Anathan exhaled a deep breath, letting his focus ease. His mind was still rushing, thoughts fast but organized.
'It was an Awakened-rank beast... but it was injured.'
He paused, turning his attention inward to assess himself.
'Even after that focus, I don't feel mentally drained.'
His endurance had definitely improved since training under Teacher Julius.
'But really, it's all thanks to Eldy, doing most of the work, keeping my emotions, will, and instincts in focus. It feels like I'm just playing wand, no, no... It's a collective effort.'
His gaze dropped to his mud-caked body. Faint white scratches marked his skin, small wounds from coral, chitin, or bone shrapnel.
A Sleeper's body wasn't so easily damaged by that kind of debris.
'But one clean hit from those claws, and I'd be another smear of red across the coral.'
Still on guard, Anathan moved to inspect the corpse. It lay slumped in the mud, its massive body mangled from the fight. The broken pincer had pierced straight through the left side of its face, ending the battle with brutal finality.
Despite how grotesque it looked, the meat—if cleaned—probably wasn't all that different from the crab mukbangs he used to watch back home.
'Should I do it here or back up?'
Not that he could haul the whole thing with him. Cooking it here was the only realistic option. Besides, he was famished.
'There's plenty of scrap around here. I could turn something useful.'
Ideas began to take shape in his mind—makeshift tools, bags, temporary clothing, maybe even a basic water filter. As for fire, well... there were a dozen ways to start one depending on what was available. Wilderness survival had drilled that into him.
'Just like survival games.'
Then Anathan began to work.
And he worked fast.
In the middle of mud, bone, and broken coral, he pieced together something resembling a campsite. The Carapace Scavenger's shell slabs became windbreaks, propped up with seaweed-tied bones. Coral shards and chitin scraps served as cutting tools. He twisted seaweed into cords, scraped fat from the crab's belly for fuel, and used brittle chitin as kindling. Friction, spark, oil—it didn't have to be perfect. It just had to be possible.
'If I had a basic fire spell, this would've taken seconds...'
But after a short, relentless grind—literally—he caught the first ember. A thin curl of smoke twisted up from the chitin. He leaned in, breath steady, feeding it gently. The ember flared, caught the crab fat, and bloomed into a small, stubborn flame.
No time to admire it. Water came next.
There was no spring, no stream, but the place had been submerged not long ago. The seaweed practically oozed when wrung out. He packed it into a hollow crab pincer and funneled the runoff through a rough filter: fine seaweed mesh, crushed shell dust, and packed mud. It wasn't elegant, but it would remove most of the grit.
The filtered water pooled slowly into another pincer shell.
He took a sip. It tasted bland.
But it was safe.
That left the meat.
Sparkling light formed in his hand, taking shape into a sharp, narrow blade about a meter long. The weapon was simple and elegant: straight, single-edged, ending in an angular tip. Forged from azure steel, its surface shimmered faintly in the firelight. The crossguard was minimalistic, offering little in the way of protection, but it didn't need to.
It was the first memory he had earned.
Memory: [Azure Blade]
Rank: Awakened
Type: Weapon
Description: [On this forgotten shore, only steel remembers.]
Anathan used the blade to carve through the crab's armored underbelly, slicing away ruined tissue to reach the meat inside. He scraped off the cartilage and membrane with the blade's edge, then rinsed the flesh in the filtered water.
A few rinses later, he lifted a chunk to the firelight.
He waited a few minutes as it cooked, a glistening white, firm, and edible cut of meat.
It didn't even smell that bad. Almost sweet beneath the smoke.
He sat back, filthy, naked, but with fire, water, and food.
'Not bad for breakfast.'
After a quick, hearty meal, Anathan, still undisturbed by anything so far, used what remained to clean himself up from the battle. Then he crafted a makeshift cover for his most important possession: his other wand.
'Alright, time to go...' Anathan didn't bother to clean up after himself or put the fire out. He set off in the direction the Carapace Scavenger had come from.
'If it were injured, there should be others nearby. I'll just run back if it gets too dangerous.'
Guessing by the name Scavenger, the creature was likely drawn to corpses, whatever had died in the ocean the night before. He recalled the titanic battle he'd unfortunately witnessed. If there were answers to be found in this place, they'd be out there.
And maybe a shot at earning an armor type memory.
Or at the very least, the resources to craft one.
'Right, I didn't check how much Eldy took from that kill...'
Elder Wand: Dormant
Soul Fragments: 6 / 1000
'Hmm... six. That's good progress. I'll try to kill more if I find them. Of course, prioritizing my safety is of utmost importance.'
'Gods, am I really treating this like a game right now?'
Maybe he was insane for it, but it was these modern Earth habits that helped him anchor himself.
Now off to the bend, he trudged through the muck. Moving through this sludge in reality was nothing like the Wilderness simulations. This was the first time he'd fought on terrain like this, and it made him realize how invaluable that tip from Master Jet had been. Just being around that icy, composed woman made him vulnerable. There was something dangerous about her.
Well, Masters were powerful and rare. Even more so were Saints. And Sovereign Rank? Still considered an impossible feat, according to the texts.
'Maybe I'll be the first,' he thought.
'What spells would I inherit then?'
After walking for several minutes, he hadn't seen anything significant, just the familiar tracks of the Carapace Scavenger he had killed. But when the terrain dropped into a steep decline, Anathan gasped at the sight ahead.
The devastation. The place where the Scavenger might have been injured.
A giant, shark-like creature lay sprawled across the ground, surrounded by shattered coral pillars.
More precisely, half of it lay there, grotesque innards spilling from a massive wound, stretching across and into the distance. The other half was simply gone, as if erased from existence.
Around the corpse, hundreds of smaller monsters scurried and crawled, tearing into the flesh and devouring it chunk by chunk.
More Carapace Scavengers.
From where he stood, Anathan could make sense of what had happened.
'What creature could've killed you? And those numbers... how many Soul Fragments could they all be worth?
Going into the center of the feast would be suicide. Even if he assessed himself as stronger than the average Sleeper, and even with Eldy amplifying his spells using minimal soul essence, allowing him to stay focused longer, there were limits. Eventually, he would run out of power, get overwhelmed, and worse… something bigger could show up.
So Anathan turned around and headed back toward the statue. The giant corpse was still far off, and who knew how long it would take to reach it? The terrain wasn't simple; the layout felt more like a multi-layered labyrinth.
Still, judging by how quickly the scavengers were devouring the corpse, he guessed that in two days they'd be finished, and once they scattered again, he could start hunting them using guerrilla tactics. Picking them off one by one.
Killing them all could net him hundreds of soul fragments.
For now, he just had to get comfortable. Explore the area. Memorize the terrain. Kill stragglers too weak to fight back.
Crab meat had been a luxury in his past life.
Now, he would indulge.
Anathan smiled, already imagining the future possibilities.