Blake screamed in pain. He was no stranger to pain but that was emotional pain. Physical pain he discovered could be so much worse. Whoever said that emotional pain was worse had never experienced true pain.

  Blake flailed in panic. He felt his foot connect with something. A soft thud could be heard behind him. Blake fell into the stream of water he had been taking a sip from. The water was shallow but in his panicked state of mind, he didn’t process the fact that he could just not inhale the water. Instead, he started to drown as he tried to break the water in.

  There was another flash of pain as something stabbed his naked rear. Instinctivly, Blake rolled over to protect his butt from more attacks. This had the positive side effect of getting his mouth out of the water allowing him to breathe. He coughed up water from his lungs just in time to see a blur of white as something charged at him for a third time.

  Blake lashed out with his uninjured leg getting another hit on his assailant. This time he could see as whatever had been attacking him went flying into a nearby tree hitting it with a dull thud. Breathing heavily Blake waited for it to get up. The forest stilled as his attacker lay still.

  It took another minute for Blake to realize it was not getting back up. He was still breathing heavily but at least had some control of his body. Slowly standing up he winced. His leg and butt were both injured on the same side. When he tried to move it was more of a stumbling shuffle.

  Had he been able to see himself from the outside Blake would have thought himself a zombie. He had already been dirty from days in a forest without taking care of cleanliness but now he was caked in mud from head to toe. His face was pale from terror and his eyes bloodshot, tears streaming down his face. Combined with his shambling walk he truly gave the impression of an undead on the hunt. A slow, painful hunt.

  Reaching the body of his assailant Blake got a look at what had attacked him. It was a rabbit. A bunny really. It had pure, white fur and a fluffy tail. It was large for a bunny, though, at what he guessed was over two feet tall. He didn’t have a way to measure it to be exact. If it wasn’t for its size and the sharp horn sticking out of its head Blake would have thought he killed the wrong creature and the monster was still out there.

  Blake was confident it was dead after looking at it. Its collision with the tree had caved in its chest killing it. Blood pooled around its body staining its fur. The horror of it all made Blake turn around and hurl, or try to hurl. His body had nothing in it. He had not eaten anything since he had arrived in the spirit realm leaving him dry-heaving trying to empty his stomach of nothing.

  Blake recognized it as a rabbicorn. He might not have spent much time training his combat skills, only doing the bare minimum required by the school, but his knowledge of monsters was deep. A rabbicorn was one of the weakest monsters out there. It still took him down, Blake realized. His embarrassment overcame his fear for the moment bringing color back to his cheeks.

  Had everything gone as Blake had planned a rabbicorn might have been the first monster he fought anyway. It would have been in a much more controlled environment but he was now realizing what a mistake it was assuming that he wouldn’t need combat training once he got a Talent. Had it been anything but the weakest of weakest monsters attacking him he might not have survived.

  Rabbicorns were only prominent in tier 0 realms and even then only in low-density regions. While each realm had a tier representing the overall strength of the creatures and materials of the realm it was also broken down into regions with their own strength rating. That rating was the mana density of the area. High-density areas brought about natural treasures and monsters more often than those at a low density.

  Stronger, more aggressive monsters tended to prefer the higher-density regions leaving only the weakest creatures, relative to the realm’s tier, to the lower regions. Monsters like the rabbicorn. Any weaker monsters that made it into higher regions were just prey to the native monsters.

  Tears still streaking down his face Blake grabbed the rabbicorn to bring back to his glade. It was difficult with his injured leg and not helped by his whole body trembling. The adrenaline, which he hadn’t even realized was rushing through his veins, began to fade and weakness assaulted his body. He barely made it back to the glad before collapsing.

  Blake woke sometime later with his whole body aching. While he had made it back to his leaf bed his body had been too weak to make proper use of the bed. His bed-using skills were useless if they couldn’t be utilized. On top of that was the bruising that was becoming clear across his body. The rabbicorn had only gotten two hits off him, the rest was from his own flailing and rough tumble to the ground. Reaching up he found a large bump on his head. Must have been the source of the headache trying to kill him.

