Breathing heavily, Robert once again raised his hands with his conjured pickaxe before dropping it down. The lack of needed strength together with limited space for proper swing led to an obvious result - the steel bounced back, leaving a small mark on the stone. That immediately created a twisted grimace on Rob’s face as it was the fourth hit in a row without any effect. Finally accepting the result, he unsummoned the instrument and sat right where he was standing in an attempt to have a rest. Mental command redirected a part of mana flow from steel creation to restoration, washing over his body with a rejuvenation effect. The tiredness started to fade away, but Robert still had to keep the energy at a minimum level so as not to overstress useful ability, losing the possibility to heal himself in case of emergency. It appeared to be a crucial thing on this island.
Soon after his fight with the “small” lizard, he managed to create a vague picture of this place and its role for these monsters. To his utter horror, the whole land was a nest. A safe place in this water world for creatures, who could live under the unmoving sun. Hunting deep down in the oceans, they could easily hide from any threat just by coming out. The central mountain was literally crawling with them. Luckily, Robert saw only one more giant, comparable to a previous one which almost ate him together with another predator. However, that didn’t help him as tens of smaller ones posed enough danger to him. Living in natural caves inside the rocky hill, they occupied all possible covers from the outside nature, leaving nothing to Rob.
That was not the only problem as the thunderstorm he had experienced earlier wasn’t a single occasion. No, it repeated regularly, threatening to wipe out every possible living being, which was stupid enough to ignore it. And Rob didn’t have any cover to hide inside when he was suddenly caught in the middle of raging nature. Pressing his body to the ground, he even prayed to all Gods existed, but, of course, it didn’t help. The following lightning created a hole inside his chest, leaving him with burned flesh and unconscious from the pain. However, the latter soon made him wake up with a scream. He tried to breathe in, but the air just refused to move.
The level of awful feelings almost made him go insane as Rob was living through it without the ability to fall into darkness. His absence of critical points made him able to survive, but it didn’t mean that pain shock was easy to handle. Moreover, the storm hadn’t ended by that point, putting him in some kind of hell, where he, as a sinner, had to endure tortures without the possibility of ending them by dying. Still, he survived. Despite, his pity state, he survived. That led him to search for a way to adapt to such surroundings. To this world.
After conducting several tests, Robert discovered that there was a life in this place, filled with an overwhelming amount of water. The problem was in tiny detail - the first traces of inhabitants started to appear at least a hundred meters (around 330 ft.) under the water's surface. It was too deep for any attempt of prolonged stay. In the end, his self-made aqualung had limited ability to compress the air. No, correctly speaking, it was because of his lack of skill. But even with the ability to breathe, just sheer pressure could stop him because that deepness was only a starting point. That was the reason why Robert decided to build a shelter for himself instead of searching for one in the place, where he couldn’t reach.
It took time, but he found a crevice not far from the water. The overpopulated mountain was out of the question by default. What followed was hard work with conjured pickaxe, mixed with periodic hunting on smaller lizards. The steel wasn’t magically cutting through the stone, which appeared to be quite hard. Moreover, Rob himself wasn’t a knowledgeable or skilled miner. All his efforts led only to a narrow cavity, which he tried to widen right now after being done with a constant need to be careful even when turning not to hit his head against something.
Crap… I feel it is a different material. No chance I can break through it. My steel isn’t a mithro-vibra-mantium with ever-changing properties to fit the situation. Damn, what a shame!
Finally recovering his strength, Robert gathered all the rocks from the ground before getting out of his current home. Throwing away everything in the water, he stood for a few minutes, watching over the ocean before glancing one more time above his head.
Shitty sun. Hasn’t moved at all from day one till… Don’t know to what number…
The constant brightness was another disturbing factor that added on top of all the others. At least he wasn’t hungry as there was enough meat around. Rob once again thanked his ability to heal himself as such a diet without carbohydrates might have damaged his health already. Even if not as it was just his assumption about consequences, he was sure that his conditions would degrade by this point taking into account an addition of salty water. Filled with overgrown lizards, this place was already dangerous enough not to worsen his situation to a deadly degree by becoming crippled.
Surprisingly, it seemed this giantism was a common occurrence in this world as Robert even managed to find the corpse of a three-eyed humanoid, who was easily twice higher than Rob himself. He inspected the remains of unknown dead but didn’t get any valuable information. Even if it had a weapon or clothes earlier, nothing was left after being chewed by a lizard. Still, using a conjured needle, he found out the toughness of its skin, which was like a real rubber. Rob wasn’t a biologist but he assumed it might help the creature to withstand an increased pressure deep down.
That was it. No notes, explaining its origins. No maps, leading to its home. No riddles to uncover the real truth, a mythical secret of mind-blowing scale. Nothing. Just an ordinary half-eaten corpse. Exactly the latter part made Rob anxious as he couldn’t understand why it was left in such a state by a predator. Therefore, he just quickly walked away, not wishing to find out and get into more trouble.
He completely lost track of time, sleeping whenever he was too exhausted to continue his doings, but with decreased needs and permanent days, it was impossible to tell how long he was there. The single sure thing was that it easily counted in months. By some point, Rob even caught a vague thought that he started to forget the voices of his friends from Earth, their faces, even their names. The contrast between that life and current circumstances was so huge that it felt unrealistic. As he was always on this cursed island in the middle of the ocean. But the constant danger and mental pressure only strengthened Robert’s resolve to move forward.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
After finishing his shelter, he started to explore in an attempt to find anything, but only bare rocks with lizards awaited him. Hunting on the latter, Robert was on the brink of death a few times, surviving by sheer luck and the restoration ability. However, this experience pushed him further in training his ability usage, his physique, and his combat skills.
