I thrust the knife at a different angle around the protuberance in the bark again. The blade slices without much effort through the hardwood and once it's deep enough I lean it against one side to use the knife as a lever. Now that the bark is weak on some points it easily breaks and reveals the fruit I was after.

The process to extract this kind of fruit is very time-consuming but this one is also the tastiest treat around here. It has a very hard exterior that is probably not edible —I checked—like a nut, with the interior being soft and fibrous. A mystery for me why is this tree like that, the shell of the bark is very hard to break too.

Very interesting, this kind of tree. Hollow inside with just a cover of bark, branches, and leaves like any other tree for an exterior. It has a multitude of strange thin roots that reminds me of hair. More interesting yet is that is impossible to grow any kind of plant or tree taken from the Great Wild outside the forest itself. Many have tried and all of them failed. It is worth noting that many of the flora in here reproduces from its destruction and oh destructed it gets oh so often.

I take out the fruit from its position, encrusted in the wood and after removing it, my movements come to a sudden halt as I stare into two little beady black eyes. The world stays still and silent for a full second that feels like an eternity for me. Even the wind and sounds in the background stopped momentarily as my mind processed the threat. Then, everything exploded into life at the same time again.

I jump back, startled, falling on my back. I was just one meter above ground so nothing serious happens to me in the fall. The tree, though, isn't that lucky and breaks apart into a thousand pieces. Burst away by constant movement, it appears to spawn an endless swarm from its hollowed inside.

Damned ants, three times bigger than my hand each, rush at me even before I touch the ground and quickly climb and crawl over me. Drowning in so many of them, feeling their many legs, their hairy bodies rubbing against mine and their mandibles searching for flesh. I feel them bite me, drawing blood. I find a point of support with my hands among the ants crawling around and jump, my body getting into an upward position almost instantly. I start shaking my body and throwing them off with kicks and punches.

I insta-cast the Gale spell but it results ineffective, as more ants fill the space the ones I blew away left behind. Many keep trying to climb onto me, drawing more and more blood, clinging onto me despite my attempts to break free but I don't let the bastards get hold of any important part. Then, I try a different approach, insta-casting a Fireball two meters to my left, the general direction most of the ants are at.

The Fireball hits dead center on many of them, incinerating some and blowing away many more. I don't waste more time, shooting out into the flames as the way is momentarily cleared, ignoring the minor burns that I don't even register under the pain of the many bites and the many ants still holding onto me.

My surroundings blur as I run at breakneck speed, as fast as I have never run before. My legs move many times in the air before touching the ground but I quickly become accustomed to it, leaning forward, closer to the ground, and sped up even more.

I move in nigh total silence through the changing scenery, noticing some inhabitants of the woods, avoiding trees, ducking under branches, and jumping over rocks without slowing down at all. I run straight through hard and unwelcome shrubs to throw off my undesirable passengers still clinging onto me, gaining several more cuts in the process, that ends being fruitless.

After less than fifteen seconds of running, I finally hear the sound of flowing water and slightly adjust my direction. I take a deep breath, bracing myself for the impact.

A second after I shot into a river, diving flexed legs first and going deep. The sound muffles as my body goes deep into the water. My body going cold and my injuries numbing. My eyes, which were open during the short time I remained underwater see shadows nearing me as the almost dozen of ants are washed away by the current. I finally got rid of them.

I reach the surface and gasp, also become aware of the water being painted with a shade of red by my blood. Then something I learned a time ago strikes me. The waters aren't safe.

The shadows under the surface were going for me too. A little panicked, I start to swim for the safety of the shore like mad but it's a tiny bit too late. I sense an acute pain in my leg and then my surroundings take a life of their own, intense activity follows. I scream. I am in real danger now, no time to hesitate. I insta-cast a spell and summon a spirit. Something materializes underwater but I don't take notice, being too occupied with kicking the aquatic monster biting my leg, and clawing at the approaching ones on my surroundings. Luckily it seems it's just small fishes this time.

As a battle takes place around me I resume my swim to the edge of the river, insta-casting a barrage of Fireball to the depths. The temperature around me quickly rises as I shot one magical fire after another. Impressively, each fireball holding several seconds underwater until overwhelmed by the coldness of the water, their magic spent. The aquatic predators leave me alone until I reach the edge, scared of the flashy lights and barely steaming water.

It was a shitty plan. Jumping into the water? Never again.

I am completely wet but my clothes are fine because I practically don't have them anymore. My bag pack is waterproof and I just have my shorts left. Can't go around there with my birthday suit.

I check my injuries. Nothing life-threatening but so many of them that I probably would bleed to death in no time. Doesn't matter, I get up—or at least try to— and start to crawl to the nearest Mingan. I am starting to feel lightheaded but I will seek the Mingan's healing. It's a pity, though, their healing doesn't leave scars unless the injury is severe.

