Capítulo 114: Chapter 114 - Survival chores + Author's word.
Pre-chapter word:
Hi, dear readers. I recently complained to a friend of mine that I've got several readers (and ~65 subs) on WN, yet people don't leave comments and post their thoughts, and it was parried with "have you tried talking to them"? I concede this point, so here I am.
Just wanted to say that I appreciate everyone who is reading, even if people aren't very active. This book was originally meant as a writing exercise and a tabletop rpg-inspired read for me and my friends, but I feel like it's a whole big project now. As of now, book 1 is fully outlined, and will take more than 230 chapters (I still need to fill the gaps in-between, but I have enough plot content, character development and writing ideas to finish book 1 and write ~150 chapters of book 2.
I am not spoiling anything, but book 2 is going to be DIFFERENT. Just as this one experiments with different genres, and is a slow-burner meant to immerse you into the psychology of these two troubled (and hopefully endearing) individuals (I was about to call them r-words yet restrained myself! My moment of personal growth!), book 2 will feature organisation management, intrigue, espionage, ecosystem management (I am researching this topic with eerie meticulousness) and higher levelled cultivation, as well as be set in a quite unexpected setting.
Just wanted to say thank you if you've read this far, I know that most people dropped after Xin's failed breakthrough or the complete trainwreck of the war arc (upon editing, I realised how heavy this one feels, which might not be something people are looking for in books they read for entertainment, but it is what it is, this book is not a commercial project so there is no point in censoring it or making it more "marketable".
Please don't shy away from leaving comments, and if you want to enter a community filled with edgy shitposters, join my discord - link in the description of the novel, but you may use this one - https://discord.gg/Nvj7yPJr4q ). Thank you.
***
Ah… It hurts.
Xin rubbed his knee all over, trying to gauge the damage. His shin was reinforced with metal qi, but some damage travelled upwards towards his knee, pulling the muscle and straining the tendons. Luckily, nothing tore. Still, it wasn't the only source of pain.
Xin's back shot up in a weird ache, from his hip up to the middle of his spine. How did I get hurt so badly? He tried to stand up, the tiger totem still demanding that he drink the boar's blood, but he ignored it. Once he leaned on his injured leg, his back shot up in pain again.
Oh, I see. My back leg and front shin were reinforced and weren't damaged, but my other body parts were still mortal level, so I damaged my sciatic nerve. It's the biggest nerve in the human body, and travels from the hip up to the middle of the spine. Matches the exact description of the pain I am experiencing. This can leave me disabled for quite some time, and can get bad if left unchecked. I can ignore it with painkillers, but it will get worse, given the circumstances I am in. I need healing.
Xin exhaled and focused. Luckily, he was attuned to the healing seed dao shard. Rub, rub.
A healing seed was produced, and he quickly consumed it. Now what? This type of trauma is more subtle, I wonder what the healing process will look like.
In a few breaths, Xin's body was filled with a pleasant sensation, and a healing energy of wood qi spread through his body. He had to manually focus the flow of the energy to avoid his natural metal qi currents, but otherwise the effect was uninhibited. Should be harder to do in combat, so the healing will be reduced, too.
In a few moments, his shin no longer hurt, his knee muscles were restored to full health, and his sciatic nerve was fully healed. Even his mosquito bites were gone, his skin now perfectly smooth. The excess energy gently spread around the body, so Xin focused and absorbed some of it back into his qi pool. Great.
Now, for the boar.
It was nighttime now, and Xin had to bring the boar to his lair. Quite a long walk, too. Should I cut something off to make carrying easier? Certainly not the head, it preserves the brain, which will be important later. Legs? No, these have nicely shaped bones that can be used for crafting, hooves can be useful, too. Whater, it seems I'll have to brace myself for a tough walk home.
***
Xin made it back into his lair, completely beaten after carrying something so massive across the forest, but he was intending to put his game to full use tomorrow. Some scavenger birds circled around him, but none were audacious enough to approach. Xin was cold and covered in mosquito bites again, sleepy and starving.
Time to make fire.
Judging by the air, Xin concluded that he only had a few hours before it rained, so he grabbed two dried sticks and started rubbing them at each other, using fiber to add some tension. Still, it was quite hard, and he knew that it would take a long time before he produced a spark, and it wasn't guaranteed that this spark would produce flame. I'd kill for a flint right now, he thought.
Wait a minute.
Xin picked up a little sharp stone and gently infused it with metal qi. He then infused it again, this time applying an opposite motion. After spending a few more minutes playing with the stone, Xin achieved the result he wanted.
Resonance… Stone? He felt a subtle humming energy emanating from it.
Good. Now, Resonance… Nail! Xin infused his pointing finger's nail with metal qi, rubbed it on the stone and started scratching the stone's edge. Scratch, scratch, scratch…
Spark! A tiny fire escaped his fingernail, much sooner than he expected, so he didn't manage to catch it. A moment later, he felt the Resonance energy on the stone and his nail weaken. Whatever, it doesn't matter. My qi control is much better now, and my qi pool is several times that of my past mortal self. He reinforced his "flints" again.
