I don’t get it. This is like fighting in water. I can’t quite explain it, but I feel like I can’t use all of my energy. Hm. I ́ve really become dependent on energy.

Thinking back when I first started using abilities and energy. I had moments when I was practically drained dry but I didn’t really collapse or lose any physical strength.

It was more like I couldn’t borrow the same strength. No that makes no sense. But there were without a doubt moments where I was low on energy, the feeling was like serious thirst.

I might be addicted to energy now. So no energy means I get an unquenchable feeling, a need for energy. Or not. I really can’t be sure, I’m no scientist.

I’m having a hard time focusing, and that means I might have to stop recording. I sort of lose myself in jumbled up thoughts or observations.

I wonder if I should wake up Son. Nawh, what could he do? Let’s prowl around for a bit, see if we can find something to hunt.

I’m going to move towards the Naturai tree, if it’s like the other ones, there shouldn’t be anything dangerous lurking in its nearest vicinity.

I think it’s because the territory around it has been claimed by its guardians, and those mind-numbingly scary flying creatures.

I hear some movements, the occasional screech, roar and death-throes. The smell here is really nice, it is a lot like the outer-layer but just so much richer.

I wonder if it’s the trees. I’m still moving from tree to tree, staying just below the canopy, to avoid being seen from above.

It is also where the branches and leaves are the most spread. If I kill something here and cook it, won’t it lure other beasts to me?

Hm. The beasts never came in the outer-layer, but these places have their differences, can’t be reckless.

I found three beasts walking in a very slow circle around each other. They are all some sort of wolf. Their fur is cray with green lines or spots spread evenly.

Everything is better greener but I wonder about these. What are they even doing? They look pretty hostile, but they’ve been doing this dance for a while now.

Eh? Oh, that was unexpected. One of the wolves lowered its two front legs and raised its back legs. Instantly the other two jumped and clashed mid-air.

Now, I don’t want to be mindlessly slandering these pups but I’m pretty sure this is some sort of mating ritual. Hm. I have never seen a baby beast.

I’ve seen some that are larger than their own kind and some smaller but I can’t really say they were newborns or close to it.

They really aren’t playing around, one of the wolves has lost its right ear and blood is pouring out of the sides of the other, just above its ribcage.

This is the curse of not being able to masturbate leisurely, truly my hands are a blessing.

Oh dear green goddess, in the midst of their ferocious tumble, the one eared canine got its tail ripped off. It howled so loud I nearly fell off my stable watch-post.

That was brutal. He is now standing on both his hind-legs and oh, damn. It is actually gathering energy under all of its paws.

Leaping out with an explosive sound it near magically appears in front of its nemesis and swipes down at its neck.

To the winner goes the spoils, the, presumably female wolf whimpers as the bloodstained green and grey beast moves to receive what it fought for.

Uhm. Okay, call me sexists but I really wasn’t expecting that. It bit the slightly trembling, now known to be male, wolf.

The injured victor turns around and lifted its behind and non-existing tail. Then turned its head abruptly and growled menacingly.

What exactly is going on here? I raise my spear, I don’t intend to watch what happens next.

As soon as they begin I throw the first spear towards the female wolf, it just seems like much more of a threat than that shivering wolf that looks like it’s being forced to mount the female.

No. I am still very confused as to what just happened here. The spear quickly reaches its intended target and I’m already mid swing preparing to take out the second one.

There is still a lot to be seen in this world. That’s what I’ve learned today.

I picked up the meat and leather and filled my backpack to the brim, there was no skill-book, sadly.

It's times like these, that hard data would be appreciated. It is too hard to make an educated guess without enough unbiased information.

Nevertheless, I didn’t spend much energy on that fight. I can still easily take care of the beasts here, doesn’t change this insufferable pressure constantly weighing down on me.

I’m going to move faster towards the Naturai tree and prepare some food and try to meditate.

What was that green-gray goo that I spit out last time? I feel like I got an idea of what it is, but it hasn’t quite formed properly.

And that wolf-fighting scene keeps replaying through my mind. Honestly, that was extremely odd.

