Chapter 16

Chapter 16 – Sticks and stones

The night passed really fast as if it I didn’t even sleep, like every morning I activated my perception skill and checked my status.

-Ontopary bush Lv5-

Experience: 11/45
Rarity: Common
Health: 2/7
Mana: 17/17
Stamina: 2/4

“My stamina got down by two I guess it’s because of the weird stretching activities that I was doing for the last few days.” I knew that two stamina was enough for me to move for hours so it didn’t bother me at all, even so, todays walk to the forest had only two meaning to me.

The first one is to replenish my stamina and the second one is to make sure that the devil cat is really not around, I still was concerned that he is in the area and of course if that was true I be in a lot of trouble, but after surveying the area for three days I was almost sure that its lair is not located here.

I waited few hours till the sun got a little higher in the sky, I didn’t really know when did the cat return to its lair, even though I was almost sure that it returned at night I didn’t want to take the risk.

Time slowly passed and it was already near noon, I flew out of the tunnel as a rocket and went straight to the forest. I wanted to leave this trench for a long time, so even though I really feared the cat that fear couldn’t slow me down. But in reality, my speed wasn’t that fast and from the side, it looked like as if a weird green tumbleweed was slowly approaching the forest.

The ground slowly started to change in color as I approached the forest and went further away from the cliff, from grayish brown to green, the colors changed. The closer I got the greener it became with grass, bushes and small trees started to pop up as well, a nice feeling started to feel my heart as if I returned home.

All the way into the forest I used my detection skill to the best of my abilities, of course the range wasn’t that good, so I tried to find the monsters with my eyes as well. I stopped near the beginning of the forest not so far away from the cliff, the distance was probably one hundred and fifty meters or so.

Without thinking much about it I rooted myself into the ground and started slowly to revolve my view around like a turret, to see if monsters were approaching me. An hour passed with it another half, I dug myself out of the ground and went back into my tunnel. Yes, you heard me right I went back to the lifeless trench, no matter how I hated that place it still protected me from the monsters.

I returned to the cliff without a problem and went deep into my tunnel. “Good I replenished my stamina to the fullest, now I can be a little more at ease.” I sighed a sigh of relief because I knew that my life was not in immediate danger from starvation and I could relax once more.

The activity that I did that day wasn’t the last, I wanted to make this place little more comfortable for myself, so I started to dig out the left wall and make a small area for me to sleep in. It took me more than two hundred dig skill usage till the hole was big enough for me to barely fit inside.

I went inside it and said, “Ah at last I can stretch a little and not be a pancake when I sleep.” Being inside the trench was really uncomfortable, it was the same as if someone would be stuck in a small box like a sardine not able to move his body, so having just a little more space to move made so much difference.

For now, I went to sleep to restore my mana because later on, I wanted to start to train some combat skills. I woke up after few hours and it was almost night, but my leaves still didn’t glow. “Hmm, now that I can train, what kind of skills should I try to get?”

I had lots of time to think over this few days, about what kind of skills I can get but nothing special came to my mind. I remembered my old experience of me trying to get new skills, “I tried getting other element control skills or some kind of magic skills, but with no avail maybe I should try to get some combat skills like boxing?” Try to imagine a half meter long boxing bush coming at you, scary right?

“I did do a great work with the snake’s last time, so I should have potential.” I looked over to the wall that was directly in front of my ‘resting area’ and just started to hit it with my fists. It wasn’t my greatest idea, but if I didn’t get a new boxing skill at least I would get a level in wood element control.

“I should still be careful about my stamina, I don’t know how much this kind of movement will consume it.” I said while puffing and huffing. The hits at the wall wasn’t that strong, so I didn’t felt any pain or any discomfort from them, that way I knew that I don’t get any damage from this training.

Hours passed the night already approached, with it the haunting feeling came as well, I just flinched for a second and without much care continued my training. From this training, my stamina started to drain a lot faster than when I was digging, I stopped the exercise when my stamina decreasing to two. I just wanted to be careful and not hit rock bottom again, this time I knew that there will be no second miracle like before.

“I didn’t get a new skill…” I was little disappointed, “I shouldn’t get down, Rome wasn’t built in a day.” I said proudly as I tried to puff my chest, but it only made my leaves stand up a bit for a little. Now that I finished my training I had nothing much to do so I looked at the walls of my resting area and said, “I guess I start making this place more suitable to be my temporary home.”

I was planning to stay at this place till I dealt with the annoying devil cat or at least made the mark vanish, but I knew it would take me some time, so all I could do at the moment is to make this place a little bit more comfortable. I had few ideas of finding a more suitable place to stay, but for now, I chose to leave all those plans for the future me.

After I dug the hole more and more until I was completely fitted inside. All my leaves and branches gently pressed on the walls. ”This is much better than before.” I moved more to the center of the hole and rooted myself in place, after that I just went to sleep till morning.

