Ötzi and Motso entered the cave. They immediately cheered up. A smile appeared on both of their faces for the first time in a long time. The cave was located in the outcrop of the mountain range. There was only one entrance, a crevice the size of a man, opening into a tunnel of the same size, a hundred meters long. In front of the heroes a huge area opened, somewhat reminiscent of the throne room of kings - a massive space, with high ceilings and golden lighting. Motso immediately imagined that after death, people would carve his image out of stone on one of these walls. There were no stalactites or stalagmites, the upper passageways were dry, the walls and paths smooth, as if some master craftsman had worked there before they arrived, bringing every detail to perfection. In the center of the hall was a crystal-clear lake of bluish color and fresh water. The youths rushed in and began to drink handfuls of water. The temperature inside was about ten degrees higher than outside. So, the friends felt comfortable. After quenching their thirst, they looked around again and counted ten corridors that went deep into the unknown depths of the underground.

"It's an endless maze," Motso said. "There is a lot of work to do."

Ötzi nodded in agreement, and they both laughed with delight again.

The next day, they went to one of the passageways, but two hundred meters farther, the path was blocked by a pit.

"Dead end," Ötzi said. "You can't bury a hole like this. It's three times the size of a man."

Motso looked at him from under his brows.

"Before you see a miracle, tell me. Don't you think the tunnel is too narrow?"

"It seems so."

The sphere hummed and the walls shook. Chunks of earth began to separate from them, which immediately flew into the pit. A minute later, the tunnel widened and the obstacle was removed. Motso dropped to one knee, his breathing quickening as if he'd run a marathon.

"How are you?"

"Overdone. The sphere…" he paused for lack of oxygen, caught his breath, and continued "…requires a lot of energy, and I don't have enough for it. And besides, I lost my concentration level because I didn’t use it for a long time. It’s fine, with some practice it’ll become easier."

During the last month of winter, Ötzi spent most of his time tracking animals. And with the onset of spring, as soon as the first snow thawed, he went hunting. Although it was extremely difficult to do this with one hand, but Motso never heard any complaints from him. The surrounding area was home to a huge variety of different types of animals, such as: wolves, bears, deer, arctic foxes, sheep, musk oxen and others. Since childhood, hunting had been a game of chance for Ötzi, and always with his own life at stake. It was difficult for him to admit even to himself, but it was at such moments that a feeling of real freedom and a desire to live arose in his soul. In the evenings Motso asked him about his observations, and he in turn was happy to share them. Ötzi said that wolves were very skilled hunters, and much more cunning than he was. And no matter how much he watched them, he couldn't believe what kind of strength of spirit these animals have. He also said that people are always trying to become wiser, but they are still far from realizing the world, unlike the wolves, who have long known this world. A world built on blood, which is the link between life and death, and which protects us from falling into the empty depths of the abyss, shrouded in darkness. And while the heart is beating, the wolves will be engaged in the craft that nature has given them-hunting.

"I saw it all in their eyes." Ötzi paused for a few seconds, then continued "they need to survive too, I mean predators, you know? We can't handle them… Even if it will happen that the wolf will be in our hands, most likely it will just turn into something soulless, dead, and take with it all the experience it has accumulated.

While searching for food, Ötzi constantly had to dodge in order to survive, so to prevent himself and Motso from starving to death in this icy God-forsaken place. Following tracks in the snow or mud (where the snow had already thawed), he tracked packs of wolves, followed them. At first, he thought that they were attacking the prey all together, but this was not entirely true. The pack hunted only large animals. They could chase an animal that had strayed from the herd for long distances until the prey ran out of steam. But those wolves that formed a couple among themselves, behaved in a different way: the female remained to watch the children, whereas the male went out to hunt small and medium-sized animals. Ötzi would wait until he caught a rabbit, beaver, or fox, then run out of his hiding spot with a club in one hand and drive the wolf away from its prey. After he would bring it to the cave and cook it.

"I don't know why, but I feel particularly bad at times like this. I see that white face, fangs dripping with the blood of its prey. He doesn't even kill them for himself, but for the children. So, it means that I take the food from the cubs."

