The following day, Sam And Red was already the furthest He has ever been. He estimated 100 Km. No sign of civilization. He passed a dozen mountains, harvested hundred's herb's, and spotted more than 50 different beast territories.
Of course, he already found salt. Enough for a lifetime alone. Well.. for two. But with the excitement he doesn't want to go back, and being with Red, he can be at ease. Not many animals could hurt much less hunt them. And Red knows his way by smell. With their scent to follow back, they could go for a few day's straight. But Sam prefers knowing his way too. Not rely on Red In case he has to go back alone.
Right now, they are eating the best skewer's he has had in years.
(Tomorrow morning we go back home. There is a lot of stuff to do.)
With that salt, I will be able to make better skin and even leather. If you rub it on the raw skin and soak it, you can soften and remove bacteria from them. Then stretch them with starch so they don't stick then let them dry. Finally, rubbing a soft stone on it to make them supple.
I got the starch from grainy plants that look like barley a while back while searching for flour plant's.
With that, I should be able to make pretty decent clothing.
They spend the night by a giant lake which blocks the path anyway.
One thing I notice, On this planet, the sky has stars one half of the night. The other half is super dark. At my location, at least. I guess at the poles, I could see half of the sky with stars, the other half with just endless darkness. Half the "year" the sun would be on the star side, the other on the dark side.
To the left, if you are at the north pole, looking at the star side there is a red star. It is so close that it must be in the same star system. This is a system on the outskirt of the universe.
A few moons But small and boring. Just rock's that you can't see much unless they pass over your position for an hour at the right time.
This planet seems bigger and the day's longer. So the two past year's in my perception must be wrong. The sun has been on the star side all this time. Until it makes a complete revolution, I can't tell how long a year is. I also did not calculate the angles and have no data. Damn... cool.
On that rambling, I fall asleep.
A few months passed.
By now, I have explored a hundred kilometers in all directions. I found absolutely no traces of civilization, I focus on strengthening myself as always.
After a lot of destroyed fur, I managed to make some pants and a sleeveless coat. Boar leather outside and giant rabbit fur inside. Supple and comfortable. I also made long boots. The soles are made from sculpted boar tusk's under a rabbit sock, wrapped with a few layers of the toughest oiled leather I could make. The base climbs halfway with laces. From there, wolf fur up to the knee. The last piece is a cloak, furred deer outside and giant rabbit inside. The collar, seams and sleeves are made of wolf. No weather can bum me now. And I looks pretty Damn cool.
My next task is better tool's. That includes metallurgy.
Another few months....
Finding metal was super easy. Since this place is untouched by human hand, I look in any river or stream and find some nuggets just by looking. On earth, there are no more untouched places. It's a lot smaller than you think. 80 days by balloon. Ten day's by plane. Not a long time, considering we are small organisms. And one organism can travel around the earth a few times in his life. How many humans passed by In the planet's life.
Back to metallurgy
The problems are: The quality of the metal, how to make it melt. More precisely, the crucible. After a while, I managed to make it. It consumes a lot of time and sweat. More than anything breaking my hard work every time it does not work.
(At least, thanks to Red, I don't have to hunt anymore.)
By the end of the second year, I made: axes. Crankshaft (Hand drill), knives, razor (for skinning still not much hair.), a thermos, few pot's and utensils, 20 spearheads, 20 shuriken, fingerless gloves with a guard, calf guard's, A backpack, And my main weapon, a wooden and metallic staff.
The wood comes from a giant tree. A stone axe can't leave a dent in it. Reinforced by soaking it in water for a month, then carving a pattern in it. After that, I filled the carving by pouring light metal in an oxygen less environment, fast cooling, drying, sanding, apply bee's wax. Since I wanted a solid staff, it's pretty heavy, around 50kg 6 feet tall/ by ten centimeters. The handle has golden spades crossing on it. I made two spiky masses on the endings. They are made from a red mix of two denser, tougher, stiff, heavy metal. while charged whit power, The battle with the wolves before would have been easy. It's mainly a defensive weapon and meditation tool.
My knives are made with an alloy of that red metal. They are more like, 15 cm large, 40cm long and half a cm thin short swords. With power charged into them, they can cut through a tree. I would not use them to block tough. Parry at most.
By now my body is +/-12 years old. In the span of one year I gained two inches. By 16, I should be 5'8". It should slow down by then. If lucky, by 20 I should be close to 6 feet. Hard to tell by appearances. I do take good care of it. You could say it's a perfect body. The power coursing in it is molding it slowly.
I would love to make a gun, but I can't even make a bow yet. Only a crude crossbow, the projectiles are tough to make and precious. Besides, I love to throw spears. With the metal tip, it can pass right through a deer and get stuck in the tree behind it. I train a lot... One of the thing's I made are hip, wrist and ankle weights for training. Around 25 kg on each limb and 50 Kg on my hips. With the staff, it amounts to 200kg. Impressive since I weigh 45kg.
I know that one should not train his body too hard at a young age, but since power's exist in this world, I would probably regret not training my capacity in my youth.
My routine starts with a hearty breakfast. Jogging and stretching, taking care of my pet's (got a few pheasants for eggs), doing my research, combat training, lastly I meditate, and concentrate my power in an object.
