Desperation, determination, without any backup, without hope, with an unknown outcome.

  He achieved all of this so far because of his powerful determination, he simply didn't want to die right now. Not because he had anything against it, but because he always strived his best to live, that's how he'd always been. That's how he was.

  ... Even back on Earth.

  But now, a sense of hope permeated the bleak situation.

  A minute or so passed after he had purchased the regeneration modification. Maybe a mere illusion, but he felt the tiniest bit better, only to be overshadowed by his decrepit state.

  Two, three, four, five... The mutant spirits began moving again.

  He sighed, struggling to stay awake.

  The regeneration rate couldn't keep up with the 'damage' his body constantly received from his injuries. Already heavily injured, starving, dehydrated, and sleep-deprived; he judged it to be only natural.

  To put it in simpler terms, he would have regenerated 0.05 health per minute if his 'Regeneration' was 0.00 percent.

  But with his injuries, he actively steered closer to death, in other words, degenerating, in other words, his regeneration is in the negatives.

  Slowing down his death is what the regeneration modification helped with.

  He raised his left hand and shot at the closest one as it approached, this one appeared unique, slightly larger than the previous mutant spirits, and took the two magic bolts firing and hitting it then another two rounds of the Magic Bolt spell to kill it.

  Thankfully, the mutated spirits were further away, making him able to cast multiple times. Besides, he had gotten used to casting the spell, making him able to cast it at a rate closer to the expected amount of time compared to the injected information in his mind.

  Then, since he had been quite inactive for 10 minutes, he stood up weakly on the ground, walking to the forming orb, I need to get enough excess mana to upgrade the regeneration modification again.

  An almost crazed gleam burned in his eyes - they were bloodshot, focused on their goal. He cast the Magic Bolt spell as he walked, capitalizing on the spell to a full amount.

  As the globe formed and came into view it also appeared to be unique, slightly larger than the other ones, not light blue, nor sunset orange, but violet.

  He leaned down and touched it with his left hand.

  The swirling violet energy shot out from the globe and was absorbed by him, the globe, like all others, turned to a cloudy gray and collapsed in on itself, turning to ashes.

  To his surprise, it seemed like only a few of these were sufficient for him to reach the next threshold for new information or modification, which he decided to call 'leveling up', since it seemed similar to games, with mana being the experience.

  He noted that he should be on the lookout for strong mutant spirits that drop this violet mana globe.

  Then, his mind honed into a single point, and any distractions and external thoughts faded away. His sole focus was on the task at hand, a laser-like intensity in his gaze

  After hunting what felt like tens of mutant spirits, a headache hit him, he also noticed a new shift, the mutant spirits were increasing in the distance.

  If they were previously sparse, they had currently become perhaps double the amount.

  "..." He barely kept up currently without getting injured or completely exhausted.

  So what's this??

  He sighed, browsing through the new information and getting a better understanding of it.

  He now had increased the Magic Bolt spell's damage with this new 'level up'.

  But it was mildly helpful, considering that the mutant spirits died with one bolt, and he fired two consecutive ones, so it was overkill.

  Perhaps it'd be more helpful against those strong mutant spirits. Besides, there's no rule saying that only numbers are increasing. Maybe the 'health' of them is increasing too, he mused, then said 'Human', calling for the mysterious black paper, but he still needed double the amount of his current excess combustion mana to exchange for a modification.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Gritting his teeth, he staggered along, akin to a walking corpse, continuing to hunt for more mana globes.

  I probably shouldn't be alive by now. How am I even moving? Maybe I'll drop dead any moment now. Internally, his mind was haunted by this thought, making him unconsciously more desperate despite trying to stay composed.

  He had been sticking around this area around the steel chest, not moving around much and letting the mutant spirits come to him instead.

  Then, as he turned around to sweep the area again, he saw something that wasn't there before, near the steel chest. Appearing out of nowhere was a wooden chest.

  "..." He shivered a bit, why do things in this dimension, world, or planet, keep appearing out of thin air? The mutant spirits are the same, just appearing in the distance, now this? It's freaky.

  Carefully, he walked to the chest, of course, not forgetting to fire the Magic Bolt on the approaching mutant spirits to avoid being swarmed.

  Tentatively touching the chest, nothing happened - so he opened it.

  Inside... There lay a piece of meat.

  Wait... Meat? The piece of meat looked raw and unappetizing. Not only that, it almost looked forged.

  But who was he to judge such meat? For he needed to desperately eat.

  He reached his left hand down, of course still doubtful, as his fingers touched the piece of meat....

  It disappeared into particles and got absorbed by him.

  "..." Where did my meat go? He froze, visibly upset, looking like a kid who got something stolen from him. Well, if not for the fact that he was an adult, half-naked, filled with scars, missing his right arm, and covered in black goo and blood.

  But he did feel a change happen, a significant one, almost as if he learned a new spell but he was unaware of how to cast it himself.

  Unsure what to do, he kept firing his Magic Bolt spell at the mutant spirits around, and called out 'Human'.

  The black paper appeared. On it, he noticed a change.

  Previously, it was three categories or indexes 'Magic Classes', 'Magic Overseers', and 'Magic Modification'.

  Now, there was an extra text, 'Artifacts'.

  That meat was an artifact? He thought absurdly, saying 'Artifact'.

  An index opened, and in it included a doodle resembling the meat with a description beneath it, along with buttons to materialize, dematerialize, and halt the artifact, 'Meat: Creates an orb of life near the subject. Cooldown: 30 minutes. (Affected by Awakening)' orb of life? That sounds promising. Is that why I had that feeling? That artifact casts the spell but not me? And that awakening remark again. I doubt it has to do with me. Does it have to do with 'the Great Homunculus spirit' dormant inside me? Maybe the homunculus has to wake up?

