“Well, that was close,” Zalanir whispered. No full power slamming his head onto a wall was already a major win. He did get hit on the left back heel by a falling stone, but overall, he was intact.

  Except for his own tappings on the clothes to remove the dirt, there were no other sounds, as far as he could tell. His health was a bit short of one-third left, so he decided to stay and refill it first. The entrance was already sealed by the rubble. If he wanted to get out, going deeper into the cave remained the only option. He had enough disadvantages already. No need to shackle himself more.

  But first, he wanted to check the notifications. He had gained a couple of levels for that stunt, and he wanted to know what had attacked him.

  You have slain [Duskpin Badger — Level 30]

  …

  You have slain [Duskpin Badger — Level 25]

  You have slain [Duskpin Badger — Level 39]

  Level advances to 31

  Level advances to 32

  Six badgers. One of them was of a higher level than the rest, so perhaps a parent? Not that it mattered. They were all buried under the nearby debris now.

  After a session of meditation, Zalanir was ready to move. He put both of the new free points onto Constitution, because who knew what lurked inside this cave. A couple points of health could be the rift between life and death.

  Name: Zalanir Forthern

  Level: 32

  Race: [D] Human - Origin: ?

  Health Points (HP): 1070/1070

  Mana Points (MP): 1155/1155

  Stamina: 215/215

  Strength: 9

  Dexterity: 11

  Endurance: 17

  Constitution: 55

  Intelligence: 95

  Mystique: 97

  Awareness: 37

  Spirit: 68

  Free Points: 0

  Coins: 10

  His stats were ridiculously skewed, with stamina sitting at a measly 215. Perhaps he would need to spend a couple of points on Endurance during some of the next levels. Gaining no free points there when leveling up was obviously the main culprit, but he had also always prioritized either Constitution or the magical attributes. Constitution was self-explanatory, but all of his skills had scaling with at least one of these bottom half fours, so it was hard to not put points there. Offensive was his game, after all. Maybe the next mastery or the evolution could help fill the hole.

  Closing the interface, Zalanir employed the previous tactic and found the wall nearby. Starting there, he moved his hand along an imaginative line and treaded inward.

  ***

  In this total darkness, Zalanir had no idea how long had passed. If his body still functioned like back at home, the treadmill could’ve screamed at him already. He stopped counting after two thousand steps, as that exercise was so boring. And that counter was a long time ago already.

  He had rested once to refill his stamina after it had fallen down under half, but he couldn’t base on that to estimate the time. His body now just had much more endurance compared to before. If there were a tournament that required the players to play all of their matches in a row with minimal rest, he could even take on two of them at the same time and still win. That was how he felt about the change in his body. It was just not a fair comparison. But because of that, coupled with how slow and careful he moved, he could’ve spent several days here already. How long would this go on?

  A turn? Zalanir stopped when his finger touched the air all of the sudden. The wall had curved outward. Still no light. He made the turn but stayed still after ten steps because he heard something for the first time in a while. It came from the ceiling. Not close. High. He could hear it. His ears had become insanely good at catching sounds other than his footsteps. And his heartbeat. He had kind of learned to filter them out. Hearing the constant thumps got tiring after a while.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  He just stood here and listened. Then he took a step. Maybe the lightest step he had ever taken. He could’ve opened a class for thieves now and started making money with what he had just pulled off. But even with that featherweight step, he still almost lost the sound from the ceiling.

  Then he repeated it. Again and again. After maybe half an hour, his ears could now catch and tell the two apart at the same time. Great. A minor progression, but a progression nonetheless.

  Stressful. His brain had been tense for the whole duration. But he soldiered on. He needed to hear the sound even when he wasn’t paying attention. It might be far-fetched, but this could be a hint to his ticket out of here.

  Time passed by, and Zalanir did feel like resting. After a couple of hours, he realized that whatever was up there wasn’t moving, so no need to stress his body too much. The sound wasn’t constant, as he did lose it a couple of times and was panicked as hell, but the volume remained the same. There was no change at all.

  Even though he feared that the nightmare might come back, he really needed a sleep now. Meditation alone wouldn’t be sufficient. He remained on the spot for another minute or so, but left the place and tracked back to the rubble site eventually. A good sleep required a safe place.

  ***

  Yawning and stretching his limbs, Zalanir was pleased to know that there was no nightmare this time. Before going to sleep, he did think about it, though. Having killed a human sucked, but it wasn’t like that Red Nose didn’t deserve it. If he didn’t attack Zalanir first, then maybe the outcome would have been different.

  But there was no if. It had already happened, so the best he could do was to forget about it and move on. If there was anything he needed to change, it was in the speed of his adaptation to this world. Killing didn’t invoke the same reaction and reprimand like the way it was on Earth. Instead, it seemed like a normal thing to do.

