“Yeah I shouldn’t worry about something I can’t do anything about, right?”

“yeah…”

I mean just because I can’t get reception anymore doesn’t mean they aren’t safe. Stay optimistic…optimistic yeah” Leaving that aside these sure are interesting...

“What to do—what to do indeed~” I hum as I try to understand this blue plant growing from a tree in front of me.

 Its breathing, isn’t it? Was what was going through my head as I see it contract and expand slightly in a gentle rhythm.

The air coming back out after each intake is warmed and the plant itself has a relaxing aroma permeating around it I notice after observing it a bit.

 I never really was interested in plants and stuff before but I can’t help but think how very peculiar and interesting these new kinds of plants are. After taking a quick snap of it I slowly reach out before gently plucking it from the bark.

I’m having a hard time not eating it as I am somehow drawn to do just that. I’m able to hold myself back but I really want to know if this thing is edible so I set out to find my first victim.

After just a short while I find it in the form of a wolf cub, if I go by its size that is half the size of its kind that I’ve seen roaming in small packs around this area. Having probably given in to its curiosity it separated itself from the horde and thus sealed its own fate. I quickly jump down from the tree I was sitting on – I like high places- and grab its neck and mouth. After swiftly subduing it I make some distance from the place I found this thing so that I don’t need to fret getting pounced on by a few dozen wolfs.

This is not the first animal I found after the apocalypse. Apart from the monkey I saw some mutated birds and wild cats as well as some kind of armoured horse which creeped me out as I saw it rip a 2 meter tall wolf apart.

 How? Well with its raptorial legs of course!

It was kind of breath taking watching them plunged into the wolfs hide like that. It looked like its natural protection would hold for a second there before those sturdy insect legs pierced right through in a shower of blood and gore.

Now that I look at the pub it’s not as normal as it looked when I picked it up. It already shows large similarities to the grown adults of its species. The canines, unusually big like sabretooths, and an exposed spine growing out of its back is a dead giveaway, which adds some protection to it and to be frank..it kinda looks cool.

I suspect It would be a whole lot harder capturing this in adult form. Heck even killing it would probably be as hard as the monkey if not harder.

“good that we didn’t stay in that place right puppy?” I say to it while ducking under some red and blue vines, with a glint in my eye.

After finding a good place to sit and checking the time -14:28- I take the rope from my bag and tie a leash around its neck and a nearby tree and lie the still pulsing plant on the ground next to it. After some hesitation and eyeing of the Cycleplant, as I call it now, it bites into it. Blue juice starts to flow out of the plant and dribble out of the hound’s mouth as it chews the delicacy as I see it close its eyes in delight. The instant it eats it…nothing happened as far as I can see. It just sat down and looked at me apprehensively again.

Well it does seem edible as it probably wouldn’t have eaten it if it was poisonous at all. I search the vicinity for any other plants as I wait an hour to see any form of poisoning symptoms surfacing, but it didn’t seem like it felt unwell at all as it was just playing in the grass after I came back.

I found three other interesting plant thingies’ while sneaking around as well as some kind of humongous centipede which I just smacked to death. It tried to attack me while I was picking the first plant I found, but when I tried to retaliate with my knife it just bounced of its chitin carapace.

Anyways the green plant, with a pattern of a night sky decorating its leaves, I found smelled really good. Actually, I only found it because I could smell it from a few meters away and picked a few stalks of it up to take with me. The other one was red and just looked like a fat squishy tube with some discoloration at the top, peculiar I thought.

The cub ate the red one which invigorated it as it started playing again even so it just lied down as it seemed tired. It stayed away from the green one so that one is a no no. After a few more tests I squash some of the green ones and dribble it over a shallow wound I inflicted on one of the bubs legs. With interest I note anything of interest and kill the now contaminated wolfling with a stab to the heart.

I notice the low battery status of my phone and quickly write a small definition under every photo I’ve taken and mark the places where I found them on my phones map before noting my position relative to the village and switch it off. I leave the corps on the forest floor for any lucky monster that comes across it as a short snack and go over the information I’ve garnered from my first four ingredients since the start of the apocalypse, while foraging for more on the way to the village.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

The red plant seemed invigorating and sped the body’s natural healing process up by a bit. I named it Healingtube, the Cycleplant seemed to get rid of bacteria and can be used on wound and for brushing one’s teeth as the young hounds teeth turned from a slight yellow to a brighter shade after just ingesting one of them. The lightly transparent brown one seems to just be a good food ingredient as it had a nice salty/earthly taste to it. Not like mud mind you if you thought that. I had difficulty’s naming it, but just termed it Earthsalt.

