Free Web NovelChapter 4: Glide
Ren tore into the wolf’s carcass with significantly less hesitation than he expected from himself, some deep instinctual part of his new body overriding whatever squeamishness his old human mind might have offered up otherwise. The meat was tough, gamey, nothing close to appetizing by any standard he remembered, but his stomach didn’t care in the slightest.
He ate until the hunger pangs finally quieted, and the moment they did, a familiar chime rang out in his mind.
[You have consumed Grey Wolf flesh]
[Stamina +2]
[Speed +2]
Ren paused mid-bite, blinking.
"Wait, that’s a thing? Eating things just straight up gives me stats now?"
He sat back on his haunches, swallowing the last bite, and focused inward the way he vaguely remembered doing back when he’d binged enough LitRPG content to know the general shape of how these things worked.
[Status]
[Name: Ren]
[Race: Dragon ]
[Level: 5]
[EXP: 100/ 600]
[Strength: 19]
[Speed: 21]
[Stamina: 21]
[Skills: Glide]
He stared at the numbers for a long moment, something settling in his chest that was equal parts pride and concern.
"Okay, so I started at one in everything. One. That’s, that’s actually kind of depressing when you think about it. A baseline housecat probably beats a level one dragon." He shook his head. "But nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-one now. That’s something. That’s actually something."
The EXP bar caught his attention next, the numbers ticking along slower than he’d expected given how fast his levels had jumped earlier.
"Six hundred to hit level six," he muttered. "Guess the bar gets steeper the higher you go. Makes sense. Still." He glanced back toward the cliff edge where the wolf had met its very undignified end. "Falling to your death apparently pays out better than I thought."
He flexed his wings out experimentally, the thin leathery membranes catching the afternoon light, and an idea formed, equal parts curiosity and the simple desire to actually use the skill he’d just unlocked.
"Alright. Glide. Let’s actually figure out how you work properly, instead of accidentally backflipping off a cliff to dodge a wolf."
He found a low outcropping nearby, barely more than chest height, and clambered up onto it with significantly more effort than the height probably warranted. He stood at the edge, wings half spread, and threw himself off with what he hoped looked like confidence.
He hit the ground three feet later like a sack of wet laundry.
"Ow." He lay there for a second, staring up at the canopy. "Okay. Not quite."
He tried again, this time paying actual attention to the angle of his wings, the way they’d caught the air during his fall from the cliff, the subtle adjustments his body had made without him consciously deciding anything. He climbed back up, spread his wings wider this time, angled slightly back, and jumped.
He glided for a solid two seconds before clipping a low branch and spinning sideways into a bush.
"Progress," he announced to no one, spitting out a leaf. "Bad progress, but progress."
He kept at it. Climb, jump, adjust, crash. Climb, jump, adjust, crash slightly less badly than before. Somewhere around the seventh or eighth attempt, something finally clicked, the angle of his wings catching the air just right, and instead of a controlled fall he actually glided, smooth and level, covering a solid stretch of forest floor before settling down gently instead of crashing.
"Yes!" He pumped one small clawed foot in the air the second he landed, genuinely thrilled with himself. "Okay, that’s it, that’s the motion, I had it, I actually had it that time."
Buoyed by the success, he climbed higher this time, found a taller outcrop jutting from the hillside, and launched himself off with real enthusiasm, wings spread wide, riding the air current with something that almost resembled grace.
He kept going. Glide after glide, finding updrafts along the hillside, chaining short flights together, pushing a little further and a little higher each time, the sheer exhilaration of actually moving through the air properly drowning out any sense of caution.
It was somewhere around the fifteenth glide that his wings simply stopped responding the way he wanted them to.
He felt it a half second before it happened, a deep, bone-tired ache settling into the thin muscles along his wing joints, the kind of exhaustion that came from using a body part for the first time far harder than it was ready for. His glide tilted, lost its angle, and instead of gentle descent he dropped, hard and sudden, straight into a patch of ferns below.
He lay there, sprawled and winded, staring up at the canopy through a tangle of green fronds.
"Okay," he wheezed. "Okay, that one was on me. Should’ve stopped at like, glide number ten."
[Skill Experience Gained: Glide]
He huffed out something that might have been a laugh if his voice could manage it properly, small puffs of air escaping his snout.
"Worth it though," he muttered, closing his eyes against the sunlight. "Definitely worth it."