Then Motso decided to secretly help Ötzi. He found a pine tree not far from the cave, cut it down with a weak gravitational wave, and the remaining part of the tree he planed. Then he took a few blocks of stone and tried to use the sphere to forge a spearhead. When it was finished, he threw his first spear, but it immediately buried itself in the ground. Without too thinking, Motso realized that it was poorly balanced. So, he decided to add some extra weight near the spearhead, in order to do that, he fashioned a tube looking counterbalance, at one side it had the spearhead, on another it had a hole where the spear shaft could be inserted, and in this way, the center of gravity could be adjusted. After numerous experiments, he left the counterbalance in the front third of the shaft. When everything was finally ready, he brought his best friend and showed the invention.

"It will help you kill bigger game." I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to make hunting easier, and here it is." Let's call it «a javelin». He held out his hand and pointed at the spear. It can be thrown at predators from a long distance, as well as, defend from them in close combat, if you need to. You no longer have to deal with scavenging. Now we are the predators."

Motso proudly, with his head held high, hands on his hips, waited for his friend's reaction.

"Why can't we use your sphere as a weapon?" Ötzi Asked. "I've seen its strength, it's amazing!"

Motso's face twisted as if he had eaten something very sour. He took a deep breath and answered:

"The sphere controls gravity, so to speak. Without going into details, it means that this is great for digging holes and widening narrow passages, which is exactly what I do. However, if we are talking about more delicate uses, such as hunting, we need to keep in mind that the power of the sphere will simply tear the animal into small pieces, and then how can we eat it?" He thought for a moment, then added, "we can still fire rocks or even boulders at them, but most likely, the attacked herd will simply run to the other side of the earth from the horror that will fall on their head, and we will not find it again. Scaring animals is a rash thing to do."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Ötzi was pleased with Motso's invention, which, by the way, he had seen not for the first time. Spears were used by people from his tribe, with whom he lived all his childhood, and would have lived to the end of his days, if not for the terrible tragedy when his people turned from predators to prey and after a bloody battle for survival, only he remained. Ötzi didn't tell his friend about it, he didn't see the need for it.

"I thought a man from an advanced civilization could do more," he laughed.

"We've never hunted. We only farmed, oats, fruits, and vegetables were grown. At most, fishing. I never even thought that I would ever have to kill animals! And there's nothing we really could use in order to make some traps."

"Okay, okay, I was just kidding. Thanks, the javelin will make it easier to hunt."

For the next few years, while Ötzi was getting the food, Motso did not waste any time, he went deeper under the ground, exploring different passages. But the obvious question was "how to avoid getting lost in this endless underground maze?" Then the young researcher created a tool from a stone, it was about twenty centimeters long, and inside it he cut four holes of about two centimeters in diameter that were placed at the same distance from each other. Next to the cave, he plucked some grass, bound it together, and passed it through the holes. It turned out to be a kind of rope, which he gathered into a ball, he pressed one end with a stone and left it at the starting point of his exploration. Then he moved forward through the tunnels until the handmade rope ended, and returned back. Motso made up names for all the roads, galleries, and halls, drew signs at intersections and forks, and estimated the distance to the next point. In the first room, where there was the fresh water lake. On one of the walls he drew the cave’s map. Together, the friends created a system of streets and small settlements where their future inhabitants could live. Thanks to the power of the sphere, Motso was able to change and correct the rough terrain in the cave, and to fill the deep holes that prevent passage; generally speaking, he did everything to bring their home into a suitable shape for human flourish. During that time, Motso explored about twenty kilometers, but the tunnels still did not end, there was no end to them, it seemed like, if he would keep going further and further, he would eventually meet the realm of the dead. An uncharted land that no living person should see and that should not exist; the halls of death and the wasteland of ghosts that are not marked on any map and do not have a name. After all, at the beginning of time, nothing had names and coordinates: no hills, no cities, no water, they were invented by people so as not to get lost. Vagabonds and lost souls like Ötzi and Motso, wandering the world in search of the very thing that will change their lives.

