He spent three days hunting before he went back.
The first beast had nearly bitten his hand off. A Level 1 boar, stubborn and faster than it looked. He'd scrambled up a tree and thrown rocks at it until it lost interest.
The system had been quiet for almost two minutes before saying, {intresting.}
"Don't," Jelani had said.
{I wasn't going to say anything.}
"You were thinking it."
{I am incapable of thinking. I am a system.}
He'd gotten better.
By the end of day three, he could drop a Level 1 beast cleanly with two or three focused strikes, the Fist technique starting to feel less like something installed and more like something learned.
Each kill generated universe points — small amounts, three or four per beast — but they were accumulating. He had checked the screen that morning: forty-two universe points. Eight short of a clone.
{You could hunt two more beasts before entering the city,} the system suggested.
He found a pair of Level 1 wolves near the treeline — smaller than the pack that had killed him, barely past beast-cub size — and put them down efficiently, one-two. The system dinged twice.
Universe Points: 50
He opened the system clone tab and hit deploy without giving himself time to second-guess it.
The sensation was bizarre. Something pulled out of him — not painfully, but unmistakably, like a long exhale he hadn't chosen to take. And then standing five feet away from him in the long grass was himself.
He stared.
The clone stared back.
It had his face, his build, his torn and wolf-blood-stained clothes. It blinked when he blinked.
{It will follow basic instructions,} the system said. {Tell it what you want it to do.}
"Scout the city," Jelani told it. "Don't fight anyone. Don't talk to anyone unless you have to. Find out if the Spirit Sect disciples are still there and how many. Come back here before dark."
The clone nodded once, turned, and walked toward the city.
He watched it go and felt something deeply strange about the experience.
Then he sat down in the long grass and ate the last of his dried meat and waited.