Yanz knew that the most important thing right now was his weak body. He needed to change it, to build enough strength so he could at least perform normal tasks without getting tired and losing his breath. He decided not to let the fire go out. As soon as the leaves and sticks burned to ash, he added more to keep the fire going. He didn't want to start the fire from scratch again, as it had taken a lot of effort the last time.
Whenever he felt hungry, Yanz ate the meat from the bull-like creature. By midday, after reading several books near the fire, he felt hungry again and went to the dead body of the beast. He noticed that the flesh was starting to rot, just as he had anticipated. Yanz took the glass piece and cut the beast open, removing all the rotten parts and collecting the edible meat. He managed to salvage about four kilograms. Having never butchered an animal before, especially with just a piece of glass, he couldn't do it perfectly and had to discard a lot of the meat. Another reason for discarding some parts was the tiny glass shards that had entered the beast's body. Obviously, he couldn't eat those parts.
Yanz cut the edible meat into small pieces. While butchering, he cut his hands many times. He then took some leaves and sticks and added them to the fire, arranging them in a long shape rather than the usual circular bonfire. He went inside the library and brought out two wooden planks, placing them on the edges of the fire. He then carefully broke a small window frame to get an intact glass pane. He placed the glass slab on top of the structure he had made over the fire and laid most of the meat on the glass. The leftover meat he roasted directly over the fire and ate.
Yanz stayed awake all night, reading and ensuring the fire didn't die out. He watched from inside the library, knowing it was too dangerous to be outside. The long night passed, and Yanz woke up to find it was morning. He realized he had accidentally fallen asleep. He quickly rushed to the fire, which had gone out. There were no flames, but it was still warm, indicating it hadn't been out for long. He checked the meat and saw that his plan had succeeded. The meat had turned into jerky, which would last longer.
Determined to make his body sturdier, Yanz decided to start working out. He knew he couldn't push himself too hard, as even normal warm-ups left him out of breath. He lay on the floor in a plank position and tried doing push-ups. "One, two, t... th... three," he struggled, his voice strained with effort. On the third push-up, he tried his best to push up but was out of strength. He collapsed onto the floor, breathing heavily.
After some time, he got up and decided to go for a short run. He lapped around the library from the outside twice before finally getting exhausted. He sat at the back of the library, leaning against the wall to catch his breath. Once he felt a bit better, he got up and went to have his meal. He ate until his stomach was full, though it didn't take much food to fill him up due to how thin he was. For the first time in a long while, Yanz felt happy. He had finally eaten to his heart's content.
As he sat by the fire, feeling the warmth and satisfaction of a full stomach, Yanz reflected on his journey so far. He knew he had a long way to go, but he was determined to survive and find a way back home. The knowledge he had gained from the books in the library was invaluable, and he was grateful for every bit of it.
Yanz decided to continue his workouts daily, gradually increasing the intensity as his body grew stronger.
About a week went by, and Yanz had built a daily routine. He woke up, ate, did his workout, read books in the library, and practiced his healing magic. From many books he had read so far, he learned that mana was the main thing required to use magic. It was like stamina—the more you used it, the better and stronger it got, and the less you used it, the weaker you became. There were different elements of magic: light, fire, darkness, wind, lightning, stone, water, and healing. Wind magic was the easiest and most commonly used, while healing magic was the most difficult and quite rare. People were born with varying levels of talent; some had more mana than others, and some were born with better elements.
Yanz, despite having the rarest magic, had a very low mana level. He saw this as an opportunity to grow stronger. He approached his magic training with the same scientific rigor he had applied to his inventions. His method was experimentation.
On the first day, Yanz collected some strange worm-like insects from the ground. He wanted to know if he could use healing magic on others and how many times he could use it on small creatures. He took one worm and crushed it under his foot, almost to the point of death but leaving it alive. Then he chanted, "Heal." The worm regenerated almost instantly. Encouraged, he took another worm and crushed it to death, then chanted "Heal" again, but nothing happened. This confirmed that he couldn't heal something that was already dead.
For his third experiment, Yanz crushed all the worms one by one to the verge of death and then healed them. He repeated this process over and over until he started to feel tired. After the 23rd healing, Yanz hit his limit. He felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him, his body trembling from the strain of using so much mana. This experiment provided Yanz with information he had aimed for. When he used the healing on himself, he could only use it three times before he lost his conciousness but when he used healing on the worms, he was still consciousness even after using it 23 times before he got too exhausted.