Chapter 5: First Kill.

“A little more on the left. No, my left. Wait, we’re facing the same direction, the left is that way, Smaug.”

“That’s it, a little more.”

“Stop! Don’t add any more, this is perfect.”

Smaug smugly posed, standing atop the shoulder of a sand encrusted golem, radiating with a sense of satisfaction.

Or at least, it looked like a golem until it turned, revealing glowing amber eyes beneath thin slits of a faceplate.

Sand adorned over every inch of the body like a second skin, making him seem like he had been born from the sand beneath his feet. And by the sharp smile peeking through the gaps, Jace was more than happy to seem as such.

“This is so cool.” Jace marveled at the armor that covered him from head to toe. His fingers danced under the light as he assessed his mobility over and over, feeling as if he was wearing nothing but a snug full body jacket. “How is this so flexible?”

He dropped into a squat, did some pushups, jumped up and down, and through it all, the sand remained firmly packed to his skin without a crack or loosened grain.

His grimoire remained open by his side, showing his mana bar slowly moving down, just under the limit of his regeneration to keep up with the strain.

Stepping closer to the water of the pond next to him, he examined his features in the glowing liquid with a contemplative hum. “You do good work Smaug. This is exactly what I was looking for. Think you can memorize this pattern?”

The little reptile hissed with a look that asked Jace how he dared question his ability and got a sandy finger to scratch his chin in return that made his eyes crinkle in delight.

Jace chuckled at the prideful little creature, happy beyond measure to have such a capable partner. ‘It definitely has to do with the soul bond. He’s far too intuitive to my wishes otherwise.’

The two had been sitting in front of the Dungeon Monolith, at its pond of glowing blue water, for the better part of two hours, testing out the limits of Smaug’s Sand Armor ability.

At first, Jace had tried shaping out what he wanted with a game of charades, but that stopped as soon as he realized the little guy was much smarter than a baby should be. In fact, Jace was sure the little guy was just as intelligent as himself, if only without any life experience and a distinct set of priorities.

Predominantly, Jace’s safety.

‘And that’s not an exaggeration.’ On the walk over, Jace was playing around with his sand cast and ended up accidently stubbing a toe from his healthy foot on a loose stone. He hopped away to shake off the pain, only to look back and find Smaug strangling the rock with a fierce and determined expression.

Like a hero facing his mortal enemy, prepared to sacrifice his life to take down the demon lord, Smaug crushed the stone into loose sand and hissed at the remains.

The look he gave Jace after he realized he had an audience demanded praise, and Jace was far too amused to give him anything less than what he deserved.

But after the life and death battle, they got down to work discovering what Smaug was fully capable of.

Summoning his grimoire closer, Jace observed his notes.

[Notes:

Guardian Summon: Smaug.

* Smaug, as a Sand Serpent, seems to possess the natural ability to turn stone and base minerals into sand. As it’s not an ability, it has no mana cost, but it takes time, time that would make the natural ability useless in a fight. However, it could be perfect for setting ambush pit traps in advance.

* I can summon or unsummon Smaug with a thought, but it’s not instant. It takes a few seconds each way, and Smaug remembers everything I said previously between summons.

* Smaug’s true ability, Sand Armor, allows him to create a layer of firm protective sand over every inch of the body, for both him and me. It does not apply to anything other than us. It is not sand manipulation; he cannot form any weapons or separate constructs. It seems to be strictly related to armor. The most he was able to do beyond that was add some short spikes to the armor, although that increased the mana cost.

* Each layer of armor has a cost of 3MP per minute. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s just covering my hand, or my entire body. The cost stays the same. Each layer is one inch thick of compact sand. Even when I stood at the apex of a pointed stone, there was no penetration, although I could still feel the contact pressure. The defensive limits of the armor are unknown at this time.

* I can increase the number of layers, adding spikes or inches more of sand at a time to the armor, but each extra layer increases the cost by another 3MP per minute. At 5% MP recovery, I currently recover 2.5MP per minute, meaning I can keep a single layer going for 29 minutes, while two layers would drop it down to 12 minutes. Or 6 minutes for three layers.

* Smaug is able to adjust the pattern the sandy layer takes as long as it remains one layer, even able to recreate things from my memory with only a few adjustments.

]

The last point was the one he just confirmed, staring into the waters reflection and seeing a full helm very similar in design to a Dawnguard helm from Skyrim. ‘He is way too good at reading my intentions.’

It only took twenty minutes of them going over the helmet design before they ended up with the Dawnguard design. It looked quite similar, except the eye slits were much narrower and it was all made out of sand. ‘I look like an Ash Spawn from Skyrim.’

But looks aside, the best part about it was that while it wouldn’t fully block out the heat or cold with only an inch of sand, it would do an incredible job of keeping skin exposure to a minimum and letting him explore outside the cave.

‘Sand is one of the best natural materials for both insulation and reflecting heat.’ Like sand on a beach, where the top inch of sand heats up, yet the sand two inches deep is much cooler, and by four to six inches, it’s downright cold. Sand did not retain heat, making deserts sweltering in the day and freezing at night.

