My legs dangled off the branch as my mind wandered. It was surprisingly muted considering the situation. I could feel the creature taking strides towards the direction of the mountain.

For a brief moment, I thought about whether I could do it; beat the big bad monster. But shook my head. Even in my imagination where it sat still for 2 minutes, couldn’t I imagine winning against that. And even worse, with the location of the other constantly in our brain, it was going to be a head-on collision without any hiding, surprise, or ambush.

Maybe if it swallowed me whole while leaving me with a convenient knife that could cut anything with me, there might have been a chance.

But an option was a thing I wasn’t blessed with. Constantly. It always was do or die. My mind went further into silence as I stood up. I couldn’t feel my fear anymore. But I couldn’t feel the hard bark in my feet, nor the wind in my face as well.

As if raising the curtains for this match, the sky stopped spewing rain at me. I looked above at the clear sky as I made a fist.

The countdown has started.

----------------------------------------

I grabbed the head of a giant bat and smashed its head against the bark. I felt my head relax slightly from its death. Its friends who were fanning around me while screaming their heads off finally backed off a bit, intent on taking a bit of distance from me. Big mistake. The lack of strength of the sound finally enabled me to concentrate and use vitality.

I jumped, not caring about the 50-meter drop below me, and managed to barely grasp one of the retreating bat’s wings. I landed safely on one of the countless other branches surrounding me and tore its head off.

The last bat, too far from my reach, made the right decision and retreated away from my territory. That’s right. MY territory. As of 5 hours ago.

For the upcoming cage fight that I was scheduled to have, the most important thing was to primarily be stronger than I was now and the second was to have a home base to fight on. And what better way than to clear a radius of area of anything and everything that lived there. It gives me a home area for me to prepare on, gives me experience, and will solve my sleeping problem as well. One way or another.

I went about this plan by marking a random tree and circling it, clearing and killing everything in sight. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I have met no swarm or large group. But so far, my pest clearing tour was mostly a success and had successfully made a radius of about a 50-meter free of any threatening creature.

I met with all sorts of creatures in my rounds; A creature that had a head like a starfish that tried to latch on to me and do God knows what. A giant tortoise-like creature that had long limbs like a sloth and hung onto trees while being camouflaged. Vines that looked like, well, vines until you touch them and then they started constricting and trying to kill you.

After hours of hard work, I reached back to the center point of my territory, the first tree that I’ve marked. I crashed on top of a pile of leaves that were stacked together, making the worst bed in the world. But better than sleeping on the hard bark.

My stomach once again panged in pain with hunger but I tried to ignore it. I was trying to put it off, only having to eat when it was only absolutely needed, but with how my body was screaming for it, I would guess that now was that time. With a sigh, I got up from my gathering of leaves and pulled out the rubbery eel that was placed under it, and started chewing on the raw flesh, my only meal for the day.

Meals were the most depressing part of the day.

It was the only time where my emotions felt like they would burst out of my body. Like it would go out of my reign. I would start noticing the itchy feeling my dirty vest and pants were giving. Notice how my throat was feeling dry and how swallowing raw meat or whatever I could get my hands on while I struggled to keep my eyes dry sucked.

Notice how much I miss home... My family. My mother. Her cooking.

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But just as I swallow the last piece of food I force-fed myself. All of these unbridled emotions go back to whatever hole they came from. Sealed tight by some unforeseen force. Not to be thought of or brought back until the next time it opens up again tomorrow.

Feeling somewhat empty, I close my eyes as I dose off and go to sleep.

............

....

My fists flew towards the thick flesh of the creature covered with a thick layer of skin and fur. It unloaded a swipe with limited coverage towards my face, which I easily dodged. I dished out another swing between the gap of its swipe, which the beast shrugged off effortlessly.

My body tensed from frustration and worry from the repeated pattern. Each of the punches, although enhanced, was doing nothing to the mass of flesh and muscle in front of me.

