As Turul flew closer on his powerful wings and was about to land, Mike saw what animal it was that Turul had brought, a deer.
Once Turul landed near Mike about 5 feet away with powerful gusts coming off him from him flapping his wings, Mike was able to get a closer look at this animal. It looked exactly as any regular deer would with no altercations on it. So Mike decided to go on ahead and scan it so that he would know exactly what it was.
With a scan that took about 5-10 minutes Mike was able to figure out what exactly this deer was.
--Mana Deer: A deer with a very small amount of magic, though not enough to use actual magic, it brings about benefits for the deer's strength and health. This deer looks like a regular deer except for the dark splotch on its lower abdomen where the mana is concentrated.
Environment: Forest
Effects:N/A
Danger Level: Moderate
Rarity:Uncommon
Looking at the deer some more it didn't have any sort of laceration or wound on it, however it looks like Turul killed it by snapping its neck. Acknowledging Turul's strength Mike began to go around gathering limbs of trees that had fallen to the ground and snapping off lower hanging ones in order to get something close to a fire going, which would have to be Mike's job and hopefully he could do this from what little practice he had in the Boys Scouts when he was 12.
After picking a large amount of suitable sticks for fire making Mike walked back to where the deer was and plopped all the sticks down next to it.
Racking his brain for how he was supposed to do it was very difficult from body standards it would only have been 7 years, but from actual standards it was 28 years ago since he'd done something like that which was a really long time ago. Luckily there were very famous videos on youtube that he'd watch in his off time that had such information or he'd really be clueless on how to even start.
"Something like a tent shape?" Try as he might Mike still had no clue on really what to do, after all he was an office worker not a person who goes out into the wild and explores.
"Something about tinder as well, how do I make that?" Mike looked at all the limbs he had and was clueless on how to make a fire, thinking it over tinder was a mesh of flammable material so maybe getting these sticks and cutting the bark off of it might make something for him, Mike was a problem solver such problems with easy solutions were easy to solve for him. Thinking through such things the memories of Boy Scouts started to come back to him.
There was one problem though, Mike didn't have a knife in order to cut the bark off the wood he had.
Looking around for any way in which he could do this, Mike looked at Turul who was sitting somewhat close by near the deer keeping watch to make sure nothing happened, as he looked at Turul he stared at his talons and thought of an idea that might work.
"Hey Turul, can you come over here and shave off the bark from these pieces of wood?"
Once Turul heard Mike ask that he walked over and looked at the somewhat thick limb that Mike held in his hand.
Turul pulled the limb from out of Mikes hand with his talons and stuck one end into the floor, then he took one of his sharp talons then proceeded to shave of delicate yet long shaves of wood off the limb making a pile in front of it.
Once Turul finished with one he went on to the next one, then Mike picked up the tree limb to put into a pile for the fire, however he realized how almost soft it felt, you wouldn't have guessed this from the hard bark on the outside.
As Turul finished about a piles worth of shaving on the ground he had done this for 4-5 pieces of wood. Mike realized that instead of using the bark he could use the soft inner pieces of wood as a mesh by pulling it apart and making fiber out of it.
Once he thought of this Mike put it into action taking one of the thicker and longer pieces of soft wood, Mike started to pinch and pull the fiber apart making what he wanted, Once finished with it he proceeded to the next one doing this for about 3 of them was all was needed for now.
Done with this, it had been about an hour since Mike had even seen the deer and he was hungry, so he was ready to start the fire, if he knew how to of course.
"Maybe rub two sticks together?" Mike vaguely remembered something about a long log, and a sturdy limb then making an indent in the bigger piece then rubbing it to make a charcoal for the mesh, but he didn't know how exactly to do that well.
With this method in mind Mike started to proceed with it, Mike looked around for a long log, once found he brought it back to the base of operations.
Taking this log he asked for Turul to make a shallow line in it for his next process.
Using a small but sturdy piece of wood Mike started to rub the end into the wood lightly, then as it was smoking, Mike started to excitedly pick up speed and put in more pressure, it started smoking more and making bits and pieces of burnt wood near the front, putting more pressure and speed into it finally resulted in a small piece of charcoal to be where all the burnt pieces of wood was.
Tipping the large log over into the mesh for the charcoal to start smoking, Mike started to rub the mesh around the charcoal and breath into it periodically, even if he was a white collar he knew how not to smother a flame.
Once it started to smoke a lot he breathed heavily into it causing a fire to start afraid to lose it he gently set it down on the ground, then taking the pieces of shaving, he held onto the end and allowed the fire to start to burn at it and slowly added more and more of it.
After a period of about 5 minutes and finally putting full sticks into the fire Mike had a full blown fire ready.
Jumping around and yelling in excitement over beating this major hurtle, Turul joined him in his happiness, even though he didn't really know why Mike had done it, he just knew it was needed.
After calming down, Mike made sure that the fire would be able to go on its own for a while then looked towards the deer.
