Just as he had predicted, the old lady walked up to their table.

“Here comes the real tirade. Although you couldn’t fault an infant, right?”

The old woman motioned for the girl to follow her into the kitchen. The woman locked the door after her with a bolt. The girl seemed to notice it as well and started shivering. She nervously asked the old lady something Ash didn’t understand, but the old woman didn’t reply. Instead, the woman pulled out the largest glass container he had seen. It was most likely about a liter of dark red liquid splashing around in it. For some reason, the elderly woman put on leather baking gloves as if she was afraid to have some of the liquid touch her hand. Outside, Catriona knocked on the door and called out for Isbeil. The old woman cursed at that and advanced on Isbeil with the bottle.

“Ah, the old lady has most likely another challenge for me to grow stronger.”

In anticipation, he opened his mouth. “Good boy”, the old woman whispered with an abnormaly wide smile on her face. Before Isbeil could protest, the woman had already half of the bottle’s contents down his throat.

body just in time to see a blood red substance spread out from his stomach. Pain radiated out of his gut the likes he never felt before. From his slowing heart, he realized he had only a couple of seconds left to live. Just like with the mushroom, he tried to beat the substance into Energy particles with his spectral fists. What minor damage he inflicted did little to stop the flow of red towards his brain. If his heart hadn’t already stopped working, it would pump furiously. In that moment of helplessness, he called out to anyone out there to help him. White particles rushed towards and into him from all sides, and he felt invigorated like never before. Yet, even that wasn’t enough. The wall of red only paused for a fraction of a second as if being annoyed at a pesky fly.

“There is just so much one man can do.”

His eyes fell shut and the mental image of his body started flickering.

Just as the void was about to take him, Ash thought to himself: “If I had an M14. I would just go. Pew, pew.”

Two jolts hit his spectral body as two white particle bullets shot through it. Their passing seemed to just wisk the red particles out of existence. All the red particles shuddered collectively as they felt the death of millions of their comrades. The reprieve didn’t last for long as they continued ravaging his body with renewed vigor. The mad grin plastered on Ash’s face, combined with the human bloodlust that could eradicate entire species, might have something to do with that vigor. He had never been a gun fanatic, but the raw power of a gun was awe-inspiring to anyone.

“Hey whoever is doing this, I need a Caliber 7.62-mm M134 Minigun right freaking now.”

Once again, his remaining white particles coalesced into the shape he had seen in a museum he had recently visited about the Vietnam war.

“Hasta la Vista, baby.”, Ash shouted as the gun started rotating.

His energy reserves in his Gut started zipped towards him and into the gun. It was carnage. The red particles had no chance as white bullets blasted them into pieces.

His manic grin was wiped from his face when the gun’s barrel slowly ground to a halt. “No more energy, huh?” He looked at the few groups of red particles remaining. “Fine, I can finish those off.” It took him a few minutes to hunt down the last resistances, and when he did, a sudden burst of white particles emanated from his gut.

“This most likely means that if I beat the poison in any matter, I can absorb its energy.”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

The only difference between this and what had happened with the mushroom was that the flow of extra energy from the poison didn’t seem to stop. After only five seconds, the energy particles were in danger of spilling out into the world. Thinking back to how the barbarian chief had used the energy to enhance his body, Ash packed the energy into his tiny muscles. In particular, he ordered them into the muscle receptors that activate a muscle contraction. It took ages for the energy flow to subside, but when it did, he opened his eyes once again. Once again, he lay on the table of the familiar log hut. He could hear cries of mourning at the back of the room. Still in energy vision, Ash’s heart started beating. Not in confusion or fear, but hoping he could indirectly manipulate his body. Biting his lower lip unconsciously, he gave a mental command to activate the particles near his abs. He cried with joy when he felt a tensing sensation in his abs. Although he barely moved, tears of joy were flowing down his face.

“Seems like my muscles are atrophied from disuse.”

Suddenly, his body was swept up by two familiar hands. The tear-streaked face of Catriona entered his vision, and he greeted her with his usual “ba”. Ash didn’t understand what she said after that, but it seemed like she was happy. “My heart must have stopped during the struggle with the poison.” Ash gave a mental command to his right arm to move up towards her. Her eyes widened even further at the revelation, and she had to set Ash back down onto the table. His caretaker buried her face in her hands and whispered: “You are a handful.” Ash couldn’t see her face as she asked: “What is your name?” Panic arose in Ash as he came to the inevitable conclusion.

” How have I thought that I wasn’t acting suspicious? I can’t give up the only relationship I have in this world. It’s time to spill the beans.”

Ash concentrated and tried to pronounce: “Ash”. Catriona perked up at that, and Ash saw genuine fear in her eyes. Catriona asked him something, but Ash didn’t understand. He said so, and he was pretty proud of his pronunciation. That only seemed to frighten Catriona even more. With shaking hands, she went to the floorboard where she stored all her coins and pulled out a silver statue. It depicted a beautiful huntress shooting an arrow made of flame. She repeated her question and this time Ash got the meaning. “Are you a god?” Ash quickly answered with multiple “No’s” The sheer credulity in his expression was luckily enough to convince her. Catriona raised her eyebrows and asked instead: “Where are you from?” After some back and forth, Catriona understood his answer: “far away.” Still unsure Catriona asked: “Can you lie for me? Gods can’t lie.” It took Ash several minutes to maneuver the right muscles until he held up one finger. With a smile, he said: “Two fingers. Your name is Frida.” Catriona deflated visibly and asked another question. “Great Warrior?” Ash gave his best harrumph. “No.” Ash saw that Catriona had thousands of other questions lined up, so he needed to go on the counterattack. “I like you. I sleep.” It wasn’t like he was lying, he really was close to falling asleep right then and there. She furrowed her brows at him and said something he couldn’t understand, but he only replied with his usual “ba”. Catriona gave him a small whack on the head and immediately excused herself afterward. It seemed had a lot of trust-rebuilding work ahead of him.

The next months passed in a blur. After Catriona had found out that Ash wasn’t a toddler, they had started a new routine. Every morning, they would eat together and Cathriona would talk about the tribe’s culture and language. During the rest of the day, Ash would perform various parcours inside the small hut. After each session, he would fine-tune the distribution of white particles and lean the correct activation sequence for a certain motion. In the evening, it was then his turn to tell Catriona about his world. It always fascinated him how she would get caught up in a minute detail like 1kg of meat costing only several copper coins. Ash tried to tell her about the wonders of spaceflight and electricity, but that didn’t impress her nearly as much.

In the second week, the warband left with the four ships, accompanied by some sort of ritualistic chant. The old woman, or wise woman as the villagers had named her, accompanied the raid. Cathriona had told him it was expected of a wise woman. After a month of training, he had finally climbed up all objects in the log cabin. The last contender had been a large wooden cabinet that touched the roof of the hut. When he had reached the spot after several hours of intense climbing, he had realized that he had no way to get down. It had been quite embarrassing that Cathriona had found out that he worked out by seeing him sitting on her cabinet after work.

After the objects in the room didn’t pose a challenge anymore, Ash resorted to pushups, situps and squats. For the first time in his life, he actually enjoyed working out. He couldn’t feel the pain of muscle fibers being torn at a microscopic level, so the only mildly annoying fact was that he got out of breath.