Light trickled through the gaps in the cabin roof, thin rays of sun barely managing to stretch across the floor below. Morning mist swallowed most of it, leaving the small space dim and slow to wake.
It was already midday.
All around, the forest had long since stirred—birds calling, branches shifting, small creatures rustling through undergrowth. But one resident remained stubbornly dormant, groaning like something dragged unwilling from deep hibernation.
Arion cracked one eye open from beneath the sheets, groaned again, and immediately buried his face back into the warmth.
"Nnghh—"
By his rough guess, it had been two days since he'd left the cabin, though a nagging suspicion told him it had been longer.
He'd taken the long route home, giving the forests-from-hell a very wide berth this time. The world, of course, had no intention of making things easy.
He'd still run into his fair share of trouble—new creatures he'd rather not have met up close, plus the usual wilderness gauntlet of uneven ground, sudden drops, and weather that changed its mind every hour. Now he was finally claiming the long, uninterrupted lie-in he'd earned.
Until a two-headed tweeter decided otherwise.
One of its narrow beaks pried the closed shutters apart just enough to slip inside. It fluttered and hopped across the floor once, twice, then plopped itself proudly onto the footboard at the end of the bed.
TWEET~ TWEET~
…
TWEET~ TWEET~
A hand emerged from the sheets, palm open.
TWEET~ TWE—
The sound cut off mid-note. A spinning staff snapped into Arion's grip with a satisfying thwack. The bird vanished in a puff of displaced feathers.
His head finally emerged, hair even wilder and messier than usual, eyes still heavy with sleep. He glanced at the empty spot where the intruder had been, then swept his gaze across the room until it settled on the slightly ajar shutters.
"Hahh—Aahhhh… smck, smck."
He yawned wide, smacking his lips while staring blankly into the middle distance.
"Why can't a man just sleep in peace?"
Would've been perfect without those sleep-paralysis demons dropping by for a visit in the middle of the night.
He sighed, long and reluctant, then forced himself upright. The bed groaned in protest as he swung his legs over the side.
Standing brought on the numbing aches of muscles healing. Most of the sharp pain had faded overnight, leaving only dull soreness and a faint throb in the places that had taken the worst hits. He rolled his shoulders once, feeling bruised flesh pulse with the memory of his most recent venture.
He was wearing just his robe, nothing underneath but undergarments. Bare feet met the rough wooden floorboards, cool against his skin.
At the front entrance sat his latest invention: a pair of crude flip-flops.
The base was cut from a bamboo-like wood he'd found growing wild—the same stuff that had survived the plasma aftermath of one of his earlier uses of Plasma Coil. That accidental heat treatment had given it surprising elastic strength.
He'd bound the footbed with tough plant fibres and a strip of soft fur for grip. The straps were woven from reed-like stalks, threaded through holes and bonded together with a sticky sap he'd collected and melted from the same wood.
Simple. Effective. Comfortable enough.
He slid his feet into them, flexed his toes once to test the give, then reached for his leaf cup and the newest addition to his morning routine: a toothbrush. A carefully whittled piece of soft wood with short, stiff bristles harvested from a local tree, all secured in place with more of the heated sap.
That makes me wonder if this world even has dental hygiene… or if the concept of hygiene even exists here.
His eyes narrowed in brief thought.
Unless everyone here is just naturally hygienic… and if there's no need for it, then there's no reason for it to exist.
Now officially ready for the morn—afternoon, he unravelled the plank rope ladder, climbed down, and headed for the riverbank."
Lounging on a flat stone with his legs stretched out, Arion brushed his teeth while enjoying the far less mind-bending sight of the uphill-flowing river. The current moved steadily upward against gravity, smooth and glassy under the midday light.
Now that I think about it, whoever this guy is… was—had quite nice white teeth. Hell, even with my diet of fish and monster chicken, these bad boys have stayed completely white and fresh every morning.
I wonder if it's similar to the Autophagic Vitalis Regeneration hypothesis. Regular autophagy… but for your teeth. Vitalis helps the body produce superpowered saliva, eats the plaque before it even forms, spits out fresh enamel minerals, and keeps the microbiome perfectly balanced...
What a ridiculous life hack.
But as he worked the bristles across his teeth, at this point out of habit, he caught faint movement in the river's centre—something large sliding against the flow instead of with it.
"Sheems liuke wee hase a vishiter…" he muttered around the brush, foam gathering at the corners of his mouth.
"Huh…"
Resonant Scanner.
Vitalis surged in dense circulation, magnetising the surrounding Luminary Essence until it clung to his skin like static. He held the build-up for a heartbeat, then snapped the tension outward.
