Escape

Indra awoke and instantly put his hands to his head, his eyes were already shut but the pain only made him shut them tighter. He then preceded to cover his ears, Indra could hear everything, small twigs or something of similar size poked him in the back while he writhed in pain on what he assumed to be the ground.

What is that god awful stench.

Indra didn't understand what was happening. He began sweating, his body was on fire. Instead of sitting their suffering he tried to focus, which relieved the burden a bit. Actually it completely disappeared but only for a moment. Seconds later and the pain resurfaced again as if he lay under the beating sun of the desert. The sheer amount of sensory input he was taking in made it impossible to focus.

Indra remembered something from his days at the monastery that always helped him relax and gather his thoughts, a form of meditation. He attempted once again to gather himself and his thoughts only to fail once more. He just couldn't seem to pull himself together. The simple act of sitting up became a problem, among other things. His head throbbed and it was as if someone was repeatedly kicking it. When he was finally able to sit up he focused on his posture, the distraction helped a bit but not much.

Mindful meditation was the form he chose. The posture called for sitting upright with his back erect. His gaze would come next, Indra slowly pried his eyes open. This act took all of his will power just to pull off and he regretted the action every bit when he finally prevailed.

He spoke through clenched teeth. "Shit!"

They burned, he wasn't even looking at the sun but the light burned his eyes!

With his eyes finally opened Indra realized he wasn't on the ground at all. He could see leaves and branches surrounding him and he was in what seemed to be some sort of nest.

Where the hell am I?

With all the pain distracting him he inhaled a deep breath through his nose, that was a bad choice. He seemed to be able to smell more than what he saw here. It was some sort of feces that was bombarding his nose. He wouldn't be doing that again. This whole situation was insane to him. Small twigs and branches poked Indra's palms as he cautiously made his way to the edge of nest whilst struggling to keep his eyes open, they burned so bad that tears came streaking out. The annoying but slight pain whenever he would happen upon a pointed twig or branch was seriously beginning to urk him as well. Upon arrival at the edge Indra's eyes widened and he squealed, not only in pain from the amount of light his sensitive eyes took in but also in fear. The noise that came out of his mouth made him sort of thankful there was no one around to hear it. Although, if he had to choose between being where he was in that moment or making that same noise amidst a crowd full of hundreds of people he'd choose the latter.

Indra crawled backward on his feet and hands as hastily as possible falling multiple times on his way back to the middle of the nest. Completely ignoring the pain of the sharper sticks that assaulted his palms or the more severe pain that was beginning to blind him due to the sheer amount of tears falling from his eyes. He was so high up that he couldn't even see the ground which was covered in a thick blanket of mist. His breaths began to come less steadily and much deeper than before. Somehow he would need to calm down before it turned into hyperventilation. Indra was deathly afraid of heights. Once again he came to the conclusion of meditation.

Indra was confident that this technique would help so he sat down and focused despite everything that was happening to him. He placed his gaze a couple of inches in front of his nose and his eyes remained open. He made his gaze soft and was careful not to stare. The technique was to purposely ignore his surroundings without the help of closing his eyes. Training the mind to be calm, relaxed whilst in the midst of distraction. Finally, Indra began Meditating. So many distractions, so much information flooding his senses. It seemed almost impossible to him that he would be able to pull it off but eventually he succeeded. His mind blanked and it was as if the world around him had disappeared.

The temperature seemed to drop to a manageable degree shortly after he began. He ignored this change even though it was pleasant.

No distractions.

He noticed his surrounding, he was in fact in a nest, it was huge. This didn't matter either.

No distractions.

His hearing was still acute, to the point that he could hear some sort of bird flapping its wings fifty meters away. None of this mattered, nothing mattered. Calm washed over him as he ignored his surroundings. Everything finally blended into a calm that was serene, like a secluded lake in the early hours of the morning, not a single ripple disturbed the glimmering surface, not a single distraction disturbed Indra's mind. The distractions were far off now, the pain, non existent. Something flickered in his vision, some sort of small sphere, he didn't know what to make of it. Almost immediately Indra washed this distraction from his mind.

Something odd appeared in his vision again and this time it didn't go away, he thought it may be the systems doing.

What am I even thinking? The systems doing? The system makes water float now?

He quickly realized this was just another distraction but one that couldn't be ignored. A small sphere of what looked to be water hovered right where he gazed, just above the base of the nest.