When the boys were just beginning to settle in, Motso asked His friend to draw a map of the area as they explored the land around them. And Ötzi did so. He spent a lot of time drawing a detailed landscape and approximate habitats of different types of animals on one of the walls of the cave. First, he carved a drawing on the wall, then took clay of different colors and rubbed it into the recess of the contours, and then covered everything with animal fat. Now they were ready to start hunting in a new way. Motso took the entire map and moved it to the sphere, assigned coordinates that they could use to hunt in the future. In addition, he explained that the sphere can teleport not only between worlds, but also within one planet every two hours.

"Why didn't we do it before? I risk my life every time I go out hunting."

"It's hard to explain, are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes. I would like."

"Well, teleportation requires creating an exact coordinate system inside the planet. If the world is fully explored by the predecessors, then the coordinates will already be set in the memory of the sphere, and I would be able to calculate them through my own consciousness, but when I tried to do this for the first time, nothing came out of it. If you would want to try your good luck and teleport, without any accurate data, it would be completely unclear how the sphere will behave. If it fails, it can send me to another world, galaxy, universe, and one of my ..." Motso stopped for a second, "mentor ... forbade me to leave this planet. But I'll tell you about it later. Generally speaking, when we found this cave, I was able to set our initial coordinates that will serve us as a starting point, which is very important. Then, as I explored, I added more and more new data to this endless underworld, and now, thanks to you, I've finally been able to add a map of the surrounding area. Therefore, starting from this day, we can freely teleport within the studied area."

Ötzi didn't know what to say, but after a few seconds he pulled himself together and forced out another question:

"Is it dangerous?"

"No. Before teleporting, the sphere disintegrates our bodies, turning us into... emm ... information that is stored inside it. Then it is transferred to the specified coordinates and it’ll restore us back. It's a complicated mechanism, you know, I didn't really understand it myself, and I didn't go into details, the person who created this sphere is just terribly serious one. You ask him what he's talking about, and he just starts making jokes and he speaks like a self-centered egghead. In short, I will also tell you about him later too."

Ötzi couldn’t make heads or tails of what he has heard, but it didn't really matter, because he completely trusted his friend, who had never failed him. When the preparations were made, the boys first teleported to the specified coordinates. They were twenty meters away from a herd of musk oxen. Motso reached up and raised the spear above his head, closed his eyes, and the sphere caught the weapon in the air with the force of gravity.

"Now I need to aim."

He opened his eyes and let go of his hand, the spear still hanging unassisted over his right shoulder. Then the sphere, like a cannon shot it forward, hitting the animal right in the heart, which fell dead before even understanding what happened, without even whining. None of his kin immediately understood what had happened. They were grazing, and a few dozen seconds later they looked in the direction of their dead kin, and ran five hundred paces away. Two hours later, the sphere teleported Motso, Ötzi, and the dead animal back to the cave.

They had been eating musk oxen meat for months. The skin and wool were used to insulate their own homes, which were built in a hurry, as well as to create warm clothes and blankets for the winter. Ötzi was glad that he no longer had to take food from the wolf cubs.

However, such outings were less successful over time. For example, once Motso decided to attack a pack of wolves (which of course did not quite like his friend). When he hurled a spear at one of them, they did not run away in fear, but turned and attacked back. Motso had been injured countless times in his first year of hunting predators, but the sphere had always helped his body recover. Yes, he could continue to kill musk oxen, arctic foxes, hares, and other harmless animals, but he was fascinated by the idea of competition, the feeling of fighting for life with predators that he considered his equals. Ötzi forced himself to participate in such events, fearing for his friend, and noticed that the animals began to adapt to their magic raids and did not allow themselves to be killed so easily anymore.

When Motso and Ötzi were in their thirties, the cave and the surrounding area were fully explored, maps drawn, and registered into the sphere. Each piece of land was marked with coordinates, and friends could teleport to hunt or search for something else whenever they wanted.

Motso and Ötzi moved further North and found icy dark blue waters. They tried to drink the water, but it was salty and very cold, and their teeth became cramped. One autumn day, moving along the coast, when the snow had not yet fallen, Ötzi noticed a small settlement of people. Friends were delighted with the find and went straight there.