The python was sleeping between two rocks about four hundred meters south of his tree and Eren had been watching it for almost a minute from behind a bush with his Invisibility active and his spear pointed at its skull.

He crept forward with his bare feet making no sound on the dirt and his breathing slowed to almost nothing. Ten meters away then eight then six. The python’s body was thick and brown and coiled loosely around itself with its head resting on the outermost loop. A fire python, not elemental like the big one he’d dragged home last week but still large enough that one good bite would pump enough venom into his bloodstream to make his Poison Resistance earn its keep.

Four meters. His Invisibility timer was running out but he only needed two more seconds. He raised the spear and pulled mana into the tip until it glowed faint blue-white and drove it forward at the python’s skull.

The python moved.

Not slowly or groggily but with a full-speed lateral dodge that took its head out of the spear’s path by about fifteen centimeters. Its body uncoiled in the same motion and before Eren could pull the spear back the python was facing him with its mouth open and a hiss that sprayed something wet and chemical-smelling across his chest.

His Invisibility ran out at the same moment and suddenly he was visible and nude and standing four meters from a very awake-very angry python that could apparently sense invisible things just fine.

"Oh come on..!"

The next three minutes were the least dignified fight of his life. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The python was fast for its size and it fought like something that had survived in this forest by being unpredictable rather than strong. It struck at his legs twice and both times his Predatory Reflex pulled him out of range but the second strike came with a tail sweep that caught his ankle and put him on his back in the dirt.

He stabbed it from the ground with the spear still glowing and the mana-infused tip punched through the snake’s body about a third of the way down from the head. Not a kill shot but enough to make it thrash wildly while coiling around his left leg with enough force to make his knee creak.

He drove the spear in deeper and twisted it and the python’s coils loosened as something vital inside it stopped working. It took another thirty seconds of twitching before it went fully still and by then Eren was sitting in the dirt covered in snake blood and python slime and his own sweat with leaves stuck to his back.

[You gained 100% energy of Dark Forest Fire Python - Level 19]

"I feel like I got scammed.." he muttered while untangling the dead snake from his leg.

"Invisibility was supposed to change everything. But every single thing in this forest can either smell me or hear my heartbeat or sense my body heat through the skill." He still didn’t speak at loud in case other creatures hear him and try eating him.

This was a jungle with death was a commong thing for even stronger creatures than him.

Talking to oneself aloud was good for one’s psychology, probably.. but this forest was too dangerous for crap.

He stood up and brushed the dirt off his legs. The Invisibility skill at Level 1 with a twelve-second window was useful for escaping bees and confusing small creatures but for actual hunting it was close to worthless against anything with decent senses. And in this forest that was basically everything above Level 10 or so.

Maybe at Level 3 or 4 it starts hiding scent and heat too.

He really hoped that was true..But right now the skill only blocked what eyes can see and that’s the least useful sense to block in a world where everything hunts by smell.

He grabbed the python-like but small creature by the tail and started dragging it back toward his tree.

This morning Eren had woken up on day thirty with a short list in his head and "test Invisibility as a hunting tool" had been at the top. He could cross it off now as disappointing but not completely useless. The rest of the list was going better though.

On the walk back he passed the edge of a clearing where something had happened in the last few hours that made him stop and stare.

There was a wolf, maybe Level 15 based on the size was running full speed away from a cluster of red ants that were chasing it across the open ground. That by itself was normal because everything chased everything in this forest.

But one of the ants, a soldier about the size of a large dog, jumped three meters into the air while gripping a rock the size of Eren’s whole height in its mandibles and hurled it at the wolf’s back.

The rock hit the wolf between the shoulders and sent it tumbling forward in a spray of dirt and fur. Two more ants were on it before it could recover.

"That ant threw a boulder.." Eren whispered from behind a tree about fifty meters away. "That ant is the size of a dog and it threw a rock that weighs more than I do at a wolf that was running at full speed and it hit it."

He watched the rest of the encounter play out in about twenty seconds. The wolf tried was at the brink of death but still tried to bite its way free. Still the ants had numbers and one of them sprayed something from its abdomen that made the wolf’s body paralyzed and stop moving. The whole pack dragged the paralyzed wolf back toward their mound.

A month ago that would’ve given me nightmares. Now I’m just impressed by the throwing accuracy. The ant didn’t calculate the arc. It just knew. Like Calculated Arc but biological and with a rock that weighs hundred kilos minimum.

He kept walking away from the dangerous area of those maniac red ants.

He’d spent the entire previous day doing nothing but gathering and building and cooking. It had been the most productive day of his month in this forest and the results were hanging from the branches of his tree in neat rows.

He hauled the dead python up to the mid-trunk platform he’d built yesterday using branches lashed together with rope and wedged between two thick limbs about twelve meters up. Not pretty but sturdy enough to hold his weight plus about thirty kilos of supplies.

And there were supplies. Six parcels of cooked meat wrapped in broad leaves and tied with bark strips. Three stone cups filled with water and sealed with flat rocks held in place by rope tension. A stack of dried fruit collected from four different territories using his Swift Snatcher skill to grab and run before anything caught him. Two bundles of useful plants, one medicinal and one that tasted terrible but helped with the chafing.

He looked at all of it and let out a long slow breath through his nose.

One month. One month of eating raw bugs and stolen scraps and half-cooked garbage. And now I have a food storage.

He hung the python from a branch hook to bleed out and sat down on his sleeping platform above.

[Congratulations! Your skill Cooking (Basic) levelled up] -Level 2 > Level 3

[Congratulations! Your skill Cooking (Basic) levelled up] -Level 3 > Level 4

Those notifications had come yesterday afternoon when he’d figured out that wrapping meat in certain leaves before placing it on the hot stone created a steaming effect that cooked the inside more evenly. Two levels from one technique improvement. The system valued innovation over repetition the same way it valued seamless skill use over grinding.

Yesterday had also given him two new skills. The first was Carrying at Basic level which appeared while he was hauling rocks from the lake shore. Useful for reducing fatigue when transporting heavy loads but nothing exciting.

The second one was different.

[Congratulations! You have learned a new skill] [Masonry (Uncommon) - First Evolution League]

-Active/Passive: Enables the crafting and shaping of tools, containers and structures from natural materials including stone, wood, bone, bark, leaf fiber and clay. Quality and complexity of craftable items scales with skill level and Intelligence stat

-Unlike specialized crafting skills this skill covers the full range of survival tool creation -

Uncommon straight out of the gate, huh. Damn..!