(One year later, 1.799 years until the day of the summoning, Akatsuki's POV)

I jumped from tree to tree, running away from the angry, six meter tall boar which is mowing down the trees as he runs after me. Oh, don't be fooled, I'm by no means weaker than this guy, but to kill him and drag his corpse to my base is a pain, so I make him follow me to my base so that I can kill him there. When we get to the place, I turn around and jump at the boar's head.

I gather some energy on my left hand and strike the boar between its eyes with my open palm. The energy goes out from my hand and penetrates the skull, destroying the brain. As the creature falls dead on the ground, I land gently on the ground.

(Akatsuki): "Phew."

Now that the boar is dead, I make a karate-chop with my hand and focus energy on it. Then, with the energy on my hand, I chant inside my mind.

(Akatsuki): 'My body is metal, my hand, a blade.'

Then, the energy surrounding my hand took the form of a blade. After learning to manipulate the energy inside me, I discovered that chanting inside my head makes it much more easier to change its properties. First, I thought that it was mana, like in the novels, but I was unable to make fire for example. I am only able to manipulate things, like earth, wood, wind, fire, etc.

Everything that has energy inside them, I am able to manipulate to a certain degree. Well, the monsters around here have another energy mixed in them, so I'm not able to manipulate them. Not that it matters, though. I'm still able to manipulate my body, and the regeneration is absurdly useful. Around two months ago, I met with a powerful creature and fought to the death with it.

The thing managed to rip off my arm, which grew back in less than one and half seconds. Although it makes me feel safe that I won't die easily, it still hurts. Anyway, after some time here, I managed to discover some things about this continent. The deeper you go, stronger the monsters are. I'm still near the borders, so the monsters aren't too strong.

With my hand clad with energy in form of a blade, I slash at the belly of the giant boar, making it's blood and some organs fall out. Then, I begin to skin it. Well, I'm at the borders not because I'm afraid of stronger monsters, but I want to have perfect control over my new powers before going deeper. Well, now is the time anyway, since it already feels natural to control the energy.

After I'm done skinning the boar, I take out its bones, organs, and cut the meat. From inside the heart of the boar, I get a crystal of the size of my head. I smile a bit. I found a lot of these inside the creatures that I killed. I can feel the energy that's inside my body is the same as the energy that forms these crystals. After some tries, I discovered the best way to use them to make myself stronger.

I open my mouth and bite the crystal, breaking off a good piece, which I swallow without munching. The piece of the crystal falls on my stomach and I feel it dissolving, transforming into energy that expands my energy pool a bit. Yeah, if I eat them, my energy limit grows by a good margin. I quickly finish eating the crystal. Great.

Also, one more thing that changed about my body. It's my appetite. It grew absurdly. A boar like this? It's already my third one today, and I'll eat all in less than an hour. Actually, to satisfy me, it must have a good quality energy in its flesh, so the quantity doesn't matter. It becomes energy the moment it reaches my stomach. Okay, time to eat and move out. I'll just abandon the skin, since I also eat the bones.

Sigh... it will be a long millennia...