Scratch, scratch. An even bigger spark escaped from his nail, and landed on a dry grass padding he prepared. Xin shielded the tiny fire from the gentle draft wind using his naked body, then softly blew at it.
Ten minutes later, he had a proper fire. He made a small hole in the roof to let the smoke escape from the ceiling, just for now, and went out to collect some dry sticks. He peeled and sharpened them with his Resonance Nail, and made some skewers out of it.
Xin couldn't wait for the embers to form to cook the meat properly, so he sliced some thin meat scraps off the boar's thigh, nailed them on one of the sticks and quickly cooked them above the fire. It was one of the worst pieces of pork he ever tasted, dry and burnt, but given the context, it was a gourmet meal, tasting like victory. After fixing the roof, Xin went to sleep, hugging the boar's body to warm himself, relieved and delighted, having taken care of so many problems in just one night.
In the following hour, Xin had woken up just once, to manage the fire's embers, but by the time he was fully awake, it was indeed drizzling tiny bits of rain. He swiftly fixed the lair's roof and prepared to take action, as he knew that he had a lot to do today.
First, he took a sizable log he kept around his firewood, cut it with his Resonance Palms and carved a trough out of it, which wasn't hard to do, given how easily his palms cut regular wood. He then put the trough outside to fill with rain water. Not a solution for travels, but good enough to collect some water for today.
Xin then cut off some more meat and cooked it, this time properly, using the embers' heat. After having another snack, he cut a second log in half, making a workstation out of two smooth split pieces. The rain wasn't strong enough to drown his shelter for now, and since he picked a spot at the top of the hill, most of the water flowed down, so he didn't even need to build a drainage, unless the rain turned into a downpour.
Good. Water is figured out. Food, too, for quite some time. Need to tan some boar hides.
Xin put the boar on its back and delivered a sharp cut from its neck to its tail, along the belly. At some point, his finger slipped, as his technique was far from perfect, and he damaged the hide, but he was fine with it, since he never meant for this hide to be sold.
He then peeled the hide away from the flesh, which was quite hard to do, and succeeded again, at the cost of a few inconsequential tears. He now had plenty of material, but he still needed to tan it properly to turn it into proper leather, so he cut a piece off it, and spread it along the workstation's "desk". Now I need to anchor the hide in place and stretch it... Going to be quite hard.
Xin spent five more minutes trying to get the station to work properly. He finally managed to use the weight of the log, covering the hide from one side like a tucked bedsheet, and his own knees, pressing at the log from the other side, to fixate the stretched material. He then cleaned the hide again, this time much more thoroughly, using his Resonance Palm's edge, a sharp stone and a piece of wood to scrape all the fleshy remains off.
Good.
Xin anchored the hide with some stones, taking the place of his knees, then went outside and grabbed his trough, pulling it into his lair. He greedily drank the water, more than filling himself, and poured half of what was left outside. He then extracted the boar's brain, using Woodcutter's Downswing and Resonance Palms.
Xin put a half of the brain into the trough, then smashed it with a large stone, mixing it with water. This created a creamy solution, good enough for what he was about to do. His lair was now filled with a myriad of pungent, unpleasant smells, yet he didn't care. It was either this or survival.
Xin soaked the hide in the brain solution he just concocted, then rinsed it and put it aside to let it rest. His father taught him to let it soak for at least a day, but he wasn't willing to wait for more than several hours. He spent several more hours refreshing the fire, refilling the trough and working the other pieces of the hide, then fell asleep. It was clear to him that the rain would soon cease, so he decided to take a nap before venturing out. His lair's roof was leaking, but only a little bit, so he cuddled near the campfire and fell asleep.
When he woke up, it was drizzling lightly again, the rain almost ceasing. Xin spent an hour stretching the first, most beaten and worst looking piece of hide, pulling it gently into different directions to make it softer and lasting. He tore it at several points again, but at least he refined the technique. This imperfect piece could be reduced in size, removing the leather where the holes were too disruptive, and used as a small bag to carry mushrooms or berries, but it was far from becoming a waterskin. Need to do better.
Xin decided not to smoke this hide, as it would take too much time, and he needed a place to store his foraged food in, as his core's space was quite small, only big enough to fit all his dao shards, the totem and a single spirit stone. He travelled towards the berry and mushroom spots he memorised, activating his totemic sense of smell just in case.
Rabbits, running around and digging their holes. Plenty of them. There should be some hares in the steppe. Doesn't matter, I'm stacked on meat for now, and once the sun comes out, I'll have dry meat for days.
Mushrooms. Oh, this one is poisonous. And this... Is a white mushroom! Nice! Xin greedily cut a big white mushroom, and put it in his bag. That's quite a delicacy.
Xin approached a bush filled with wild strawberries, but his nose smelled something else.
Feces. Human.
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