Slight Growth

Ackster woke up with a splitting headache and an urge to smash his head against the nearest tree. He almost wondered if those two were related when he reached up and sensed that his forehead was a little sticky.

"Fuck…!"

Ackster groaned and looked at the afternoon sky through squinting eyes. With the trees blocking most of the direct light, it wasn't too piercing, but Ackster still felt as if he had the mother of all hangovers, and he covered his eyes with an arm to try and recover a little.

He realized that he had gone a little overboard with eating an entire finger in one go like that. If he had eaten two at once, he would probably have died.

But at the same time, this was exactly what Ackster wanted. He wanted to push himself to his utmost limits, break through those limits, and go so far that he couldn't even see the debris of his limits.

Almost dying was something he would have to get used to. The sooner, the better. He just wasn't ready for the discomfort. Although the pain of the headache and the fever that had almost boiled his brain weren't nice, the feeling of his mouth and throat being all prickly and it being almost impossible to swallow gave Ackster such a feeling of discomfort that was somehow harder to endure than good old physical pain.

But now wasn't the time to lie around and mope about how much he wanted to sip mojitos on a sandy beach while watching the sunset, surrounded by women, perhaps?

He had a goal to accomplish, well, a bunch of goals he needed to accomplish if he wanted to achieve the ultimate one, which was to survive.

And before he ate the next finger, Ackster had to do one thing first. He fished out the Nomi from his pocket.

[Name: –]

[Profession: (Adventurer)]

[Stats:

[Strength: F]

[Agility: G]

[Fortitude: F]

[Mana: –]

[Spirit: F]

[Skills:

[Strong Body]

[Pain Tolerance: F]

[Poison Resistance: F]

[Keen Senses: F]

Ackster looked at the card with a furrowed brow. He had seen some growth since he last looked at it. But it wasn't where he thought it would be. His Spirit stat had ranked up once, as well as Keen Senses. So now, everything except Agility and Mana was at F.

He could kind of understand why Spirit had ranked up since it might have something to do with will and willpower. And Ackster's will had certainly been put to the test, both before he forced himself to eat the finger and while he endured the poison.

What he was most surprised about was Keen Senses. But Ackster could guess why. He had put his tongue and nose through a sensory hell. Even if he didn't want to, his senses had been forced to taste and smell the finger. And it had made them more sensitive.

Although Ackster didn't know how to feel about it ranking up that way, it was objectively a good thing. No matter what, his skill had become stronger, even if just a bit.

Skills were the easiest to level up at the lower ranks, but there was also the smallest difference in power between the different lower ranks. Supposedly, the difference and increase in effectiveness were exponential, which also meant the difficulty in ranking up was the same.

But, although slight, the growth still made Ackster satisfied. Even if it wasn't in the areas he had aimed for, he had still become a smidge stronger.

And the fact that forcing his senses to endure the goblin's finger had helped his Keen Senses grow also made Ackster realize that there were different ways to train his skills. There weren't strict recipes he had to follow if he wanted to train. As long as he used a part of the skills, they would gain proficiency and eventually rank up when they reached the breakthrough point.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much he could do with that knowledge at the moment since most of his skills were pretty straightforward.

Pain Tolerance just needed Ackster to endure pain. It didn't matter what kind, so there were a million and two ways he could train it.

It was the same with Poison Resistance. There were countless ways to ingest or come in contact with poison, and no matter which way, they would all train Poison Resistance as long as Ackster didn't die of them. Well, they also had to be dangerous and harm his body for the skill to react.

And Ackster didn't know enough about Strong Body to do anything specific to train it, to begin with. At the moment, he was just doing everything he could to make his body stronger since that should, logically speaking, make Strong Body stronger.

With his head clear and his body willing to listen to his commands, Ackster pocketed the Nomi and stood up while packing his bag again. The slime hadn't fled for some reason, which surprised Ackster, so he decided to bring it along.

He was getting hungry and thirsty. And while he could eat the fingers, they did more to wean away at his supply of energy than they did to replenish it. And they did nothing for how thirsty he was.

So, finger in hand, Ackster continued walking through the forest in a southerly direction. He would nibble at it, bit by bit, gradually getting used to the poison and dizziness it inflicted.

He would also grab and eat anything that looked biteable and shove it inside his mouth. He found a couple of flowers with pretty succulent stems that helped ease his thirst. But they were poisonous, so he grew even hungrier.

Thankfully, they weren't as bad as the poison goblin since they only made his throat itch. But they didn't make Ackster hungry just because of the itching. It was because he scratched so hard at his throat that he almost tore it open.

The dizziness from the goblin fingers and the itchiness wasn't a very good combo since Ackster didn't even realize he was bleeding from his throat before he noticed it got even harder to breathe. But at least he could slurp his fingers to temporarily alleviate his thirst.

Ackster had stopped doubting his sanity by now. It was clear it had left shortly after he transmigrated.