But at the same time, if you buried something hot beneath the sand, the object would retain heat much longer than if you had left it above ground. ‘Of course, it needs to remain compact. If air gets between loose sand, the heat will escape. Thankfully, this sand armor is compact like actual armor.’

Jace flexed his hands in expectation. ‘Burning my foot once was enough for me. Now I can at least step outside my starting zone.’ The armor was a perfect bio suit to let him move around without dying to the elements. ‘Although, a single inch probably won’t be enough, I’ll just double up and make it a quick trip.’

He wasn’t counting on the armor being able to protect him from real damage, it was only an inch thick and he held little confidence in it stopping a monster from tearing him apart. At least, at the moment. He wasn’t even level 1, and he was excited to see how far it would grow as he, and subsequently, Smaug, leveled.

Turning his head to catch Smaug in his sights, Jace winked at him. “You ready to go do a field test, little buddy?”

Smaug hissed and rocked his head back and forth in excitement, somehow giving Jace the mental image of wings flapping behind him, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

Jace shook his head with a chuckle and tapped the adorable creature on the head. “Drop the armor for now, I’ll recover my mana before we head out.”

Smaug nodded and focused for a second before the sand wrapped around Jace’s body fell apart into….well, sand.

Jace stepped out of the pile and shook his feet off, getting the bits of sand off him as he walked off. ‘One of the best benefits of a sandy partner, no post-torture of sand getting stuck in all the cracks.’

Smaug’s armor ability seemed to let him equip sand on, or completely remove it from the body. It wasn’t almighty, but it did mean he never had to worry about sand getting anywhere uncomfortable.

Looking down, he evaluated his previously injured foot and hummed happily at the normal feel of it. ‘This healing ability is surreal. Less than an hour after a 3rd degree burn, if not 4th degree, and my foot is good as new. It really spits in the face of non-magical biology.’

His foot didn’t even have any bloodstains or dead skin, but that was more due to the blue water than his own healing ability.

After they reached the Dungeon Monolith, Jace sat by the water, and uncaring of the neon blue glow to the water, had stuck his burned foot inside.

The cool water had immediately brought him a wave of relief from the pain, but a moment later, he realized something amazing. The blood, dead skin, dirt and anything else clinging to his foot slowly fell off and dissolved before his eyes. While leaving the living organic matter alone, it seemed to refuse to be polluted by his filth and ate away at it till it was gone.

He tested it again with his hands, and got clean, surgery-grade sterile hands back in return. Even his pores felt like he had just stepped out of a sauna.

Jace dubbed it: {The magical washing machine.}

‘For all your filth needs.’

He chuckled at his own bad joke and walked on. The two and half hour period since he got injured till then uplifted his spirit from almost giving up to being ready to take on the world again.

It wasn’t that it was that easy for him to lose confidence, but that he was the type of guy to evaluate his options, and before Smaug, his future was looking quite bleak. Jace couldn’t see a way forward no matter what he did without taking a massive gamble by entering the dungeon.

But with the little miracle snake, the door was opened to what he was capable of.

Standing before the winter forest door, as there was no way for Jace to explore further beyond the platform, Jace rolled his shoulders, giving his little partner a fun ride. “Ready?”

Smaug nodded and narrowed his eyes as sand erupted from the path behind them, flowing like water as it quickly wrapped around Jace’s form into the full body armor, enclosing his head in a helm with the perfect amount of space to be flexible without the helmet being loose. Only the eye slits of his helmet and the tiny holes near his mouth were exposed, but the air wasn’t cold enough that he couldn’t breathe or see.

“You too, Smaug. Get in here.” Jace chided his partner and got a rebellious hiss in return. “Don’t worry, we’re not looking to fight right now. Come in here and stay warm.”

Smaug looked reluctant for a moment before dipping his head and sinking beneath the sand, coming to wrap around Jace’s neck and look out the helmet with him. The little guy only seemed to rebel when it came to defending Jace from harm, an effect of the guardian aspect of his existence.

The two stood before the whitish blue door for a long moment as Jace nervously clenched and unclenched his fists. ‘My first attempt ended badly, but I can’t let that hold me back. I’m not even injured anymore; I can heal up within an hour even if I lose half my health again.’

Smaug hissed by his ear, a feeling of curiosity traveling to Jace through the bond at why they were standing still.

‘Right, I’m not alone this time.’ Jace smiled softly and whispered to his new friend. “Sorry, just overthinking things. Let’s go.”

He went head first through the door and was greeted by the winter wonderland beyond once more. With a gentle snow now falling from far above, the ice and snow filled forest looked so picturesque and innocent that he wouldn’t have questioned it’s safety if not for the howls of monsters and the raging blizzard in the distance.

Looking down, Jace narrowed his eyes at the sharp looking ice and went down to a knee halfway through the door. ‘I’ll test it with my hand. If it penetrates the sand, I’ll need more layers.’

He pushed a palm down, getting a sensation of extreme cold through the contact but it was only like holding an ice pack beneath a piece of thick paper towel. The edges of the ice poked into the armor but didn’t penetrate, so he gradually pushed harder until he felt a sharp poke like a needle.

Smaug hissed dangerously at the speck of red that painted an edge of ice as Jace pulled his hand back to examine the wound.

