Blake set down his chisel with a sigh. His most recent attempt at a totem sat infront of him in all its glory. It was meant to be an angry bear and unlike some of his earlier attempts, it had a passing resemblance. The carving was by no means great but the difference from when he had started carving was night and day.

  Standing up from where he had been seated in the dirt Blake stretched out his sore arms. His high Constitution prevented him from experiencing any real pain but not moving for hours on end still left him stiff.

  Stretching his legs Blake walked around his newest base. Walls made of wood logs surrounded the area. The walls were over seven feet high and could defend against any rabbicorn attacks with ease. A spike-filled trench encircled the wall to further enhance its defensive properties.

  In the center of the clearing that was his new base another, smaller, wall sat. This wall was built around the entrance to the den. Blake had to make a point to clear out any rabbicorns that made it to the surface as spikes were less helpful when dealing with a higher number of monsters in a smaller area.

  It had been a month since he had first cleared the den and the sub-boss had long since respawned. With its return, the basic rabbicorns began spawning at a rate of once a day. Every morning as well as before going to sleep at night Blake would enter the encirclement around the den to clear out any rabbicorns that had built up on the other side.

  The monsters might have been stupid but they also had the supernatural ability to determine the wall was the work of a sapient. They relentlessly charged the wall until either the wall broke or they did. By clearing them out consitently Blake could keep down the amount of repair work he needed to do.

  Over the last month Blake had been hard at work establishing a permenant base in the medium region. The den had shown him that he was not ready for the high density regions so he had set his mind to training as much as he could as fast as he could.

  With an established base Blake could utilize proper exercise equipment such as his weights rather than having to rely on body weight exercises which were of little use at his level of Strength. He had also made a new obstacle course to train Dexterity, though it wasn’t of much use.

  Blake didn’t know how to make a better obstacle course that could push him harder so while he had a basic one to help him adjust to his Strength actual Dexterity growth was reliant on his Talent. That was one of the reasons why he pushed his crafting so hard.

  Rather than make identical walls and other crafts, Blake made a point to make variations of everything. Using his now plentiful collection of rabbicorn horns he had upgraded all his tools to horn variations which he then went on to use to make more fancy objects. His walls all had carvings in them and he had begun making more totems in hopes of discovering a way to use magic.

  Having made so many ‘unique’ crafts, even if they were similiar, added up and Blake found his Dexterity and Memory pushed forward. Regular meditation to work through the info dumps that his Talent provided also help grow his Alacrity and Celerity although not to the same level.

  Blake had confirmed that none of his training was capable of pushing stats passed the second threshold. Both Memory and Strength had caught up with Constitution and Affinity over the weeks of work but had gone no farther. He still didn’t understand how Will had managed to reach the third threshold.

  Not everything was positive. No matter what he did Blake was unable to push the third spirit stat forward. He had no clue what it could be and the only growth he had seen from it was from the monster-killing bonus. That bonus didn’t even help anymore as the diminishing returns he had found from killing rabbicorns had reached a point where it was effectively useless.

  Blake looked over at the flat plane of dirt he had begun to use as paper. It was a strange spot in the clearing that had no grass so he used a stick to write on it to take notes. Most recently he had written down his stats and what he understood each one to be.

  Body Stats

  Strength - 2nd Threshold (0%)

  - Ability to exert force

  Constitution - 2nd Threshold (0%)

  - Physical resilience

  - Immune system

  - Endurance?

  Dexterity - 1st Threshold (70%)

  - Bodily control

  - Speed(limited by Strength)

  Mind Stats

  Memory - 2nd Threshold (0%)

  - Mental capacity

  Alacrity - 1st Threshold (30%)

  - Mental flexibility

  - Ability to multitask

  - How ‘smart’ I am

  Celerity - 1st Threshold (20%)

  - Speed of thought

  - Perception of time slowed

  Spirit Stats

  Affinity - 2nd Threshold (0%)

  - Spiritual senses (Still don’t understand this)

  - Other things? Feel like there’s more but don’t know what

  Will - 3rd Threshold (0%)

  - Control over mental state

  - Internal motivation

  Unknown - No Threshold (25%)

  - I wish I knew

  Writing it all down showed just how far he had come but it also pointed out to Blake that his understanding of his stats was still shallow. This was especially true for the spirit stats. If he had to guess he would say the spirit stats would help with magic as that was the only other aspect of being an awakened that he could think of. However, that was only conjecture and of no help to him now.

  Blake had been trying to figure out old magic but was having no luck. Every totem he built triggered his Talent and the fragments of information he got were enough to confirm he was on the right track but something was missing.

  He was so close he could taste it but he had no idea where to take his totem making from here. He had tried a variety of things to make the totems do something but nothing worked. He even tried dancing around one of the totems naked in the moonlight. All he got from that was the distinct impression that he should never admit to having done so for risk of offending someone.

  Blake was desperate for anything that would work but those who were not in his situation would probably not understand why he thought dancing naked was a good idea. Following that incident Blake spent a good period of time in focused meditation checking his mental state for signs of insanity.

  Nothing seemed to be wrong but he had also been isolated from all human contact for a long time which was likely wearing at his sanity in a way he couldn’t detect. The rabbicorns at least agreed with his conclusion.

  Measuring how far he had progressed to the next threshold for his stats had ended up being much more difficult than Blake had originally anticipated. The gap between thresholds was not static with the increase between the first and second thresholds being half the size as that required to reach the first threshold.

  For example if he were to assign and arbitrary value to the stats then reaching the first threshold would say, require a value of 2. In that case he would then need to train his stat to a value of 3 to reach the third threshold.

  The gap between the second and third thresholds was even smaller. Only 60% of the stat growth required to reach the second threshold was required for the third or 30% of the requirements for the first threshold.