My eyes although in front of the beast were also somewhere in a part of my brain, observing the faceless creature for any movements towards me. The bear or at least a creature resembling a bear slammed its paws into the ground, lifting the ground below my feet and throwing me into the air.

What the!

It slammed my body in the air with its paws, sending me flying to the ground. The hands that I defended with were bleeding with 3 claw marks on them. My queue for a tactical retreat. Before its slow sprint reached me as far as it threw me, I ran up the tree and back into the flooded areas for safety.

This was the second time I was fighting creatures in the elevated region. And on both occasions, I had to shamefully back away, keeping my pride by telling it was a tactical retreat.

Almost all the creatures who managed to keep their place in the highly contested region where it was not flooded were creatures who did not buckle from a reinforced fist or two and at least twice my size.

Dodging their attacks wasn’t a problem. At least till they start bringing out their powers. But the more important and glaring weakness I found was my lack of ability to deal high damage to these creatures without a weapon.

And maybe I should get one, there were many ways to do so; sharpening a rock to produce a knife, producing it from the bones of animals that I've killed. but I wanted to remove this glaring weakness of not being able dish out the damage needed without relying on items.

So, I did the only thing I could do as I chewed on the green spotted mushroom between my teeth. Plan. And preparation.

My body rapidly filled with power, sustained with my reserve being depleted at a higher pace.

So, this is twice the power? Huh.

I was seated down with the mushroom still in my mouth. The current aim wasn’t experimentation nor to assess how strong I am, but was to assess my limits and to trace their outline.

If I have to go any further, I’ll have to accurately and precisely know my limits instead of relying on an ambiguous feeling or sense.

When my reserve was about to drop to half, I let off the feeling.

Approx. 60 seconds. So, the consumption rate gets exponentially larger with the rate of power I gave out. So, with double the strength of vitality, I would last for almost 2 minutes.

Not exactly ecological. I focused on my fists. Reinforcing only the fists with twice the amount. My body was still covered with vitality, but only the bare minimum to maintain the reinforcement in my hands. I stopped when I felt my reserve drop further half of what I had left.

180 secondish. I think. ‘So, I could sustain it for 12 minutes more or less ideally if I only focus it on my fists or a particular part of my body.’

Finally, I focused on my index finger. I had about 1/4th of my reserve left in me. This was the time I was supposed to stop experimenting since I should have something left in me to be prepared to fight if needed to be. But...

I focused on the aura on my finger.

I thought back to the brilliant light inside the tunnel, the way my hands glowed, illuminating the dim hole. I tugged my mental muscle to change the aura in my index finger to that brilliant light. To the affinity light.

Perhaps because I was already almost drained, my mind felt muddled than usual. But I persisted, which came into fruition along with a brilliant light on my fingers. Even with having already seen it once, I was still left in awe as I saw the light.

Instead of my finger simply glowing, I felt that I was instead being revealed what it was originally made of. Showing what originally gave my finger substance, life, strength. Setting it apart from objects that merely existed. For a brief moment, I thought of the image of the soul. The brilliant grains of light together forming a brilliant sun in my body.

But time was short. I knew it was about to disappear along with my reserve within a second.

I pulled back my hand and stabbed it into the bark of the tree with all my strength. Expecting it to either give away or have my finger broken.

My finger went back to its normal self as soon as I completed the motion. I pulled my index finger out of the long hole that I drilled into and crashed into my butt.

2 seconds... means...... I thought hard, as my mind refused to think or flex its neurons. Means.... 6 seconds?

I could only use this power for 6 seconds at max and that too if I was prepared to empty all my energy in those small frame of time.

Not to mention the fact that I can’t use vitality during the duration.

But still... I laid my head against the bark, feeling a splitting headache rapidly approaching. 'It’s definitely worth it.' I thought as I stared at the pitch-black hole my finger made in the tree.

A pitch blackness that seems to exude the same feeling as the otherworldly gate I fell into. With the last of my strength, I dragged myself into the leaf bed and pulled it all over me; With the thought that they felt pricklier than usual and hoping to wake up tomorrow soundly.