Foster made his way through this long tunnel. Even after walking for about 20 minutes, the end of the tunnel only just barely came into sight. He really hoped that there was actually an exit, and this wasn’t just some dead end…

“Come on, please…” He muttered quietly, as the wall at the end of the tunnel came closer and closer. And when he stood in front of it, he saw another small indent right to his left, where a ladder was somewhat hidden. Or at least Foster thought it was a ladder, it looked like one despite being made of roots. Since it did lead up through a hole in the ceiling, it seemed like a fair assumption, though.

Foster quickly climbed up there and soon reached the top. There was a small hatch there, that he quickly pushed open. It was incredibly heavy, but he was still able to somehow get it open. A bunch of dirt was piled on top of it, most likely to hide it from the outside. He climbed out of the hole and looked around. There didn’t seem to be anything around here for now, so first, Foster had to orient himself. He pulled out the map that included this forest.

The tree of light had disappeared from Foster’s sight, so he couldn’t orient himself based on that as a mark. The places where the tree and the cabin stood were marked on the map, though, so that would have been perfect to figure out the direction that he had to go.

“What else could I..?” Foster thought to himself, when he turned his head and looked at the sky. That same bright star stood there in the sky. While he had no idea whether or not this was really a ‘northern’ star like on earth, that didn’t matter. It was enough to figure out his relative position. Foster remembered the direction that he saw this star when looking out the window in the cabin, and he remembered which direction he ran to get to the tree.

“When I turn this way… If the cabin was where I’m standing, then the tree will be straight ahead… And the star will be too my right, so…” Foster muttered quietly, as he looked at the directional cross on the map, helping him figure out the cardinal directions, “…that means that star is… perfectly north? That… is kind of unlikely, but I won’t complain.” With a grin on his face, he looked back onto the map.

Luckily, that really did seem to be a northern star, so Foster was able to navigate based on it like he normally would have, instead of having to constantly remind himself of the actual position. But now, Foster had to figure out roughly where he was on the map. There didn’t seem to be a scale on the map, but at least he did travel quite a distance already that he could reference, considering that Foster knew how fast he could run.

“That means, I’m roughly… Here?” Foster muttered quietly. He wasn’t entirely sure, but it did seem right enough, at least. He looked at the small metallic snake wrapped around his hand, “You don’t coincidentally have a GPS built into you, do you?”

After letting out a deep sigh, Foster looked around. There wasn’t anything like a town here on the map, but a small bit to the right of it seemed kind of familiar, “I think… I saw it on another map as well?”

Foster unrolled the maps he had, seeing if any of the terrain or the marked points seemed to be the same. Luckily, he was right. There was a bit of an overlap between most of the maps. And if he was right, then within three maps, Foster would have built a connection leading him to a town. In writing, it said ‘Great Food’ right next to it, so it seemed like a good enough place to head to first. There didn’t seem to be any closer town than this either, at least not on the maps that Foster had with him.

And so, just like that, Foster had managed to figure out a rough plan of action, and he didn’t need to think about what to do next until he actually reached that town. With the map in his right hand, and a knife he took from that basement cave in his left, Foster made his way through this forest, ready for anything that might come his way.

—

Alright, maybe not ‘anything’. Foster wasn’t prepared for a horde of those glowing, weird wolves to suddenly hunt him down.

“Shit, shit, shiiit!” Foster grumbled to himself under his breath as he was sprinting through the dark forest. Luckily, those monsters were easy to see, and as such to avoid, but since they were much, much faster than him, they would probably catch up to him sooner or later.

“Come on, man! I didn’t do anything to you! Just go do something else already, will you?!” He yelled out in annoyance. It was then that Foster’s mind wandered over to something that he hadn’t explored yet. He didn’t know why this happened, but it did. So he responded by engaging with that thought, and tried to call up the information for that ‘Skill’ that he got not too long ago.

Before Foster even had to say anything, the information window appeared in front of his eyes.

—

[Martial Necromancy][Level – 1]

[Rating – Legacy]

[Description: You use your body as a conduit for necromantic magic, inflicting harm upon those around you.]

[Martial Skills]

-[Single Strike]

[Magic Spells]

-[Chilling Touch]

—

“Inflicting harm upon those around you… I can use this to fight?” Foster thought, as his eyes wandered down to the two things at the very bottom. ‘Martial Skills’ and ‘Magic Spells’, and as he thought about what those were, two more information windows appeared in front of Foster. Luckily, the information flowed into his mind without even having to read what was written on there.

—

[Single Strike][Tier – 1]

[Description: Hit your target with a single strengthened strike]

–

[Chilling Touch][Tier – 1]

[Description: Through your hand, you let Necromantic energies flow into your target, making them feel the chilling cold of death]

—

“Single Strike and Chilling Touch?” Foster knew what those two things would do, he understood it beyond what was just written onto those information windows. However, there was still one issue. The only thing that he didn’t know about yet was how he was supposed to activate these things. They would definitely come in quite useful right about now.

This magic stuff seemed a bit beyond Foster right now, since he didn’t even know where he was supposed to start with that at this point. The martial skill portion, however, seemed like something he had a bit more of a grasp on already. It was what he was used to to an extent, after all.

Foster took a deep breath and focused on his fist. He thought about the information he received from that ability, and tried to strengthen his fist using it. He imagined his fist to be something else entirely, something stronger. A thick hammer that could instantly smash someone’s skull. That was when a weird tingling filled his hand, and it started to heat up in an unnatural way. It was nearly painful, but only in the way like when the water in the shower was too hot.

Foster wanted to release this heat from his fist. And the best place to do that was the creature currently following after him. He immediately stopped running and twisted his body around, looking at the beast that was currently running at him. There were more, of course, but only this one seemed to be directly aiming at him. As if it got first dibs somehow.

Foster looked at this weird creature and swung his hand to the side in a hook-like motion. His fist connected to the creature’s skin, and the heat released all at once. Foster knew what a regular punch of this strength would look like, and this one seemed much, much stronger than that. It was as if a small blast went off the moment that he managed to hit the side of the creature’s head.

It let out a loud yelp as it lost control over its body, starting to slide over the ground. It laid there for a moment, and soon stood up from there while shaking off the damage that it had received.

“Eh?” Foster looked at this creature with a wry smile on his face, realizing that despite his incredibly heavy, surreally strong punch, this creature was still perfectly fine at the end of the day, “Well, shit…”

He immediately turned back around and continued running, since that just now clearly didn’t work out. Now, Foster had to keep on running, all the whilst figuring out a way to get away from these guys. Luckily, there was a family of deer not too far away from him now. These monsters reminded him of wolves, so maybe he was able to shake them off in a similar way as well…. At least that’s what he was hoping for.