Capítulo 3: Stone Home
(Word Count: 2250)
----{Start}----
'Menu' I think to myself.
——-
[Profile]
[Map (Locked)]
[Missions]
[Upgrade (Locked)]
[Storage]
——-
'Profile.'
——-
[Stats]
[Talents]
[Techniques]
[Skills]
[Passive Skills]
[All]
[(~Back~)]
——-
'So they are separated thankfully.'
At least it won't be cluttering my vision anytime soon. Speaking of clutter let's see how the storage works.
'Back… Storage.'
——-
[Options: TimeStorage, NormalStorage, LifeformSeal (Locked). (Each item is stored separately and won't touch another but will still calculate the same space as if they're all in one box)]
[Upgrade to Three Cubic Metres: 500 Mora, Two Iron Chunks]
——-
For the storage, there were only two options but that's already great. I assume that Time Stop can keep things in the same state they were as they entered.
'So that means packed lunches.' I thought with some imaginary drool. Speaking of food the different types of dishes I need to try them! I mean any person who has played Genshin has at least dreamed of consuming everything.
I've even watched the cooking streams Genshin hosts with my stream which was funny. Chat could post the most unhinged stuff to a wholesome video.
Speaking of unhinged there's a literal lifeform seal for living stuff.
The lifeform storage means I can't store living beings unless I unlock it. But something like that wouldn't come without a quest from what I've seen so far.
'First I'll need food though.'
Thankfully the rabbit is still chilling in plain sight. With my back legs being longer than my front ones, it makes my time to speed up in a small time frame easy. I can surely easily outrun this rabbit unless it's an elemental rabbit somehow.
'Better to be careful than sorry.'
Seeing that it was near some trees and still facing the pond, I slowly crept up from its blind side which was to its right. So I needed to wrap around it a little to get the ideal position, hopefully, it stays right there.
Taking my time and silently moving to the side, a sudden snapping from right under me hits my ear.
*Snap*
The rabbit hearing the sudden noise didn't dwell anymore and immediately started to hop away in ah hurry.
'Damn it, I can still catch up!' With this thought in mind, I used all my power to leap forward without any hesitation, and to my surprise, my leap actually covered a whole four metres with some wind in my step.
Unexpectedly before zooming right above the poor rabbit, my instincts kicked into overdrive and my tail which acted like a balance support adjusted. This helped me shift myself mid-air to perfectly position myself above my prey.
[Primal Instinct (Active)]
Without much regard, my mouth opened and immediately bit the rabbit's head off without any hesitation.
Perfectly sinking my fangs into its neck.
*Crunch*
Realising what just happened in the span of a few seconds, after landing I instantly spit the head off out of sheer disgust. Taking the situation seriously I start to realise a small problem that's going to be occurring. Even though the whole head of a rabbit is edible and I've cooked one before, knowing that it's been in my mouth makes me want to vomit.
Because of this, I ended up ignoring a panel.
[Do you want to add (Rabbit) to the shapeshifter menu?]
With the dead body of the animal falling down and blood starting to leak my brain goes into overdrive.
'Come on Charles don't be a little b*tch, you are alone in a forest with the body of a snow leopard for Celestia's sake. I know it's kind of warm but you need to eat unless you want to lose everything again.' I say to myself with the small pep talk ending up working in my favour.
Hesitating right now is not the play, blood is leaking from the body and the smell will spread soon. Other dangerous animals that are nearby could come over and kill me at any moment sooner or later.
I mean I'm an animal with a sensitive nose now and being able to smell blood makes me cringe. I wonder if other animals feel the same as me, they are probably used to it though.
The image of a Basilisk from Harry Potter was ingrained into my head and made a shiver go down my spine.
Building up my confidence I turn back to the rabbit head on the floor.
Leaning my head downwards my mouth opens and takes the head in.
*Crunch* *Crunch*
'This tastes so bad.'
The overall taste was pretty horrendous but my body didn't reject it at all. The meat was very firm but my teeth were tearing through it with the bones in addition. It took a few more bites to fully consume as the ears were hanging out of my mouth a little.
*Gulp*
'Food is food I say, at least I don't need to worry about that for now...'
Making my way to the original body of the rabbit, I quickly think of the store feature while touching the rabbit.
'Store, Time Stop.'
[Analysing...]
[Storing Rabbit Confirmed!]
As the pop-up showed, the body sort of glitched out of existence as it "turned to dust' in front of me. Nodding to myself I jog to the pond as I started to adapt to my new walking stance as a Snow Leopard.
Before going I store some water for later.
'Store, Time Preservation.'
[Analysing...]
[Storing 1 cubic metre of Water Confirmed!]
Turning around I get a better vision of the forest. Hundreds of trees spanned my whole view with a multitude of bushes, plants and small insects roaming about.
'My spatial awareness needs to improve as taking note of the ground and cover is crucial for hunting.'
Curiously looking around for a bit I spotted a sort of huge boulder that had a crevice, very difficult to spot and seemed hard to get to.
There is a ledge leading up to it but it gets too narrow and thin by the time you even get closer to it.
'I can jump onto the little piece of land outside it.' I thought remembering my jump.
It didn't take long before I figured things out. The ledge I'm meant to walk on to jump to the new home, if you backtrack it's literally just a straight line to the pond.
No need to navigate with weird tree markings.
Taking my time, I walked below the crevice where I made sure that it was safe to jump, not all creatures can climb or jump that far.
'Hopefully, there's space in there. My fur is already keeping me warm anyway, a safe place to rest is all I need.'
