Holding the essence in his legs, Clay took great care in how much essence flowed or, for better imagination, how large the rock got he had to hold. At a certain size he let go and simultaneously pushed against the ground, shooting off into the open field, only leaving a small crater on the dirt with his footprint.
With the destructive force of this move, he decided to no wear his boots, otherwise he would have shredded them to pieces long ago. Taking his all to keep his concentration, he landed on his left leg, and released the essence once again.
In his right leg, he already held the essence for the next step. Upon the seventh step he miscalculated, and his regeneration wasn’t completely finished yet, so upon putting pressure on the leg, the bone broke. He lost his balance and fell before rolling several steps further. A bad try to stop his momentum, caused his wrist to crack, until he eventually lost enough momentum and came to a standstill.
Lying on the ground, his body was severely bruised and completely twisted up. Used with this situation, he kept his calm and formed an inner circulation around his whole body. Feeling the burning pain of his healing at work, the bruises vanished in mere moments, and lying there for a few seconds more his bones were healed just the same.
Sitting up, he massaged his neck in frustration. He trained with utmost dedication over the last month, but still was unable to resolve his initial problem. He now had an attack he was confident in could kill practically anything he encountered.
The better part of this past month was spent on only perfecting this single punch. When it felt like he had to lift a literal boulder just to hold the essence, then he knew he reached its maximum capacity. At this stage, his punch was able to practically explode entire trees and break stones, not much different to a canon.
Of course, it took time to gather that much essence, and he almost loses consciousness doing so not to mention the damage that followed, but if it landed? Well, he was pretty sure not a lot which was made out of flesh and blood would still stand afterward.
The attack wasn’t the problem, with a little more training he was sure to master that technique, the problem still laid in his speed. The idea was to use this exploding force to quickly accelerate, like the dire wolves did with their hint legs.
Turns out that holding a stream of essence and timing it perfectly with stepping from the ground, while also immediately keeping hold of another in preparation for the next step, was a lot easier said than done. Not to mention that the amount of essence had to be the exact sweet spot between giving enough power and reducing injuries to such an extent that his regeneration was able to keep up.
The issue wasn’t as simple as it was with his arm. After getting his punch off, he didn’t care that he had to wait a few seconds, or close to a minute in case he used his maximum power, until it was healed. That was because he was sure that whatever was on the receiving end of that punch was close to dead.
His leg on the other hand was a different story. Without his movement he lost the ability to avoid any attacks, and that was in the case of such fast opponents unforgivable. It didn’t matter how good his regeneration was, he was pretty sure that decapitation still killed him.
If he only had to put as much essence into his legs as possible than he was able to reach speeds, which couldn’t even be matched by dire wolves nor bone spiders, but it was a one-trick pony. Afterward, he would be a sitting duck for close to a minute, which was far more than what was needed to kill him.
No, instead he adopted for the approach which still gave him more speed without sacrificing mobility. At least that is what he would say if there wasn’t the small problem of not being able to control this new power at all. Hell, he wasn’t even able to take a few steps in a straight line before fucking something up and falling.
If he now accounted for difficult terrain like a forest and all the different angles he quickly had to adjust to? Well, it felt quite impossible to be honest, especially without enhancing his brain. If he perceives his surroundings faster than it was of course far easier to maneuver around, but he just couldn’t afford to burn heart blood just for the sake of training.
He barely had enough essence to enhance his legs, so it was out of the question to guide some away for his brain. In the best case, he wins his fights without having to burn heart blood anyway, as its regeneration was just so painfully slow.
He especially struggled to find the right amount of essence to hold for what distance. It was incredibly hard to gauge how much power you get just from the illusory image of a stone in your mind, not to mention that there was always a small fluctuation, as this technique was literally based around essence erupting uncontrollably.
For this idea of movement to become feasible, he would have to meticulously estimate the distance to where he would want to go and use the perfect amount of essence needed to reach that distance. This was practically impossible to reach with him consciously thinking about this process, so what was the solution?
His answer lied in repetition. His idea was to train until his mind knew exactly how much essence to use for what distance, he was planning to rely on muscle memory, just with the difference that he wasn’t using real muscles.
Besides, the term ‘muscle memory’ having the term muscle in it, was foremost the brain responsible for gaining muscle memories, as the brain encodes and recalls these movements not the muscles themselves.
The point was that Clay should be able to gain muscle memory for at least one certain amount of essence. Adjusting the essence to the distance needed wasn’t really feasible at the moment. He needed to be able to use this new movement in battle and that as soon as possible, so instead he planned on first learning the sweet spot between force gained and injuries sustained.
If successful, he would also have a guideline of what amount of essence he should never surpass, thus making future adjustments easier. It didn’t matter if he came one meter too long or short, what mattered was that he always kept his injuries to a manageable degree and thus preserved his mobility.
