The second day started bright and early when Warren woke everyone up and got them out of bed. They’d lost a dozen people overnight, who had decided that hunting your own food was not their thing.
“Everyone get outside and get your tents disassembled. We’ll be spending the next couple of days hiking and moving camp while we learn.”
They got to work disassembling their tents after a quick demonstration from Warren using an empty tent.
“Breakfast will be some apples and the venison jerky I made overnight,” Warren said, handing these out. “I’ll teach you how to make a smoking oven tonight.”
“While we hike, we will be foraging for food to be included in tonight’s dinner. Anything extra we find, I’ll show you how to preserve it.”
They set out, and Warren called them to a halt near the side of the trail just a few minutes later.
“Everyone look here,” he said, pointing to a plant on the side of the road, which looked like a grouping of grass with flowers on top. “This is a wild green onion, and this will be included in your meal tonight.”
Saying so, he uprooted the onions and put them in storage.
“From here on out, I won't be pointing out onions. You will need to find them yourselves and carry them, so that you get some experience foraging and determining what you should carry.”
From there they hiked on, stopping twice more to be taught how to identify wild grains and carrots.
Warren also showed them a couple of snares that he had set up which had caught some wild rabbits.
“See how the noose has closed around the rabbit, leaving it trapped off the ground? This sort of setup will likely be useful for you on the islands.”
Shortly after noon, he stopped them once again for lunch, having found a blueberry bush.
“Now, we can all forage these berries, and these are a convenient source of nutrition that doesn’t require cooking. Don’t expect us to find another bush like this. In the wild, if you find something like this, you need to be wary of guardians. Such a convenient source of food is a great attraction for dangerous predators.”
While they were there, he also showed them a stand of mushrooms.
“When it comes to foraging, I recommend that you stay away from mushrooms. They are hard to identify and often dangerous, and we do not have the time for you to learn which varieties are safe properly.”
After they continued their hike, Warren switched to talking about what they could expect from the island.
“First, the basics: there will be two dozen islands forming two separate rings around the equator. The rings will be rotating in different directions so that recruits can adapt to different day lengths. Islands will pass by each other once every eight hours, which will be the only time where you can pass between them. When two islands get close to each other, a bridge will form which will be around a mile long and last for 15 minutes. You will need to hustle to get across.”
“Are there specific points we need to look for for the bridge?” Dev asked.
Warren frowned, answering, “They refused to give out exact details. They simply reassured me that applicants would not have any trouble finding their way across.”
That was very not reassuring. How was Dev to know if they were truly well-marked? He'd simply have to keep an eye out for possible crossing points.
“Does anyone else have any questions so far?” Warren asked.
“In order to meet up so fast, the islands would need to be going over a hundred miles per hour. Will wind be a concern?” A skinny blonde boy asked with a reflective look.
“Most of the islands will have environmental bubbles protecting them. These will keep out wind and weather-based dangers.”
“Any other— Yes, George?” he said, as another boy raised his hand timidly.
“Will the inheritances be marked?”
“Yes and no. We’ll get to the details later. Any other questions?”
Seeing that nobody had more questions just yet, Warren continued his explanation. “Every island will have it’s own environment. There will be jungles, island chains, mountains, deserts and more. The environmental bubbles will adjust the weather and temperature to suit the environment.”
He then went over the basics of survival in every terrain, from the jungles to the desert.
“Really, you should consider yourselves lucky that the gravity arrays aren’t going to be on. Teaching you to operate in different gravity levels in such a short time would be impossible.”
“Now, on to the inheritances. Some will be clearly marked, whether with labeling or structures. Others will be hidden way, impossible to find for those without the correct affinities. Some will be present at significant landmarks, and others will only be accessible during certain times of day.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“No matter what, each inheritance will have a test that you must pass to claim its techniques. No inheritance will have any treasures associated with it at this time. “
“What if somebody else attacks us?”
“Your emergency beacons will have proximity sensors, so we can detect if two people get close. We will stop any would-be brigands.”
At around that point, he called the end of the hike and had them set up their tents while he built a fire.
“Tonight, we’ll prepare rabbit stew and roasted rabbits using the hot stone boiling and spit roasting methods. Afterward, I will teach you the basic methods behind projecting your aspects.”
He brought out a full string of rabbits, several of which he had caught during the day, and handed them around.
“Okay, we’ll start by tearing the skins off. If you want, you can learn to take them off properly another time, but this is more efficient for your time on the islands.”
Saying so, he showed them how to make a cut along the back and tear the skin off. He then deboned his, preparing it for stew.
“Next, we’ll be preparing a stew, so we will need a vessel to cook in. I will be using a simple wooden bowl for expediency’s sake. You can do this with nearly any kind of container that can hold water, but I’d recommend not doing it in a hole without something like a tarp or animal hide to keep water in and dirt out.”
