Zero stepped out of the bubble that seperated Vanguard from the Wasteland. As he walked he looked himself over to make sure he hadn't left anything. His cloak rested lightly on top of him, covering most of his body. He shifted his partial blindfold down over his right eye, and tucked his gauntleted arm beneath his cloak. He reached to make sure all the knives strapped to his waist and in his boots were still there, and checked his Storage Ring to make sure he had gathered everything in his room. Discovering nothing amiss, he continued his slow jog as he practiced his Manual. He continued on track West only stopping when he saw any of the small animals that inhabited the Wasteland. They didn't taste great even to the point of being practically inedible, but his enhanced stomach enabled him to eat such things. And if there was one thing Zero wasn't going to pass up on it was food. He kept moving until the sun fell below the horizon, at which point he found a small hill that would be a good vantage point in case he heard something.

By the time Zero settled down he was drenched in sweat, but with a decent amount of progress considering it had only been little more than half of a day. He hoped he would be entering the real world of practitioners soon. To become a true Manual user he had to at least enter the first realm. The ranking as he knew it so far was Awakening realm, Iron, Bronze, and Crystal. The highest tier he had ever met was an Iron in the village. He had heard that a few months before he had come out of the city the village used to have a Bronze, but Zero had never met him. He knew that this was only one part of the world however, and there could very well be higher rankings. When you first entered the awakening realm you gained the ability to manipulate the energy you had gathered outside of your body. In the Iron realm you could naturally manifest or capture spirits inside of your core. Depending on the spirit it often left physical features on your body. These features were called Spirit Traits, and could enhance your combat ability. Most techniques or spirits let you do more than that but that wasn't always the case, as some spirits had some sort of passive ability. When you reached Bronze you could begin to see the energy in the air, letting the manipulation and control of said energy become many times easier. And finally at the rumored Crystal Stage you could enhance your body with special traits that could be unlocked based on what your conditions were when you advanced to the Crystal Stage.

Zero guessed he would probably be able to break through to the Awakening Realm in two to three days. Unlike in some books he had been given by the old woman that had helped him from the old world, there was no such thing as 'extraordinary talent' and it all depended on hard work, resources, and willpower. Of course some Manuals were better than others, and some very rare resources were able to sharpen one's mind and improve things such as reaction time or other inherent abilities such as that, but that didn't mean that someone could get a free ride through life. People had to work incredibly hard, and suffer quite a bit before any real results could be seen. If possible Zero would go out of his way to collect such rare resources but resources like that were not only incredibly rare, but also heavily sought after.

As he got ready to sleep by taking out his sleeping pad, and makeshift pillow he took out some of the creatures he had come across. Regretfully it was simply too dangerous to start a fire out in the middle of nowhere in the Wasteland, so after he finished skinning the skinny rabbit-like creature he held it up in front of him, and through clenched eyes took a bite. As soon as he took a bite of the stringy, bloody meat, he held down the bile that was rapidly rising up through his throat with clenched teeth. Although this wasn't the first time he had to rely on his enhanced stomach for eating something like this, it didn't make it any less disgusting. As he slowly finished the rat and bunny mix, he looked with disgust towards the rest of the morsels, he decided that he would have to make due with the small meal, before placing the animals back into his Storage ring. Zero was looking more and more forward to being able to control mana outside his body. Then he wouldn't have to worry about eating the Wasteland creatures raw again. He set up a few basic traps that would make a loud sound if anything happened to chance upon his small campsite during the night.

The next morning when he woke up he stretched his stiff back and limbs before picking up his small camp, along with the traps. Noticing that thankfully the traps had been undisturbed he quickly made preparations to set off. Unfortunately this included his breakfast he thought to himself, before managing to choke down another raw morsel. He set off on a slow jog West, practicing his Manual as he jogged. Along the way he picked up on the tracks of a few medium sized animals, and took a small detour off his path avoiding the unknown creatures. He took a break midway to rest, as practicing his method to expand his core, was not only tedious but exhausting combined with the jogging, even if he was fit he was still partially human and hadn't even set foot into the Awakening realm.

