Alex spent the next day and a half traveling through scorpion country. He sustained himself on their meat and the water from a cactus looking plant he had found. It had all the same features of your typical saguaro cactus except it was purple instead of green and the spines that came out were serrated. They looked like the jagged knives you would see a villain use in a cartoon. The water had a funny after taste that made Alex a little worried to drink it. He had already run out of his own water supply, so that left him little choice on the matter.

His snake friend had been oddly silent during his stint in the desolate wilds, which was just fine with Alex. It kind of set Alex on edge every time he had to talk to him. So, the longer it was in between each conversation, the better.

Alex didn’t know if he was getting closer to his camp or further away, but for the moment, it was alright. He had killed a few scorpions already and he was starting to get quite proficient at it. The levels he got also made it well worth it.

Alex Sullivan

Race- Human

Rank- Private

Grade- F

Class- Shift

Level- 27

Strength-165 (201)

Agility- 105 (116)

Intelligence- 52 (71)

Durability- 237 (277)

Endurance- 140 (172)

Health- 2,770/2,770

Stamina- 1,400/1,400

P.E.- 657/2,770

He decided to use all of his free points in strength. More than once during his fights with the much larger opponents, he had been unable to overpower them until he had taken enough of a beating to strengthen himself through his stores of energy. This was his main tactic, however the more strength he could utilize beforehand, the better off he would be in a prolonged fight. It wasn’t sustainable for him to get beat to a pulp anytime he faced off against a stronger foe.

With his stats allocated, Alex focused on his next obstacle. He still needed to find his way back. He would still like to fight the many beasts of the desert, but he would like to do it close enough to his camp so that he had at least some notion of his location. Which brought him back to his previous experiments. He hadn’t seen a scorpion for a few hours, so it seemed like now was as good a time as any to try it out. He had stockpiled the thermal energy that had accrued for the last few hours from the environment. It wasn’t much, but it should be plenty for a test run.

Alex channeled the energy into his arms. He could feel the heated currents and he tried to steer them the way he felt they would need to go. Last time he had tried this, he had lost concentration for a split second and instead of slowly being released, he had unleashed a more powerful version of his finger guns. It was useful, just not for what he currently needed.

Alex focused on his hands as that would be where all of the energy was being focused. He envisioned it all leaving in a slow, steady stream. It began to flow and Alex felt his heart quicken with anticipation. He waited for the results and…nothing happened. He didn’t even get a skill upgrade at all.

I guess it isn’t really that much different from how I have been using it. It’s basically just a slower, weaker version of my thermal blasts.

Alex thought more about it and realized he might have been going about it the wrong way. A slower release might be good to allow him to maintain altitude, but it wouldn’t really help him get high up. When he was growing up, he had made a bottle rocket with his mom one day. There was a tube attached to a bike pump on one end and the bottom of the rocket on the other. The way it worked was you had to pump the bike pump, it would send air into the bottle that was partially filled with water. What this would do, is increase the pressure in the bottle, once the pressure reached its climax, the bottle would fire up into the air. The pressure would slowly release from the small hole in the bottle pushing it further into the air.

The more Alex thought about it, the more he felt like this was how he needed to go about it. Basically, he was going to try to make the most powerful explosion to push him up. The only problem was he had no idea how to do this without blowing his hands off. He was rather attached to them and didn’t want to lose them. Alex brainstormed for a while before he remembered that he wasn’t really that smart. He instead chose to just wing it and hope for the best.

He pushed all of the remaining energy he had left into his arms. He thought back to his bottle rocket and how it had a small hole where the explosion occurred and envisioned the same in the palm of his hands. With his thermal blasts he had intended for the energy to be propelled out, but for this, he needed his accumulated energy to detonate right as it left his hands. He didn’t know he would do this. The only thing he could think to do was place his hands against the ground.

I should have done this with my feet. They are already on the ground. That would’ve been a good idea. Next time.

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Alex chastised himself mentally for not thinking of it earlier, but it was already in motion and he would either waste the energy or hurt himself if he tried to stop it now, so he continued.

With palms pressed firmly to the hot sand, Alex tensed as he released the pent up power. It erupted from his hands sending up plumes of sand everywhere. That wasn’t the only that got sent up though. Alex was suddenly hundreds of feet in the air, arms flailing wildly like a bird that was trying to impress its parents by demonstrating the interpretive dance it learned in college. Alex remembered his purpose for going that high and as he started his descent, he surveyed around him searching for the canyon mouth. It was dead ahead and would likely only take him a few hours of walking to arrive. He whooped, but as he felt his stomach rise in his body he braced himself for impact. He was really high up.

