Chapter 9: the hunt
It was time for me to hunt a boar jaguar and I was very much having second doubts. While it would probably be a big boon, it’d also come with danger. I calmed myself by telling myself that I took every single precaution and last time I also managed to survive without all of the preparation so I’d be fine this time. I took my position inside a couple of bushes with a strong smell so I could mask my own smell. I also placed an array here that could quickly create a wall made of stone with spikes on front.
It took a while for the beast to show up which did not help with my nerves. For a moment I thought it might’ve been intelligent enough to not return to this place where he was hurt last time. When it showed up it was a bit bigger than before which was worrisome but it should not make it too powerful for the trap. It snuck up to the rabbit I hung as bait and as soon as it fully entered the array, a stone box filled with water was created around it cutting off its oxygen supply. I couldn’t see it anymore so now it was just a matter of waiting for it to drown. After about 30 seconds I could hear and see the stone walls shaking but they seemed to be holding for now. One minute in and the shaking was still going on and cracks started to appear on the walls. I was now at a crossroad, either I start reinforcing the walls or I stay here and hope for the best, if he would escape I’d have my backup arrays to kill him. I decided on the first option and ran forward to start reinforcing the walls. When I reached the walls however, it exploded. Out came a severely weakened beast gasping for air and a small tidal wave of water. I quickly analysed the situation and charged to the left, to an array that could fire a barrage of earthen spikes. The beast tried charging after me but stumbled halfway due to asphyxiation. Apparently it needed more oxygen than humans so that was positive. I reached the array and shot five earth spikes towards him but they bounced off of his hide. I quickly activated my Mana sight and saw that he was covering his entire body with earth Mana, more than likely as a protection. While I would’ve loved to study it, I didn’t have time and it was nearly upon me. I dodged out of the way and ran to a fire array. I wasn’t fast enough to fully dodge the attack he threw at me and I felt a burning sensation coming from my side. I looked down and saw that the claws had only grazed me so I was fine for now. The fire array fired off a ball of flames which the beast tried to dodge but it only helped him in so far that it hit his front leg as opposed to his snout.
Making use of this opening I decided to do what I did before and jumped on it, this time securing myself and I started draining it. The monster howled out in pain and tried to shake me off or kill me but I had position myself right behind his head and he had no good way to reach me. While I was draining I suddenly noticed his Mana stirring as if he were about to cast magic. Not wanting to get hit by hostile magic I decided to try something and sent a pulse of my own Mana inside his body. The effect that I wanted to get was achieved and I could feel the spell matrix shatter. I kept draining and before long, the struggling ceased and it fell dead.
I asserted the current situation and came to the conclusion that the creature was dead, because no beast could cast spells so that was what it was, a creature. I had increased my Mana pool once again and I now have a fresh monster corpse to study. I needed some tools to operate on the body but that should be quite easy, I have some metal and I can always see if I can find more with some magic. When it comes to creating operating tools, no method is more precise and effective as magic. For now I used some preservation magic which should keep the body intact for a long while although it did cost me pretty much all of my Mana so I went to bed, the tools could wait.
The following morning I decided that the first thing I would work on was creating tools. I managed to sneak a decent bit of what appeared to be iron from the village since no one cared much for iron, copper was where it was at to them. Because I had iron however I was confident that I could slowly turn it into steel although it would probably take me a long while before I had enough steel to make tools since I doubted this was going to be cheap Mana wise and this would definitely not be a sustainable way to get enough steel, I would need to trade with people sooner rather than later which was going to be a bit of a problem since I had no idea if they would accept whatever story I could come up with as to why a child was living alone and actually surviving on his own but that would be for later.
For now I will have to start work on transforming my iron into steel so I got started on this and I quickly realised that this was more than likely going to take quite a while. It took me nearly a full day just to get a couple of grams of steel and I wanted at least 500 grams so factoring in my growth speed and the speed at which I could familiarize myself with the spell I calculated that it would take me roughly a month to get enough steel.
In reality it only took me somewhere around 25 days of nonstop converting. Remembering a myth about the philosophers stone I wondered if I could make one myself and if alchemy could help with this. I still didn’t know how alchemy worked but I was hopeful that a monster corpse could help due to the density of its Mana before death but I’d probably have to have equipment for that that I currently lack and could only get through interacting with the civilisation that attacked us since that one seemed to be quite advanced, possibly advanced enough to get certain materials. I don’t think anyone saw me on the battlefield so that should not be an issue but the gods might be there.
For now I’d transform the steel itself into tools like a scalpel and other surgical equipment that I will need when researching this body. I went ahead and did so after which I sharpened the scalpel with another spell. The corpse itself was still in the same condition it was after I killed it so I should be able to get fresh samples, magic really is useful.
