After the vow I made to myself by the river, I started walking back to my cave. On the way there I picked a few fruits that Mai recommend and ate them as I was starting to get pretty hungry.
Once I was back at the cave I wondered what I should do next.
Hey Mai, should I go back to my original goal now and find some humans?
'You should wait till tomorrow for that. Your wounds should be healed by then and my energy will be restored, plus those question marks should reveal themselves by then.'
Oh yeah, now that you said that.
-Status
[Name:####]
[Age:####]
[Body Age:1 day]
[HP:8/10]
[??:??/??:30%]
[Left Eye(Mai####):Awakened, 70%]
[Right Eye(####):Dormant, 100%]
Sigh, I should've expected it, but it's still sad to see. I thought that my name or age might get revealed once I looked at my reflection in the river, who knows, Mai or I could've remembered something about me, but no luck.
After checking my status I didn't do that much for the rest of the day. I ate some fruits when I was hungry, and walked to the river when I was thirsty. I also picked up a few leaves and put them on the floor of my cave. I would only be sleeping in this cave for one more night so it wouldn't really make that much of a difference, but I didn't really want to sleep on the cold hard floor again.
I also picked up a very very long plant to replace my bandages. This plant was long enough so I could wrap it around my wounds a few times, so it worked better than the wolf skin which barely compressed my wounds and stopped the still-remaining bleeding.
While on the topic of plants and leaves, I had the impulse to pick up a big leaf which I tied around my crotch. I don't really know why I did it but it somehow felt right to have something covering that part of my body.
By the time I was done with everything the white sun was already retreating from the skies above, giving way for the 2 moons, one water-blue, the other- blood-red, to shine on the land below.
While looking at these 2 beautiful moons, which sadly I couldn't observe the night before as I had fallen unconscious while the sun was still out, a thought arose in my head.
Hey, Mai, don't these 2 moons kind of look like my eyes?
'Huh? What do you mea-oh. Now that I'm looking at them, you're right. What a strange coincidence.'
What a strange coincidence indeed.
Anyways, now that it was night, I decided to fall asleep. I didn't really have anything else to do right now.
Soon, the cold and soothing embrace of sleep wrapped around my consciousness, while I idly thought about what those question marks in my Status were hiding.
------------------------------
{Chirp!Chirp!Chirp!Chirp!Chirp!}
Ugh.
{Chirp!Chirp!}
Yeah, yeah, I'm waking up.
Yaaaawn~. Good morning Mai.
'Good morning.'
I stood up from my impromptu bed, stretching, when I noticed something extremely weird. It felt...like my body was stronger. There was something strange flowing in my veins and arteries, which together with the oxygen my blood was carrying was fed directly to every single one of the cells in my body, improving, strenghtening it.
What's this?
'You should probably check your status'
-Status
[Name:####]
[Age:####]
[Body Age:2 day]
[Rank 1]
[HP:15/15]
[MP:10/10]
[Left Eye(Mai####):Awakened, 100%]
[Right Eye(####):Dormant, 100%]
Huh?
It seems like my body age went up by 1 day. Well, that's expected, 1 more day has passed. Mai's energy is also fully recharged. But what happened to my HP? And what's MP? Also what does Rank 1 means?
'Now that MP is unlocked, it seems like my memories about MP have been partially unlocked as well. Let me explain. MP stands for Mana Particles. The 10/10 means that there is 10 mls of mana running through your blood out of your maximum capacity of 10 mls. That has the passive effect of adding 50% of your max MP into your HP.'
'It also passively enchances your physique, making you harder, better, faster, stronger, and generally just gives a boost to your whole body.'
'As for Rank, it's... what rank your being is? No, that seems to be wrong. Rather, it seems to be what Tier of power you can use. I can only remember that Tier 1 seems to be mana. I also seem to rememeber that I will unlock more of my memory regarding Ranks once you reach 999 MP.'
'I will also unlock another pack of memories once you reach 99 MP. It seems to be something about how to actively use MP.'
'Anyways, that should be about it for MP. Do you have any questions?'
Uhm, yeah, quite the important one. How exactly do I gain more MP?
'Oh. That's a good question. I forgot about that. I have unlocked the memories of a few ways. First and easiest way is to just absorb it from the surroundings. You always do that passively, but it's incredibly slow. Gaining even 1 MP takes a long time. You can also meditate, but if you don't know what you're doing that only helps a bit. I know that there are some techniques to meditate effectively which helps you gain a lot more mana from the surroundings, but sadly, I don't remember the techniques, I only remember that they exist.'
Well that isn't really helpful. Is there some other method?
'Yes. I remember one more method. It's harder, but more rewarding. You can gain more mana by consuming the cores of monsters.'
Monsters? Like those wolves that almost killed me?
'No. While those were strong beasts, they were not monsters. Monsters are beasts that have advanced to at least Rank 1 and have mana. By extracting and consuming their mana cores, you can gain more MP.'
Quick question, do humans have mana cores as well?
'Of course. It's situated in their heart. And yes, before you ask, you can also consume human mana cores to grow stronger. Same rules apply as for monsters.'
'Now onto the downsides of this method. They aren't that bad really. First, you have to be relaxed while you consume mana cores. You can't do it in the heat of battle. It also takes time to consume, and it takes time to get used to the higher quantity of mana running through your blood. On the topic of quantity, there is a set amount of mana you can take at once depending on how much max MP you have yourself, where, if you go over that amount, you would implode. So you can't jump from 10 MP to 1000 MP at once.'
'There is only one last things I can remember about mana right now. Don't consume mana cores unless your current MP is at it's maximum. It will just waste the mana in the mana core to refill your current MP, which happens very easily. If you right now go from 10 MP to 0, it'd take only a few hours for it to naturally reach back to 10 again. It's only hard to increase your cap passively, not to refill it. This is important for now because once you start bleeding, you will start losing MP as well. After all, the MP travels through the blood, though I guess this information would be way more useful once you get to 99 MP and can actively use MP.'
One last question, you said that mana refills naturally. Can you do it faster?
'I think so, but I'm pretty sure that that information is in the memory pack for when you reach 99 MP. Anyways, refilling MP isn't really a problem for you at the moment so don't worry about it for now.'
That sure was a lot of information. Though it's good that I got that much information, because I can now make a decision.
Should I continue moving forward, hoping that I will leave this forest and encounter humans...or should I go back to where I first was and fight some monsters?