The tiger was big.
Wang Hui had known this from a distance. Up close was different. It was easily twice her size. Its shoulders were at her eye level. Its paws were wider than her face.
It looked at her like it had already decided.
'Okay.'
'Okay okay okay.'
'In every novel I have read, the protagonist survives the first dangerous encounter. That is basically a rule. I am the protagonist. Therefore I will survive this.'
'...Unless this is one of those novels where the protagonist dies in chapter two as a joke.'
'Please do not let this be one of those novels.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ⚠ WARNING ⚠
║
║ Tiger (Common Grade)
║ HP: ???
║ Status: Hungry
║
║ Host's current HP: 50/50
║ Host's current Dignity: -10
║
║ Suggested action: Do not die.
║
║ ∑(O_O;)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'DO NOT DIE is not helpful advice, System.'
'Give me something I can actually USE.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ℹ HINT ℹ
║
║ Host has 1 unspent Skill Point.
║
║ Available skills:
║ > Sacred Step (Lv.1)
║ Temporarily boosts Agility.
║ Unlock condition: Run away
║ from danger for the first time.
║
║ (This counts.) (•ω•)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'...Run away from danger. That is the unlock condition.'
'The System is telling me to run.'
'The System built a skill specifically for running away.'
'...FINE.'
The tiger crouched lower.
Wang Hui turned around and ran.
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ✦ NEW SKILL ✦
║
║ Sacred Step (Lv.1) unlocked!
║
║ Agility x1.5 for 30 seconds.
║ Cooldown: 5 minutes.
║
║ (Running away is also valid.)
║ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'I KNOW IT IS VALID. ACTIVATE IT.'
She felt the skill kick in. Her legs got lighter. The trees blurred past on both sides. Behind her she heard the tiger land where she had just been standing, a heavy thud that she felt through her hooves even at this distance, and then the sound of it running after her.
It was fast.
She was faster.
Barely.
'Okay. Okay. I am faster than a tiger right now. That is good. Sacred Step is good. I take back everything bad I said about this skill.'
'...How long does this last again.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ℹ INFO ℹ
║
║ Sacred Step duration: 30 seconds.
║ Time remaining: 14 seconds.
║
║ (≖‿≖)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'FOURTEEN SECONDS?!'
'I USED HALF OF IT ARGUING WITH YOU?!'
She pushed harder. The forest was a blur. Branches whipped past her sides. She had no idea where she was going, just away, away, away, and she could still hear the tiger behind her even as the sound got smaller.
Ten seconds.
Eight.
Five.
She spotted a gap between two enormous tree roots, a low dark space just barely big enough for something her size, and she threw herself at it without thinking.
She hit the gap. Squeezed through. Tumbled into a small hollow underneath the roots.
Sacred Step ran out.
She lay very still in the dark and tried not to breathe loudly.
Outside, the tiger circled the roots once. Twice. She could hear it sniffing. Her tail was tucked completely under her body, the flame smothered against the dirt, which was probably doing nothing for her dignity score but was at least not advertising her location.
The tiger made a low sound. Not quite a growl. More like a complaint.
Then the footsteps moved away.
Wang Hui waited a full three minutes before she let herself breathe normally.
'...Okay.'
'Okay. I am alive.'
'I survived chapter two.'
'I, Wang Hui, otaku and xianxia expert, have successfully run away from a tiger by hiding under a tree root.'
'This is not how I imagined my Sacred Beast era starting but I will take it.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║
║ Dignity: +2 ↑
║ Total : -8
║
║ For surviving.
║ (The bar is on the floor
║ but Host cleared it.)
║
║ ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'The bar is on the floor.'
'The System just told me the bar is on the floor.'
'...At least I got plus two.'
* * *
By the time she crawled out from under the roots the light through the trees had gone soft and orange. Late evening. She had apparently been in that hollow longer than she thought.
She found a stream nearby and drank from it, which felt very animal of her and which she decided not to think about too hard. Then she sat on a flat rock and opened her status screen.
