The following morning came fast and Asur was up rather early as he normally did before. He had a habit for doing flexion martial art such as yoga which helped his body maintain its peak health all the time as well as giving him a calm state of mind.
Just as he was finishing, at the door, a warrior appeared and Asur saw him.
The man looked at him with a curious expression because of the strange yoga pose. “We have completed your work station and prepared the tools for bow crafting.” he said.
“Great.” Asur said and got up. He dressed himself in the simple leather clothing most tribe’s men had and followed.
He was rather hopeful for making a huge change but this went down the dumps in a serious fall very fast. When he arrived at the, rather shaky, site where he would be working, he thought he was in some game where he had to start at super rookie level and work his way to the master level workstation.
His mouth was twitching as he grabbed a dull stone knife, “Um… are these the tools?” he asked.
“Yes, these are the best tools that chief had us prepare for you.” one of the warriors said.
“Best! Best your mother! This barely qualifies as a carving knife!” Asur roared inwardly.
He had thought that the village, which had a very large number of wooden constructions and products, would have at least decent enough carpentry equipment yet this blow was too huge to handle. There wasn’t even anything besides a few different kind of knives.
Looking at the table, it was even worse, it was rough and chipped in countless places with grooves of axe cuts. It was clear they didn’t even know what a wood planer was. Even a simple hand held one was probably beyond them.
When the men saw his twitching face, they knew something wasn’t right and saw him sigh and rub his head. He looked at them with a serious expression, “Is there any obsidian?” he asked.
That said, the word ‘obsidian’ came out in english instantly confusing the man.
“What is this… obsidian?” he asked.
“Oh right, that is a word of my old tongue, it is a black shiny rock made from volcanoes.” he said.
The man shook his head, “There are no such rocks. The rocks we have are yellow rock, sparker rock and grey rocks. Sparker rock is the hardest and when you hit a grey rock on a sparker rock it makes many fire sparks.” the man said.
“So a flint stone. The grey rock is probably a common rock and yellow rock is probably a stone with a different composition.” He had a headache but decided that he needed to make his own tools. Without even the most basic tools, like a mallet and proper carving knife, he would not be able to make anything. “Is there some kind of stone yard or place you get rocks?” he asked.
“There is, we have to do a lot of digging to expand the village cavern so we store a lot of stone as spars for repairing the outside.” he said and took him to a storage room.
He saw the large pile of rocks and walked forward. He sighed a bit thankful that the rocks were at least good. He took the flint stone which was about the size of his head and a smaller one.
He had once played a game where he was in the stone age so he had practice making stone tools.
THAK!
A loud sound came as he struck two flintstones together but to his shock, they crumbled under his hit. “Ah…” He muttered as his hands were frozen in the air.
The rocks were clumps and not shards like he wanted. The difference is that shards break layers off the rocks while clumps breaks, round clumps in this case, it would mean one had a sharp edge and the other was round.
When he saw that his own strength was backfiring he felt like he was going to bang his head but took another pair of stones to try and do it again while he tried to control his strength. Sadly this resulted in too weak a hit, when he tried to hit harder it would be too hard and he would break the rock once more.
His face began to twitch as he saw this, “Are these rocks to weak or is it that my strength is too exaggerated?” he thought.
This was the first time he thought his strength was too high but this isn’t exactly his fault, it is actually a problem with how he learned about his power, which is from games.
The problem he is facing is actually because in virtual games, even if someone has nearly 500 strength and can lift a few tons, during normal times and even during crafting projects, the system of the game removes the excess strength returning them to their original strength. If certain materials need specific strength to manipulate, the system uses a trick, if the strength is too low, they make the material nearly impossible to work while if the strength is above, it would feel like they are using any other similar type of material.
This is why he is facing with ‘uncontrolled’ strength, there is no magical way to restrain his strength to human levels because his race is now an Asura who, at the lowest bloodline purity, is 3-5 times stronger than a human while at his purity, his current weakened state is already 10 times stronger. Just this shows how exaggerated his bodies power is.
“I… think i will take a while.” he told the man who came with him.
“Sure, help yourself, stone is the one thing we don’t lack.” the man said and left.
Asur turned back to the stone pile with a scowl as he took some stones and tried something different. He began to softly hit the rocks together, he listened to the sound which was to see which stones were harder or more strongly structured.
“If strength doesn’t work, I need to try and develop skills.” he thought and found a hard but heavily layered stone while finding a hard but densely packed flint stone. Flint is a much harder stone compared to normal stones but during the stone age, it was the primary stone used for cutting tools because they form with a slight edge. The one is his hand was bulkier but its shape already fits for a dull knife. What Asur wanted was to aim for the layers along the bulky side and thin the stone out before breaking the edges and forming the sharp edge.
