A familiar sunlight and birdsong greeted Zeke early the next morning. His damp cave did well to keep him cool from the heat outside, as well as keep any potential dangers at bay.

The groggy man began his morning ritual of searching for a puddle of cave water, to which he would drag his body to like a newborn deer and a slurp up quickly as he considered the possibilities of the new day.

Zeke was shocked to find that his right arm had made visible recovery overnight.

Most of the dark purple bruising that had completely covered the arm had gotten at least several shade lighter and the pain was only a fraction to that of his left arm. Holding each arm side by side made it quite easy to contrast the miraculous healing. The cause of this radical healing wasn't hard to deduce either as a new skill had made itself known on Zeke's status, which he then subsequently conjured information on.

Skill: Blood Regeneration

By forcing ecessive mana through one's blood, a higher rate of regeneration can be achieved for a moderate amount of time.

An another excellent skill! Usefull to the current predicament.

He wasted no time in repeating the same process that led to the creation of the skill. He gathered roughly a half his mana in his right hand, let it swell in strength, and expelled the flow, allowing it to spread through his arm.

"Blood Regeneration!"

There was no sensation immediately, but he knew that the skill had taken effect. The mana that permeated in his blood had a stronger mana composition, he could feel the skill's effect.

He then used the remaining half of mana in his right leg, which was all he could afford.

"Blood Regeneration!"

He figured that he would soon need to leave the cave to continue any semblance of survival, so healing his legs was a must. He also assumed that if he were to practice his newly acquired skill enough or increase his mana capacity sufficiently, he would be able to use Blood Regeneration over out his whole body in one cast. That would be a fantastic way of healing one's injuries whilst they slept.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Zeke was starting to feel hopeful.

His injuries were healing, his magic was progressing steadily and his place of isolation sounded to be a life-filled forest, not that he'd actually checked outside. Zeke's was especially happy about being stranded in a forest, it would be quite a lot easier to survive here then in say... a desert or frigid iceland.

As he chowed down on a mossy-breakfest he pondered how exactly he'd even came to be, but as much as he tried to think, the place were he knew his memories would and should be was just an empty void. His earliest memory was a searing pain and a cold stone floor, said memory was only a few days old so it wasn't hard to forget.

With his brain proving a dead-end, Zeke hazarded a taste of the small patches of red moss that grew a little deeper in the cave. It smelled, much more vegetable-ly then it's green counter-part and a quick nibble revealed it as extremely bitter. He still ate it of course, any food was better than no food, it didn't taste poisony either, thankfully.

Now with a semi-full tummy and almost depleted mana, the hopeful man warily decided to explore at least the immediate surroundings of his little cave. Afterall sitting around on his ass doing nothing would be rather unproductive to his goal of staying alive.

At first the man just slowly poked his head around the 'frame' of the cave mouth, you could never be too safe. The last thing he wanted was to crawl out into a forest full of man-eating-somethings. His first impression of the forest was a rather good one.

The forest was absolutely rife with varying trees, huge and tiny and of every imaginable shade of green, and then some. An overpopulation of birds flew through the tree tops too, much like the trees, no two birds seemed of the same species or colour. The forest floor was just as flabergasting. Shrubbery littered the ground, berry bushes and game trials covered every square inch of the ground, leaving nothing bare. Even small creatures were out in the open and nonchalantly nibble the emerald grass, things such as rabbits and boars and even a large forest-infested rhino was seen stumping around not even 40 meters away.

Zeke Smiled. If he was able to catch the smaller creatures, survival wouldn't be an issue, as long as he avoided the larger things like the peculiar rhino and other nasties. For the meantime the man would just scavenge the sharp rocks and sturdy fallen branches around his cave-home to create some simple tools.

There were plenty of rocks around, he gathered a number sharp stones and one large flat stone to use for whatever purpose. He threw the varying stones into the cave mouth with an awkward kneeling throw. (Did I mention he was still crawling like a human-sized caterpillar?). There were many sticks and branches too, he threw a whole bunch into the cave, stick after stick, sticks were useful after all. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a rather desirable stick, well a branch really... about as long as his arm, just as thick and recently dropped from the trees above, so it retained a lot of 'living' durability.

With a fit of awkward shuffling along the ground he reached the branch. It would make for a dependable club, it even had a knot at the end to emphasise it's club like qualities. Unfortunately it would be too heavy to throw but dragging it along the ground wouldn't be an issue, only painful.

As the hobbled man began to drag he newly found club back to the cave, another thing caught Zeke's attention from the corner of his eye. Unlike the branch this 'thing' wasn't nearly as useful and in fact, was the reason Zeke had reservations about leaving the cave in the first place.

It was a nasty.

A hostile and ugly one too.