Red!¡± with power. It was lucky for Ru to be able to know the word for red because his vocabulary was still quite small, luckily his demon language skill was close to levelling up. Since Red had gotten a name, Baba too had one, the others were still ruminating the meaning of names.


    The other female was shyer, she was fidgeting with her fingers, trying not to be exposed to being eager in wanting a name. Red helped her along by saying out loud. ¡°You need a name too, Ru can you give her a name?¡± She first looked at the other female, and then looked at Ru as she asked him the question.


    The female that needed a name shyly nodded and said ¡°Okay¡±. Ling Ru nodded and scratched his bald head while thinking. She was the second female, shy and if compared to Red, she was quite female for a demon being, even a bit cute. ¡°Flower, you are fragile but can be beautiful, cute and pretty. Flowers are beautiful!¡± He had no way to convince her, and neither did he want to directly compliment her.


    Instead, he gave her a name based on a flower instead of based on her, at least by the reasoning he gave. But she was adorable and cute, so flower was not wrong. He just did not have insights into picking a specific flower and did not know any kind of flowers in this world. He only knew they existed because one the males mentioned it in a story he told last night.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 8

    Now with Flower, Red and Baba all having distinguishable traits and names, it would make it much easier for Ling Ru to speak with them, or about them. If they had no names it would be hard to speak about them because the one he would speak to would have no way to know which male was referred to.


    Of course, Ling Ru was not dishing out names with the intention to chatter and gossip, he was trying to establish some kind of connection to them all. Before he came, they had all had long time relations, not relationships but friendships or some kind of the same. He, as the new guy, was more of a left out person, but by being the one naming them, they would all feel a strong sense of relation to him.


    Ling Ru¡¯s actual thoughts bordered on the above reasoning, but what was actually on his mind was that by giving them names they would resemble humans a tad more, whether he was doing it intentionally or not he could not be sure. He also knew that the more he levelled up Mental Awareness, he would be able to cut off emotions by demand.


    If he needed to, he would cut off all emotions or memories of being a human, after establishing some memories and a foothold in this world, he would not mind transitioning. He actually felt quite wondrous about the magnificence of this world, for a gamer to transferred here, did he even deserve it¡­


    He had a habit of pushing such thoughts aside, and so he did. What need would there be for thinking about how to handle the future, if he died at present? Survival and becoming stronger was essential for the present Ling Ru.


    Now with only three males left to have names, Ling Ru could not help but shift his position to turn towards them, what he saw made him smile awkwardly. These three were very obvious about their hesitation towards taking on a name, despite the acceptance of the three others.


    When they lived in demon city, their upbringing let them leave in peace, the demon race had not always been a peaceful race, it was only in the last thousand years. The reason why the current demon race did not use names, was actually due to their earlier violent ways.


    The former demon king from three thousand years ago had a name, and all his servants were forced to have names. The king was named Luo and is known as the Demon Ruler, he suffered death from his own generals after losing a war against the combined forces of the fairy, elves and human race.


    After losing the war, the whole demon race was near extinction, and without a ruler, the ones who escaped settled down in a place where no one came by. Since then demons had never met other races, and have been living in a form of exile. From that day on, the demon who took on the responsibility of a form of tribe elder banished names from the demon race once again.


    Thousands of years have passed, and yet these three were very linked to this story. Banished from the banished city of banished demons, Baba saw no reason to feel enmity towards a former ruler. Questioning your king is reasonable, but a ruler is at most times defect. Logic in overbearing resent, it made no sense.


    Baba knew these men from childhood, he had lived for thirty-seven years, he also knew what held them in lock about the names. These three were a special case and was direct descendants from the former demon ruler. The innate shame that had been transferred from their ancestors, it was much stronger than the ordinary demons.


    Direct descendants were looked ill upon, they had fewer chances in the demon city, most were banished if they acted wrongly even once. This was the same case for these male demons. So when Baba spoke, he had to come up with a way around their origins, or that is what one would think.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Listen, Ru makes a great point. Why are we bound to our ancestors, we are not! We can all delve in our ancestor''s pasts, but for me, everyone here is family. We are not associated with the demon city, nor their ancestors, we are free and no longer bound by their lies.¡± It was quite a heartfelt speech, whenever they had come together after hunting, every night, they had shared stories. Many of them were made up, but most of them had hidden elements of grievance over their treasons.


    The males looked at Baba, one of them clenched his fists and stood up while roaring. ¡°That¡¯s right! I am no longer part of their shit, from today onwards I will name myself Lon, I like how it sounds!¡± he laughed maniacally, if demons shed tears, he would be crying.


    For how long had they grieved over missing their loved ones? why should they be blamed for their inability to act properly, it was not them who raised themselves, their family did. Now they were caring demons with strength and will, they already had a new family and have had for a long time, it just lacked the realization for this.


    While Lon was laughing, the two last male demons stood up and clapped Lon¡¯s shoulder while looking at Ling Ru. ¡°Ru, would it be appropriate for you to name us?¡± the one on the right asked a bit touched by the sudden happenings. To think a demon seedling could bring this tight knit group together, just by giving them names.


