Path of Dragons

Elijah studied the results of his efforts, which had been arranged into separate piles according to their intended purpose. The first was simple enough; it was comprised of a couple of crab claws, each the size of a small animal. Beneath that chitinous exterior was at least a few pounds of white meat, which Elijah hoped would see him through until he could supplement his diet with fish. He’d considered harvesting the rest of the crab, but he’d run into two problems.

First, crab had a tendency to turn rancid very quickly, and he had no way to preserve the meat. Even the amount he could get from the claws was pushing it, and he wouldn’t dare eat it after twenty-four hours. Even with his ability to heal himself, he wasn’t interested in getting food poisoning from bad crab meat.

Second, the other crabs had eventually noticed the smell of nearby carrion, and like the opportunistic scavengers they were, had quickly come scuttling in Elijah’s direction. So, even though he’d only managed to break off the creature’s claws and legs, he wasn’t able to do much else without drawing the ire of the oversized crustaceans.

But he wasn’t too upset. The crabs didn’t seem like they were going anywhere, and he already had proof that he could efficiently hunt them. If his other plans for food failed, he felt confident that he could always get more crab. In the future, as the weather turned colder, perhaps he could even use it to bolster his stores of food for the winter. That wasn’t one of his immediate concerns, though.

The next pile held various bits and pieces of the crab’s shell that Elijah intended to fashion into needles and hooks. It would take some doing, but he was nothing if not adaptable. Plenty of ancient people had used bones for hooks, and while crab shell was a lot more brittle, it made up for its unsuitability by being readily available. With as much chitin as he had harvested, Elijah was sure that he could make it work.

After harvesting the crab, Elijah had been forced to flee the shore and head back to the cabin, where he’d piled his treasure trove of food and potential building material. Then, he got to work.

The first thing he did was pop open one of the shells by cracking it with a few blows from his walking stick. Normal crab claws weren’t that difficult to crack, but Elijah soon found that these purple shore crabs hadn’t just gained size. They’d gained durability as well, and even in death, its shell made for an extremely tough material. He couldn’t help but wonder if he should be saving it for some sort of armor; after all, he’d already discovered that the wilderness was dangerous. Having some protection wouldn’t go amiss.

But he tabled that thought in favor of focusing on his task, and eventually, his efforts bore fruit in the form of a cracked claw. Once its structure had been compromised, it was much easier to get to the meat within. Elijah picked the shards of the shell away, then carefully gathered the white meat. It seemed tougher than most crab meat he’d encountered, but as far as he could tell, it seemed edible. So, he tossed the meat into his pot.

The second claw, he left alone for the time being. For now, it would keep better inside the shell – at least until morning, when he intended to eat it for breakfast.

Once Elijah had a pot full of crab meat, he set it over his small fire and waited on it to cook, stirring it ever so often with his small knife. To be sure it was completely done, Elijah overcooked it by quite a bit, but that was because he knew the dangers of eating undercooked crab. Just because he had the ability to heal himself didn’t mean he wanted to tempt fate.

Besides, he had a couple of plans for his Ethera, and healing himself because he ate the wrong things didn’t factor into them.

Eating the crab was not a pleasurable experience. Certainly, it would provide him with the necessary proteins and fat that mushrooms and berries couldn’t give him, but he lacked the tools to prepare it properly. As a result, it alternated between mushy, salty, and burned. Elijah had to keep reminding himself that it was necessary in order to keep himself going.

Once he’d choked down his meal, he headed back to the stream to wash his pot and rinse the taste out of his mouth. Along the way, he stumbled upon some more berries, which he quickly gathered and ate.

Just before he reached the stream, Elijah felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Something was watching him. He knew it the same way he’d felt the tree. Whether it was his connection to nature or something more concrete, Elijah had no idea. But he didn’t dare ignore it.

Slowly, he turned a circle as he searched for whatever had followed him. As he did so, his mind ran amok, conjuring images of mutated versions of all the predators native to the region. Bears, cougars, wolves, and coyotes were at the top of the list, but there were plenty of other, smaller creatures that could pose a danger – especially if they’d grown the same way the crabs had.

Suddenly, he thought of a man-sized mosquito, and he nearly started running right then and there. But he stopped himself, even if he couldn’t keep his heart from beating out of his chest. He could only hope that the System hadn’t chosen that route.

For a long few minutes, Elijah continued to study his surroundings, but he was no more successful in finding his stalker. Then, the feeling of foreboding disappeared, leaving him sweating profusely as his heart hammered in his chest. For another five minutes, Elijah didn’t dare move.

Then, finally, he managed to steady his breathing and refocus his mind. Whatever had been there – and he was sure it was something – had chosen not to attack. And if he wanted to survive, he couldn’t afford to let fear dictate his actions.

Of course, it was one thing to think that and another to overcome the sense of palpable terror he’d felt. Even the remnants were potent enough to keep him rooted in place. But slowly, Elijah managed to shake it off and continue along toward the stream. By the time he’d reached it and started cleaning his pot, he had convinced himself that it was all just an overreaction to an overactive imagination.

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Mostly. But in the back of his mind, he knew it was real. The fact that he’d felt it multiple times since washing ashore was as much an indicator as the visceral feeling of being watched. However, the more time that passed, the easier it was to push that certainty aside in favor of the necessities of survival.

Once Elijah finished washing up, he trekked back to the cabin. The moment he entered the area, though, he realized that something was wrong. He crouched, holding his walking stick in one hand and the pot in the other. Neither were great weapons, but he wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice.