Can’t say that there are no beasts at the base of the tree but I can’t see any, I can’t really enter that divine state of merging with the tree either.

I tried just before I set up a camp on the closest tree next to the Naturai tree. It was very similar to when I tried to sense the water energy in that luxurious bath.

Oh, I want a bath right about now, my skin is already getting itchy just thinking about how much I sweat in this place.

My beautiful skin didn’t even get pruned after being submerged in water for who knows how long, but here it feels like a dried piece of dirt.

Looking up above me, in the seemingly endless Naturai tree and the loud noises from the creatures above have become a lot clearer.

I won’t be trying to climb up it. The pressure also got stronger the closer I got to the tree. I think we can assume it has something to do with the tree.

Hence, I’m going to meditate as close to it as I can and try to properly feel its pulse.

It’s been a few sessions so far and I haven’t gotten anywhere, every time I get out of meditative trance I throw up disgusting goo.

First it was green and grey, then it went to a nearby bright red and a smidge of purple. Moving from there it was just black.

The newest one is a faded yellow with a bit of orange in it. There really isn’t any consistency in it.

It makes me think, how random is this world? I really want to believe it is following some kind of pattern.

As a human, I should be able to at least see some kind of a pattern in the way things work. But I really can’t make out how or why things happen so far.

There are some things I feel I know. First, all guardians drop skill-books. At least in the areas I’ve killed so far, actually there were some that dropped items instead or did they drop it alongside the books? I might have to check the boon.

Okay so the guardians are done, there is also varying strength of the guardians, not sure if that means anything but I think it has to do with the rank system has in place.

Well it called it authorization but it’s essentially the same thing right? So if the outer-layer of Abraser is a Hetra rank area. Then perhaps some of those villages are the same or lower.

I can’t imagine it being higher. The city I tried to explore might have been higher. It could also have been split in a similar way to Abraser.

That might be worth checking out. I could just take over two towns or villages there. Bit far away but I am getting faster and faster, we’ll see.

I’d rather try a different direction to look for another Sanctuary, that way I’d at least be able to buy a new map of the nearby area.

Some might have a decent map of Abraser, I already have my own self-made crude map but I can’t really be trusted and it isn’t up to scale.

Seeing as the pressure isn’t getting worse or better at this point in time, I think I’ll go meet up with Sera, maybe make a new village in Abraser for her side of the forest.

I want to try to get some more affinities, it feels like the next step.

I’ll have to check out of the middle layer a few more times to get a proper feeling of how oppressive it is. To measure up when I get a new affinity.

If it helps I’ll know I’m at least not going in the wrong direction.

I’m going as fast as I possibly can over the canopy in the middle-layer, I just wanted to make sure I know why I die.

I accidentally threw a spear at a pretty low flying bird. It looked manageable at the time but turns out I was very, very, very! Wrong.

I can’t hear it behind me but seeing as there are only shadows around my figure, I think we can believe it is right above me and currently blocking the sun.

If the shadow gets smaller all of a sudden I’m going to dive below the trees. It’s worth knowing if I can actually outrun a flying beast, but the virtual flood of cold sweat pouring down my back is telling me I can’t.

I barely had a second to drop down below the canopy when the shadow suddenly constricted, meaning it was descending down on me.

I didn’t really think about how fast I can jump down but it is definitely not as fast as my maximum running speed.

I felt a claw literally tear into my shoulders and lift me up. Moments later I’m free-falling again.

I can’t feel any pain, I can’t feel anything at all in fact. My right hand and shoulder have lost all function.

I’m currently praying to the green goddess to save me and at the same time hoping I fall faster into the embrace of the forest.

I couldn’t turn whilst being thrown about like a toy so I have to assume the birdy had to do some sort of aerial maneuver before going for another dive.

I tried to grab onto branches with my still working left hand, the first branch I managed to get a hold on snapped dramatically, leaving me to fall to the ground.

Not sure how high I was but this is going to hurt. Or maybe not, perfect timing to try and see if energy shield will ease my fall.

Like a rubber ball the shield flexed out before I dispelled it. The momentum has been completely nullified.

I should have used it before I got impaled by that terrifying bird, so I learned that I can’t straight up out run it.