    It had really moved their minds and hearts. Demons are naturally colder in emotion, and they do not shed tears. Although these were all banished, they still had each other. Inside demon city, people were repeating the same lifestyle from birth till¡¯ death. This group was different, they did not need currency, they survived themselves. They had only two weak parts, but the females also worked their share by finding other kinds of foods and materials. The spears the demons used was made by the females.


    ¡°Sure!¡± Ru smiled and nodded softly to them, he looked at Baba quickly, he was a bit touched after the scene of Baba¡¯s speech and the male¡¯s reactions. He needed a moment to consider good names for them. Two names. After some time, he got an idea.


    He pointed at the demon to the left of Lon and told him his name. ¡°You will be Zuo, you are the left man to the side of Lon, and I see you always help him even though Lon is older than you. As for you on the right of Lon, you are basically his right-hand man, therefore I name you Quan!¡± these names were based on traditional Chinese characters, and he felt that it was like this. Lon was only a few years younger than Baba, or so he deduced by looking at wrinkles.


    After everyone was named, They all ate the meat and some weird form of vegetables that the females had found in the vicinity. Ling Ru kept asking about the outside, like which races existed and where they all were. He found out incredible information that night.


    And he even accomplished three announcements that night, so his skill list currently looked like this:


    [Mental Awareness skill]


    Skill Level: 3


    Experience: 3/500


    Description:


    The Mental Awareness skill increases all of the user¡¯s mental abilities. I.e. maintaining focus and concentration, controlling emotions, encouraging oneself, visualisation and imagery. The skill is trained by using and practising your abilities, as well as assessing your proficiency.


    [Poor Basics of a Carpenter]


    Skill Level: 2/50


    Experience: 25/100


    Description:


    Woodwork and wooden structural labour.


    [Basic Demon Language Learned]


    Skill Level: 2/5


    Experience: 35/50


    Description:


    Language skill unlocked the Demon Language, and you can now speak the basics.


    With these three skills, he was already far more enlightened than before.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 9

    Ling Ru yawned, another day means another start. Waking up Ling Ru lied on his primitive bed for a while, considering whether he should set some goals for today. He did not really get anything done yesterday, he bonded a bit with the other demons, but he was after all still a seedling.


    Stories and history taught him a lot about this world, but more of the races and their hatred externally. He still needed to research the world to get a better grasp of what he is dealing with. He had thought of setting some extreme goal of world conqueror, with unlimited skills he had the potential to be limitless in power, maybe he could even become indestructible.


    Considering for a while, he sat up on the bed. He should definitely set some goals, not only today but everyday. With this he could map out his brilliance, reach higher! Ling Ru could not help to giggle to himself, planning is the basis of all masterminds.


    Looking at his three skills, the easiest to level was definitely the language, but even if it evolved to ¡®Advanced Demon Language Skill¡¯ it would not be of any help to him. Crossing that out for now, he only had two other skills. The carpenter skill needed to be levelled up, with it he could create siege weapons if he wanted to wage war. He had a faint of idea of overtaking the demon city, and force them to take in Baba, Lon, Quan, Zuo, Red and Flower. Red had told him what they had done to get banished, and it was kind of laughable.


    Lon was accused of starting a fight, without any evidence or eyewitnesses, the elder council just banished him. The logic was so surreal in that community, it was like they were playing god of all demons, it was unacceptable. Quan was an alcoholic, and since his wife left him he had gone mad in an inn, breaking a few chairs and some jars of alcohol. He was drunk, this kind of stuff happened on earth too, though a fine or a bit of jail time would suffice, as long as no one was hurt. Banishment was standard for descendants of the demon ruler, everyone had one chance if they were his descendants. The others had similar stories, except Baba.


    Baba was not even banished from the demon city, he got into a heated discussion with his grand parents, which are part of the elder council about Lon¡¯s banishment. When they did not want to listen to reason, Baba had just walked out of the city without coming back. He had already planned to meet up with Lon if they did not budge. Together with Lon he moved around in the wilderness, they would sometimes scour back to the exit of the city to look if anyone was banished.


    Once a month they would meet outside the city to see if anyone was banished, no one from the city could stop this, and they all gradually began to accept that a small group of banished demons survived together. The council was not stupid enough to think they could easily order a kill on the banished demons, so they just let them do whatever, as long as they did not step inside the city.


    Whether Baba¡¯s parents and grandparents regret their decision, was unknown. Ling Ru was quite touched by Baba¡¯s friendship towards Lon, who was even younger than him. Ling Ru was a bit sidetracked by his thoughts, but he casually reminded him of the issue at hand.


    Goals, Ling Ru needed goals. A few goals he commonly set himself in games was to hit a specific damage range, or clear a dungeon in a certain speed, but this was not relevant here. What mattered in this game was clearly his skills and abilities, and how to create new skills, maybe even some super powers. It gave him a super idea, power, in MMORPG¡¯s the character uses a weapon, he needs to master a weapon.


    The weapons Ling Ru was currently able to make was only the spear, despite craving to be a holy swordsman, he saw the reasoning in training the spear, unless! Ling Ru got a brilliant idea, it did not matter if the sword was made of wood, clearly a spear of wood is not as good as a spear made of metal alloy, or what was actually used. Point is, he is able to make a simple wooden sword with two pieces of wood and a strip of something to wrap around it. It would have the form of a sword, and therefore should by reason, also equal a sword.


