First off, I think I’ve pretty much confirmed that I can’t just waltz out of this town. Ignoring the idea that Itor probably spoke to the guards to make sure I don’t go outside the walls, I also would most likely not survive on my own out there; at least, I wouldn’t survive for long. I don’t know what’s edible, what’s safe to drink, what areas are dangerous, and generally how to survive in this alien forest.

What I need is a guide. I’ve already identified Sheia as a good possible ally, so I think I’ll use her. And I already have a method of getting her to smuggle me out of here.

To begin, I need to make a knife. I’ll probably just create one out of stone since I don’t currently want to experiment with other materials.

I envision a knife in my mind. I design a simple, four-inch blade and a handle with a spiral pattern going along the edges so I can grip it more easily; I don’t want it slipping out of my hand during a fight. When I detail the blade, however, I realize that this may take some trial and error.

Making a sharp object is surprisingly difficult. I have to go through and specify how thin I want the blade at each point. If I make it too thick, it won’t be sharp enough to cut anything. If I make it too thin, though, it’ll break way too easily.

Well, I don’t want to have to sacrifice enough flesh to make multiple fully-formed knives over and over, so instead I guess I’ll just make a small portion of the blade to test things out on. I cut down my mental blueprint to be a sliver of the main part of the blade and set its thickness basically at random. I honestly know barely anything about what makes knives actually work other than the fact that they’re sharp, so I’m pretty much just gonna be brute forcing my way through this.

On top of the fact that it’s difficult to get the values right, it also takes a long time to actually map out the details mentally. I pretty much have to keep ‘zooming in’ and setting more and more mental detail on this object to make it actually sharp. It takes a half hour before I finish setting it up, since it also takes a lot of time to even select a large enough part of my body to prevent myself from drawing blood.

A few hours pass as I get my design more and more effective. I test each knife section I make on nearby leaves and sticks to see how easily it cuts into things and to test its durability. At this point, though, I think I’ve gotten something that works well enough.

Since I’m sitting in a bit of a secluded area in the village, not many people see me, but I do get a few weird looks from the people who do come this way. It’s not like I don’t get it; I mean, I’m a guy sitting on the ground surrounded by chips of stone foraging around for twigs to cut in half with them, so it makes sense that they’d be a bit confused.

My only real worry is that someone that sees me will go and tell Itor about what I’m doing, but I don’t think he’s really informed many people about our connection with each other. He seems to be lying to people about my origins, and so if that’s supposed to be a secret, he probably wouldn’t want to advertise the idea that there’s anything special about me in the first place, otherwise people might go snooping around.

Besides, even if someone did inform him of what I’m doing, I’m sure he wouldn’t be surprised to hear that I’m experimenting with this new ability of mine. In fact, I’m sure he’s currently actively looking forward to seeing what sort of progress and discoveries I make without any guidance.

Anyway, I think I’m ready to make the real deal. I set up the mental blueprint of the knife. Since I have so much practice making bladed edges, it doesn’t take quite as long, but it still takes a bit of time to make the more unusual areas like the knife point and the part where the blade transitions to the base.

I’ve also gotten a lot more practice selecting my entire arm for the flesh cost, so that part takes a bit less time, too. All in all, it takes me about twenty minutes to create the full stone knife. When I do, I feel a significant stinging sensation all across my arm. That normally happens whenever I make something, but it’s a lot more uncomfortable this time, I guess since I made something so much larger than normal.

I look over at my arm and see its pinkish-red tinge. Yeah, I should probably start using other areas of my body until that arm heals up a little. The skin looks really thin on it. Hopefully I can get to the point sometime where I can select my entire body.

I look at the knife that dropped into my hand. There’s a small feeling of accomplishment that comes from looking at this thing I designed so meticulously suddenly come into existence. It’s pretty small - only about six inches, counting the handle - but hopefully it will serve me well.

My next goal is to make some sort of armor. If I plan on getting into a fight, I need to defend against two main types of attack. The first is a simple slashing weapon, like I have. If acquiring this ability is really as easy as it seems, I should expect just about anyone to have access to a blade at all times. It’s most likely going to be what I go up against when I attack my target.

The second type of attack I need to defend against is the more dangerous one. When Itor and Magna were fighting, they didn’t only create materials, they also had some sort of way to propel them at high speeds. I can’t find any sort of way to do that myself, so I have to assume it’s a separate type of ability. But seeing as I haven’t seen anyone other than those two use it - while I’ve seen people like the builders using the creation ability - I can assume it’s at least a bit less common.

As for how I plan to defend against both slashing weapons and high-speed projectiles, well, I think I have a decent idea. I mean, it won’t even come close to making me impervious to harm, but the strength of this method comes more from the fact that it can be hidden - and thus, my opponent won’t adjust their strategy to counteract it.

I explore the town, mainly walking around the less-trodden paths and near the walls so as to at least somewhat stay out of the spotlight, looking for what I need. Eventually, I find something that will work somewhat well.

Standing near one of the village exits is a large tree. Its trunk is somewhat thin compared to the size of the tree itself, and it has long branches reaching out with wide leaves sporadically hanging down from them.

The leaves themselves are what I need. They’re about six or seven inches long and have a similar width, and are almost circular in shape, which gives the tree a very strange look. I pull off a few dozen of them and use my knife to cut them into strips, then begin weaving them together. I don’t have much experience with weaving, but I’ve seen it done once or twice so after some trial and error I begin to get the hang of it.

After some time, I have created a sheet of woven leaf material, about a foot in width and a bit more in height. I then begin on making another of them. Then, I make another. I repeat this over the course of quite a few hours, burning away most of the remaining daylight. By sunset, though, I finally have what I wanted.

I stack the six or so sheets of woven leaf on top of each other, making one very thick sheet. I use a couple strands of fabric that I cut from my only robe to tie two loops around it, and affix the newly-made vest to the front of my body. And thus, I have created a very rudimentary chestplate.

It won’t last me long; realistically, it’s only going to last one or two stabs or slashes, but layered material - even something as weak as leaves - can be surprisingly durable, so it will hopefully prevent those attacks from doing any major damage to my body before it breaks down.

I pull my robe down over the chestplate. It’s pretty much completely hidden unless someone were to really closely examine me. Perfect.

That, though, marks the end of my preparations for today. It’s getting dark, and, frustratingly, there aren’t any synthetic lights around, and working under candlelight would both be conspicuous and impractical, I pretty much have to call it a day.

While I’m not under a strict timetable or anything, I do want to get out of here as soon as possible. I’d hope Magna’s injuries will take months to heal and so we’ll be here for much of the foreseeable future, but I can’t count on it. The strange situation I find myself in doesn’t seem to follow the regular rules of reality, so I honestly wouldn’t even be surprised at this point if she’s up and walking tomorrow.

And, of course, we might not be here until her injuries are fully healed. Maybe we’re just here to take a short rest, or to stock up on some medical supplies since we used a few for her, or just to get her condition stable enough to safely travel without risk of worsening her leg. So honestly, Itor could decide to head out at any time.

Yeah. I need to get out of here.