"F-F-F-F-Fuc-k-k-k..." My jaw shivered due to chills running all over my body as I woke up. The light rays coming from the cracks between the boulder and the cave wall weren't enough to even slightly warm the little nest. I immediately took the boulder out of the way and jumped out to the heated atmosphere. I basked in the sun's light as it cleansed my frosty state.
"NNGHHAA!!" I screamed while I stretched. I felt a lot better than yesterday after having some rest and I was ready to start the day. It was still hard to accept that I've been granted this opportunity of a new life, so I started out by taking it all in by breathing. It already became a subconscious skill of mine to calm myself down by concentrating on the airflow.
'For today, I will need to harvest food and find a way to heat up my little home.'
Why wasn't I thinking of going to a more habitable place? Since yesterday I wasn't able to find anything after running for a long time with that monstrous speed of mine, there is a high chance I might lose my home if I travelled too far from it. Besides, it was the very first home I made for myself, which was awesome.
I didn't have any bright ideas about food, but taking care of the heat shouldn't much of a problem in the desert.
Under the dry, hardened soil there were lumps of fertile soil which hadn't been touched by the sun. Light brown colored grass grew on those lumps so I picked them all off wherever I could find them. Once I had my arms full of the grass I carried the stack inside my cave.
I placed my grass down in the center while I was carving a new room for storage. I wanted it to have the least amount of interference from the outside factors so I dig out the entrance farthest from the drop tube. Now the main hall and the storage room were seperated by a 2 meter long tunnel. It was a small tunnel that was wide enough for me to fit through.
After that, I also carved a new boulder for the tunnel. I puncture three small holes in it so that the storage room would receive some amount of warmth aswell.
After I was done I threw the grass stack in the storage room and hopped outside to take a sun bath as a break. I looked around carefully for anything that might look like food, but nothing. However, there was something in the distance that looked like a second sun, except way smaller. Even with the huge pile of stones (Dug out) next to my home, I was too cautious to have a look. Instead, I decided to practice throwing.
I took a palm sized rock from the pile; my grip on minimum and the rest of my arm on medium strength. Stretched my hand behind and then forward, releasing the grip.
*BOOM*
"FUCK!" I yelled after the stone piece shattered about 30 meters away.
'Holy shit.. Did I put too much power into it? Was that a sonic boom or something?' I wondered.
I took another stone from the pile and noticed it had shiny bits in it. It was metal; I wasn't much of a geologist so I couldn't identify what type it was. I doubt it could be even identified as something from earth.
I picked out the stones which had metal in it from the pile and set them aside, near my cave entrance, and continued with my practice.
Instead of using my whole limb, I used only my hand to throw. Medium power output allowed me to throw it at very extreme speed, in a few seconds it was out of my sight.
'Alright, good enough. Time to get back to work.'
I started plucking out grass again from the ground.
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After many hours of grass plucking, I was able to fill up the storage completely with hundreds of stacks all clumped together. The stones with metal bits were also put in the storage, but more on the upfront near the tunnel.
After closing off the storage with the punctured boulder I started digging a hole in the main hall. It was half a meter deep and half a meter wide. Once I was done carving the hole for the fireplace I took the rubble outside. The sun was starting to set when I decided to look at the smaller sun from earlier today, but it was no sun that I saw.
It was flashing dim reflections of light by this point and it became a lot bigger. Since it wasn't too far from my home now I decided to take a closer look; Dropped the rubble into the pile and jogged closer to the moving thing. As I got closer I started seeing it's true form.
'What the fuck?' I thought. It was a tortoise-like creature with metal plates as it's shell that reflected the sun's light to an incredible extent. It's skin was gray and wrinkly. I was still far from the creature, but I was able to see it clearly; However, the reflected light blinded me from seeing it's head. I had no idea whether to get closer to it or just leave it alone. There was something on my mind though, that was food.
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'I've never tasted a turtle before..'
I quickly dug up a palm sized stone and whirled it in my hand a few turns.
'If this won't work then I plan on running.' I thought.
Once the sun faded away and the creature's head was visible I pulled my hand back and shot out the projectile with a spin. It completely misses the creature and hits the ground.
"Shit!" I mumbled.
I quickly dug up another piece, but this time I attempted to kill it professionally. Just like practiced before; No limb usage, medium power hand throw.
I threw it and it missed again.
'Come on!'
Dig, throw, miss.
'Fuck!'
Missed again.
"Fuck you!" I yelled at the creature. It didn't even startle at my words, so I realised I had to go closer to hit the bastard.
