Though Mike’s body radiated pain, he was cognizant of the noise that his recent battle had produced, and he knew that scavengers wouldn’t be too far away. Unable to summon the strength to lift Autumn and Ash, he called weakly to the cubs, before turning and shuffling up the sand dune as fast as he could. As he trudged along, he inspected his body for any injuries he may have missed, but he didn’t manage to find any.
At the top of the dune, he collected the Quicksilver he had used to make the previous day’s shelter, and looked sullenly at the large hill he would be stomach surfing down. Though the activity had pained him in the Quicksilver dungeon, his tolerance and technique had improved, and aside from some minor bumps and bruises when he wanted to try a cool jump with the cubs, he never really got hurt anymore. He had no illusions that that would be the case tonight.
Every bump was excruciating, and it was only thanks to his lifetime full of painful experiences that he managed to not cry out. The pups seemed to be aware of his plight, as they whined softly and rode gently on his back. His increased sensitivity made him acutely aware that the cubs were bigger than they had been the night before, and after checking, he saw that they had both made it to Level 35 after killing the single vulture. While happy for their success, he couldn’t help but feel frustrated at his lack of growth. With the number of monsters he had killed since arriving in the zone, he certainly would have been at or above Level 50 by now.
Blast the System and its uncanny ability to target me. He said vehemently, albeit in his head where the seemingly omnipresent being couldn’t hear and exact retribution. Not that I am superstitious, just cautious. He assured himself.
Despite his best efforts, his stoic optimism, and every means he could think of to distract himself, the pain was too much for him, and he only made it three dunes over in the course of the next 4 hours. He was at his breaking point, and he knew it. As he began digging out his den, he was pleasantly surprised when the fox cubs pitched in, digging right beside him with an ease that put him to shame.
“So you two have been capable of helping me this whole time and have simply chose to watch me do everything? I’ll definitely be remembering this.” He said to them, unsure if they could understand him despite their high Intelligence.
With the small den formed, he quickly coated it in Quicksilver and crawled inside before blacking out completely.
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Mike woke up sometime in the middle of the morning, but despite the depth of his slumber the night before, his body was still in mind-numbing pain. After checking over his entire body another time, he looked inward, tracing each of his channels with meticulous care, but could still find nothing. If there was no surface damage, and no damage to his channels, he was left concluding that there was some internal damage. Because the damage seemed to affect all of him, he figured he either had microscopic tears throughout most of his body, or else he had some nerve damage. Normally, neither would have been too treatable, but thanks to Hands of Healing, he actually hoped it was the latter.
He knew from personal experience that nerve damage usually caused some amount of radiating pain, and was often hard to pinpoint the source, so without any other options, he placed his hands on the back of his neck and activated the skill, before once again blacking out.
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When he awoke the next time, he found that his right leg below the knee as well as parts of his right arm no longer felt pain, but the rest of his body still felt as if it was on fire. For the next 18 hours, he could do little more than watch the foxes play, providing food for them when they asked. When their playfulness got aggressive and led to him being bumped multiple times, he opened up a small bit of the shelter wall and allowed them to dig underground.
Yep, they are definitely faster than me and have just been mooching. He concluded after watching them rapidly disappear from his view.
When the 18 hours were up, he placed his hands on the small of his back and activated Hands of Healing again.
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It took six applications of Hands of Healing before the pain fully subsided, but finally, on the sixth night since arriving, he made his way out into the twilight air. The cubs had managed to dig an extensive tunnel network during that time, and aside from a level 75 beetle that took all three of them to kill, it was without incident. As they left their week-long home, the cubs were eager to be out in the open, and chose to run down the slopes rather than ride on Mike’s back.
Only six hours into their march, they finally came to the edge of the dunes. In front of them lay a two mile wide strip of flat ground, and on the other side, Mike could make out the cliffs he had seen before fighting the vultures. This was the direction he had seen the birds fly back at the oasis, and hopefully it would have a clean water supply. He still had enough to last about a week, but they would need to find something else soon.
As he stepped forward, he noticed that the sand had a softer feel to it, like a rototilled garden bed, this sand seemed to have retained a small bit of moisture in addition to having been churned recently. Bending down to test the sand's consistency with his hands, he barely registered Damage Premonition in time to activate Unflinching Meteor before a medium sized wurm shot out of the ground in front of him, bent forward with whip-like speed, and ate him whole.