  The audience even cheered for a kill back at the pit, as long as it pleased them. So if he was to keep the same conscience, he would just be shooting himself in the foot here. Of course, he wouldn’t just become a murderhobo and start killing without a reason, but as long as he deemed it the correct action, he would try to forget about it. Might take time, but every new habit started somewhere.

  He reinforced this thinking again when stretching and found it to be perfectly sound. So hopefully, no more grief.

  He had gone back quite a distance to make sure he was safe, so it took a bit of time to return to the turning spot again. The sound was still here. Good! He started his work right away, trying to get a feel for the signal while jamming in other sounds.

  And thus, his time of using ears instead of eyes as the main guiding method began. Sleep then took on the role of being a benchmark for him to gauge his progress.

  After three sleeps, Zalanir was able to keep track of the soft sound while moving. He no longer needed to be too light on his steps.

  After eight sleeps, for the first time, he caught another sound. Similar, but this one was even softer. The second one has less frequency compared to the first one.

  After eleven sleeps, a sound coming from behind scared him into erecting a barrier and even fired two earth bolts. But there was nothing. It came to his understanding later that it was just an echo of the sound he had become familiar with. These sounds had always echoed off the ground and walls. It was just him not being delicate enough to pick it up.

  After thirteen sleeps, he recognized that the sound was a squeak. Its tendency to stop or delay was because the one producing it was communicating with its kin. Inside a cave like this? Likely bats. Or some kinds of insects. During this time, he also vaguely felt a force accompanying the squeak. Featherweight only, but it did disturb his ears whenever the squeak got in.

  After eighteen sleeps, he could even hear the sounds from his resting spot, but it was far enough, and his ears now could filter the sound out, so he had no problem sleeping. The existence of the force coming together with the sound was now all but confirmed. Though he still had no idea what that was.

  ***

  On the nineteenth time that he woke up, he decided to move on, or rather, followed some squeaks that did move around. He knew that when the break was longer for the first and second sounds that he learned to hear at the beginning, it was because they left the spot on the ceiling to go deeper into the cave. He had only taken notice of it during the time between his last two rests. Worth the risk, though, because he had been trapped inside this cave for too long already. He missed seeing the light. Any kind of light.

  Thanks to the bats — he was certain of his guess with about 90% accuracy based on the squeaks, sounds of their flapping wings, and their preference for the ceiling — he could even project somewhat the shape of the cave based on their echoing sounds. He had been working on that in his head, and even though the exact distance was still off the table, he could for sure tell if there was a wall to the sides or behind based on the volume of the reflected sounds. Thus, his speed wasn’t as slow as before. He could keep up with the bats at good speed.

  But an issue arose after he did just that. Something cut his arm, making him startle and tumble a little bit. Overconfidence seemed to take the better of him, since he just unconsciously judged everything based on his perspective only and forgot that not him, but the bats that were the true masters of sound. If he could track them, then of course the opposite could hold true as well.

  Zalanir dashed to the left until he touched a wall with his arms extended to the front, then turned back and erected a shield angling up toward the ceiling. Three attacks found the center of his shield but weren’t able to break it. Zalanir also prepared some sound bolts to launch at the bats. He couldn’t let them be the sole aggressors.

  Unlike the time back at the entrance when he just hurled the bolts randomly and hoped that they found the badgers, he managed to find purchase after only four bolts. Their positions were pretty clear to him, after all.

  If they wanted to do a range battle, then he would be willing to oblige. Been a long time since he had even conjured a bolt, so he treated this as an opportunity to shake off the rust.

  After many squeaks later, the first thud put a grin on his face. The hibernating System finally came alive with the half strange half familiar weak flash on the lower right corner. Oh how he had missed it!

  You have slain [Rock-tailed Bat — Level 39]

  You have slain [Rock-tailed Bat — Level 36]

  You have slain [Rock-tailed Bat — Level 38]

  Level advances to 33

  They were at that high level? This unexpected finding left him flabbergasted after finishing all the three aggressors. Checking his resources, his health was down just over 25%, and his mana had three-fourths of its total left. These bats were strong, but not unbeatable. Then, a thought flashed in his mind that made him grin like an idiot.

  What if he just stayed here and farmed them? There was a big horde back there. Not that he had anything to do outside of this cave anyway. Sure, he missed the light, but what was the difference between getting out right now and maybe three or six months later? He had no target. He knew nothing about the geography of this world anyway. So why not take this chance to train and get his level to a high level? Djaxinz was around level 45 at the time they raided the anthill. Looked at how comfortable the man was around the fighting pit! He was like a boss back there, doing whatever he wanted. With these bats, maybe he could reach a similar level, and then come out and decide what to do later.

  The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. Well, he liked the thought at first sight anyway, so he just kind of talked himself into it. Seeing as there was no holes in his plan, he proceeded to head back to his experience troves.