Chapter 11: 11: Life at the temple.

Dreaming and venting was good sometimes, but forgetting in the middle of what kind of forest I stood was not as good. Not to mention that I started to be really thirsty...

It was better to let the future me deal with future problems.

Kneeling and washing my hands first, I made them into a cup and drank some water. While doing that I couldn't help but wonder if I could not do something similar with a piece of wood. To use it as an improvised bowl. 

I did not have to search for long either. Just a few meters downstream was seated a tree with fruits similar to coconut. Albeit a little softer and with a sticky green fluid in the middle. But it was good enough. After a thorough wash, it was usable. 

I stored several in my ring while making sure that the water would not spill no matter how I was shaking the ring. Another good piece of information. 

The wound that I received last night was another mystery. I was no doctor but even I could tell that something was not right there. As shallow as it was, the wound was still healing way too fast. 

I did not pay much attention to the wound since the bleeding already stopped at the moment I arrived at the temple, but cleaning the dry blood around it made me curious. I did not even know when it stopped hurting. 

Was it a trait of my new body and consequently one of my new race? Or was it because of the fast leveling? The status, especially the vitality one was a possibility as well. Maybe the biggest one. Or a combination of all of them. 

I did not know so I left the problem for the future me to find an answer to it. 

After that, I looked around for some big and soft leaves from which to make a makeshift bed. Outside of that, I collected everything that seemed edible while doing so.

*rustle*  *crack*

’Hmm!? What was that?’

I turned around and looked in the direction from where the sound was heard. I had to give the credit to my new ears and senses even though, sometimes, these new additions were quite bothersome to have. 

’Fuck... a wolf... Were there more of them around?’

Luckily, there didn't seem to be more. Just that one. The creature seemed surprised that I was able to sense it. It was gazing at me with predatory glowing eyes. 

And I was sure as heck that normal wolves did not have glowing eyes. At least not the ones I was acquitted with.

*grrrr*

I was also painfully aware that I could not escape it. The thing was probably way faster than me but at least, I wanted to see what odds I had if I were to fight it.  

’Appraisal’

To say that I was just a bit surprised was an understatement. I did not know why I could see his statuses but at the moment there was no time for such concerns. 

Just in raw numbers, my only obvious advantage was the spirit status which was useless since I couldn't use any magic. Outside of that, taking into consideration the power status, the wolf was supposed to be much stronger than me.

But that was fine. As long as the difference was not overwhelmingly painful, the situation was still to my advantage. I did not want to make it a contest of raw power anyway; I had weapons.

The spear range could keep the wolf at a safe distance but I did not take it out yet. 

As several seconds of appraising each other passed in silence, the wolf finally broke the silence and started to approach at a walking pace. It was still cautious and that hinted that he was most probably alone. 

*grrrowll*

’Shit... It's still scary as hell...’

Taking some steps back at a slower pace than the wolf was approaching, the distance between us shortened. When the distance was lower than three meters the wolf jumped at me but that was a mistake on his part. 

There was a reason I did not take my weapon out earlier. That would have taken from me the element of surprise.

The moment the wolf prepared to jump at me, I steadied myself and prepared to take out the spear. 

*Aowww*

A painful howl escaped from the wolf’s mouth. My spear ripped through his back giving him a nasty wound and forcing me to take several steps back. I would have preferred to stab his belly but the real wolves did not jump at you with leaps of meters in the air like in movies. There was a height difference and I was the taller one there. 

From there on, the rest should have been an easy victory, but the difference in power did not agree with mine. The spear was shaken out of my hands while I was forced to step back. I could not just pin it down as I did with the goblin. 

Even so, there was little the wolf could do with such a wound on his back. He probably would die even if escaped but that would have been a waste on my part. 

I had no intention to let it escape neither wanted I to play fair. Maintaining the distance, I took out another spear and stabbed with it again. 

*Aowww*

The wolf made another pained howl and tried in his desperation to run but that was another mistake. I still had two more spears and after throwing the next one at him, the wolf’s life was ended. 