He chuckled at the little guardian. “Relax bud, I’m just testing it out. You can kill the ice later.”

Smaug huffed, but by the gleam in his beady eyes, Jace was pretty sure he took that promise literally. ‘RIP sharp ice, you won’t be missed.’

Shaking off his hand, Jace noticed it was only a tiny prick and that the sand closed back up without a trace. ‘I was pushing with almost all my strength right there. It should be fine for walking.’ He lifted a foot and paused as he recalled the pain earlier before with some slight hesitation, he took his first step out.

His foot made contact, and he gradually added more weight until he was standing on one leg. ‘Huh, I can feel where the ice is poking me, but it’s not getting through.’ He eyed the space between the door and the end of the platform, a solid fifty foot distance, and decided caution was the better part of valor.

Stepping back inside the cavern, he tapped the side of his head where his partner sat. “Smaug, double the sand layer. We’ll make the first trip in ten minutes.”

Smaug nodded and after a few minutes to top off his MP, more sand rose from the path behind them and wrapped around the two firmly. Thickening the armor in a way that added weight yet distributed it evenly enough to make it seem seamless with Jace’s body. ‘That’s a pretty cool feature.’

A moment later, he nodded in satisfaction and fully stepped outside into the cold.

A howl of wind echoed through the area, bringing with it a wave of tiny ice shards that shattered on contact with the armor, and yet it felt like a light breeze to Jace within. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. Screw you nature, I’ve got Smaug and I’m not afraid to use him.”

Smaug hissed in agreement with a comforting squeeze, ready to burn the world if it stood in his way.

The platform was no longer a concern and he barely even felt a chill with two inches of sand, but time wasn’t on their side. Jace had ten minutes to make it back to the door or the environment would kill him without a doubt.

Moving quickly, yet carefully, Jace crouched low and moved to the edge of the platform. The wintry forest spread out before him in a fan like shape, and behind him where the doorway stood was nothing but a rock face that went upwards a hundred feet. ‘I’m really at the top of a massive mountain right now. If I take into consideration how deep the drop was on the lava side, then the winter side must be….massive.’ His thought trailed off as he really gazed between the tall trees and saw the blizzard in the distance. ‘How fucking big is that storm?!’

Cold sweat went down his back even imagining it, and Jace silently swore to stay far away from where the storm moved toward.

Pushing on, his feet sunk into the snow up to his waist, slowing him down as he tried to explore. ‘I haven’t seen snow this deep since I was back home. I missed this.’ He took a moment to marvel at it, waving a hand through the clear snow and feeling the powder fall between his fingers. Smaug looked on in interest at the sight and made a little peep hole to stick his head through. Jace couldn’t help but flick a tiny bit of snow at the mighty creature and chuckling as Smaug reared back from the contact with the cold in surprise before burrowing back inside the armor.

“Careful bud, it’s a bit cold.” Smaug hissed in agreement, staring murderously at the snow like it offended him.

Jace hid a smirk and pushed on, trudging toward the tree line to make the most of his time. Even in waist high snow, he only felt a slight chill beneath two layers of sand armor and none of it was getting wet from melted snow as his body heat wasn’t escaping.

However, that did little for his ability to move through snow. ‘This is getting me nowhere.’ An idea popped into his head as he turned to his ally. “Smaug, think you can adjust the sand at my feet?”

The little snake titled its head in confusion, but moments later with the combination of words and thoughts, Smaug got the idea and implanted the change.

Taking some of the extra sand on his back, Smaug adjusted Jace’s armor so there was a hardened thin layer, like a thin board, on the bottom of his feet that expanded outward as much as it could with an upwards curve, effectively creating makeshift snowshoes. ‘There we go, I guess this can still count as armor.’ His feet still sunk down, but not nearly as much as before.

The two moved forward, with Jace keeping one eye on his Grimoire at all times to track his MP gauge, and the other searching for movement or anything of interest.

‘I can hear the roars and howls of creatures in the distance, but if this is a mountain, I have no idea how far away they actually are. I shouldn’t wander too far from the dungeon entrance.’

Stopping around two hundred meters out, Jace changed directions and thoroughly searched the hundred and eighty degree circumference of land around the cave entrance. ‘Tree, Tree, Tree, branch I could use, Tree, bush, tree.’

On and on he looked, moving as he quickly as he could with a jog through the snow. Useful fallen branches were tossed in the direction he came from for him to collect later, but what he was really looking for was something edible. ‘I don’t have an exact clock, but I spent half a day at least so far. I don’t how hunger affects my resources, but if I can have a status condition like being burned, it makes sense that hunger would be one as well.’ He trudged through the snow, keeping his head on swivel as he searched. ‘I could always survive on tree bark for a brief time if I had no choice, but I’d rather not. These trees look like Pine, and Pine is edible, but It’s not pleasant. Frankly, anything I choose to consume will be a gamble until I can unlock [Identify], so hopefully some things are similar enough to earth.’

The trip wasn’t long, the mountain top was narrow at the apex, and got wider and wider as you went down. In eight minutes, Jace scoured the edge of the area in a two hundred meter circumference, spotting smaller tracks from birds and small animals, finding dozens of fallen branches he tossed closer to the dungeon entrance, and confirmed the safety of his immediate surroundings.