  This seemed counter intuitive to Blake as reaching the second threshold took longer than reaching the first. He then realized that the difficulty of improving his stats were the cause of this not the amount of growth. He was getting diminishing returns with each threshold reached.

  At this rate reaching the fourth threshold would provide only the smallest fraction of the strength the first brought. Since it also required surviving in a higher regions for longer and longer periods of time it made Blake question the value of training his stats higher.

  Prior to clearing the den, Blake would have just accepted it as a matter of course. He didn’t really have any other options than to risk his life even more to try and ascend. Now he did.

  After leaving the den Blake had made a startingly discovery. He could now ascend whenever he wanted. He had assumed that he would need to unlock all nine stats to ascend with the method he had discovered but it seemed that reaching nine thresholds was sufficient.

  The chains that held him back from ascending were by no means broken but with every threshold he crossed the pressure pushing against the chains grew. He knew that with an applied effort of will he could use that pressure to forcefully break those chains and move on.

  Blake did not know what that would look like, despite pushing his Affinity to the limit trying to find out. Hours of meditation had revealed nothing besides the distinct sense of leaving everything behind. He had also found that he could only ascend while in one of the glades that existed near the center of each region. It was a strange restriction to him but what did he know.

  The uncertainty of what would happen and his concern over his own weakness held Blake back. If he wasn’t confident entering a high-density region in a tier 0 realm what made him think he would survive a tier 1 realm? Just like humans, monsters doubled in strength with each tier up. They also grew more complex and intelligent.

  Since he didn’t understand how ascending worked in general, let alone with his specific stat training method, he also wasn’t confident he could bring his tools and weapons with him. He could be set back to square one only this time with stronger monsters surrounding him.

  It wasn’t like he could immedieatly use his improved Strength to create stone tools as those would be stronger and harder in a higher realm as well. Repeating his early days in the spirit realm was not something Blake wanted to experience. He had overcome his trauma over the whole situation but that was not the same thing as wanting to do it again.

  Then there was the real reason why Blake had decided to not ascend yet. For a moment he had considered himself done with tier 0. He had started to plan what last preparations he needed to quickly do before ascending. Then, his Talent activated.

  Blake had known his Talent was broad in scope but he had never imagined that training fell under ‘crafting’ for its purposes. It did make some convoluted sense in that he was ‘crafting’ himself into a better him but that didn’t mean Blake would ever have suspected such logic to work for his Talent.

  When he had decided to ascend Blake had essentially been saying he had finished crafting himself. Since finishing a craft was the trigger for his Talent it had activated and given him information on how he had done and how to better use his body.

  The skill wasn’t a direct upgrade to his Dexterity but it made Blake more efficient in all his movements. That in turn sped up his growth in Dexterity for a time. The information on how he had done with his training was surprisingly small, a sign of a low-quality craft. That was disheartening to discover but he did find some use in it.

  Just like with his experiments with making totems, Blake was able to piece together a rough understanding of could be from the scattered information provided. First was knowledge of how many thresholds there were. That there was a limited amount of thresholds was already new information but now he knew it topped out at five.

  He also learned that there was something more to thresholds than stat growth. He didn’t know what it was but he had already seen hints of something changing in the form of the pressure that pushed him to ascend. Each threshold reached, no matter the stat or level, was changing something about him.

  He could say with confidence that it was a positive change. Other than that he knew nothing. This was why he was waiting to ascend. If deciding he was done training in tier 0 was enough to trigger his Talent that meant he couldn’t get more thresholds once he ascended. He wanted this mysterious bonus from thresholds even if he didn’t know what it was.

  While his stats were giving diminishing returns the unknown bonus of reaching thresholds was consitent which brought some relief to Blake. Even his newfound hunger for growth would have struggled to keep him from ascending if he was only getting a fraction of the benefit for ten times the amount of work.

  The drive to train to perfection was something Blake had discovered about himself during his time in the spirit realm. It wasn’t unwelcome. He would never have been able to spend a month carving out totems and making walls before awakening. Heck, had he been in a welcome village like he was supposed to be upon arriving in the spirit realm he might never have discovered this part of himself.

  Blake was hesitant to call his unwanted experience in the spirit realm a blessing but he no longer viewed it as negativly as he had before. Should, no, when he returned to civilization he would be a better man for it. There would be no more making plans that were little more than goals with no founding in reality. He was now a man of action.

  That thought in mind Blake returned to his totems. He had taken a long enough walk to work out the kinks and was ready to get back to work. He had a clear plan for how to move forward. Tommorow he would return to the den to clear it out again.

  With his Strength now at the second threshold he was confident in finishing faster this time. While clearing it out he would also spend the time to carve symbols into each cavern to help him map out the whole den. This would let him move quicker and quicker in future visits.

  Once he had cleared the den he would leave his current camp to the next nearest medium where he would hunt down that den. By Blake’s estimates, he could keep five to ten dens clear if he worked in a non-stop loop.

  It would be difficult work but the potential benefits were immense. While the normal rabbicorns stopped providing any meaningful bonus to his stats, the sub-bosses still did. Besides in large enough numbers, even the normal rabbicorns could still contribute. On top of that were the natural treasures.

  Blake had not found any natural treasures in his first den outside of the sub-boss’s horn. That certainly qualified with its strength. It was in fact that very horn that encouraged, nay, forced him to clear more dens. He was incapable of scratching the horn let alone carving into it.

  Without the ability to scrape away at it, he couldn’t turn it into a proper spearhead. For the moment he had used his patented glue and twine combination to attach it to a stick turning it into a lance. It would be difficult to use in the den but he had been practicing with it and had a plan to speed up the sub-boss fight.

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