Fired up as much as I was geared up, I went out the cave, leaving Bob behind to guard it. After so much time living on the cave, it had really changed, making it look like a real home; my home.

***

After some time living there, I decided I needed something more than a bare cave, so I started polishing the walls, making rooms, and preparing furniture. I had even taken some time to make shelves to hold my different weapons and tools. It really was a sight to behold.

In a spot right near the mouth of the cave I had now put the Panthers’ heads; they were on four shelves carved directly onto the rock. I had carved them out with my bare hands, two at my height, and two more a meter below, and now I could look at the thirty-something heads placed there, ten on each of the top shelves as well as on the lower left shelf, and some on the last one. It was a strange world, this one. I had thought the heads would only last so much, but they actually didn’t decay, so it was a plus.

Just where the mouths were in each of the shelves, there was a small gutter, varnished with sticky resin, for the acid. I had discovered this trick after a few tries in finding a way to contain the acid. When the resin was mixed with blood, it lost some of its stickiness, even if only for a few minutes, so it made it possible for me to use it and let it then “eat” the blood, leaving the resin. Also, if before it dried, it came in contact with the acid, it changed its properties, turning into the most insulating material I had seen, able to even contain itself in its sticky form without getting stuck at, and it even made impossible for acid to pass through.

Thanks to that, now I stored the acid instead of just hiding the heads and doing nothing with them. I had built some barrels out of wood. And varnished its insides in resin, after which I started pouring resin through some kind of funnel varnished the same way. This way, I stored the acid for my later use. One of which was to ingest it. Yeah, yeah, I’m crazy, but I needed to develop my resistance to such acid as soon as possible, and ingesting it helped.

I had prepared lots of barrels, and made Bob help me with the excuse that doing so would help him in his dexterity. I mean, it wasn’t untrue, but the amount it helped me was much greater. Right now I had two hundred and thirty-six barrels full, half of it with acid and the other half with venom. You’re probably wondering how is it possible for it to be the same amount, if I use venom in my hunts. Well, the reason is simple, I had one more tail than a head, and that tail was the only one I used to fight.

Bob had returned once with only the tail of a Panther and when I answered why, he whined to me that he had thought it was dead, and started dragging it, but it had escaped at the first chance, sadly for it, alert or not, Bob’s strength was not a thing to be trifled with, so it had to leave its tail behind, poor Panther.

A little bit deeper into the cave, I had the weaponry. I mean, it wasn’t that big at first, but after so many preys hunted, I had been able to prepare more than enough weapons for Bob and me. On the first shelves of the weaponry, the daggers stood watch. There was a huge amount of it, some larger than others, as they came from different animals, sadly, only my sword would be of any use to Bob as a dagger, so the others stayed there for when I needed it.

On the next shelves, I had the javelins rack. A few dozens of spikes pointed towards the ceiling, making sure not to lose its sharp tip, ready to be of use to either me or Bob, although he hardly used them, as he considered them as pointy daggers, which weren’t the best kind of weapon, true.

Then there was the Morningstar. Oh yes, a Morningstar, just for Bob. We used the biggest branch we had found as the handle, the Elk’s horns as spikes, which admittedly was a pain in the ass, because it was hard as metal, and I wasn’t trying to blow it up, I was trying to prepare spikes for a weapon, which was a much more delicate work. To put it all together we used a mortar made of earth, the metal powder I collected from filing the metal horns, with the sticky resin to hold it together. Once I put the spikes inside, the handle on the arbitrary bottom and I made sure it was a smooth dense and tough ball, all as quickly as I could, I submerged the whole thing in sticky resin, and then on acid.

I grabbed it after about a minute later, and I had in my hands the most beautiful Morningstar I had ever seen. True, it may not be the more perfect, as the spikes were made out of naturally made horns, the handle was an untreated branch, and the main piece was made of mortar instead of metal and handmade instead of using a mold, yet even with all those little imperfections, it was truly balanced, and as I said, it was beautiful. And Bob agreed, as he hadn’t left the cave once without it. He had even adapted the Berserk Rage to fight with the Morningstar.