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ★ CURRENT STATUS ★
║
║ Species : Qilin
║ Grade : Poor
║ Level : 2
║
║ HP : 50/50
║ Strength : 3
║ Agility : 10 (+2 from running)
║ Toughness : 2
║ Luck : ████████ 99
║ Dignity : ░░░░░░░░ -8
║
║ Skills : Horn Strike (Lv.1)
║ Sacred Step (Lv.1)
║ Passive : Sacred Aura (LOCKED)
║
║ Free Stat Points : 3
║ (Base 5 + 3 from quests - 5 spent)
║ Free Skill Points : 0
║
║ Note: Each level up gives
║ +5 Stat Points, +1 Skill Point.
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'Grade: Poor.'
'POOR.'
'I am a Qilin, the most sacred creature in this world, and my grade is POOR.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ℹ NOTE ℹ
║
║ Host is a newborn Qilin.
║ Grade improves with evolution.
║
║ Current evolution requirement:
║ Reach Level 10.
║
║ (You are level 2.) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'I know I am level two. You do not have to put it in brackets like that.'
She put all three of her free stat points into Agility. Speed was the most important thing right now. Toughness and Strength could wait until she had more points to work with. She made a note: each level up gave five stat points and one skill point. She needed to remember that for planning ahead.
Then she looked around at the forest and thought about what to do next.
The cultivators from earlier were probably camped somewhere nearby. Following them was risky. They had already decided she was a special horse and she did not need that kind of energy in her life right now. But staying completely alone in a forest full of tigers also seemed bad.
There was a third option.
'I level up. Fast.'
'I get to level ten, evolve to the next grade, and then I am strong enough that a tiger is an inconvenience instead of a near-death experience.'
'That is the plan.'
'Simple. Efficient. Exactly what a smart protagonist would do.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ★ NEW QUEST ★ ★
║
║ [ Tiny Ambitions ]
║
║ Reach Level 5.
║
║ Reward : Stat Point +5,
║ Skill Point +2,
║ Surprise (hehe)
║
║ (｀・ω・´)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'What is the surprise.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║
║ It would not be a surprise
║ if we told you.
║
║ (¬‿¬)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'I hate you.'
'...I am still going to do the quest.'
* * *
The next few hours went better than the first few hours.
Not good. But better.
The key, she figured out, was not to aim for things her own size. Rabbits were fast and humiliating and she had already had enough of that experience. What she needed was things that were slower. Dumber. Things that would not kick her in the face.
The answer turned out to be fish.
'...Fish.'
'I am a sacred mythological creature and I am fishing.'
She stood at the edge of the stream with her horn pointed at the water and waited. It was not elegant. But the fish were slow, easy to track, and they could not kick. After three misses she got the angle right and Horn Strike worked perfectly. After ten minutes she had four fish lined up on the bank.
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ★ QUEST COMPLETE ★
║
║ [ Morning Meal ]
║
║ Reward : Level +1, Stat Point +2
║
║ ★ LEVEL UP ★
║ Wang Hui is now Level 3!
║ \(^▽^)/
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'Level three. Okay. Okay good. Seven more levels until evolution.'
'I can do this.'
She ate the fish. Raw fish was somehow worse than raw rabbit and she did not recommend it to anyone, but she ate all four of them because she needed the energy and complaining about it was not going to cook them.
Then she kept moving.
Over the next few hours she learned several things about the forest. The outer ring, where she was, had mostly small animals. Rabbits, birds, the occasional deer that was way too fast for her to catch yet. The stream ran east to west and following it downstream seemed to lead toward open space. There was a big boulder formation about twenty minutes north that would make a decent shelter. And the tiger, thankfully, appeared to have moved on to other parts of the forest.
She also learned that Horn Strike leveled up faster when she used it on actual targets rather than thin air, which should have been obvious but felt like an important discovery anyway.
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║
║ Horn Strike has reached Lv.2!
║
║ Damage slightly increased.
║ Range slightly increased.
║
║ (Still not impressive but
║ it is something.) (•ω•)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'You did not have to add the part about it not being impressive.'
