The next morning, Nathan forced his sore body down from the tree and made his way back over to the river. He splashed water over his face and legs to get rid of the grime, then cupped his hands and drank.

Hunger was starting to set in, but what was he going to do? Hunting was out of the question. For one, he didn’t even know how, and two, he hadn’t seen any animals around to hunt.

While there were some berry bushes around, there was no telling if they were poisonous.

With nothing to remedy his situation, Nathan decided to continue traveling down the river. It was much smoother than picking his way through the woods, and he could refresh himself whenever he wanted.

There were times when he heard rustling past the treeline, but nothing ever came out to confront him. By the time the sun was directly over him, he decided to take a break and rest his sore legs.

After that, he set back to the monotonous task of hiking down the river. The rest of the day was exhausting, boring work, and he had nothing to occupy himself with besides his thoughts. For that reason, he mentally reviewed the ‘Smasher’ trait and managed to come up with a few ideas.

That night, as he was sitting in another tree, he decided to ask the...thing some questions.

“Hey, buddy,” he started, “I was wondering if you could answer a couple of my questions?” There was no response, but he didn’t expect one.

“Cool. Can I have more information about my ‘Smasher’ trait?” To Nathan’s excitement, a message popped into existence, but when he started reading, he realized that it was the same thing that he’d gotten last time.

“Well, that’s cool and all, but I don’t really know how to use it. Are there any directions that you could guide me to? Pal?”

Bingo. A second message took the last one’s place, although it was even shorter, much to his chagrin.

[Displaying Smasher guide:

To utilize the Smasher’s power, direct specialized qi to preferred location. This trait becomes more powerful as primary essence is absorbed from other beings. More information at higher stages of enlightenment.]

Nathan’s head perked up in the middle of reading the text. “Wait, qi? Like in cultivation books?” He’d read some chinese and japanese fiction that centered around qi cultivation during his misspent youth. And, though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, he’d tried to do it himself.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Although he wasn’t eager to make a fool out of himself for the second time, Nathan was spurred on by the message still floating in front of him. He squeezed his eyes shut and adopted a meditative position, then tried to focus in on his dantian.

While he was far from an expert, he knew the basics of cultivation. A major part of it was taking energy from a place below his belly button and rotating it around his body through pathways called the meridian system.

When he tried cultivating on Earth, nothing happened. He couldn’t feel his dantian or pathways, and after going through his phase, he wrote the whole thing off as pseudo-science.

Here, though, as soon as he moved his consciousness and ‘looked’ below his navel, a wave of energy filled his mind. It was electrifying, potent, and amazing. Tendrils of invisible energy twisted around, moving through the tiny pocket of space that was his dantian.

It was euphoric to simply watch and immerse himself inside, and he felt energized just focusing on it.

When he managed to calm himself down, Nathan felt an instinctive understanding about the energy. He grasped at it and tried forcing it through the pores that surrounded the bubble-like environment, but was disappointed to find that the tendrils did not want to obey.

It took a few more tries, but eventually, he realized that he wasn’t supposed to force the energy. It was part of him. All he needed to do was command it, coax it, and it would follow his direction.

As soon as the first couple tendrils seeped through the pores, Nathan was shocked at how difficult it was to keep hold of them. They still obeyed, but it was clear that they wished to go back to the dantian. Outside was dirty and impure.

It was clear that it was going to take a while, but the one thing Nathan had was time. He had no idea how long he was focused for, but by the end of it, his brain felt sore, almost like after cramming a huge amount of information for a test.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was shocked to see that it was sunrise. Beyond the treeline, he could faintly make out the orange-red horizon and was astonished at how much time had passed.

Shrugging, Nathan clambered down the tree and winced when he felt the hunger in his stomach. It was getting more and more painful, and he didn’t know how much longer he’d last.

His pace was noticeably slower, but by noon, the trees had thinned out and he could make out a field in the distance. The river had also gotten marginally larger, from connecting creeks and springs.

The forest transitioned into rolling hills, and he could make out some herds of animals. It was an hour later that he discovered the first sign of civilization.

A lone fence, rotten and falling apart, stood in the middle of an overgrown field. It was clear that it had been there for years, and there were no buildings or people around.

When he came to a dirt path that stretched left and right as far as he could see, his legs were trembling. Even so, he knew that he couldn’t rest. The path looked well-traveled, or at the very least, well-maintained. If he weren’t so weak and light-headed, he would have been excited.

It occurred to him a little later that he was going to die if he didn’t do anything, so he decided to eat whatever berries came his way.

Unfortunately, the field that he was on was much sparser than the forest. There was nothing for him to eat.