The last one was the green plant, which I termed Numbingstar not just because it sounds really nerdy but because of its property’s and appearance. The juices had dot and paralyzing effects. In simpler terms. It numbed the muscle around the contact area and hindered blood clogging. Perfect for use on my weapons as this would heighten my threat level against any creature for now.

 I suspect I can increase each plants effect by some via concentration and maybe discover other effects by mixing them together but that will have to wait for later.

Concentrating on the flow of energy in my legs, I jog at a speed that would normally be quite hard to keep up, but I’m slowly getting the hang of controlling the effects of ‘hardening’ and ’strengthening’ my appendages. I continued trying different approaches since the first time I used this aspect of cultivation and it seems to have short and longsighted effects as I don’t just fortify my body but also increase my control of this formally foreign flow.

It’s so magical. This whole situation. It’s like I imagined it in my dream. Fighting monsters, manipulating energy and even potion making. That my life changed so much is just so hard to believe, but undeniably reality; as I can still feel pain cursing through my body. Not just from the wounds I received, that are, I note, healing surprisingly fast, but also from mental pain.

The good thing is that this just makes me even more excited in finding prays that I can thrash and mutilate in cold blood~

Thinking about these things, while training my flow and control of energy I spend another night in this place before arriving at the small village of Timber Veil. I can’t await to sleep in a real bed again.

Thinking about the prime food and equipment I break the treeline just too step back and position myself behind a tree for cover.

Orcs. Many.

 A head count tells me that at least 20 have occupied the town, not counting patrol/scouting party’s and orcs hidden in buildings.

“What to do-what to do indeed” I just hum at the sight.

This sure is quite scary I think to myself while probably showing the creepiest grin there is. I’m so dead if they can even smell a slither of my stink right now. Every orc seems to be taller than me by at least 20 cm, meaning they are at leas 2 to 2.5 meter tall. Nothing to scoff at for sure. Just looking at their build with hands big enough to circle my neck with one hand and dumb looking enough to not be up for talking this out.

Well as long as they don’t know I’m here they can’t do anything about me..

After inspecting these new kind of threats I look at all the human corpses strewn about before my gaze lands on the fire place in the middle of the street where a fat guy was being cooked to well done looking how blackened his skin already is. Strangely I don’t feel to much about these. Not because I’ve become inhuman I think..hope, but because I can’t do anything about their deaths as I’m unable to bring them back to life.

I weigh my option. Either I just avoid this town and just try to reach another one, maybe even go to the next city or I try to kill every one of them. Yep this decision appears to be clear as day.

 I just have to kill them all, rip out their spines and strangle them with’em.

Ok, that’s overboard but yeah. I feel running away is the wrong thing to do at the moment and I have all the time in the world to construct a plan or maybe harass them to death as long as they don’t notice me.

The still has a quarter of its way left until its going to get dark so I suppose its time to check what these green humanoids are made of. After looking at the building my luggage should be sitting in I circle the village to see how to best approach this.

I first check how good their senses are and confirm how they are all muscle without any brawn.

First their eyesight. After finding a good test subject, a lone orc sitting on a tree stump doing some leather work on some pelts, I throw a stone next to him in an angle that should be easy for it too see. It saw it fly by its head and just followed it with its eyes before looking back down and continuing with whatever it was doing.

I thinking that I had to run away and hide the instant it saw the stone but it really does seem as dumb as it looks, but this just makes it easier to test its other sense without having to look for other test subject for every single test.

Anyways next is hearing. I throw another stone, but this time at a tree without letting him see the trajectory of the stone thrown…….. Nothing.

“Good” much easier to sneak up on them now as long as I move in the night considering its eyesight.

“just hope they don’t have night sight..”

This just leaves smell, which could be a real problem seeing that I didn’t take a bath since what three days? Was it 4? My god am I already starting to forget things? I’m 17 damn it.

I take one of my socks and put another stone inside before throwing it behind the creature. First nothing happened before it turned around. It picked up the sock, looked around before quickly hiding it in its loin cloth…

I just ignore that ever happened and note that I have to move with moderate vigilance of wind direction to stay undetected.

After checking this on another victim just to be sure that the first one wasn’t a fluke and because I have to stinky socks and not just one I turn around and head back into the forest to spend my time efficiently waiting to see if their head count goes up of if the total number really amounts to 20.

I forage some more plants, but sadly don’t find any others that don’t just turn into dust and scatter like that purple one earlier, and train my energy some more.

The time flew by really fast as I’ve not just stocked up on my four baby’s but also got to crack three to two nother cores as some stupid cat-reptile creature and its buddy’s thought I was easy prey. Well think twice next time kittens~. A few well placed kicks and two knife stabs seemed to do the trick.

Night came fast so after eating a quick snack I turn back to the village to see if this group is going to be a tender meal or a chewy one.