  Sitting up, Blake glanced at the sun trying to figure out how long he had been knocked out. It had been late evening when he had been attacked but the sun was now high in the sky. Had he slept until noon the next day? He stood up surprised to find that while his rabbicorn-induced injuries on his leg and butt still hurt, they were not as inhibiting as they had been the night before.

  Blake couldn’t get a good look at them due to their position and all the dirt, mud, and blood covering his body but he could see that at least his leg injury was already scabbed over and probably on its way to being fully healed. He had heard that healing was accelerated in the spirit realm but had never considered how that was. Seems it was just natural healing but faster. No magical glow involved. He was a little disappointed it wasn’t faster but he couldn’t complain. Too much.

  That’s when Blake heard a loud growl. He jumped in fright turning around in circles trying to find the source of the noise. He didn’t want to get ambushed again. Unable to see a monster approaching, he quickly dashed for the spear he had left leaning against a boulder at the edge of the glade. He had made the mistake of not bringing any weapons out with him the day before and did not want to fight unarmed again.

  Once the spear was in hand Blake felt much more confident. The knowledge of how to fight with it was brought to the forefront of his mind preparing him to attack. He didn’t have much skill with the spear given its rather low quality limiting the amount of information provided by his Talent. It was still enough that he would be more prepared for a fight. Had he even one of his many shivs the day before he might not have had as much trouble with the rabbicorn. The skills provided by his Talent came with muscle memory that would have helped despite his panic.

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  Confidence brought clarity to Blake’s mind and then embarrassment. The ‘growl’ had been his stomach. He hadn’t been hungry since arriving in the spirit realm and had already been on edge making him jump to conclusions. He had been panicked and ready to run from his own stomach.

  Despite knowing he was in no immediate danger, Blake did not set down the spear. Any source of comfort was welcome at the moment. Now he had to wonder why he was hungry. While in the spirit realm, you didn’t require food or water. Sure water could help with a dry mouth and was nice from a comfort perspective but it wasn’t needed. Same thing with food. There were many people with Talents that could make food they cooked and provide bonuses. Also, food just tasted good. It was definitely one of those comfort things for most people.

  It took a bit before Blake realized why he was hungry. Food and water weren’t required but only in normal situations. There were spells that caused dehydration in enemies that could only be cured by drinking water. Blake was experiencing something with food. Conservation of mass still applies fully to the spirit realm. Healing his injuries didn’t just create new skin, muscle, and blood out of nowhere. His body needed food, and now that he thought of it water as well, to replace what he lost to his injuries.

  The problem for Blake was he didn’t have a source of food. He could go to the stream again for water but food was going to be difficult to get in the short term. But, that wasn’t necessarily true. His eyes drifted to the corpse of the rabbicorn. People ate rabbits all the time, right? It had always been too expensive for him but he had heard classmates talk about it. He wasn’t hungry enough to eat it raw but if he could figure out a fire? He could try and cook it.

  Leaving the corpse where it was for the moment Blake worked to create a fire. He started by rubbing two sticks together. He kept doing that for five minutes before stopping to reassess. He was getting nowhere with this. There wasn’t even enough of a result to get information from his Talent. He just looked like an idiot.

  Taking a step back Blake thought for a bit about what he needed to do. In the modern era, ‘archaic’ skills such as hunting, gathering, and firestarting were not taught. What was taught was everything STEM and spirit realm.

  He didn’t think he needed anything spirit realm-specific but the science behind friction, heat, and fire was all helpful. It only took a moment for him to remember the specifics, the benefit of going to a school with a principal that had a teaching Talent passively enhancing learning for everyone in range.

  There were three things that would affect his creation of a spark. Speed, pressure, and airflow. With his current method, Blake was pressing down with one stick onto the other before running the first stick along its length. This provided plenty of pressure and airflow but the speed was rather lacking. He needed to increase the speed of his movements.