What's going on?

The water hovered there for a moment and Indra's body cooled down, he felt agile, he felt relaxed. After a few moments something changed. A clear sheen of what looked almost like glass, the only difference was that it wasn't solid, nor was it liquid. It was simply a clear protective layer of what seemed like a semi translucent layer of space. Then it changed again. Around the clear sheen of what could only described as empty semi translucent space was another layer. Orange, yellow, sweltering heat. Fire surrounded it now. He suddenly felt angry, like he could destroy. He also felt warm, like he radiated the energy of the sun.

Indra lost his concentration for a moment and he almost scooted back, away from the flame.

The sphere changed again. Another layer of the semi translucence surrounded the fire. Then it changed again. This time, dust began to gather, it coalesced into a solid layer of dirt that began to harden into what looked like stone. Indras body felt different again.

What's going on, why do my emotions keep changing?

It felt solid, like he could resist any attack, he could crush anything but also he felt ancient like he'd been here thousands of years and had the wisdom and maturity to match.

A loud screech interrupted Indra's meditation. The sphere collapsed, the water splashed to the bottom of the nest, the stone crumbled and fell apart and the fire extinguished.

All that remained in its place was a sort of unstable liquid, but it was no liquid it all, it was that same semi translucence that surrounded the water, then the fire. Another loud screech completely shattered all concentration. The odd liquid exploded, there was no fire, no heat, only pure force exerted from the blast. Indra was launched from the nest only to be caught again just like at the river. He finally discovered the source of the screeching. A large birdlike creature had swooped down and plucked him right out of the air and tossed him back into the nest.

Now that his senses were back to normal he could finally observe his surroundings. The bird sat opposite of him, staring. It cocked its head to the side and squawked once again. A long extremity sprouted from it that had two more wings of its own it looked like a tail, the wingspan must have been at least six meters. The beast was absolutely enormous and terrifying.

A prompt appeared in his vision which caused him to stop cowering and backing away.

[ Tempest Eagle: A large raptor with the abilities to create powerful gusts of wind at will. It flies at high speed propelling itself by winds of its own creation. The Tempest Eagle captures its prey alive then nurtures it, feeding it and fattening it until it's ripe for eating. It builds large nests in forested areas where it keeps its prey captive.

Rating: E-

Class: Sector Guardian ]

Indra wasn't sure what a rating was, nor was he sure about the class, it could be different for this beast than what the system had explained about himself. He was sure of three things, he needed to get out of here, this bird was going to eat him and he was utterly terrified. The prompt said that the bird fattens its prey so he still had some time. Thankfully Indra had an odd fascination with birds and had read about this sort of behavior before. He still had days before it would try to eat him.

Indra decided to relax and think, it wouldn't do him any good trying to escape while the bird was here. Once he sat down in the nest the Tempest Eagle seemed satisfied with this behavior and it flapped its enormous wings. Sticks and twigs pelted Indra. It lifted off and flew to a perch a small ways away from the nest where it could keep watch.

What next?

The situation was quite dire, if he fell from the nest or jumped, the fall would kill him in an instant. Instead of waiting around he decided he'd try to get some answers, so far he had no idea what his class did. Obviously he had heightened senses, that wouldn't do him any good. There was the thing with that odd sphere also but he had no idea what that could be either.

"Hmmm."

Indra took in his surroundings, the smell of fresh air filled his nose. Birds chirped all around, he could even hear a small animal scurrying up a tree somewhere in the forest.

He thought about this so called conquest system. It talked to him, provided information about this creature that had captured him. Maybe, he could get information from it instead of it providing the information to him first, but how?

Surprisingly the first thing he tried worked, and a little better than he'd intended.

"Hey, ughhh, system what can my class do?" Indra's voice was a little off considering how odd he felt talking to nothing. He was never able to watch movies, now that he thought about it he didn't do anything that involved electronics or whatever this 'system' was. He had never experienced something like this before.

His mind suddenly became overrun with information and he remembered every bit of it. With his memory he didn't have to go back through and try to remember things it was like a filing cabinet all he needed was the name or category of what he was looking for and he remembered instantly.

The information was all on the system and how it worked. It described how once a user becomes part of the system they level by gaining experience, whatever that was. It also explained how they gain a class and abilities but he had already known that from what it had told him earlier. A user can gain experience through killing demonic beasts, at least now he knew what the bird was. That wasn't all.