    Levelling up his mental skill, and his carpenter skill was all good, but against real combat prowess at the early levels, he could not even be sure he would be able to survive. He had this sense of foreboding, that even though the demons had not been found for a very long time, it would not be long till¡¯ they would meet other races.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    They might even try to kill the demons until the race is extinct, for Ling Ru this proved to be against his thoughts of being a hero and a prodigy, one needs time. Unsure of how much, he needed to learn to fight. As he was thinking of this, he realized he should go with the others to hunt!


    And right as he had thought of it, Lon came walking into his cave room.


    ¡°Ru, we are going hunting soon, do you want to tag along?¡±


    What a perfect timing, Ling Ru was astonished by it. ¡®Oh well, if I can¡¯t time attacks, at least I can time my thoughts with others actions.¡¯ he thought of a troll sentence in his mind. You only have the fun you make yourself, or in this case Ling Ru was just a plain weirdo.


    With the question of Lon, Ling Ru nodded and followed him. While they were walking to the main cave, Lon briefed Ling Ru in a very patient manner. Lon spoke of the dangers, and even advised Ling Ru to stick close to him so that he could protect him. The males in the main cave was just fidgeting with their own stuff, sharpening their dull spears, funny thing is they were actually using sharp stones. Ling Ru had noticed that before he found the sharp stones, they had sharpened their spears with teeth or nails, that was just crazy.


    They did not mind really, but the sharp stones was clearly more effective, and their spears became sharper than ever. No one had picked up the spears with the sharp stones attached to it, they were Ru¡¯s in their eyes, so it was his belongings. Unless he gave them permissions, they would not take it.


    Everyone had already established some kind of bond or connection with Ru, demons mature quite fast, Ru was just a bit faster than everyone else. To Ru¡¯s surprise, no one even thought of him as a child, it was just a tiny bit precarious to him. He treated it like when on earth, someone acted more mature than their real age, so therefore people treated that person as a grown up instead of a teenager.


    And he really had grown a lot in just a few days, his height was to their tummies, which was around a meter and a half. He sat down close to the others, and picked up his two spears, the ones with one sharp end and one stone end.


    ¡°Baba and Lon, I will give you one of these spears each, if you help me get two pieces of pipe like wood, and help me rip a strip of skin from the beast over there.¡± Ling Ru got the idea to have the two strongest men help him, first of all, it required huge amounts of work for him to get a strip of skin from the cadaver, whereas Baba and Lon could just use their nail and strength to rip a good and long strip for him.


    As for finding the wood he needed, they clearly knew how to go with obtaining it, since they had so many spears. He wanted to create his sword before they went hunting, maybe he could even obtain some basic sword skill, it would be awesome if he could level up that skill on the hunt.


    Baba and Lon was clearly enlivened by that deal, for them it was as easy as picking bogeys from their nose. Lon agreed really fast, and even went over to fix the strip of skin from the cadaver. He towered over the huge beast, he was just much bigger.


    Lon raised his hand, and instantly he swung down, mid air he formed a claw with his fingers, which holed into the skin at a fixed distance. The after wind made the hair on the cadaver fluctuate, he had managed to stop his hand right as he pierced the skin, the precision and power was insane. Demons were innate fighters, this was no joke.


    What made Ling Ru happy and satisfied, was that he did it three times along the cadaver to make it a very long strip, and ripped it out, and he even ripped out a few extra strips that Ling Ru could use to make other weapons with. This was a good bargain, even for the strong Lon and Baba it was quite a good trade.


    Lon threw the strips at Ling Ru, satisfied at his own work and the surprise on Ling Ru¡¯s face after he had shown his prowess. Without Ling Ru noticing, Baba had already left the cave, it made Ling Ru wonder where he went, did he really go to get the wood.


    ¡°Where did Baba go, Quan?¡± Ling Ru chose to ask Quan, he was just sharpening his spear, a tadsad he did not get a good spear from Ru.


    ¡°He went to get the wood of course.¡± Zuo answered without letting Quan answer, Zuo was also a bit surprised about the deal, but he was not affected the least. He could also have done what Luo and Baba was asked to do, but he could also just ask Ru to make one for him, Ru was already a friend of his, he was sure Ru would agree.


    Ling Ru pondered, Baba must have known already, where there was wood at. He had no intention of asking, he would also know sometime soon enough, but it was meaningless for him to spend time to wander and explore. With the new friends he had, he could have just asked them for their help, instead he chose to give the spears to the two strongest, it was clearly out of appreciation for them that Ling Ru chose to do it.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 10

    They sat down to wait for a while, and after around two minutes later, Baba came back. Under his arms were lots of thick and thin sticks, it was perfect to make a blunt replica of a sword. Baba dumped all of the wood in front of Ling Ru, and winked while grinning at him.


    ¡­


    Due to the happy daytime, it was not scary to go hunting with Baba and the others. A huge smile was Ling Ru¡¯s current accomplice, due to the appreciation of the item in his hand. Swinging it a few time with random gestures, he found the wooden sword to be light, comparing his strength with a normal human, the weight was air.


    After leaving the cave, or Ling Ru was mentally trying to adapt to calling it home, so after they left home, the had gone through a set path into the forest. Clearly, Baba and the others was used to this place, just like how people could find their way in cities and other forests on earth. To them this forest area was the back of their hand.


