บท 3: Ch3: Base finding, Slime training
A few days pass with Caden learning about the world he is in. Getting to know the layout of the village, what is around and when he's free to play was very important.
Acting like a normal child was never really an option, since he's too mature for his age. Other children noticed it and didn't really want him to play with them. That gave Caden more time to wander around and take in all that the village had to offer.
Mummy Mee agreed to him going without an adult watching over him after he showed her that he knows how to take care of himself.
Walking around the village and listening to what people are talking about brought a great amount of information.
After learning that people didn't often go to the forest and opted to stay in the village premises, he got interested in why that is so. Adults mentioned that the forest was completely safe, as a long time ago a marine captain visited the village and cleared the forest of all dangerous animals.
Since the forest became safe, everybody just ignored its existence. The only people interested were the family of the only lumberjack here.
Learning that information made him go explore it in hopes of finding a secluded place to train.
So here we are, just at the forest's entrance. To the right is the lumberjack's hut, where his wife is hanging the laundry on a string.
Caden gets closer and greets her. "Hello Miss, is this the lumberjack's home?"
"Yes indeed, call me Margaret, I'm his wife. Do you need something, little one?" She asks, looking curiously at the child in front of her.
"Yes. I wanted to ask about the forest. I heard that people don't go there anymore, is that true?"
"Correct child, you heard right. Nowadays only my hubby goes there to cut trees for various purposes." Replies Margaret, continuing her work.
"Margaret, do you know where your husband is working inside the forest?" Asks Caden.
"I do, but why do you want to know?"
"You see, I want to build a secret base in the forest to play there with my friends." He says making a small lie.
"Oh, that's so cute! In that case I will tell you, he mostly works at the east side of the forest, a short walk to the right from here. To the west are less trees but more open areas, so if you want an open space, you will more likely find it there."
"I understand. One more thing, is it allowed to cut trees on the west side?"
"Of course, nobody will stop you if you cut some trees."
"Thank you very much. I will go look around for a perfect place now!" Says Caden with a huge smile.
"No problem child, goodbye."
"Bye!"
Walking through the entrance of the forest is a dirt road that goes to the right. "That's probably where the lumberjack goes for wood." Mentions Caden, thinking where to go.
"Let's head deeper in and look for a good spot."
Going ahead, he dodges many branches, avoids some bushes and tries not to stumble on exposed tree roots too many times. He also makes small markings along the way to not get lost.
Looking around, he notices some wildlife, but mostly just birds and a squirrel or two, nothing big.
"They really weren't kidding with that capitan clearing the forest." He says, not finding any sizable animals or their tracks.
Slowly he seems to reach the western part of the forest, as some open areas reveal themselves to him.
"This one looks good, but too easy to find.""This is also bad.""Too small."
He goes and goes, but nowhere is good enough for him.
"Looks like I need to head in a different direction, maybe north. Now, I remember that mossshould grow on the north side of trees, so let's go with that."
Walking for some more time, Caden reaches a small lake with a clearing to the side and one bigger tree in the center..
"Now this is perfect." With a grin on his face, he gets to work.
To make this place into a perfect base, many things need to be done.
First, he clears the area of fallen branches, leaves and rocks. When he's halfway done, the sun is getting low.
"Unfortunately, now I have to finish it tomorrow." He says and goes back the way he came. The marks on the trees played their role. Thanks to that he managed to safely return to the village before dark, just in time for dinner.
The next day he managed to clear the rest of the area.
"That was tiring, I will rest for a moment." He comments, going to the center tree and sits leaning on the tree. As he looks around, he focuses on the lake.
"I wonder, since this is a separate space from the sea, my curse shouldn't work here, right?"
Deciding to check if that's true, he gets closer to the water and puts his hand inside.
"Hmm, no power loss. Looks like I can swim in here, great!" He says, taking off all his clothes and getting inside.
"Now that's perfect. The temperature is just right and since I'm the only one here I don't need any swimwear. Great spot." Caden says grinning from ear to ear.
Few minutes in, some of his energy came back, so he went for a swim. After a moment of trying, he naturally swam around.
"Looks like I still know how to swim, cool." He said, stopping near the center of the lake.
"Hmm… The water isn't very clear, I see my feet, but nothing below." Looking down only a dark blue color mixed with green is shown. Caden swam back to the base, sat in the water where his head was above it and bent down.
Putting his head underwater, he waited a moment and opened his eyes. After a moment of getting used to water in his eyes, he saw just some weeds. He looked around for a while more and got out to breathe.
Walking out the water he wiped his face, put his pants on a flat rock and sat down.
