Chapter 9 - An Encounter with Death

Alex completely froze, log behind him, absolutely terrified of the bear creature in front of him. This creature was the embodiment of death for Alex at the moment - for he could neither outrun it, resist it, nor fight it, his only hope was to submit, and hope for indifference. He watched, wide eyed as death turned its head to stare at him with its lazy, unblinking eyes.

'No, no, no turn around. I am not the snack you are looking for.'

'I need to lean out ASAP, apparently I look way too tasty.'

Alex was paralyzed, partly from terror, and partly from indecision. He'd seen this thing move, and there was no chance he'd outrun it, if he ran, his only chance of survival would be if this thing was too lazy to care. If he ran, there was also a good chance whatever instincts this creature had might overpower whatever apparent intelligence it had. Appearing and acting like prey in front of a predator was a bad idea.

Given the choice between betting on the creature's laziness and its instincts, he chose the latter, opting to remain as still as possible, hoping to avoid provoking it. It had to be remembered that he was still holding the vine over his shoulder, and Alex's whole body was on fire, with the adrenaline coursing through his system, he could barely stop himself from shaking.

"Hey, listen, I don't taste good, can't you tell how smelly and gross I am."

Alex quietly muttered. It was true, Alex was positively disgusting at this point, if before he was sweating from carrying the log, he was rapidly approaching Niagara falls territory from the sheer volume of sweat he was putting out. His blood pumping in his ears, he could practically taste the adrenaline.

Unperturbed by his comment, death continued swaggering towards him.

'Return to whatever circle of hell you crawled out of, demonspawn.'

Death slowly approached him, uncaring about his request, and proceeded to take several big sniffs. Alex could smell the musk of the creature, assaulting his nostrils like wet dog and rotting flesh.

'Your mother was a bear and your father was a fucking ferret.'

'You smelly mongrel, I swear if you eat me I'm going to haunt your ass.'

Despite his pleading, the creature leaned closer to him, taking another sniff. It then proceeded to let out a chuff, and began walking away, seeming to decide that Alex was a poor quality dinner.

'Did that demon bear just scoff at me?'

As the bear disappeared into the underbrush, Alex just let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, and collapsed to the ground, dropping the log beside him.

'What just happened?'

Alex sat on the ground and quietly shivered, the prior scenes flashing through his mind. His prior glib comments had been nothing but gallows humour, and as the adrenaline wore off, he was left with a bone deep exhaustion. After taking 10 minutes to collect himself, he stood back up, and took a sniff of himself, concluding he might smell worse than the bear.

'Well might as well continue what I started.'

Alex picked the log back up, wrapping the vines over his shoulder again, and continued his trek back to the village, this time without incident.

He dropped his log in the middle of the clearing, and began staggering over to the river, where he collapsed face first into the shallows, not even bothering to remove his clothes. Alex, being completely exhausted, floated face down for about 30 seconds before he rolled himself over and took a breath.

'I'll bet my mana is restored.'

'Time for more training.'

Alex completed two more cycles of his training - work his water control until he ran out of mana, then focus on water the surrounding river, rinse, repeat.

After he finished practicing Alex returned to one of the houses and devoured his balanced breakfast of smoked dried chicken jerky.

'I really need to try to figure out if anything in that garden is edible.'

'I also need salt badly, not just for flavour, but to keep my electrolytes balanced.'

Leaving the house, Alex couldn't help but notice how energetic he felt. The effects of his investment in endurance and vitality were clearly paying off. Since it was still morning, the air was relatively cool, and the sun was bright, a slight breeze permeated the air.

Having recovered physically from his trek with the log, Alex started planning out his workout routine. Pull-ups were an excellent exercise for building pulling strength in the upper body, and he could rig something up with vines, and add some weights to his waist once he got stronger.

He had quite a few ways to work in upper body strength, he could use logs with handles and press them, and he could continue his routine with the stone.

For his lower body, he could only come up with a few ways of exercising, he could jump, drag things, and do sprints.

