These mountains... they look a lot bigger up close.

When I saw them from a distance, I didn't think anything of them. I've been to a few mountains in my past life, so I thought, with our strength and stamina, it shouldn't be a problem to cross a mountain within a week.

But as we got closer, I started realizing that these aren't ordinary mountains. Compared to the mountains I've seen on earth, these are many, many times bigger! And not only are they massive, the mountains are extremely steep as well. They're really quite intimidating.

"So, should we just start climbing here?"

"It will likely be the same no matter where we start."

"Kay, let's go!"

Mama nods her head, and we begin our climb. Though the mountain is very steep, there are also many flat areas that we can rest on jutting out, like miniature plateaus. This is the strangest mountain I have ever seen.

"Haa, haa..."

Reaching a flat spot, I nearly collapse from exhaustion.

Waiting until I catch my breath, Mama asks, "Are you alright Lyna?"

"Yep, this is great exercise, I feel awesome!"

"What is 'exercise'?"

"Oh, exercise is when you move your body a lot or lift heavy stuff to make it stronger. Fighting is also kind of like exercise."

Mama nods her head, and I sigh and look up at the sky.

"In my past life, I loved to work out. I was never very good at interacting with people, so most of my free time was spent exercising. Running, lifting weights, swimming, sometimes I would even climb mountains like we're doing now. Somehow I just love the feeling I get after a long day of exercise. But ever since coming here, the closest feeling to that is after I fight, and even so it's not quite the same. I guess I'm just really happy that I'm still able to feel this way, as weird as that may sound."

Turning my head, I see Mama lying down, propping her head up with her hands and smiling.

"Could you tell me more about your past, Lyna?" she asks.

"My past..."

I start digging up happy memories, narrating them to Mama Bloodcat. I mostly tell her about my time at the fire station, about what I did there and about Eric and my firefighter friends. I skip over all of the sad stuff, since I don't want to make Mama Bloodcat sad, and I don't want to bum myself out either.

"It seems your old world was much different than this one." sighs Mama.

"It was much different, and I do miss some of the people from there, but I like it here too. I like being able to go wherever I want, I like fighting, I like Regis, Tisa, Ellie, Casus..."

'Man, I'm starting to miss everyone now, even those silly siblings of mine.'

Mama laughs and puts me in her lap, "If you had not been here, I fear that your siblings may have lost their lives long ago. I am not sure I would even be alive today were it not for you, and even if I were, I would be in a far worse condition. For being there for me and my family, I thank you."

"You sound so cheesy, you're making me blush." I laugh.

"What is 'cheesy'?" asks Mama.

After a full night's sleep, we continue climbing. As we climb higher, I start noticing some of those mosquito-like wingets flying around. Whenever I look at them, I imagine them sucking out all of my blood and get the chills.

"Mama, do you know what those eat?" I point at a winget.

"I do not," replies Mama, "but they do taste rather good."

"Are they as good as steeg?"

"They have a different taste; it is hard to compare them. I think they both taste good."

"Should I catch a couple?" I ask.

"I would like that, thank you Lyna." replies Mama, smiling.

And so I prepare to catch some wingets. Most of them that I can see are in the air, but there are a few perched on rocks. Singling out a target, I start approaching it. As there are no trees to hide behind, I am forced to weave between rocks in order to get closer.

I'm nearly close enough to pounce, when I see the winget suddenly stick its beak into a rock.

"Wha..."

As soon as I utter a sound, the winget pulls its beak out of the rock and quickly flies away.

"Ah, no! Stop!"

After getting over the shock of what I just saw, I finally realize that it's trying to escape. I try to pounce at it, but I'm too late.

"Stupid winget, I'll get you next time!"

After shouting, scaring away all of the wingets around me in the process, I direct my gaze back to the rock. I've seen similar holes in rocks littering the mountainside on the way here, but never knew how they got there, nor did I much care. But what I just saw piques my interest. I try to peer inside the hole, but it's too small to see anything, so I just pick the rock up and bash it on another rock.

Crack!

As the rock crumbles, I see a black rock about the size of my paw tumble across the ground. This must be what the winget was after.

