He stared west toward the centaur territory for about two more minutes before deciding that going back there today with the sun already past its peak would be stupid. The alpha had thrown fire spears at him from three hundred meters and the herd had over a hundred members and his Invisibility lasted thirteen seconds. Those numbers didn’t add up to a successful raid no matter how high his new Luck stat was.

But he could get closer and scout the edges to figure out where the territory actually started and ended and how many of those rainbow fruit trees were near the borders versus buried deep inside.

He jogged west at about half his maximum speed and let his Hunter’s Tracking and Apex Predator Awareness do the heavy lifting. The centaur hoofprints were everywhere once he crossed a certain line in the forest, a boundary marked by nothing visible but absolutely clear to his enhanced senses. The soil on this side smelled different, heavier with the musk of large quadrupeds and the faint chemical signature of whatever fuel their fire magic burned.

He counted heat signatures as he moved. Four centaurs about three hundred meters ahead near a cluster of the fruit trees. Two more further back near what his Awareness told him was a water source. And the alpha’s signature, massive and distinct, was almost a full kilometer inside the territory moving slowly like it was patrolling.

Okay so the outer edge has smaller groups. Maybe scouts or younger ones. The alpha patrols deeper inside. If I can time my raids for when the alpha is far from the border...

He killed a few small things on the way back. A Level 8 fire beetle that charged him from under a rock. Two fat venomous lizards that his Observe identified as Level 11 and Level 13. Nothing that gave meaningful experience at his level but good practice for his throwing skill and decent emergency food if he dried the meat.

The sun was getting lower and the canopy was turning gold when he started heading home.

He was thinking about the centaur fruit trees and running mental calculations about approach angles when two hundred pounds of muscle and claws slammed into his upper back from above and drove him face-first into the dirt.

His Apex Predator Awareness had been focused outward toward the centaur territory and the attack came from directly above and behind where a thick branch overhung the path he was walking. One second he was doing math in his head and the next second he was eating dirt with a predator on his spine.

His Predatory Reflex activated before he hit the ground and the world slowed to about forty percent of normal speed. Suddenly every detail was crystal clear. The weight on his back was a dark-furred cat about two meters long with its claws already sunk into the skin on both sides of his spine. He could feel each individual claw point like a hot nail being pushed slowly through his flesh. His body was falling forward and the jaguar’s jaws were opening to close on the back of his neck.

His right hand was holding his stick. He didn’t think about activating Mana-Infused Stabbing because the thought and the action happened at the same time or maybe the action happened first. Mana flooded down his arm and into the wood and the tip flared blue-white and he drove the stick backward over his own shoulder into whatever part of the jaguar his arm could reach while falling forward with the thing on his back.

[Congratulations! Your skill Mana-Infused Stabbing (Uncommon) levelled up]

-Level 3 > Level 4

The stick punched into the jaguar’s neck about three centimeters deep before the animal’s weight snapped the shaft in half. It screamed, a sound like metal being torn apart and its claws ripped free of Eren’s back as it twisted away from the mana-burning wound.

[Congratulations! Your skill Predatory Reflex (Uncommon) levelled up]

-Level 1 > Level 2

Eren rolled forward and came up on his feet with half a stick in his right hand and blood running down both sides of his back from eight parallel claw tracks. The jaguar landed three meters away and turned to face him.

It was big but not as big as the ones that had chased him during his second week. Younger looking with a sleeker build and less scarring on its face. His Observe told him Level 24 which was high enough to kill him if it got a clean bite on his throat but low enough that his stats should give him an edge in raw strength.

The problem was that his brain had gotten faster but his body hadn’t caught up yet.

His Predatory Reflex at the freshly leveled Level 2 was feeding him information at what felt like 2.5 times normal speed now. He could see the jaguar’s shoulder muscles bunch before it moved. He could read the angle of its head and predict whether the next attack would come from the left or right. He could feel the air pressure change when it shifted its weight.

But his body couldn’t keep up. His brain was processing at 2.5 times but his muscles were still moving at the same speed they always had and the gap between what he could see coming and what he could physically dodge was about a quarter of a second too wide.

The jaguar lunged and Eren read the attack perfectly. Left paw swipe aimed at his ribs. He told his body to sidestep right and twist away. His body started the motion but finished it a fraction too late and the claws caught his left forearm and opened three deep cuts from elbow to wrist.

He punched the jaguar in the side of its already-wounded neck with his right fist and felt something satisfying crunch under his knuckles. His Strength at 60 with the Physical Durability boost put his effective hitting power at nearly 70 and the jaguar staggered sideways from the impact.

[Congratulations! You have learned a new skill]

[Punch (Basic - Feline Enhanced) - First Evolution League]

-Active: Enhances striking efficiency %10 for bare-handed punch attacks. Integrates with Strength stat and Feline reflexes for improved impact distribution

The jaguar recovered and came at him again. This time low and fast going for his legs and Eren’s Evade skill fired on top of his Predatory Reflex and his body jumped up and sideways in a motion that cleared the attack completely.

He landed awkwardly on a root and the jaguar was already turning for another pass when Eren threw himself at it instead of away.

His university roommate back in Cyprus used to watch MMA fights on his laptop every Saturday night with the volume too loud and Eren had absorbed more grappling technique through thin apartment walls than he’d ever wanted. He’d never imagined any of it would be useful.

He hit the jaguar mid-turn and wrapped his left arm around its neck and his right hand found the wound where his stick had gone in. The animal thrashed violently and its back legs raked his left thigh open in two deep gashes that made his vision flash white with pain. But his arm was locked around its throat and the blood pouring from the neck wound was making the animal weaker every second.

[Congratulations! You have learned a new active skill]

[Wrestle (Basic - Feline Enhanced) - First Evolution League]

-Active: Improves grappling and restraint techniques. Enhances body positioning during close-range physical confrontation. Feline bloodline provides instinctive leverage optimization

A year ago he couldn’t kill a spider in his bathroom without calling Rosa to do it. Now he was lying in the dirt choking a magical jaguar to death with his bare arm and counting its heartbeats like a psychopath. He was pretty sure this wasn’t what his mother had in mind when she told him to "find something you’re good at."

The jaguar stopped thrashing. Its legs went limp and its body weight sagged against Eren’s chest and about ten seconds after that it stopped breathing entirely.

[You gained 100% energy of Dark Forest Shadow Jaguar - Level 24]

He lay there under the dead jaguar for about thirty seconds because standing up seemed like a lot of effort. Blood was running from his left arm and his left thigh and eight claw marks down his back.