  How would I awaken it? Is it a friend or a foe? What effect will it bring on after? Positive? Negative? There are too many uncertainties... Straightening up slightly and looking back, the wooden chest had disappeared at some point when he wasn't paying attention.

  Used to it at this point, he just sighed and put the complicated thoughts aside.

  A new goal; survive for thirty minutes.

  Easier said than done. I doubt I will unless some miraculous change happens that defies that... Celest? I think it was Clest... Clest's calculated 0.0000- something odds. He kept zoning out in the midst of thinking because of the exhaustion but he shook his head and continued on gathering Mana Globes.

  With the increase in the number of mutated spirits, he could barely keep them at bay. They were getting closer gradually as well.

  Of course, it did mean more mana globes. But it was pushing him to the edge. If he hadn't bought that regeneration modification, he doubted he'd still be alive.

  Thankfully though, he soon had enough Combustion Mana to buy the second modification point and invest it in the Regeneration modification, hence, he now regenerated 0.1 percent of total health per minute.

  But at that point, 30 minutes had almost passed.

  It continuously got more difficult to upgrade things, evidently so since he had perhaps collected tens more mana globes yet he didn't 'level up' yet.

  He glanced around almost manically as he thought 30 minutes had passed, as if afraid to miss this 'Orb of Life' that he only knew the name of but not the effect of. Only relying on the name to guess that it was a positive thing, perhaps providing healing.

  He kept doing so for maybe a couple more minutes; calculating the timing wrong because of his muddled and worn state, and he mainly focused more on using the Magic Bolt spell to constantly drive away the mutant spirits rather than accurately keep track of time.

  He felt during the time that his body stopped degenerating much more, evidently because he bought an upgrade for the Regeneration modification, making it go from 0.05 percent to 0.1 percent. The stump on his right arm was also miraculously not bleeding anymore.

  Suddenly, he saw a reddish orb form, pulsating with energy, but different from the light blue, sunset orange, and glowing violet mana globes.

  He approached it carefully, hoping for it to be something good.

  Carefully, his left hand reached out, touching the red orb of life.

  The orb turned gray and shattered into dust leaving behind a reddish wisp that quickly disappeared...

  But the importance didn't lie there.

  It lied in the fact that... I feel so much better.

  It was like he was hit with a wave of rejuvenating energy.

  His aching muscles relaxed slightly, his complexion got a bit better, his pain eased... and on a creepy note, his stump of a right arm had grown a bit, a regrowing limb.

  "Thank you, Mr. Meat," he paid respects to his now precious artifact. Even his previously damaged throat was a bit healed, making him able to table a bit less painfully, albeit still a hoarse and cracked sound.

  Still, many life orbs were needed to heal and rid the pain radiating through him, and the orb only healed damage; hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation and an overworked mind, were not really tangible 'damage' for the healing to take place.

  So he still felt extreme hunger, thirst, sleepiness, and tiredness - but felt much better than before.

  He called the black paper and went to the artifact section, there was an option beneath the meat artifact to 'materialize' it.

  He confirmed it, and the piece of meat appeared in his left hand.

  "If I take a bite of you, will you still give me orbs of life?" He looked at the piece of meat sincerely.

  "..." Meat, do you think I'd respond? I'm just a piece of meat. Perhaps A bit magical.

  He sighed. Of course, he was just humoring himself while asking the question. He didn't take the risk... Or he tried not to but his belly won him over despite the unappetizing-looking raw piece of meat.

  He tried to nib the tiniest piece to test it.

  Only for the meat to be the hardest rubber-like substance he'd ever seen, touched, or heard of. It also had no flavor.

  He let go of caution and tried to take a good bite out of it.

  "..." Meat, hey, relax, you can't eat me.

  "..." He stopped biting it, he wasn't really trying to eat, he wouldn't take the risk of ruining it... Maybe.. but this, Maybe I could use it as a shield when necessary? It's a bit big and heavy and seemingly doesn't budge or get ruined easily... Besides, this is rubber, and magical at that, the mutant spirits won't be able to destroy you so easily, right Mr. Meat..? Uh... But at that point, if it seriously got destroyed, I'd be left without orbs of life, so let's not do that. I'd rather not risk it, I will probably get injured more in the future.

  Quickly dismissing the idea, he dematerialized the artifact which he called Mr. Meat.

  He had gotten to a point where casting Magic Bolt didn't need pointing with his palm, it wasn't needed in the first place; just a way to help in aiming. So he still used the spell whenever possible, his little monologue involving the artifact was done at intermittent times, pausing when he cast the spell to rid of the mutant spirits around.

  Only, he had been standing in place for a while and some mana globes were accumulated where the mutated spirits corpses were.

  As he regained some strength, he found himself able to walk with less difficulty and gained more confidence.

  Moving proved to be quicker than before, so collecting the mana globes took less time as well.

  With each second that passed, he felt a glimmer of hope, time flowing by with a surprising smoothness.

  He also managed to kill a few of the strong mutated spirits, resulting in a violet mana globe.

  He had already felt like he was on the verge of reaching the threshold for new information.

  Touching a violet globe of mana, a violent headache hit him. Far worse than even the pain from the repeated exploding of his right arm.

  It was such a severe, debilitating headache that he was overwhelmed, consciousness ebbing away without any words from his lips as his vision was plagued by darkness…