He was close to finding this sweet spot and when he finally had it he just had to repeat, repeat, and repeat, until his mind could manage to hold and release the essence without him having to consciously think about it.
***
Jumping up and down in place, Clay shook his hands in preparation. Taking a deep breath, he thought about running, his muscles tensed and prepared for the sprint, while his mind formed a circulation to his legs and held the essence to a very specific point. The moment he pushed with his right leg, the essence got released.
Taking the next step with his left leg, the essence got yet again released at just the right time. Following this, Clay sprinted at full force through the field, months of practice had led him here, insufferable pain and countless falls, but it finally clicked.
All summer he honed this one skill, and finally he had mastered it. The wind was biting at his current speed, and he had to squint his eyes to see, long surpassing at what he deemed comfortable. Fully concentrated, he kept running until he finally reached the last stretch of the field and came to a standstill after several dozen meters of decelerating.
Jogging back, he gasped for air until his inner circulation was up again and restored his energy reserves. Upon reaching the makeshift finish line, he was back to normal. “So how long?”
Looking at the time stopper in her hand, Mia replied, “You took exactly 20.91 seconds.”
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Nodding, Clay remarked, “That is pretty consistent with our previous results, so this is the limit of what I can safely run at.”
Spacing out for a while, Mia eventually asked, “You just sprinted about 800 meters in 20.91 seconds, how fast is that exactly?”
“Ahhh, I have no idea, actually. We could surely find some formula in the books, but does it matter? It’s as fast as I can go and enough to make seeing a problem, so I actually have to think of getting some sort of goggles.” Stated Clay while straying off with his thoughts.
“Why not get a mask?” Mia asked from the side. “Ah? Sorry what?” Repeating herself in annoyance, she explained, “A mask. If I already have to wear one, you could too, if you need goggles anyway.”
Thinking for a moment, Clay eventually nodded his head. “You know, that is quite a good idea. The mask can also offer some protection, just have to find a way how to secure it and what material? Metal is out of the question…”
While Clay was already mumbling about this new project, Mia had one last thing to ask, “Also if you are already making you a mask could you make me a new one?”
Ripped out of his thoughts, he looked confused at her. “Is your mask damaged somewhere, or did it get too small? I intentionally made it a bit bigger so it would fit for a while.”
“It did get a bit tighter, but I wanted to ask if you can’t just make a half mask?” Now even more interested, Clay asked, “A half mask?” Fiddling with her hands, Mia explained, “Well it’s kinda hard to see with the eyeholes, and as I only breathe the poison I thought it would be enough to just cover my nose and mouth.”
Slamming himself on his forehead, Clay apologized, “Of course we can make a half mask. What an oversight on my part. It wasn’t that important before, but with you coming along patrols, it's important to properly see your surroundings. Damn, I should have thought of that sooner, another problem I have to consider for my own mask. Well, let’s get home, there is a lot of work to do.”
***
With the help of another plaster mask of Mia’s face and a short trip to the poisonous tree to get a new piece of wood, Clay was able to quickly make her a new mask, still in the style of an owl just with the difference of it only covering half her face. The peak just ended snugly at her nose bridge.
His own mask on the other hand was a bigger problem. He already had multiple wooden versions with fitting lenses, which didn’t restrict his own sight too much. The problem was that he wasn’t quite satisfied with the material being out of wood.
He intended to use this mask in battle, so it should offer some protection. Sadly, wood wasn’t the most resilient material and compared to Mia, he couldn’t just use wood, which was infused with magical poison.
No, he needed something that was resilient, yet not too heavy and also without having to incorporate any form of metal. Leaning back in frustration, he looked out of the small window from the basement. Straying with his eyes around the room, he noticed a dark reflection in one of the boxes.
Intrigued, he stood up and cleared the way before heaving the box unto his table. Lying inside were the remains of the royal ant’s exoskeleton. He stored most of it away, as he didn’t know where it could come in use, but sadly most of the black chitin was broken into several uneven pieces and due to its resilient nature it was hard to work with.
Rummaging through the pieces, he eventually noticed a particular large one. Holding it against the light of the sun shining through the window, a sound of bafflement escaped his lips. Well he didn’t think of using this, but the royal ant had an armor plate above its mandibles, which protected its eyes, and this particular piece was still completely intact.
Leaning his head to the side, he tried to put it close to his face, only to realize that it fitted surprisingly smugly around his face. The ant didn’t really have a nose, but the shard was fortunately bent enough to not squeeze his nose. His mouth wasn’t covered, but that wasn’t really important as long as his eyes were.
The underside of the mask below his nose didn’t end in a straight line but consisted instead of rough shards, like teeth of a skull. Slightly gliding over them, his finger drew blood before his healing kicked in and closed the wound.