On the next “shelf” were our armors. It had been quite a hustle to make Bob’s armors, as they were enormous, enough to cover its entire body. Made with the scales of the of Draconic Wolves and all covered with the resin, it made the leather tougher and it insulated us from the inclement weather, and protected us from any spilled acid from any Panther. It gave us some room to adjust to them, and thus we could practice fighting against stealthy and agile enemies while keeping ourselves safe up to some point.

The various armors – yes, more than one for each of us – were dressing mannequins, which had cost me sweat and effort to make… ok, maybe not that much, it was pretty much a wide stick stuck to the ground, and a thinner stick piercing it perpendicularly at the shoulders height, although Bob’s had two perpendicular sticks instead of one, you know, four arms.

The armors were blackish with purple tones, which had appeared after we submerged it in acid. It had a purplish sheen to it, adding beauty to it, and the form itself made it seem as if it was covered in some venom, which helped avoid confrontations against some weaker beasts, like eagles trying to take a piece of meat, which had happened to Bob, it seems.

The armor resembled scale armor from the medieval times of my world, covering the entire torso, and not much more. If I had some forge, I could try to make armguards and shoulder protectors, but I didn’t count with anything to do so.

Lastly was the storage of stones. It was, like the Panther heads shelves, carved into the wall, but instead of just going forwards, it later went downwards, creating an effective “barrel” were I could put things. What I put there were charged stones. Yes, not stones to charge, but already charged stones, and I had quite a few. I had discovered this trick a month after I discovered the resin varnish. Once the stone was charged, I could varnish it and the stones became effectively inactive. It may seem much trouble to do something that turns one of my weapons on useless, but the kinetic energy inside the stones could still be released, it just had to be made manually.

Instead of letting it rest, once I wanted to use the stones, I just needed to will the energy to take a needle form and it easily pierced the resin layer, and once it did, it was able to explode again, and the resin did nothing to stop it. Strange, I know, I assume that the resin stops the energy from flowing, and that stops it from exploding, so the moment it’s able to flow, it can go off again.

And moreover, even though at the beginning I had to varnish them almost manually, I had developed a neat tool. Using a basin made of wood, and of course varnished, I kept sticky resin there, and I simply threw charged stones there, as it was still sticky, it didn’t explode, so I could get a few in there at the same time.

Then, after I had a few dozens, I made Bob stab a dagger through my heart, from my back until the dagger went through, and the handle ended in my heart while the tip of the dagger was poking outside from my left chest. Yeah, I know, painful as hell, but as the daggers where fangs made to carry poison and acid through a conduit on its structure, it carried blood quite easily, and that way I filled the basin faster than I could do any other way, much less with my regeneration hindering me.

Sticky resin not sticky anymore, I used something that resembled a colander, from a kitchen, made of wood and as almost everything I did now, varnished with resin. I was really giving it a good use, if I say so myself. The colander took in the stones, and I carefully lifted, letting the excess on resin fall, and then moving the stones to the second basin, which was holding acid. This way I created an easy way to “mass produce” charged stones.

That’s all for weapon holding, but the cave also had rooms for us, now, some simple bed carved into the stone, with a mattress made of leather filled with leaves, a pillow made the same way and a simple blanket, which Bob loved, for some kind of reason. Also, Bob finally put some trousers. I had been avoiding the theme, because well, even though he was in certain way civilized, they were still beasts, up to some point, and they didn’t have the concept of modesty, so I didn’t know how to bring up the theme. I won’t explain how it went; you can imagine whatever you want.

***

And so, here we stand, ready to go out, with a sword on my side and 6 daggers on my belt, my armor on and my boots ready to leave some dust behind, I started walking. I had made a backpack where I carried quite a few supplies, and a quiver specially made to carry javelins. As with my stones, these were covered in resin. I hadn’t tried this yet, so I didn’t know if it would be as effective as I wanted it to be, but different from before, now I charged the whole javelin, so if it went well, and hold until it hit the enemy, it should have a much higher power than when I only powered the tip.