I tried on multiple material's. Rock's become harder until they crumble. Wood, if dead, become tougher to a certain extent and dissipate the surplus back in the environment. Metal stiffen until it turns to metal dust. Pretty useful for smelting. Depending on the type of metal or rock, the power lasts more or less a week. Wood an hour. If I collide two charged objects, it creates a shockwave and dissipates some of it. A charged arrow would still get stuck in charged wood, but shallowly. The plants grows much faster while infused.
My cabin is pretty sweet and comfy. I also added a huge dog house and a coop.
I've been taking care of a bird in the hope to tame it, like Red. It's going to be useful in my travels. I concentrate my energy on it until I fall asleep every night.
My body demands it. Every day I spend all the energy I have. In the morning after my stretches, I'm back to top shape. Besides, it's fun! This world is fun!
I thought of cutting myself to test the healing property of my power, but I already have a scar. Even if it looks nice, I respect this body too much to do it. So we captured a boar and tried on it.
At that moment, Red understood how to use and train his power too.
It worked, But like I thought, the boar still has a scar. It's not a miracle healing thing. At least we can save each other.
The boar just decided to follow us blankly. It seems that the intellect of the target affects the result of the taming. This puts a damper on my bird scout training. I still use the bird to train anyway. Red and I should be a special case. He was at least as powerful as me when I was unaware of my power, so our power or even soul bonded more tightly.
Until one morning, I could close my eyes and focus on what the bird saw. I got this dream and put it into action. Once I focus my power on the bird, I can share his vision. This is even better than I thought.
The power consumption is noticeable. The further the bird goes, the more energy it takes. If the bird shares his vision from far away for too long. I get a little heart burn and my vision blurs.
With this in mind, I made a power scale. I made different size metal rods that I injected my power into until I almost faint. If I crumble 1 kg of metal, I get 100 points. It's a huge headache to scale.
I had to recreate a metric system. (Since 2019), distance (a meter) is based on the speed of light in vacuum as a constant value. Which I can't measure without the proper equipment. And a kg is based on a liter of water. A liter is 10x10x10 cm or a cubic decimeter. The closest thing to a centimeter is a fingernail width. Abandoning my old thinking, I now have probably the only metric tape in this world. The precision will wait until we can make semiconductors. someday....
Still, this is enough to test and use the different types of metals that I found. My weapons are made of tough bronze alloy. This came naturally to me since bronze is the oldest alloy. Iron is too tough to work with for now. So I use tin and copper, plus a few other unnamed minerals. The one I used at the ends of my staff starts as a black mineral with a big volume, then becomes red and concentrated once melted. The same volume in copper is ten times heavier. This material is very resistant to my power and cannot be melted again once it has cooled. My current equipment cannot even attempt to melt it. I also made my forging, cooking, etc. equipment from this material.
I also made a clock. I made a huge mess of sketches on skins and barks for calculation. Also a bunch of failed part's. Once I got it done on a complete day revolution... Well... The second's were weird. For a second is (1/86400 of a day) it does not give the same time I used to experience. I use a funnel with a valve and water to reproduce a second from my memory and compare a minute. The day lasts around 32hours.
I look at the mountain of calculations I had to painfully dig from my brain for hours... They will decay fast if I don't do something. In the end, I just made a rock floored shed and pour some power in it once a day.
Another 2 year's pass by, now I look around 14yrs 5'4". My power level reached 1000. Coincidentally, Gary (the bird) can go 1km away before feeling uncomfortable. Without power, I can lift 500kg. With the use of my power 1500kg. A teen who can lift a SUV above his head.
Red reached 500 units of power. He can carry me like the wind. With his saddle/pack, he can pack 200kg and not get tired for the day.
Berth (the boar) cultivates food. He saw me arranging a garden and got the knack for it, since he can eat the fruit of his labor. His power reached 3000 units. Dam pig. But that is all he does: plant and meditate(sleep). He can clear a square km in a month. Rocks crumbled and trees too. Pouring his power in the ground itself... He became a huge crop monster with a nasty scar on his cheek. Taller than me.
I'm also preparing traveling ration's. It can't be only meat. So I dry as many vegetables as I can. Again, Red help is fantastic. He can tell what is poison and what is not. I made granola bars, salted jerky, bags of spices and I made a big red Wok. I will forage/hunt/fish the rest on the way.
Red carries a bit of mine, his and Gary's food. I take 5 spear heads, 1 complete spear, 10 shuriken, 2 my two combat knives, smaller nice staff 10kg, axe, cookware, sleeping bag, a huge alcohol lighter/lamp and my big thermos. (No I don't drink the crappy alcohol that I made. I actually look down on the drinker's for reason's I won't go into.)
Red is able to carry all this and him for a few hours. The rest will be on foot. I plan to go east for a month. I can naturally tell which way is north, but I still made a compass with lots of free marker's to be able to mess around with numbers.
Berth will stay home. I tried to release the pheasants, but they stayed.
Today, it's been five "years" since I woke up in these woods. So I guess it's happy birthday. Today I'm leaving.
It's time to go find some people.
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