"Weird, there are no fish. Maybe they are further in the center?" He said, putting the thought to the side.
Sitting for a bit under the sun, he got dry in no time. Walking around he checked for anything important around the base.
Getting sure that nothing was wrong and nobody was looking he bent down to pick up the flat rock, barely managing it and put it next to the big tree in the center. Sitting down on it, he looked closer at the big tree.
"Hmm, wonder what kind it is. Maybe an oak, since it's so thick and massive. Good thing that since it's tall, almost no branches are close to the ground. Thanks to that I get this big shade." Said Caden, looking up at the massive branches and leaves above him.
"Ok, let's stop daydreaming. I have some training to do." Saying so, he changed position to sit with legs crossed and started focusing.
"My fruit involves slime. Since it isn't a logia I will need to learn to dodge attacks. Right now I don't see any specific fighting potential coming from it." He said after thinking for a while.
"How much slime can I make? Let's see…"
Putting his hands in front, palms down, from his fingers started pouring slime on the ground. After 5 minutes Caden started panting and cut down on slime creation.
"Whoo.. Right now it's more like slime production than creation."
Resting for a while, he decided to conduct some experiments on the slime lying around. Focusing on it and trying to command it didn't work. Touching it made it respond back.
'Turn into a square.'
Thinking that while being in contact made the slime move. It started gathering and formed a square on the ground, barely resembling what Caden imagined.
'Looks like it will need some work. My handling of it is lacking, getting to know more about it might make it easier.' He thought, making it turn into other shapes. All of them had slight problems, like the circle that had an egg shape or the triangle that had rounded angles.
'If I'm this bad with 2D structures, I won't even try 3D for now.' Stated Caden, deciding to try something different.
In a moment, some slime formed in his palm, but this time, he tried absorbing it. Bit by bit, the slime dispersed, going back into his hand.
"So this works, maybe the slime I created the first time I met Genzo disappeared the same way?" He said while looking where the slime went.
Making some more slime he managed to change its color. He noticed that he could turn it into any color he wanted.
"Maybe I can combine it to make a drawing?" He said, creating some more colorful slime and putting it down to make a picture of the tree beside him.
"Well, it works. Let's move to the other properties I can change, since color and shape is possible, maybe texture is too? Let's also try density." Saying that he went to work on it.
Turns out both things worked. The density was easy, it worked the same as shape manipulation but on the inside. Thanks to it he made slime weighing more than he could pick up, while being as small as his head.
He also tried the opposite, which made the slime act almost exactly the same as water. The only difference was that it still held its integrity, not separating without outside force, like Caden's hand trying to pick it up.
The texture was more tricky. He had to control the surface of the slime. To help with imagining it right, he changed its color to the same as the rock nearby. That made the task much easier, turning its surface to the texture of a normal rock.
"Wow, that's freaky" He said, stretching and retracting the slime like stone in his hand.
"Looking at it, my slime seems great at mimicking other things. Some modeling, some texture changing and I have a very realistic rock in my hand. It just won't behave like a rock, since slime is between liquid and solid almost all the time. That reminds me…"
Putting the slime down, he tried punching it.
*Bam!*
"Ouch! So I was right, it really is a non-newtonian fluid. Treat it gently and it's like a syrup, use some force and it fights back." He said, having another idea right after.
"If that's how normal slime reacts, how will the denser one do? Will it be like striking a real stone? Maybe even steel, let's try this." He went to pick up a tree branch from the pile of them that he made earlier while cleaning.
"Now I really don't want to break my hand, so a tool is needed. This branch looks perfect, no leaves, just one long stick. You will test the defense of my creation!" He declared, walking back to the tree.
Crouching down, he made a big ball of slime, eerily similar to slimes from all the stories he remembers. Focusing further, he started making more slime while condensing it with the one before him. In a while he had a nice light blue slime sitting in place and not moving around.
Taking a position, he aimed and swung the stick as hard as he could. The result was instantaneous. The stick broke and the slime was unmoved, just a small ripple was produced in the place of the strike.
"Now that's hard." He said, patting the place where the stick struck. The area was smooth and exactly the same as before.
Standing back up, he puts his foot on the slime. Finding it stable enough, he tries to stand on it.
"Haha, it worked. Must be the density at play here. Since the particles are so close to each other, they must be holding one another from moving, forming almost a solid shape." He says, while his feet make a little dent on the top.
"Still not a truly solid shape, maybe in the future… For now, the sun is setting down, so I better get back." Saying so, he jumps down and walks back to the village.
This was the first productive day with his devil fruit powers. Definitely the first of many, since he still has so many things to try with his slime.
~2106 words
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