Chapter 2 “Escaping the cave“

Chapter 2

'It has been 6 months, since I came to this cave...' Julian was sitting atop a huge boulder, looking into the distance.

'Since I've arrived here I have always wanted to find a way out...' He moved down the boulder, professionally jumping down the rocky terrain.

'And now that I've finally found a way out of here...' Julian thought to himself while looking down into a calm water source.

'But even though I found a way, I can't escape.' Julian looked up and a huge and beautiful waterfall on a lake flew into his sight.

He carefully moved along the lake to the waterfall. When he went through this waterfall, he entered a little ledge. Beneath him there was an endlessly deep canyon.

On the other side was another ledge. But that one was being filled with light. Sunlight.

Since Julian came here, this was the only place where he could see sunlight. But he couldn't reach that place. It was about a hundred meters away.

Even with all the recources he had at hand, he couldn't think of a way to cross a hundred meters safely.

Even if he took a bunch of the enormous trees in the forest and bulit a kind of bridge, there was no way to move it even in the slightest. 

So since he found this way of escape, he spent all of his time thinking of a way to cross this canyon.

Time passed until another week had gone by.

"That's it!", he jumped around happily as he finally found a way to escape.

A week ago, when he thought of a way to escape, a thought crossed his mind. What if he could still use the power of the "Void"? What if he could have crossed this canyon all along?

So, for a week, he trained day for day trying to jump in space. Since there wasn't a name for it, he called it ›blink‹. After the week of training he could finally use this ability, even though it cost him a lot of energy.

"HAHA, I've done it!" Julian criend out as he teleported about 5 meters far.

Although his connection with the void was seperated, since his soul was almagated with the void, he could reconnect that connection anytime, as long as he had enough energy and persistance. But he was only able to teleport about 5 meters far on his first try. He hoped that this wasn't the maximal output he could expend.

So he teleported again and again, until he could teleport 6 meters far. After he acchieved this he activated his ability to slow down time for the rest of his training, since he felt that the exhaustion he felt wasn't physical exhaustion, but mental exhaustion.

Julian trained for months. About 1 year after he had come to this cave, he could finally teleport about 100 meters twice every hour.

After reaching his wanted results, he went to the lake again.

His teleportation ability wasn't the only thing that was strengthened over the months. His mental awareness was strengthened aswell.

So as he passed by the lake, he could sense something from deep within the lake. Right in the middle of it. It seemed interesting and aluring, so without a further thought, he jumped into the lake and swam to the deepest part of it. There was something under a bunch of rocks and pebbles. Because he had already lost a lot of oxygen on the way down, he hurriedly threw the rocks aside and grabbed the thing underneath. 

He already noticed the lack of air. The way up was still long and he wouldn't make it in time. But instead of trying to swim further up, he used one of his hourly teleports to go back above the water.

His ears started to bleed because of the difference of pressure from under the water and above the water. His eardrums literally exploded from within his body. Spreading pieces of them over the ground. With his eardrums rupturing a loud *Pop* sound, resounded before he lost his hearing. The sounds of huge grills chirping and the flowing water had completely gone away.

When he arrived on the rocks on the shore, he was on his knees and gasping for air. Next to him, not one but two items were laying next to him. They both looked the same. They were round, white and had a deep, red spot on each of them. 

Before he looked at them, he restored his eardrums. The pain he got from that was a little bit less than when he restored his arm, but it was way more potent and concentrated.

Julian regained his posure and picked them up to get a better look at them. 'Eugh!' Julian held two eyes with purely red pupils in his hand. Although he was slightly disgusted by them, he didn't throw them away nor did he drop them. He found them interesting and inspected them deeply. They had an interesting aura veiling them. Since he couldn't do anything with them but didn't want to throw them away, he just put them in his bag.

Afterwards he let the air dry him before continuing on. Soon he arrived at the ledge behind the waterfall.

Since he didn't want to risk being short of a few meters he waited for another half an hour until he was sure that he could use two teleports rapidly.

He went a few meters away from the ledge, before sprinting towards the canyon. Jumping over it. After jumping he used his first teleport, covering two thirds of the width. After noticing that he was still to far away he used his second teleport. But this time it wasn't as strong as the first use.

He would have been a few meters short of reaching the other end, but luckily he carried the momentum from the jump on, through the teleports. His hand could grab onto the ledge of the other side. If he was even a few centimeters shorter, he would have fallen into the depths of the canyon. 

With the help of the strength he accumulated over the last year, he pulled himself up onto the ledge.

Now, after what felt like an eternity, he was standing in the warmth of the sunlight. But that feeling soon came to an end, as the light vanished. And his surroundings turned dark. It was night.

 The moonlight that now shone from the little slit was still enough for him to see, so he went up to the crsck in the wall. For a few minutes he tried to squeeze through, but it was too narrow. But luckily he brought his weapon with him and he could just strike through the stone.

A few hours of hard work later, he finally arrived outside of the mountain. His sweaty body shone the because of the moonlight.

After getting out of the mountain, a sudden need overcame him. 'I need clothes!'

