Seth woke up. He had been living in this dark stomach for a full month. Almost nothing had changed, his stats stayed the same, he didn't find anything new, he hadn't found a light or heat source. The only thing that had changed was his base camp, he had found more wood and rope during his exploring and even learned how to shoddily built things for his house. He now had a fence around his platform, a bench with a table, and a bed. He just needed walls and a roof for it to be a real house.
Seth hadn't come up with a better way to find food and water, he was still living off of the beast's stomach lining. Food wasn't the only thing Seth was using the stomach lining for though, he was using sheets of it for his bedding. The wood was very uncomfortable and he had no blankets or pillows, so he ripped off sheets of the stomach lining every few days to make bedding. With all the use of the stomach lining, Seth thought he would run out of it in the area soon. He was wrong, somehow, without even getting any nutrition as far as Seth could tell, the monster was able to survive and even regenerate from its wounds within a few days.
The monster probably held many secrets and may even be bigger than Seth had originally thought. The monster could even be bigger than the Earth itself, in all his travels Seth had yet to find even the slightest slope in the stomach. He had walked many miles too, could it be that this stomach was large enough to have its own gravity or even an infinite space? This monster must either be huge or magical. Either way, it meant there was a very low chance of getting out of the stomach. This pissed Seth off, he had already been stuck in this stomach for a full month, he was not going to take any more of this. Seth decided to try to find an exit.
Seth had no idea how much time he had spent in the stomach but he knew it was about a month. His Intelligence stat probably had something to do with his ability to be able to tell how much time has passed. Seth didn't really know everything his stats did, but most of the effects were pretty straightforward. This wasn't the time to be thinking about his stats so Seth shook his head and ran in a single direction from his base with a plank of wood.
Seth ran for a few hours before stopping, he had already gotten more used to the darkness and he had much fewer panic attacks, only one every few days. He could also see more than ten feet in front of him, which helped greatly with his exploration. His sense of direction had improved with his sense of time, it was also very good. Seth hadn't gone off course a single time, his path was almost perfectly straight. This was good for Seth because it meant he would have a good way of getting back and he would go a further distance without going off track and wasting time and energy.
Seth rested for a few minutes, grabbing a few chunks of the stomach and tossing them in his mouth. He sucked the juices out of them and spit them out before going back to running. He would run as long as he had to find a way out of the beast's stomach. Seth gritted his teeth and ran harder, if he was running at a jog before, he was now actually running. His speed more than doubled and the stomach started ripping under the force of his feet. His strides were very short as he was a baby, only by speeding up his legs could he run faster. Seth was soon flying over the flat empty plane, if someone had seen him they would have just thought it was the wind.
Seth ran for another five hours before taking another break, the extra plank wasn't helping his aerodynamics and made his journey much harder. He sat on the ground and shoveled the stomach into his mouth, his way of eating hadn't changed since the first time, he had no reason to change it. Seth ate nonstop for almost five minutes, not even taking a single breath before he stopped. His lung capacity was even larger than divers and swimmers from Earth, it was a mystery how his small lungs could even hold that much air.
Seth had done a lot to pass the time over the month, exercising, building, or meditating were the better things he had come up with. Seth wasn't very creative, his Intelligence wasn't helping him with that one. That didn't matter though, the only thing that mattered was that Seth was bored and all he could do was exercise, build stuff, or meditate. He had actually meditated so much that he had learned how to almost perfectly control his breathing. This helped Seth retain his energy and control his body better, which would only help him. All his training had increased his control over his breath, both the meditation and the exercise, he had doubled how long he could hold his breath just by practicing.
The old man had noticed that Seth had left his base and had been running for hours. He could tell that Seth was sick of the darkness and he just wanted to get out, but the test wasn't over yet. It wasn't time for him to get out, Seth would just be stuck in the stomach until the time was up or he killed himself. The old man wasn't worried about Seth spending a long time away from real life because he had full control over the time in his simulation dimension. He could make one day in here a thousand years outside and vice versa, he was the ruler of this space. He had increased the speed inside so that a full year inside would be only a few seconds outside.
