TF Chapter 57 Jackpot

***Nathaniel***

Bizarre would have been an understatement if I had tried to rationalise what I was seeing right in front of me. It was very different from any creature I had seen on Earth. Despite its bizarre appearance I still managed to deduce that this thing had probably been living underneath the soil, simply having failed to react in time, or because it had thought that whatever was causing the vibrations within the earth was something it could handle, hence failing to flee.

I brought a finger closer to the black spikes on the surface of its body, which I likened to villi in the intestines of humans, since it was the only close resemblance I could think of. They were black and gleaming menacingly in the light of the sun. Though, on second thought, I ultimately stopped myself. What if I bled? Being traced through blood was a moot possibility on this planet... What I feared were the microorganisms that might take that chance to enter my body. The risks were simply too great for me to take on.

Its remaining half resembled that of an earthworm that had had half its length destroyed, only leaving behind the intact half with the head. It was dark, with a mixture of brown that was in the middle of fading, giving me the impression that the beast probably had chameleon-like characteristics, though the purpose eluded me since the creatures here lacked eyes... Maybe this camouflage was also related to the spiritual?...

I shook my head to get rid of the useless thoughts, moving my gaze towards its head.

There were no spikes, only a very hard black exoskeletal plate that only had one weakness through it, the mouth. Breaking through this was going to be a pain. Destroying complex structures using spiritual energy was still beyond the level of an apprentice, so I was going to have to smash the thing to get to the good stuff inside its brain.

But looking at it intently, I was skeptical of my chances at shattering it. You do have to remember that after training with Bora I had improved to the point where my strengthened body could crack skulls... And if I added on the spiritual powers, using them to control the propagation of force within my muscles perfectly by observing my skin, I could shatter a human's head with enough force to create an exploding watermelon effect.

But I knew that this wasn't Earth. Here, the gravity was twice that of my home, and these biological lifeforms had evolved here, causing them to far surpass my frail human body. I hadn't even adapted to the gravity yet, a fact that I couldn't conceal because of my slightly uneven breathing.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Yet I couldn't let it go! My instincts were already telling me that this was it! The moment that might give me a chance to survive! Just the features of the beast had already confirmed my suspicions, that this beast must have formed a spiritual core!

Spiritual cores were the only things that could allow us apprentices here to have a fighting chance against the beings of this planet. if they didn't exist, then we wouldn't have been dumped on this planet and given this hard mode trial!

I moved my gaze away from the hard shell and looked at the mouth of the creature where its teeth ought to be yet all I could see were black hairy things that were almost as long as Bora's short hair.

I was considering sticking my arm into the mouth but gave up upon seeing these things coated with a black fluid. Considering that it lacked teeth when there were other organisms here with such a tough exoskeleton armor made clear one thing to me, that this fluid must be extremely corrosive! I doubt that even my spirit would be capable of protecting my arm from it since it was a complex compound.

I unwound a strand of my spirit from my body and released it towards the dead organism, moving it with the finesse of an expert. After an entire year, we had already reached the level of controlling the new sense as if we had been born with it.

Even though the molecules making up the creature were arranged in complex dense structures that made it impossible for my current level of spiritual prowess to budge, I could still permeate through the gaps and scan the makeup of the organism. The spirit at my level could only do this if it was met with complex molecular structures or an item whose weight exceeded my spiritual limit, which was barely a kilogram, same as everyone else...but that was predicated on items made up of only a single type of atom not arranged into some complex structure...let's say a lump of mineral iron. Refined iron would be very strenous to influence.

Scanning the exoskeletal defence on the head of the creature, my aim was to find a weakness in it that I could take advantage of. After a thorough scan, I withdrew my spirit with some happiness budding in my chest. There really was an imperfection...multiple imperfections no less. I had been puzzled for a fraction of a second about why they would appear only to recall that here, all biological lifeforms engaged in battle from the moment of their birth to their deaths. Injuries were commonplace here, and even with better ways to heal provided by the existence of the spirit, perfection was very difficult to achieve. Reaching the third level on the forger path would be incomparably easier.

I finally moved my gaze from the creature to the surroundings looking for a stone, which I quickly managed to locate, though it was a bit warm, in the middle of cooling. But I was in a hurry, so I galvanised my spiritual powers and moved the hot air particles around it away and replaced them with the coldest I could find, those with the least vibrations to get excited and then I repeated the previous action, thereby speeding up the cooling process.

While doing that, I was wondering when I would be able to reach this level of manipulation with solids, sighing at the far off destination.