THUD THUD THUD
Three quick strikes on the fish's head with a stone ended the fish's life, and if it did not, it was bound to knock it unconscious, thereby interrupting the transformation of the golden Growth Pattern found on the dark silver scales of the fish.
However, contrary to what Adamu thought and imagined would occur, the fish did not stop growing. Soon, it passed over the forearm length to rival one of his fully outstretched arms. Once the golden pattern ceased to glow, the transformation ceased, but the fish neither moved nor flopped around in search of water.
With a slight flabbergasted frown, Adamu stared at the fish beneath him and glanced at the other one, which also finished its transformation from a little fish to a big fish. Naturally, there were bigger fish in the world, but for the river Adamu found them in, they did look positively bigger than they should be.
Either way, Adamu watched the fish flop once on the rocky river bank before reorienting its body, then all it took was one big flop to cross over two meters before docking back to its life-giving liquid. Once there, it floated for a few seconds for its gills to fill while floating horizontally on the surface of the waterside before actually righting itself and rushing away from Adamu.
Just before it was out of Adamu’s gaze, he noticed a slight golden glow from the river signaling another usage of the golden pattern on their scales.
Still frowning, Adamu examined the now dead fish in his hands.
Turning it over and over, he examined the golden pattern.
Still, it was not one he was familiar with. Meaning it was either undiscovered in the other Realms, which Adamu doubted very much or it was a pattern unique to Beasts who used Essence, thus working on a different paradigm than he was familiar with.
Either option told a story.
However, being sound of mind, Adamu opted for the second and thus adapted the uniqueness of Essence as a whole to the possibilities in regards to Essence Awakening for animals and what that meant for them in the long run.
“It can't be anything else but a shrinking pattern.” Adamu admitted after including and excluding all the facts, he was familiar with Essence. “A Shrink Pattern for Essence Conservation and Essence Condensation. Similar to the Essence Awakening of humans in the form of ethereal channels to conserve and condense the Essence as it accumulates over time.” Thinking a bit more, Adamu concluded that for the Shrink Pattern to occur commonly in all Beast, it could only mean that Essence accumulation was a far, far lesser problem than he imagined because while this might be an optimal form of progress for Essence Beasts, it left them quite vulnerable when they shrunk themselves. “However, this would mean that the Illusion has been in this world for a very long time. Enough time to shift entire generations of generations of pattern progression since Beast progeny automatically inherit the parents' Bloodline, unlike humans.”
“Eh. whatever. This just means I don't need to hunt as frequently.”
Picking up the arm-sized fish, Adamu carried it over the river bank.
There he began using his stone cutter on the underside of the fish scales. However, it took Adamu only a few tries to realize that he had, in fact, used the stone cutter on the vine tree earlier, hence making it rather dull as a result. Regardless, as much as Adamu desired to sharpen the tool, he knew he was running out of time because Dusk was slowly approaching, and he had other stuff to do.
As such, tolerating the duller edge, Adamu put in more effort on opening the fish and cleaning out the guts before eventually throwing it into the river and letting the river carry it somewhere where it would catch some meat eaters' attention because anywhere was better than this place since he would probably frequent in the future.
After all, it was best not to let some Beast know it could get free meals from him.
Once the fish guts were gone, Adam put two fingers inside the fish and threw it over his right shoulder. Of course, only after he put on his cumbersome footwear, picking up his recently acquired stick and the dull stone cutter in one hand.
Like that, Adamu made his way home, in a certain sense.
Along the way, he passed a certain walnut tree and took a peek at the squirrel colony, or better said, at the golden pattern on their brown hide.
Having studied the golden scale pattern on the fish, he was now far more certain of their similarities. However, without a careful examination, he could not be 100% sure that the cute squirrel could presumably transform back into their true form. Then, for a single moment, he compared the transformation of the fish and the possible size of the squirrels causing a tiny shiver to manifest on his body after realizing how close he was to certain doom.
Urgently, Adamu smiled, waved, and bid the squirrel colony farewell before returning to the mountain cave entrance leading to his safe little refuge cave.
