To prevent monsters from coming from across the region to reinforce the den when he began his attack Blake set up traps where he had determined they spawned. Spawn areas for the rabbicorns covered a rather large area but by setting up five to ten snares at each location he had determined he was confident that he would at least minimize what monsters were available.

  While doing this he also killed any rabbicorns currently alive. They had a respawn time between three and seven days so only a few of the traps should be necessary. It all depended on how fast he could move through the region to set up.

  Blake had made traps before, pitfalls and spikes were his primary form of defense early on, but snares were new to him. It took him a bit to create ones that he felt were strong enough to hold a rabbicorn and not just break off.

  Twisting his twine together to make sufficiently sturdy rope ended up taking the longest. He hoped that he found a better plant for rope making in the next region as he was reaching the limit of the tree sapling twines potential.

  Starting from the edges of the region he moved inwards. The closer to the den he got the more dense the rabbicorns spawned so he would have to put up with more resistance while trying to set up his traps. Getting experience with the process while only dealing with one rabbicorn at a time helped him move quickly.

  Once he was within a distance he estimated to be a mile Blake stopped setting up traps. He was able to clear out all the rabbicorns within that area fast enough that they wouldn’t have a chance to respawn before he was done with the den, no matter the outcome.

  Blake didn’t bother to group up the rabbicorns while clearing out the den’s immediate surroundings. He had done so in the past for practice but the monsters were slow and it was much quicker for him to make a well-placed strike on each one, killing it instantly, before moving on.

  Over the last month, Blake had counted out exactly how many rabbicorns there were so that he could say with confidence that he had cleared them all out. It had been a time-consuming process as he had needed to injure each one he encountered to make sure he didn’t double-count any.

  Surroundings clear Blake moved to attack the den itself. He had viewed it from a distance while scouting it in the past but he was moving closer than he ever had before giving him a clearer look.

  The den was little more than a hole in the ground, It was two to three meters in diameter and perfectly round. It was positioned in the center of a glade not unlike the one Blake had turned into his homebase. He had found that every region had a clearing like this although they varied in size and relative position.

  Blake left his backpack at the edge of the clearing bringing only his crude clothing and his spear. His spear was gripped tightly in both hands and he took a moment to take a deep breath and steady his mind.

  He would not be meditating during this fight, at least not to the level he was used to. Meditating while fighting had shown to have many benefits to his concetration and level of awareness but despite his practice Blake was not confident in holding the state. While meditating brought benefits being knocked out of meditation threw him off. It was not worth the risk.

  There were three states of mind that Blake had identified that he typically fell into while fighting. One was what he had dealt with when first fighting monsters. What he called the panic state. While panicking he would flail about with his spear and if he was only dealing with one rabbicorn was almost guaranteed to get a hit. He was also likely to take a hit in return.

  It was a mindless state that left no room for the skills Blake had spent months refining. He no longer fell into this state of mind while fighting but he took precautions before each fight to make sure it didn’t happen again. Mainly, he cleared his mind ahead of time with meditation.

  The second state of mind was his berserker rage. He focused in on his enemy, or enemies, and did everything he to kill them. He wasn’t necesarily angry in this state but he called it his berserker state after the old rpg archetype.

  Blake took an unhealthy amount of pride in having played many ancient rpg’s from before Awakening was discovered. New RPGs were more reflections of reality in the spirit realm than anything creative or unique. Then again, when reality was just as magical and full of potential as the games of old what was the point of coming up with something different?

  The problem with the berserker state of mind was that his situational awareness dropped to almost nothing. He could utilize his skills to the level he had fully integrated but he couldn’t develop them further through experimentation and afterward, he would struggle to draw any inspiration for improvements to his fighting style.

  He remained aware enough to place his feet but would struggle to stay cognizant of the surrounding trees and bushes. He also would get stuck on the enemies he had already identified leaving him vulnerable to an unknown adversary sneak attacking him.

