Chapter 6: I am the Firestarter!

Billy was exhausted by the time they had reached the Induction Centre. He glanced at his status screen. He still only had 10 HP left and his stamina was now 5/90. He threw the wood and the fox corpse to the floor and sank to the ground.

Lorna put her corpses on the floor too, opened the door and called the others outside. The others came out and had various looks on their faces as they saw the dead animals and Billy’s disheveled state.

“What happened this time?” Trevor said.

Lorna just held out her knife to him. “You know what to do. I need to clean Billy’s wounds before they get infected.”

“Why don’t I clean Billy’s wounds?” Trevor replied.

Lorna just thrust her knife flat against his chest. “You do it or the girls do it. I don’t care. Once I have cleaned Billy up, I will start a fire.”

Trevor wordlessly took the knife and then bent to sort out the animals.

It did not take long for Lorna to clean the wounds. They also found spare robes in the other rooms. Billy quickly donned one. He was still hoping to find some underwear or at least a loincloth. He was not used to having his bits swinging so freely around. But cutting up a robe for the purpose seemed an extravagance for the moment.

By the time they had returned to the others, Trevor had begun to skin the animals. Billy could only admire the smooth clean strokes he used. The guy had definitely used a knife before.

Seeing him looking at Trevor, Lorna said, “Billy is a good cook. We also were at medical school together. So, we know where to cut.”

Trevor looked up from his work. “Yep, you are looking at a medical school dropout who turned into an amateur chef.”

Lorna just smiled. “Hey, we lasted two years. It was a tough gig.” She pulled Billy aside and whispered. “I only went because my mother wanted me to be a doctor. Trevor however really wanted to be a doctor but found the exams too tough.” Out loud she then said, “Give me your knife, Billy. You rest here, and see if you can recover somewhat. The girls and I will start the fire.”

By now there was little light to see by but he could see Lorna take a piece of flatter wood and start slicing it so that it was flat on both sides. She then took a long straight stick and shaved off the bark. She carved a divot in the wood and after drilling a bit with long stick she carved a notch for the hole.

While she was doing this Su Li and Yuki were busy collecting dry grass. He could see that Su Li was still shaky on her legs and moved quite slowly around the clearing.

Soon, next to Lorna, there was a pile of dry grass and shredded bark and another pile of smaller twigs. She placed the flat wood on two stones, with the pile of dried leaves and bark underneath.

Lorna took the straight stick and stuck it in the notch she had carved. She placed her palms together on either side of the stick and moved them slowly down the stick twirling the stick rapidly as she did. She continuously repeated this watching the notch carefully. Within a few minutes black powder began to fall from a small hole in the bottom of the board. Lorna increased the speed of her hands and soon Billy saw smoke form. Lorna shook the flat board and then moved some of the kindling across. With a couple of steady breaths flame blossomed within the kindling.

With the girls help she arranged smaller pieces of wood around the flame, building the fire gradually until the clearing was lit with the steady glow of a warm fire.

Lorna leaned back and sighed. “That was easier than I expected,” she said softly.

“Oh?” Billy said.

“It was like the fire wanted to start. Normally it takes more than a few goes. Luckily the grass and wood around the induction centre is very dry. That helps enormously but it was more than that. The fire wanted to start. I could feel it.”

Billy wondered about what she said. The fire wanted to start. In a world where magic was possible maybe that was not far from the truth.

“When I looked at my status screen there was a menu showing affinities,” he said finally. “Do you think that has something to do with it?”

She blinked for a few minutes. “Mine now says that I have an element of fire a my psionic control is now at 1. There is also now a fire affinity of 5%. Hmm… interesting! I now have the skills survival and fire-starting.”

“Maybe our affinities will change over time. I wonder if we can control that?”

She shook her head. “There is too much we don’t know. Most of the stats make sense. For example, strength is for strength of our muscles. I have played enough games to know those will probably change as we level up. We discussed some of this earlier while you were reforming. None of us are sure what the actual difference between mana and psionic are though Trevor thinks that mana is more about using external energy where as psionic is about using mental energy.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“And then there are the cultivation methods,” Billy said.

“Yep. Well, this is supposed to be a tutorial so maybe we will find out some of this information.”

By the time the fire was in bloom, Trevor had skinned the rabbits. He grabbed some of the longer and thicker sticks and thrust them into the ground to form a crude spit. Everybody relaxed as the smell of roasting rabbit started to fill the air.

“You two have done this before,” Billy said.

Trevor smiled. “I have always liked the outdoors. I used to force Lorna to go camping a lot. She was never particularly keen except when it came to making fires or playing about with knives.”

“I watched a lot of survival videos,” Lorna said somewhat defensively. “I like to try out their ideas.”

They all sat and watched the fire for a while. Su Li and Yuki gossiped quietly to each other while the others sat in silence. It seemed a quiet and companionable moment after such a hectic day.

