Chapter 4 - Training
I made weights for the different body parts. More like a whole suit of armor, but purely for gravity's sake. A ring mail shirt, heavy ankle weights, a weighted belt, wrist weights, and a backpack with good support for training.
After concentrating the red alloy, a small puck can weigh very high, as the longer I leave it in the smelter and the more ore I add, the more concentrated the mass becomes. In total, I fit around 200kg of gear on my body for the whole day. Plus, the 45kg staff when practicing. I look ridiculous, but the ground shakes when I walk, which is a nice ego boost.
I also concentrate on making my strange power grow.
I start my day by running—or plodding heavily, given the suit—then taking care of my pets, a few pheasants I caught for eggs and tests. I do some research, scribbling on bark, then combat training until my muscles scream. Lastly, I meditate and concentrate all my power into an object before going to bed.
I tried this infusion on multiple materials. Rocks become harder until they crumble into dust, unable to hold the charge. Wood, if dead, becomes tougher to a certain extent and then dissipates or leaks the surplus back into the environment. Metal stiffens until it cracks and turns to metal dust. Pretty useful for smelting, actually, as it bypasses the need for crushing tools.
Depending on the type of metals or rocks, the power accumulated lasts more or less a week. Wood, only an hour. If I collide two charged objects, it creates a shockwave and dissipates most of it. A charged arrow would still get stuck in charged wood, but shallowly. However, the same arrow would pierce a regular shield and the person behind it like they were made of butter.
Living things react differently. The plants grow much faster while infused. I planted a few around the cabin and plan to put more later. My cabin is pretty sweet and comfy now, resembling less a survival shelter and more a fortress. I also added a huge dog house for Red and a coop for the birds.
I've also been taking care of a small bird in the hope of taming it, like Red. It's going to be useful in my travels. I concentrate my energy on it until I fall asleep every night. Not all of it, as the bird is small compared to me and might explode if I overdo it, but I give it some, then dump the rest into an object.
My body demands this cycle. Every day I spend all the energy I have. In the morning, after my stretches, I'm back to top shape. Besides, it's fun! This world is fun!
I thought of cutting myself to test the healing property of my power, but I already have a scar on my arm now. Even if it looks nice—very tribal—I respect this body too much to damage it intentionally. So we captured a boar and tried on it. At that moment, Red understood how to use and train his power too, just like I do.
It worked. But like I thought, the boar still has a scar. It's not a miracle healing thing; it just accelerates the natural process. At least we can save each other from bleeding out.
The boar just decided to follow us, blankly. It seems that the intellect of the target affects the results of the unexpected taming. This puts a damper on my bird scout training. I wanted a spy, not a zombie. I still use the bird to train anyway. Red and I should be a special case... He was at least as powerful as me when I was unaware of my own power, so our powers or even souls bonded more tightly, like a partnership of some kind.
I thought so, until one morning, I could close my eyes and focus on what the bird saw, seeing things as if I was in his place. I got this dream during the night and woke up with the connection active. Once I focus my power on the bird, I can share his vision. This is even better than I thought I could do.
The power consumption is noticeable, though. The further the bird goes, the more energy it takes. If the bird shares his vision from far away for too long, I get a little heartburn and my vision blurs. It feels like running a marathon while sitting still.
With this in mind, I made a power scale from different sized metal rods that I injected my power into until I almost fainted. If I crumble 1kg of blue metal, I get 100 points. It's a huge headache to scale things all the time, but I need metrics.
I had to recreate a bastardized metric system. Since 2019, the definition of a meter is based on the speed of light in a vacuum as a constant value. Which I can't measure without proper equipment. A kg is based on a liter of water. A liter is 10x10x10 cm or a cubic decimeter. The closest thing to a centimeter is a fingernail width. Abandoning my old strict thinking, I now have, probably, the only metric tape in this world. The precision will wait until we can make semiconductors... Someday...
Still, this is enough to test and use the different types of metals that I found. My weapons are made of a tough bronze-like red alloy. This came naturally to me, since bronze is the oldest alloy created from melting two sand types together. Iron is too tough to work with for now—requires too much heat and carbon balancing. So, I use mainly tin and copper, plus a few other unnamed minerals. The red metal comes from a black ore that takes a lot of volume, but once melted becomes red and keeps shrinking, getting denser and denser.
I also made a clock, hating not having the time. I made a huge mess of sketches on skins and barks for calculations. Also, a bunch of failed parts scattered around the workshop. Once I got it done, measuring a complete day's revolution... well... the seconds were weird. For a second is 1/86,400 of a day. It does not give the same time length that I used to experience on Earth.
I use a funnel with a valve and water to reproduce a second from my memory and compare a minute from Earth and this world. The day here lasts around 32 hours.
I look at the mountain of calculations that I had to painfully dig from my brain for hours and write down on skins... They will decay fast if I don't do something. In the end, I just made a rock-slab-floored shed and poured some power into it once a day. That keeps my library in better shape. I can always transcribe later when I invent paper.
Another 2 years pass by. Now I look around 14 years old, maybe 5'6". No signs of a beard... which is frustrating for a guy mentally in his thirties.
My power level reached 1000 units on my arbitrary scale. Coincidentally, Gary (the tamed bird) can go 1km away before feeling uncomfortable. Without power, I can lift 500kg. With the use of my power, 1500kg. A teen who can lift an SUV well above his head, then throw it 10 meters away... I am becoming a monster.
Red reached 500 units of power, a bit slower than me. He can carry me like the wind. With his saddle/pack, he can pack 200kg and not get tired for the entire day of running.
Berth (the boar) cultivates food on his own... He saw me arranging a garden and got the knack for it, since he can eat the fruit of his labor later. His power reached 3000 units! Damn pig. But that is all he does with his days: turn some dirt over while injecting power in the soil, plant seeds and bulbs, and meditate (sleep). He can clear a square kilometer in about a month. Rocks crumbled and tree stumps uprooted too, just by pouring his vast power into the ground itself... He became a huge crop monster with a nasty scar on his cheek. Taller than me in only a few months, making me think he was not even an adult when I caught him.
I'm also preparing traveling rations. It can't be only meat; I'd get scurvy or something equivalent here. So I dry as many vegetables as I can. Again, Red's help is fantastic. He can tell what is poison and what is not just by sniffing. I made granola bars, salted jerky, bags of spices for meat, and a big heavy red metal wok hanging off my backpack as a shield. I will forage, hunt, and fish the rest on the way.
Red carries a bit of his, mine, and Gary's food. I take 5 spearheads, 1 complete spear, 10 shurikens, my two combat knives, a smaller 10kg staff, a small axe, cookware, sleeping bag, a huge alcohol lighter/oil lamp, and my trusty canteen. (No, I don't drink the crappy alcohol that I made for chemicals. I actually look down on drinkers for reasons I won't go into. Lost too many friends to the bottle back home.)
Red is able to carry all this weight for a few hours. The rest will be on foot. I plan to go east for a month. I can naturally tell which way is north, but I still made a compass with lots of free markers to be able to mess around with it. (I mean, gather data... science never stops.)
Berth will stay home. He has his garden to tend to. I also tried to release the pheasants, but they stayed. The infused grain is probably addictive.
Today, it's been six "Earth years" since I woke up in these woods. So I guess it's happy birthday.
Today I'm leaving.
It's time to go find some people.