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Over the course of the next few days he had made most of the journey west, when he finally had his breakthrough. He had lost a decent amount of his already light weight, from the constant strain and small meals he had been losing the remaining fat he had left. However on this hot, sunny day he finally made his first step towards his goal, and stepped in the Awakening realm, as he rested midway through the day. He felt as if he was suddenly lighter, and he could feel his mana slowly spreading out across his body and even leaking out in some places, as indicated by the dust around him swirling. A wide smile plastered itself to Zero's face before he lept into the air with a victorious look in his eyes. Catching himself before he fell down onto all fours he carefully extended a small portion of his mana out of his body. As he willed the mana to partially turn to fire mana he grinned as he saw a small flame light up by his fingertips. The grin disappeared moments later when he realized the flame was growing quickly and taking in his freshly earned mana a little too quickly than he would like. He extinguished the flame before repeating the process, this time with caution and slower. As the flame grew to the right size he gradually lessened the amount of mana it was taking. He prompted the mana around him to converge and simply maintain the size of the flame. As he stepped away from the flame, now hovering mid air he quickly took out a few morsels before attempting to 'cook' them. Thirty minutes later he had a satisfied look on his face as he looked at the semi burnt meat before digging in.

When Zero finished his first real meal, he set off at his normal pace. As he walked he experimented with his new mana, and when he ran low he practiced his Manual and replaced and improved what he lost. By the end of the day however he started to feel the fatigue of the mana in his body. from experimenting he had exhausted his mana channels, so he decided that he would save his experiments for when he got out of the nearly empty of mana Wasteland. The next few days he practiced with his mana a small amount, but mostly just practiced his Manual, and his ability to improve both. He had reached the point where any part of his body was changeable, but his heart and other vital organs were a bit more tricky to do. He thought it would be pretty handy to be able to turn part of his body to dust to dodge attacks. He could finally see the giant forest over the horizon. He had also noticed something else interesting, to keep entertained he constantly looked to see if anything new happened with his body, and so he noticed, as he traveled the map in his left eye grew. He could see the route he used to go from the city to the forest. This ability would no doubt be very useful as he traveled across the planet and beyond. He continued until he estimated he was only an hour out from the forest, before setting down his camp before night. He would want a whole new day to start his exploration of the forest.

When he awoke the next morning, he had his breakfast before preparing to set out into the forest. He got his clothing situated for combat at any moment, except of course keeping his right eye covered. He quickly started on his hour long trek to the forest. He was looking forward to finally being somewhere that wasn't the Wasteland or Vanguard. As he approached the forest he looked into the heavy canopy provided by the trees. He could see after looking a bit further into the forest, a few birds! Actually living birds! Not the ones he had seen in books, or the mutated vultures that collected around larger animal corpses. He continued into the forest looking around excitedly. Suddenly he froze as he saw a pair of eyes in some nearby brush, accompanied by a low growl. Zero slowly backed away from whatever was in the bushes. The brush parted to reveal a black panther. Zero slowly moved back, deeper into the forest, readying his gauntlet for a fight. As the panther got closer, it leapt. And suddenly the fight was over in moments. Zero quickly dodged out of the way of the incoming panther, before lashing the chained spike attached to his gauntlet to his left and behind him. It caught the panther squarely in the side and flung it onto the ground. Zero tooked to long leaps before appearing in front of the panther, drawing a knife from his waist and piercing through what he assumed was where the heart of the creature was located. After a few more stabs in the head, chest, and neck, to assure it's death, he took one look around to assure he was alone before moving to the side of the panther. Zero assured it's death before skinning the panther and separating the inedible parts from the edible parts. He conducted some fire-wanderer mana to consume the inedible parts before placing the bones and meat into his storage ring. He breathed out a sigh of relief and noticed his heart beating quickly. It had been his first real fight in a year, and he was pleased to say he hadn't done badly.

Continuing his walk deeper into the forest, he looked forward to the things to come.