Morning came I woke up quite early, after checking my status as usually I continued digging the hole even more, this time my leaves and branches didn’t even touch the walls when I finished. Then I went to restore my mana till noon.

I popped a branch out of the tunnel and transferred my view to it, I looked around and used my detection skill a few times, but no monsters were seen or auras detected, so I just jumped out of the tunnel and stumbled in the direction of the forest.

I did exactly as the last time rooted myself into a sunny area, and looked around for monsters, but this time after finishing replenishing my stamina I didn’t return back to my tunnel. I wanted to scout the area a little and started to prepare for my great plan number two.

I didn’t go too deep into the forest, currently I knew that I was hurt and could be killed easily, but I didn’t have any berries on me, so I should not attract any monsters and it needed to be done for me to survive. I went deeper into the forest while using my detection skill and stealth skill to the best of my abilities, slowly the number of bushes and trees increased. Around me, I saw lots trees and plants that I saw before, but this time I didn’t dare to pick them up because they would only be a burden for me right now.

Looking around for a little, I found what I was looking for, it was a huge old broken tree that was laying on the side, I approached it and said, “Time to gather some resources.“ With force and a help of my wood element control, I broke few branches from the dried tree.

The branches weren’t that big each one of them close to a meter, they were more like sticks than branches. I removed the dried up leaves and the twigs from them and made them little lighter, then I took them with back to the cave.

It wasn’t so easy for me to walk with them, I had only six of those sticks but it was already my limit. “Why I am so weak? I want to be much more stronger, maybe in the future I will gain more muscles.” I jokingly said when walking to the tunnel.

I looked at the entrance of the tunnel that was half a meter high and asked myself a question I didn’t think of before, “Where should I put the sticks?” I knew that if I placed them inside the trench they would fall deeper and it would be really hard to get them out of there, but leaving them outside was not the best idea either.

“Who knows maybe the devil cat will use them as toothpicks…” I said with a suspicious look, but then I facepalmed myself and said, “I can just place them vertical.” After that without thinking too much I climbed back into the tunnel, it was always hard to squeeze into the tunnel but with the new sticks, it was even harder.

The sticks made scratching sounds with the walls as I slowly moved deeper and deeper inside, I stopped near my resting place and started to pile up the sticks vertically behind the entrance to the hole. I placed them at the back that way they wouldn’t block my path and it won’t my life harder when I entered the hole.

Without thinking too much I started to dig through my resting area even deeper, after I leveled my dig skill to level four the digging was much more smoother, but it felt kinda new and weird. Before the level up no matter how much mana I tried to use with the skill it always would take the same amount, but now I could somehow control the input, even though it was really limited.

That gave me a general idea that some of the skills have an advance threshold and currently the dig skill started to cross that threshold, so in the next level I should get even more control over the skill, with that tough in my mind I started to drool a little.

After all, I dug here almost for a whole week, because of that I slowly started to enjoy it and thinking about getting better in it made me excited a little bit. I felt that my mana was getting low again so I stopped digging, “This should do for now.” I said with a smirk on my imaginary face and went to restore my mana.

After I woke up it was already was night, the creepy feeling came back as usual but without much care I continued hitting the fall as a practice , when my stamina decreased by again I went to sleep. At the next day in my trip to the forest, I took three sticks from the dried up tree and after that I looked for a few Gravis stones.

Luckily I didn’t need to look for long, I found few of them near a dried up creek. “Lucky.” I said with a smile, as I picked up four of the stones and placed them on my leaves as my branches ringed around them.

Holding one of the stones an idea came into my head, “Now that my inspect skill raised a level it should tell me more about, the rock right?” With that idea in mind, I inspected the stone, but I was only disappointed from the results.

*Gravis Stone* – Solid stone from the gravis material, the stones are black with minuscule silver lines on it, the material is quite heavy for its size but could be easily broken, mostly found near rivers.

“It added a color to the explanation…” I mumbled to myself as I awkwardly left to the direction of the tunnel. I climbed into the tunnel with a difficulty, “I should make some kinds of stairs here. It’s annoying for me to struggle to enter my own tunnel.” I started to think about this place as my home and if it’s my tunnel at least it should be more comfortable for me.

I got back to my resting room, piled my sticks and placed the rocks deeper into the resting room, that way they wouldn’t fall into the trench. But before placing the last stone, I took it and smashed it into the wall, that was inside of the resting area, the debris scattered around but didn’t fell into the trench.

I picked up one of the sharp debris, with it I picked up a stick from the back and I started to slowly sharpen the stick, “Soon, soon I will get stronger.” A cold glint flashed on my imaginary eyes, as I made the stick into a spear.

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Fun fact: Few other characters were supposed to be seen for a short while at chapters 6-7, but magically I am somewhat got to chapter 16… oops.

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