Jason slowly began to open his pus-covered eyes, he felt pain in every muscle and every bone of his body. With a slow movement, he directed his hand towards his forehead, he felt a dull throbbing in his head. Stones were sticking in his back, on which he was lying... Why didn't Luc move him to another place – that was the first thought that came to his mind, then others began to flow – a fight, he was seriously wounded, which happened later.
He opened his eyes completely, and despite the lack of sunshine he felt blinded by the faint light penetrating through the treetops high above his head.
"Luc, help me, I can barely move," but no one responded to this request, except for the wind dancing through the foliage.
Jason looked around, he didn't see Lucas, his raven, or his swarm of wasps.
"Ok, everything works, so it's not a dream" – Jason saw a message about the new level of experience gained:
"You have reached a new level, current level 3, experience 25/50, character points gained: 5, skill points gained: 2"
"Interesting, 2 skill points..."
For the time being, he ignored the system's message, decided to look around the area first to find out what had happened and to find Lucas. It took him a moment to get up because he was all sore. He summoned his beasts to feel at least a little safer, though as it turned out recently, even with their presence, he could not let his guard down – this forest was much more dangerous than he had initially thought – Luc's absence only confirmed it.
He glanced at their clothes damaged after the fight, in the place where the zombie hit him, his belly was sticking out from under his sweatshirt. He remembered that before he lost consciousness, he had seen the wound, and it looked very serious. Now, however, there was only smooth skin in place of the wound, there was not even the slightest trace of the damage. The only sign that she had been there not long ago was the bloody edges of his sweatshirt in the immediate vicinity of the wound. The sweatshirt was still damp with blood, so it couldn't have been too long since he lost consciousness.
"Ok, what happened here after I passed out?" – Jason looked around him. Next to the place where he was lying was the corpse of a living corpse, now clearly not alive.
"What do we have here?" – the boy began to check if the defeated opponent had anything with him. Around his neck hung a primitive-looking brass medallion. Jason took it off his opponent. Almost immediately, the pendant vanished into thin air, and a message appeared in front of the boy:
"A Lesser Regeneration Pendant has been added to your inventory" – This time, Jason did not ignore the message and opened the inventory window in his system. He saw a list of items with the clothes he was wearing – now with a note damaged and information that he was currently wearing them, in the further position he saw a new item that he had just picked up.
"Lesser Regeneration Pendant – This pendant provides base health and mana regeneration. The power of this item is classified as weak."
Jason noticed that both his clothes and the pendant were marked with different colors in the system – the clothing was gray, the pendant was white. At this point, the boy did not yet know what it meant, he chose a pendant from his inventory, and it immediately materialized around his neck.
He immediately felt his strength return – after a few minutes he saw a message:
"You have fully regained your health and mana"
"Actually, now the system shows that I have maximum health."
As soon as Jason was sure that his former opponent did not have any useful items with him, he began to continue looking around his surroundings.
Suddenly, he noticed a tree several meters away. The bark on the tree was as if charred, and when he came a little closer, he smelled the smell of burnt wood. On the tree was burned an inscription with strange runes. At first, when the boy stared at the inscription, the runes were only a random sequence of symbols, but after a while their meaning began to sink in."
"Loneliness – Strength"
"Okay, I have to pull myself together, if I'm alive and the zombies aren't, it means that Luc managed to kill him, he must be somewhere in the area. I should look for it, but first I'll deal with the new level. This zombie wasn't powerful, and if there weren't two of us, I'd probably be dead by now, I need to get stronger as soon as possible.
I need to know what this system is and how to use it. Let me think about it, I have the equipment available. If I don't have something on it, it disappears and is in my system, I wonder if I can put whatever I want in there."
Jason walked over to the first stone on the ground, thought about putting it in his inventory, to his surprise, the stone was gone.
"New Inventory Item - Ordinary Large Stone"
The object disappeared, but Jason immediately felt heavier. He took the item out of his inventory and placed it on the ground. The moment he did so, the item disappeared from the inventory, and the boy felt lighter.
"Ok, so that's how it works, I can put whatever I want into the system, but I guess it has a limit in terms of weight, I wonder if that's the only limitation."
Jason approached the large tree and tried to place it in his inventory.
"Item too large to put in your inventory, the size of your inventory is dependent on your stats."
"Sure, I could have expected that"
Once he learned everything he wanted about his equipment, it was time to get acquainted with what the new level brought him.