But despite that, there was no recognizable food. ‘I guess it’s tree bark for now. I better start tracking some game if I don’t want to die….wait, whats that?’

A strip of thin icicle was in the way, but Jace knocked them out of the way to find something growing among the branches. ‘Those look like….Hickory nuts!’

Hickory nuts were one of nature’s hidden treats. Wrapped in a double shell layer, the nut was sweet and calorie packed with nutrients. And the best part was that they could be eaten right out of the shell and lasted months without going back.

Jace’s eyes lit up in joy seeing them. ‘How nostalgic. I haven’t picked Hickory nuts since I was a kid. They’re all over the place in North Dakota, and mom loved making pies from them. Although…’ He eyed the snow all around. ‘While they grow fine in cold climates, this is a little extreme for a cold climate.’

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

He thought back to Elm’s comment about how mana greatly changed the world.

{“The mountains climb higher, the oceans run deeper, the gravity hits harder, and the ecosystem is intertwined with dense mana, causing the world to be stripped barren of natural life, so expect something as simple as a tree to be much tougher than you remember. And all that is only the tip of the iceberg.”}

‘I guess I don’t have to throw away all my survival knowledge, but I’ll need to adapt it as I go. If something as simple as a Hickory nut can grow in a forest like this, then who knows what else changed.’

Smaug hissed by his ear, breaking him from his thoughts. “Oh, right. We’re on the clock. Thanks bud.”

The snake squeezed lightly in support as Jace eyed his grimoire. ‘Just over two minutes left.’

Quickly taking action, he shimmied up the tree to grab the lowest hanging nuts. ‘Damn it, the ice is making it stick. Come off.’

Focused as he was on the nuts, Jace almost missed it when a set of razor sharp teeth tried to clamp down on his extended hand. ‘Holy shit!’ He just managed to pull three nuts back before his hand was taken off.

A pair of gleaming red eyes locked onto him and a screaming white shaped projectile slammed into Jace’s chest before he could blink.

“Oof!” The armor dulled the impact tremendously, but the small creature knocked the wind out of him.

Jace coughed harshly from the ground. ‘Thank god for the armor, that would have broken a rib.’

The attack happened in less than three seconds, and only on his back to Jace get a clear image of the creature. Standing maybe a foot tall, a pure white rodent with a curled puffy tail and red jeweled eyes clawed at his armored chest like a thing possessed.

It’s sudden appearance caused him to pause for precious seconds, seconds that would have become a grave issue had someone else not taken great offense at the attack.

The berserker rodent didn’t have any time to notice it as Smaug came shooting out of the armor with eyes screaming murder. His fangs snapped shut around the creatures neck as the two went tumbling off Jace’s chest and into the snow, painting the white snow a blood red as the two struggled.

‘Smaug!’ Jace’s mind rebooted from his shock as he shot up and launched his armored body at the two. His hand came down and grabbed the rodent, pinning it to the tree trunk with the full force of his body.

There was a loud crunch as bones snapped and the rodent screeched. Smaug hung on viciously to its neck with his small fangs as the creature thrashed.

Jace had only a second to realize the noise was bound to grab attention soon and fumbled for something to use before his eyes caught sight of the icicles he broke off to get to the Hickory nuts. Grabbing one in his off hand, he ruthlessly impaled the creature through its gaping mouth and cut off its screech.

A ‘ding’ rang out in his mind, but with his heart thundering in his chest, Jace didn’t have time to care. He fell to his knees in the snow, breathing heavily at his first real brush with something trying to actively kill him, and laughed.

It wasn’t because he killed something, no, it was because he realized he had just been viciously attacked by a squirrel.

A magical squirrel, but most definitely a fucking squirrel.

Smaug was squeezing the crap out the thing, almost literally as blood oozed out of its wounds.

“Bud, we won, it’s dead.”

Smaug paused, pulled out it’s fangs, and Jace would swear if the little snake could breathe fire, he would have just done it to show his superiority with how he was looking at the dead creature in disgust.

Jace’s laughter rang through the clearing as he reached a palm down to scoop up his mighty guardian and bring him to eye level. “Thanks Smaug, you just saved my ass there.”

Smaug preened at the praise, but just then, a creaking of wood alerted them both to the fact that they had company.

Man and snake slowly looked up and froze at the sight of dozens of red jeweled eyed glaring down at them from the tree branches high above.

Jace blinked.

Smaug used his tail to casually brush some snow over the dead squirrel corpse in a vain attempt to hide the evidence.

The horde of angry squirrels growled and Jace took his que to run. Smaug shot into the sand armor just as Jace grabbed the squirrel corpse and the nuts and booked it back to the dungeon entrance just over a hundred meters away.

The horde’s screech echoed loudly through the woods as they chased after the human who killed on their own.

‘Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.’ Jace ran like never before, zigzagging through trees to the sound of loud impacts as the squirrels dived after him only to hit the trunks.

And if that wasn’t the worst part, the sand armor chose that moment to start undulating and falling apart. ‘I’m running out of mana!’ Jace didn’t even have time to check how much mana he had left as he ran.