PA!
At the first weak hit, at least in Asur’s mind, the flint broke apart and the other stone cracked since it was much bigger.
Asur’s face twitched and he took a deep breath before determination flashed in his eyes. Looking at the larger stone he decided that small stones would not work.
He began to look around and gathered many flints which had good basic shapes which could be molded. Then he looked at the large boulders, his eyes narrowed as he took the flint rocks he choose and checked the large rocks and found a suitable one. He took a larger stone from his pile and held it before striking the stone along the long side.
PA!
The stone broke into three. One was the side he wanted to break but there was still too much damage and split the rock in half.
Although it broke like that, he bent down and took the stones before his eyes vaguely shined. One of the stones had an interesting shape. It had a slightly curved blade along the damaged center with a wedge shape. The thickness of this stone had been as wide as his palm and the length was two palm lengths. Now the stone was one palm by one palm with one flatter surface and an ugly edged side but this was an extremely lucky result.
“Sweet, luck among unlucky results! I can make a hand held wood planer. Although it will be smaller and i will need to use the stone alone for a short while, as long as i build suitable enough parts to make a planer i can make a true wooden structure for it.” he thought.
One must start with a rough tool to make good tools. His luck was very good to have gotten this result. As for the other shard, although it had a similar shape but it wasn’t as good. He took it to shape a second blade but the stone broke apart upon the second hit making him sigh.
“Luck and skill are needed for stone shaping.” he muttered and took a new stone which was half a palm longer than his own palm and a palm wide. This one he choose to make a knife.
He held it in a particular manner and instead of trying to break a large section, he aimed to break the edge. The stone was thin enough and he simply had to break the edge. He used as little power.
The first hit just barely chipped a tiny piece of stone. He was hitting it only at the edge along the long side so it would not strain the entire piece, it could even be said that he was using the big stone as a huge whetstone against the small one to sharpen it.
It was much more exhausting to use a small amount of power then to use his full strength which he did not even know the utmost limit of. He had not even faught once so he was unsure for now. Still he controlled his strength to the lowest limit, which was still as strong as a human adult’s power.
He was putting ten times the care to not break these stones. Using his weakest strength he kept cracking the edges for nearly an hour before the last bit of dull edge broke off and Asur sighed and looked at the flint blade.
“This blade sucks but it’s enough to work with for now.” he thought and looked at the handle and knew he would need some leather to make a safe grip. He took the lucky blade he got and the knife and walked out of the room. He would have to make tools as he went but for now he had enough to work with.
At the workstation, which caused him to frown again, he picked up some small but thick logs. The first thing he needed was to properly make his work station, at least a flat top table and for that he needed a wood planer. He used the flint rock which was shaped properly and using it just with his hands he began to shave the wood into the pieces he needed.
The type he was making was very simple, it was a wooden block which held the stone blade and had a handle just behind the blade.
He spent close to two hours to carve the holes and the space for the stone.
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It was very rough but when he fixed the stone and passed it over the rough table and shaved off part of the rough table, he grinned.
He grabbed another block of wood and began to shape it into a proper smooth wood planer and spent only half the time to make this one.
With this one, he finally finished his first almost proper tool. He simply lacked metal now. With the proper wood planer he slit it along his table which was horribly scarred. Many wooden fragments came out the first pull. He kept shaving and soon the rough tabletop smoothed out. He worked the top and sides to perfectly smooth the table as best as possible for he would look for some kind of item to smooth it more like a sandpaper or maybe an animal pelt.
Still the smooth table did draw some attention as the villagers saw him doing this to the table wondering what was going on. “There, at least i have a proper place to work now.” He muttered and decided to start making bows through improving the existing ones.
There was a small pile of very long bows poorly carved. He took the bows and removed the strings, the stringless bow straightened up a lot.
He looked at the form and frowned before taking the knife and decided to start by smoothing the body which would also slightly reduce the weight but would make the bow more balanced.
Like this he began his first job in this new world.
***
BOOM!
A loud sound of crashing came from the front of the village gates.
“Who goes there!?” one of the warrior guards shouted pulling his arrow.
“Open the gate!” a cocky voice shouted.
Hearing the voice the guard knew who the voice belonged to, looking into the darkness, there was a single figure compared to the common hunting party.
“Open the gate! Baal has returned!” the guard shouted.
After a short moment, the gates creaked open and from the dark, Baal walked in and gripped over his shoulder was a shockingly large beast.
Three times the size of a common beast of the same type, Baal was dragging a massive rhino beast behind him and grinning.