Nevertheless, Adamu did not enter inside since he still had some sunlight ahead of him, timewise, that is. Instead, he left the fish, the stick, and the stone cutter nearby and returned to the forest in search of dry branches on the ground.
Since it was midsummer, it was rather easy to find those. Picking as much as he could, Adamu brought everything back to the entrance before laying it on the ground and returning to the forest for another run. After the second pickup, Adamu finally did what he should have done on the first day of his birth in this world.
“Indeed, time to make fire.”
Nevertheless, Adamu planned to cheat, at least if possible.
If not, fire-making would be delayed for the next day, only that meant raw fish, which was fine since Adamu needed to fill his belly anyhow.
As such, Adamu took a random branch and began his best at carving lines, circles, and symbols on the earth, at least where it was soft enough to do so. Soon enough, a circle, a square within the circle, a circle within that square of the big circle, and a symbol right in the middle of the smallest circle manifested.
Once the Magical Pattern was in place, Adamu put one tiny branch in the middle, right above the complicated Runic Symbol for Fire.
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“I should not do this, but since I have already scared myself once, it can't be that bad… I hope.” Saying it, Adamu kneeled and placed one finger on the biggest circle line. Then, he concentrated on his Spirit before allowing a familiar experience to wash over his Spirit as it resonated with something grand.
So grand, in fact, that it encompassed every part of the Realm he found himself in.
However, that grandeur, in Adamu’s case, also became the downfall because the very moment his Spirit resonated with the Realm Grid, it was like a fly stepping on a wet and sticky fly trap made out of spider silk. Only in this case, it was not an actual spider net, but a Realm Grid, which in truth was not actually a grid per se, but more like streams of flowing energies crisscrossing every part of a Realm, thus resembling a multi-dimensional grid.
The shape and form aside, one thing a grid did not do was actually be wet and sticky. Thus, for it to be wet and sticky enough to entrap something resonating with the Realm Grid meant it was also deeply unnatural. Thus, for someone like Adamu, who had a very high Realm Grid Affinity, the unnaturalness stood out just like a sun stood out during the day.
As such, Adamu, the moment he felt the wetness and stickiness, almost instantly ceased making his Spirit resonate any further. Instead, he let it just sit there, if sitting could be described as such.
Adamu’s goal was to make his Spirit as unassuming as possible to avoid drawing the attention of anything hostile against him. Only when plenty of minutes passed, and nothing on the horizon actually approached to make a snack out of him, had Adamu attempted to dislodge his Spirit from the wet and sticky Realm Grid.
Even then, he was careful to dislodge his Spirit by inverting his Spirit resonance to the complete opposite of what his Spirit sensed around itself, hence making them cancel each other out.
It still took some time to find a suitable resonance since he had to stop every few moments to avoid drawing the attention of the trap maker. But ultimately, thanks to Adamu’s very fast initial response, the binding was too weak to entrap him for long.
“Phu…” Adamu exhaled with relief before noticing that his vision was blurry. Blinking a few times, it was back in tip-top shape, but the experience remained. “Corrupted is a goddamn wrong word to describe that.”
Taking another deep breath, Adamu shrugged his shoulders since it was expected to some degree when his future self had warned him to avoid the Realm Grid. If Adamu had followed the standard routine every First of Man did upon waking as one, then he would have entrapped himself so hard and deep within that trap that it would have taken a miracle to save him.
“Well, traditional Ritual Channeling is out of the question. That leaves me to try Dancing, Singing, and Praying to a Deity.”
In the end, after a few more moments of consideration, Dancing and Singing was sidelined as well because even if they did not directly resonate with the Realm Grid as a Spirit did, they did pull on it.
As such, if something had the power to use the grid despite being entrapped, it had to be either through skill or strength. Since Adamu was neither, all that was left was Ritual Prayer. With that being the case, Adamu wiped away the Ritual on the ground and focused on making a new one.
This one was also made out of circles and squares but in a different configuration, with the first big pattern being a big square. Inside the square, a ring touched the inner edges of the square, and inside that circle, three smaller ones took shape, with another medium-sized ring right in the center.