Now that I was 50 meters away from I pitied him for he was about to receive hell's tribunal for not getting hit. I calmed myself down with the breathing technique before I let my emotions tear the poor thing apart.
After relaxing I dug out a piece once again and threw it like I practiced.
*SPLATTER*
The shot completely demolished it's head. Even I was shocked to see the gruesome scene. I wasn't even sure whether I wanted to eat that anymore or not. I gulped my sanity down and walked closer slowly.
'Yep, it's dead.' I thought as I saw half of what's left of it's head almost seperated from the neck. I didn't even wanna touch that thing, let alone put it's meat in my mouth. It's flesh was still red, that is the bare minimum for my food standards. I had no choice but to eat it.
I chopped the neck off and picked the rest of the body up. It wasn't heavy, but the bleeding irritated me. It left a trail as I carried it back to my home.
Once I reached the drop tube I threw the corpse next to the rubble pile and entered my cave. I thought about where to construct a fridge with no ventilation and decided to make it near the drop tube, but more underground. As I dug deeper I stumbled upon a blue glowing mineral. It looked beautiful so I quickly sliced it out of the stone and placed it in my main hall. Before dealing with the mineral, I had to finish the fridge.
After 20 minutes of digging I finally completed it, so I quickly hopped outside to store the corpse. Once I was out I noticed something. The creature's body was too large to fit through the drop tube.
I sighed at the thought of having to dismember him outside, but any other way would have taken much longer time. The light outside was starting to fade away aswell so I had to hurry.
I held back my whining and striked right through his metal carapace like an invincible spear.
"Shit!" 'How old was this fucker anyway?' I thought. The creature couldn't respond to any of my failed attacks which made enough noise to alarm any animal from earth.
After I finished cutting him up I quickly ran between the fridge and the drop tube carrying the cut off pieces. The metal shell of his that was mostly broken in fragments I threw in the storage.
I carved the access hole to the fridge in a way that a round boulder would completely shut it out from the main hall's atmosphere. The boulder itself was a disc on one side and curvy on the other.
'I feel like an architect.'
I closed off the drop tube and the fridge so that I could begin crafting myself a fire. I had to wait though, since my hands were bloody from cutting the corpse. I also had a rad idea of painting the main hall with all sorts of majestic writings. Instead, I managed to draw some runes that looked even worse than a child's drawing of their family. The walls were not the smoothest place to paint on.
After I was done smearing the place with blood I went to the storage and grabbed a stack of grass. I placed it near the hole that was centered in the main hall and started picking handfuls from the stack and grinded them between my fingers tightly. I put a small stone bowl under my hands that I prepared beforehand so that the grass dust falls in there.
Once the bowl was full of the grass dust I placed the remaining stack inside the hole and went to get lots of more grass stacks accompanied with stone that had the largest amount of metal in them. I came back and plugged the hole full of grass, packed tightly.
To start the fire I picked up two stone pieces and held them above the bowl of grass dust. I rubbed the two pieces together extremely fast and millions of sparks exploded out of the collision. The grass dust took the sparks and started slowly burning. I put the stones aside, picked up the bowl and put the burning grass dust into the hole, onto the grass. I blew on the burning grass so it would lit properly. A lot of smoke came, but it didn't bother me since it was warm.
After a minute the fire was up and dancing out of the hole. I warmed myself around it, happy that I managed to accomplish so much to this moment. If I was thrown here without any power, I wouldn't have lasted a day. My body is extremely durable to environment changes thanks to the technique so not much of a problem that depended on my life had come yet.
Once I was done appreciating I opened the fridge and took out a nice looking piece of flesh. As I closed the fridge with the boulder and returned to the fire I noticed that I have nowhere to cook the meat on. I quickly scrubbed off the cave wall three large chunks of stone. Two of them I placed near the hole, opposite of eachother. I carved a stick out of the third, stabbed the meat with it and placed it ontop of the two chunks of stone.
I would occasionally rotate the stick and put stacks of grass into the firepit.
Half of the storage burnt and an hour later, I was ready to taste my meal as its outer appearance looked crisp. I took the stick off the chunks and bit right into my meal.
"BLEGH!" 'This is disgusting!'
I squinched my eyes in despair and swallowed the piece I bit off. Tears filled my eyes as I continued eating this monstrous meat.
After I was done (NOT) enjoying my meal, I turned my head.
"OH!"
I saw the forgotten glowing mineral and picked it up. It's blue glow was as bright as ever.
"Hmm..." I was wondering what it is. A little experiment helped me there; I placed the mineral over the firepit and the small flame at the bottom started to cling around the mineral.
'This... Is definitely a magic stone.'