16:Tunnel Digging

Day __?

Zephyr stopped trying to count the days anymore. His sleep schedule had deviated significantly and was no longer as reliable to count the days.

His days consisted of waking up, killing something to eat then digging the tunnel. With telekinesis, with his hands, with his fingernails.

It felt like his life was just digging now. He barely spent any time on cooking and the taste of the food dropped from mediocre to downright bad but Zephyr didn't care.

He had a dream to accomplish!

...

Day __?

Zephyr felt ecstatic! He had come up with an idea so simple and yet so brilliant that he couldn't believe it took him so long to even process it.

He had been digging the tunnel as usual when a Rand worm had attacked him. Easily killing it, Zephyr soon noticed that the soil around where the Rand worm appeared from was much easier to remove.

It was like an Eureka! moment. Rand worms spend most of their lives underground burrowing through creating tunnels. So from then on, he stopped killing as many and instead would capture them and free them with their heads facing in the direction he wanted them to dig.

The worms, panicking. Would instantly flee in a straight line and just from that Zephyr's progress was almost tripled!

Soon, the tunnel was long enough that to get from their camp to the end of the tunnel would take a few minutes by walking.

...

Day __?

Zephyr almost felt like crying.

He had been digging for days now and had only ever encountered dirt and mud but now he was blocked by a massive wall of stone

In hindsight, it should have been obvious that there would be stone underground but Zephyr didn't even seem to think about it.

His telekinesis was too weak to break through it at a speed that Zephyr felt acceptable and the Rand worms as well could do nothing when faced with the wall.

He had tried digging around it, under it, above it. But it had simply reappeared after digging a bit more.

In fact, Zephyr was about 80% sure that this stone wall was several hundreds of kilometers long and tall and stretched out around them. How Zephyr knew? Because he tried to dig a second tunnel going the opposite way that met stone after a few hundred metres.

Such a waste of time, not that Zephyr cared anymore. He had been living in these tunnels he dug. Eating the occasional creature that would wander in and sleeping on the floor. He barely drank anything and his meals were all raw.

He hadn't even seen the group in days. Well actually he didn't know how long. His sleeping schedule was no longer a reliable method to calculate days but he roughly estimated it was about three weeks?

He sighed and sat down cross-legged pulling out the manual Trevin had handed him long ago. It was his only source of entertainment aside from killing Rand worms and digging the tunnel.

And fantasizing about his future dream of course.

He had plenty of time to think about what he wanted to do. His goals so far was make a lot of money, live a comfortable life, become extremely strong, and get a loving wife and a child (who he would likely outlive unless they were also supers).

He had a few other goals like finding his father, owning a planet and a fleet of warships and proving his siblings wrong but those were his main goals so far.

And his progress in those goals? About 0.00000001% maybe? He wasn't making much money even with the CEA rewarding him and now he doubted that they had sent any money to him now that he was likely declared KIA.

Not that it mattered much. Zephyr had a lot of time to think on how to achieve his goals and he had come up with a simple solution.

And that was to start up his own company! It was one of the few things he knew how to do and was extremely rewarding. Making lots of money and very little work. Well actually it's a lot of work but he could just hire a bunch of beautiful secretaries to do it for him!

But he also wanted to advance his strength. After all it gave so many benefits why would anyone not try and progress it? Longer life, stronger physique, basically invulnerable from diseases, have literal city breaking superpowers.

Unless you were some weirdo who didn't want to live, there were literally no downsides to progressing your super path.

Everyone and their mothers would kill to be supers! Zephyr remembered falling for several tutorials on how to become a super as a child and he remembered being extremely envious when his schoolmates became supers.

As he closed the book and started to digest the knowledge he gained. He started to think about his immediate goals instead.

First of all, he wanted to get the hell out of this damn planet! But to do that he would need to get out of the tunnel first.

Gritting his teeth, he stood up and started blasting the stone wall with his telekinesis. Firing the strongest blasts he could manage and when he couldn't do that anymore. He picked up a rock and started digging away. His quantum energy practically ran dry every half hour or so but he didn't care.

Zephyr wished he could use mind or soul energy instead because he still had those in abundance! Trevin's book didn't mention a way to turn off the energy transformation process so even though he wanted it to stay as quantum energy, his body wouldn't listen.

Plus, mental and soul energy were too weak. It was like splashing water at it and made basically no difference.

Crkcrkrkrkrk

As he chipped away at the stone, he heard several clicking noises behind him. Sighing, he turned around and was almost face to face with several Scorants.

He slowly got into a stance but he noticed something odd. These ones were holding weapons and were wearing armour. Zephyr had seen them before but never this close but seeing it now. Their armour and weapons were actually made out of metal and some sort of bone. Tied together with black string of unknown origin.

Crkcrkrkrkrk

As he slowly sent quantum energy through his body to reinforce it, he realised that something was wrong. They were extremely close and held the advantage in the cramped tunnel and yet they weren't attacking. In fact the creature kept clicking the exact same series of clicks.

Crkcrkrkrkrk

Again. He lowered his guard and put his hands up to try and show that he was friendly.

Crkcrkrkrkrk

It clicked the same thing again. Of course! these creatures wouldn't know that him raising his hands would show that he was friendly.

Lowering his hands he got on his knees instead.

Crkcrkrkrkrk

Nope.

He stood back up and instead held out a Rand worm he had been saving for later instead.

Crkrkr crkrkr

A difference response! The scorant who looked to be in charge tilted it's head slightly as it looked at the Rand worm Zephyr held out in his hands.

Zephyr could remember the moment of when they stumbled upon the Scorants farming the Rand worms perfectly. How could he not? It was such a bizzare sight to see dozens of giant ant like creatures carefully feed several hundred tiny worms that could kill humans easily.

Although Zephyr hadn't seen it. He knew that Scorants likely ate Rand worms. Why else would they farm them for? As far as Zephyr knew, Rand worms weren't poisonous and didn't really produce anything useful.

Hmmmmm.

There had been no response from the group so far. They simply stared at him holding it out and clicked at each other as quietly as they could which admittedly was still extremely loud.

scraaaaa....

The work let out a weak screech in Zephyr's hands and hopelessly flailed it's body around, trying to escape from his grasp.

Crkrkr crk

In a blink of an eye, Zephyr felt an intense wind as the worm instantly got decapitated. The leader Scorant chewing through its bones like it was nothing and leaking blood everywhere.

KrkrCrk

One of the Scorants who was behind clicked at him this time. Did it want more perhaps?

Unfortunately. Zephyr was out! He only had that one Rand worm left and unless several more crawled out of the tunnels and into his arms it was h likely he could offer anymore.

Even when he tried to use his senses to find any he couldn't detect a single one anywhere near him! Not that it mattered much, he could really only sense then if they were nearby.

Hmmmm. Actually the group might still have a lot. Problem was that Zephyr didn't know whether or not they were even alive!

After all, the entrance to the tunnel they were in was smack dab in the middle of the groups sleeping area and unless they dug another tunnel...

Did they dig another tunnel?

No. No way right? Zephyr would definitely have noticed if they were. The vibrations and noises would have alerted him the moment they got close. Not to mention the clicking noises they made would have echoed throughout the tunnel.

Zephyr really wished he made the tunnel bigger. It was quite literally the perfect size for these creatures to line up single order and leave barely any space on the sides for Zephyr to run away.

Kr krkrCrk

Uh oh. Time was ticking.

Thinking quickly he grabbed the corpse of the Rand worm and held out the half eaten carcass before pointing at behind them.

Krkrkr

It tilted it's head again. Zephyr sighed internally. Of course something like this wouldn't know what humans pointing means.

'Dammit if only my translator worked for these creatures as well. '

Unlikely, Zephyr never remembered any sentient alien species looking like this so their language was unlikely to be in the translator augments he was forced to get from birth.

Because from his dad, apparently it's a 'worthwhile investment' to be able to talk with aliens. Even though he had the translator augmentations, he used it so infrequently that he often forgot about it.

Wait a minute. What about the mind link?

According to the manual from Trevin. Mind linking was more on showing your intent. Rather then directly translating the words which often lead to errors.

It worked best on sentient, intelligent creatures. Trying it on unintelligent creatures lead to the equivalent of sensory overload for the mind.

However, Zephyr was willing to take the risk. After all, these creatures could communicate with each other and understood his intent to be friendly. If that wasn't a sign of their intelligence then Zephyr didn't know what was.

Furthermore, he could sense an incredibly minute amount of quantum energy on them. Giving them away. Most species that developed the super genes were much more likely to become intelligent.

'No harm in trying then'

Zephyr readied himself and attempted to mind link with the one leading them.