I remember how adventurers and soldiers told stories and anecdotes about each of their scars. It's not like I will try to convince anyone of what I have accomplished here; it would be just a waste of time. Even I know, if a child tried to convince me that he survived a journey through the Great Wild I would be very skeptical, at best. No, I would certainly don't believe it, the handful of adventurers that reached Town through the Great Wild were elites and they often started with powerful teams or big parties just to end their journey alone and damaged in the head. Still, having one or two stories with scars wouldn't be too bad, I have one for the burn on my left hand already.

I am digressing, I need to heal and restore my mana. As I come closer to the Mingan, one that wasn't doing anything approaches me and starts to heal me via licking without further ado. I sit against a tree, exhausted, and close my eyes to meditate and reach attunement, which I lost hold of at some point. The injuries slowly close before my sight as the creature dutifully licks me clean and its saliva enters in contact with my injuries. So far there have not appeared to be any drawback to this method, the only I can't think of is a possible addiction, but I don't think that is the case.

I hope not.

I have identified the source of this strange ability too. It's a plant. They ingest some plants constantly but they eat two of them more than the rest. Both plants fairly common around here. I have tried eating it myself but the results are discouraging, my body can't support it, throwing up each time, even though the taste is not bad. I have ground it into a paste that I applied to cuts and have gotten better results. Probably a known recipe for herbalism or alchemy. Still better to know than not that their healing is an acquired skill and not an innate one.

The other plant took me longer to realize what it did despite using it daily. Very stupid on my part, it could have been a special poison, or worse. Doesn't matter now, that plant is the cause of the Mingan's lack of smell. I have the Clean spell so I didn't notice the difference until I realized that although I haven't washed my teeth with anything for a while and still my breath didn't smell, that is not something Clean does and neither the Mingan have smelly breathe despite eating raw meat so often. Now my breath smells like nothing. Well, at least not of something I am capable of picking up with my meager sense of smell. I will continue to consume it, considering that it doesn't make me throw up like the other, and hope the effect becomes permanent.

Right now, I need to refill my mana pool so I start to speed up the natural regeneration but to my dismay, I notice my spiritual energy is very spent too. Spiritual energy doesn't regenerate on its own so I concentrate on it first. My mana pool will take care of itself on its own.

It seems my little run in the woods depleted my spiritual energy in about fifteen seconds, admittedly I ran faster than ever during that short time. While I have had no luck with infusing mana on my body I have better results with the good old spiritual energy using the same principle, which must be the main use of spiritual energy. Infusing my muscles with spiritual energy makes them temporarily slightly harder and stronger.

Maybe it's a mental barrier of my own, if I were to crash with an obstacle while running as fast as I ran a while ago then the results won't be pretty. So I can't run so fast normally, just as fast as my reflex can manage, even if I am physically capable of running faster.

It's something I need to think about.

After just half an hour I feel recovered and my Spiritual energy is at full capacity. I notice the creatures gathering so I leave meditation and see them getting ready to go. If I concentrate I can hear the distinctive sound of the swarm in the distance. It seems I agitated them more than I thought and we need to get away from them.

It's dangerous to sleep on the vicinities of one of the endless swarms, luckily I stumbled upon them while I searched for fruits before something on a large-scale happened. Considering prior experiences a couple of hours of travel to find another good camping spot would be enough. It's the final day of rest of the 5 days cycle so it doesn't matter much.

A few minutes more of waiting and soon we are already jogging away. The scenery changing again, we move in the river's water direction. The river has a big space on each side until the canopy of trees. The trees themselves are colossal this deep on the Great Wild, the majority over a hundred meters tall and several meters thick too. The quantity of monsters hidden among them is always frighteningly high but they aren't as stupid as to attack a herd of dangerous monsters—us— and prefer to stay clear of our path.

I suppose we will just follow the river for two or three hours until we get to a safe distance away from the swarm for the night but it depends on the leader.

Movement far away among the trees at the other side of the river catches my attention. I turn just in time to witness a sight that gives me goosebumps and makes me sweat cold. At my left, as the Sun hides among the canopy I see a shadow popping behind one of the trees. The shadow resembles a humanoid upper body with arms and head. That doesn't frighten me, humanoid monsters aren't rare on the Great Wild. The shadow quickly hides behind the tree after I glance at it. The only issue is that considering the distance and the height of the tree the monster must have been over 20 meters tall.

I look at the creatures around me. They look unconcerned even though they must be aware of the presence hidden there. Now I know better than to make a ruckus about this. If they deem the issue an unworthy threat then they are probably right. On my part, I better move further away from that part of the river.

In the time of my stay on the Great Wild, I have witnessed my fair share of weird things and strange events, of rare beasts and illogical monsters, even some that behaved weirdly close to being sentient. This just serves to me as a reminder that I am yet to know for sure any shit going on in this place.