Chapter 4 The Lake

The next day Xiao Chen woke up and immediately headed out of his cave. He was hungry, and realised he was lacking one vital thing, a water source. With this in mind the young man started his excursion for the day.

"Now that I think about it, I wonder how I look." Xiao Chen muttered to himself before patting his hair. He could definitely tell he'd grown larger, and that his hair had changed in someway or another but he was wondering if his face had changed at all.

"I guess I'll find out when I find a lake." He then continued on his exploration through the Darkmist Forest. The place he'd call his home for some time.

After a few hours of searching, Xiao Chen finally stumbled upon a lake. Immediately he rushed forward and peered into the lake, his reflection peering back at him. Stumbling back he was shocked by his new appearance.

His hair had turned from a dark brown to a blood red, his eyes a light brown to a solid black. Not to mention his face, he was quite average looking in the past with a face you wouldn't really distinguish in a crowd. But now his face was quite a bit more handsome, albeit quite fierce looking.

In all honesty if Xiao Chen hadn't been expecting the change, he'd have thought an ominous demon was staring back at him. 'I better be careful when I interact with other people, they might just think I am out to kill them.' Xiao Chen sighed before moving towards the lake and drinking the water.

He was quite dirty and briefly considered washing in the lake before deciding against it. It was a relatively small lake, and he rather not risk making the water undrinkable. After having his fill, Xiao Chen mentally noted down the location of the lake before moving a distance away.

Once he was about 30 meters away, he hid behind a tree calming his breath as much as possible. His search for a lake was twofold, firstly it was to obtain a water source for himself, secondly where there was a water source there'd typically be animals.

For what reason he couldn't understand it seemed as though he couldn't find any animals, or they intentionally avoided him, because of this he was forced to use this tactic. While it wouldn't be a long term solution it would at least net him one or two meals. That was Xiao Chen's hope at least.

So he waited, and waited, and a few hours later a herd of deer appeared. They were blood red in colour, their antlers a pure white and looked to be abnormally sharp. 'Can I fight three of them at once?' Xiao Chen thought to himself, sizing up the deer.

His fight with the wolf had definitely emboldened him, but he was still hesitant to fight multiple opponents at once. 'Then again, the wolf couldn't even injure me...and they do look quite tasty...' The young man fantasized about eating the deer, before coming to a decision.

It was time to eat some deer meat!

Slowly moving from his original hiding spot, Xiao Chen moved as nimbly as he could with his hulking body, making it just about 10 meters away from the deer before they turned to him. Xiao Chen was no animal whisperer but he could tell the deer were looking at him in fear.

But he didn't have much time to think about this anyway. Unlike his first battle with the wolf, Xiao Chen took matters into his own hands lunging towards the deer his fist hurtling out towards the biggest of the three.

Immediately the deer attempted to jump away, with the smaller two successfully escaping. Unfortunately for the bigger one Xiao Chen's fist successfully collided with its skull, shooting the deer into the lake.

'So much for keeping it clean.' The two remaining charged towards Xiao Chen from opposite sides, their antlers merely a meter from him. Instantly Xiao Chen performed a vertical jump, causing the two to charge into one another, their antlers tangled together. On the other hand, having put too much force in his jump, Xiao Chen was still 5 meters in the air before plummeting towards the two deer.

"BOOM!"

The deer had been directly under Xiao Chen, which meant that when he landed it wasn't a very pretty sight. Their antlers were scattered everywhere, their heads barely avoiding the blow, but Xiao Chen wasn't one to draw out a fight, swiftly stomping on both of their heads.

"What a mess....." He muttered before doing his best to clear up the battlefield. First he retrieved the biggest deer which was floating in the lake, its blood dying a portion of the lake red. Save for the massive dent in its skull it was mostly intact.

Xiao Chen then hefted the two antlerless deer on his back, dragging the other with him as he made his way towards his cave. This had been quite the fruitful hunt in Xiao Chen's eyes, not only had he obtained some food, but with these antlers he might be able to create some tools.

"I definitely need a knife, and then maybe I can design some form of clothing.....running around naked is a bit....inconvenient." He muttered looking downward for a moment. Having his member flap around in the middle of a fight, wasn't the most, comfortable of experiences to say the least.

Arriving at his cave, Xiao Chen dumped the bodies of the deer before pulling off the two intact antlers. The DIY craftsman then began snapping off pieces of the antler as best he could trying to get one in the form of a knife.

After many failed attempts he finally acquired a piece he was satisfied with. He then proceeded to use some of the wolf's pelt he had lying around and it wrapped it round half of the makeshift knife, although that was probably unnecessary.

"Finally a knife, now I can skin these deer properly." Xiao Chen declared, his eyes drifting off to the corpse of the wolf. It wouldn't be wrong to say he had completely butchered that wolf, and not properly in any sense.