The journey to south-eastern areas took most of the day and he was tired of walking or running already.

Eren moved at a steady jog through the northern territories, not the desperate full-speed sprint from yesterday but a sustainable pace that his running skill managed with perfect efficiency. His body found the rhythm quickly and his bare feet picked routes through the rocky terrain without him needing to look down.

A blue screen appeared about thirty minutes into the run.

[Congratulations! You have learned a new skill. Pathfinding (Basic) - First Evolution League]

-Assists in navigating previously traversed or partially known terrain. Incorporates environmental landmarks, scent trails and directional memory to suggest optimal routes toward a selected destination.

About time. I’ve been navigating this forest for a month and the system just now decides I have enough experience to earn a navigation skill.

The skill was basic but useful. It gave him a faint pull toward the south-southeast that matched his own sense of where his tree was. Combined with his Tracking skill’s scent data and his Primal Senses spatial awareness it was like having a very rough compass in the back of his head.

The northern territories were a different world in daylight. Yesterday he’d been running through them too fast to observe anything properly but today at a slower pace he could actually see what lived up here.

The creatures were bigger. That was the first thing. Everything in the northern zone was scaled up compared to the southern forest he knew. The snakes were longer, the insects were fatter, the territorial predators had more mass and heavier builds. But they were also less magical. The fire-element gorillas and lightning birds and acid-spitting lizards from the south were replaced up here by creatures that relied on physical size and brute force. Rock Trolls with stone-plate skin. Ogres with tusks the length of his forearm. Things that solved problems by being too big and too tough to argue with.

He caught a goblin’s scent trail about two hours into his run. His Tracking skill locked onto it automatically and he followed the trail toward what his Primal Senses were telling him was standing water about a kilometer ahead. The goblin probably knew where the clean water sources were and following one home was easier than searching blindly.

[Congratulations! Your skill Tracking (Basic - Feline Enhanced) is ready to evolve to Evolution League 2. Please select one of the following evolution paths to upgrade your skill]

The screens appeared while he was jogging and he slowed to read them.

[Option 1: Persistent Tracker - Quality: Basic - Second Evolution League]

-Increases duration of trackable scent trails by 200%. Old trails that would normally fade remain detectable for extended periods

[Option 2: Territory Mapper - Quality: Basic - Second Evolution League]

-Creates a mental map of tracked creatures within a defined radius. Passive area awareness of all previously tracked life forms in range

[Option 3: Hunter’s Tracking (Feline Enhanced) - Quality: Uncommon - Second Evolution League]

*Requirement Met: Feline Bloodline Integration + Successful Multi-Sensory Tracking of Hostile Targets Under Combat Conditions -

-Full sensory tracking suite: scent, sound, vibration and visual data integrated into a single tracking profile per target. Tracked targets can be followed even after visual contact is lost. (Detection range scales with Perception)

-Passive Bonus: Stealth Enhancement: Reduces the chance of being detected while actively tracking a target. (Effect scales with Perception stat)

Stealth while tracking? So I can follow something without it knowing I’m there? And the harder I am to detect scales with my Perception which is at 91?

He picked the third option without hesitation.

The skill settled into his awareness like a lens clicking into focus. The goblin trail he’d been following went from a faint scent line to a full sensory profile that included the creature’s footstep pattern, its approximate weight and speed, how long ago it had passed and even a vague emotional state that his nose was picking up from stress hormones in its sweat. The goblin had been nervous about something when it passed through here.

He followed the trail to the water source and what he found was a full goblin settlement built around a swampy depression. Mud walls, bone barricades and about sixty or seventy green-skinned creatures going about their business.

"They’re not green actually.." he muttered to himself as he watched from the tree line. "They’re closer to human skin color with a grey-green tint. The teeth and the noses though, those are exactly like the drawings. Whoever wrote the first fantasy books on Earth got pretty damn close to the real thing. Makes you wonder if someone came here before me and went back to tell the story.."

He filed that thought away because it was either very interesting or very disturbing and he didn’t have time for either.

Around midday while he was circling the goblin settlement looking for the cleanest water access the Hill Giant showed up.

It walked into the swampy depression from the northwest like it was crossing an empty field. The thing was easily twelve or thirteen meters tall with arms that hung to its knees and a body wider than any tree trunk Eren had seen in the forest. Wyverns were maybe ten to twelve meters long but wyverns were horizontal. This thing was vertical and it was taller standing up than most wyverns were lying down.

"Right now I’d fight a Giant for a hamburger or my mother’s dinners.." Eren whispered to himself while watching from behind a boulder.

Then the giant swung one arm sideways through a cluster of hasir huts and the impact sent three goblins flying while it tore a chunk out of the ground the size of a small car. The earth shook under Eren’s feet and dust and debris sprayed outward like a bomb had gone off.

"..maybe I wouldn’t fight that one though.." he added very quietly.

The goblins were throwing everything they had. Fireballs from shamans in the back rows. Poisoned spears from warriors who got close enough to stab its ankles. Some kind of green energy blast from a goblin that was bigger than the others and wearing a necklace of teeth.

None of it did anything. The fireballs splashed against the giant’s skin and fizzled out. The spears bounced off like they’d hit concrete. The green energy blast hit the giant square in the chest and it didn’t even look down.

