While I waited I pulled out the skill ticket I got earlier and tore it in half causing the skill wheel to reappear and with a mental nod , spin. 'Come on something useful , papa needs a helping hand.' I mentally chanted hoping beyond reason it would actually do something. My prayer seemed to have reached something as the wheel stopped and I got the metal working skill which filled my head with even more knowledge than the cleaning skill did. "Ugh!" I groaned from the massive headache this caused me. Gaia looked at me with concern but I shook my head to reassure her I was fine.-
'While I can appreciate getting the full set of knowledge on the skill , I think I could live without the headache.' I mentally complained as I sorted through my newfound knowledge. 'Oh , now this I can work with.' I thought with a grin. As it turned out metal working covered the bare minimum that you needed to use it and it was a very low bar to meet. Basically you just needed a flat hard surface and a blunt object to technically work metal. It helped if you tossed the metal in a fire first but cold forging was totally doable as well. -
The only thing I was missing to start was the raw metal itself and I could probably find some iron by looking around since the stuff is apparently super abundant in nature. 'It helps I have a giant stone monster that can help me harvest the stuff.' I thought with smirk. "Before all of that though it's chow time!" I said genuinely excited to try fire roasted Zigzagoon. "Hey you want any of this?" I asked in my usual broken common and Gaia looked thoughtful for a moment before reaching over and tearing the roasted and very much hot corpse in half with her claws.-
She then tossed it in her mouth bones and all and started chewing it up like it wasn't fresh from the fire. "So that's what being resistant to fire damage is like in reality? I'm kinda jealous." I said and Gaia merely rumbled in amusement as she swallowed her food. She looked a bit dissatisfied with the portion though if the way she was looking at my food was any indication. "If you bring back some more I don't mind cooking it for you." I offered and she immediately stood up and walked out of the cave without a sound making me laugh.-
"Seems like I got a foodie on my hands." I mutter with a smile before blowing on a piece of meat to cool it off. Taking a bite of the meat careful not to burn my mouth I was surprised at how delicious it was. Sure it was a bit chewy and oily but flavor wise it was very similar to a fine cut of beef. 'It needs some salt and peeper but I could totally deal with not having any.' I thought before taking another bite.-
The sun started to go down outside the cave as I ate and hearing heavy footprints I turned to see Gaia holding no less than four more dead Zigzagoon's. She had already gotten rid of the skin and internals of each of the and casually dropped the bodies on the ground next to me before sitting down at the cave entrance to wait. I carefully set up two of the corpses to roast on one side over the fire before going back to eating my own portion. Unfortunately I was only able to eat half of my portion so I gave the rest to Gaia who was more than happy to eat it and the bones.-
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It was only at this point that I realized she had sat at the entrance of the cave not out of comfort but safety , specifically my own. The light of the fire reflected several pairs of eyes outside the cave in the growing shadows. 'Likely drawn by the scent of food cooking in the fire.' I thought seriously as the eyes seemed to slowly fade into the darkness after determining it wasn't worth the threat of Gaia to attack the cave.-
That was my first true reminder that I was in the wilderness in this world and I vowed not to forget it anytime soon. Knowing that I needed to gain more strength fast I reached into my bag and took out the exp ticket I had and tore it. [Congratulations on obtaining 1000 exp points! How would you like to allocate them?] The system said a a drop down menu of my options appeared in front of me. They were [pokemon] , [skills] , [abilities] and [level] I immediately chose pokemon since the stronger Gaia was the safer I was.-
I could always work on myself at a later date but for now Gaia was my greatest reliance. After making my choice another message appeared from the system. [Congratulations on pokemon {Gaia} leveling up to five! would you like to see it's status?]. I eagerly agreed and a comprehensive status screen much like that of the games popped up. 'Hmm , she seems to be primarily focused toward speed and defense. Oh? Her royal variation gives her a boost to stat growth in all directions huh , useful to know. And she has the sand veil ability which is good since it'll give us an edge.' I thought looking the status over.-
[Pokemon: Larvitar{Gaia}
LEVEL:5
Moveset: Bite(j) , Leer(n) , Sandstorm(n) , Iron defense(Egg Move)(n)
Variations: Royal , Shiny
Attack:64
Defense:75
Sp. Atk:45
Sp. Def:50
Speed:85
Ability: Sand veil(n)]
The little symbol next to the moves and ability meant novice just like it did for my own skills which made sense as instantly mastering a move would be pretty crazy. The j on the other hand was the next rank called the journeyman rank and basically meant having an average understanding of whatever it was next to. Personally I was more surprised at her egg move as it was honestly super useful for making her even tankier than she normally would be.-
I was a bit skeptical about the sandstorm move though as in the game it was sort of implied it legitimately effected the weather in an area but that was a pretty godly level of power for a mere level five to have. 'It probably uses energy to mimic the weather phenomena in a small zone of a certain size in reality.' I thought since it made logical sense. The other two moves were standard low level pokemon stuff so I didn't pay them much attention. Instead I focused on the fact that there was simply no HP stat on the screen which made keeping track of her health significantly harder for me.