CHAPTER 42 - Feared furball
I watch the nearest window as the sun rays of a new day shine through, lighting up every corner of the room. Bruma, who is sleeping right next to me, wakes up after some of the sunlight lands on her face.
I myself have been awake for quite a while already. I woke up after getting some sleep and regaining some of my strength, but I haven’t been able to rest anymore after that. This whole time thinking about all the things that I am now able to do and how to put them into practice in different scenarios.
Time flies by as dawn arrives and it is time to get moving again. Once more wondering if we should move carefully or try to pry in this city situation and roam around after scavenging something to eat for breakfast.
After hours of scavenging, we end up with nothing. All of the easy places to get food from such as supermarkets, 24/7 shops, and even gas stations are looted from top to bottom.
This only supports my theory of there being more groups of survivors here so I don't really get mad, in fact, it's the perfect excuse…
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Not much time has passed, and for the first time, I come back to where I have fought, only to discover that the charred body of the bear is still untouched, suspiciously so.
More than eight hours have passed since we killed it, yet there are no signs of anyone or anything taking a bite. No, that's not true, there could be missing parts of it on its other side, the one facing the rubble and soil.
As I get close I feel weird too, it’s as if I am being watched.
Me and Bruma go around the corpse and get to the other side of it, where we find a big hole in the belly of the monster. The monster got caught in between the rubble of the building when I made him stumble, so the charred exterior is only the back of the beast.
That in turn, made its belly, which was facing the ground, the less affected part of the finishing blow. The beasts that came after probably thought the meat would be more accessible from the belly and started carving out from below.
Confirming my suspicion, I see a fallen copper rod not far from the hole. Telling me that the very same wound I inflicted on him was probably used as the starting spot for another smaller and weaker beast to carve out somewhere to eat.
The exterior of the bear was extremely tough, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that not every animal would be able to pierce it, even if it was the belly.
By this point the sensation of being watched creeps again onto me, warning me that something is gonna ambush me at any second now.
I turn just in time to face one of the armored panthers I am already acquainted with pouncing at me from a patch of bushes. The thing is, I am not prey anymore for the likes of it.
I don't even get to move before its dead body falls to the ground after being struck by one of Bruma’s lightning bolts at low power. It spams for a second before staying still, never to stand up again.
Not taking the hint, its partner, another panther with an overall similar appearance, jumps at us from another direction.
This time, I am the one who reacts first, already scanning the place with my senses for its companions the moment the first one showed itself.
I create the smaller version of my qi blade to help me manipulate the qi into its tangible shape before it is too late and then swing it. The foolish feline drops dead shortly after, cleanly severed in half.
‘This really carries some serious power behind, even in a weaker and hastily made version.’ I take a good look at my nearly transparent weapon and then at its victim and can’t help but want to improve it even further.
‘It’s not the time, I should focus on more than one direction, not falling into the trap of focusing only on the easiest rewards to grasp.’ I try to keep myself from focusing on only one path so as not to miss out on the good things.
‘Even then, one thing is sure, this ability of mine is the real deal. I am sure there will come a time when I will be able to use it to help me slay one of those powerhouses I have seen before, like the minotaur, something of that caliber on my own.
It is going to be a long way to achieve that, but now that I even have someone to help me out, it's going to be a lot easier.
After dealing with both attackers, I scan the area for new foes, but I do not see or sense a soul, even while using mana to comb the area I don't get any response.
Ever since I have been able to somehow use mana to synchronize with elements, I have been able to use that same technique to see apart innate materials from living beings with it.
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Turns out that beasts for example aren’t something you can force mana to synchronize with, at least while they are alive. I have yet to try and do it with their bodies, scared of how it may turn out.
‘Wait, I keep feeling watched, is there anything else around?’ I suck more mana from the surroundings and then expand the range of my search before it starts leaking on its own, looking for anything strange.
It finally gets far enough to help me discover a group of humans a couple hundred meters away. I am about to try and look closely to decipher the exact number of people waiting when they choose to come out by themselves, at least one of them.
A young woman leaves the foliage where she is hiding and approaches us carefully but confidently. She tries to put up some kind of act of not being scared at all, but it shows.