'Is this what they eat?'

I pick it up and try licking it.

"Woah, this tastes really good! Mama, you should try this!" I shout.

Mama starts walking towards me, but on her face hangs a rather odd expression.

"Lyna, do you usually taste strange objects that you find on the ground?"

"Don't worry, it was in a rock, not on the ground! Besides, the winget was probably eating it, so I figured it would be safe to eat."

Mama looks at me like I'm an idiot, "Lyna, you... haa. Fine, let me see it." Mama holds out her hand.

I give the black rock to her, and she gives it a lick.

"What is this taste? It tastes rather pleasant."

"It tastes kind of like something called salt from my previous world, except it has a much more uhh... mild flavor?"

After catching two more wingets, we sit down and start eating. While eating a winget, I try sprinkling some of that black rock on it.

"Mama, you have to try this, it's delicious!"

She hesitates a little, but I insist, so she takes a bite.

"This... tastes good. How did you find that black rock?"

"Well, a winget stuck its beak into a rock, so I got curious and broke the rock and the black rock was inside."

"Mmm." Mama nods her head.

After we finish eating I decide to start bird watching, waiting for wingets to try and eat more black rocks, so I can steal them! That was the Idea at least. I have yet to see another winget do it again.

Deciding this method is inefficient, I start breaking random rocks, and after breaking the fourth rock I finally find two black rocks, each almost as big as the first one I found!

Reinvigorated by my success, I start breaking rocks even more enthusiastically.

When it finally turns night, I walk back to our camp and see Mama Bloodcat sitting there. I'm rather proud of my haul, which I spent the entire afternoon gathering. Inside one of my storage rings is a pile of over two hundred black rocks, all of which I proceed to empty onto the ground near the campsite.

"Haha, look at all of the black rocks I found!"

Mama looks at the pile of black rocks and smiles dismissively, then proceeds to wave her hand.

Whoosh!

A huge pile of black rocks materialize in front of me, dwarfing my pile.

"How... How did you get so many?"

Mama smiles proudly, "You said the wingets were eating them, so I merely looked for rocks with holes in them. Most had black rocks inside.

"Ahh... yeah... that's a uh, a good idea..."

'Why didn't I think of doing that?! It's so obvious!'

And thus our traveling speed slows considerably. For the next couple weeks, we spend much of our time breaking rocks in search of black rocks. By the time we get bored of searching, we both have about half of a storage ring full of block rocks. We eventually get bored of searching for them and decide to continue up the mountain at full speed.

The mountain has started getting even steeper the higher we go. It's gotten to the point where much of the terrain we cross goes almost straight up.

After climbing a particularly tough cliff, me and Mama slump on the ground, both breathing heavily. Back when I told Mama about my love for exercise, she decided to stop reinforcing her body with qi when climbing, which is apparently possible, and use her muscles normally. Thus, by the end of the day, both of us are usually quite exhausted.

"And you enjoy this feeling?" asks Mama, still catching her breath.

"Yeah, I enjoy it. I guess it just makes me feel fulfilled."

"What is 'fulfilled'?" asks Mama.

"Fulfilled is like when you feel full, but emotionally. It's when you feel like what you did was a good thing, and you did it the best you could."

Mama nods her head, replying with "I like that word."

Though Mama doesn't need to eat much to survive, and I don't need to eat at all, somehow it's become a habit to eat at least a couple times a day. As it's about dinner time, I decide to hunt a couple wingets for me and Mama.

After catching two wingets without much difficulty, I return to where Mama is and give her one. Since I'm not very good at crushing the black rocks, what with my paws and all, I ask Mama if she can do it.

As Mama crushes one of the black rocks in her hand, I ask, "What do you think we should call this stuff?"

After pondering for a while she says, "You said it tastes like something from your past life called salt? Since they come from rocks and look like rocks, why not call it rock salt?"

I start mentally comparing rock salt from Earth to this much more literal 'rock salt'. Telling Mama I think it's a great name, I try to give her a thumbs up, but forget that I still don't have opposable thumbs...