After a few seconds, he stopped. Still shocked by what just happened, he glanced around and sat near a tree, his gaze still on the strange panel in front of his eyes. Then suddenly it changed.

[Due to the user’s predicament, partial synchronization of the system with the world and the user was made]

[Commencing complete synchronization]

‘Uh, What the heck,’ he said inwardly. ‘System?. Synchronization?. What is it talking about.’

Before he could continue his series of questions, due to confusion. He felt a wave of fatigue wash over him. He immediately tried fighting it, but after a few seconds, he succumbed to it, passing out.

##

Snapping his eyes open, Noah jumped up. The first feeling he felt was his strength. He felt way stronger than he had ever felt in both his two lives.

Not noticing the fact that he was still naked, he looked at the panel that appeared in front of his eyes and read its contents.

[Stat panel]

[Noah]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 1] [Tier: 1]

[Speed force: Red]

[HP: 50]

[Strength: 50] [Stamina: 25] [MP: 200]

[Intelligence: 20] [Speed: Mach 1]

[Skills]: Slow motion perception[Passive]

Speed regeneration [Passive]

[Inventory: trouser, shirt [2],skirt.

He was shocked by what he read. Apparently, in this world, his name was Noah, and the system arranged his stats like that of a video game. Though the physical stats, his level, and the tier, were self-explanatory, which made him understand that he was still weak.

But he didn’t understand what “speed force” meant.

While he was trying to decipher it. To his pleasant surprise, the panel appeared again like it read his mind.

[Speed force ]: The color of the energy discharged when the user is running, after each breakthrough the color changes signifying that the user has gotten faster. red -> orange -> yellow -> green ->blue -> $#@#]

After reading it he sat down. He understood what it meant, and seeing that his current “speed force” was red, which meant he was at the bottom. But what confused him were the unreadable words at the end of the explanation.

He tried to think about wanting to know it, but nothing happened. So he simply shrugged it off as maybe he didn’t have access to the information, since it was like a system.

Then he thought about wanting to know about the first skill he had.

[Slow motion perception [Passive]: a passive skill that allows the user to perceive things in slow motion due to their innate speed]

A wave of shock filled Noah’s mind. After reading it slowly but surely, he inspected his surroundings and to his surprise, he noticed that everything seemed slower, even the very air he was breathing seemed to move at a snail’s pace compared to him.

He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be happy or sad. Being able to perceive things in slow motion had its pros and cons.

But still, he felt somewhat satisfied to have a skill, even though it didn’t seem useful at the moment. 𝒃𝙚𝙤𝙫𝒆𝒍．𝙘𝒐𝙢

Though the “Speed regeneration” was self-explanatory, he wanted to read it since such a skill was sweet to his ears and eyes.

[Speed regeneration[Passive]: when physically hurt, the body of the user is regenerated fast, costs 1 mp per hp]

“Nice, a skill that heals me at the cost of Mana. That would be very useful if I somehow got injured.”

“Well, I guess that’s all, oh my inventory,

clothes?. When did I have clothes?”

He thought of wanting the clothes, and they appeared on the ground. He felt shocked to find that the clothes were the ones he had “borrowed” from the individuals he met the other time.

Picking the clothes that were for the man he wore them. The shirt was a plain brown short sleeve. While the pants were made of leather, but also brown, though not stylish he was content with them.

He didn’t know what to do with the female clothes so he put them back into his inventory still fascinated by how they worked, what ran through his mind was “I have a system.”

With that done. He swept his gaze around admiring the quietness of the forest. He wanted to go somewhere but didn’t know where. Heck, he didn’t even know where he was, since he had simply woken up in the forest, and he had also run without knowing which direction he went.

Picking a random direction, he started walking, since he wasn’t sure of how he would control himself when running with his ‘super speed’, and he didn’t want to run straight into a tree.

He still thanked the gods for not letting him run headfirst into a tree earlier for he didn’t run intentionally.

##

After about ten minutes or so of walking, and admiring his slow-motion skill.

Noah heard sounds coming from where he was headed, and no they weren’t moans.

They were growls!

He froze on his spot recalling what had happened to him in his second life and how he was easily killed.

He stood there frozen for a few seconds, before deciding to check it out instead of avoiding it. After all, he had a skill that made everything slow to him, and if worse came to worse he would simply run at his full speed.

Although he could get hurt. He also had a healing skill. So his curiosity to know what it was, and maybe try out his strength took control and before they knew it, he was moving towards the sound, and after a minute or so he found what he was looking for.

There. Around 15 meters away from him, was an ash-furred wolf with black patches in random spots. It was also as big as an earth’s brown bear.

On getting closer. The growls that sounded faint before, were now like standing in front of a truck that honked its horn. Loud.

The wolf seemed injured since its growls sounded like it was in pain, he hid behind a tree to avoid it spotting him, though he was relatively far from the wolf, he didn’t want to take any chances. Not only because of the wolf, but also because the thing that hurt such a massive beast

On staring at the wolf a panel popped up in his eyes.

[ Tier 1 Forest wolf]

[level: 7]

[Danger level: Normal]

“What the heck,” he explained. That thing was a tier 1 and was at level seven Yet the system classified the wolf’s danger level as normal.

Though the system said the wolf was within his capability, he didn’t want to try it out.

As Noah turned to leave that place. Unbeknownst to him, when he had explained, the wolf had heard and turned its attention in his direction. Then began to walk closer to where he was, its mouth releasing low growls in the process.

Noah froze at that. Then immediately started to think of a solution, while the wolf neared his position.

The thought of staying to fight it, and test his strength crossed his mind, but common sense kicked that idea out the window. He didn’t want to die just after a few hours of arriving in a world that gave him powers.

So he thought of making a break for it, but he still wasn’t confident in trying out his super-speed in a place filled with trees, and he didn’t know how fast the wolf was.

All those thoughts were within a second. It seemed that perceiving everything in slow motion also made his thoughts faster.

After a few more seconds, which by then the wolf was a bit over two meters from his position. It stopped and turned. Seemingly having lost interest, in whatever made the sound is heard.

Noah was almost jumping in joy for the wolf’s lack of interest in him, though it hadn’t seen him.

So with all that excitement and a little fear, he stepped forward since he hadn’t turned to face the wolf earlier. But being blinded by his excitement, Noah failed to notice the tree branch near him.

So when he took his second step, he stepped on a branch and stumbled, falling heavily to the ground. That was when Noah knew he had fucked up.

Everything that seemed to move in slow motion due to his skill, moved even slower. Then he saw the wolf turn around with a murderous glint in its yellow eyes that seemed to scream “Found you.”

It pounced at his position so fast that even for his slow-motion, Noah didn’t expect it to move that quickly, as it was currently injured.

It clawed at the tree that was between it and its prey. Though the tree was tall and looked heavy, after two more successful hits from the wolf, it broke.

A deafening cracking sound spread, as the tree slanted to its right and started to fall.

Noah, who was still frozen on the ground, snapped out of his shock and stood up. When he was about to turn around the massive wolf pounced on him.

Because he couldn’t just run, Noah decided to face it by doing one thing that came as a reflex action.

He threw a punch.