Eon ran for hours at high speeds, until his exhausted body finally collapsed to the soil. It was at this point Eon experienced something else he missed dearly, sleep. He curled into a ball and closed his eyes
It had turned dark, with a moon several times larger than Earth's moon hanging in a starry sky that was completely unfamiliar to Eon. The moon was also ruby red instead of white.
A small crunching noise woke Eon. Thanks to bodily revelation and years of training his senses, Eon's senses were very sensitive and precise, he was almost able to use a form of long-distance echolocation. While he might not have been able to alter his bloodline or life force due to his inability to form life sparks, he could still use bodily revelation to augment his body beyond what humans normally capable of even while bodily revelation isn't active, and the greatest improvement was in his hearing.
Eon raised himself into a crouched position. He didn't know whether or not the healing sparks worked in this place, so if Eon ended up getting into a fight, he would have to rely on the healing abilities that he had built with bodily revelation. While they should work fine in theory, he never had much of an opportunity to put them into practice as the tutorial healed his wounds after every fight.
Several more snapping noises rang out, and Eon could just barely make out the sound of shuffling about 350 yards away from him, slowly coming in his general direction. When he was running earlier, he had run into a forest.
The trees here looked like a combination of palm trees and evergreens, with long pointy leaves. Eon crawled across the ground like a predator, his body contorted at strange angles to keep himself close to the ground as he climbed up the nearest tree. He waited in the branches, the source of the noise drawing slowly closer. When the noise drew within 30 yards after some minutes, Eon could make out what was making the noise.
It was a person, to be precise they appeared to be a child of 12 to 13 years of age; however, there were some differences from the humans Eon was used to. Their skin was a mixture of gray and deep blue, each color appearing in strands across the body. Upon the back of its hands were leather-like pads, like those found on the paws of mammals on Earth, and these pads were light brown in color.
These differences were still small enough to make them easily recognizable as human-like. Eon had a huge smile on his face as he looked at this child. Where there was one human, there was almost always more. All Eon had to do was follow this kid until he unknowingly led Eon back to where he lived.
As the child moved forward, he noticed the flattened grass where Eon had slept. After examining the location, a look of confusion appeared on the child's face, then he drew a knife fashioned from a horn from his simple, almost medieval-looking clothes.
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Scanning the surroundings for a few minutes, the child returned the knife back to their belt, before cautiously continuing on their way. Eon left a distance of about 200 yards between them before climbing down from the tree. He followed the child crawling as he had before, ensuring the distance remained between them.
After the moon had risen a third of the way into the sky, the sight and sounds of civilization greeted Eon. After getting used to little noise, the sounds startled him a bit. Eon took a look at the state of this city. The construction city looked rustic yet familiar, there were many buildings, looked somewhat advanced in their construction, but their materials were quite crude, lacking any plaster or concrete. The buildings were majoritively made of stone, clay, and wood. If he had to guess, this place's technology was probably on par with the 17th century, having the necessary advanced mathematics and construction but still a few decades shy of beginning industrialization.
Still, even this was enough to make Eon giddy. He couldn't remember the last time he spoke to another living breathing person, as the more humanoid monsters in the tutorial never spoke, or at the very least they never spoke to Eon. Eon ditched the child and moved towards the large dirty orange clay wall which surrounded the city, raising over 10 feet.
Eon quickly scaled the wall with little effort. What he didn't know was that leaping the wall triggered an alarm, which caused several guards to immediately close on his exact position. Eon continued to quickly and quietly slip further into the city, none the wiser that he was being tracked. It also didn't help that Eon had to majorly decrease his senses sensitivity as cities created a lot of noise and movement. As he moved across rooftops and through alleyways, Eon confirmed one of his fears.
'I can't understand a single thing they are saying.'
While this society wasn't industrial, there were several lamp posts with what appeared to be countless beetles crawling across the top, forming a sphere. Each of these beetle balls let off a light that illuminated the nearby area. This light meant the vibrancy of life could continue into the night, much like modern Earth.
There were countless bustling markets and people still working and peddling their trade into the blanketing moon. Eon couldn't understand a single word they were saying, but he could guess what each area was for from the hustle and bustle of the crowd.
About 7/10ths of the people here appeared to be of the same race as the child he had seen earlier, the rest were each almost unique in their appearance, mixing several animalistic traits or even traits Eon had never seen before, there weren't many hard and fast rules for what each of these people looked like.
There were even child hybrids between the countless species, made obvious to be hybrids by the appearance and traits of their nearby parents. Eon lowered his guard a bit, as it seemed that he would not stick out here as he had feared he might. He had seen a few dozen that were almost completely identical to the humans he was used to, which gave him some reassurance.
The primary goal Eon had right now was finding clothes. He was still totally naked from his travel through the portal, and for whatever reason, the only thing that worked with his system right now was the status menu. Everything else he tried wouldn't even give a response, which meant he couldn't replace the clothes using the shop as he did in the tutorial.
Turning into another alleyway, Eon found a pile of rags and old clothes that someone must have thrown out. Eon found the best clothes he could in the pile and put them on. While they were tight in some places and loose in others, on top of being almost threadbare, they were still a vast improvement to his previous nude state. As Eon tried to leave the alley; however, a massive brawny man in glossy black armor blocked his path.