An instant later Alex was crashing back into the sand. He was buried to his knees. He drove his knees up like he was trying to break a board in the most inconvenient way.

I can fly! I’m like Mary Poppins!

The second he thought it his cheeks flushed.

*That’s the only flying person I could think of? There are so many cool people that can fly and that’s the first on that popped into my head? At least I’m the only one who can hear my thoughts. That would be embarrassing otherwise.*

“I heard it. I don’t know who Mary Poppins is, but anyone that can fly must be very powerful,” Nagaar said in his mind.

“Great! He’s back. She’s basically this magical nanny,” he explained.

“Oh a woman. Why would you aspire to be like a woman?” the snake asked.

“Wow! You’re a genocidal maniac AND a sexist. Why does that not surprise me?”

“Are there not men on your planet that can fly too?” the snake asked, apparently genuine in his concern.

“I’m not even going to answer that. You need to get with the times. You know, update your world views a little?”

“Are you a matriarchal society? Are you subservient to the females of your race?”

Alex didn’t know how to respond to that so he just…didn’t. Sometimes a non-answer said enough. Right? The snake must have taken Alex’s silence as his invitation to return to silence as well since he didn’t say anything else.

Now that Alex had a heading, he sprinted forward. He felt much more confident now. Before, he would cross over one dune and slow his pace, questioning it the entire way. Now, he could just blaze through the desert like a djinn trying to escape servitude. He made short work of the distance, arriving in less than two hours. The familiar sight of the canyon almost made Alex cry. He wouldn’t of course. Fragile masculinity and all that.

He rushed into the cave, fumbled his cup a few times, then nearly dove into the water tank. He quickly filled the cup and drank nearly his body weight in water. He felt like a water balloon ready to burst. He plopped down on the sand and fell asleep.

Alex awoke the next day and felt like an entirely new person. He was well fed and had plenty of water in his system. He was unsure if he would be able to make himself leave ever again. The desert was so hot and dry, and his cave was so cool and had essentially unlimited water. Yet, he knew that he had to leave. He was going to be a dragon slayer. Well, a drake slayer, but that didn’t sound nearly as cool and drakes were basically dragons, so he would count it.

He took the next two days to rest up and prepare to head back out. He checked over his supplies once again to see if he had missed anything. There had to something in there to help him navigate in the desert. The Saxans had lived in the desert for a very long time, but even they didn’t have the entire desert mapped out. Plus, the desert was always changing so they would have to have some way to get from point to point.

He pulled a black crystalline shard from the backpack. It looked vaguely elliptical with the two ends coming to points. He could barely close his hand around it, it was so girthy. The faces of the crystal looked like a woodworker had begun to carve it, but had gotten distracted in the middle of his work. There were deep divots all over its surface.

As soon as he touched it one of the sides started to glow. He set it down and it returned to its normal state. He picked it up once again, and yet again it began to light up.

Huh. That’s interesting.

He turned and the light began to slide across the surface. He turned the other way and it did the same. No matter how he turned or maneuvered, the light always pointed in the same direction. He walked around the cave to test it that way. As he circled the cavern with the crystal unmoving in his outstretched palm, the light began to move along the stone. It pointed straight for his backpack.

He moved closer and the light didn’t move. He moved the backpack to another part of the room, held up his palm and the light still directed him to the pack. He searched the bag once more, but couldn’t see what it could be pointing him to.

Looks like I’ll have to do this the hard way.

He set out every item from his backpack out on the ground in a line. He stepped back, outstretched his palm and followed the light.

Aren’t I supposed to go away from the light? Isn’t going towards the light a bad thing?

It led to another black stone, this one in the shape of a sphere cut in half. It was perfectly smooth, the two pieces being almost polar opposites. He set the smooth piece in his bag that stayed in the cave, smiling. He now had a compass. He didn’t know if that was the purpose of these two stones, but he was going to use it like that. He wasn’t sure what the range of the two items were, but he hoped that he would be able to use it from anywhere in the desert.

Alex almost skipped out of the cavern, the jagged crystal stowed in his bag. He could now explore the desert without fear of getting lost. Life was good. He probably should’ve investigated the rest of the items in his bag a little closer to see if they had any unknown, but useful purposes. That would’ve been the smart thing to do. But, why would Alex do that when he could go scorpion hunting? Hunting was way more fun and definitely a better use of his time. Alex was pragmatic. He wanted to use his time wisely, and grinding levels killing delicious beasts was the best way to do that at the moment.