After eating my prey, I rested for a while under leaf litter, staying low and listening. Forest sounds returned in layers, birds tweeting as they flew above the canopy of trees.
It was almost peaceful. Almost.
When I felt steady enough, I moved again. I needed a proper hiding place. The creviced rock from earlier had saved me, but it was not a home, just a mere temporary survival spot that was one bad day away from being discovered. I searched deeper in the forest outcrop for something sheltered, something discreet.
After a while, I found a narrow hollow between two thick roots. The roots formed a natural arch over a pocket of dry earth. It was cramped, but hidden, and that mattered more than comfort. I checked it thoroughly for any potential neighbours. Twice, just to be sure.
Empty. Good.
For now, this would be home and my base of operations. New home, meet me. Me, meet new home. Now I just needed to make it harder for anything to stroll in. Nearby, a flat piece of bark lay on the soil. Heavy enough to act as a cover. Light enough that, with effort, I might be able to move it. I stared at it. Then I remembered Bull Strength. Using such a skill to renovate my house felt like the sort of decision I would judge someone else for. But I also did not want to sleep with an open doorway in a forest where spiders raided nurseries.
I took a breath.
Bull Strength.
Power flooded my limbs as my body let out a light glow, powering my muscles, which had been upgraded for a short period. I grabbed the bark with my claws and shoved. It moved easily and effortlessly, like it weighed nothing. So this was the power of Bull Strength. It was indeed handy.
I pushed again, scraping the bark across the soil until it slid into place over the entrance. I made sure not to seal it completely, but to narrow the gap so no big creatures would enter. It made the hollow feel claimed.
I stepped back and admired my work. Then the strength began to fade, evaporating by the second. It was nice while it lasted.
I slipped inside.
The hollow smelled of dry earth and roots. It was warm enough and, more importantly, safe. Well, at least for now.
Today had been… good. I had eaten, levelled up twice, and obtained an actually useful skill, not to mention obtaining a home as well. A lot of progress for a single day. I was adjusting nicely to this world, to the life of a gecko. Well, a smart gecko with a human brain.With all this free time, I began to ponder.
Were all monsters as sentient and intelligent as I was? It sounded like self-gloating, but when you thought about it, the question was fair. Instinct vs intellect, something along those lines. Until I could communicate with other monsters, I wouldn't be able to know for sure.
Before sleeping, I checked my status again.
"STATUS."
[Name: None]
[Class: None]
[Species: Aenyx Gecko]
[Level: 3/10]
[XP: 10/150]
[Status: Relieved]
[HP: 34/34]
[MP: 0/0]
[Stamina: 100/100]
[Stats]
[Strength: Lowest]
[Defence: Low (Low)]
[Speed: Low (Intermediate)]
[Intelligence: Intermediate (Low)]
[Luck: Bad]
[Skills: Heat Tolerance (Lv 1), Cling (Lv 1), Tail Drop (Lv 1), Stealth (Lv 1), Bull Strength (Lv 1)]
[Titles: Early Riser, Void Eater]
Level three.
Not bad for a creature that was officially described as pretty harmless not too long ago. With that out of the way, I sat inside my hollow and did absolutely nothing. It was quite boring, actually. Having no people around just led me to talking to myself. Turns out, survival was thrilling, but silence was not.
Just… silence.
It was boring. Painfully boring. Back when I had been human, I had complained about having too much to do. School, games, and meeting friends. Now I would have happily traded all my stats for my normal life to return. Instead, I had dirt. And my own thoughts.
I began talking to myself out loud again.
"Well done, Ray," I muttered. "You have successfully levelled up from 'nearly dead' to 'moderately safe lizard in a hole.' Achievement unlocked."
The sound of my own voice in the cramped hollow echoed faintly. It felt strange. Small. If I kept this up, I was going to develop multiple personality disorder.
Then I paused.
Was that even possible for a gecko?
Did the DSM have a reptile edition? Hopefully not. The idea of sharing this tiny body with a dramatic alternate persona named something like Shadow Scale was deeply unsettling.
The boredom pressed in harder. Maybe I should meditate. The thought arrived out of nowhere and stuck.
Meditation was supposed to be good, right? Stress relief, mental clarity, and enlightenment. All of that good stuff. In the Wuxia novels I used to read, protagonists meditated and suddenly unlocked inner realms, qi circulation, hidden meridians, and occasionally world-ending powers.My aunt had been into yoga. She had always insisted that meditation aligned the spirit or something like that. I used to think she was slightly cuckoo, but she had been kind. She was a warm and jovial person.