The dungeon entrance rapidly grew in his eyes, but a hundred feet from the platform, one of the squirrels managed to tackle his knee and throw him forward into a roll toward the steps leading up to the icy platform.

The thing bit down and pierced the loosening sand to draw blood from Jace’s leg, causing him to growl in pain as his flesh covered in ice, but Jace didn’t even have a chance to act before Smaug shot out from the sand to counterattack with zero hesitation. “Not the time to attack Smaug!”

Thankfully, the pain helped keep Jace in the moment as he pounded the distracted rodent over the head with a hammer fist of sand, grabbed its stunned body by the tail, and continued running with everything he had as more sand kept falling off him.

Smaug wasn’t even in the armor anymore as he was latched on the murder squirrels neck, flapping in the wind as he determinedly savaged the creature while a horde of them were nipping at their heels with the scent of blood in the air.

Biting freezing winds buffeted Jace’s body as the sand fell from his torso. The world began to spin as his head grew dizzy from the lack of mana. And just as the sand reached his knees and he started seeing double, he reached the entrance and dove in headfirst.

The sound of impacts rang behind him as dozens of angry rodents slammed into a solid barrier and got repelled violently, tossing them back into the sharp icy platform in a cloud of red.

But none of that mattered to the shivering, bloody, and dirt covered Jace as he reached safety and raised his arms in victory. “Fuck you rodents!”

He idly noticed that of the two said rodents in his hands, one was still moving as it dangled in the air and gave a few dying twitches to Smaug’s gentle embrace.

Jace laughed loudly and put the thing down. “Smaug, bud, you don’t fuck around, do you?”

Smaug responded by snapping the squirrels neck with a jerk of his head and pulling out his fangs. The little snake gave his defeated foe a look like it wasted his time before slithering over to tiredly plop down in Jace’s hand.

His scales were covered in frost from his brief time outside the armor, and Jace didn’t think it felt comfortable for the sand snake.

The two just lay there for a few minutes as the world stopped spinning and the adrenaline faded. Only once he could see straight did Jace chuckle and move to sit against the wall. He moved Smaug onto his chest to warm him up and summoned his grimoire’s backlog. ‘Please tell me that ‘Ding’ was what I think it was.’

[-2HP]

[Arctic Squirrel Lvl 2 killed: 12EXP Gained]

[-15HP]

[Arctic Squirrel Inflicted Ice damage: healing slowed by 2% a minute for 10 minutes]

[Arctic Squirrel Lvl 3 killed: 19EXP Gained]

‘Vicious little fuckers.’ Jace grumbled and dropped his head back against the wall while idly petting Smaug as his resources recovered minute by minute.

‘So that was a real fight.’ His mind started digesting it. How he got distracted by finding food. How he didn’t notice a rodent who could have easily killed him. How Smaug saved his life, twice. And how utterly pathetic he was.

‘To be fair, I’ve never actually had something trying to actively kill me before.’ He recalled the cruel ruby eyed berserker rodent on his chest and felt a shiver of not fear, but expectation. ‘I froze up the first time, but I recovered on the second. Those things have tricks, but they have little defense.’ He squeezed his off hand, recalling how it felt to pin the thing down. ‘They’re not strong or particularly fast as I could outrun them, but they’re ridiculously quick in short bursts. And apparently their razor sharp teeth have an ice type affect if they bite you.’

Jace side eyed his shin, seeing the layer of ice rapidly fading from where the squirrel got his shin. ‘Getting bit by one is an issue, getting bit by ten and you’re a goner. Considering how fast they gathered, I probably surprised a sleeping one when I went to get the Hickory nuts.’

The three nuts he managed to grab were lying beside the two dead squirrels, splashed with bloodstains but still whole. ‘Heh, managed to catch some dinner at least.’

He turned back to the grimoire and pulled up his stats.

[Class: Summoner – lvl 0 {EXP 31/100}

HP: 38/50

MP: 5/50

SP: 20/50 ]

‘Well, that’s just about a third of a way to level 1. I guess 31EXP is 50% of what I would have gotten. But now’s not the time to ponder on it. I’ll save the data and relate it to future kills.’ Jace shook his head with a wry smile. ‘I need to be better. That was just sad. I haven’t hunted in far too long and years spent behind a desk have dulled my senses. If my teenager self-saw that display, he would be disgusted. Hell, just imagining my old man’s reaction to that sorry excuse for awareness would have me eating tree bark that night.’

Jace grunted and picked himself up. ‘I can be better.’ He eyed his sleepy partner and let Smaug wrap around his neck to rest. “Thanks bud, I owe you one.”

Smaug hissed softly and squeezed gently as he relaxed. ‘Even without a need to sleep, it doesn’t mean the mental strain isn’t real. I don’t know how intelligent summons are supposed to be, but I doubt they're all going to be soul bound to me. I should start treating Smaug like a real creature rather than a summon.’ Jace rubbed the little snakes head and moved to pick up the squirrel corpses and nuts. ‘And I’ll start by making us a meal.’

Limping forward, he made his way down the path toward the hot side entrance. ‘There were those obsidian chunks near the door. I need a knife to skin these things, and hell, I could probably use the ground there to cook my food.’