  The final state of mind was his meditative mind. This was the one he aimed for while practicing and was by far the most beneficial and balanced. Meditating while fighting inherently prevented him from panicking while allowing him to focus on his enemies.

  While he was focused on his enemies he didn’t lose sight of his surroundings like with the beserker rage. In fact, meditation increased his state of awareness. This was a big diffrence from his early days of meditation.

  When he had first started meditating shortly after the first rabbicorn had attacked him mediation had been a way to block out everything. His attention had been on not thinking about everything that was happening so that he could calm his body down enough to rest.

  It has gone through many iterations from there. The next change was when he started using it to process his trauma. Reviewing what had happened and reassuring himself that he had done what he could to prevent it from happening again was a source of comfort for Blake allowing him to sleep without fear of nightmares.

  When he began working with his spear Blake had taken another step forward in his use of meditation. He had learned to review his actions just as he had done with processing his trauma but this time it was to identify points of weakness that could be improved.

  This was almost the exact opposite of what he had done before. Processing his trauma had been reassuring himself and building confidence that he hadn’t done anything wrong, reviewing his actions for improvement was pointing out every flaw and saying he did something wrong.

  The other aspect of improving through review was connecting deeper to his subcouncious to become consious of the skills his Talent provided. Blake had to turn his entire focus inwards to sense anything. This was something he learned to do by expanding on his original meditation technique of ignoring everything.

  Ignoring everything Blake would just listen for what his body, ingrained with the skills of his Talent, was telling him. It was by practicing this state for weeks that he first unlocked his affinity. He identified the chains that were holding him back from ascending to tier one by listening closely to his own body, mind, and spirit.

  It wasn’t until he began his expedition beyond his glade that Blake began trying to accomplish the same things he already had with meditation while moving. This required staying aware of his surroundings and not just ignoring everything to listen.

  It was the epiphany that his body, mind and soul were just as much a part of the world as his surroundings were that he was able to meditate without reducing his awareness of what was around him. He would open his senses and let the information come to him without trying to limit it so that he could force one part of himself to be louder.

  Doing that while fighting was another level of difficult but when he did manage to do it he was able to fight on a level impossible otherwise. His awareness was enhanced by meditation now rather than suppressed allowing him to keep track of his opponents and the obstacles that scattered his field of battle.

  Blake’s processing speed was also improved while meditating. Just like when he worked to integrate his skills and improve with his spear now it could be turned to analyze his opponents mid-fight. With his experience fighting rabbicorns, he felt he could almost see the future.

  The three states of mind that Blake identified; panic, berserk, and meditative, were only the extremes. Most fights he only fell partly in each category. While he didn’t panic completly anymore he often had fights where his panic fueled the berskerk state or he would be trying to meditate but fall into patterns more in line with bersker rage.

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  Since he did not want to risk falling in and out of meditation while fighting in the den he instead aimed to keep a controlled berserk state. He wouldn’t be meditating at a level that did much more than preven losing all awareness of his surroundings but such a small amount of meditation would be easier to handle.

  Spending a few minutes to focus only on meditation clear Blake’s mind. His awareness spread from his body. He felt like part of the forest. The boundaries of his body and mind no longer confined to a limited shape but was one with his surroundings.

  This wasn’t anything supernatural or magical just a level of meditation that could only be accomplished by months of almost non-stop practice. Blake didn’t know if it would be possible to reach the same level of skill he had with meditation had he been around other people.

  In the early days any distraction would have thrown him off. Being able to meditate for so long without stop had fundumentally shifted how he thought and intermidant meditation would not have brought the same kind of benefits.

  Ready in both mind and body Blake stepped into the den. The ground sloped downward at a steep slope. He estimated it was around 45 degrees downwards. He didn’t see any enemies in the dirt tunnel but he also couldn’t see very far before the light of the sun disappeared leaving everything in darkness.

  He took a moment to look at that then turned around. A torch would be helpful here. He hadn’t thought of it before since his eyesight was greatly improved since coming to the spirit realm and he had always had at least bright stars to light the way but he couldn’t see in absolute darkness.

