Shooting star

"Arghhh, why is it so hard to get this thing right!?"

"It just keeps healing back, DO YOU WANT TO GET CHARCOALED!? GET COOKED ALREADY"

Aster was losing his patience. The smell the flesh gave off didn't help one bit.

'Damn. Who knew meat could be this stubborn?'

He created a blow torch with his finger and carefully hovered it above the thin slices of flesh.

"This time I will definitely cook you, and chew you thoroughly while savoring whatever flavor you might have."

He was bordering between sane and insane now. Completely depleting one's energy without a reliable way to replenish was a foolish way to lose mind.

SIZZLE

SQUELCH

It wriggled and twitched as it was being cooked, it was quite hard to cook it evenly.

Aster squinted his eyes and gave his utmost concentration to the thin slice of flesh on a flat stone.

'As soon as it stops moving…'

'As soon as it stops moving.' He chanted it in his mind.

The flesh was seared on the outside thereby giving it a brown color but it still continued to wriggle.

He continued to fry it.

It eventually turned darker and darker until it became pitch black.

'Tsk, damn it. It became charcoal.'

Without further ado, he picked it up and put it inside his mouth. He was just that hungry.

CRUNCH

CRUNCH

'Better than nothing I guess, next.'

He put another piece of flesh on the hot rock and continued.

***

He could not believe what he was seeing right now.

After four agonizing minutes that seemed like an eternity, he succeeded.

He succeeded in cooking the flesh without charcoaling it.

'Finally. Some fucking food.'

In his unstable state of mind, he did not stop to question why the flesh stopped moving before the others did. It had roughly the same shape and a negligible amount of difference in mass so why?

He picked the juicy, brown meat. It was bite sized but it was making Aster drool uncontrollably.

However, as soon as he touched it, it reverted back to its raw form and attached itself to his hand.

Without thinking anything, his other hand moved and cut it off.

THUMP

[[Fire stream] has been activated]

FWOOSH

The sight of his very own hand disintegrated into ash was reflected in his eyes. Suddenly, he had an epiphany.

'What if I just eat myself?'

'It's not like I would feel pain and it would prob grow back in due time so I should give it a try, right?'

SLASH

[-297 hp]

His right forearm was separated from his body. He picked it up before it could fall down.

He put it on his self made stove and watched it as it sizzled.

'I should cook it very thoroughly. My skin and muscles are super tough now.'

'On that note, I should probably remove the skin. With all that iron skin stuff and all.'

'There. Is it normal to drool over someone's own arm?'

He was fantasizing about the taste of his own arm when he noticed a shooting star.

He tried to put his hands together but found out it was impossible now. 

'Oh, OH! Lemme get off this island please!' Aster sincerely prayed.

That was when the shooting star did a 90 degrees turn and started heading towards him with a monstrous speed.

'Aliens!? Extraterrestrial barbecue?'

CRASH

The comet landed right behind him.

Taking note of the sudden appearance of mana in the air, he twisted his torso and saw what fell down from the heavens.

It looked to be some piece of machinery, preferably a core of some kind as it was glowing blue and pulsing.

Every pulse released mana into the air.

It looked roughed up. There were some pipes connected to it that were broken and oozing yellowish oil.

'This is not an alien for sure.'

Not even a moment later after the first one's descent, another one fell. This time it landed in front of him.

Then another two fell down on his right and left respectively.

The air was surging with mana now.

'What are those things and why did they fall?' Although his curiosity was piqued, he truly and literally didn't have the energy to care for it. He was too absorbed in the process of his arm being cooked.

It was only when the ground shifted that he realized he was in trouble.

There was a reason why the island was void of mana in the first place.

It was because the flesh hidden beneath the surface absorbed all of it.

According to Christopher, the flesh prioritized beings with high concentration of mana or aura.

Now with the sudden surges of it, the flesh was bound to get moving.

His suspicion was proved to be true when he felt the ground shift. His fears were becoming reality when he saw the flesh becoming more and more active. 

The separated pieces twitched and inflated. The area around the machine cores rose as more and more mass of the crimson guard burrowed under it while the inland deflated.

Aster's [Conceal] was leveling up just fine. This was the reason why the flesh didn't actively target him.

But now that he was sitting in the middle of a mana vortex, he got sucked in the mess.

'Fuck.'

He was low on mana due to activating [Full body mana coffin] to accelerate the healing of his gut, low on energy and hp.

He was not in a state to continuously blast fireballs to keep the flesh at bay. He could not destroy the cores as that would release huge amounts of mana at once.

It seems that the flesh goes berserk if the energy concentration increases. The area was rising fast as well

10 meters, 15 meters, 20 meters.

'I'm dumb, I should have used this.'

[Magic aura net]

His aura extended and took the shape of an extremely tight fishnet. It covered the small area containing all 4 of the cores.

[Mana: 2,419/6,010]

[Mana: 4,199/6,010]

[Mana: 7,976/6,010]

So much mana was oozing from the cores, his entire mana storage was filled up with one scoop!

He did not stop though, he was sure he needed the mana. He was about to fight the entire island now.

'My soul is overflowing with mana! It feels like I am in a unusually hot sauna.

Wait, isn't this just like 'that' time?'

7 months ago, Aster had to endure a cosmic storm.

The mana overcharged his soul and illuminated it like a lamp.

Thanks to this, he was able to sense the presence of his soul guide and guide the mana to it.

If his soul gets overcharged now then he might be able to see the new system.

This weird event turned out to be a blessing.

He might be able to see what the fuck went wrong with the system.