Recalling the burning of his foot only hours earlier felt clear in mind, yet distant in scope at the same time. ‘There’s just so much happening today, I can barely keep up. I think I’ll give it a rest after we eat and call it a night.’

Jace walked slowly, letting his health, mana, and stamina slowly top back off as his wounded shin healed over. He breathed easier with each minute until he could walk normally and no longer felt any pain. ‘Having things like my stamina listed numerically is slightly weird, but knowing I can recover so quickly is a major gain. Two of my injuries today would be crippling for months back on earth. Hell, I think mana recovery plays a part in mental strain. I’m not nearly as bothered by some of the things happening today as I should be.’

He stopped by the Dungeon Monolith to drop off the corpses and nuts but continued on with the interesting train of thought for the next twenty minutes as he debated on how resources correlated with his mind and body on a deeper level until he reached the other side.

Seeing his mana recover by thirty points during the walk, he tapped his guardian lightly to get his attention. “Bud, think you can armor me up for a minute? I just want to grab some stones.”

Smaug nodded and a moment later, sand rushed from the path to encase him once more in two layers of compact sand.

“Perfect. Rest up buddy, this should only be a minute.”

Smaug hissed and laid down, but by the narrowing of his eyes, he was ready to act at the drop of a hat.

And with the most recent brush with danger, Jace wasn’t going to disarm him from being cautious.

He pushed through the door with little hesitation, trusting in his guardians ability now more than ever. And it was trust well placed as he stepped out into the blistering heat. Like an ant stepping onto a frying pan, he felt the heat waves surround him.

But despite that, Jace felt only warmth on every inch of his body except his face that was brushed by the heat waves through the open slits of his helmet. ‘As long as I don’t have to make skin contact with the ground, I can survive this level of heat for a while.’

His gaze turned away from the ground and toward the world around him. The world of molten lava, ash, floating stone platforms, and roaring creatures greeted him once more, but Jace wasn’t in the mood to sight see.

Looking over the fifty foot platform the entrance stood on, Jace confirmed the position of it. ‘This is definitely the other side of the mountain peak from the snow end. The entrance on both sides is at the apex of the central mountain, looking over the rest of the Biome, except where the cold side has a hill to climb, the hot side has a cliff.’

He stepped up to the edge, idly brushing his foot up against a loose stone that went over the edge to begin a long, long fall down to the molten depths. Even past the ground level in sight, a crevice existed beneath the cliff that went beneath the earth like a gaping maw of superheated earth, blowing superheated air upwards like a breathing behemoth. ‘That’s gotta be at least six hundred meters to the ground. Fucking hell, if the cold side is that far down, how big is this mountain?’

The new resident to the Biome could only shake his head in wonder at the scale of the world he was in now. ‘Elm did say the planet was three times the size of earth. And this is only a pocket dimension, not even the actual planet.’

Smaug hissed in his ear and Jace silently nodded at the warning. It was best not to dawdle in their bedraggled state, he could theorize back inside.

Jace scanned the platform for the stones he saw the first time he stuck his head through and quickly found them. Taking a knee before the pile, he idly sized up where it was and scratched his sandy head. ‘Now how did you end up over here?’

Obsidian was formed from rapidly cooled molten lava, so it begged the question of how lava got that far up the mountain in the first place. Yet just as he was thinking about it, a boom shook the world and Jace would have fallen on his face if he weren’t already kneeling.

Looking into the distance, he eyed one of the volcanos belching smoke and ash in much greater quantity than before. And high above, glowing balls began to appear before they rained down over the world. ‘Meteors? Are you shitting me? These volcanos are shooting ballistic projectiles!’ The flaming spheres crashed down throughout the map randomly, smashing into floating platforms and causing them to bob and weave like ships on an ocean wave. ‘So they are magnetic.’ He eyed the thin strips of stone connecting them all to each other. ‘Magnetic but durable, and they don’t seem move too far from each other.’

Smaug hissed again and Jace silently cursed at losing himself in his thoughts. ‘Grab the stone, research later.’

There were dozens of boulder piles on the platform, and now he had a good idea of how they got there. He grabbed a handful of hand sized obsidian stones and made his way back inside.

Smaug dropped the armor from everywhere but Jace’s hands once they were through the door and blessed chilled air brushed against the two of them. Man and snake sighed in relief together. “Ah~, I didn’t realize how hot it was till now.”

The air inside the cave was humid at best, but it was basically a heater coming from the cold side, and air conditioning coming from the hot side.

The stones in his armored palms steamed at the change in temperature, yet Jace only felt warm through the sand. ‘This armor ability really is magical. I know the properties of normal sand, but it seems enhanced with mana in how much it protects from temperature changes.’

Idly juggling the cooling stones, Jace made his way back to the Dungeon Monolith and plopped down by the water. “Well, that was an eventful day, eh Smaug?”

His guardian hissed in agreement and slithered down to approach the blue water. Jace watched in interest as his summon dove right in, sinking into the sand inside and rolled around like a dog.