    Their knowledge in hunting proved to be quite astounding, the hunting spots was briefly introduced to Ling Ru by Zuo, and he described how the animals was fast to ¡®regenerate¡¯, Zuo tried his best to explain how the animals reproduced really quickly. Due to their race Zuo did not find anything wrong in sharing how they even reproduced, Ru could only show an aggrieved smile when listening to the very detailed explanation, while following the rest.


    They were rotating many spots, so that there would be around two months between each spot, this made it possible for either other animals to settle down, or other animals to rest there. That way there was always some animal nearby the spots, and these spots covered a relatively large space.


    ¡°We need to be silent when covering ground between spots, the reason why the animals are not that strong, is because the territory is ruled by a few very strong animals. This way they can feel protected but also offer their services, we try to be quiet and vigilant because we know that the spots are not the territory of any of these strong animals, but we are always in the vicinity because the stronger tend to have bigger territories. All our hunting spots are place in a kind of circle, that evades four of the five territories, the fifth is the emperor.¡±


    ¡°The emperor of the animals in this forest, is a white skinned madath. It is nowhere near our vicinity, and rarely leaves its territory, so that¡¯s why we¡¯re only in the vicinity of the four lesser emperors.¡±


    After the final explanation, Zuo went quiet and had Ru walk in front of him, so that Ru was always protected inside their formation. Ru appreciated their clever strategies, he found faith that this race might not be such a poor race. He might even be able to establish a small kingdom later, especially if he could unify a few races to increase the population and the craft.


    Abandoning his thoughts, Ru knew that he kept speculating too far into the future, it would only damage him in the end. For now he should learn swordsman skills while increasing his abilities, this would strengthen him, once he was strong enough to defeat the so called emperors in this forest, they could fell the trees and use it to build houses and walls, also some plantation for food, meat is filled with protein but is not the only needed nutrition.


    This time his thoughts kept racing about how he could build a huge village to improve the living environment of his new family and himself. Ru failed to stop his thought process this time, and lived himself into his story.


    It was only after around half an hour of walking around, that Ru heard a slight bustle in the bushed to his right, which made him stop and pause his fascinating ¡®dreams¡¯. Vigilantly he raised his sword with both his hands, and attentively eyed the bush. This caught Zuo¡¯s attention, and a smile showed in his face. He did not want to tell Ru what could cause such a bustle, because he found Ru very cute when he saw him being ready to take the attack.


    Baba, Lon and Quan also stopped when they saw that Zuo and Ru had stopped. They aswell enjoyed seeing Ru being almost scared of the bush, they couldn¡¯t help but smirk at each other.


    The bustling continued for a few breaths of time, heavy breaths. Almost ten seconds passed in waiting while the bush bustled. Ru got a little agitated as he slowly raised his sword above his head, ready to strike down.


    Suddenly, the bustling stopped, and following the quiet a figure jumped towards Ru, it was so fast that Ru never got the chance to actually to see the figure, and despite it being a little small, he still swung his sword downwards with all his power. His own strength amazed him, he could feel that his strength along propelled the sword downwards so fast that the figure was instantly bashed to the ground with a huge thud sound.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Yes, bashed. The sword was very blunt, and although he might be able to learn sword skills, the only actual use with it, was of course bashing. He imagined it was a bit better than a baseball bat, due to it having a somewhat sharper edge to guide the power in, but beyond that it was extremely similar to the prowess of a baseball bat when considering fighting.


    A heavy breath left Ru as he calmed down, and when he noticed what he had just hit, he became a bit awkward. He looked at the others and noticed their half laughing postures. Lon could not help but speak.


    ¡°HAHA! Ru! You are amazing, on your first hunting trip you killed a Rannit with one hit!¡±


    The little creature was actually dead, the amount of strength demon¡¯s have are beyond human capabilities, even Mr. World or Mr. Olympica would stand no chance against any of the adult demons.


    Scratching himself awkwardly he picked up the dead Rannit, they all took a short break where they sat down, it was also to let Ru¡¯s nerves calm a bit. Ru had read a lot of novels, in some of them there was a way to gain power by eating the animals, but not just any part, some had a special core in their head, Ru wanted to know if the animals here had similar cores.


    While they had eaten a lot of animals, they never studied them, and neither did they want to eat their brains or eyes, so the head was at most times left intact, although intact ment crushed or badly bruised due to it being the weakness of many animals.


    Taking out a sharp stone, Ru controlled his emotions into a cold state, as he kept brutally hitting down on the head of the Rannit, the small greyish furred creature quickly got smeared in its own blood.


    At last the fragile skull cracked open and separated the head in two. The others was very curious about Ru¡¯s dealings, they had already grown used to his weird stuff, but they also found themselves having more fun with him around. Being brutal was a norm for demons, so him bashing open its head caused them nothing special, but the fact that he would open such a small animal¡¯s head, it must have a reason.


    Looking at the animal, Ru ripped the head more open, and tore out the brain. It was quite soft which caused him to only tear some of it out at a time, but he kept ripping it until all was gone. What surprised him was that there was a small, very small, odd stone like object beneath the brain, almost as if it had been integrated at the bottom of the brain.


