Rolling around, feeling my whole body aching, I woke up to see a familiar grey ceiling.
[Ugh, sleeping on hard ground doesn't feel so good. I should find something soft to sleep on when I enter the forest.]
I sat up and stretched a little, breathing in the fresh air coming in from the forest. Looking at the ashes left from the fire, I took a cooked meat beside it and started eating my bland breakfast.
Eating enough to quell my hunger, I turned to drink from the lake only to see that the water had now completely drained through the soil.
[Good thing I drank a little before sleeping. When I go into the forest later, I should move towards the river. If I go around the mountain towards where the river should flow to, It should be closer to me than going up the mountain.]
Closing my eyes and feeling the energy core, I got myself ready to feel excruciating pain. I pulled a tiny amount of energy and moved it towards my right hand.
[Ugh, fuck this is painful. I should do this quickly. I doubt my right hand would be any different from my left hand, but since the energy entered through my hands, I should try ejecting it through here first.]
Quickly moving the energy to my right hand, the same thing happened as the energy was unable to exit through my palm nor my fingers.
Feeling mentally tired from the pain, I returned the energy to the core and thought of what to do with the energy.
[Should I try moving it through my legs? No, this is not gonna work. Let's think back to when the energy entered me... I was in contact with the boar's carcass when the energy entered me. The soul energy was probably escaping into the surroundings since the body was dead. Since it's related to living beings, does that mean I need to touch something living to eject the energy or even possibly use soul magic? If soul energy from dead beings would enter me if I touch them, then the only thing I can try is touching something that's still alive to eject or maybe use soul magic. Maybe I need to touch their souls.]
"But before I try anything, I need to take a to find a toilet. But I'm in the middle of a goddamn forest. Is it even safe to take a shit in the bushes? Haah, I don't have any other option."
After relieving myself at a bush a little further away from the cave and cleaning myself with leaves and soil, I thought of trying to inject the soul energy into a tree.
[Theoretically, if I can use soul magic, what can I do? I think I could use soul magic to like bind souls to me and like... tame animals,then the animals would turn into beautiful girls with animal tails and ears like those novels I read.... Well, that's what I'm hoping for at least. But how would that even be scientifically possible? And I also need to be able to tell apart female animals from males. I wouldn't want some guy wagging his tail and calling me master even if I were to tame monsters.]
Thinking of beautiful girls with tails and ears like a catgirl, I walked towards a nearby tree and placed my right hand on the tree.
[I don't know how to attempt to make taming happen, but let's just inject the energy and see. Most trees don't have genders, right? Or maybe they do? I don't know. But if it's a male, then I'll just find a way to cut the connection.]
With my hand firmly placed on the tree, I moved a small amount of energy towards my right while holding my breath and closing my eyes, still not used to the extreme pain.
When the energy reached my wrist, I pushed the energy towards my palm and tried making it enter the tree. However, the same thing happened similar to my previous attempts of ejecting the energy. The energy was unable to exit my palm as if a barrier was blocking them from exiting.
After trying to push it through for a few seconds, I retracted the energy back to the core as the pain I felt at my palm was getting more painful the harder I tried to push.
[Fuuh... Am I going at this wrong? Or maybe trees don't have souls since they don't have consciousness. Or maybe they just have weak souls? I should try with an animal next time. Maybe I can find a herbivore in the forest and try again.]
Picking up my shortspear, I left beside the tree, I went back to the cave and took a fur cloth the size of a towel that I could use as a bag and a stone knife.
[Okay, I should find food, the river, something to season my food, something soft to sleep on, an animal, and pick up any interesting stuff I see along the way.]
Walking towards where I think the river would flow to, I carefully looked around the forest. After walking for a few minutes, I saw fruits that looked like apples and plucked a few of them into my makeshift bag.
[Maybe I can cook the meat with apple if I don't find any seasonings. And the mountain is now a cliff. The river should be flowing down like a waterfall if I follow the cliff.]
After fifteen more minutes of walking, I finally saw a waterfall with a big clearing of grass around it while the forest continued at the other side of the waterfall. Eating grass near the waterfall, a herd of sheep was chewing on the grass with different colour lights floating around them.
[A herd of sheep in the middle of the forest? Is that natural? And those lights... Brown, blue, green. What type of magic are those? Ack, I guess things evolve differently in a world of magic and sheep living in the middle of the forest, being one of it. Or I just don't know enough, and this is normal.]
[Should I try to approach them? What do sheep do when they feel threatened? Will they run away? I need an animal to test soul magic on. I should just approach slowly and try not to intimidate them. It shouldn't be that dangerous. I can run away at the worst-case scenario, but maybe they'll just be indifferent towards me.]
Carefully approaching the herd of sheep, trying not to startle them, I readied my weapons in case something happens.
"Beeeeek!"
Just as I was close enough to get a clearer view of them, I heard a loud, high-pitched bleating noise. Hearing the extremely loud bleating, I was dazed for a second, and when I came to, different coloured lights were coming straight towards me, filling my view, with blue lights controlling the wind and brown lights, which look like it was controlling the earth, raising it a little.