By midday she was level four. By the time the light started to get warm and golden again she was nearly level five, full of fish and a few berries she had identified as safe using pure logic and a lot of nervous sniffing, and she had not been chased by anything large in several hours.
Things were going well.
She should have known better.
* * *
She heard them before she saw them.
Voices, again. But more this time. Not four people talking quietly. This was a larger group, moving fast, not trying to be quiet about it.
'...That is not the same group from before.'
She slipped into the undergrowth and watched.
Eight people in dark red robes. Not Azure Sky blue. A different sect. They moved in a tight formation, hands near their weapons, scanning the trees as they walked. The energy they gave off was different from the junior disciples yesterday. Sharper. More serious. Two of them were at a cultivation level that made the air feel slightly heavier just from being nearby.
'Red robes. Aggressive energy. Moving like they own the forest.'
'...Blood Asura Sect.'
'In every novel I have read, the Blood Asura Sect is the sect that does things the other sects consider unsavory.'
'They are not necessarily evil. They are just. You know. The kind of people who do not ask questions first.'
She started to ease backward, slow and quiet.
A twig snapped under her hoof.
Every single one of the eight red-robed cultivators turned to look at exactly where she was hiding.
'...'
'Okay that was bad.'
For a moment nobody moved.
Then one of the cultivators, a young man near the front with sharp eyes and dark clothing under his red outer robe, took a single step toward her hiding spot.
He did not look like the others. The others had the focused, professional look of people on a mission. He looked like he was filing this away. Studying it.
"There is something in those bushes," he said. Quiet. Not alarmed. Just stating a fact.
"Could be a beast," said someone behind him.
"It could be." He did not look away from her hiding spot. "But it has been standing still for thirty seconds watching us. Beasts do not usually do that."
'Oh no.'
'He is smart.'
'Why is he smart.'
'The first group had Bao. I want Bao. Bao would have called me a special horse and I would have walked away fine.'
The smart one took another step forward.
Wang Hui made a decision.
She stepped out of the bushes.
The eight cultivators stared at her.
She stared back.
She had made a calculation. Running would tell them she was scared. Scared things got chased. If she just walked out calmly, looked at them like she had meant to be here the whole time, and then walked away, maybe they would leave it alone.
She was a Qilin. She was sacred. She could do calm and unbothered.
'Calm. Unbothered. Ancient Sacred Beast energy. I have this.'
One of the cultivators in the back whispered something. The word 'Qilin' floated over to her clearly.
The smart one's eyes sharpened.
'...They know what I am.'
'Or they think they do.'
'Okay. Do not panic. If they think I am a real Qilin then they will not attack me. Nobody attacks a Qilin. That is basically asking the heavens to ruin your life.'
She stood very still and let them look.
The smart one crouched down to her eye level. He was close enough that she could see his face clearly now. Young, maybe her age. The kind of face that did not give much away.
"You are very small," he said.
'I AM A NEWBORN. I AM GOING TO EVOLVE.'
'...I cannot say that.'
She held his gaze. Did not flinch. Did not blink.
He studied her for a long moment.
"A newborn," he said, more to himself than to her. "That would explain the grade."
'Excuse me.'
'EXCUSE ME.'
'Did he just look at me and immediately guess my grade?'
She was going to have to work on her poker face.
He stood back up. Turned to the others.
"Leave it alone," he said. "We are not here for this."
There was some muttering from the group. Someone said something about opportunity. The smart one did not turn around.
"I said leave it."
The muttering stopped.
He looked at her one more time, that same studying look, and then the whole group moved on.
Wang Hui stood in the clearing and watched them go.
As they disappeared into the trees she noticed two things. First, the smart one was walking slightly off, not limping but favoring his left side. Second, they were heading northeast.
Same direction as the Azure Sky camp.
'...He knew.'
'He did not know everything, but he knew more than the horse guy.'
'That is a problem.'
'That is absolutely a problem for future me.'
'...Also why is a Blood Asura person going northeast.'
'Northeast is where those Azure Sky disciples were headed this morning.'
'That is a weird coincidence.'
