Taking deep breaths from the fight, Tai sat down on the ground and checked his health. Thanks to his endurance, he only took minimal damage and still had around 400 health remaining.

Tai used his Ki to light up his surroundings, seeing the corpses of the 3 hyenas that attacked him. His stomach rumbled, wanting food.

Tai had two options that he was thinking about right now. Either eat the hyenas he just killed, or don’t and try to find some better food. The second option wasn’t guaranteed and he might be forced to eat something he doesn’t like eventually to not die, but eating raw hyena meat wasn’t exactly appetizing.

Testing out an idea he had, Tai tried to use his Ki to make fire kind of like Jake did, but no matter how hard he tried, nothing would happen. It was like there was a barrier limiting him in what he could do.

In the end, Tai decided to eat raw hyena meat. Grabbing a piece of the hyena’s flesh, he put it in his mouth, and to his surprise, it wasn’t that bad. The raw meat had a sweet taste, but not enough for it to be considered sugar. Eating the raw meat also made him feel rejuvenated, and after checking his health, Tai noticed that his current health went from around 400 to 410. Tai concluded that this was probably the effect of Aether as he had never heard of food healing someone, or at least not that fast.

To his surprise, he managed to finish a whole hyena. He didn’t eat the whole thing, leaving the organs alone and only eating its flesh. The blood on the meat quenched his thirst for now, but he still needed water.

Full on hyena, which Tai didn’t expect to be good, laid down on the ground and closed his eyes, dozing off to sleep.

Other than the hyena attack, the night passed peacefully with no one bothering Tai. This was because some of the other hyenas and animals had seen what he could do and decided not to bother him.

Stretching his legs, Tai woke to a dog eating the hyenas that he had killed. The dog was a white husky with black marks on its fur. Tai smiled when he saw the dog, finally having some company in this lonely desert.

“Here boy! Or are you a girl?” Tai leaned his head down to check and found that it was a boy. “Here boy. Are you hungry? Eat all you want.”

The husky looked at Tai with its tongue out, panting before going back to eating the hyena.

Tai approached the dog from behind, sitting down beside him and petting him. He ran his fingers across his soft fur, smiling.

“Hey, boy, do you want to come with me?” Tai asked the dog as he continued petting him.

The dog stopped eating the hyena and looked at him as he cocked his head to the side. After a few seconds, Tai received a message from the system.

UNNAMED (DOG) has accepted your slave-master contract. UNNAMED (DOG) is now your slave.

"Huh. Well, looks like you're with me from now on." Tai was happy as from what the text said, the dog accepted the contract, so he didn't force him and he accepted with his own will.

"Since you're with me now, we can't have you with no name, can we?" Tai rubbed his chin as he thought of a name for his new companion.

"That's it. I'll name you after that one world-destroying dog. From now on, your name will be Fenrir or Fenny for short."

UNNAMED (DOG) is now Fenrir.

Fenrir stopped eating the hyena and looked at his master, barking with a happy tone as he began licking his master's hand.

"You like it, huh? Now come on, we need to get going before it's night again." Leaning on Fenrir, who was quite tough and didn't even move one bit, Tai got up on his foot.

"I wonder if I can use Ki to fix my missing leg situation." Tai focused his Ki on the stump of his missing leg with the intention of trying to regrow his leg.

To Tai's surprise, his leg did start healing, but that was it, healing. His wounds closed and the missing skin regenerated, but his leg was still missing.

You have learned a skill: Ki Healing

+1 status point

"Damn, well how about I make a prosthetic with Ki?" Tai released some Ki and started shaping it into the form of a leg. He was getting close until his Ki Construct fell apart. It seemed that a leg was too complex for him currently.

You have learned a skill: Ki Construct

+1 status point

"If a leg is too complex, then how about a simple walking stick?" Tai started shaping his Ki to make a walking stick that was just the right size for him. The process went through smoothly without any problems and now Tai had a cool red, and transparent walking stick.

Ki Construct has leveled up

+1 status point

Now that he was ready, Tai set off with his new companion. The desert was as hot as always, but his Heat Resistance had gone up enough for him to ignore the heat and not suffer any sunburns. Since his Heat Resistance was now at a perfect level to ignore the sun's heat in the desert, it wouldn't level up anymore until Tai experiences hotter things.

The journey across the desert was boring and strenuous, but they had to do it. While walking across the desert, Tai and Fenrir fought some alien monsters that were most definitely not from Earth.

The monsters were tougher than the pack of hyenas he fought and they managed to injure Tai quite a bit, but with the help of Fenrir, they dealt with them fine.

After every battle, Tai would use Ki Healing to heal himself, increasing its level from 1 to 3. Who knows, maybe if it reaches a high enough level, it'll be able to regrow Tai's leg.

After walking for some time, Tai heard shouting in the distance. These weren't the sounds of monsters or beasts, these were the sounds of his own species. Humans.

===

"Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit. Oh, fuck," a man covered in blood cursed silently.

"Dan, be quiet or those monsters will hear us," a woman also covered in blood whispered as she hugged her kids.