Chapter 10 – Fire
The morning after the hunt began differently.
Luna was still sleeping coiled near the entrance when he got up and dragged one of the boars closer to the light coming through the crack. He knelt beside the body and, for the first time, did not think only of meat. He thought like someone who came from another world.
He opened the animal with his claws, carefully. He separated skin, muscle, organs. When he reached near the spine, he felt the concentration of mana increase. There, protected by a dense membrane, was the core. Small, opaque, weakly pulsing with residual light.
He removed the core and held it in the palm of his hand.
The greatest amount of mana in the entire body was concentrated in that sphere.
'It's just like I thought… the source is here.'
In the following days he repeated the process with every prey. Boars, a distorted deer, even a smaller dark-furred creature. All of them followed the same pattern: the mana accumulated absurdly in the core. The larger and stronger the beast, the denser and brighter the core.
He remembered the reasoning he had done in the Mana Pool. If monsters were born with ready-made cores, and if human mages needed to build their own… then the logic was to imitate nature. Compress. Condense. Create a center.
The conclusion left him quiet for a long time.
Meanwhile, his efficiency as a hunter soared.
He no longer needed Luna to find or bring down ordinary prey. Smell, night vision, agility and strength combined with human intellect turned every outing into a clean execution. He returned alone carrying two or three animals. Luna merely watched from the shadows, her intention mixing approval and a hint of pride.
It was during this time that the tools appeared.
He chose river stones, tested hardness, and began to flake them. Days of attempts until he managed useful edges. With them he started removing the skins of the beasts cleanly, separating meat and fat with a precision that claws alone could not achieve. The skins were stretched and left drying near the cave entrance.
Fire took longer.
He had tried before, without success. Now, with the patience of someone who came from a world that had mastered fire for millennia, he gathered dry wood, fine moss and suitable stones. Hours of friction. His hands ached. Several times the smoke disappeared.
Until the spark caught.
The small flame grew. He fed it carefully, heart beating hard. When the fire was stable, he skewered a piece of boar meat and placed it over the flames.
The smell rose.
Fat dripped and sizzled. The meat changed color.
He waited the right amount of time, removed the skewer and bit into it.
The hot taste, the juice running down his chin, the heat sliding down his throat… it was almost violent. Years of eating everything raw. Years without feeling that primitive comfort. He laughed quietly to himself, forehead resting on his knee, while he chewed.
Luna approached, curious. Her intention was clear: what is this?
He offered her a piece. She sniffed, hesitated, then accepted. The blue eyes narrowed in surprise at the temperature and the different flavor.
That night, after they ate roasted meat together for the first time, the lust came calmer, almost lazy. Luna coiled around him and swallowed his cock with the same dedication as always, but without the desperate urgency of the first days. He came deep in her throat, hand on the blue horns, and she drank it as if it were dessert.
Afterwards they remained in silence, the fire still crackling at the cave entrance.
He looked at the embers and thought of the core he had kept.
The logic was clear.
Now it remained only to put it into practice.