I entered its gaping wound and began to wreak havoc on its innards. It screamed and howled in anger and pain but those were quickly silenced when I devoured its lungs. With its devastating injuries, it became weak on its feet and fall to the side. I wasn’t done yet and continued devouring until nothing was left. Once my feast was finished, I re-emerged from the gash I had crawled through, nothing like a good old, literal in this case, blood bath. I wanted to keep the hide mostly intact, which I kinda did, to use in future endeavors. I blew out the fire before any more prey items arrive and began to process the hide and flesh of the stiff-legged bear Now this is what I needed, a nice relaxing hunt and the processing of my bounty. Unfortunately, I knew that once I finished it was back to mind-numbing work, so I decided to savor it all the more.

…

I resumed my work until a disturbance in the surrounding mana told me that day was breaking, telling me I probably wanted to wrap it up and prepare for the harsh magic produced by the sun’s rays. From my previous experiments, I had found that most aspects the hunger are magnified, and I really don’t want to screw up hours of boring work. Though the sun never rises in this realm its magic can still faintly bleed through and cause me problems. I dropped what I was doing and debated whether or not to return to the mortal realm but with the sun rising I wouldn’t really be able to do anything. Might as well explore my new territory for a little bit.

I already removed the pests around the area, and they are known to become skittish after mass deaths and won't fall for the fire trick again, so I can’t do that. I began to wander aimlessly around in search of nothing in particular. It was weird being at peace, usually, if I wasn’t waist-deep in conflict or planning my enemy’s downfall I would still be preparing for the next conflict. Now there was no battle, the killing fields have ended, and my enemies have been killed or sent into hiding. I had to say though, I’m not really that good at this whole piece thing, it's only been like what, two days, and I have already begun killing anything in sight.

I guess it's in my nature, but I probably should still scale it back a bit. I brought myself out of my thoughts and observed my surroundings, it seems like I had accidentally walked clear out of my little area. I was about to make a spirit jump back to my claimed territory, but I stopped myself when I sensed something strange in the air, it was familiar, a bit too familiar. I stopped all my magic activity and integrated myself into my surroundings in search of the very faint aura. It was bloody and unnatural, I cracked a smile, strange how things work. But before I could zero in any more it suddenly disappeared. I wasn’t disheartened though, from the brief moments that I had zeroed in on the aura I had gained a general direction.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

That will have to wait for now until I could secure my claim, I’m not going to take a trip until things are locked down and impenetrable. I turned and walked back instead of performing a jump increase the aura leaks again but unfortunately, there was no such luck. Once I broke into the clearing with the bear’s corpse, I continued with the processing of the hide out of boredom. After that was done, I moved to the creature’s bones and broke them in half before eating the fatty marrow. After that, I played around with the bone shards and made a pen-like thing. It was a bit stubby and had a long thin bone shard for a tip and a whittled-down branch for the body. I actually quite liked it, so I began to engrave some carvings to make it more unique and pleasing to the eye.

I pricked my finger with the sharp tip and willed a drop of my blood into the groves on the tip, time for some fun. I grabbed a piece of hide and began to draw swirling patterns into it with my blood as the ink. The ambient mana began to respond to my scribbles and imbedded itself into the ink and in extension the piece of hide, fun times. To my mild amusement, it was actually pretty efficient, so I tested its abilities further and began to write symbols and runes which kicked the surrounding mana up in a fuss.

After a bit more of goofing around, I tossed the piece of hide to the side and began working on making a brush from the hairs of the bear. The pen is great for small runes with sharp lines, but it is limited by its inability to write on tricky surfaces like cave walls. The brush on the other hand is able to write on almost any surface and is good for drawings and the bigger runes. I actually used a piece of bone as a base this time and carefully picked out hairs from the main of the creature. Once finished I took another piece of hide, bigger this time. I had some herbal mixes that could be used as tribal paints leftover from the ceremony, so I got some water from a not so nearby stream and began making the paints.

I sat there for a bit, pondering about what I should paint, and quickly narrowed my options down into a concept painting. I prepared the brush and pen and quickly drew a general outline. A symbol of a concept a concept painting is the perfect thing to test my new utensils and a great way to pass the time. The painting was slowly coming together and after I had the outline done, I began to channel feelings of extreme greed into the brush.