Chapter 15: A snack

  Gaia World, 5 Days After The Shattering

  It took Pawel around ten minutes to stop his thoughts from racing in his head.

  At first he attempted to listen to the whispers of the night, inhaling deeply the various scents of damp foliage.

  Even before entering a proper state of mind, his senses seemed to have expanded and now incorporated mana sense.

  Mana perception wove itself naturally into his awareness, no longer something he had to strain for.

  Green mana radiated from every living thing around him—trees, bushes, grass, even the unseen roots beneath the soil. It pulsed slowly and steadily, like the heartbeat of the land itself, subtle but ever-present.

  Below him, beneath layers of soil and stone, earth-aligned mana lay thick and unmoving. It felt heavy and stubborn, packed tight like compressed clay. It didn’t flow so much as exist, giving off a feeling of stability and resistance—a foundation rather than a current.

  Above, the air told a different story.

  Air mana danced constantly, thin threads and pale azure wisps shifting with every breeze. It never stayed in one place for long, flickering and scattering like nervous ghosts. Compared to earth mana’s solidity, it felt almost fragile—fast, evasive, and impossible to grasp even for a moment.

  And then there were the others.

  Far in the distance, where the anomaly lay, orange-tinted mana extended outward in thin, wire-like filaments, probing the surrounding space in slow, searching motions. They didn’t feel natural. They didn’t belong. Their presence made his stomach turn, like watching something deeply disgusting.

  After several minutes of simply existing in that expanded awareness, Pawel felt calm enough to turn inward.

  To accomplish that, he used a meditative technique of passively observing sensations inside one’s body—in this case, taking inventory of his injuries, noting each pulse of pain;

  the bitten leg was the most intense and sharp, dominating his attention; the cut hand still throbbed with each heartbeat; bruised knuckles and countless minor scrapes itched or burned—all accumulated over a day of survival.

  While remaining in meditation, Pawel shifted his focus to his internal mana sense.

  Having killed several monsters, there was now more energy to work with than before, but he had a very clear feeling that this wasn’t much by any means. If there was a point of saturation for that energy, he was nowhere near it.

  Examining the power more closely confirmed his previous suspicions; there was more than one type of energy here. The one for changing abilities seemed to have been acquired from the last tadpoles, which had despawned into mist flowing into Pawel.

  He attempted something new, trying to push this mana into improving his muscles to be stronger or faster, but the feeling was as if the energy slipped through his mental fingers, refusing to be shaped into anything new.

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  Knowing that he might be on a timeline involving bleeding and potential disease,

  Pawel did not linger on this fruitless effort for long and instead pushed this energy to improve regeneration.

  Instantly, it responded, disappearing somewhere—hopefully doing exactly what Pawel intended.

  After overcoming that hurdle, what remained was the most important task: repairing his injuries.

  He kept continuously seeping energy into regenerating tissues, eventually sliding from meditation into sleep without even realizing it.

  Morning came cold.

  The chill seeped into his skin, but waking up felt unexpectedly pleasant.

  Birds chirped nearby, their calls overlapping in short, energetic bursts. Leaves rustled gently as a mild breeze passed through the canopy, carrying fresh, clean air that filled his lungs and lifted his mood instantly.

  Pawel stretched instinctively—and winced.

  His muscles protested immediately, stiff and sore from yesterday’s exertions. His back popped softly as he twisted, thighs aching with that deep, familiar soreness that came after pushing too hard.

  He sat up and checked his injuries.

  The wounds were gone.

  The cut on his hand had sealed completely, leaving smooth skin behind. The bite marks on his leg remained only as faint discoloration and tenderness beneath the surface. No swelling. No open flesh.

  Whatever his regeneration ability was capable of, it clearly didn’t care about muscle soreness. Pain lingered where effort had been excessive. Damage, though? That it erased cleanly.

  He exhaled slowly, his thoughts aligning themselves.

  “Those monsters are easy to kill,” he muttered. “And everything they’ve done so far heals overnight if I have power.”

  Another realization followed quickly.

  “I also have to kill them to get that power. Healing and progression both depend on it.”

  He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

  “This isn’t even a question. I have to hunt them. Power-level, I guess. Maybe regeneration won’t be the only thing I get.”

  Then another problem surfaced.

  “So… how do I actually do that?”

  Normal survival took time—boiling water, worrying about infections, preserving food. But how much of that still mattered?

  “If I can heal infections and diseases with magic, water purification becomes optional. Meat safety too, as long as it tastes acceptable.”

  He paused.

  “Oh. Water.”

  Standing, he slung his pack over his shoulder and started scouting the immediate area.

  The spot he’d later decide to be his base of operations was a natural haven: towering trees clustered so densely that their branches formed a roof, blocking sunlight and leaving the ground mostly bare.

  Tannins from their leaves might have leached into the soil too, stunting undergrowth—whatever the reason, it created a spacious zone, roughly one hundred by two hundred meters, like a forest hall with high trunks as pillars.

  Patches of grass and shade-loving plants dotted the earth—ferns unfurling here and there, vines creeping low—but mostly it was open, easy to navigate.

  At the far end, a stream gurgled invitingly, its water clear over smooth stones, flowing into a murky pond surrounded by reeds and all kinds of vegetation typical of swampy terrain, lush and vigorous in the only sunny terrain around.

  Pawel filled both bottles with water and fully sated his thirst with raw liquid from the flowing stream.

  He scanned the nearby marsh for birds to hunt, as hunger was clutching his stomach by this point, and noticed some movement nearby.

  He carefully put down his backpack and, with hammer in both hands, began sneaking closer to see the situation.

  What unfolded before his eyes was a dance of life and death between a pigeon-sized bird with ruffled brown and green feathers and some sort of large lizard.

  It had a wide, flattened body around one and a half meters long. On its four legs situated on its sides, it reached perhaps fifty centimeters in height. Its head was wide with a short, flat snout.

  The predator’s skin was shiny with moisture, displaying a mix of colors dominated by shades of blue.

  The amphibian was moving in short, rapid bursts, attempting to close its maw on the poor bird, which jumped away narrowly each time, flapping its wings but not able to fly away for some reason.

  Every failure was followed by the lizard groaning loudly, vibrating its throat in outrage, then stopping all movement as if reconsidering—before another attempt.

  Pawel did not hesitate.

  He circled around the scene, making sure to approach the large lizard from behind, and bashed it in the head with full force.

  The spike did not strike true. It hit at an odd angle, and the weapon’s weight caused it to twist uncomfortably in Pawel’s hands, sliding off the lizard’s head.

  The creature contracted and jerked to the side, almost escaping the weapon’s reach, but instead of running, it twisted awkwardly on its belly and tried to right itself.

  Pawel adjusted his grip and hit it again, this time missing the head by a narrow margin but smashing into the neck. He repeated wide swings several times until the head was smashed, with tissue splashing after the last blow.

  The lizard still twitched, but it was clearly just post-mortem nerve reactions.

  There wasn’t the anticipated dissolution into purple mist.

  “So it wasn’t a monster,” Pawel said. “Even better—food.”

  Truthfully, Pawel had been thinking of the bird as his dinner, and for some reason had expected the lizard to disappear after death.

  Now he looked at the sprawled, fluffy bird contemplatively.

  “Without a fridge, it’s probably best to keep you alive for a snack later…”

  The bird crowed in disagreement.