An invisible wave rolled from him in a single, clean pulse—like the single thump of a second. The emission travelled outward, wrapping around every shape in range before recoiling back toward him.
It struck something solid in the river. The returning ping flowed straight into his mind, carrying a blurred lattice of form and motion: large, sinuous, reptilian, moving deliberately against the current.
The image was noisy—muddied by the water's density—but clear enough.
Water seems to always scatter the signal more than air; denser medium, heavier interference... Still better than blindness, that's for sure.
Arion's eyes flicked exactly to the spot the echo had come from. Another visual sense had opened in his head—less sensitive than true sight, a downgrade from a bat's echolocation, but valuable all the same.
He shrugged, circulated Vitalis down his leg and into his foot, then stomped once on the riverbank.
The impact sent a ripple of command through the Luminary Essence, heat parted instantly in front of him like a wave splitting around a rock.
The river erupted. A Marsh Drake broke through in a violent spray, scales flashing dark green and gold.
Yet, frost answered faster.
Waves froze mid-motion, turning to jagged ice that rained down onto the grass in sharp clatters.
The creature hung suspended for a heartbeat—an iceberg with jaws stretched wide and rows of serrated teeth glinting—before bobbing gently against the bank.
"Too bad, buddy," Arion said, nudging the frozen mass with his foot. It floated away obediently, carried back upstream by the current.
Faint gurgles of protest came from inside the ice as it bounced along.
Arion watched it drift while he continued brushing his teeth.
A smaller, scaly lizard-thing perched on a nearby rock, clearly a spectator to the short, one-sided encounter.
It stared at him.
Arion's eyes darted to it, then back to the floating ice cube.
He popped the brush out of his mouth.
"What?" he asked, genuinely offended. "He tried me first. I know we all gotta eat, but I'm just not on the menu today."
The creature blinked once, then skittered away into the undergrowth.
These locals… rude, I tell ya.
Finished, he swilled some water from his leaf cup, spat it neatly into the river, then turned back toward the cabin, already muttering to himself about water-interference readings and possible frequency adjustments.
Behind him, the river glittered with the scattered ice crystals he'd left in his wake.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Arion pulled the wooden chair out from under the desk and sat.
On the plate in front of him lay a simple meal: boiled and fried fish, sliced into neat chunks, the flesh still steaming faintly. Beside it sat a small pile of plump, dark berries. He knew a balanced diet mattered, so he'd spent weeks watching the local birds gorge on them without any obvious ill effects. His body seemed to digest them fine—a risky self-experimental test that, thankfully, had not ended in catastrophic results.
While he ate his very late breakfast, he summoned the Grimoire from its shard. Instead of opening the book physically, he sent his imprint straight into the crystal, activating the internal shard codex.
Fulfilling his empty stomach's demands, he also entertained his eager mind.
Once the plate was clean, he placed the Grimoire on the desk and flipped it open to where he'd left off.
The first page still held his very first entry: Signature Imprint—written the moment he'd claimed the book as his own.
Three weeks of events, fights, experiments, and narrow escapes filled his head now. He placed his hand just below the previous entry, hovering over the empty space.
The quill never appeared unless the knowledge was worthy. The Grimoire was picky like that. The only way to summon it was to mimic the act of writing—to let intent shape the page.
He moved his hand in slow, deliberate strokes.
The book pulsed once—a soft, approving thrum.
The page pulsed with Essence. The quill materialised between his fingers, warm and familiar.
Text began to glow as it formed, pure light etching itself onto the paper…
'It's been about three weeks now…'
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Resonant Scanner
Acoustics
Description:
Dense circulation of Vitalis magnetised the surrounding Luminary Essence, clinging tight to the skin before release.
A snap discharged the pulse—an invisible wave rolling outward like a single heartbeat, wrapping around every shape in range before recoiling back.
Each returning ping translated through Vitalis into a visual imprint: a blurred lattice of form and motion, alive for a breath before fading.
On Earth, sonar relied on reflected sound waves and bulky mechanical receivers.
Here, Luminary resonance fused directly with the returning echo, letting the wave speak back through Essence contact. Water distorted the image, of course—denser medium, heavier noise, but even a muddy reading beat total blindness.
Science:
Vitalis modulation converted pressure differentials into harmonic feedback. Luminary coupling sustained the resonance and transferred data through Essence bonds, allowing shape recognition by frequency coherence rather than raw amplitude.
In Layman Terms:
I built sonar that talks.
The waves hum. The Essence answers. My head does the rest.
Maxim:
"Sound finds truth, even in silence."