  Soon after he was back with a simple torch. Blake had taken a log and cut it to a length slightly longer than his forearm. From there he had roughly cut its width to a size he could comfortably hold in his hand. It was rounded or anything just a bunch of ragged edges.

  Blake then lit the top on fire. If he wasn’t careful he would burn himself while carrying it but by keeping holding it at an angle he prevented ash from falling on his hand. He would just need to drop it before the whole thing burned.

  Blake added creating proper torches to his list of things to do before exploring a high-density region. He began to walk down the tunnel at a slow pace. So far he hadn’t seen any branches in the path but he did not want to be surprised by an army of rabbicorns.

  The chances of there being anything that could be called an army were almost non-existant but there was still the chance. The most likely scenario was that there would be somewhere between 20 to 50 total monsters in the den somewhere and about five of those would be immediatly available to support the sub-boss.

  That did not mean only five would fight with the sub-boss. A common ability bosses’ had was the ability to call for aid from every monster in the den and then, if injured enough, the region. That was why Blake had spent so much time tracking down every rabbicorn outside the den. He did everything he could to minimize the support the sub-boss could call on.

  If Blake wasn’t careful he could engage the sub-boss before he located all the rabbicorns in the den. He didn’t have the luxury of time as he did outside the den. One feature dens had was an increased spawn rate. While outside the den it took at least three days for a monster to spawn to replace whatever he killed, in the den it could take less than a day.

  If Blake decided he needed to leave the den to rest he was almost guaranteed to have all his work undone come morning. If he tried to practice clearing the den by searching for monsters over the course of days and only killing them all once he was confident he had located them all then he risked the rabbicorns from across the region respawning and escaping his traps.

  Heart beating heavily Blake kept moving down the tunnel until he came to a junction. He hadn’t moved too far by his standards but his standards were also very different than they used to be. Increased Strength let him move faster with less effort and he had spent months traveling across a seemingly infinite forest.

  The tunnel by the standards of a rabbit den was huge. Without measuring tools Blake couldn’t be sure but he estimated it was close to half a mile long. The junction was a circular room with five more tunnels splitting off in every direction.

  The room was occupied by ten rabbicorns. Blake’s face paled. This was the very first room. He could understand if one of the deeper rooms had ten rabbicorns but even that would be unusual as ten would be a good chunk of the monsters in the den. For it to be the very first room did not bode well.

  For a smaller den ten monsters would be half of everything in the den. Since dens typically held at least three rooms of escalating strength, Blake was looking at a minumum of 30 monsters though that was probably low balling it.

  Blake had been expecting ten to be the highest number of monsters he would have to face at once. While practicing he had never been able to group up more than five at a time. Each additional monster he fought at the same time had proven to be exponentially more difficult.

  Fighting five rabbicorns at a time was easy enough for him now and fighting six or seven Blake had some confidence of doing that without any harm coming to him but he wasn’t even sure he could kill ten of them with his current training let alone do so without serious injury.

  Blake debated leaving to continue his stat training until at least Constitution and Strength were maxed out but it was too late. Apparently, walking through a dark tunnel with a bright torch was a great way to attract attention. By the time he saw the rabbicorns they had already turned towards him and were preparing to dodge.

  With only a moment to react, Blake dropped his torch. He wasn’t concerned it would go out and he needed both hands to fight with. The chamber was lit with the flicking orange glow of his torch’s fire. Standing in front of it, spear held in both hands, Blake cast a long, menacing shadow.

  The monsters showed no fear and charged. Blake side stepped the first rabbicorn with ease and it was little trouble dodging the second but then there was a fourth and a fifth. The monsters had been scattered across the room and whether it was intentional or not the staggered timing of their charge made it difficult for him to dodge.