  No, not his movements. There was only so fast he could go after all. What he needed to do was limit the amount of space he had to traverse. Running the length of a stick provided too much time for it to cool down before he went over the same spot again.

  Blake glared at the sticks. Shorter sticks might help but he wanted constant pressure applied. He began to pace back and forth while thinking of a solution. He was so focused on his thoughts that he completely ignored the pain radiating from his wounds. He was twirling one of the sticks when he realized his own stupidity. Rather than lengthwise why not use the tip?

  Excited by the idea Blake immediately put it into practice. He had to find a fatter stick to act as the bottom to keep a better hold on it but then he began to twirl the top stick down into the bottom one. It immediately caught on the bark and refused to move. Unlike when rubbing the sticks lengthwise Blake did not have a good enough grasp on the stick to push through the obstruction and rip the bark off so he had to take a moment and prepare the bottom piece of wood first.

  Like he had done when making his shiv and spear, Blake used a rough part of a boulder to shave off pieces of the wood. Rather than stop at the bark, he kept going till it was as smooth as he was going to get it. For the stick that would be spun, he worked the end into a point like he had done with his shivs. He didn’t think that size would matter for this so he wanted to reduce the amount of effort he put into it if at all possible.

  Once done Blake took a break to catch his breath. As he sat down he was surprised as his Talent activated giving him insight into the tools he had just created. He should have known that they were considered completed crafts but for some reason hadn’t thought it would be considered completed till he had a fire. Then again it worked off his own thoughts and he thought of the tools as completed.

  Blake’s arms were tired and sore. He hadn’t recovered much from the day before and had been pushing himself to make this fire. It was rather intense work. There was a feeling of warmth in his muscles that helped comfort Blake but he couldn’t bask in the feeling for long. His hunger and fear of the approaching dark pushed him forward. He was honestly happy that the physical effort had such a positive feeling. He had never been one to work out but maybe he was now? Something to think about later.

  If he tried again Blake believed that he could make much better tools than he had previously but he didn’t want to spend the time to do so. He had only an hour or two left of sunlight and making the first set of tools had already taken an hour. He also suspected that should he succeed at making a fire he would have much more insight into how to improve his wooden tools.

  Once again he began to rotate the stick into the block of wood. As he began to work on it he felt like an idiot. Previously he had been grabbing the top of the stick and twisting it. Every time his arm was too far he would turn it back. It was straining his wrist and not very fast. His Talent now told him to just rub the stick between his hands.

  Pressing his palms together around the stick he quickly rubbed them while pressing gently downward. Not only was this much faster and consistent but it also put a lot less strain on his body. He didn’t know how he hadn’t thought of this before.

  Five minutes later there was still no fire. Taking a break to rest his arms Blake studied his tools for any sign of what went wrong. He didn’t have a second to ponder the question before his Talent activated providing him with information. He smiled realizing he had succeeded.

  At some point during this attempt, a spark had been formed which was enough of a reaction for his Talent to activate. He now knew how to better make a spark in the future and also what went wrong that the spark had not turned into a fire.

  He needed fuel and more air. To get the air he would have to move the point of contact to the edge of the block. This would make keeping it stable more difficult but the new information and skill from his Talent would help. For fuel, he needed loose plant matter. It was only a matter of minutes before he had a pile of dead and dry plants below the block ready for a spark to light the flame.

  His fourth attempt was more difficult as the stick kept slipping off the edge. He eventually got it after 20 minutes of practice creating a small spark. It fell towards his pile of fuel but went out before reaching it. Blake wanted to cry. Moving the block to be directly on top of the pile he tried again.

  It took five more tries before the spark caught. He had problems with airflow, fuel position, and other things during each trying preventing any real flame from catching. Luckily there was enough for his Talent to provide information on exactly what was happening each time. The sun was setting by the time he had a fire ready. Not wanting it to go out he quickly fed it more fuel.

  Blake sat happily in the grass watching his fire. He could survive. It might be difficult and there was sure to be more close fights but if he could make fire despite knowing nothing about the process beforehand, he could find a way to keep himself safe.

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