Some of those goblins are probably stronger than me and their best attacks aren’t scratching that thing. That’s what real power looks like in this world. Not skills or elemental tricks but just being so physically massive that nothing below a certain threshold can touch you.

The goblin settlement had what he needed though. Near the edge of the swamp they’d built a crude water system with logs and stacked rocks channeling a clean stream away from the swampy water into a separate pool lined with flat stones.

Eren circled wide around the giant’s path and approached from the opposite side. The goblins were too busy panicking to notice him.

He drank until his stomach hurt. Then he found the larger pool connected to the same stream and waded in.

The water was cold and brown-tinged but clean enough. He scrubbed his skin with handfuls of sandy mud from the bottom and watched the layers of yesterday peel off him. Goblin filth, dried gorilla blood, ash, dirt, sweat and whatever else had accumulated during the worst day of his life so far.

His cat instincts practically purred as the grime came off. The anxious tightness in his chest that had been sitting there since the goblin creek yesterday finally released and his whole body relaxed in a way that felt physical like a muscle unknotting after being clenched for too long.

He also spent a solid two minutes dealing with the chafing between his legs where yesterday’s sprint had created friction burns that were threatening to become something worse. And his ass which he hadn’t been able to clean properly since smearing himself with goblin waste. A cat evolution and a month of forest survival and his biggest concern right now was basic hygiene. The cold water helped with all of it and he made a mental note that if he was going to run twenty-plus kilometers again he needed pants first.

If any of these goblins are watching me wash my ass in their pool I apologize. But I’ve been covered in your tribe’s shit for almost a full day and my body literally cannot function while it’s dirty.

[Congratulations! Your skill Pathfinding (Basic) levelled up]

-Level 3 > Level 4

He climbed out and let the air dry him while he ate whatever fruit he could grab from the edges of the swamp. Small purple berries that his Poison Resistance handled without issue. A fat yellow thing that tasted like someone had crossed a melon with a turnip. Not good but calories were calories and his metabolism was burning through everything he ate within hours.

By early afternoon the terrain was changing back to what he knew. Thicker trees with broader canopies. Warmer air with the familiar smell of fruit-rot and damp earth. The rocky outcrops thinned out and the undergrowth got denser and greener.

He was close. Maybe five or six hours of jogging from his tree if his Pathfinding estimate was right.

Eren slowed to a walk for a few minutes and thought about something that had been bothering him since yesterday.

Every creature in this forest could do something magical. The fire birds spat fireballs. The snakes breathed flame. Even the ants had some kind of chemical ability that went beyond normal biology. He’d seen bugs that glowed, plants that moved, beetles that exploded and fungi that screamed.

But he couldn’t do any of it.

His skills were all physical. Running, climbing, throwing, stabbing, sensing. His class skills were Love-based which was useless against anything that didn’t have a brain complex enough to be charmed. His mana pool had grown to 120 with the level-ups but the only skill he had that used mana was Invisibility and it cost so much per second that he could only hold it for twelve seconds before running dry.

Every ant in this forest can shoot fire and I can’t. There has to be a way to learn offensive magic. Something that uses mana for actual combat instead of hiding for twelve seconds and hoping nothing sees through it.

He didn’t know how magic skills worked in this system. His physical skills had come from repetitive actions. Running gave him a running skill, climbing gave climbing and throwing gave throwing. But he couldn’t learn a fireball by repeatedly trying to throw fire because his body didn’t produce fire in the first place.

Or maybe I need to eat something magical that gives me a fire skill the way the cat meat gave me cat abilities. This world seems to run on "you are what you eat" logic anyway.

He filed the thought away for later and looked up. The clouds were gathering from the northwest, thick grey masses that looked like they carried real rain. The kind of rain that turned forest floors into mud and made climbing trees dangerous and washed away scent trails that his new Hunter’s Tracking skill depended on.

He needed to get home before that hit.

Eren stopped walking and started running. His Kinetic Flux Runner engaged at about seventy percent effort and his body found its stride immediately. The trees blurred past him as his Pathfinding skill tugged him southeast through gaps in the canopy that led toward familiar ground.

The run was different from yesterday. Yesterday had been survival panic at maximum output for ninety minutes. Today was controlled sustained effort at a pace he could maintain for hours. His body was stronger from the level-ups and the morning’s food had given him enough fuel to work with.

He ran and the forest got more familiar with every kilometer. Trees he recognized. Rock formations he’d passed during gathering runs. The faint smell of the mushroom valley to the west that he’d raided twice for food.

[Congratulations! Your skill Kinetic Flux Runner (Uncommon) levelled up]

-Level 6 > Level 7

He grinned without breaking stride. The skill bump was small but he felt it in his legs, a fractional improvement in how efficiently his muscles converted energy into forward motion.

The clouds were getting darker behind him and he pushed harder until the trees were a green blur on both sides.

Almost home. If that tree is still standing and nothing moved into my spot while I was gone then tonight I sleep on bark instead of stone and tomorrow I start planning a permanent upgrade for my sleeping area.

I need to create a more secure place in case of those fu*king Gorillas attack again.

Remembering yesterday was awful!