“Call my father and mother! Tell them I have found blood flower and have hunted a Saber horned beast whose horn possesses extreme power!” He shouted.
Everyone exclaimed when they heard his words. His words held a special meaning which filled the eyes of the warriors with a red light.
Blood flower is a special flower which blooms only after being grown from absorbing the blood of countless fallen beasts. This rhino, with its high intelligence, had hunted countless beasts and cared for a small patch of these flowers to further purify its own bloodline.
Different from any sentient being born from humans, beasts can directly eat these special medical flowers because their bodies are bigger and they possess much more blood. As for humans, they need special rituals and medicine to allow the medicine of the flowers to enter their bodies in smaller amounts. This process wasted an immense amount of energy of the flowers which is why a lot of them are needed for a significant ritual. This ritual is called the blood purification ritual in which the blood of powerful beasts, many herbs and blood flowers are mixed and under the power of the seer, it is blessed during the ritual to produce a special liquid which, when bathing inside, the bloodline of those of the Asura race can purify their bloodline and grow more powerful.
At once, word spread through the village.
Adsila ran over to Asur after a short while, “Did you hear!? The chief’s son has collected all the ingredients for a Blood purification ritual!” she said.
“I did hear some people shouting about it? What does it do?” he asked.
“It’s a ritual passed to us by our great god, Adityas. This ritual allows our asura bloodline to purify and makes our potential much higher and we can grow more powerful!” she exclaimed
“Adityas? Isn’t that the leader of the good Asura from the Indian religions? Could it be that the asura gods were the source of some of the religions on earth?” he pondered. “Is that so? I was wondering but you say bloodline but shouldn’t most people have similar potential?” he asked.
“Of course not, there are more talented people like the chief’s son who is the son of the chief and seer. Their bloodlines are much purer you can see just by the Asura marks on their bodies.” She said and showed her left leg which had a faint mark. “I have a diluted bloodline and so my Asura mark is incomplete but look at you.” She said and her eyes filled with admiration.
“I didn’t know that, well the ritual has nothing to do with me. Oh right, if he can do this ritual, why don’t the rest of the tribe members do it?” he asked.
“It’s not so easy, materials for the ritual are really hard to come by, it needs blood from a powerful beast, many herbs and a special flower called the Blood Flower. The blood flower is the most important because its medicine can activate and purify our bloodline.” Adsila said.
“Is this ritual the only way to do this?” Asur asked.
Adsila shook her head and pulled out a small pebble no bigger than 2 millimeters big. It was a shiny black and the energy in the air seemed drawn to it. “This is called a Karma stone, though it is normally called the Bloodline stone. This stone alone can make our bloodline purify.” She said.
“Why don’t you do it then?” He asked.
“Because we can’t. There are many requirements like… um… the chief said it once… something about karma having a number value to it and to be able to see it, we have to travel very far to one of the known nations where there is a person who can see this value and that value has to be over a certain number for the stone to even activate.” she said.
“Really? So it functions on karma?” he asked.
“Yes, the chief taught us that this stone mimics what the gate of evolution does and evolves our bloodline and life seed.” She said.
“You know about the gate?” he asked.
“Only what the chief teaches us, besides that not many of the young people in the tribe have seen it before. That said, most of the adults like the chief knows about it since they were the ones who founded the tribe and they once lived in that kingdom.” She explained.
“I see.” he said.
He looked at the stone and saw it give a faint flash. “Can i see it?” he asked.
She nodded and dropped the little pebble in his hand and he saw that the faint flash vanished and it even became dull. He held the pebble near his eye before holding it out and dropping it back into her hand. It instantly began to react and regained its luster.
Curious he looked at her, “Are there any way besides meeting this person you talked about?” He asked.
The reply though was as expected, she shook her head, “No, only that person and it is expensive to have it checked out.” She said.
His eyes went to the pebble, “That’s right, how hard are these to find?” he asked before he turned around and picked up one of the bows he finished. It was much thinner and smooth compared to the common bow of the tribe. He began to add the string to the bow properly leaving it at a simple curve.
“It’s actually not that hard, the hard part is knowing when you can actually use it. Also everyone has to be conscious that eventually we can go to a gate of evolution to go up to the next realm.” She said.
“I see, if the purification uses karma, it will take it out of the final result you can obtain.” He said and finished stringing the bow. “Want to go try out the bow?” he asked.
“Did you finish?” she asked.
“I have three of them that I finished I just need to see their performance now.” he said.
“Really? I want to go see!” she said.
