My eyes snapped open at the sound of the alert. Or rather, the sensation of the [alert]. The skill was only sounding in my head, inaudible to anyone else. But I’d modeled it after a noise my mom had once made for me, what she'd described as the sound a certain species of bird made, and within my head it seemed audible. Only the faint echo behind the trilling whistle marked it as being an internal fabrication of my skill, an effect I'd added myself to distinguish between my internal and external [alerts].

  It wouldn't be good for others to see me react to noises that weren't actually there and think me crazy, after all.

  At least, that’s what my mom insisted. I would take her word for it.

  I rolled out of my bed of woven grasses and deftly hopped to my feet. My parents often complained about their beds, that the thinness of the mattress and the hardness of the ground underneath left them sore after just a few minutes, much more after a full night, but I’d never had any issues. As long as nothing triggered the alerts I’d set up along the edges of our home, which was a rare occurrence nowadays, I slept comfortably through the eight hours I allotted myself. I could hear that mom was already up and preparing breakfast, so I didn't waste any time pulling on a shirt and pushing aside the silk curtain that served as a doorway.

  "Morning!" I called cheerfully, before pausing as I noticed the chalkboard sitting on the table in front of my usual spot. I let out a groan. "School today? You promised I could spend today leveling."

  My mom leveled a stern glare at me. "You can — AFTER you spend some time doing school work."

  I held my follow-up groan. Tomorrow was my birthday, but I couldn’t use that as an excuse. Neither of my parents took time off on their birthdays. I was almost sixteen, and if I wanted my parents to treat me more like an adult, I needed to act like one.

  So without further grumbling, I settled into the chair and began work on the problems.

  The ‘chalkboard’ was nothing fancy. Just a piece of slate rock my dad had dug up, marked with a softer rock that could be found in abundance a few minutes’ walk north of our home. But it did the job, and I began to work on the math problems my mom had sketched out for me.

  The problems themselves were similarly basic. Simple addition and subtraction, none more than three digits. I’d long ago memorized all the answers to the problems my mom knew to ask, but I still took the time to work through them carefully and solve them using the principles she taught.

  A few years earlier I’d made the mistake of complaining that my lessons were too easy, that I was tired of learning the same lessons over and over and wanted to learn something new.

  My mom had been…less than pleased.

  It didn’t take long. Maybe fifteen minutes later the slate was filled with my chicken scratch and my mom came over to check my work. I grabbed a bowl and filled it with the carrot, mushroom, and potato stew. Fifteen minutes after that, I rinsed the bowl in the nearby stream, left it on top of the small stack of other wooden dishes, and — after receiving the confirming nod from my mom that my work was correct — grabbed my spear, packed a few supplies into my thin rucksack, and power-walked away from home before my mom could find any other chores.

  It took a bit of time, considering how far from our home we had clear-cut the ever-encroaching forest, but my pace slowed considerably once I was out of sight range of the familiar cluster of buildings. And once I finally stepped over the border into the forest proper, the trees shadowing the already-dim ambient light even further, my pace slowed again.

  As experienced as I was, it wasn’t wise to move too quickly when on the hunt. I had plenty of protections in place, but a single mistake was all that separated me from death or dismemberment — something my dad made sure to remind me every chance he could. With that thought, I considered my [alerts], double-checking they were active and with the right settings. It wasn’t as necessary as it had been in previous years, given the semi-permanence upgrade I’d gotten for the skill at level sixty. But it was a good habit, a way to remind myself of the resources at my disposal in the upcoming fights.

  There were, of course, the handful of [alerts] I’d set up around our home: several layers of rings, each of which linked to a different small chime in the center that would ring when something of sufficient weight crossed over the invisible border. They were maintained by my mana, but were unimportant for my current circumstances, so I dismissed them from my notice.

  More important were the [alerts] I’d previously set over my own body. One would give me a mental notification when my mana dipped below ten. Another would sound a quiet chime about ten feet in front of me when I contorted my fingers into a specific configuration. And another that would sound a different chime back at home if I twisted my hands into an even more convoluted configuration.

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  It perhaps wasn’t ideal for my emergency call for help to be so difficult to perform. But it wasn’t an [alert] I’d yet had to use, and I did NOT want it to be something that I could set off by accident.

  Finally, I quickly set up two more [alerts]. Both were internal — one that would sound in eight hours when I needed to head back home for dinner. And another that would let me know if anything of sufficient weight moved fast enough over an invisible border surrounding me in five feet in each direction.