[…]

A few hours had passed since he walked outside of the mountain. The sun had already started to shine again, rising on the sky. Julian had been walking the whole time, but he hasn't come across any animal yet. So he was slowly getting anxious. What if he came across other people and they saw him, almost fully naked. 

The trees here were normal sized, and he could hear birds chirping.

After traveling for a few more minutes, he came across a few broken branches in the trees and crushed leaves on the ground. Seeing these marks everywhere, Julian started hoping that it was a big animal, so he could make some basic clothing for himself. He followed the marks that were left everywhere.

After another 30 minutes of travelling, Julian finally came across the animal he was trailing for so long. But it wasn't at all what he was expecting.

'A boar? Why is this boar as tall as an elephant???' Julian came across a boar with black fur and two big tusks.

'Well, I don't care. At least it has enough fur to make a whole outfit out of it. And the the meat should also be tasty as fuck!', Julian thought while swiping away his drool.

The boar was about 20 meters further along the path, so he theoretically could slow down time and teleport above it. 

Having that thought, Julian did just that. Slowing down time to decrease the reaction time of the boar and teleporting right above it. He struck down with his weapon, thinking that it would slash right through. But that didn't happen. Instead of slicing the boar apart, the only damage he inflicted, was a little scratch. The boar instantly reacted, but for Julian it moved way to slow. The teleportation ability supplements his time slowing ability perfectly. Before the boar could even attack him, Julian was behind the boar again. The boar was still very fast. If it wasn't for his teleportaiton ability, he would long have been pierced by the boar's tusks.

So this went on and on for many minutes. Julian had to think of a way to kill this boar. He was very calm about it. There wasn't any stress nor was there anything troubling him.

After a while of not being able to think of a way to kill the boar, he suddenly had an idea.

'What if I can't just teleport myself? What if I can teleport something into the boar and destroy it from within?'

Julian grabbed his spear and tried to focus purely on his weapon, being within the boar.

Suddenly Julian started to vomit a bunch of blood and getting a terrible headaches. He wasn't hurt physically but rather mentally.

The boar whined in pain before collapsing on itself. His plan worked and the spear landed within the boar, destroying various organs within the boar and kiling it.

Julian rolled on the ground in pain. His voice muffled by him gritting his teeth.

"GHAAAARGGH", Julian heefed heavily, as the pain started to recide. 'What happened? Why does it hurt so much?'

He needed a few more minutes until he could regain his posture. His cramped expression started to soften slowly.

'I should try to find out, as to why this happened', he thought to himself after being unable to find an answer.

Looking back at the boar he completely forgot about the pain. 'Food! Food and Clothes!'

He hastily ripped out one of the tusks of the boar, using it to cut open the skin on the boar's belly and meat. Then he ripped out the organs until he could grasp his weapon. After pulling it out he put it back on his back. The tusk was, seemingly, way better for cutting things, than the ant's pincer.

Before continuing to take apart the boar, he set up a little campsite. He fell a few trees, which was fairly easy, because of the ant pincer. It was like a machete that could cut through trees. A few trees made a good clothes line to hang up the boars fur and try to rid it of all the blood and water after rinsing it in the nearby river. After washing and hanging up all of the fur, Julian started to dissect the meat of the boar from the bones, muscles and other uneatable substances.

When he cut off the heart, there was a strange, hard feeling to it. It felt as if there was a stone within. So he tried to cut it open and he actually found a stone. It was a green, glowing crystal. 

'It looks just like the one I found in the cave, within the cave.' Julian, not knowing what to do with it, put it in his back. Along with the eyes and the other stone.

After putting the stone away, he dissected the rest of the boar's corpse. Although he wasn't very professional when dissecting, he learned the basics in his biology lessons. He had forgotten most of it when he was in the Void, but he just recalled them instinctively whenever he needed.

After splitting all the meat and other parts of the boar's body, he started a campfire. Cooking each and every piece of meat. After cooking all the meat, he suddenly realized something.

'How should I carry all this food?'

Thinking of a solution, he came up with something.

'Since I can use the power of the void for so many things, shouldn't I be able to store things "within" the Void? It should be possible as long as it isn't alive and is covered by my soul essence? Since my soul seemed to be the only thing within the void, nothing else seemed to be able to "exist" there.'

Without further a do, Julian took some of the food into his hands and just thought of covering the meat with his soul essence, before enveloping the meat with the Void.

The food slowly started to disappear from his sight, before feeling it whenever he tried to recall his connection with the Void. It wasn't annoying at all. In fact, it was as if he had a thought of something in the back of his mind.

After putting all of the meat into the Void, Julian went on to the items in his bag. But when he wanted to put in the eyes, Julian had a strange train of thought.

'What if I...'

Julian lifted his vacant hand into the air. Firmly grabbing his eye. Unexpectedly he pulled out one of his eyes. 

*Phytsh*

Gritting his teeth, he pressed one of the strange eyes into his eyesocket. After doing that he tried, not to repair his body, but to connect his body with the eye.

A few painful minutes later, Julian finally connected with the eye. Opening his eyes, at first there was nothing wrong, so he looked around. When he looked at the spear he made out of the ant's pincer, words suddenly started appearing.

Chapter 2 END