For now I walked towards the river, crouched down and took a sip of the river water.
After letting it sit on my tongue for enough time I swalloed it. It's drinkable in the sense that it doesn't carry any weird taste, as for poisons, only time will tell.
And that's when a heat in my body finally registered in my mind.
It seems this is the furnace body skill. I truly started to slowly raise my body temperature. I wonder will my body get hotter, because I can already feel the thirst creep in.
Yet there was a few key lines that were truly important, one that said that I can slightly control heat.
So I tried it and I immediately felt one thing, the mana here is defferent from what I'm used to, guess that's another nerf, so taking aaway my memories wasn't enough, huh?
The other thing is that I can aparently eat anything that can melt.
With that in mind I picked up a pebble, seasoned it with sand and popped it into my mouth. Mmmm, the taste is indescribable, like sand on stone.
Either way I washed it all down and felt the stone reached my stomach, where it sat and I felt as it started to only heat up….
Wait, if I can consume meltable stuff, doesn't that mean that I can drink magma?
As I thought of that, I noticed that my stomach started to raise its temperature. The interesting part is that it all felt natural to me, comfortable I might even say, yet my thirst only increased.
So I started to drink as wapor left my body, I even went as far as dipping into the river.
I felt my stomach heat up double, slowly oncroaching triple that of the temprature of my body's outside.
Then another sensation crept in, hunger. I left the river and swallowed anything edible. Berries, tree bark, whatever bugs I could find, but then the heat came in, so I went back to the river.
This cycle continued till evening, when it finally subsided and a notification popped open
[+3 end, +1 str, +1 agi, +4 vit]
…
Wut?
So I didn't suffer for nothing?
I looked around as I saw the barren waistland that my hunger left, trees without barks, dry patches of land from where I ate the grass, bloodstains from whatever animals I could find and catch.
I still remember, I was so hungry back then that I didn't care about butchering the poor animals, I ate everything, fur, organs, bones, meat, everything…
But I guess its fine, my insides must've been so hot that it would've cooked everything anyways.
I only worry about the fact that I also ate the digestion system…
Due to the hunger I didn't even register what I was eating, especially taste. But I guess its fine, the heat should've burned everything away–
*insert vomit sounds*
I vomited out, I won't raise a red flag again, a promise-
…
I did it again, didn't I?
Still, I looked at the vomit, it was mostly made up of burnt stuff, I spotted bones in there, patches of skin…
I won't describe the rest, you can guess where this is going based on my prior statements.
…
After vomiting everything out, whatever bad sensatinions remained dissapeared alongisde the waste in the vomit, I even felt lighter.
So I headed into the forest, time to find a sleeping spot and some food…I'm thirsty.
*next day*
I found a tree I could climb, I slept in there, then fell out, so I climbed again.
…
Remember how there exists characters in stories that sleep on tree branches? It's a scam, don't try it.
First you need to find a tree that has a branch wide and strong enough to hold up my weight, or part of it, then I must have the capabilities to climb it, then I have to get used to sleeping on uncomfortable surfaces…
Ignore the last part, I used moss as a pillow, but there is dirt in my hair now.
Anyways I climbed down the tree, then found some edible plants and had my breakfast, poisonous berries with 3 bugs and a worm.
…When hungry enough, anything is tasty and this 'furnace body' sure helps in raising my need for calories.
My next step was finding a more suitable place to live, since I find living in a tree risky, since there is very minimal protection there unless I build a house, for which I have both no tools nor materials.
So I started to wander.
Along the way whatever animal sounds I heard, I tried to imitate them best, since they are a language too.
Maybe if I learn an animal language properly I could get a companion....
Then the other thing I did was constantly eat. At some point the hunger subsided, but I made also discovered one thing, my resistance to poison is amazing.
The sheer fact that I can eat poisonous stuff expands my range of food options, which is always helpful.
I wandered as I tried to find other people, but I couldn't, I even went as far as imbuing my vocal chords with mana and shouting, yet I received no reply.
I was alone, again. But I was alone for so long that I got used to it, this is my normal in a sense.
As thoughts swirled in my mind alongside the effort to resist the urge to swallow another pebble, I kept on searching for something to act as a shelter.
On the way I collected useful stuff, mostly a very good stick.
I also found flint, so what I did was break off the flint into two, luckily it split into two pieces with a clear edge, which I used to grab a rabbit, killed it, then skinned it for a bag.
Since I'm walking along the river, I could comfortably use it to wash the skin, then removed the fur, then I wanted it do dry up a bit, so that I could start using it as a sort of pouch faster and I'm reluctant to use a soaking wet pouch.
I couldn't do any of that fancy stuff, like properly tanning the leather, but I work with what I have… So I hunted a bunch of animals, mostly small rodents, a few rabbits and a few birds, gathered edible plants, fruit and berries and swallowed a bigger pebble
This time I properly removed the digestive track…
And once again the same happened
My body heated up, since this time isn't the first, I took some time to pay attention on how I look thanks to the surface of the water.
My skin was turning red and as I breathed out, wisps of fire left my body…
Damn I'm hot
..
But that doesn't excuse my thirst and hunger, which I did my best to satisfy.
My initial hoard of food disappeared and thus what I feared happened again. I consumed multiple digestive tracks…
Hunger be damned I don't like vomiting.
This time I woke up in the morning, vomited again, stood up, picked up the now drier leather piece, which I used as a pouch, only thing left is to make rope.
I think I'll use bark, though grass is not out of the question, I'll first see how much trouble I'll get when using bark.
Using my nails, bit by bit I harvested the bast from a young tree that resembled a willow…
…
[A bit of time later]
So…
I accidentally broke a nail, but didn't even register it as I automatically switched to another, only noticing once the sun had began to set.
Maybe I should make rope from grass…
No, what I started I must finish, so I did, then using another finger's nail to separate the fiberous inner bark into thin strands and set them on the ground to dry as I, in the middle of the night, went hunting.
The thing is that despite no longer having the skill, I can still manipulate mana fairly well. I mean it's not even a tenth of a percent of what I could do before my memories were taken away, but still more than enough to execute my current task.
Imbuing mana into my eyes so I could see it
The thing with imbuing mana into body parts is there are a few conditions:
First, the body must be conditioned enough to withstand the incoming mana.
Second, the mana must be controlled precisely enough to not explode the insides of where the mana is being sent. Remember, mana is a very free and volatile energy if not properly controlled.
But there is one big BUT, if one condition is overfulfilled enough, the requirements of the other condition are equally lowered.
Which is my current condition, my mana control is sufficient enough to send it through the mana pathways in my eyes to not make them pop.