The real skills that kept him alive were the boring physical ones.

Stabbing.

Striking.

Climbing.

Staff Mastery and many more.

He had picked up all of them through pure repetition of simple things and desperate situations. Stab enough things with a sharpened stick and the system gives you a Stabbing skill. Hit enough things with a rock and you get Striking. Use a long branch as a weapon for two weeks straight and Staff Mastery shows up.

At Level 20 his Stabbing skill had evolved into something called Mana Powered Stab and suddenly the system told him he had a Mana stat. It had been at zero his entire time of almost 17 days on that day and he didn’t understand what it did.

He spent one precious stat point to bring it from 0 to 1 as a stat and because he figured a mana-powered skill probably needed mana. The only thing happened his empty mana pool expanded and allowed it maximum to 10 mana.

That one stat point was more precious than 10 mana in his book and it made absolutely no difference.

Ten mana wasn’t enough to power anything even for the stabbing skill. The skill description didn’t say it but he guessed that skill needed hundreds of mana to produce a visible strong effect on it’s power. Ten mana was like putting a single drop of fuel in a car’s engine and expect it to carry you for a mile.

Mana-based skills were garbage in his eyes and physical stats were all that mattered when he’s alone and something with claws and magical beaks have been trying to eat him.

The leopard gave up about two kilometres and also when he reacted before the giant ass tree.

Eren heard it hiss behind him and then the heavy padding of its paws got quieter as it turned around and stalked off to find something slower to eat.

He jumped for the lowest branch of the massive tree and started climbing. This thing looked like someone had crossed an oak with a pine and then fed it steroids for a hundred years. Thick trunk. Sharp needles mixed with broad leaves that sometimes glowed at night. The birds that nested in the outer branches shot fireballs at anything that climbed the exterior but Eren had learned weeks ago that staying close to the main trunk kept him safe. He hadn’t hurt a single bird since arriving here and they seemed to remember that.

[Congratulations! Your "Basic Climbing" skill leveled up]

-Climbing (Basic) - First Evolution League - Level 4 > Level 5

He reached his shelter. A flat junction where three thick branches met the trunk about twenty meters up. He had built a crude platform from stripped bark and woven leaves, big enough to lie down on without rolling off.

The tree trunk had twenty-three scratch marks carved into the bark with a sharp stone. Each one was a morning he had woken up alive. Twenty-three days since he opened his eyes in the dirt with no memory of how he got here.

The first three nights he didn’t sleep at all. Just sat against a rock shaking and listening to things scream in the dark. On the fourth night his body gave up and he passed out on a branch fifteen meters up. He’d expected to fall but his fingers locked around the wood like clamps and his balance held even while unconscious.

My bed back home had a wooden frame that creaked every time I rolled over and I never fixed it in three years. Now I sleep on a tree branch thinner than my arm and my back feels better than it ever did.

His body was clearly built for survival even if he didn’t understand why. Muscles recovered in hours instead of days. Cuts healed overnight. He hadn’t brushed his teeth in over three weeks and his mouth tasted clean every morning. That part still bothered him.

The food situation had almost killed him in the first week. On day two he ate a purple berry that looked like a grape and spent six hours vomiting green foam behind a boulder while his Poison Resistance skill leveled up twice.

Thanks for the upgrade. Almost died but at least the system was happy about it.

By now he had a mental catalog of things he could eat. Fat white grubs under rotten logs that tasted like nothing. Brown mushrooms near river stones that tasted like wet cardboard. A sweet yellow fruit high in the canopy that tasted incredible but attracted every bird in a kilometer. And a type of root he had to boil in a stone bowl for an hour to kill the toxins.

Learning to make fire had been its own disaster. Back home his mother cooked on a gas stove and he could barely turn it on without her yelling at him to be careful. Here he’d tried smashing rocks together near dried moss for four straight days before getting a spark that actually caught. Bear Grylls made it look so easy on YouTube. Bear Grylls was a liar.

But fire meant cooked meat. And cooked meat from hunted creatures meant experience points. And experience points meant levels and stat points and skills. The grind was brutal but at Level 24 now with most of his free stats dumped into Strength he could finally face a medium-sized predator without running.

He settled into his sleeping position with his back against the trunk. He pulled the crude rope he had braided from boiled bark strips and broad leaves and tied it around his waist and the branch. The system had given him a Knitting skill for this. Level 2 already. He made rope almost every evening now because the old ones frayed after a few nights.

"A Knitting skill. I have a Knitting skill and a Love class. My grandmother would be so proud." He pulled up his system profile while the fire birds screamed in the outer branches of this tree. He didn’t know why they didn’t come into this deep parts but Eren was glad there was some safe space.

"System Panel."

Name: Eren Teya

Level: 24 | Mana: 50

Race: Humanoid

Title: None

Class: Magician of Love (Rare Unique Class)

Genetic Heritage: You have no extra inheritances other than carrying the blood of a former monarch.

Energy Type: Biological - Mana

Racial Details: All stats of Humans are average of 5-10 with Luck is the only exception

Current Physical Details;

/ -

Usable Evon Stat Points: 0

Strength: 52

Perception: 34

-Endurance: 32

-Intelligence: 34

-Agility: 45

-Mana: 5

-Charisma: 29 (+99)

-Luck: 35

/ -

He’d figured out how to open this panel on his second day. The first day he thought he was going insane because blue screens kept popping up every time he did something. On the second day he remembered every isekai-anime he had ever watched and thought the word "Status" in his head and the full panel appeared.

At least my years of watching trash anime with my college friends paid off for something.

The "blood of a former monarch" line had been there since day one. He had no idea what it meant and the system wouldn’t explain it. Every time he mentally asked about it the only response was [---Locked---]. Probably some world-building lore that didn’t matter when you were sleeping in a tree and eating grubs.

He closed the panel and stared at the dark canopy above him. The two moons were rising through the gaps in the leaves and the forest sounds were shifting from daytime hunting calls to nighttime territorial screams.

Before he closed his eyes he did the same thing he did every night, he tried to remember what he was missing.

There was a face starting to show up in his dreams from time to time.

He looked like human but also too exotic and handsome to consider that. This blurry figure didn’t wear anything on his body too.

This handsome man’s lips moved and talked to him but Eren didn’t remember what was told.

What the hell am I missing and who was that?

He never had an answer.

He pulled the bark rope that he made and tightened it around his waist to stop accidental falls. It almost happened too many times. Sleeping here was too dangerous already and he didn’t want to open his eyes to find himself in the stomach of a jungle snake!

Eren let his eyes close with thoughts. It was already darkening and he had to sleep and wake up early to hunt something for a good breakfast. The weakest enemies always would be active in the early hours then the strong predetor’s time would begin.

Walking around or doing something at night?

Even moving at night was deadly!

The apex monsters in this already deadly forest always hang around and do their eating at night. Eren didn’t know the reason or care at all.

If even fire ball spitting birds was shut up at night even with their flying abilities and who knows what, Eren was no one to judge the natural ecosystem and it’s rules.

He looked at his lastly evolved skill but didn’t care much. It wasn’t first time this happened.

Running was his third skill to hit Evolution Level 2 today. The other two had evolved earlier in ways that were..-

Actually, he had to probably think about these tomorrow.

His brain was already shutting down and the fire ball birds from the outer branches had finally shut the hell up!

I swear to god, one day I will cook your noisy fire ass...

The twenty-fourth calendar scratch mark would go on the trunk of the tree tomorrow morning. And he fall asleep in seconds with a whole day’s mental and physical fatigue.