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It was a strange sensation to know he was being chewed by a giant monster and yet not feel anything. As the wurm’s mouth opened and closed in its struggle to swallow his uncrushable body, Mike caught glimpses of the rings of ridges that the beast had in place of teeth. Yet despite all of its thrashing, squeezing, and chomping in the two seconds since he had been swallowed, the only thing the wurm accomplished was lodging Mike vertically near the back of its mouth. The jawless structure meant that the wurm was unable to expand its mouth any further, and his rigid body had caught on the slightly softer tissue found near its throat. The wurm seemed to understand that Mike’s invulnerable body wouldn’t last forever, for once he became fully lodged, the thrashing subsided and the beast settled in to wait.
The seconds seem to tick down in slow motion as he racked his brain for a way to escape. With the wurm’s mouth closed, his ability to sense the air around him was reduced to near zero, and even if he could, he had only had any real success manipulating it when practicing the Kata, so Aeromancy was out. He could try Hands of Healing to put the creature to sleep, but he doubted that he would be able to escape its mouth even if he used Undeviating Juggernaut and channeled all his Dexterity into Strength, the wurm was simply too large.
Without any other options and in a desperate gamble to survive he began casting Sonic Sounding through the hand that he had instinctively raised to protect his head as the wurm descended, the hand that was now pressed flush against the soft tissue of the wurm’s throat. Not waiting for a reaction, he began activating the ability again and again.
A rush of wind and an ear-wrending shriek began soon after the second time he used the skill, which only grew worse each time he activated it. Soon, the beast was once again thrashing, but this time in pain as it sought to expel him. Despite its best efforts, he remained lodged and unmoving as he continued to activate Sonic Sounding as quickly as possible. By the 6th repetition, the shrieking increased in pitch and volume and on the 7th casting, with only 2 seconds left on Unflinching Meteor, the wurm’s head exploded. Ejecting Mike in a shower of yellow gore that sprayed in all directions.
Even as he sailed immobile through the air in the direction of the cubs, he was already looking inwards, focusing the kill energy towards Sonic Sounding, which was still glowing. He could try leveling up Unflinching Meteor again, but he had only recovered from the pain a few hours earlier, and he hoped that a lower leveled skill would be easier.
Having already completed the task once, and beginning the endeavor with already increased Intelligence, he found it much easier this time around. He anticipated the cracks and was able to fill them before they spread, and he was ready when the Sigil appeared and began sucking the excess energy from his body.
When he opened his eyes, only a minute after being ejected, it was with a triumphant grin and only half the pain he had experienced previously. The grin faded instantly as he saw a host of wurms all fighting over the shredded carcass he had created. His instinctive reaction was to jump up and start running, but remembering his previous experience hiding from wurms, he held perfectly still and watched the utter chaos ensuing in front of him. For three hours, he simply sat still and waiting, Autumn and Ash following his example.
As he watched, he noticed that all of these wurms were all on the small to medium end of the wurm spectrum he had seen thus far, and in using Analyze, he found out the reason why: they were all wurmlets ranging in level from 75 to 85. He must have stumbled upon some kind of nesting ground.
Just the kind of kind of Luck only I could have. Who else would stumble upon an entire army of creatures way stronger than myself in the middle of a barren desert? He thought to himself. Still, it wasn’t all bad. He was fairly confident that had it been an adult wurm, he wouldn’t have managed to be lodged in the wurm’s mouth, and likely would have died in whatever process wurms used to digest their food.
His inspection of the skill advancement notification proved nearly identical to the last one. He had gained a level. It was now slightly stronger (in this case meaning that Sonic Sounding had an increased blast radius that it could travel). He also noted that the requirements to level it up again had remained the same.
When the last wurm disappeared beneath the surface, he slowly got up and walked carefully up the nearest sand dune. As the night slowly faded, he thoughtfully viewed the scene in front of him, wracking his brain for a way across. An hour before the sun reached him, he rose from his careful study and ran another dune away from the wurm-infested area before he began to build his shelter. It wasn’t until he pulled out his wurm-skin camouflage that he had his first real solution to the problem. It would be risky, but he couldn’t think of any other way.
A solution in mind, he was able to sit comfortably in shelter before activating Hands of Healing for the seventh time in seven days and passing out again.