  That last one was less useful than someone might have otherwise thought. I couldn’t keep it up indefinitely, or else I’d go crazy from the constant alerts of my parents moving around me. Even worse, since it was centered on me, my movement could trigger the [alert] on inanimate objects if the border moved over the objects fast enough. I’d have to slow my pace even further to avoid any false alarms.

  But even with the limitations, the [alert] had saved me enough times in the past for me to deal with any annoyances it might cause. So, having finished checking over my set up, I resumed my trek forward, eyes peeled for any signs of my targets.

  Even at my slower pace, it didn’t take long before I noticed evidence of my prey. Webs shimmered in the light where they hung between outstretched branches. Bulges wrapped in web — the remains of bugs unfortunate enough to find themselves in this part of the forest — were the most visible parts. The rest practically disappeared into the shadows cast by the canopy overhead.

  And as I moved forward, the shadows only deepened. Any slight breeze that might have previously existed was gone completely, choked out by the thickening undergrowth. Which was, I’ll admit, somewhat helpful when it came to my proximity alert — I no longer had to worry about a blowing branch setting off a false alarm. Everything around me was perfectly still and perfectly silent.

  I was almost as silent. Not as a result of any system skill, but from years of practice stalking through this forest. I avoided any leaves or twigs that might otherwise give away my location.

  Unfortunately, my silence wasn’t particularly helpful. My prey had other, more reliable ways to detect my presence than simple noise, ways that I had no real method to avoid. But the silent stalking made me feel more competent, made me feel like the predator I believed myself to be, rather than the prey my opponents saw me as. So I kept it up, moving slowly and silently through the forest. My eyes shifted between the forest floor below and the canopy overhead, staying alert for the traps I knew my enemies liked to set. Until, finally, I found my first target.

  A novice would have noticed nothing amiss. Neither did any of my [alerts] ping me of the monster within their range. But I had more experience, and I recognized the almost invisible silk hinges along the back of the trapdoor that was less than five feet in front of me.

  I paused, analyzing the trap. It was on the smaller end of what I’d expect from this variant of spider, just over a foot across. But that was to be expected, I was still on the edge of what I considered true ‘spider territory’. The bigger ones would be further in. But a foot across was still more than big enough to pose a danger, and worth the time it would take to kill it.

  The spider nestled in its hole would likely be larger than the opening when its legs were fully outstretched, but not by much. I’d have to be precise in my attack. As close as I was, the spider probably already knew I was here, but it wouldn’t strike from the safety of its burrow until it knew I was close enough to be a target, when its own [alert] skill told it I was within range.

  Unfortunately for the spider, I knew better than anyone how [alert] worked, especially how the spiders used it. I knew the weaknesses the skill possessed and how to exploit them. It wasn’t exactly complicated.

  Keeping most of my attention on the seemingly-normal patch of ground, I reached out with my left hand and broke off a two-foot-long branch from a nearby fallen log. Then, hefting the spear in my right, I tossed the branch at the ground just in front of the trap door.

  I was already moving before the branch hit the ground. I had to be, because almost faster than my eyes could track, the lid of the trapdoor flew up as four legs and a set of fangs latched onto the offending stick.

  My spear fell.

  The spider was fast, but I was faster. The five mana I used to activate my [lunge] skill turned my own strike into a blur, and there was a crunch as it smashed through the emerging spider’s carapace.

  The monster was still alive. Its legs flailed as it struggled to fight back, to retreat back into its hole, to escape. But it could do none of those things. I’d speared the spider directly through its center of mass, and all it could do was twitch helplessly until, a few seconds later, the legs curled into a ball beneath it as it stilled.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t been worried, but I treated it as a good omen when the first kill of the day had no issues. [Lunge] had probably been overkill for such a small spider, but worth it to make sure the first encounter had no hiccups. Perhaps, finally, I would get that level-up in [alert] I’d been chasing.

  I pushed the corpse off the end of my spear, and then I scooped up the small glowing sphere that had materialized next to the body. It was tiny, no larger than the tip of my pinky finger, and was glowing dark green, almost the same shade as the leaves on the trees around me.

  I didn’t bother to absorb the orb, simply tossing it into my bag and cinching the top tight. There was a time, a few years prior, when I would absorb every skill orb I recovered as soon as I got them. But that wasted more time than it was worth, especially because — with the amount of skill orbs I was able to get on a daily basis — the benefit a single skill orb could offer me was practically negligible. Much better to focus on the hunt and leave examining my loot for the walk back home.

  And so, after a quick examination of my spear, making sure it wasn’t compromised from my first attack, I moved on, resuming the never-ending battle with the spiders of the dungeon.