He took the nearly two-foot-wide bowl out of his spatial ring.
“Our stew will be nice and simple, as we just integrate what we’ve found during the day alongside the rabbit, and add stones heated in the fire to induce a boil. It may not be the greatest stew ever, but it will be hearty and filling.”
He did so, before moving on to the next part.
“Now, the rocks you choose are important. I’d recommend fist-sized stones, and you must not use stones from rivers, as they are prone to exploding.”
“Exploding?” a girl asked.
“Yes, if you heat a rock with water inside, it is likely to explode from the pressure of the steam.”
“While the rocks finish warming up, it is time for each of you to skin your rabbits.”
Warren then handed them the same knives that he had given them the previous day for the venison.
“You’ll just want to copy what I did, cutting along the back and tearing off the skin.”
He walked them through it, giving replacement rabbits to anyone who punctured their rabbit’s guts.
“You’ll want to season the rabbit before cooking it, otherwise it’ll taste like rubber.”
He then demonstrated how to build a spit and place their rabbit on it.
“Now that the rabbit is over the campfire, you just need to keep it rotating, and before long you’ll have a fully roasted rabbit, though you need to be careful to eat around the bones.”
After they finished preparing supper with minimal remaining mishaps, they cleaned up and began their next lesson.
“Now that we have finished eating, it is time for you to learn the most basic of techniques. This is not a powerful technique. It cannot do anything well. But if you have an aspect, you can push the energy out of your body for a diffuse effect.”
He raised his hand and demonstrated, a sage green glow coming out of it. “This technique does different things based on your aspects. For me, it accelerates any biological processes it comes across. For a fire cultivator, it would lightly burn whatever it encountered. For a water cultivator, it would gather or produce clean water.”
Warren looked around to see if they were following, then continued. “The next step is rather intuitive. I’m sure a great many of you have already figured out how to do it. You simply need to mentally reach into your body and push your aspect out. Your aspect should be present throughout your body, and by pulling it from elsewhere, you can push it out of your body, where it will color the ambient essence with its signature.”
Dev saw as the other campers did this, causing light to illuminate the oncoming dusk. As he hadn’t comprehended an aspect, he was simply listening to the lesson for the sake of the future.
“Now, if you wish you can attempt to do something with your aspect. I have prepared a small variety of objects for this occasion.”
Warren pulled a bundle of sticks, a group of rocks, and a chunk of ice out of his storage.
“Exactly what this technique does is affected first by your aspect, then by your will. Someone with a crystal aspect could easily manipulate crystals, or they could transmute these rocks into crystals with a suitable application of will. If they had enough time and energy, they might even be able to freeze this into ice crystals, but that would be substantially more difficult.”
“Next, we’ll talk about how to enhance your eyes to see essence. As this technique affects your body, it is best done with an aspect, but it is also doable with an axiom.
“For those of you with aspects, you will need to attempt to use your aspect to feel the essence in your body. Once you accomplish that, you simply need to draw the essence into your eyes and hold it there. This will give you an incredibly primitive ability to see ambient essence. This method is only suitable for novices, but it will suffice until you find a better one in the trials.”
He spent a few minutes guiding them through the process, before turning to Dev, who was sitting with another boy and a girl who had also discovered axioms.
“For you three, this will be more complicated, as you will be using a body technique using your soul There are ways to use your soul to sense essence, but we do not have time to teach you. Instead, what I’m going to have you do is trigger your axioms. From there, you will need to seize control of the pulse and sweep it through your body to your eyes. As long as the pulse lasts, you will be able to hold the essence gathered there, but it will fade quickly.”
Warren pulsed his axiom, and Dev was only able to feel the faintest whisper of enkindling before it was pulled back into Warren’s body.
As that happened, he saw Warren’s eyes flash pale green for a moment before returning to normal.
“There’s not much more to it than trying it. You will do better if you can learn to detect your body’s essence with your axiom, but as your axiom resides in your soul, it will be much more difficult to accomplish.”
Dev tried immediately to do as Warren had instructed and was surprised when it came easily to him. He’d expected to be wrestling with his axiom for hours, but it immediately twisted when he willed it to, and he was able to draw it through his body on only the third attempt. He opened his eyes and gasped.
All around him hung a translucent mist, sparkling in every color imaginable. It wafted off the fire tinted red, passed through trees and turned green, brushed the earth and—
It cut off, leaving him back with his regular drab sight.
Dev did it again and again, barely noticing as the eyes of those around him lit up in myriad colors, caught up in the brilliant new facet of reality.
That night, his dreams were filled with a thousand flowing colors, flooding the world.