Looking at the well carved bows, she was excited as he took the three long bows to the training yard. Only the two were calm while the tribe was in a hubbub because of the ritual for Baal’s blood purification.
They arrived at the training field and he put down the bows and looked at her. “Want to try?” he asked.
“Me?! Oh no, I never trained as a warrior.” she said.
“Using a bow doesn’t need much training, just a little bit of mental work and a good stance.” he said. “Come on.” He said and made her hold the bow. She looked worried but came over and fumbled with the arrows and Asur’s hand quickly moved.
“Like this…” he said and had her hold the bow with her left hand next to her body, he then showed her how beginners nocked the arrow and then she lifted the bow in an awkward manner. “Wrong! Like this…” he said and quickly fixed her pose and giving her pointers. She pulled back and once more he once more had her make adjustments. “Now your vision has to go down the arrow just barely above it and you will see the proper target you will hit.” he said.
She aimed for the bullseye just like everyone and released the string but because of her inexperience, she wasn’t gripping the bow well enough and it shifted throwing the arrow off angle.
“Hold the bow firmly you can’t let the force it is releasing to shift or you will always miss your target.” He said.
She nodded and put another arrow and firmed her grip and did like he said, but as a novice he had to fix it up again such as lowered arms and such.
Woosh! Thak!
The arrow flew fast and hit the outermost circle.
“Good job, that is a good first try.” he said and suddenly noticed the red on her arm. “Did the string hit your arm?” he asked.
“Yes.” she said.
He sighed, “Then we will need an arm guard to protect your arm from the string.” He said but that was simply mentioning a needed equipment. He took the bow and nocked an arrow and fired.
Thak!
It hit just barely outside the bullseye from 50 meters of distance.
“Good, much better accuracy, only a small five or six centimeters off.” he said.
“What is… c-centi… mater?” Adsila asked.
“It’s centimeter, its a type of measurement equal to around the size of your pinky finger. There is a smaller unit called millimeter which is around the thickness of a fingernail.” he explained the best possible examples he could think of which was easy to reference.
“Ah, i see.” She said nodding slowly and looked at his arrows, “How far off were the old bows?” she asked.
Asur stopped and remembered the previous bows, he instantly looked down at his bare feet and pointed, “The distance was equal to the length of my foot.” he said.
She looked and was shocked as she remembered him hitting the bullseye with a bow like that. Now that she remembered how he complained about the bow quality, she knew that he was clearly very good at making and using weapons. There really wasn’t a comparison between his bow and the bows made by the village, he simply modified old bows and improved their quality to the point that one cannot call them the same bow.
“I’ve actually been curious about something.” Asur said.
Adsila was pulled out of her thoughts and was sluggish for a moment, “Ah, yes! What is it?” She asked.
“Well… it’s the fact that all weapons are made of simple wood and stone? Aren’t the animals much stronger and robust compared to those of the lower realm? I saw a spear run straight through the skull of one of the beasts when i was coming here but it was stone and wood.” he said extremely curious.
“Oh, it’s the power of bloodline power.” She said. “Remember how the seer has the blessing she added to her learning stones?” She asked.
Asur obviously remembered the mystical tablets, “Of course, how could I forget?” He replied.
“Well that is a type of use for bloodline power which is unique to the Seer, she evolved her bloodline using the third and most dangerous method which is to accept the power of a god from the higher realm, it’s the reason she doesn’t open her eyes or even speak much since that power greatly influences her body and she can’t control it that well.” She said.
“So there was a third method, but this one seems really restricted.” He said.
“It is, the seer can’t use her abilities many times within a certain amount of times, it burdens her body too much.” Adsila said. “Anyway, for warriors, they learn from a young age how to use bloodline power first to strengthen their body and later on to make it leave their body and cover a weapon. One can only become a warrior when they at least can fight with their fists.” She said.
“Is that why most villagers aren’t fighters?” He asked.
She nodded, “Controlling bloodline power is hard for us since our bloodline is so diluted, it doesn’t accumulate very fast making it hard to train. Though if we can purify our blood then we can.” She said.
“So it’s a simply a matter of purifying it.” He replied in a mutter.
She nodded in reply even though he said it without thinking.
He took the bow and tested its durability and then switched the bows until he tested all three and found their balance and aim were just within a short margin off. Only a little practice with these bows and a trained archer can easily use them.
“Well, I can safely say these bows are okay, I’ll be heading back and continuing the others.” He said and took the bows.
Adsila looked at him leave before she thought about the reason she sought him out, “Ah! Don’t you want to see the ritual!?” she asked.
He paused at the entrance and thought a while before nodding, “After I put these away we can go see.” He replied.
She nodded and followed behind with a cheerful step.