    When he took it out, it was very small and looked like a muddled dark grey stone, except for the weird rawness and the color, and the fact that it was in the Rannit¡¯s head, it really could go for a normal stone.


    Luckily it was very small, so at first Ru did not want to eat it, but considering it could not do any harm, he directly swallowed it.


    Quan could not help but ask hesitatingly.


    ¡°Ru, what was that stone in the Rannit¡¯s head, and why did you swallow it?¡±


    Ru looked up and noticed them all staring at him, he controlled some of his emotions to return so that he could interact with them again in a normal manner.


    ¡°I had an idea, normally animals can use some kind of power, we have very amazing strength, but some can create fire, and water or control earth and wind. There must be some innate reason for them to be able to do it. This Rannit had minor control of wind, I could feel it because of it¡¯s speed. So I thought, what if they had something that let them gain this small ability, like the rock in the head, it could be something useful, maybe we could gain similar abilities or gain some of its strength when eating it.¡±


    He gave a satisfactory explanation to his ideas, this let the others look at each other and mumbled. Baba seemed to sparkle when he heard it. ¡°We have accumulated lots of animal heads, if they all have a core and can help us grow. We have been hunting everyday for a long time, and we have a small mountain of animal cadavers nearby our cave.¡±


    Baba was thinking rationally, if this could benefit them, would they not be able to become the strongest demons in the whole world, maybe this was how the former demon king gained his outstanding strengths.


    Ru nodded and smiled, before he could elaborate on some of his ideas, he heard an announcement.


    [Spirit Taotie]


    Skill Level: 1/1


    Experience: 1/1


    Description:


    Consume Fresh Spirit Cores to gain increase in strength.


    Current Strength Bonus: 0.3%


    The skill was so simple that it made Ru fascinated, but the word ¡®fresh¡¯ also struck him, the old cores, at least to him, would be useless. Maybe this skill would give him a higher reward for eating spirit cores in comparison to normal demons, therefore the requirement to be fresh.


    Something even better was, that the skill even notified him of his current bonus in strength, it needs to be in comparison to the average strength of an adult demon. With strength training and this bonus, if he could get it to abnormal highs, it would make him become invincible in strength alone. Who needs defense when they have the power.


    A sad thing was, although the skill was a skill, it could not be levelled up. This made Ru assume that the increase in strength was based on the spirit core alone, the quality and age were the first two things that he could identify as properties. The quality was simply dependant on the animal¡¯s strength to foster the spirit core.


    But with Baba, Lon, Zuo and Quan, he would be able to obtain many cores in a relatively small amount of time.

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 11

    PLAYER: CHAPTER 11


    And as such, Ling Ru¡¯s real first hunt began. Or rather, it could be described as his first journey as the petty sidekick. Basically he was of no use, although with his firm ability to control emotions he was not scared, his ability to think calmly in a situation also let him understand that he would be completely useless.


    Despite being told he could just watch, Ru¡¯ wanted to at least do something, so as to be a bit of use, he had half his attention on the battle and the other half on the environment. If another beast were to attack while they were battling, they would be in a dire strait. The animals here weren¡¯t really strong, but they had stamina and ferocity, so they never gave up easily.


    The group had suffered from sneak attacks during battles, it did not affect much but it was still tough to suddenly be attacked. Their strong physiques let them survive such attacks, but if possible and they could actually counter sneak attacks due to an early shout, they would be in much better situations.


    While being attentive, Ru¡¯ randomly swung his sword in a straight line, he didn¡¯t pay attention to it, but he wanted his arm to get used to it, so he just kept raising it and swinging it downwards in a straight arc as good as he could.


    With his mental ability he actually had the mental power to at least triple task, this was a supposedly rare phenomenon even on earth, only women was said to be able to achieve the triple tasking, Ru was at first very surprised by this ability, but he even felt he could go further and quadra task.


    Ru was very vigilant while he was taking note of the landscape, but he was also keeping an eye on the fight, to watch the. extent of the animal¡¯s abilities and Baba¡¯ and the group¡¯s strength.


    Currently they were fighting a snow opart, it looked like a leopard, it had white tight fur, very short, and it was as tall as half a demon, or two thirds a human. It had huge fangs out of the mouth, it reminded him of an ancient animal from earth, he could not remember the name but knew they were extinct. He could though remember seeing it in a movie, Ice Age.


    The muscles on the snow opart bulged, and it had very agile movements and tremendous strength, but today it met its end. Demons are very strong creatures, unrivalled in brute strength. Even the most inferior demon would be trice as strong as a bodybuilding human.


    Not on Arnolds level, but just a hobby bodybuilder. Baba was parrying and pushing as the main force, while Lon was to his left and played the major aggressor, he would at sudden times after or meanwhile Baba was parrying, launch his spear forward with exceptional strength. Ru noted their abilities down, they should train in spear skills, for now they were just using brute force and simple tactics, no skill in the spear was showcased.


    Zuo was at the back of the snow opart to limit its movement and keep it in place. Quan assisted Zuo but would also exert pressure to force it to attack Baba so Lon could attack.


    After two minutes of engaging in the fight, Baba was getting a bit pushed back, but the snow opart was almost out of stamina. Lon used this to his advantage and managed to propel his spear through the soft part of the snow opart, the eye. The spear directly pierced through its brain, and the very tired and bruised animal, finally dropped to the ground.


