NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4 - Curious Ways of the Wild
Chapter 4
Curious Ways of the Wild
Leo, with the monkey hanging from his shoulder, put up the finishing touches on the tree house. Unlike with his hut, he was unable to simply ‘plop it down’; he had to individually place pieces, though he was shown where to place them, so it still wasn’t terribly difficult, just time consuming.
It took him some six hours of labor to finish it, and monkey had been cheering him on for the last two, perched on top of either his shoulder or head. The sweet sound of the screen appearing in front of him finally signaled that he was done.
[Congratulations for completing the side quest--building a tree house for the ‘????’ Monkey and his family!]
[Your favorability with the ‘????’ Monkey has reached 16. You are now considered close friends!]
[You have been rewarded ‘Tychu Fruit’ x1]
[Tychu Fruit (Rare) -- a specially cultivated fruit of the Monks of the North Sect. It is said that only 9 fruits ripen every 100 years and are awarded to the once-in-a-generation talents of the Sect. The true effects are a well-kept secret, though rumors are that the fruit enhances the person’s Spiritual Root. Can only consume 1 Tychu Fruit in your lifetime]
[You have earned... 3 System XP! You are just 2 away from the System Level Up!]
[The ‘????’ Monkey has given you a special blessing that will last for 15 days: Soul of the Forest]
[Soul of the Forest: favorability with all natives of the Nameless Forest will not fall below 1 (Neutral). Your favorability with all the natives of the Nameless Forest increases 200% faster for the duration. The blessing will disappear if you commit a Grave Taboo.]
“You happy?” Leo asked as the monkey leapt off his shoulder and inspected his new home. Soon, it came out, seemingly grinning and yapping away. It even ‘kissed’ Leo on the forehead, prompting the latter to laugh as he descended down the tree. There, placed gently on the ground, was the ‘legendary fruit’ that he was rewarded. It was pear-shaped, though deep-crimson in its luster and as soft as a marshmallow.
Leo didn’t think too deeply, gnawing away at it immediately and finishing it off within seconds. He didn’t feel much change at the start, though the kindling fire within his soul that spread like mad throughout the rest of his body until it hurt did tell him that something happen. And as to what happened, the system informed him soon after.
[Consuming Tychu Fruit has repaired your damaged Spiritual Roots.]
[... Lucky Roll! In addition to repairing, the Tychu Fruit has awakened an elemental property in your Spiritual Roots!]
[Low-Tier Damaged Mortal Roots ---> Low-Tier Earth Mortal Roots]
[Low-Tier Earth Mortal Roots: absorbing natural Qi increased by 10%. Affinity with Earth Martial Arts increased by 25%. Can absorb remnant Earth Qi from Spiritual Grounds.]
Spitting out a fiery breath at first and burping loudly right after, Leo felt a relieving sensation deep within. Saying a quick farewell to the monkey, he returned to the mud hut and sat down; soon, the Foundation Realm beast would come for him, and if the rules of the cultivation he was familiar with were to be believed, he was done for. He was not a main character, after all, with a heaven-defying bead where a soul of an old monster was stored to guide him, nor did he have a special, Divine-Tier Cosmic Root that he could use to break through the realms like stealing candy from a baby.
As such, he didn’t really have a plan to survive--he’d hoped that the system would give him a new quest and reward him with an appropriate item, but that was hardly a plan and more of a desperate desire.
“Maybe I ask the animals for help? No, I can’t entangle them,” he mused aloud, glancing around his tiny little hut that was once more a home to quite a few small critters. “I’ll have to figure it out myself.”
Suddenly, a tiny lizard began crawling up his leg and scurried over to his shoulder. It was deep yellow in color and had a pair of beady, red eyes that looked at him curiously. Leo scratched the top of the lizard’s head gently, smiling, before lying back down and closing his eyes.
