Two hours; he had two hours before the next wave. Such dire information was not something he was prepared to see. He had hoped that at least he would be given a day before something else happened so that he could better prepare. But now, with a barely usable arm, he felt hopeless; it seemed that the system was already trying to kill him.

However, for some reason, he was not yet ready to give up. He knew his magical skills were negligible, based on his first try, but he was still determined to test his one and only healing skill, just in case it could do miracles. Thus, he grabbed his injured hand.

"Healing Touch"

He muttered. And then a slight greenish light appeared under his palm, around his injured hand, but it only lasted for a moment. Though he still felt immense pain, and it was evident that his arm was bleeding, he still pulled his hand back to check what happened. He saw nothing promising, and as the previous adrenaline surge dissipated, the pain grew worse. So he quickly grabbed his hand once again.

"Healing Touch! Healing Touch! Healing Touch! Healing Touch! "

He just kept repeating the skill, and slowly but surely, he finally noticed that the pain he felt started going away. Then a new window popped up before his eyes while spamming his skill.

"Magic 1->2"

"Healing Touch!"

He activated it once again after his magic had just leveled up, and although it wasn't a massive jump, the difference was palpable. His pain was instantly reduced, but his wound was still there, so he kept going at it.

He just kept on spamming it, not realizing that as he repeated the skill, he got more and more tired. After a few minutes, his arm seemed much better, the wound started regenerating, and he no longer felt any pain, but if he wanted to survive, he needed to heal his arm completely.

"Magic 2->3"

"Intelligence 1->2"

He didn't stop once he got the notifications; however, it seemed that the third level of his magic greatly influenced his capabilities, and when his intelligence had increased, its potential jumped again. He managed to heal his injured arm, and then, without thinking, moved his hands over to his chest, where the skeleton's fingers cut him, and healed the cuts with a few more casts, but then, he collapsed.

It was not due to pain but rather exhaustion. It seemed that casting skills consumed his stamina, and once they ran out completely, he collapsed and fell asleep. He was completely oblivious to the surroundings; much to his luck, a loud roar woke him up.

He quickly jumped up, only to see that the second wave of monsters had only spawned in. This time, fortunately, there was only a single wolf, though it was somewhat larger than the previous two, which by the time he got up was already halfway over to him. And there were at least a dozen skeletons, out of which two had bows and arrows.

Not having any weapon in his hand at first, Monier panicked, but then he had the perfect idea to deal with the fast-approaching beast. He extended his now healed left hand, and the moment it was about to bite it, with a quick thought from his inventory, he summoned the very first club he had made. The one that was made of an entire tree.

It had such a mass that the moment it touched the wolf's head, it pushed it down, and the moment it collided with the ground, the club practically exploded the dog's head. Although it was an easy, cheated victory, he didn't have time to celebrate, because the skeleton archers had already fired their arrows, and he didn't have time to properly evade them.

One of the arrows pierced his side, but the other hit him in the shoulder, and it was stuck there. Fortunately, the arrows were made of wood and stone, so he could easily tear them out, but he was once again in pain.

He gazed at the skeletons; this time, the unarmed ones didn't rush at him; they surrounded the archers, who were already ready to fire. With a quick motion, Monier kneeled down, stored the club in his inventory, then lifted the entire corpse of the wolf up and managed to block two arrows with it. 

Using it as a shield, he rushed forward. By the time he got close enough to the skeletons, six extra arrows were already sticking out of the corpses. Monier was not bothered. He tossed the beast against the skeletons, knocking some of the movers, but then he quickly grabbed its tail and spun it around so strongly that all the skeletons were knocked over. In the process, he even let go of the wolf, letting it slam against one of the trees.

The skeletons instantly started standing up, though their motion was rigid and slow, so Monier used the time to summon the baseball bat he had previously crafted and started hitting the skeletons with all his might.

He was so desperate to kill them that in the process, he broke both of the skeletons' bows as they tried to block his attacks with them. But eventually he managed to win, and this time, despite facing more enemies and trickier ones, he managed to survive with fewer injuries.

"1:59:59 left until the next wave of monsters."

The dreaded message popped up once again; however, this time, he didn't level up and didn't get a boost to any of his skills or traits at all.

just to be sure that he killed everyone, he looked around him, but nothing was moving. And thus, a great sense of disappointment and betrayal hit him. But then realization came. It became clear that he is not getting upgrades from the system directly for surviving the waves; whatever he works on, that aspect of the system will level up. 

He touched his side and shoulder with his hands and then activated his healing skill. The effect was much better than the first time, and it only took three casts to heal his wounded shoulder. Now he only had a single problem: hunger. And as he was thinking about food, his gaze shifted over to the headless wolf corpse.