Nobody outside would notice, if someone did they would either have their memories erased or they might just be silenced. Less than a quarter of a second had passed so far though, the maids and knights had just had their memories erased too, so they weren't going to be much of a problem. Only people that were able to keep their memories would want to go to Seth's room, and none of those people were employed by the castle. It would take a very strong mind to keep your memories after that, only High Mortals or stronger could even think of resisting it. Those people wouldn't work for the palace, they were too strong and independent for that.
The palace only had the knights for show, their true defense was multiple Peak Mortals stationed in the higher floors of the castle. They would take care of anybody that could harm the castle, the knights just fought off the Lower Mortals that went crazy and tried to attack them. The old man wondered whether the other Peak Mortal guards would bother him since he stepped away from his post. If they dared to do so, he would have to give them a harsh beating. The old man watched Seth as he stopped eating and continued on his journey to find a way out of the monster's stomach.
Seth ran and ran, he ran for almost five days before he realized that he was going nowhere. Nothing had changed, if there were sections in a stomach, he was still in the same one. Not even the level of acid had changed, it still just barely seeped out when stepped on. If Seth didn't know better, he would think he was just running in circles. He knew he wasn't though, he had tested it before. He had dropped wooden planks as he ran and straightened them so that both sides were flesh with each other. The planks had made a straight line and had gone for hundreds of feet, Seth ran about twenty feet away from them. He ran along the side of the boards with them out of sight and ran back to them after he had run four hundred feet. They were twenty feet away, as he had left them.
His experiment wasn't that accurate though as Seth was just basing it off what he could tell with his senses. There were a lot of moving variables that he had overlooked but that was the best he could do. If the loop was big enough, his experiment would be completely obsolete. But Seth trusted himself and decided not to think about it. Seth ran for a few more hours before resting again. He had slept four times in the past five days and spent the rest running.
The old man chuckled to himself. What Seth didn't know was that the monster eating him was just an illusion and was meant to be a transition to this world. He wasn't actually in a monster's stomach, he was in a specially modified world that was made of a flesh substance and secreted poison. The old man just wanted the test to be harder than just surviving in the wilderness so he changed the place he needed to survive. Seth was just running around on the surface of a planet, hoping to find an exit.
Seth ran for another five days before finally giving up. If nothing had changed in the ten days that had already gone by, nothing would ever change. Seth sat on the ground, resting. He started shoveling food in his mouth like always, he ate for almost three minutes straight. Which was just an average length of time for his meals at this point, he didn't need to breathe or stop eating so he ate very fast. After Seth ate his fill, he lay on the ground before falling asleep, he had already run the entire day and he was tired. He would run back to his base for the next ten days, he wanted to have a good rest before then.
Seth ran back even faster than he had run away. He had shortened his time to a little over nine days, almost a full day shorter than the time it took him to run the other way. The running had actually helped Seth get used to his child body and his movements had become much more natural. When Seth reached his base, he ate a quick meal and replaced his sheets and pillows before falling asleep. His shortened running time had only made him more hungry and tired.
The old man never stopped watching what Seth did, he wanted to see what Seth would do in different situations, this was a test after all. He watched Seth run around for months, as Seth slowly got more used to his surroundings and eventually made a true house. Seth had built a house that had walls, a roof, and even a door. He didn't originally know how the planks for the walls were going to stand up, or really the logistics of anything. But he still ended up completing his project with a smile on his face, the old man could tell just how prideful Seth was of his creation.
Seth had realized that the acid wasn't really acid, but it was a painful poison that wasn't corrosive. It was an oversight that the wood planks hadn't dissolved in the slightest from the poison, but Seth wasn't perfect. When Seth had found out about the truth of the poison though, he had come up with ideas on how to build his house. Seth stabbed the wooden planks almost ten feet into the ground, causing them to stay upright. They were pretty stable and Seth added some rope to tie them together. That was really the hardest part though, his house didn't have windows because Seth didn't want to wrack his brain for an idea.
Seth also realized that he most likely wasn't inside the stomach of a beast when he found out about the poison. It made a lot of sense when he thought about it, he never saw any more things eaten and the acid level was way too low for digestion. Seth concluded that he was probably living on the body of a poisonous animal. He had done a lot in the past few months, and he was proud of everything he had done.