Today my blades were clean, no dangerous sheen on my blades. I was planning on hunting the Elk fair and square, a challenge of skill and wits. And obviously some measure of strength, u can’t hunt a huge lightning fast Elk without strength.

I took it seriously and prepared to be away from the cave for a month if it was what I needed, and so my search started.

First I shadowstepped – which is how I’ve come to name it – to the location where I previously spotted the Elk. I made sure to shadowstep a few meters in the air, to avoid getting stuck in a tree, because although I would survive, it had to be painful mix your body with a tree or a rock.

As soon as I arrived, I shadowstepped again to the top of a tree, and covered myself in shadows. Invisibility would come handy when hunting the Elk, and the hunting senses I had developed, together with the stealth I had been developing, which was easier thanks to WF, I would find hard to believe he could detect me right now.

As I couldn’t risk the noise, instead of running, for now, I started my exploration shadowstepping from tree to tree. I was able to avoid detection most of the times, but a few branches where I stepped had trees on it, and they reacted quite screechy when something moved their branch, so good bye stealth.

Luckily I’m patient enough, and took this as an opportunity to learn how to shadowstep more precisely. I was stepping a feet above the branch to avoid getting stuck, but maybe it was better to practice to be able to step just on the branch.

It took me half a day, and several feet trapped on a tree to achieve what I called “perfection”, which was just not getting stuck for the last few shadowsteps. It was now late, and so, even though I would be stealthier, I didn’t think it would be of much use knowing the Elk was diurnal, and probably hiding in some kind of lair, so I decided to “camp”, which resumed in me sitting on a branch, tying myself to it, and meditate.

I had improved quite a lot in these months, and even though I hadn’t achieved that much on the Berserk Rage movements department, I had improved on the energy one. Not only that, I had discovered a secret only a week ago, and I was trying to learn more about it. It happened during a meal, which I couldn’t call lunch because I don’t eat in a structured way anymore.

I was in the process of dissolving the food into energy, but because before of the lunch I had been practicing Berserk Fury, I had my lungs full of the red mist. Once the food dissolved, I channeled the energy resulting towards the outside, and then into my lungs, but in the process, the red mist mixed with the new energy, and suddenly it bloated. Yeah, I know, it’s not a thing you would expect from mist, but that’s what it did.

The energy was mixing even as I thought that, and few seconds later, it was all fused. I was surprised, but it was something new, and nothing new had ever prejudiced, even if not benefited, so why not try. I let it go and immediately it was absorbed by the blood, and started circulating, and different from when I used the red mist on itself, the energy soaked more on my body, and left a larger impact on overall.

And that’s what I was doing now. I first generated the red mist, and then started eating some of my supplies, dissolving them and then carrying the energy to my lungs. This time, knowing that when I did it only with WF’s energy and I infused it with kinetic energy worked better, I did the same, and pushed some of my energy into the now bloating mist. It strangely compressed, a different reaction than with the WF’s energy, and it passed to occupy only a tenth of my lungs, so why not, I repeated the process.

I was not stupid, now that I only had nine tenths of my lungs capacity available, instead of a tenth I would only be able to fill 9 hundreds of capacity more, but whatever. I repeated the process multiple times, each time filling less than the last, as I predicted. When I was almost done – yes, call me stupid – I tried to put the red mist outside my body, and contain it. It was hard, and I failed a few times, but at the end I was able to contain it, and then I went ahead and dissolved the last of my supplies. I guess tomorrow is hunting day, even if it’s not the Elk.

This time I could not only feel it, instead I saw the red mist bloat, so yeah, damn you who didn’t believe me. Then I infused kinetic energy into it, and again it compressed so I guided it again to my lungs, and they were full again. You’re wondering about the oxygen, but the red mist has oxygen already, so nothing to worry about.

When all was ready, I got the energy loose on my lungs, and let my bronchus absorb it all. Well, the third I always did, at least. I entered some state of unconsciousness and could only feel every cell of my body drinking greedily the energy I was providing them. This process lasted for I don’t know how long, but I knew my body was as if reborn, entirely new, and much more powerful than ever. The Elk would regret ever tricking me.