The jump ended up being around three metres which wasn't too bad. For practice and safety, I marked approximately the same distance to practise jumping and landing.
This went as well as you would expect with my face hitting the dirt a few times.
Because my front two legs are smaller than my back ones, I accidentally miscalculated how far to stretch my legs out.
But not all was bad as my training also improved for the same reason.
[Leap as far as you can: 2/20]
As my little training was going on I eventually started to incorporate my tail more while landing safely.
[3/20]
[4/20]
[6/20]
[12/20]
With the number casually rising a sudden notification hit my ear.
[+1 Dexterity]
'Not bad, not bad.'
With this thought in mind, I completed the rest of the daily leap training. Thankfully it was still the morning and I had loads of time to complete the rest.
[20/20]
'Menu… Profile… Stats.'
——————
{Name}: Charles Storm
(Race): Anemo Snow Leopard
(Age): 5 months
(Vitality): 8
(Stamina): 10
(Energy/Mana): 37
(Strength): 5
(Agility): 14
(Intelligence): 35
(Dexterity): 7
(Bloodline): Anemo Lifeform
____________
'I need to improve my stamina and Dexterity.'
While Strength is my lowest stat, I'm still a Snow Leopard which isn't even a year old yet. I can invest in that later.
After gathering myself up I walk back to the edge. Doing a little run-up, I jump three metres with complete ease using my tail to keep myself horizontal.
With a slick and silent landing, I immediately walk into the crevice. The entrance was about barely a metre wide and two metres tall.
The inside had enough space to fit multiple Snow Leopards of my size, so hopefully I can still fit when I get older.
[Unchecked Shapeshift…]
'Hm? Shapeshift?'
[Do you want to add (Rabbit) to your shapeshifter menu?]
'Why not. Yes.' I confirm looking at the panel while being softly snuggling into my new small abode.
[You can shapeshift through touching a life form and copying the touched lifeform's physiology as a base, not any other of the same species. Not all physiologies can be copied depending on requirements (Some stats stay the same, increase or decrease depending on the form. Vitality will never be higher than original body's)]
[New shapeshifting tab in the menu!]
'I'd rather test this out when I know the area is cleared and I'm safe. For now, I should train.'
The distance from my little cliff crevice and the ground was at least five metres, so I should be careful.
Exiting my new home I jump back to the ledge and make my way down.
Walking to a tree I position myself in front of it and flare out my claws. Then I proceeded to graze it downwards which gave me a weird shiver for the first time up my leg.
[Scratch claws against a surface: 1/50]
[2/50]
[5/50…]
After getting used to scratching, I realised that this exercise was to sharpen my claws. While a bit obvious it got easier to scratch as the shiver my paws got stopped.
'This is kind of fun, plus I'm kind of "marking" my territory.' I thought getting a good idea. To warn predators before even even seeing me, I can warn them.
Going to every third three surrounding the huge piece of stone, I marked them and eventually completed my task.
[47/50]
[48/50]
[49/50]
[50/50]
With that over it was finally time to do the run. The open circular space of the huge stone acted like a track and it didn't take long before I completed the running as well.
[1km/1km]
'No stamina upgrades huh, I wonder how much stamina a normal person has. I still have no idea what to base these system stats on.' I curiously thought while resting on the ledge next to the crevice.
Resting on the ledge is probably the safest place here. While one could make The argument jumping to the crevice first is the safest, if multiple prey trapped me then they would surround the crack.
But if I'm on the ledge they won't do that and I'll have space to jump to the ledge and make an escape if they can follow.
'Alright, I need to hunt two more animals.'
After resting up a little bit which took a few minutes, I looked up at the sky to see that the time flew by a bit.
It wasn't dark by any means but it looked to be late afternoon.
Using the ledge as my compass for the pond, I silently backtracked to see if I could kill any animals.
This time I took the leverage to look at the surroundings to make sure nothing went wrong. It didn't take long before I silently treaded through the forest with claw marks on trees for a way back.
Taking a hiding spot near the pond behind a tree for extra cover with a bush, I spot multiple animals eating.
'Alright, we got options baby!'
In front of me was a deer, a pair of boats, a squirrel and a rabbit.
'Isn't this area too peaceful? How can animals casually hang out with each other?'
Feeling a bit weirded out I realise something crucial.
How far was Barbatos' resting place anyway?
If the surroundings according to him had divine Anemo energy like a field, I should have felt it.
While I haven't used Anemo on purpose yet to keep monsters away from me. I should have spotted an elemental animal considering Divine Anemo energy from the heavens would attract a lot of attention.
'Menu… Mission.'
[Gnosis Quest (One time Quest): The Gnosis isn't as easy as you would think to take. Barbatos because of the sheer Anemo energy he emits when waking up in the same area, causes the place to attract predators naturally because of this energy. This field of divine enhanced energy helps Anemo creatures.]
'Track.'
As soon as I said this a sudden pop-up appeared in front of my face. It showed the symbol of Venti's Gnosis and the distance.
[Gnosis - 5569m]
'That makes a bit more sense, it did say a safe space when transferring me here. 69 hehe.'
At least I'm able to build up my power for now because this distance means that as of my strength now I would not survive in that landscape. Preparing is the only thing I can do.
What a blessing I've been given!
----{End}----
(A/N: Charles will spend some chapters but not too long here. He needs to build up his original strength before heading into this "new world". Personally, as a completionist, I can't help but complete all side tasks before the main. This also helps him get used to his body and build a foundation)
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder