8 Chapter 8
He still remembered how difficult it was to survive the first winter. Although his conditions had not improved much since then, he did not feel it was a problem now.
Sam still felt the cold, it just didn't bother him as much as before.
Maybe some kind of radiation has accumulated on his body over the years in wasteland? The pulse did not show any abnormalities, but this did not mean that they were not there. These were his best theories so far.
Whatever happened, he hoped that it would continue. This means he could not lose his pulse and could not move from this point in the wasteland.
And of course he had to go without washing for a long time...
He also felt a certain contradiction from the situation itself.
What would happen if only one person in this world were suddenly given undue power? That means truly enormous and immeasurable power of a Superman, or something even stronger?
Would such a person go around like Batman saving people? Sam was sure - no.
A joker scenario is more likely, but it would probably be much worse than in joker case.
And it doesn't matter whether a person is good or bad. Smart or dumb. Whether his intentions are good or evil. In any case, this will lead to a disaster.
War and struggle are terrible. They leave behind destruction and suffering.
But at the same time, there is an even worse scenario. A world in which there are no wars and no struggle at all.
And all because this means only one thing - the winner has already been determined.
If someone has become so powerful that he is able to suppress any resistance and dissent, then everyone except him has become slaves.
Thus a sad paradox arises. As much as Sam hates all this crap, having a struggle means that not everything is lost yet.
In its own way, war is peace.
He hated the war and what his life had become. But to his own horror understood its inevitability.
Life and struggle are practically synonymous.
However, all these thoughts soon flew out of his head.
What does he care about others? What does he care about the world around him? He'll just stay here in the wasteland and play his new game.
Days and weeks passed.
Sam sat in his small 3 by 3 meter resemblance of a hut and practiced using the water element.
A drop of water with a circumference of two centimeters hung in the air in front of him. Within a few seconds, this drop froze and became a transparent ball of ice.
Then this ice ball began to change shape, turning into a thin ice needle the length of the palm of a hand. The needle was so miniature, not counting its length, that it was almost impossible to notice with the naked eye.
Due to the fact that his abilities were limited, Sam could not manipulate large volumes of the element. Therefore he decided that the only option for using his abilities as a weapon would be such a needle.
But although he could easily make the needle freeze motionless in the air, progress with moving it around was rather slow. Thus, the inconspicuousness of these needles became a priority.
At the very least, he will be able to create some kind of "traps" in the form of deadly needles between himself and the enemy.
It's not much, but Sam hasn't come up with a better option yet.
He took the book and swung the edge of the needle in the air. Although the needle lost stability and moved, but still, given its sharpness and durability, it was able to pierce the book and stuck in it almost completely.
With practice, his abilities grew. The manipulation speed and conversion speed were slowly improved.
In addition, Sam was doing something like cramming this or that process.
For example, initially he had to struggle a lot to transform the drop into a thin needle of the correct shape. But endless practice yielded results and now the process was relatively fast.
He believed that by memorizing the process he could create something like a spell in his mind. Like a memorized verse, it will be enough to simply turn to memory and reproduce the process to get the desired result, this will greatly simplify the task.
What was also pleasing was that water was everywhere, even in the air and in his own body. He didn't need rain or snow to use his abilities.
However, the amount of element he could influence was still too small and progress in this regard was extremely limited. Even if there was a bucket of water in front of him, he could not influence such volumes.
Now he could support a maximum of one such needle. If, for example, he created a new one or even acted on a ready-made piece of natural ice, then the first ice needle would quickly collapse.
The only way to preserve the structure changed by magic is to place it in your own body. It would still collapse overtime but slower.
So he decided to try moving in a slightly different direction and target his own body.
This occurred to him for the simple reason that the cold now had practically no effect on him, as he had already noticed earlier.
Sam stripped almost naked and went out at night sitting in the snow in the middle of the cold wind.
As before, he felt cold, but there was no pain and his body was almost undamaged.
The pulse also did not show alarm and the status was still positive.
Thanks to the pulse, Sam could experiment on his own body, trying to influence himself with magic in various ways and checking the results.
His knowledge was limited in all areas, especially this incomprehensible magic, so it was still risky.
But judging by the rate of his progress with spells he will be able to freeze the enemy directly or launch a storm of needles only in about ten years. It's simply too long. Therefore, he was willing to take risks to a certain extent.
The second reason was that he could use the water element to a certain extent to heal his own wounds.
He was going to try micro-level transformation of his own body or blood transformation. As long as he does not make too big changes in theory, everything can be corrected...