"We don't have to skin it we just need enough meat to eat in order to be full for now." With this plan in mind Mike pulled Turul over with him too the deer where they'd have to pull out all the organs so it wouldn't stink.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Getting Turul to slice open his stomach was the easiest part of this, it's what came afterwards that was the problem, it plainly stunk and Mike had never done this before.
Pulling off his shirt and getting close but gagging and dry heaving was what mostly stopped Mike in his tracks from continuing on with this plan. Pulling himself together in an area where it didn't smell like rot, Mike once again set off on what he needed to do.
Finally after what felt like ages to Mike, he started to pull out the organs he could feel, though the sensation was disgusting he couldn't rely on Turul to do everything for him, in order to get by in this world he'd have to man up a little bit. As Mike had also never done this before he had no idea what he was doing really he just remembered hearing this from someone he knew that hunted a lot.
Pulling out the heart and lungs was the easiest since those were generally in the same location for most animals, though he had more problems with the lungs since they were a lot bigger than he had thought they'd be. Pulling out some more organs that Mike couldn't even identify was all he could do before running away from the area trying to stop himself from throwing up what little he still had in his stomach.
Finally after ages of doing this disgusting thing the smell and sensation began to not bother Mike so much and he managed to get out all the stuff he could feel.
Once done he was soaked in deer blood, he had forgotten to drain it of blood before he started, but that didn't bother him, Mike had started to gain his appetite again and it was screaming at him to get some food in his stomach, even though he just did something really disgusting.
Having Turul slice off a piece of inner meat from the deer's stomach and shave off a lot of the fat from it, Mike grabbed a big stick put the meat on it and put it over the fire ready for his first feast after it was done.
Sitting with Turul beside him Mike was looking at the surroundings and the fire that he had started and realized, he really had survived this far, he was lucky in gaining Turul as a companion and being able to survive this long was almost completely because of him. Yet still looking at Turul, Mike realized he hadn't eaten any of the deer yet.
"Turul why aren't you eating any of the deer? Or do you prefer your meat cooked as well?" Shaking his head Turul stood up and then proceeded to eat all the organs that Mike had pulled out earlier, once done he sat back down next to Mike with as much as a content expression a bird could have.
'Was he waiting for me to tell him that he could eat?' Thinking such things was a first for Mike, most pets don't have that level of control especially as babies.
"Turul you don't have to wait for me to tell you that you can eat if that was the reason that you did so, go on ahead and eat when you're hungry since you'd most likely be the one to catch the animals that were going to eat." Nodding Turul once again closed his eyes and rested next to the fire and its warmth, sure that there was no dangers around.
After flipping the piece of meat over a couple of times after about 30 minutes of waiting with a rumbling stomach, it started changing to a brownish color and releasing a smell that made Mike really hungry.
Once sure that the steak was done, Mike grabbed the steak and was about to bite into it before realizing that it was still pipping hot and would need a minute to cool down.
Making sure that it was cool enough to bite into without scalding his mouth, Mike tore into the meat, though any modern person would think it's too tough and it tasted about as good as chewing rubber, Mike was so hungry he thought it tasted like his mothers cooking, and he would bite into it with a new found strength every time he swallowed, and ended up finishing the big steak in a matter of about 5 minutes.
Laying back, Mike had never felt so content in his life, he never realized that working so hard for your food could be so rewarding. No wonder our ancestors never needed spices to have good food, after a full day of doing stuff like that they'd be able to eat their meat barely cooked if needed and still find it tantalizing.
While laying there Mike stared at the sky full of the bright glowing stars that never changed, it was always so beautiful to look at, as he was doing so a soft dinging sound, like a bell, made a noise throughout his ear to which The Explorers Log appeared before him.
What laid before him was the same old screen he'd always seen except for on the log 'Mana Deer' there was a new word 'Updated' in soft blue text to the right of the words appeared showing that there was something new in it.
--Mana Deer: A deer with a very small amount of magic, though not enough to use actual magic, it brings about benefits for the deer's strength and health. This deer looks like any other deer except for the dark splotch on its lower abdomen where the mana is concentrated. When the meat of this animal is consumed it brings about a temporary increase in strength and airflow. This deer is very rare in certain environments due to not all fawns being Mana oriented, and instead being regular deer after birth.
Environment: Forest
Effects:N/A
Danger Level: Moderate
Rarity:Uncommon
Looking at this gave Mike a new tidbit about the Explorers Log, going into more detail with something would give it an 'update' of sorts on the information. It didn't take a genius to realize this it was that it wasn't plainly obvious since The Explorers Log already gave a lot of information when doing a scan before looking into it. Would that mean that the more he looked into something the more information he'd get out of it?
However there'd have to be a limit to how much information he'd get out of something eventually right? Like he'd dug through the inner workings of this 'Mana Deer' and ate some of its meat yet this is all the new information that was given so it'd be safe to assume that that's all the information he'd get out of the 'Mana Deer'.
Thinking of such thing Mike laid back on his back with his ragged shirt under his head and stared at the stars, very tired from all that had happened since he'd been here and wondering what would happen next tomorrow, Mike fell asleep.