The square represented the material world because it was a part of the cube pattern, with its three dimensions. The first ring presented continuity and containment, while the three smaller ones bore Runes for Light, Heat, and Fire. Basically transmission, transformation, and result.
The last ring in the middle represented another continuity and containment, only this time it also doubled as a target.
Done with making the Ritual Pattern, all that was left was figuring out the prayer, but that part was easy. As long as it catered to the Deity and their vanities, the wording did not need to be that precise.
Before actually praying, Adamu took the dry branches and broke them in places to make them fit inside the center. He even went so far as to make it decently looking. Then, Adamu noticed the position of the sun in the sky and went around his formation to directly kneel on one knee and face the Source of True Light.
“Oh, Light of the World,” Adam voiced out, with almost a singing voice. “Please hear this unfortunate Mortal's plight by sending down a Ray of Shine to Light this pile of Wood on Fire so that I may finally quench this Hunger plaguing this miserable Mortal shell.”
A tiny moment of silence ensued, causing Adamu to reconsider his wording, but then there came the miracle.
A tiny Ray of Light descended the Sky to land on the branches inside the Magical Formation.
Then, a second later, a fire puffed into existence.
Urgently nodding and thanking, Adamu rushed to tend to the fire by placing bigger dry branches since he no longer needed to abide by the aesthetics of geometry. Hence, the Ritual Pattern could be destroyed, not that it had done much considering the same could have been achieved through pure prayer, but that way Adamu risked not receiving a response at all.
Either way, once enough tinder was on top of the new campfire, and the fire grew without any problems, he began searching around for a few stones to encapsulate the fire on two sides and one thin but long or wide stone to place on top of which to sear the fish he desired to consume.
The stones for the side were easy to find. The top one, however, took some time to find, but even then, it was subpar, as it was on the thicker side. However, with no other choice and Dusk approaching, Adamu decided to give it a try.
Once the stone was placed on top of the fire, all that was left to do was slice pieces of the big fish. That one proved challenging since his stonecutter was on the very dull side. Luckily, he still managed to accomplish it after descaling the scales, and although it may not have looked pretty, it was still meat.
Done with the prep, Adamu returned to his fire and tended to it while waiting for the stone to heat up enough. Once it did, Adamu sacrificed one piece of the sliced fish flesh to let the flesh juices escape on the hot stone. Then, with the fish juices, he sorta cleaned and sorta oiled the top part of the stone. When done, that piece of flesh was useless to him, thus disposed of with one throw in a random direction.
In return, the other pieces got a rather pleasant sear, if very bland, because no spices or herbs were used to upgrade the fishy flavor. However, when Adumu took the now-seared fish meat, ate it, and chewed it, it was like his tongue had never met anything this flavorful before.
Without even noticing his actions, the meat went down, and by the time Adamu’s mind recovered, there was no more seared fish flesh on the hot stone.
“HOLLY…”
As if there was no time for it, Adamu stopped cursing and sliced off more fish meat to consume more fish flesh.
Only when Dusk arrived, and Adamu’s belly grew a nicely round shape had the craving for flesh ceased its control over Adamu. Thus, Adamu, already feeling sleepy, reluctantly stood up, faced the coming Dusk over the mountain to his left, and went to one knee to pray.
“Praise be to Ina, The Light of the World.” Adam almost sang out, distinctly aware that Dusk required a different prayer than Dawn and Noon, as common sense dictated to treat all three events differently. “Her Presence in the Sky may vanish from this Mortal's sight, but All know the Truth of her Grace, All know of Her Inevitable Return, just as All know that Her Path of Conquest will triumph over The Darkness.”
Another Ray of Light enveloped Adamu before The Source of True Light eventually vanished over the horizon.
Still, having some time before all Light got consumed by the incoming Darkness, Adamu enjoyed himself some more before picking up the rest of the remaining uncooked fish, his recently acquired stick, a lit branch to act as a makeshift torch to light the way into the mountain cave, and ventured back to his hideout inside.