Don't Brute Force It

After that event with the lizard time continued to flow, day by day, week to week, until eventually months passed and a year had gone by. Within that year though many changes ended up happening to him. The first and probably the biggest change was that he had went all the way from the beginning of the Awakened stage and now was almost at the next stage, also known as the Fabrication stage. the Fabrications stage for the most parts biggest change came with the ability to bend and shape the Astral Energy that left your body into things but, other then that and the increase in power nothing else changed and, although he wasn't quite there yet and needed a little more time he still gained a huge increase from where he was before.

While the days were passing he continuously went to the Myriad Locked Forest everything without end and overall killed thousands of Awakened Stage beasts and hundreds of Awakening ones but, He left anything above that alone. Whenever he punched a tree now with all his strength while releasing his energy with it, he could now go almost 2 meters deep and while he was running around, moving and all other things like that he could get nearly 1.5 meters deep now.

With all the fighting he had been doing he was constantly getting better and better and improved more and more though he was still quite a ways from perfect, still he was nowhere near where he was at the start, a complete and utter novice. If you were talking about refinement and grace in his movements though it wasn't quite there seeing as how he had self learnt everything so his combat style was more rough and instinctive for now. Unless someone taught him or he found something that could guide him it would be stuck like this unfortunately and that meant that he'd never quite reach perfection in a technique stand point because at the moment he was just raw power with little refinement barreling down anything that got in his way.

Another change he hadn't noticed yet though was he hadn't started to or shown any signs of awakening his ability yet.The only thing he knew about abilities though was that they were along the lines of being based off your elemental affinity and based slightly on characteristics of your personality and while every single person in the world whether they walked down the Astral Path or not could have one, even so it didn't mean everyone did whether because of dying of old age and never unlocking it in the time frame they had or because they ended up dying early and never getting a chance to try.

Though for most people they would start noticing signs around the third stage also known as the Transformation Stage where you would finally figure out your affinity and a whole bunch of other things but, that didn't mean you couldn't unlock it beforehand or afterwards depending on how lucky you were.

"With that being said though it looks like I'll have to wait eh?"

Saying that he slightly brought his hand down to the ground and petted the lizard head that was slightly close to him like always. When he started petting her she slightly rubbed her head back at his hand as if fawning on him to continue while a slight hiss left her mouth.

That was the second biggest change he had over the year.

After their encounter after that week a long while ago they had slowly grown closer and closer ever since.

At first he would always go into the forest and wait for her to show up until bringing her along with him to hunt. As that continued he grew more comfortable around her and she grew more comfortable around him. Eventually she started to bring herself around him whenever he would show up to the forest. The first time it happened it absolutely stunned him. He had never been close to anyone anything before so for him it came as a big shock but afterwards when he calmed down a little, he realized that this was something he wanted in the future so he'd have to get adjusted to it eventually and rather then pull back from other people it was better to do trial and error with her seeing as she wasn't human or human like but, more like a pet to him.

He was also rather surprised that she became as clingy as she was especially after the start of their relationship where she would run away whenever he did something to hasty. But they had been together for months at that point so it wasn't too surprising seeing as how he always tried to interact with her as much as possible to get them closer. In fact he didn't even figure out whether it was a he or she until recently when the question finally popped into his head for the first time and asked it.

The reaction she had when he first asked the question though was priceless. When he asked her the first thing she did was freeze solid for a couple of minutes while being still as a statue until eventually she broke out of it and started fidgeting all around him and squirming away from his side.. Afterwards all she did was stare at him like a lost dog that was denied food while starving. When he saw that he couldn't help but break out into laughter, because that was the first time he had ever seen that kind of expression. After a few minutes though he eventually calmed down and got through the situation somehow.

"Ahaha"

Remembering that moment brought a slight laugh out of him and when she heard him laughing she curiously looked at him but he didn't say anything and just waved it off as nothing. Though needless to say after that whole fiasco she eventually revealed her gender but was still a little more standoffish with him and even a little sad like the rest of the day.

When that happened though he truly had no idea how to handle that kind of situation of just ended up awkwardly stumbling along trying his best to forcefully push past it. Unfortunately brute forcing your way through everything doesn't always work in interacting with others whether human or animal and he learned that the harder way.

"I know I'm not 100% to blame but I still need to get better at stuff like that though that seems a lot harder than fighting honestly..."

Maybe it was because she was a lizard and they couldn't communicate properly or it happened because he was awful at that situation especially with him never being in that kind of scenario before but either way he would have to get better at interacting with others eventually.

Though if he were to know her thoughts he might not be so hard on himself because on that day she didn't know how to react either with that situation so in the end it just turned out to be two people awkwardly stumbling along in the darkness.

The whole time he was remembering what happened that day she was staying by his side after he stopped petting her and kept staring at him while he was lost in thought. Generally she had come to notice more and more what mood he was in with how close they had gotten and the two faces she started to enjoy seeing were his gentle face or his contemplating face and more often than not she saw his thinking face. Though that couldn't be helped because the other was a rare sight and through the whole year she had spent with him she'd only seen it three different times and it would only last a couple seconds so even if it did happen more often she wouldn't always catch it not that it did though.

"Though I'd like to have a proper conversation with him one day."

She wasn't exactly dissatisfied with the state she was in at the moment but she wanted something more she just didn't know exactly what or how to do it. Shaking his head to get rid of his lingering thoughts he continued his way out of the forest while she continued watching him like always.