The forest was deathly silent as he crept toward the derelict cabin. No birds sang. No squirrels chirped. Even the insects seemed to have gone dormant.

Flattening himself against the cabin’s most intact wall, he slid forward, inch by inch, until he could see the interior. It was completely unoccupied. His fire still burned, low but merry in the waning light of approaching evening. But it all felt wrong. Like the space had been violated. It took Elijah’s conscious mind a moment to catch up, but when he did, he let out an audible curse.

The remaining crab claw was gone, and in its place were a couple of faint tracks. Elijah slowly moved into the cabin and investigated the site of the theft, and he was unsurprised to see feline paw prints in the soft earth. And they were huge – far bigger than he would have expected from a mountain lion or a bobcat, which were the only big cats native to the area.

But that didn’t really mean anything, did it? The crabs had grown. Why couldn’t a bobcat? Or worse, a cougar?

In the back of his mind, though, Elijah considered another option. The tree that had guided him through his cultivation had clearly come from somewhere else. It wasn’t a native to Earth. So, it stood to reason that the System had brought new dangers to the area.

Obviously, Elijah couldn’t be certain. He didn’t have enough information. But he also couldn’t discount the possibility that the region was now home to a super predator like a tiger or a lion.

Fear gripped him, cold and palpable. He knew he wouldn’t stand a chance against something like that. Especially not with only a stick and a pot to defend himself. Sure, if he was wounded, he could use Touch of Nature to heal himself, but that seemed a poor substitute for combat ability.

That’s when Elijah decided to implement his budding plan for self-improvement.

He had woeful attributes, especially in Strength. His Body of Wood had helped with that, but it was clear that if he wanted to survive, he needed to address his weaknesses. The most straightforward way to do so was to go out and kill things; he’d felt a bit of foreign Ethera enter his body when he’d killed the crab, and he’d intuited that it was something akin to experience from a video game. But it wasn’t much, and he sensed that he’d have to kill quite a few more if he wanted to progress in that manner.

The tree had also explained that he could gain levels via other actions associated with his archetype, but he hadn’t felt any influx of Ethera when he’d healed himself. So, that ruled out a plan for intentionally injuring himself and reaping the Ethera from healing the wounds. If he was honest, Elijah was glad for that. That kind of path, even if it had proven effective, would have been too disturbing.

So, that left him with one other possibility. He could do things the old-fashioned way. Elijah was no stranger to working out, so he knew that, so long as he had fuel for his body, he could slowly strengthen himself. In addition, he could cut down his recovery times significantly by using Touch of Nature to heal himself. He had no idea how soon he could expect gains, but he suspected that it would be fairly quick.

In the meantime, he would continue to survive. Thankfully, the native predator hadn’t disturbed Elijah’s pile of chitin, so he could still enact his plan to create hooks and needles. Once he had those, he could make some rudimentary fishing line from some dogbane he’d seen in the tree’s meadow. It wouldn’t be nearly as strong as synthetic fishing line, but it would still be better than trying to unravel the threads of his remaining clothing.

Elijah settled down close to the fire and went to work. Normally, he’d have carved the hooks from wood, but the crab’s chitinous exoskeleton was too appropriate to pass up. From a mundane crab, the shell would’ve likely been too brittle, but for this evolved version, it almost had the texture and Strength of plastic. Besides, there had been some spines on the underside of the legs that were nearly perfect for hooks. All it took was for Elijah to separate them, then whittle them down to size – a tedious process that took time and concentration, but little actual skill.

Eventually, he managed to create his first hook. He held it close to the campfire’s light and grinned. It wasn’t ideal – not like a metal hook would have been – but it wasn’t bad, either.

By that point, night had truly fallen, but Elijah wanted to get a few more hooks made before he went to sleep. In the end, he only got three finished, but he was happy with them all. So, having accomplished his goal, he curled up in his corner of the cabin and went to sleep.

The next morning, Elijah awoke feeling somewhat refreshed. He wasn’t certain if it was the effect of having a filling meal, or if his body was just getting stronger, but he felt better than he had since before his diagnosis. Which was good, because he had a lot of plans for the day.

The first few hours, he spent doing various calisthenics and lifting some heavy rocks he’d found near the shore. And if he hadn’t believed his status before, he was soon convinced by his weakness. Still, he sensed that his body was stronger and more durable than it should be, likely due to his cultivation. He intended to exploit that, pushing himself far past the point of exhaustion with each exercise.

After a few hours, he spent a while resting and healing himself with Touch of Nature, and he was surprised to see that his status reflected his work. His Strength had risen by a single point. If he could continue along that track, he could truly make some gains.

Once he felt up to it, he set out toward the meadow where he’d seen the dogbane. When he got there, he noticed that the tree was still dormant. However, it still radiated a sense of calm power, letting him know that it was no normal tree – not that he would have made that mistake, anyway. One look was all it took to put the lie to any notion of normality.

But he wasn’t there to gape at the tree. Instead, he gathered an armful of dogbane, which were red-stalked weeds that, when picked apart, could make for decent cordage. Having accomplished that, he headed back to his cabin, where he intended to start the process of making fishing line.

The trip was uneventful, save for Elijah stopping from time to time to pick various berries or edible fungi. He even found some rosehips, which was a nice discovery. More importantly, he wasn’t beset by that same fear he’d felt near the stream, which was enough to put his mind at ease.

Finally, he reached the cabin and relaxed. It remained completely undisturbed, which was reassuring after the previous intrusion. Elijah could only hope that his good luck would continue long enough for him to ensure his survival.

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