"Holy Fuck!"
Alex cursed as the smell of wet mud and sand invaded his nostrils. His hands and legs felt unresponsive.
Not numb but... unwilling to heed Alex's commands. It was exactly like waking up and finding that you cannot put any power into grabbing something.
His muscles could put out more power, yet they didn't.
Alex just sat on his belly, resting his cheek on the hot but moist sand, breathing deeply. Lucidity slowly returned to him as if waking up from a long nap.
"Damn!"
Alex laughed at himself. 'I was about to die.'
It seemed like cultivating to your limits beneath a waterfall wasn't the wisest idea. Nevertheless, the waterfall, or pond, proved to be Alex's only salvation.
'There was that fish...' Alex seemed to recall watching a fish dance in the pond. 'What fish was that?'
Although Enrilth Keep contained countless tomes and bestiaries, one could not find a fish book. Sure, there were tomes about aquatic beasts, but they didn't include multicolored fish.
Nevertheless, whatever happened to Alex had to have something with that fish. So, Alex could only thank it.
'Wait... Didn't I throw up?'
Still on his belly, Alex moved his head to the left, looking at where he had barfed his stomach out. There was no fish there.
'The fuck?'
Well, ain't that curious?
The fish was probably still in Alex's stomach, and Alex didn't have the mental capacity to shove his fingers into his throat to rescue the little captive.
'The fish has a friend now... What the fuck was I saying?' Alex shook his head and forced his body upright.
Every muscle in his body was sore and screaming, and Alex felt like shit, but he had to wash himself off this mud and dirt first.
Dragging his body into the pond, he slowly washed for the second time before remembering he also had clothes that needed the same treatment.
Grabbing a vial from his bag, Alex poured some salt on his clothes before rubbing the salt in with some water.
Eventually, he finished washing everything and got out of the pond, not before drinking some water. He was strangely thirsty.
While his clothes dried out, Alex looked around the place and started a fire to cook some fish.
He saw some downstream, which was good for him as he didn't want to eat his provisions.
Being tired wasn't an excuse for slacking off, especially in the situation Alex was in. He desperately needed food, or he would never escape this lethargy he was feeling.
A few minutes later, he returned to camp, where a small fire burned.
Cooking the fish takes a while, so Alex has some free time.
'Let's see what happened.'
Alex turned his attention inward, feeling his own body. More accurately, he was trying to feel the mana present inside his body.
Surprisingly, there was some. 'Must've been that fish, then.' He could only think of this.
'Hmm?' Focusing on his stomach, Alex found a lot of mana.
His body was already topped with it, so he couldn't force any more mana inside his flesh unless he had figured out a way to create his core.
'Fortunately, this mana won't disperse anymore, so I can rest assured. Now...'
"What about my core?"
Initially, Alex wanted to catalyze mana in hopes of figuring out a way to procure mana he could then use to create his core. 'It takes a lot of energy, though. But that it's fine as long as it is physical energy that's required.'
Even when he first catalyzed mana, all that was needed was a lot of mental strain, which consumes energy. This meant he could trade physical energy for magical one.
The question now was whether this process was efficient or not. And since this was the only option Alex currently had, he could not complain.
'This is good news, no matter how you put it.' Alex beamed, relieved there was a way out of his predicament.
So what if the process of exchange wasn't efficient? Food was plenty in this forest. Alex could eat a lot, so there wasn't anything that impeded him from just doing it.
'Since I now know how to catalyze mana, it'll be easier.'
With that thought in mind, Alex grabbed a cooked fish and chomped down on it. Since it was catfish, he didn't have to worry about bones.
Alex made short work of the catfish, and in no time, only the skewers remained.
All that Alex had to do now was sleep.
Looking at the bright sky, one might think it would be hard to fall asleep, but that wasn't the case for Alex. With how tired he was, falling asleep was as easy as flipping over a palm.
Looking for a relatively comfortable stop to sleep in, Alex moved from the fire and prepared a simple bed.
***
Stretching his limbs out, Alex looked at the sky, feeling refreshed.
'That nap took longer than I thought.'
The entire forest was enveloped in darkness, and Alex could see the stars and the moon shining down cold slivers of light.
The Recen approached the fireplace and put his hand over the pile of ash.
'Phew, the fire didn't entirely burn out.'
After quickly rekindling the fire, Alex excitedly turned his attention to the mana in his belly.
Knowing what to do next, it wasn't hard for Alex to take control of it, bringing it out of his body through his palm.
A small ball of bright mana shed some light on the surroundings, floating silently above Alex's upturned hand.
Unlike the first time, merely holding the mana didn't require as much active control and was more comfortable. Even so, Alex didn't try to produce mana right away as he had no way to absorb said mana.
He first needed to learn to absorb mana, and only then could he think about properly cultivating.
Allowing the ball of mana to fall onto his palm, Alex wanted to see if there was any passive absorption.
Mana touched the skin of his palm but did not pierce through as he expected. It seemed like the skin was a barrier, not allowing foreign mana inside the body.
'Is this innate resistance?' Alex wondered before shifting his thoughts. 'If the easy way doesn't work...'
The ball of mana floated five centimeters above his palm before violently smashing into the skin. His palm recoiled, and even Alex didn't expect that much power could be felt from such a short distance.
Yet, he frowned. Little to no mana passed through the skin and into his bloodstream.
'Besides, what little mana did enter was too chaotic to be properly processed, and it damaged some of my tissue.'
Even after the impact, the skin on Alex's palm felt as if needles were piercing it.
'Hmmm...' Thinking for a moment, Alex got an idea. 'Let's do it like this...'
Focusing on the mana, Alex watched the ball morph, stretching into an oval before it suddenly split in two.
Suddenly, the pressure on his mind tripled or quadrupled, making it hard for Alex to maintain the shape of both mana spheres.
Yet, something interesting happened.
The mana present in both spheres slowed and calmed. Alex grinned.