Doesn’t mean I can’t escape, I am now trying to figure out a way out of this hell hole. I feel nauseous, something is turning my stomach.

Unfortunately I can’t really sit and rest, I’d be free game for ninja rats, matriarchal wolves and who knows what else.

Finally, sweet release. First thing to do is to meditate, my dear all-embracing goddess of all that is green, there is no pressure here.

It feels like the wind has stopped raging. I sit in any old tree and stuff myself with raw meat and focus on falling into a trance. Let me into Elysium.

Huh. I feel better. There is still a giant red scar on my shoulder just below the bone. It might have healed so fast because no bone broke.

But there is something else. Hm. something is missing.

The energy is a bit thin? Is that it? Is this why there is no pressure here? Because the energy is more domineering or oppressive might be a better word.

But it is also far thicker, richer. This could be why I felt like I was fighting the air with every step, even sitting still was bothersome.

I can’t really measure the different levels of energy but I think we can work on the assumption that it is in some way different. Not better, just different.

Misinformation breeds more misinformation. And if we know the energy is different, then we can assume my body was rejecting it.

Which could be those disgusting discharges. This feels right. Good, it is so satisfying to get some answers, albeit unprovable. Is there an energy meter lying around somewhere?

I’m going to head for a little leisure time with Sera, maybe fiddle with the whole construction thing and while I’m doing that I should try and pick an affinity to work towards.

So assuming I won’t record anything until I put my thoughts together, I should record my skills just in case I mysteriously die. Knock on wood? Knock on wood.

…

…

…

Hello? Been a while, just checking in, I built a village fit for seven hundred people for Sera and her people, her collection of handsome men grew.

She also informed me that the abandoned village we took over has been steadily populating. She has the option to leave them out of the re-spawn thing but she let them be.

There is an almost obvious connection to safe zones and the re-spawning of people. Oh. Her sister now has four men under her wing.

I have no idea how this all came to be but I’m thoroughly impressed. I still feel like it’s somehow been reversed.

Not sure where I got the feeling that the men usually had multiple women instead and it’s all very confusing.

This is the feeling I get when I only remember parts of things. I had the same feeling before I learned of the sun and moon.

Right, anyway. It’s been fun and all but I always get this itch when I stop meditating for a while.

And because I have simply no idea how long I go under each time, I haven’t been meditating. I have been sleeping. Take the good with the bad, kind of thing.

So I’m planning on focusing on animal affinity, that’s what it’s called. I figured something out, or I think I did.

It’s a simple trail of thoughts. Water affinity, nature affinity and whatever else are just large groups, a label for many affinities.

I think I have a hypothesis about how it all works. My nature affinity might just be one part of a whole group of things related to any kind of flora.

For example, tree affinity would be assigned to nature affinity. Different poisons would all be under poison affinity, meaning different poisons just add to the original affinity.

I haven’t proved any of this but I’ve had a lot of time to think this over.

With that in mind, I’m going to try and meditate completely covered in fur with just enough room to breathe, I’m having some people pile fur over me.

This wasn’t in the book but the ones in the book seem impossible or extremely tedious.

Light affinity or whatever it is, needs to have someone wake me up before the sun goes down or anything creates a shadow over me, even clouds. How long will that take? Right?

But I think there is more to the requirements, I think it’s more about completely immersing yourself in something, to try and sense it.

That way you’d be able to absorb it. Ice for example, could be under water affinity. This all makes sense to me.

Add in the fact that I don’t believe the words used to learn the abilities are really supposed to be in this language.

They always seem blurry and translucent in the skillbooks, like everything in this puzzling place.

One meditation session after another, I am now on a completely vegetarian diet. All I eat is what Sera’s people grow, it all tastes of the forest.

I haven’t gotten a literal sense for the fur so far, it might have to be alive or something. I won’t quit though, it’s quite easy to waste time researching affinities when you have enough to eat and drink.

I went all out on this village as well, electricity, lights, houses, places to garden, blacksmithing area.

Ah, the blacksmithing area is just gathering dust now, we have nothing to blacksmith with, no materials. Maybe I should create a mine.