    They were all very excited, a fight would draw on energy, and while it was fast, it was also not that hard. After they had recovered a little they would be able to repeat. Baba was the first to step forward and stood tall over the body, he raised his leg high, and with an insane stamp he broke open its head. The brain mass was flowing out of the cadaver, blood had spurted in crazy amounts. None of this fazed Baba, what he wanted to know was if there was a so called spirit crystal.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    Baba kneeled down and rummaged through its innards, he suddenly raised his hands and everyone could see what he held. It was a similar stone to the one from the rannit, except this was near a dark blue color, and twice as big. Baba looked around as he smiled.


    ¡°I think we should let Ru have it. He showed this amazing thing, we can still hunt four more beasts afterwards.¡±


    Baba shared his thoughts, and everyone agreed with a smile on their faces. Ru was very happy to find out how much an adult snow opart would give him in boost. Ru accepted it from Baba and directly swallowed it.


    Then he checked the stats of his skill.


    [Spirit Taotie]


    Skill Level: 1/1


    Experience: 1/1


    Description:


    Consume Fresh Spirit Cores to gain increase in strength.


    Current Strength Bonus: 11,5%


    ¡®WHAT! Over 11%, he would be invincible after growing up and eating many of these!¡¯


    He could not help but exclaim to himself. Then he looked at Baba and the others who were waiting for his reaction. ¡°It is amazing, we can become the strongest demons like this. A mere snow opart can be one hit if we eat one of these a day for some time. We struck it rich everyone!¡±


    They all gave Ru a thumbs up and then kept going on their hunting.


    Normally after one animal big enough to feed everyone the would leave, they would not dare to hunt animals in an area to extinction, it would limit future food source, and also mean they were possibly contesting for territory, this might enrage the animal emperors.


    This time, they hunted for three hours straight, only killing. More than 10 animals. Including the snow opart, and the rannit, Ru ate 4 spirit crystals. His bonus was at a whole 20%. One fifth of a demons strength in bonus. The others could also feel the strength increasing, they were very surprised about the direct increase. But Ru also noticed, that after the first snow opart, the bonus after each similar level spirit crystal had less and less of an affect.


    But for now that meant nothing, he would probably easy get to 50%+ bonus in a few days, that was also more than amazing. In the future what if he could reach 1000%?


    The endless possibilities had him shaking in happiness, amongst his skill, this was currently his favorite, he was already as strong as a normal adult demon, and he was a few days old, only.


    Because they had fought much more today, they chose to bring back two cadavers of their most recent battles nearby. Baba also described his increase in power to Ru, it was actually not as significant to them as it was to Ru. They only got one third of the bonus.


    But this was already enough to make them very excited, thinking about it, Baba had thoughts of becoming strong enough to overtake the demon village and reforming them. He had no grand thoughts as to being their leader, but when he looked at Ru, he felt that maybe this seedling would be the right choice in leading them to rise.


    Lon poked to Ru, he had something he wanted to ask him. ¡°Ru, you know we come from the demon village. If you ever meet demons, could we maybe hide this discovery?¡± When Lon asked, he did not whisper, everyone heard him, and they all stopped and looked at Ru.


    ¡°Huh, why so?¡± When Ru noticed the atmosphere being a bit heavy, he regretted asking. But Quan, being the most silent, actually spoke.


    ¡°We want to become strong, and take back the village and the glory of demons. Not live being afraid of other races nor being ashamed of ourselves.¡± Quan spoke heartfelt and emotionally. Ru was very moved that they were actually respectfully giving him the choice. He did not want to let them down, and also if this could affect every race, it was best kept a secret.


    He nodded solemnly. ¡°Yes, we must never tell others. If this can be useful to other races, it will go against us. It would not be good for us, let us return and eat, we have been gone for long, the others must be starving as well.¡±

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 12

    Flower and Red was used to the male demons being away for long amounts of time, due to the rotation of the spots, there could hours of walking between the cave and the spot that day. It was already night when they heard a subtle noise from the outside, the males was back!


    They quickly started a small fire, they were used to making campfires, in the demon village a sacred knowledge of how to create fire was passed down and had been for generations.


    In reality it was quite simple, any stone in this world worked as flint, except a few ones that were way more tough and sturdy than regular rocks. With two stones and some dry wood, one could create fire. Demons are naturally strong, so creating good fire sparks is a relatively easy task.


    Before the men reached the main cave, the fire was already growing. Red and Flower was a bit surprised, the males had two cadavers with them. Usually that was something that they would not do, it had only happened at the first few times, but they quickly found out the food was too much, and it also scared other animals away, the hunting spots was created over time and patience. Scouting was the first hard job for the demons.


    Well, since it was all figured out now, there was nothing to do about it, they could just not help but wonder. As soon as the males put down the cadaver, Red who was not that shy asked.


    ¡°Why did you bring 2 cadavers today?¡± Red asked in wonder. Flower also nodded as to show that she also wanted to know. It was always mysteries when things that never occurred suddenly happened. Like when they found Ru, everything was enlivened, and clearly the mood of the male demons was also superbly good.


    ¡±We found something amazing today, or rather we should give Ru the credit, you will be amazed to know that our future is bright, sit down while we eat, Ru can explain some of it too since he is more knowledgeable!¡± Quan spoke enticingly.