'...None of my business.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║
║ Dignity: +5 ↑
║ Total : -3
║
║ For not panicking.
║ (This is new for Host.)
║
║ (⊙_⊙)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'What do you mean this is new for me.'
'I have been very calm this whole time.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║
║ Host's average Dignity this
║ chapter: -1.2
║
║ (¬‿¬)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'I did not ask for statistics.'
* * *
She found a good spot near the boulder formation as the sun went down, a shallow cave just wide enough for her to fit inside with her back against the wall and a clear view of the entrance. Not comfortable. But safe.
She was almost level five. A few more fish or one small quest would do it. She could feel the level up coming, the same way she could feel when her stomach was almost full but not quite yet.
She settled in and thought about the day.
Two encounters. The horse guy group and the smart one.
The horse guy group thought she was a special horse. That was manageable. Annoying but manageable.
The smart one was something else. He had taken one look at her and started calculating. That kind of attention was not something she wanted following her around while she was still level four and hiding under tree roots from tigers.
'I need to level up faster.'
'I need to be strong enough that it does not matter who looks at me.'
'A proper Qilin, a real one, would not have to hide in a cave worrying about a guy who is probably also a teenager.'
'...He did not look like a teenager actually.'
'He looked kind of. You know.'
'...Anyway. Leveling up. That is the point.'
She closed her eyes.
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ★ LEVEL UP ★
║
║ Wang Hui is now Level 5!
║
║ Quest [ Tiny Ambitions ] complete!
║
║ Reward : Stat Point +5,
║ Skill Point +2,
║ ???
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'Finally. Level five.'
'...Wait. What is the question marks reward.'
╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ℹ INFO ℹ
║
║ New feature unlocked:
║
║ [ NIGHT SENSE ]
║ Host can now see in the dark.
║ Detection range: ~500 meters.
║
║ (Qilin are creatures of light.
║ Darkness does not suit them.
║ Host kept hiding in dark places.
║ System got concerned.)
║
║ (´;ω;｀)
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
'...The System unlocked a skill because it was WORRIED ABOUT ME.'
'...'
'That is actually kind of. You know.'
'Whatever. Noted.'
Outside the cave the forest was dark. But now, through her new Night Sense, she could see every tree, every rock, every small creature rustling in the undergrowth.
And in the far distance, through the trees, the faint glow of a campfire.
She recognized the blue of Azure Sky robes in the firelight.
Five people. Bao, the braid girl, two others she had seen yesterday. And one more, sitting slightly apart, in dark clothing she recognized.
The smart one from the Blood Asura group.
He was there. Sitting with the Azure Sky group like that was a completely normal thing to do. His red outer robe was gone. He had a bandage on his left side that had not been there in the afternoon.
'...'
'He is with them.'
'The Blood Asura guy is sitting with the Azure Sky group.'
'And he has a bandage now. When did that happen.'
'...None of my business.'
She could just barely make out the conversation.
"...I am telling you, it was not a horse."
"Bao."
"The horn, Mei. The HORN."
"We know about the horn."
"And the scales."
"We know."
"And something was different about its eyes. Like it understood what I was saying."
A pause.
"...How much do you know about Qilins, Bao."
"I mean. Some."
"Maybe read up a bit more before tomorrow."
"Why before tomorrow?"
"Because if that really was what I think it was, it is still in this forest. And I want to find it again."
'...'
'The smart one.'
'That was his voice.'
'He knows what I am. Or close to it.'
'And now he is camping with the Azure Sky group.'
'Something is going on between these two sects.'
She stared at the distant campfire.
'Something is going on over there.'
'Something is definitely going on and it is absolutely none of my business and I am going to stay right here in my cave and focus on leveling up.'
The fire crackled.
The voice said something else, too quiet to make out now.
Wang Hui put her head down on her hooves and stared at the cave entrance.
'...None of my business.'
'Completely none of my business.'
'I am going to sleep.'
She did not sleep for a very long time.
End of Chapter 2
[ Dignity: -3 ] [ Level: 5 ] [ New skill: Night Sense ]