Chapter 59: The Tomb of the Ancestors

With the little sleep that I got, I struggled to wake up.

Groggy I turned around to try and leave the bed. When suddenly I felt an embrace. Haruka had joined my tent tonight...

Seeing as how I struggled to get up, I must have slept like a log. But, there was no time to waste.

I proceeded to gently stretch my arms and legs as a yawn escaped my mouth.

*yawn*

The realization had not sunken in yet as I pushed away the blinds blocking the entrance. Welcomed by warm sunlight, I struggled opening my eyes. Had I fully awakened?

Slowly my eyes opened, as they grew accustomed to the light, the warmth had a pleasant feeling to it. Almost like the sun was welcoming me into the new world.

Wanting to explore the unknown I quickly prepared my gear to head out and hunt, as I didn't know if the tribe would provide us more than the marvelous feast they had prepared yesterday.

Once I was fully dressed I looked back one more time to see Haruka was still vast asleep.

To try and get out of the situation of her hugging me very passionately I had snug in a bigger pillow, which she was happily gripping onto.

I chuckled at the sight of it, as she almost seemed like an innocent cat enjoying her warm spot to sleep in. I tried to leave without making a sound, which I succeeded in.

As I stood there proudly in the entrance of the hut, something really important crossed my mind.

I had to prepare for the journey ahead, because huting in unkown territory tents to come with lots of surprises.

Making my way towards the supply hut, I crossed paths with someone else, whom I had seen, but not yet spoken to. It seemed this person had the same idea as me, as he was preparing tools to take along for the journey.

Unaware of their customs as we both had entered the hut I greeted him as humanely as possible.

"Mornin! Off to hunt as well?"

Unaware that someone else was in the hut,

the greeting made him jump up in surprise.

He turned around to see the one who crossed worlds.

"Oh... its you, don't scare me like that "hero"."

The young man turned around like nothing had happened as he continued to prepare his tools.

I was surprised to see that most tools were similar to that of wood elfs, taking a bow and arrows, even preparing a set of small knives as tools for close combat. Next he carefully picked the tools he needed to harvest goods as he put a tight rope over his right shoulder, which now covered both his shoulder, torso and back. Finally he grabbed a medium sized bag and prepared for departure.

Taking into account what the hunter had taken to prepare, he must have planned to hunt small to medium sized wild life. This in turn seemed like the right way to prepare which made me take a similar approach.

Well... I had my arm guards but...

Other than the ambush last night there really had not been a chance to really test them out.

Having prepared the tools I departed towards the entrance gate where we had arrived. For I felt that was the right way to explore. Not to mention a mission had popped up telling me to scout the area once more.

[Mission: Go back to the beginning.

Going back to where you started,

one will find what was once hidden...

Something essential for survival and the challenges to come.

Explore the ruins

Map the area

???

Rewards:

+5 stats points

+2 INT & WIS

???]

Do you accept? [YES]/[NO]

Excited by how the system had implemented elements of a game, I just couldn't refuse.

"Yes!"

I had accepted the mission, and as I took one more glance at it, it appeared there was no time limit.

Taking my departure towards the beginning,

this felt kind of similar in a way to when I had arrived in Arganthes. Still... I had to admit, we were in an entirely different plain of existance right now...

After serveral hours had passed I arrived at what we called the portal or what could be seen as our entrance way towards these plains.

"The Beginning".

Finally I could take the time to explore, and I had to say... in broad daylight this looked oddly similar to the ruins we had seen before coming here...

Upon my arrival, I witnessed local wildlife had made its home here as well. Wanting to prepare myself something to eat it felt right to start the hunt.

Slowly I used my observation to register the patterns in which they wild life moved. Knowing I couldn't take it home just yet it would be best not to hunt a large animal as this would definitely attract other carnivores to the area.

Lucky for me, I had spotted a few rabbits not to far away. The world had thrown itself on itd head since I was able to slightly see the flow of magic surrounding me. Almost like a radar, the flow became stronger the closer the wildlife was.

Excited by my new skill I almost lost my cool and rustled the bushes I had crawled into to try and catch my prey.

The rabbits ears shot up as they looked around alarmed, I could see their flow of energy shot up allowing them to react to the slightest of movements.

I didn't know if I would be able to hunt them successfully and decided to try something out.

Since I could now see the flow of energy within and slightly around me. I should be able to catch the rabbit with my most basic spell. "The Fireball".

I gathered enough energy to form a small fireball on top of my finger and flicked it towards the rabbits.

One of then picked up the burning noice as it crackeled towards them, it then quickly rushed away, just in time. The other got startled by its actions, tripped and fell onto the ground, unable to retaliate it got caught in the fire and burned to a crispy well prepared brackfast.

Quickly fueling up I continued to map the area. Having taken something similar to paper and charcoal I decided to draw it out completely.

But as I did, the system popped up.

[Skill unlocked: map design lv 0 (passive/active)

Allows the user to map out the area, the amount of details will increase according to ones observation and map design skills together with wisdom and intelligence.]

Thinking about what this could mean I unkowningly said; "map".

A window popped up showing me a map of the area. Meaning I didn't really need to draw a map op my own. It wasn't to detailed, but at the same time, the area's I had been to had indeed already been mapped out, it even showed my own position. Unexplored territory showed in a similar way to fog of war in real time strategy games.

It made sense, since I haven't been to those area's before. I walked around the area slowly mapping out the entirety of it, making sure not to disturb the wild life to much I kept my distance. Having mapped the entire forest around the beginning area after some time had passed it became apparent that the ruins were placed in the centre of the area.

As I couldn't hold in my excitement quickly I got drawn to the broken down area where the ruins began. Finding my way throughout the rubble was exciting, finding all kinds of hieroglyphs and written tekst on the walls scattered across the area.

"This area must have been important, deducing from all the rubble, something must have happened in the past... what could it have been?"

Venturing deeper into unkown territory I decided it was best to keep my map open, not only for the viable information, but also to see how frequently the map would update as I explored these areas.

Traveling through the rubble, it became apparent what was left of the rubble must have been a corridor. Serveral even. Time had corroded the structures making it easier to keep my surroundings in check. Finally I arrived at the center of the ruins and enountered an anomaly.

The map had been filled in completely, right?

Then why, why did this area not register within the map? Could there be something similar?

The quest window popped up, informing me of the completion of the mission.

[Mission Complete!

Would you like to receive the selected rewards?

[ACCEPT]/[DECLINE] ]

Not sure if I had really finished the mission or if this might have been a glitch of some sort I still decided to accept the rewards, because without them I wouldn't be able to advance and further develop mij strenghts.

"[ACCEPT]".

The window chanced its contents congratulating me for my acomplishments. Yet... something seemed odd...

"Since you have proven your worth as a drifter, the system would like to register your accomplishments rewarding you with a further indepth way to develop.

Drifter, would you like to become a player?".

[YES]/[NO]

"Better rewards mean better development,

not to mention more challenges to test what this system allows me to do, if I don't accept now...

Would I come to regret it?"

I saw no reason to decline this offer and pushed [YES] without a doubt in my mind.

"Thank you for your ongoing support as you are now registered as a [PLAYER]. Please accept your rewards.

Three windows popped up, surprised I quickly accepted all of them, receiving the 5 attribute points, an increase of Wisdom and Intelligence by 2 and the unknown reward.

I felt stronger already, but I didn't have a chance to check my stats right away. The [???] Appeared in front of me. As I tried to accept the reward I felt something fuse with my consiousness,

as if something slowly melted and became someone of a second skin. The process hurt and I became confused, but before I could cry out it had stopped and registered within...