Rob’s self-made routine included a mixture of different training programs that he had seen or read during his life. They were not optimal in any way, and the technique might be wrong, but it nevertheless it gave results. The ability to conjure steel constructs appeared even more useful than he had previously thought. The limitations in weight couldn’t push him to the limit, but the load was enough for him in most cases.
Robert could easily create an ordinary kettlebell to make swings, simultaneously not only controlling the needed weight in the process but even changing it during the motion for extra difficulty. That way he could raise both his strength and precision usage of the ability. He ran and jumped with a weight vest, lifted conjured blocks, squatted or lunged with improvised dumbbells, made push-ups and curls – tried everything, constantly increasing difficulty, keeping a main goal to achieve better combat physique. Rob could afford to be weak, but not slow – the competition for power against building-size lizards would be a dumb idea. No, he had to be efficient.
Therefore, around half of his training time was dedicated to hitting the rock with different types of conjured weapons. Shadow fighting was thrown away immediately as the absence of any impact felt stupid to him. The reason might be in himself, but Robert was sure that he needed to be prepared for repelling effect against tougher surfaces. To feel the power behind each of his swings and simply not drop the weapon if the target appeared to be too heavy and strong. So, he punched with brass knuckles only to change it into mace the next moment before swapping it for the huge axe. Again, an ability to ignore the damage of the blade against a hard rock during training seemed insanely good.
Such concentration on personal combat prowess was fueled by the goal of killing the beast. Rob was sure that he could even stay indefinitely on this island as long as there was a population of lizards, but such life was basically imprisonment. No, he desired to get out of this dangerous place and was going to do everything to achieve that.
He had risen his steel summoning skills to the level, where previously trained instruments or weapons took around a second to materialize. Robert still needed visual contact, but at least he didn’t get something only vaguely similar to the desired result. His physique also got an increase. It had almost no effect on his appearance, making him only slightly thicker. However, the status screen couldn’t lie – he was getting stronger by altering cycles of training with energy rejuvenation for recovery, shortening the need for rest to non-existent.
Envoy of Wepwakor – Tier 1
Strength - 23 Agility - 12 Endurance - 26 Toughness - 18
Perception - 11 Mind - 45 Mana flow - 38
Energy generation per second – 340 pts.
Sustaining life – permanent 20% of generation.
Active ability 1: Restoration – up to 39% of generation.
Active ability 2: Conjure Steel – up to 121% of generation.
Passive traits: God’s Envoy, Interdimensional Entity, Avatar’s Body
Body modifications: Hive-mind, Steel Skin, Self-Supply, Increased Regeneration, No Vulnerabilities, Potential, Mana Conductor
Whopping 4 points in Strength, 2 in Agility, 2 in Endurance, and even 1 in Perception seemed quite a lot, but his toned skin was his biggest visual change. However, another point in Mana Flow together with new percentages on abilities pushed his thoughts in a direction not celebrating his results but thinking over possible difficulties. His balancing problem was out of a threatening state for now, but Rob would need to plan ahead to avoid falling into such a situation again. Still, that was a thing for the distant future. Currently, he had another huge problem before him as he was looking at a familiar pile of shit with an odd grimace.
Am I that stupid? Because I look like I am. Just a mere assumption and I am already trying to test it. A wild guess, nothing more. But what other options do I have? No other ideas on how to kill that damned lizard. It is just too massive for any attempt of an open fight. Moreover, it can easily ignore me and just dive into the ocean, leaving me with nothing. No, without a proper possibility to increase my odds, I can’t even think of fighting against it. And the ability to come closer – it could be it. So, brace yourself, Robert, shit is waiting!
However, the effect of his motivational speech expired in just two steps, when another wave of foul smell attacked him. Instinctively holding his breath, he somehow choked with his own saliva, which made him cough violently. The stupidity of this outcome led to a loud laugh when he recreated the event in his head.
“Me, who has the ability to restore any injury and has a body with literally no vulnerable points, can’t even handle the stay near the pile of crap!”
His voice sounded foreign. Spending all his time keeping silent with occasional inner dialogues, Robert almost forgot how it was. As if testing, he continued his thought.
“Maybe it is better to speak out loud… Nah, it is a stupid and straight way to a psychotherapist… if I ever manage to find one. Damn, I am sure I already need one with my hellish experience. Another note for the future, but right now I have a big problem – the shit.”
His idea wasn’t original and was purely based on his memory of how confused the first lizard was when it met him. All later encounters with other monsters, no matter their sizes, went differently – the predators attacked immediately without even a single moment of delay. Therefore, Rob’s assumption was that the huge beast wouldn’t react to his presence if he wasn’t caught by its eyes. That could allow him to target a weak spot. And despite the enormous size of the thing, it had one – the very same eyes, which he had to avoid. Robert trained a conjuration of a long pike just for this single purpose. The whole plan was quite basic and simple, but he didn’t have a better one for now. What was more, it still managed to struggle on the first step.
Because this step is not a figurative expression, but literally a step forward into a pile of shit!
Cursing once again, Rob finally pushed himself forward, almost jumping inside disgusting mass only to end this procedure as fast as possible. Immediately after, he moved away, while fighting the urge to vomit. Somehow, Robert managed to hold the stomach contents and calm his boiling simultaneous feelings of unwillingness, rage, and self-pity.
However, before he took a few steps toward the mountain, a strange sound rang out over the surroundings. Coming from the beach, it was very close to the horn but felt rougher, maybe even more natural and primitive. Hastily following the source, Robert soon discovered the scenery that actually made him fall into a stupor for a whole minute, while observing the unfolding event from behind the rock.
Huh? I see – everything is getting interesting…