Inside a lonely cave, filled with light that came from nowhere, sat a little boy.

His hands hugged his knees while his head rested on his forearms. The golden eyes adoring his cute face stared at the sole opening in the cave.

But that was all they did. No better said, that was all the little boy did.

Sit and stare at nothing.

The whole time, that was what he did. It seemed that nothing could or would interrupt the boy as he gazed at nothing.

Then, the sounds of cracking reached his ears.

Still, the little boy only sat and stared. Even after more cracking reached him, he just sat and stared at nothing.

Then, over the cracking came the shattering. Like a mirror breaking into thousands of pieces, the world around the boy shattered and dissolved into smoke.

Soon enough, so too did the boy shatter and dissolve into smoke. Then the same, yet not the same, golden eyes stared at the stone ceiling.

“Ahh…Phuuu.” A few more times, Adamu inhaled and exhaled.

The breathing rhythm helped his mind as it processed the memories that were both blurry and distinctly clear.

The clarity came from Adamu’s understanding of what occurred to him. The blurriness, however, came from the confusion of what exactly transpired within, especially since the memories wanted to disappear the more Adamu tried to hold on to them.

“Like a dream… or nightmare in this case.” Adamu understood. At the same time, a hypothesis emerged in his mind, but he refrained from thinking about it. It was better to just refer to that part of the world as he had done before, an Illusion. “But why the boy again? Should not the scenario change after I broke through the stupefaction affecting me that first time? Or could it be I just broke the effect and not the cause.”

“No. That is the wrong line of reasoning.” Adamu urgently reminded himself of the fact. “I can't break the cause even if I wanted to.”

“Since force is not the answer, understanding will do the job. I just have to figure out the clues.” With a nod and a formulated response, Adamu stood up and made his way outside his ‘birthing’ cave.

Through some hardships of ordinary darkness slowing him down, Adamu eventually reached the outside of the mountain and the cave passage he had been in. Once outside, he stared at the mountain valley, with the river running through its middle and the forest adorning the sides of the river.

Then he glanced at the rising sun, but only a glance. He did not dare to linger his gaze upon its brilliance.

Ignoring the Source of the True Light, Adamu chose the easiest route to reach the forest and happily walked there. Soon enough, he was immersed in nature, with winds ruffling the treetops and the abundance of leaves adorning them. Plenty of bird songs reached his ears as well.

While wandering through the forest, Adamu paid attention to anything usable to wrap around tender feet, plus something to hide his nether region. However, wherever his golden eyes settled, all he saw was work. Work. Work. Work. It seemed like Adamu would have no choice but to spend a good amount of the day either gathering a lot of big leaves, if possible and threading them with vines to wrap them around his neither region.

The makeshift footwear he desperately needed looked even more tiresome, as the only thing that stood out at first glance were the trees themselves. Specifically, the tough bark that serves as the skin of a tree. Unfortunately, Adamu had nothing on him to enable the ease of carving on such tough material. Meaning, he'd either get some stones from the river, preferably sharp, or spend an innocuous amount of time wallowing in despair for having nails and not claws by which to strip the bark.

“It seems I can't skip the river today.”

Nodding, Adamu remembered the rough direction of the river and piloted there.

Only it wasn't as easy as one hoped. Plenty of smaller trees, bushes, and rather rough terrain blocked his passage, thereby increasing the difficulty of the journey.

In the end, it took him quite a while to reach the river, or river bank in this case.

Once by its side, Adamu hid behind a tree and observed his surroundings.

The whole time he'd been wandering through the forest, Adamu paid attention to the one thing that would threaten him the most, animals, or Beasts, animals which had transformed into Beasts thanks to plentiful amounts of free-flowing Mana inside Mana Zones.

While animals would be a problem, Beasts would be a disaster to the current him. On top of that, if the Realm Grid indeed were corrupted, then a Mana Zone should have transformed into a spawning pit of Monsters. Monsters were animals or Beasts that had mutated due to overexposure to Mana, plus the corruption element making everything worse.

After all, everything could become poison if taken in the wrong quantities, much less Realm-building energies.

The raven/cat creature could be defined as a Monster. But Adamu had a hunch that it was something he'd not come across before. Especially since they dissolved after death, and one of them even rewarded him for dying at his hands.

However, despite paying attention, Adamu had yet to see an animal, much less a Beast or a Monster.

Oh, along the way, he'd heard plenty of creatures skitter around the forest, but somehow, the locals of the forest knew to hide from him. Which suited Adamu perfectly right this moment. In the long run, though? It was to be disputed. Since that meant he'd have a much harder time catching anything to eat unless he wanted to stick to fruits and seeds, which was fine, and all that, but a growing Man needed some extra protein.

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Either way, everything with half a brain knew that sources of water often were the perfect places to catch vulnerable thirst-driven creatures, much less soft and squishy lone humans. As such, Adam remained behind a tree as he observed the bending river bank.

Nonetheless, it was as if the creatures of the forest knew of his presence since nothing came for a drink.

With no other choice, Adamu broke away from his observation and meandered closer to the river. After observing everything in more detail, he had to admit that this place definitely failed to lure anybody since the river bank appeared much steeper than when he monitored from a distance.

Luckily, that also meant more safety for him. Unluckily, there was no easy way to just grab a handful of water and dash away. No, Adamu had to go in and personally dunk his head inside to drink the clear life-giving liquid.

After finding the best way to reach the water itself, Adamu observed the river itself.