Thinking about her now hurt more than I expected.
There was a very real chance I would never see my family again, that I would have no closure. No goodbye. Just an abrupt cosmic uninstall. The sadness came in a quiet wave. Maybe meditation would help. If not with enlightenment, then at least with the suffocating silence.
It could not hurt to try. I shifted to a more comfortable corner of the hollow, flattening myself against the warm dirt. I tucked my limbs in and adjusted carefully around my missing tail, which was only now starting to grow back. I closed my eyes.
And immediately thought about food.
Right. Excellent start.
I tried again.
Inhale. Exhale. Slow. Controlled.
Somewhere in my memory, a voice explained that meditation meant thinking of nothing. That was a lie. Thinking of nothing was possibly the hardest thing I had ever attempted. The moment I tried to clear my mind, it flooded. A familiar classroom. The hum of fluorescent lights. A half-finished game I would never complete, and even a novel on my reading list that would remain forever unread.My aunt's laugh, my mum calling my name from downstairs, the forest outside, spiders in the hollow, the hulk caterpillar, Void Eater… on and on and on.
Forty-five seconds of near-emptiness, followed by a tidal wave of nonsense. Then another short stretch of quiet, followed by a chaotic sea of thoughts.
It was like trying to hold back the ocean with a teaspoon.
I opened one eye. Nothing had changed.
I closed it again.
Inhale. Exhale.
Let the thoughts come. Let them pass. That was the trick, wasn't it? Not stopping them or wrestling them, but just letting them drift. Letting them flow through like a vessel.School memories surfaced again, but this time I let them go. The image of the spider biting into an egg appeared, sharp and unpleasant. I let it go. All of the thoughts that rushed through, I didn't debate over them or entertain them, instead viewing them like recorded memories from an outside perspective, as if these weren't my memories but someone else's.
It was slow, frustrating work. Every time I thought I had found a rhythm, some random intrusive thought would crash into me, ruining everything. But I had time. Lots and lots of time.
Time stretched. Minutes passed. Then more.
Eventually, I stopped counting.
At some point, something shifted.
The thoughts did not disappear, but they did slow. I was still getting distracted, but not as often. Instead of a tidal wave, they became ripples. Instead of crashing into each other, they drifted past in sequence. They were more manageable now.My breathing deepened without effort.
Inhale. Exhale.
My chest rose and fell in steady rhythm.
My heartbeat, which had been a constant low-level drum since I hatched, began to ease. The hollow felt larger, not physically, but the space inside my mind expanded. The forest sounds outside seemed clearer, yet further away. The drip of moisture from bark. The faint scrape of something moving across soil. The distant flutter of wings. I felt… centred. For the first time since waking in an egg, I was not reacting to something.Just existing.
It was quiet in a way that did not feel empty.
I focused inward.
On the sensation of warmth from the earth. The slow circulation of blood through this new body, and the subtle tension in my limbs. I felt my awareness turn back on itself, like a mirror facing another mirror. An introspective look into my inner self. Something resonated.A low, almost imperceptible hum beneath everything.
And then—
A soft chime echoed in my mind.
[Title: Resounding Mind Obtained]
My eyes snapped open.
I blinked at the bark slab covering my entrance.
"Are you serious?" I whispered.
A new line appeared.
[Resounding Mind: Through sustained focus and mental discipline, Host has strengthened cognitive stability. Effects: Improved concentration, resistance to mental disruption, enhanced perception of internal and external stimuli. Minor increase to Intelligence growth efficiency.]
I stared at it.
Then I slowly looked down at myself.
"So meditation works," I muttered.
Just a title. And yet… I felt different. Sharper. Calmer. The background noise in my head had quieted. Thoughts still came, but they no longer dragged me with them. I could observe them instead of drowning in them.My senses felt subtly clearer. The hollow did not just feel like dirt and roots anymore. I could distinguish faint variations in temperature. The slight shift of air near the entrance. The distant tremor of something moving beyond my immediate range. It was not dramatic, but it was real.
I leaned back against the warm earth and let a small grin form. If this world rewarded focus and survival equally, then maybe I did not need flashy powers on day one.Maybe I just needed to stay alive long enough to stack advantages. And if sitting still in a dirt hole occasionally gave me titles, then honestly, I might have just found my favourite training method.
I closed my eyes again.
Not to escape.
But to listen.
Tomorrow could wait.
For now, I would learn how to sit with the silence without losing myself inside it.