‘She may be the only one in her group with enough courage to come out and talk after witnessing what I just did.’ I try to look around her with my senses to search for any weird fluctuations of qi or mana, but I can’t find any, leaving me to think that at least she is not able to use any.
“Hey! You there! Are you a human!?” She asks so from far away, not daring to get closer.
“Yes!” I shout back, not finding a reason to not talk with them.
*rustle* *rustle*
I hear more movement behind her and I see another one of her group come out, this time an older woman. Following appearances, chances are that the middle-aged woman is her mother.
‘If she is her mother, it makes sense why she now couldn’t just wait and see.’ That thought crosses my mind, but I push it aside, it doesn't matter to me anyway.
The new arrival gets to the younger woman and stays there in silence. Both of them seemingly getting confidence from the distance that sets us apart.
“...” The woman seems to ponder deeply about what to say.
“What do you want?” I don't have time for this so I press her for an answer. I already choose to not get too friendly with any survivors. I will refrain from any interaction with survivors if that does not imply getting something out in return.
“We were thinking… if we could take some meat from that bear… or the two panthers, if you don't mind.” So they are after the meat.
“Please.” Both she and the older woman say while they bow their heads.
‘Whatever, I will take a bit for myself and Bruma and leave. It’s not like I would have taken the whole body with me anyway.’ I think so as I go to where the body lies.
Another qi blade sprouts to life, I create it to get rid of the part where the beasts had feasted and cut a big slice of untouched meat before departing.
Before leaving though, I face them again.
“All yours, just be careful of any beast being attracted to the smell.”
I look at both of them one last time and can’t help but feel curious as to why they are both staying still, nearly trembling with a pale face. Then I look where they are looking and I see their gaze fixated on both the little white fox and the charred corpses in sight.
‘Ohh.’
“Bruma, let’s go back.” I wait for her to jump on my shoulder just as she always does and then calmly leave with my fresh bounty of meat on my hands and my fluffy friend on my shoulder.
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We make our way back, and the whole time I keep up my detection with magic. I try to get better at it and tweak with the process a little bit every single time I use it to see which way is best.
I try to scout the same amount of space around me in all directions, no matter the obstacles, be it air, dirt, or water I keep trying. I find some of them harder than others, air being the easiest one so far, probably due to the bigger presence of mana in the air.
I already knew that much. Air is the easiest and the earth is the hardest, varying in difficulty depending on the materials of the soil. Water is somewhere in between, I still don't know why, but there must be a reason.
The first thing that comes to mind is that there is more life in water and an easier route for mana to flow through, but it’s just a theory, it may be completely wrong even if it makes sense.
I maintained a range of about 100 meters the whole trip back to where we stayed before. Sometimes expanding and some others shortening the range as I see fit to experiment with the different methods I come up with while playing with the process.
The difference is nothing crazy, but it’s something worth looking into. The worst part about the whole process is how taxing it is, taking into account, that for each pulse or wave of mana I use to scan, I need to suck in more mana closer to me with the same crude method I develop.
It sounds difficult, but it’s even harder than it sounds. First, I need to push everything around myself away with qi for the mana to come rushing in while I burn through my reserves of qi. Using even more of it to maintain a barrier that keeps the mana I gather from rushing out of my reach again.
Then, once the mana is flowing around me, I need to force it under my control to work with it in whatever way I want with my will. Something that is far from simple, damn, I even passed out the first few times I tried.
All of that, again and again. Performing the whole thing each time I want to scan the place ONCE. By the time I reach the hideout, which wasn’t that far off, I am exhausted.
Not only are my qi reserves reaching a dangerous low point, but my mind starts to waver and I need to rest for my mental fortitude to slowly mend itself back up.
From now on I will need to do it only every now and then, I will have to take pauses in between scan and scan. That way, my qi reserves won’t run out of fuel that fast and I will keep improving while getting useful information at the same time. Even better, I will not have to focus that much on it if I grow accustomed to it and my mind will cope a lot better.
It is something far too useful to set aside in the current state of things. Knowing when new enemies get closer to you can be the difference between life and death in most cases, and I am not giving up on that.
The amount of qi I can hold at a time and absorb from the ground and the environment itself is still getting bigger with each passing day, so it will get to a time where I will be fine with the consumption. Who knows, maybe I can even pry out the species and the gender with my scans in the future, that would really come in handy.