NOVEL NEXT Chapter 35: Ambushed!
The rabbit took a while to cook and by the time it was done, the siblings were done with one breathing cycle. Unfortunately, Lukas didn't get a message of having his mana increased this time.
He pulled out the sticks from the ground and placed the rabbit on a washed stone slab.
[Roasted Long Horned Rabbit]
Cooked directly over a fire and seasoned with salt and pepper. Seasoned perfectly, it's slightly dry in certain areas and charred in a few others. Mostly juicy on the inside and chewy on the outside.
Effects: +23 Speed, +21 Dexterity, +14 Strength
Additional Effects: +50 instant mana regeneration, Increased Danger sense.
Permanent Effects: +1 Max Mana, +1 Speed, +1 Dexterity
Seeing the stats, Lukas couldn't help but nod his head with a look of satisfaction.
He took out a meat cleaver from his spatial ring and cut the roasted rabbit at it's spine, making two almost equal parts. Once he cut it, he checked to see if there was any change in the effects.
The temporary effects dropped by 1 to 3 each for speed, dexterity and strength but the rest of it remained the same.
Not bothering about the minimal losses, Lukas brought the meat to his mouth and took a huge bite. The outer meat was extremely flavourful, with a salty and smoky taste while also being weirdly leathery. It wasn't much, but he could feel it.
'It's like a jerky but not completely dried.' he thought as he continued to chew. The inside was juicy but this also had a problem, the salt hadn't penetrated inside so it tasted slightly bland.
'Still… it's not too bad.' he consoled himself as he focused on taking bites that had both the outside parts and the soft inner meat.
Halfway through his food, he paused and revealed a pained expression as he placed it on the stone. He looked at Nina who continued eating and didn't bother disturbing her.
'Let her enjoy… I'll tell her next time.' he thought as he expelled all the mana inside him. This took five minutes but once he was done, he went back to eating. In just thirty minutes, all that was left, were the bones.
He looked at his stats and grinned widely, 'It worked. Expelling mana before eating this should help me reduce the time I spend on mana breathing. Apart from that… three meals a day will give me 9 stats. That's over powered as hell… I had to train for more than fifteen days to get all my stats to 9 but now, just three meals can do the trick.'
Feeling extremely pleased with the results, he washed his face and buried all the bones before walking back to the tribe's camp site. He had barely taken ten steps when he felt his hair stand on end.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw Nina look around with a worried expression.
'Danger sense?' he thought as he stopped walking and looked around. Two ordinary kitchen knives appeared in his hands before he tossed one towards Nina who caught it perfectly.
A second later, she turned invisible and the moment that happened, Lukas heard a whooshing sound. Instinctively, he rolled to the side but felt extreme heat on his left shoulder.
He turned to take a glance and saw his shirt ripped. Below it, was some missing skin as he looked at the long red line.
'An arrow.' he thought as he rolled once again but nothing happened. Standing back up, he looked in the direction in which the arrow had come from, but saw no one.
As he stood still, he slowly turned his eyes to look at the arrow and immediately recognised it based on a drawn diagram in one of the books he had read.
The arrow long but thin head that was made of bone and on the end, was a perfectly cut feather that seemed to have a lot of dry blood on it.
'One of the cannibals…' he said inwardly as he frowned, 'Fuck, they used poisoned arrows.'
Knowing that he was now poisoned, he couldn't help but calculate how far the camp was. He didn't have any intention of fighting them head on, especially after getting poison in his body.
"It's almost two kilometres from here." he muttered as let out a soft but shaky sigh before making up his mind, "Nina, they're cannibals and they use poisoned arrows."
Saying this, he kept his eyes open and waited. Soon, he heard a scream and then, the sound of an arrow being released entered his ears.
'She found one.' he thought as he glanced at the bushes that had just moved. Without thinking much about it, he rushed towards it an saw an arrow stuck in the ground.
On the other side, was a skinny but tall bald man with a short bow in his hands. There was already an arrow ready to be shot, but he silently waited for Lukas to make his move.
And he did. He took a short glance behind the cannibal and smirked. Instantly, the man opposite to him, jumped to the side as he aimed his bow behind him, only to see that there was no one there.
Having wasted a lot of time, he cursed at himself for falling for such a trick and turned around to see the boy running straight at him.
"Hehehe what an idiot. Those who run straight at an archer is a dead man." he muttered under his breath as he pulled the arrow backwards and let it fly to wards his dinner.
Lukas jumped forward, his body low as he rolled almost perfectly. He felt the arrow fly right above him but didn't stop moving towards his target.
The cannibal couldn't help but panic as he drew another arrow from the quiver hung behind his back but calmed down when he saw that the boy had no weapons.
"Hahaha die!" he yelled as he drew the bow and shot the arrow at Lukas when there was only a distance of five meters between them.
Only, a sheep suddenly appeared in front of his prey and took the hit.