The sight was somehow adorable and it soothed Jace’s mind to watch. Dried blood from the squirrels, dirt, and whatever else was stuck to his scales dissolved under the waters cleaning effects, leaving him sparkling clean as he exited and sat to the side. Smaug looked back at Jace’s neck, then toward the water, and back up before giving Jace an expectant look.

“Are you telling me I’m dirty, bud?”

The bob of Smaug’s head said it all and Jace couldn’t help but laugh. “Fine, I was being cautious earlier but if you say it’s safe, I’ll trust you.”

He sat down by the water’s edge and lowered his body into it, groaning in relief as the cool, yet still bath warm water went into effect. It felt like dozens of brushes scrubbing against his skin all at once and Jace could see the filth left over before it dissolved. ‘It’s like a massage. I could relax like this all day.’

But just as he had that thought, the massage ended and Jace was left alone. He blinked at the water. ‘Huh? Did I insult the water?’

Smaug hissed at him and gestured to get out with his tail. Only then did Jace realize he was already clean. “Damn, it only works if your dirty? Remind me not to care about hygiene.”

He ran a hand over his body and marveled at how smooth it felt. ‘I don’t even have body hair anymore. Thank god I didn’t stick my head in there. I don’t want to test that with my own head.’

Stepping out, he noticed even his briefs were clean. “It really is a magical washing machine. Huh, I wonder…”

Looking over at the raw obsidian and squirrel corpses, he wondered how the water would affect raw minerals and animal hide. ‘Only one way to find out.’

Taking one of the stones, he dropped it in the water and watched in interest. The water bubbled from the leftover heat before it went to work on the ore. First the soot was washed away, then the dirt, then the extra rock that was stuck to it fell apart like sand, and when the stone hit the bottom of the water, all that was left was a smaller sized gleaming jet-black stone.

Jace’s eyes shined as he went in to retrieve it. “Shit, it really cleaned it. That’s going to save me a hell of a lot of time.”

Holding the adult hand ore up, he excitedly went looking for a suitable rock to grind with and started chipping away at the black stone. ‘Obsidian is one of the sharpest minerals on earth, yet it’s also very brittle. It’s easy to chip away at it to make an edge, but one wrong slip and I’ll lose a finger.’

Making sure to keep the edge he was forming away from him, he got to work chipping at it while Smaug watched on curiously. The snake reclaimed his spot upon Jace’s neck and enjoyed the peace while keeping a wary eye on their surroundings. Even knowing they were in a safe space didn’t make the little guardian drop his guard. If the obsidian cut his partner, Smaug was fully ready to kill the black stone to death.

Over the next two hours, Jace single mindedly chipped away at the ore, failing on the first two attempts and switching over to a new piece each time. And at the end, he held a very ugly, rough looking piece of obsidian shaped like a knife.

[image [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/792095442053496832/1219465751577231461/image.png?ex=660b66fb&is=65f8f1fb&hm=53a636f3f85201ac378ad5bcf6186cb928648625257d20e993c80c3d28f9b70f&]]

“Hm…it’s not very pretty, but it’s something.” He washed the blade in the water and brought over one of the squirrel corpses to evaluate it. The blade was jagged and roughly bit into the hide, but it did cut. ‘I can do better with the edge.’

Finding an appropriate stone to hold the blade at an angle, he very gently chipped away at the edge, letting the natural material shine through with sharp edges glinting softly in the light. ‘And that’s why Aztecs loved it. This shit is as naturally sharp as surgical blades.’

Bringing it back to the animal hide a few minutes later, Jace watched in satisfaction as it sliced through it without trouble. ‘There we go. Now all it needs is a handle. I’ll use the thickest bones from the squirrels for it, I’m not letting anything useful go to waste here.’

Most parts of an animal were useful if you knew what to use them for.

Fat could be used for cooking purposes. The meat for eating. The Heart, Liver, Kidney, and testicles could be made into food if properly handled. The tendons could be dried to make rope or bow strings. The bones for crafting. The hide and fur for clothing or armor.

The rest of the bits were not recommended to be eaten, but depending on the animal, there were ways to process them. ‘Some cultures actually eat monkey brains, locusts, and eyeballs as if they were delicacies.’ Jace shivered at the thought. Even if he knew what was and wasn’t edible, he had his limits. ‘Bird hearts and livers were fine, but eyes, brains, or testicles I’m giving a flat pass on until I’m half starved.’

He was slightly out of practice, and his cuts weren’t anything fancy, but his old hunting experience rapidly came back to him as he worked on the corpses. Separating the hide and fur, the edible meat and organs he was willing to touch, and oddly enough the eyes.

Jace popped them out curiously as he eyed the strange gems. ‘I thought it was a trick of the light, but they really do have rubies for eyes.’ He washed it off in the water and saw how they gleamed like finely cut jewels. ‘If these things are valuable, I’ll have to make a habit of hunting them.’

He chuckled internally as he dismantled the two beasts. ‘Jace the Jewel Hunter has a nice ring to it. Those little rodent bastards would deserve it.’

Finding a tray sized thin stone, Jace washed it and placed the cleaned cuts of meat on top, lined nicely in rows like a BBQ joint. “Come on bud, let’s go grill these fuckers.”