    Red and Flower shared many thoughts right now, but they silently sat down. It was Ru, again, he kept creating miracles, maybe he was their guardian angel. (Figuratively speech, demons and angels, what a sight that would be.).


    After placing the first cadaver above the fire, Quan started on the story.


    ¡±We were on our way to today''s hunting spot, when Ru accidentally mistook a rannit for a beast and killed it. It was quite hilarious, but at least he has fighting spirit!¡± Quan laughed, and the other males soon followed, when Red and Flower imagined the scene they also grinned a bit, imagining the tense Ru killing a rannit. Quan had described the event in detail, but he quickly summed up to the interesting part.


    ¡±When we told stories of our hunting, Ru listened attentively, so he knew that some beasts have specific abilities, he thought they must have some kind of way to gain that ability. So when he took the dead rannit, he opened its head and searched, what he found astonished us greatly, he found a spirit crystal. Apparently this crystal is some power that can be absorbed if eaten, Ru can you explain a bit?¡± Quan wanted Ru to explain about the crystals, not only Flower and Red was curious, the males too wanted to know about them.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    ¡±The spirit crystals are an inherited power. But it can also be inherited. Except that only the power within the core can be absorbed, not the ability. Take for example us, our spirit crystals will be many times more effective since we pack brute power, so a demon''s spirit crystal to another demon will be twice as effective as any other beasts. But the beasts that relies on strong abilities, like the beast emperors are probably equally as strong in brute power, but also have abilities, their spirit crystals must be of high grade and even better when absorbed. But if we take a fire beast, we will not be able to obtain the fire ability, only a partial amount of its inheritable strength. We ate a few crystals each, and we are all much stronger!¡±


    Ru spoke very fast, but everyone immediately felt enlightened, Lon was even more surprised to find out how Ru was so intelligent. Demons are not stupid, but they are not researchers and professors either, to be able to make a valid guess on something so rare like the spirit crystals, and be right the first time, Ru was their lucky gem.


    Lon hugged Ru and smiled to him. ¡±Ru you little devil, you are the smartest being in this world, if you ever become your own emperor, I will follow you after you grow up. Haha, becoming your right hand man in the future, as the first I should surely be rewarded right! Haha!¡± Lon was very enthusiastic about it.


    Everyone also jumped in about following Ru if he ever wanted to go somewhere or establish a village. But Baba had another idea.


    ¡±Ru, if you want to when become an adult, I will follow you, but I have a requirement, you must take reign of the demon village and prove that a promising and peaceful demon king can exist. Even if you only reside there for a few days, when you are grown up, with the help from spirit crystals you will be able to be strong enough that everyone will believe you. I will even impart with you all of my spirit crystals!¡±


    When he finished, everyone looked at Baba with feeling. The silence pervaded the cave, Ru was a bit heartfelt upon hearing Baba''s wish. When he looked around, he saw Quan clenching his hands while he was looking at his toes, Lon had his eyes wide open and was looking at Baba, Quan was sitting with closed eyes, Flower and Red was smiling.


    Suddenly Zuo broke the weird atmosphere.


    ¡±Me too, I will also give you all my spirit crystals, in a month when you are fully grown, you would be able to single handedly beat the emperor animals!¡±


    --- Not long after, Quan and Lon joined in too.


    ¡±Yes, I will also do it, for the sake of the future demon race, we should raise Ru into a king, even if just for using him, HAHA, I am sure You''ll agree to help us since it is such a simple task.¡±


    ¡±Me too! Ru!¡±


    This got Ru thinking, for one to see the decline of their race, of their power and status, to live in shame and hiding. If he could really solve it by being their king, then would it not be hitting two flies with one hit! He could upgrade and build a huge village with better technology and training, as such he could start to conquer a small land and build a city for his race. Yes, he should agree, his power would rise sharply with a lot of spirit crystals.


    ¡±Mhm! I will do it everyone! For our race, for demons!¡± Ru stood up emotionally and raised a fist as he shouted!

 PLAYER: CHAPTER 13

    After lamenting for a while, Ru sat down a bit dispirited.


    ¡°I cannot take your spirit crystals everyone, I am deeply gratified for your encouragement, and even though I will do my best to help achieve the unification of the demon race, we should not try to put someone on a pedestal, we are all equals!¡±


    Everyone blinked and looked slack jawed at Ru, for demons making a choice was something they did with great fervor, their intelligence had been greatly undermined and been suppressed since they escaped for many years to a rural place.


    ...


    ¡°Ru, we said that all of our spirit crystals would be given to you, why do you refuse them?¡±


    Baba looked anxious as he asked Ru. Both were standing next to a cliff-size like pile of organs and decaying skin soaked in blood. After the discussion earlier, Baba had brought him here in a hurry, fantasizing about his yet-to-be conquest of the demon village.


    Ru shaked his head helplessly. Unknowingly, he had somehow lit a fire in the patient hearts of these friends of his. It was unexpected that these adults would act so childishly.


    ¡°Baba, I have already told you, only grown demons can eat old spirit crystals. If you force me to eat them, I will probably become weak and die. You wouldn¡¯t want your prodigy to die prematurely, now, would you?¡±


    Ru realized just how easily he could speak their language now, it was as though he had always spoken the demon language. It was all thanks to these special skills of his.