  The first ten attacks were quickly over but Blake didn’t even have a chance to panic before the first rabbicorn was on him again. He was stuck in a loop dodging one rabbicorn after another without a chance to get an attack in. These monsters were fragile enough that even one good attack would cut down their number and give him some reprieve to make more attacks but getting that first chance was proving impossible for Blake.

  Time passed in a blur as he tried to find an out. Escaping through a tunnel was a no go. The only tunnel he knew led to saftey was now covered by a blazing log. His torch had caught completly on fire blocking that avenue of escape. The other tunnels would just lead him to more monsters which was the exact opposite of what he needed right now.

  An opening finally presented itself when two charging rabbicorns ran into each other delaying their attacks. With a moment to spare Blake lashed out with his spear slicing into a rabbicorn that had just passed him. It was not immediately fatal but the open wound on its neck was quickly bleeding out.

  It was no longer able to fight and would die soon enough which was all Blake cared about. With one less monster trying to kill him, he had more space to think. Watching the two rabbicorns run into each other had given him an epiphany.

  Blake didn’t have room to attack even with one of the monsters out of the fight but he could still dodge and now he had a way to weaponize it. His mind working overtime Blake began to analyze the flow of the battle trying to anticipate not the next attack or even two attacks from now but five, ten, twenty attacks in advance.

  If he wanted to get another chance to take out a rabbicorn he needed to create an opening like what had happened before. He needed the rabbicorns to get in each other’s way. They were not intelligent enough to think to avoid that. All they would do is charge in a straight line to attack him.

  Knowing this Blake could dodge in such a way as to maneuver them into each other. His first attempt failed as he had miscalculated the turn radius of the rabbicorns and his second attempt was no better but third times the charm and Blake got three to intercept each other.

  Taking a step back Blake stabbed the butt of his spear behind him. His goal was not to kill the rabbicorn that had just charged passed him but to injure it enough to create more openings. He didn’t stop to verify if it had worked or not before stabbing back forward to impale another rabbicorn.

  Not taking the time to pull the dead rabbicorn off his spear he swept it sideways into the three rabbicorns that had righted themselves and were preparing to charge again. Blake lacked the Strength to take them all out in one sweep but he knocked two of them to the ground. He dodged the third by hopping to the side, turning his body to see how he had done.

  The rabbicorn he had bludgeoned with the butt of his spear had a broken leg and was trying and failing to charge again. The two rabbicorns he had swiped his spear at had fallen in a tangle of limbs and would take a moment to get back up. He also still had the dead rabbicorn on the tip of his spear.

  All in all he had disrupted the rabbicorns’ rythm. They were down to only seven that were in fighting shape and two of them were delayed. From there Blake was able to quickly clean up. Before having the realization that he could use his enemies movements against each other he had already been confident in taking down seven at once so it was easy for him now.

  After the fight was over Blake sat down to meditate. He had managed to keep up a level of meditation throughout the fight to his suprise. He hadn’t planned to but it was the only way he was able to process the rabbicorns’ movements and plan out how to make them run into each other.

  He didn’t need to sit down to meditate but it made it easier if he wasn’t focused on standing. Blake spent a few minutes processing everything that had happened and how he could better integrate his new insight into his fighting style.

  Blake was running into a wall with his improvements to his fighting style and this would likely be the last jump he would see in a while. He had only improved as fast as he had because it was less learning to fight as acknowledging his skills thanks to his Talent. He had already integrated multiple skills together and the most recent insight wasn’t even an improvement to his fighting skills so much as a better utilization of his observational skills.

  With a sigh, Blake stood up. For a moment he debated leaving the den to train before returning but he knew that if he did so it would be as good as admitting that he wouldn’t reach tier 3 before the year was up. Maybe the delay from this one den would be short but if he couldn’t push through now and force himself to grow he would end up delaying again at the next density and the next.

  The jump between regions only increased at higher tiers. Waiting for his stats to develop fully before moving on would become a time-consuming proposition.

  So with a deep breath, Blake chose the tunnel to the immediate right of the entrance and set off.

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