“Maybe I can fashion some traps? Dig a hole, put down some spikes in it... it could work. Haaah, that boar probably has skin tougher than diamonds, though. It’d just piss him off...”
Unknowingly, he fell asleep. Perchance it was the tiredness of having worked hard, or just his brain being overwhelmed by the future’s instability, but whichever it was, it caused him to doze off. By the time he woke up, it was late at night and his little bungalow was now a home to some seventeen different critters. In fact, it wasn’t just critters any longer--sprawled lazily near the entrance, he recognized one of the beasts from the outside, the black panther with illusionary, white stripes near its ankles that made it seem like they were on fire.
The panther was actually no larger than a house cat, and though Leo was terribly tempted, he dared not pet it.
“Excuse me,” he mumbled apologetically as he scurried out. The panther glanced at him lazily as it licked its paw, ignoring him right after.
The forest at night was rather scary, Leo noted--the few strands of light from the moon that managed to reach the surface through the canopy of the trees were hardly enough to illuminate the darkness, and only made it spookier by casting light on the rough edges of the trees and grass and bushes. Here and there, he'd hear hooting and hollering of the beasts, and he’d catch the glow of the eyes looking at him from the darkness.
However, if he was to live in this place, he knew he’d have to get used to it. He didn’t wander far from the hut--in fact, he didn’t wander at all, sitting down at the front and spawning a makeshift campfire by using torch blueprint as the baseline. The fire roared and finally gave way to clear shapes around as he sat down, observing it.
It wasn’t long before a swath of animals converged toward it, scaring him at first. Though, after seeing that they mostly just sat around, either for the warmth or for the light, he ignored them. But it wouldn’t be camping without some storytelling or singing; he felt a bit embarrassed to start, as his audience was entirely composed of animals incapable of understanding him, but to live up to the romance of it, he had to persevere.
“The legend goes,” he spoke softly, staring at the embers of flame in front of him, secretly hoping he looked cool doing so. “That time is infinite--there is neither the beginning nor the end, just a permanence that goes on, has gone on, and will go on.” without Leo noticing, more and more animals had gathered, soon surpassing 60, though most stayed hidden in the trees or the nearby bushes. “So, in that infinite time, it is said that anything can happen. A celestial dragon born of the star, spewing quasars as fire breaths. Angelic creatures with feathered wings flying at the speed of light. Gods and Goddesses capable of creating sentience with a wave of their hands. Life and death converging into one, becoming eternity.
“When I was young, I had this tutor that would drone on about the mysteries of space. How, because of how little we know, we can dream as big as we want. He was off his rocker for the most part,” he chuckled lightly. Unbeknownst to him, hundreds had gathered by now, small and large, listening aptly. “But... I found it inspirational. I don’t know if anything I know is true, and if it is to which degree... but it’s nice to dream, right?” he wished for a second he had a bottle of beer, as the moment called for it, but shook his head as he looked up, trying to peer past the canopy and at the moon. Alas, it was not meant to be.
“Maybe, somewhere up there, among the stars, there are answers. But I’m too tiny to reach them,” sighing, he looked back down and finally realized that his audience had grown quite a bit. Feeling somewhat embarrassed at the number, he scratched his nose and coughed awkwardly. There were quite a few newcomers, and the pair of crimson eyes the size of his hut peering from the deep darkness truly was a mirage that he made up. Definitely. “Anyway, should I sing you guys a famous campfire song from my home? He he, I’ll take your silence as a yes~~” when it came to the ‘camping songs’, he really didn’t know many. In fact, he only knew a few. But if there was one song he had to sing first in this world of them all, it truly would be this one.
“She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain when she comes~~” his voice was deep yet gentle and it echoed vastly into the night. The animals all closed their eyes and laid their heads onto either the ground or the branches. Leo thumped the melody by slapping his thighs, and sang as loud as he could. The forest did not sleep for a moment, awake in the middle of the night, carried forth by a singular voice. Deep and sonorous.