He definitely would have to round the edges and file the eyeholes to fit the lenses, as well as inlay the mask with some leather or cloth to really make it fit, but he felt like he could definitely make something out of this.
***
Holding the shimmering black mask in the sun, Clay smiled to himself. He was quite proud of this one. It took what felt like years to file the holes and make the inner layering out of the silk of the bone spiders. After thinking, he thought the best material for the mask would be something made by another beast.
During the process of building, he struggled in cutting the string to more manageable sizes, but he eventually got the hang of it and the resulting layering was not only really comfortable but absorbed impacts like a spring. He made two straps of the same silk to secure it around his head.
Putting it on he looked at Mia and asked, “So how do I look?” Surveying him from top to bottom, she said, “Quite scary, I suppose. From a distance, you don’t look much different to a beast.”
Offended by the remark, Clay raised his hand in protest. “Excuse me, I’m sure that you can tell by my silhouette that I’m still quite human, thank you very much.”
“You sure do,” replied Mia while giving him an eye. Confused, he went into the house to take a look at himself. Standing before the mirror, he immediately understood what Mia meant. The black mask with the sharpened edges looked like some disfigured black skull and his shoulder-long silver hair dangling behind could easily be mistaken for some mane, as the white silk straps completely blended in his hair.
From his face, only his mouth gave away that he was a human. Otherwise, he could also just have been another strangely mutated animal. Shaking his head in defeat, he went outside, only to be greeted by Mia’s smug face. “Don’t give me that look.”
She didn’t say anything, but he knew she was gloating internally. But she had a point, if he accounted for the huge wolf coat he wore in the winter, which caused him to appear bulkier than he actually was, he indeed would look quite inhuman at first glance.
Well, it didn’t matter much, as he didn’t encounter another human being for close to two years now. He just had to remember that once they returned to civilization, that he made himself look a bit more “civilized”.
In the past, he played with the thought of staying here in this forest for the rest of his life, but after seeing the pain Mia went through, he realized that this wasn’t an option. It was too much to ask a child to live in isolation like this for the rest of her life, it would break her.
Grabbing his backpack, he began to walk to the north-west, while Mia followed behind. With him mastering erupting his essence, he felt more confident than ever. Of course, he still occasionally hunted during his training to get the heart blood for Mia, but the past few months she was practically living from scraps, and slowly she was showing withdrawal symptoms.
It would be best if he could gather a little buffer, but with how quickly the heart blood of non-awakened beast lost potency, storage was a real problem. Pondering over a possible solution, he heard Mia ask, “You are confident in controlling this eruption, right?”
“Of course, I’m confident. I have trained with my all for these past few months and even if I can’t adjust my power perfectly like a muscle I’m confident that I can, for both my punch and my movement, replicate the sweet spot between power and injuries,” exclaimed Clay.
Nodding, Mia asked, “So you are confident that you won’t injure yourself more than intended, right?” A little confused, Clay bolstered his arms on his hip. “You were there for a large part of my training, and you know that I have been consistent for weeks now, why the sudden worry?”
“I’m not really worried, I was just wondering…” said Mia while trailing off, before a skeptical brow from Clay finally made her speak, “Damn, I’m just wondering why you are still not wearing shoes?”
Startled, Clay looked down only to see his naked feet greeting him, as if they could mock him. He stopped wearing shoes for the training, not to mention that all the fighting and walking already did a bad number on his shoes. Additionally, he had pretty deformed feet, which made it hard to find fitting shoes.
Even before this apocalypse, he only ever really had one pair of shoes, and that didn’t change. But now that he was confident in controlling the eruption of his essence, he could wear them again. So he swiftly went in to grab them, but the moment his feet slid in, and he felt the fabric, and took a few steps it dawned on him.
He didn’t notice it before, but he went for months without shoes by now and not only was it freeing to not wear shoes, but it gave him greater control over his movement, as each tow could feel the ground and really grip into the dirt to utilize the most of his powers. In the past, injuries might have been a problem, but not anymore.
If anything, the skin on his feet grew thick enough to be no different to a shoe, if not better, as his skin regenerated in comparison to his shoes. Coming back out still bare-footed, Mia gave him a strangle look. “What about your shoes? You lost them or what?”
“No, I’m going without,” replied Clay while passing her. Startled, she needed a moment to process what just happened while Clay kept walking. Hastily catching up, she asked, “Why?”
“It’s more comfortable that way, we have to hunt so stop thinking about unnecessary things,” stated Clay without stopping. “How ironic to hear that from you,” mumbled Mia to herself.
“Did you say something?” asked Clay while stopping in his track. “N-No, nothing,” stammered Mia before quickly moving on. She knew that he definitely heard her, so she made the wise decision to not press the topic further.