Jace tapped his shoulder thinking Smaug was still there, and blinked a moment later when he heard a hiss from his side. Looking down, he blinked a second time seeing Smaug curled up around the four rubies Jace placed to the side.

The mighty guardian was curled up around the jewels, mesmerized by his reflection.

‘Was I a little to spot on with naming him Smaug?’ Jace’s lips twitched as he coughed into his fist.

Smaug’s head snapped up like a dog that got caught digging through the trash. He casually adjusted his body to block Jace’s sight of the jewels.

“….”

“….”

If a snake could pout, Jace would say Smaug was pouting.

“Want me to forget this happened?”

The little snake slowly nodded and Jace jerked his chin toward the stairs. “Come on, we got dinner to cook.”

Smaug perked up and quickly slithered over to climb back to his seat around Jace’s neck with an excited hiss.

Jace side eyed his partner as he walked. ‘I’ll have to talk to him later about loot distribution.’

The two rushed to the hot side, and once covered in armor again, they stepped out and found an appropriately sized flat stone to grill on.

‘Is it fucked up that looking at the sizzling meat is reminding me of my foot earlier?’ Jace hummed to himself but ultimately didn’t care. ‘My spite for those rodents is above my nausea at that injury. Besides, it healed too fast for me to really get trauma from it. People in this world probably don’t see injuries the same way we did back on earth with everyone healing in hours or days instead of weeks or months.’

The sun began setting in the distance, and even for the hot side glowing with light from molten earth, it managed to paint the sky in colors like something from ancient times. Man and snake marveled at the sight, taking in raw natural beauty like a visual treat.

‘I guess that means the Biome follows a normal day and night cycle.’ Jace mused to himself as he worked with Smaug keeping a wary eye on their surroundings, but thankfully, it didn’t seem like anything lived near the entrance on the hot side.

The two finished cooking and quickly headed back inside to the Dungeon Monolith with a steaming pile of sizzling meat in tow.

“I should probably ration my food supply, but frankly at the moment, I really don’t care. What do you say bud?”

Smaug had no need to eat, yet the little guardian was already at the edge of Jace’s knee, trying to stretch out to grab some of the meat just out of his reach.

Jace laughed at the sight. “I’ll take that as agreement. Here, bud, eat up. You deserve it.” He cut up a piece and used a smaller stone, which he cleaned in the water, like a plate for the guy to eat from before taking a plate for himself.

‘I really hope this isn’t poisonous.’ He side eyed his guardian and casually had his grimoire open, checking the HP levels of Smaug just in case. It might seem scummy, but well, Smaug could revive and Jace most certainly could not.

Only after being assured there was no adverse effect did he take the plunge. Jace’s eyes widened as the grilled meat exploded in flavor. ‘It looks more like chicken, but with the flavor of juicy high grade beef.’ The meat fell apart as he chewed and even without spices, its natural flavor was enticing.

With distant eyes, he idly reached for a second piece, only to pause at not finding anything. Looking down, he caught sight of Smaug choking down the piece from his plate and twitched. ‘Little brat…’

Shaking his head in exasperation, he refilled both their plates and the meat began vanishing before their eyes.

The two ate nonstop, the flavor enticing them to keep going, and neither interested in saving any for later. The Hickory nuts went entirely ignored as they gorged themselves and fell into mini food coma’s at the end.

“Uuuhhh, can’t move.” Jace burped in pleasure and laid out spread eagle on his back, dead to the world. “Smaug, we’re hunting those rodents every day from now on.”

Smaug hissed in full agreement by his side, bloated like a balloon without a single care given to safety for the time being.

Jace mused to himself while rubbing the blissfully collapsed snakes head. ‘I guess he really isn’t much like a normal snake. I’ve never seen a real snake eat cooked meat before. And they usually just swallow the corpse whole and sustain themselves off it for weeks or longer. I guess the soul bound really did affect the little guy.’

Shaking his head, he sat back and relaxed while thinking over everything. ‘That meat was amazing, but I can’t just go charging in there like the mess earlier. If they were all awake when I first got there, I would have been dead faster than I could realize.’ The thought of it brought a grimace to his face. ‘But fighting up close isn’t what I’m supposed to do anyway. I’m a summoner, and before that, I’m a hunter. You don’t brawl with prey; you use tools to catch or take them down. I might not have much in the way of tools, but I’m perfectly aware how to make simple traps from natural materials.’

Thinking about his prior experience with the squirrels, Jace processed what he noticed. ‘They didn’t seem very intelligent or durable. It’s their dexterity, teeth, berserker like nature, and numbers that make them a threat. That should make them perfect prey for a good trap.’ His eyes fell on the uneaten nuts by the side. ‘And they are either really protective of these things, or at least eat them regularly. So I’ve got easy bait.’

Dozens of thoughts and ideas bred their way through Jace’s mind on how to proceed, unknowingly bringing an excited smile to his face as he slowly drifted off.

And noticing his partner sleeping, Smaug slithered over and curled up on his chest, staring off into the surroundings warily. He was a guardian, he was the last line of defense, and he was Smaug.

Nothing would touch his partner before facing his mighty fangs of doom.

Chapter End.