[*Ding: You have killed level 12 Silver Wolf!]

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”...”

’That... was way easier than I would have thought... A beast is still a beast in the end, huh... With the right tactic and the right weapon at least...’

But the situation would have been very different if there were two or more of them. I still had to be very careful in the future. 

I took back the spears and cleaned the blood in the river and successfully stored the wolf body in the ring as well. At least, that was the case with the dead ones.

Quite creepy if you were to think about the possibility of people randomly walking on the street with dead bodies stored in rings. Creepy but very nonetheless useful for me at the moment. 

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.

.

The way back to the temple was almost as uneventful as the way to the river. I had to take a little detour as to not cross paths with a group of goblins. 

After leveling that much and with proper weapons I was positive that I could take one or two with ease but no more. It wasn't good to get careless and be killed in such a stupid way. 

Back to the temple, I took out the leaves and improvised a decent enough bed. Much better than sleeping on the rocky floor.

The wolf corpse needed to be taken out of the ring and to be drained of its blood. I was still unsure about the idea of eating wolf meat but eating unknown fruits and such was equally dangerous. Maybe even more dangerous. Meat was just... meat.

After that, I started to search for branches and wood pieces in the temple’s courtyard. There were quite a few dead and weathered trees scattered around. It was not hard finding dry wood in a forest. 

To make a fire, on the other hand, was not as simple as that. It took me an entire hour while I tried every possible method I had learned from survival in the wilderness tutorials and videos I saw in the past. I did not pray for a match so badly in my whole life. 

As a side note, the Holy Tree did not answer my prayers...

To actually dismantle the wolf or to be more accurate, to crush with stones and rip pieces of meat from it had taken even more time. Also made me feel like a savage. 

At the time I successfully roasted/burned some of it and started to eat,  the night was almost there so the rest of the roasted meat was stored in the ring as well as the rest of the wolf body.  

That had been a long day and I needed some rest so I dragged my tired body in the improvised bed to rest.

The night went quite peacefully. A lot more howls and growls as the red moon appeared but overall, I had my first good rest from the moment I woke up in that cursed land. 

I did not forget to maintain the fire either. The howls that woken me from time to time helped me to do so at least. The fire would be useful for me to better explore the underground chamber.

In the morning, I took out some meat to eat and checked if the equipment— a.k.a. my spears —sustained any damage.

” All good for now. ”

Descending back in the hidden room, I took my time to search and found another three missed books and more money scattered on the floor. 

With the previous three pieces of silver, I had a total of 23 pieces of bronze coins, 14 pieces of silver coins, and 2 pieces of gold coins. After the discovery of the first gold one, the real search had started. From the left to the right, even the bookshelves were moved for a better inspection. 

Seven innocent torches were sacrificed on that day without a shred of mercy. The book research was also delayed but that was not important.

’This... this is gold... We are speaking about real gold here... Real fuking gold, I say!’

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After the gold-digging expedition from the first day, the next one had ended without much fanfare.

I took a quick stroll outside of the temple to collect more comfortable leaves for my bed and to gather more dry wood for the fire. Outside of that, I started to read some of the books. 

It seemed to me that the majority of the books treated some sort of enchanting art and skills regarding it. Some sort of profession but more magical oriented. 

Some of them were about alchemy and to a lesser extent about blacksmithing. For enchanting and alchemy, the higher your spirit status was, the better. That was even more so for enchanting in particular. For blacksmith wasn't as important but there was a minimal requirement too.

After that, I pushed myself to read until nightfall. It would not hurt to learn how to enchant my own weapons and equipment. 

That would help me with the magic part as well. It seemed that I had to learn some basic skills regarding basic mana manipulation to even start to learn enchanting. Luckily, some of the methods and explanations were written in the books.

” Hehe he... fireballs and cool magic stuff, wait for me! ”

Though, before that, it was better to learn the free ancient enchanting skills. Free stuff was free stuff after all.

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