TF Chapter 56 Far From Home
***Kim Bora***
I stood at the edge of the crater, taking in the all new planet, breathing in the massive amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, which was said to hold 56% concentration. The gravity was a hassle, but with my years of training, it wouldn't take long for me to acclimate.
I could see two rising plumes of smoke in the distance, my gaze cresting over the canopies. Its interesting how those fluffy clouds don't entirely block the sunlight. My spirit was coating my skin helping me to adjust my muscles and body to the most optimal condition.
I was going to stay here and wait for one of the other two to find me. It was what we had agreed on beforehand. I was resourceful, so I was the one who had been put in charge of trying to build a simple habitat. Judging by the commotion, this place was most probably going to be overrun by curious creatures in no time, so I made my way towards the edge of the forest. During the previous year, our spiritual powers were capable of forming a domain with a diameter of a meter around us, and if we manipulated it into forming something linear, we could scan five meters infront of us. But, we had been cautioned that we had to keep our spiritual powers close to our skin. Releasing them wantonly was tantamount to attracting whatever they brushed up against. Most of the monsters here, even those weaker than us had bodies that had evolved to the level of easily killing us off with just a single blow so we had to be extra careful!
I scanned my surroundings with my gaze, making sure to muffle my footsteps even though the creatures here lacked a sensory organ for detecting sound. It was a habit that would be very hard to break. But it was still effective as even without said sensory organs, the biological lifeforms here were capable of using their spirits to detect fluctuations within particles, thereby determining the origin of a disturbance. Since our landing hadn't been subtle, I was very sure that creatures within a minimum diameter of 20km had already detected us and some were making their way over...if they weren't already here.
I decided to throw caution to the wind. As Nathaniel and that detestable Danny had pointed out, fear could lead to my death. I had to be bold!
So, I trekked over to the trees with the dark stems. They appeared lush and taller than those on Earth, probably owing to the high concentration of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere. This planet was a marvelous example of how evolution could take different paths even in conditions almost close to those on Earth.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I released a breath I was holding before raising my hand and stroking the dark starry bark. It was perfectly smooth, unlike that of the trees on Earth, but it also placed me in a conundrum, how was I going to climb up?
Though I had watched plenty of memory videos and knew that much of the plant life was carnivorous, these trees hadn't appeared to have any of those traits, so they were going to be our safe zones for now.
Now, all I had to do was figure out how I was going to get up this tree, whose smooth surface bordered on slippery. Maybe I could try to create crevices within the stem, right?
I pulled back my hand and thrust out, with the fingers perfectly aligned to form a blade.
(Squelch!)
I almost puked at the sound released. It felt as if I had just stabbed into a fruit.
"Yackk!"
I hurriedly shook off the blue fluid coating my fingers. They had already warned us that the biological ecosystem was unknown...meaning that a pathogen could infect us, causing us to die instantly, or get some unknown disease that could haunt us for life.
It looks like getting up these trees was out of the question. I decided to simply watch the gash I had just created only for my jaw to drop open at the sight of something happening.
The stem of the tree appeared to have awakened from a slumber as threads of fiber crisscrossed from the edges of the wound I had created and started weaving themselves into a net which covered the wound. This had far surpassed the vegetation on Earth which would take a while to recover!
Miraculous! It was very very intriguing! If I had the time I would have started to research these miraculous properties. If they could be transferred to us humans...no no no, I had to focus.
In the time of about a minute, the stem was as good as new, as if the wound I had created before had been an illusion. Even the blue sap was dissapearing, dispersing into the atmosphere as if evaporating. I raised my hand only to see that even that which had been coating my fingers was visibly decreasing in volume.
This further compounded on the reality that I was far from home. I trace of fear once again appeared as I observed the tree, taking a few steps back. I had never seen the trees attacking anyone or anything in the memories, but this recovery speed was phenomenal enough for me to start suspecting that maybe they weren't that simple.
If the trees were like this, how was I going to construct a shelter? Maybe taking refuge within the crater created by the pod upon its crash landing was a better idea? But then what about the curious creatures that were about to be attracted here? All this was proving to be a headache. Danny and Nathaniel had left this task to me because I was somehow clever and more resourceful, but this planet was bizarre.
It looks like I needed more data. Maybe I should take this chance to do a preliminary inspection of every plant in the vicinity of the crater? But first, I had to hide from whatever monsters that were going to show up. So I steeled my heart and once again dug into the tree stem to climb up. High ground would probably be better than low ground after all.