Having formulated at least a decent base of exercises, he began with pull ups, as this required virtually zero setup. He'd use a branch, but the ones that could hold his weight were too thick for him to hold properly, so he created modified handles using several weaved vines.

For his lower body training, he decided to tie the log to his waist, and then did springs around the clearing.

He'd then finish off his weight training by tying several vines to a log to create handles, and then pressing the log overhead.

He then went for another run, similar to the night before, where he'd circle the clearing. His run times were rapidly improving as he got more practiced running through the forest, much of it was mental and related to his ability to split his focus, and had nothing to do with his physical fitness.

He took a break to focus on his water control and sensing, before he returned to another round of weight training. With plenty of food stocked up, all Alex had to do today was practice.

As the day continued, Alex noted that his terror from the morning wasn't particularly dwindling. The feeling of helplessness chased him, and he found himself restless, unable to stop training, almost desperately pursuing the need to grow stronger.

As night approached, Alex was greeted with a giant rain cloud, completely blackening the surrounding forest. He completely gave up on physical training - he was completely blind, even with his improved eyesight, between nightfall and the thick clouds, he could barely see his hand in front of his face.

He'd tried waiting inside, but was instead greeted with a growing sense of dread, he couldn't fight the feeling that death was waiting in the forest. Instead he grabbed his spear, and climbed up onto the roof of one of the houses where he sat down and gripped his spear on his knees.

'This fear isn't rational in the slightest.'

'If that demon bear wants me dead, there is nothing I can do to stop it.'

…

'I hate it.'

Surrounded by the endless darkness, Alex did the only thing he could to help alleviate his terror, he began practicing his water senses. Under the absolute deluge of rain, he extended his senses, trying to map out the world around him.

To his shock, he was able to see surprisingly far, making out decent levels of detail of everything in a 5m radius, painting the world in almost black and white within his mind. He could only focus on small areas at a time, but being able to see helped alleviate his shot nerves, even if it was only the illusion of control.

He took some time to practice his mana control as well, creating an orb around himself that would deflect any incoming rain, shielding him from further rain. He continued this until he grew tired, at which point he climbed down from the roof and climbed into bed, collapsing from the exhaustion and immediately falling asleep.

Upon waking up, Alex noted it was still dark out, and he could hear the sounds of the rain. He decided to try to go back to sleep, his mind still incredibly fuzzy, he was having a hard time making sense of what was happening. Then he heard a creaking, as the door to the house opened, letting in the sounds of the rain.

Alex couldn't move, laying in bed absolutely paralyzed, terror coursing through his veins. Then he smelled it, like a wet dog mixed with rotting flesh, he knew this smell - this was death. Hearing the sound of sharp sniffing, Alex found himself unable to turn his head, unable to even face his death. His adrenaline hit a new high and he closed his eyes, resigned to his fate.

Thunder boomed outside, and Alex felt himself jolt out of bed.

'It's not real.'

Next he was hit by a wave of nausea, and he ran outside into the rain, and threw up bile. Alex kneeled on the ground and screamed incoherently into the air, his screams getting lost in the peals of thunder.

'I can't stand this helplessness.'

He grabbed his spear and returned to his perch on the roof, and continued to practice - it was the only thing calming he could do. He practiced until he fell asleep under the rain, collapsed on the roof.

Alex dedicated the next two days to his training, mixing it up between physical training and his sensing, however he still couldn't shake the feeling of impending doom. He couldn't stay asleep for more than 3 hours at a time and was woken up repeatedly in the nights, his adrenal system was out of control.

Before he went to bed on the second night, Alex checked his system interface.

[Honor System]

[Name: Alex]

[Existence Tier: 1]

[Ability: Water Control]

[Ability points: 0]

[Mana: 0/(31->65)]

[Soul Force: 530->1512]

[Strength: 2]

[Endurance: 7->15]

[Dexterity: 0]

[Vitality: 13->25]

[Resilience: 0]

[Cognition: 0]

[Perception: 12->25]

[Available stat points: 0]