Being freshly born from the Orb, his vision was as perfect as it could be for a human. On top of that, his golden eyes perceived more than just physical appearance. It was why he saw what he saw when the Sources of True Light/Darkness affected him.

Had he access to Mana, Adamu would have been able to see Mana itself as if it were something physical, and depending on the density, it went from light blue see-through mist to deep and dense clouds of blue enveloping everything.

There were other things he could perceive as well, but they were minor when compared to the ability to see Mana itself.

After minutes passed and nothing emerged from the river, Adamu grew extra suspicious.

“Could it even be that the fish are hiding from me?” Adamu murmured in slight disbelief. Still, a thought in his mind reverberated from its depth, and Adamu just could not help himself but voice it out. “Something fishy here!”

“Haha... Fishy.” Holding his chuckle, Adamu observed for a bit more, but when nothing differentiated itself from before, he knew it was time.

Finding the easiest access, Adamu bent down on one knee and plunged one finger into the water, only to instantly retrieve it. “It's not acidic to flesh. The temperature is fine as well. The consistency is normal, as far as I can tell. And there are no abnormal smells, not that I would know with 100% certainty if the water here should smell like every other Realm out there.”

“Sigh… Can’t delay it any further.”

A moment later, Adamu plunged both booths inside the cold liquid and cupped a bit of water to drink. However, he only took a sip before swishing it through his mouth, so all his taste buds investigated it.

Nom… NomNom… NomNomNom

Splash.

The water sounded as Adamu’s head dunked inside the flowing water.

With big gulps, Adamu felt the coldness spread through his chest. Only after he could not take any more, from the lack of air, had Adamu’s head risen from the waters.

“Holy Father in Heaven, whom I despise very much, that… was some GOOD WATER.” Adamu proclaimed as he gazed at the droplets streaming down his head, only to end up in flowing water. That was also the moment Adamu, for the first time recognized the face he wore, with the one familiarity he knew he had without any doubts, the golden eyes.

Technically, the golden color only inhabited the iris part of the eye. But somehow, the golden irises looked majestic while enveloped by whiteness on the outside and darkness on the inside.

Gazing at the face as the flowing water soothed out the ripples, Adamu committed the face to his memory before taking further notice of the rest by flexing the various muscles around the face.

What followed was a wide variety of funny and equally horrible facial expressions.

After checking his nose, eyebrows, and ears, Adamu patted the top of his head. “Curly brown hair? If I remember correctly, curly-haired humans usually originate from temperate climates. Hmm… Considering the boy should be local, the surroundings and the greenery, I won't have to worry about winter for quite some time, I hope.”

“Anyway, let me dunk my head a few more times before I search for some sharp stones.”

Splash Splash Splash

“Ugh… Drank a bit too much.” Adamu murmured while searching the river bank for anything sharp and patting his bulging belly. “Well worth it, though.”

Only his luck was on the lower side.

Almost all the stones appeared to be rounded down already. The few he found somewhat sharper failed to convince him to take them. Mostly because he knew that even if he shattered them to create the sharp edges, none of the stones were big enough to be held comfortably in his hands.

Hence, some good hours later, and plenty of shattered stones located in one particular location, Adamu was finally satisfied with his stones.

However, his fingers protested from the abuse. Unfortunately for them, it was not up to them if their master wished to damage them or not.

On the way back to his ‘birthing’ cave, Adamu paid attention to big-sized leaves. Here, his luck was rather good. The trees of the mountain valley forest looked and smelled ancient as if they had been there for thousands of years, which, if one considered a regular tree's lifespan, was most likely accurate.

Hence, big trees spawned big leaves. It was getting to them that was the problem, thus the search for a tree of decent size and low enough branches to climb.

Hence, after finding a good one and climbing to one low-hanging but thick branch, Adamu happily tore as many leaves as he could. That was also when he witnessed an animal for the first time, which spooked him as it had come out of nowhere.

It stood on the nearest branch beside him on its two legs with a very bushy tail providing it the balance it needed to accomplish such an upright position.

The squirrel, or one of its cousins, with quite a bizarre coat pattern, stared at Adamu as if he was its nemesis for what he had been doing.

Adamu, on the other hand, ignored the hate in the black-bead-eyed and brown-fured squirrel. Instead, almost all of his focus settled on the brown hide adorned with a strange. Specifically, the golden/white pattern it exhibited. The pattern was unlike anything he had seen before. But he was familiar with their purpose as all the Beast had them.

Yet, for some reason, Adamu failed to give this Beast the proper respectful attention because of its size and cuteness. He knew that was a bad, very bad excuse, but the more he stared at the squirrel, the more he felt remorseful for stealing from its home tree.

Deliberating it for one moment, Adamu made his decision. “Alright. Alright. I probably have enough already. So I will no longer be disturbing your home.” With that said, Adamu began his climb down the big tree. That was when he noticed others of the same species stare at him from the other branches as if he were some kind of exotic type of existence.

Wait a damn moment. Adamu urgently reflected and took a more extended glance at the rest of the squirrels and noted all of them possessed the same strange coating pattern. I may not know what the pattern does yet, but if all of them are Beasts of some kind, then the other animals in the forest should be as well. And if all of them are Beasts, are they sensing the dormant Bloodline of the First Man?

If so? That would explain their behavior around me, although it would be a big stretch of the definitions.

Given the squirrels one last glance, Adam dismissed them and continued his climb down the big walnut tree.

Looks like I will be relatively safe during the day for now.