It was Billy who stated the obvious. “We are going to need more wood.”

Everybody looked at him and he shrugged.

“There were some bigger pieces over there in the forest,” Lorna said. “Come on, Trevor, grab Billy’s spear. Yuki you can come too to help carry.”

“I want to go,” Su Li said.

“Not this time,” Lorna replied firmly. “If we need to run you will slow us down.”

Su Li pouted but she nodded.

“Be quick,” Billy said. “It’ll be pitch black soon. And watch out for that squirrel.”

Billy was left sitting uncomfortably with Su Li. He had been a secondary teacher in the UK before working abroad in an international school but he had never been that comfortable socializing with children. And then there was the way Su Li had eyed him up after his Induction. That was not a pleasant feeling.

“You know you are trying too hard,” Su Li said, breaking the long silence.

“What do you mean?”

“I know you feel like you have to protect us. You died once already and nearly a second time. Lorna said you are trying to be a hero.”

Billy just nodded. “You are just children. I could not forgive myself if something happened to you.”

She smiled, “And you feel like a failure because you know you can’t protect us from everything. But that is because you want to run before you can walk.” She giggled. “Listen to me. I have never run before. But just like me you are learning to walk, Billy. My legs and your body are new. This world is new to use. It takes time.”

Billy wondered about such wisdom from a teenager. But he knew she was right. It was not surprising he had been so bad at fighting. He had never actually used this body before and everything still felt off. He had never really done much fighting even when younger. The few sporadic sessions of martial arts training that he had done were not going to help him much.

“I feel stupid and like I am the adult and should be responsible for you guys,” he said. “But look at me. My stamina has gone to shit and my hit points are so low a strong wind could kill me.”

Su Li looked at him. “Your hit points are not returning? Try to meditate. I tried it earlier. Felt good!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Just try it. Trevor and Yuki couldn’t get it but I did. I now have the meditation skill. Very helpful for you I think.”

Well, another skill would not hurt. He had tried various things in his life, martial arts, yoga, and most recently tai chi but never meditation. Still all of those had elements of meditation.

He crossed his legs and just focused on steadying his breathing, just like when he was doing yoga and tai chi. With his eyes closed he slowly breathed in and out, not trying to empty his mind but trying to just feel each breath. He could still feel the pain in his chest and his leg. With each breath, those pains eased until, eventually, he could barely feel it at all.

The sound of the others returning brought him back to reality and he opened his eyes.

He opened his menu and focused on his [meditation skill]. To his surprise, some more information appeared. [Meditation: meditation increases the rate of regeneration and recuperation. At current level you will regain 1HP per minute and recover 2 stamina per minute. At current level you can only meditate while seated. Note: you cannot meditate while in active combat.]

Billy quickly checked his stats and he was delighted to see that he now had 25HP and 35 stamina. He must have been meditating for fifteen minutes. He looked at his leg and chest. Whereas before the wounds had appeared raw and potentially could reopen now they had scabbed over and looked partially healed. The pain was now just a nagging ache.

Billy looked at Su Li and gave her a quick nod.

She grinned at him and winked. “Gotta look after my man!”

He groaned but knew she was teasing him. Still, he had to admire her mental fortitude. How many people would take being dumped into this world so well? He knew at her age he would have been in permanent shock.

“Any problems?” he asked the returning trio. Their arms were full of wooden branches and Trevor had been heavily laden with some thicker logs.

“None,” Lorna said. “Though there were some noises in the distance.”

Trevor dumped his load with a load groan. “Good thing nothing attacked us. Carrying this we would not have been able to defend ourselves.”

“We needed the wood,” Lorna said.

Yuki just nodded. “I need a shower. This place is icky.”

“Tomorrow we will look for running water to wash in,” Billy said. “The water in the centre should be reserved for drinking.”

“Just a few litres left,” Trevor said. “Right let’s get this food ready. I am starving!”

Lorna sat next to Billy and let Trevor get on with tending the fire and cooking. Within minutes she had sunk to the ground and was snoring. He assumed that her stamina had also bottomed out. No one here was super-human and they would have to manage their physical resources better.

It did not take that long for the rabbit to finish cooking. Trevor pulled the cooked rabbits from the fire to cool before adding a haunch from the fox to the spit. With Su Li’s help he placed the rest of the uncooked meat inside the centre in one of the empty rooms.

Billy was delighted to get another message after tucking into the meat. The food itself was quite bland and a little tough but the reward was sufficient.

Ding! He thought. With this and meditation it would not take all day to recover. If he could persuade the others, they would be able to grind some mobs to get stronger. He knew they needed to get stronger and if learn how to fight. It would be better to do it before something worse than the frogs or squirrels came along. But for now, well-fed and with the fading light making the area seem eerie the group decided it was time to sleep.

Trevor banked the fire using some larger logs and the ashes, hoping to preserve some embers for tomorrow while Yuki roused Lorna and helped her inside the centre.