Every user has a menu with a list of five options.

[Information]

Information contains knowledge on dungeons and creatures; however, all information has a price.

Users are allowed to communicate through the system by paying the price of one point, it could be anyone in the world as long as they have their full name and have met them before.

[Stats]

This allows a user to view their abilities, level, and class.

[Storage]

This is a space of a single cubic meter to store any non-living items. The storage space increases as the user reaches higher levels.

[Map]

Map shows a layout of the area up to a hundred meter radius around a user. It shows users and creatures that are within the hundred meter radius, depending on the circumstance. This too increases as the user reaches higher levels.

[Management]

This allows users to form groups with other users. These groups may be guilds, alliances, parties or an organization on a large scale.

To see this menu page, a user must close one eye and navigate using their hands.

As soon as he finished gathering his thoughts indra did just that. He shut one eye and surprisingly it worked. Words appeared before his one eye and he immediately shut it.

woah.

He hesitantly closed his right eye again and waited for the words to appear before him.

The menu popped up directly in front of his eyes and he selected stats with his hand. Indra couldn't shake the feeling that he looked like a fool. Right after his finger made contact everything changed and different words appeared.

Username: Genesis

Level: 1

Class: Samsara Breaker

Energy type: Qi

Points: 0

Race: Human

Titles: Qinggong apprentice, Qigong novice.

Skills:

Minor water manipulation (passive), minor fire manipulation (passive), minor earth manipulation (passive), minor wood manipulation (passive), minor metal manipulation (passive), minor space/time manipulation (passive), minor spirit manipulation (passive), Taiji enlightenment (passive), Elemental enlightenment (passive). Body enlightenment (passive)

Stats-

Endurance:10

Agility: 10

Strength: 10

Wisdom: 10

Intelligence: 10

"Woah!" Those skills seemed completely unreal to Indra, Space/Time manipulation, what could that even mean.

Maybe those skills are what caused that sphere to appear and what the heck does it mean by passive? It also referred to my race as human, did that mean that animals were part of the system as well?

The rest just seemed self explanatory to him.

Indra opened his eye and the menu disappeared, a moment later an extremely loud screech ravaged his eardrums shaking the entire tree.

An Earthquake?

No, this was no earthquake. He rolled to the edge of the nest, involuntarily of course and all he could see was a mixture of a huge scaly body and feathers everywhere. Feathers kept on flying, the Tempest eagle struggled against what looked to be a giant snake. It was completely wrapped up in the reptilian body. The reason everything shook was because the eagle, in its panic, was causing powerful gusts that rocked the entire tree. Indra shivered at the sight. He loved birds and coincidentally hated snakes, he struggled to keep his eyes on the scene but it was so captivating he couldn't pry them away.

The bird was going insane in the snake's grasp screeching so loudly Indra feared he may have permanent damage to his hearing. In one final attempt to escape, the birds tempest rocked the entire forest, for miles Indra could see trees shaking and leaves falling. The snake tightened it's grip and crushed its victim. There was an audible crunch of the Tempest Eagle's hollow bones breaking. Then a prompt appeared on Indra's screen.

[Razorfang Chameleon Serpent: An agile reptile, the snake uses camouflage to conceal itself from its prey, it will wait hours if it has to before striking with lightning speed and perfect accuracy, Oddly they prey on avian creatures, they enjoy the challenge. Often times playing with their food, terrorising it before final putting it out of its misery, they have no poison in their razor sharp fangs and constrict their victims instead but can just as easily kill with their bite depending on the size of their foe.

Rating: E-

Class: Assassin]

Well the bird problem is solved.

Indra was partially paralyzed, he couldn't move from the spot he was in and the beast's intent to kill him was almost palpable, Indra could feel its thirst for his death. He knew that he would be next if this demonic beast knew he was here. Just his luck, the snake dropped the bird, presumably for later and set his sights on Indra. Its body, which he could not see the end of coiled so far down the tree that it was lost in the foliage and the fog. Its head however, was getting closer. Indra had a decision to make. Stay and die by constriction or jump and die by being turned into a pancake.

Definitely jump.

He gathered his courage and just as he ran to the edge the serpent's head crashed through the bottom of the nest sending Indra hurling into the air. He rotated his body in mid air and was met with a truly terrifying sight. The huge jaws of the serpent were only a few feet away, ready for their snack.