Oliver startled awake as his mind escaped the labyrinthian spiral his dream had dragged him into. It was a bit of a strange dream, involving endlessly meandering through a labyrinth, the people he cared for depending on his ability to find something. But he was sure he would have found it soon enough, even though he did not know what he searched for.

  All the attention his dream held, however, was swiftly banished from his mind by the nerves throughout the various parts of his mortal coil he used to sit up or move in general. They immediately fulfilled their duty of informing him of his body’s ailments, by simultaneously setting themselves ablaze in a show of solidarity, like workers unionizing against him for attempting to force them to work in what were clearly broken facilities.

  Oliver screamed in agony as more workers joined the union in lines criss-crossing his face, scratches lighting up with more pain than he had ever felt. The pain in his face then united with his burning palms, his throbbing shoulder, his aching hip, his screaming forearm and his agonising leg, coming together in a blinding cacophony of pain. And yes, cacophony was the right word, for just as a cacophony was an auditory sensation which still somehow managed to blind, this was a tactile sensation so overwhelming that it also managed to rob him of sight.

  At least, so he initially assumed. After minutes spent lying perfectly still, his only movement a slight tremble from the aftershocks, and him still being unable to see, he started to consider that he may be blind for other reasons. This theory was swiftly supported as the agonising pain slowly and reluctantly faded away, like a child getting told to take a break from throwing his action figure around the room, which let him feel a strangely familiar sensation around him.

  He thought, for a moment, that he had somehow landed on a branch just below the one he jumped from, after which Aelin had come down to cover him in leaves before the grasping sloth reached him. Then he realised that Aelin was nowhere near that fast, and that he distinctly remembered flailing wildly as he fell through branches of the ever-fall forest, deeper and deeper as it became darker and darker, until eventually, he hit... the end.

  Well, he thought, he supposed there had to be some point far, far below where he used to be where the colossal trees dug their roots into the ground. He also supposed there would be quite the covering of dead leaves on said ground, even the forest had only been in existence for a short two weeks. Which had apparently saved him.

  The pain wracking his body gave one last whimper of torment before dying down to a dull suffering.

  Which had apparently mostly saved him.

  And hey! If this wasn’t proof that hope let you do things you never could without it, such as your group completely surviving the attack of a creature over thrice their level, then nothing was! Sure, his plan had not worked exactly, as he had initially imagined, but it let the others escape, he was sure, and hadn’t killed him, so how wasn’t it a success? He did, of course, end up separated from the entirety of his group, but really, that simply meant he could learn this new and wonderous place inside and out before they came down to reunite with him, and then he could explain everything about this unexplored horizon to them.

  But to explore, he had to move, and to move, he had to fix himself, and to fix himself, he had to know what was wrong, and luckily, there was a tool for that express purpose within the system.

  Evaluation: How curious. You know, normally the first undead only appear after a couple of months, and even then only at sites with many corpses, and yet here we are, only two weeks into the system, and already we have a dead man walking.

  Faced with the many things ailing his body, even Oliver had to admit that it was not a state ideal for exploration and adventure. But, even if the… all-knowing system deemed him doomed to die, he was still utterly certain that there was a way to recover from this situation, he would simply need to ascertain how exactly he would manage to do so. Simple.

  Oliver thought back to what Aelin had managed to teach him during the short time they spent together. It was mostly methodology, rather than things such as what is and isn’t edible, as Aelin was no more familiar with the nature they found themselves in than Oliver was, but useful nonetheless. The first step, Aelin had said, was always to take in your surroundings and your own condition, which he already had, which meant that now was the time for understanding what Oliver had at his disposal.

  Mere moments after he started considering his resources, he came up with a list of a… less than ideal length, but something he could most definitely do something or other with. He had a pair of pants, underpants, socks, and shoes, meaning that he, quite literally, did not have the clothes on his back, only the ones on his lower body. But really, he reasoned, that could be seen as something positive, since, if he had possessed his upper clothing, then he would have fallen with more force, thus dining him deeper into the leaves, he might have even hit the bottom. He had also lost his scarf, a fact that, while slightly demoralizing due to it's sentimental value, didn’t actually do anything other than take away even more cloth he could use for bandages, and signify the loss of his most often used tool for survival... But he could definitely find his scarf again at some point, so it was nothing to worry too much about, he would simply need to deal with this particular situation without it, which, really, was a good opportunity to use new tools.

  And while it was slightly chilly down where he was, at the very bottom of the forest, it was refreshing in a way, as though he had returned to late Danish spring after going to France for easter. At least, Emma had likened the temperatures above with France, even if he had no personal opinion on the subject due to always staying north of Germany back in the old world. But the slight cold was not so bad, he could most definitely survive it, at least in the day, and all that meant was that he would need shelter before nightfall, which really just meant a clear goal to work towards.

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  Oliver reached out with his relatively unscathed right arm, the scratches covering his arm stretching painfully, yet not causing any spasms, so he continued and tried to drag himself upwards. It didn’t work, and instead, his upper body simply sunk slightly deeper into the leaves, his broken limbs shifting painfully as he did so. But, while minimally excruciating, the experience was still valuable, as it allowed him to test his ability to move through the leaves without the aid of something else. It was actually quite valuable to know that he did not only lack the ability to move, but that he, in fact, had a negative ability to move as he went opposite of where he tried to go.

  But that was all fine, because everything could be solved, because there had to be some key he could not see at the moment, some way to resolve the situation he found himself in. He kept alight the flame of hope in his heart, so there had to be a solution because... there had to be.

  He opened up his status and his skills page to gather as much information as he could on his situation, sorting his skills into the ones he thought might be useful, three immediately grasping his attention firmly.

  Oliver looked at his three new skills, smiling with joy even as he lay, broken in a sea of dried leaves and chill air, because he had gained something he could have only dreamed of mere weeks ago. It may still only be a toll for straightening clothes, but he was sure he could learn to wield mana with such mastery that he could bring forth wonders into the world and give his aid to anyone in need.

  But for the moment, Oliver knew that he needed to focus on accomplishing one of two things to survive the coming night, which was, if the growing chill in the air was anything to go by, approaching swiftly. Either he needed to warm himself with mana, which meant searching for a way to transform an energy he barely felt, never mind understood, into heat, an energy he thankfully did understand. Or finding a way to move, for which he already possessed an idea and a foundation, but neither an end goal nor an overwhelming desire to move in any capacity, never mind travel upwards, a direction commonly accepted as difficult.

  But after giving the idea of heating himself some thought, he eventually conceded that the largest problem with any of his ideas for heating his surroundings was not how, he could come up with many ideas on the how, and at least one of them would work, he was sure. No, the largest problem was his newbie mana control, which invalidated some of his more complex ideas, which was a minor problem... And it also added a slightly more colossal problem, namely the distinct and very dangerous possibility that he may add a bit too much mana to a functioning heating spell, which would presumably set whatever he was warming up ablaze, and a literal sea of dried leaves larger than some actual seas was not the place he wanted to be when he accidentally created a fire.

  So instead, he started working on his idea for how he might possibly move up through the copious amounts of leaves above him. At least, he would until he was sure that he could not find a way to move, then he would simply have to start attempting to warm himself. He was, of course, fairly certain that he would manage to create heat without killing himself in a blazing inferno, which, to be fair, would be a success from a certain viewpoint. But, either way, he now had two solutions to avoid the clutches of death during the cold night, both of which he was fairly certain he could accomplish, which meant he would at the very least triumph in one.

  Now the only problem was getting his pants off, and preferably his shoes, socks and underwear.