8 Chapter 8 : Exploration

James and his comrades proudly stood in front of six wooden cottages with fairly rustic architecture. The cottages were fairly large with rough wooden doors and windows, solid log walls and a small chimney above each roof.

Five of the cottages were lined up while one of the cottages was separated from the others.

"Well, good work all of you, now you'll share the houses amongst yourselves, you can choose your roommate."

"Yes, Chief."

"Haha, we're finally done."

"I can't feel my arms."

While the others were cheerful and beginning to celebrate the completion of the construction, James entered the cottage separate from the others.

Inside the cottage there was no furniture or anything like that, just a small stone fireplace and a few things belonging to James such as blue stones, or the horn of the bull he had knocked out several months before.

James sat down on the floor before starting his mana training.

In the last few months his mana had increased slightly, it was then that James noticed that the amount of mana could increase with training, this was confirmed to him by the increase in mana of his "students" after the daily training.

But the improvement was incomparable with the blue stones, according to his estimates the improvement brought by a blue stone is equal to 4 months of intensive mana training.

James then understood the importance of these stones, if we count what he had given to his companions, he had 23 stones left.

But he decided not to use them for the moment but rather to keep them to train his "students" in mana after the end of construction.

In the meantime, he had improved his mana control to an incredible level, being able to create two mana balls in each hand at the same time.

As his control increased his mana techniques required less and less energy, on top of that the quality of his techniques improved from day to day.

After his training James began to think about his next actions.

"Now that I have decent shelter, a source of water and food, it's time to explore my surroundings a little more."

"I have already roughly mapped the surroundings within a 6 km perimeter, the others are all already able to use the mana ball attack, I don't have to worry about their safety, I can go further out into the forest to scout."

''Suzuki, Alake, Diana and Tang are smart, I have already taught them to hunt with mana, they can take care of the source of the hunt in my absence."

James then decided to leave the next day, called Jean and asked him to prepare provisions for him, then he announced to the others that he would leave to explore the forest tomorrow, which surprised them but they all nodded in understanding.

The night passed, the next morning James took his provisions and said goodbye to others, reminding them not to neglect their training in his absence and then gave each of them two mana stones before leaving his camp.

. . . .

James walked in the forest sometimes stopping to note on his skin map some places before continuing his way, he met several uni-deer who ran away as soon as he approached them which made him laugh.

"That animal is truly the cowardliest animal I've ever seen."

James continued in the direction he had named the north, because in this world, he didn't know if the sun was rising in the east, so he didn't really know in which direction the poles of this planet were, plus there were two moons in the sky. James didn't really know if he could apply his geography or astronomy knowledge to this world.

After several hours of walking, he stopped and rested before continuing on his way, avoiding some aggressive animals from time to time.

He slept at night on the branches of trees to avoid animals such as snakes or poisonous insects, in this world without a doctor, an infection can strike you in the blink of an eye, even the bite of a wild boar can be fatal because of the bacteria in their mouths.

James continued his exploration of the forest for more than three days stopping only to sleep and rest his feet.

But on the fifth day of his exploration, he suddenly stopped and raised his head in the distance.

He then saw smoke rising to the sky about two kilometers to the southwest.

Curious James ran towards the smoke but as he was too slow he used his mana.

"Mana Steps."

Suddenly a blue energy emanated from his feet and James ran at full speed through the forest with a speed three times faster than before.

Crossing the forest at full speed, he quickly came to a large clearing, but what he saw really surprised him, he saw about twenty houses made of wood and thatch burning, while several small man with red hair armed with a copper axe fled from a kind of animal resembling the fusion of a hyena and a salamander, which was spitting fire in all directions.

Seeing this, James could not help but cry out.

"Damn it! This world really doesn't care about the principles of evolution."