    Baba took a step back and viewed the pile of bones, the ground beneath was a deep dark color from the dried blood. Smiling at his thoughts he shook his head slightly as he looked back at the ruminating Ru.


    ¡°Okay Ru, I will take back the spirit crystals and divide them between everyone. We will hunt for fresh spirit crystals for you, if we are equals then you should equally benefit from your own discovery.¡±


    Finishing he picked up some ragged cloth that was bound as a bag, in it was a few dull yet still sparkling round objects, allegedly the spirit crystals belonging to the skeleton pile.


    The sheer amount was amazing, Ru and Quan had spent multiple hours scurrying through the dirt and moving the skeleton pile to fish up as many spirit crystals as possible. After moving the whole pile, they had had to dig through the dirt and some hard surface beneath to find most of the sunken spirit crystals.


    Due to the time they had been in cadavers, they had of course fallen out and onto the ground as time passed, only a few was still stuck between the bones or was between rotten organs and flesh from the more new cadavers.


    Ru was slightly perturbed that so many spirit crystals was useless to him, luckily the other would benefit greatly from them, since his skill to absorb spirit crystals was an actual skill, he was able to tell that if he had not gained the taotie skill, he would have gained the same benefits as the others, however his progress from eating fresh spirit crystals was tantamount to jumping levels and gaining exp boosts while grinding.


    Delight also overtook some of him, as he stood on the slightly secretive spot of the cadavers home. Currently what was on his mind, was that while he was practicing his swordsmanship on the smallest tree he could find, it is also said that this so called small tree would still need several human people to hold hands to surround it, his sword had broken.


    Upon further inspecting his other swords he noticed the problem, animal hide would not be intact forever, it was a temporary solution because without tanning the hide and other stuff he had once heard about from his teacher at random, it would rot. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Rotting hide would not be able to keep together the sword, and thus he was contemplating on how to solve this issue, or in particular if he should just abandon the sword since he was currently confident to become very strong without it.


    But, there was still the enigmatic pull on his mind, as warrior and knight was his favourite class, he really thought just practicing a sword to look majestic would not be such a poor idea.


    Taking in a deep breath, determination showed in Ru¡¯s eyes, first he would need to get a more firm grip on some material and workshops, his knowledge on this world was too sparse. If humans existed, which by the stories from the girls, it sounded like many races exists, there should be opportunities to come into contact with blacksmiths and other professions.


    ¡­


    As time passed, the sun rose many times as Ru gathered his knowledge and developed his strength, he was at a kind of an impasse at unlocking skills at the current, but with his taotie skill he had already greatly strengthened himself.


    ¡­


    *PLOP*


    ¡°Ahh, how refreshing, Zuo you should jump in, this water is just the right temperature for a good wash. Truly refreshing!¡±


    Ru laughed heartily as he calmly used his legs to move around the lake while being on his back, resting himself.


    Two months have gone to the wind, the present Ru was a completely new person, and was not classified as a demon seedling anymore. He was as tall as the other demons, although he was more lean and not as bulky, he was the strongest of them and could even win against Lon and Baba in a one versus two fist fight.


    Mostly their training was wrestling and fighting with themselves, but after eating a lot of beasts, a few weeks after unlocking spirit taotie, Ru had already unlocked something else beyond the strength boost, and even his defense had taken a major turn.


    [Spirit Taotie]


    Skill Level: 1/1


    Experience: 1/1


    Description:


    Consume Fresh Spirit Cores to gain increase in strength. Eating the resting Spirit Energy in beast meat and muscle, will endorse your body in a tempering state to increase your defensive bonus.


    Current Strength Bonus: 137,7%


    Current Body Defense Bonus: 48,1%


    [Mental Awareness skill]


    Skill Level: 6


    Experience: 621/5000


    Description:


    The Mental Awareness skill increases all of the user¡¯s mental abilities. I.e. maintaining focus and concentration, controlling emotions, encouraging oneself, visualisation and imagery. The skill is trained by using and practicing your abilities, as well as assessing your proficiency.


    [Basics of a Carpenter (+)]


    Skill Level: 13/50


    Experience: 103/10.000


    Description:


    With intelligent constructions you can defeat the enemy you hold dearest, your time. Surpass your imaginative restriction of what wood can do, and build the most effective constructions.


    [Demon Language]


    Skill Level: 5/5


    Experience: 250/250


    Description:


    You fully understand and speak the Demon Language proficiently.


    Ru had been resting on some thoughts together with the others, it was almost time to take over the demon village, being stuck hunting beasts was not going to help them improve steadily at the moment, normal beasts already gave little to no benefit to Ru, except eating the beasts was still very good for him as it would temper his body, but it could be done everywhere beasts lived.


    With a goal in mind, Ru swam to land and walked up, his naked and lean muscles gleamed as he gave a vicious smile to Zuo. ¡°I think it¡¯s time now Zuo, let¡¯s go and pack up our things, I am tired of living in a cave!¡±


    These words put a sleek grin on Zuo¡¯s face as he immediately turned around and threw some cloth at Ru, with his back to Ru he walked as he grinned foolishly, his direction was clear as it was finally time to test some of his strength, time to sleep in a bed!