ART Of Survival - Chapter 17

After Mal left the place, a shadow emerged from the forest. It was looking at the dead mouse with contempt in its eyes, the contempt was not for the mouse but for Mal.

“I should fight something less powerful than that mouse,” Mal was walking towards the deeper part of the forest while thinking about his fight with the ‘hog mouse’ before.

“I remember reading about a sloth monster that resided in this forest, that should be a comparatively easy target for me.” Mal was contemplating going deeper inside the forest and a few meters away from him, a small figure was sitting on top of a branch, it had pointy long ears and there were bat’s wings on his back. If Mal would have seen him, then he would have been shocked as this small figure was the same boy that was in Gan’s group.

“Where is our Lambchop?” Gan questioned.

“He is currently moving towards the sabertooth tiger’s cave.” The small boy answered Gan with fear in his eyes. This boy looked the same as the person who was following Mal, he too had pointy ears and wings on his back.

“Keep doing good work like this and I will let you brothers free.” Gan laughed as he walked away from the boy. These 2 twin brothers had mutant bat abilities, their main power was that they were able to see and hear what the other twin was seeing or hearing through electromagnetic and supersonic waves, and Gan was using them to keep an eye on Mal.

Not knowing da way, [Auth:- ;)] Mal was moving aimlessly and coincidently, he was going towards the cave of this jungle’s king the sabertooth tiger.[Auth:- I like to torture my MC :)] “I should have bought a Map of the forest…” Mal sighed as looked towards the front and saw a cave, excited to find a place similar to his house, Mal’s eyes lit up, and started running towards the cave.

“This idiot!” The boy that was following him shook his head and ran away from the place, he had seen Mal entering the tiger’s den and he was 100% sure that after entering, Mal would not be able to escape because according to the rumors, the sabertooth tiger was as strong as a level 10 human that meant that even Gan was not strong enough to fight the tiger let alone Mal.

Very cautiously, Mal entered the cave and started looking around hoping to find something valuable. The first thing Mal noticed was that the cave huge as he was not able to see the end of the cave with his naked eye and also that hot wind was flowing inside the cave.

“What am I doing here? I was supposed to fight monsters.” Mal was not able to make a decision. Being lost in his own thoughts, Mal felt the ground tremble which made Mal come back to reality. “WTF was that?!!” Mal held his breath as he felt a bad premonition, “Run!” without wasting any more time, Mal tied his bag tightly to himself and ran towards the exit.

*Roaaaaarrrr!!!!!* An earth-shattering roar was heard from inside the cave, which made Mal’s soul tremble, but he didn’t stop, even while tumbling and falling he didn’t stop as he finally saw the exit, even after seeing the exit, Mal was not happy at all as he knew that the beast inside the cave was coming out of the cave and after hearing the roar, Mal was sure that it was very very powerful.

While running, Mal felt something was above him, Mal moved his head up to see a 10 meters tall tiger-like beast running towards the exit, it crossed Mal and quickly disappeared into the woods. This was the first time, Mal had truly felt helpless, looking at the beast, the first thing that came into his mind was that even 10 of him wouldn’t be enough to fit between the beast’s teeth.

The scene of the beast kept running inside Mal’s brain as he remembered what the man 1 and a half years ago had said, “If you do not become strong enough, then you would be transported to the hell planet X2 which is hell even for us high humans.” The man was probably stronger than the tiger he had seen before, which meant Mal was so weak right now that he after reaching there could die of anything, even a falling leaf was dangerous for him there.

Mal was sure that at planet X2, even the ants were much stronger than Mal. “I have to think of a way to activate my unique skill somehow, at least that way I would know that how weak or strong my ability is and then I would be 100% sure about the direction I have to walk to survive.” This time Mal was not thinking about becoming the strongest, but he was thinking about becoming strong enough to at least survive and protect himself.

After the beast left the cave, Mal figured that this was the home to the beast and that meant that now, there was no one inside the cave except Mal. “I have to take this risk,” Mal clenched his fists and decided to look inside the cave to find some valuable things to use or sell. Because at this point in time, More wealth meant more strength for Mal.

After hesitating for a second, Mal clenched his butt cheeks and started walking inside the cave. [Auth:- IDK why I wrote butt cheeks…help I am sleep deprived.]

“…”

“…”

“Fuck! How long is this cave?!!” Mal has been walking for 20 minutes now and he still wasn’t able to find the tiger’s resting spot.

“I will walk for 10 minutes more and if even then I am not able to find anything then I will go back into the forest.” Mal decided to walk a bit more just to be sure.

After walking for 7 whole minutes, a source of light finally came into Mal’s view. “Finally…” Mal sighed as he curiously looked at the source of light, and what he saw was a huge chunk of marble-like thing lying on the ground which was emitting bright blue silverish light.

Captivated by the beautiful thing in front of him, Mal walked straight to the marble, and after coming up-close, he felt that the marble not only was emitting light but was also emitting a peculiar sound which was making Mal relaxed, It was so soothing that Mal felt that even the pain from earlier when he fought with the mouse was gone and was replaced by a cool sensation.

“What a miraculous piece of marble!” Mal sighed. ‘This should be the place where the beast rests, *Sigh* what a luxurious bed.’ This could be a perfect thing to bring along while fighting the monsters as not only it calms the mind but also heals the body somewhat!

With greed in his eyes, he took out his spear and thrusted it towards the marble hoping to break a small piece out of it, but to his surprise, not only the spear failed to break the marble but instead, a small crack appeared on the tip of the spear.

“Mothafucka how hard is this thing? Mal was shocked speechless after seeing the highest tier ether weapon being damaged by a piece of marble. The ether weapon in his hand was strong enough to cut through tungsten like a knife cutting through tofu, but in front of this marble, it was like a cheap rusted knife.

“My money…!!” Mal’s heart was bleeding looking at the cracked spear tip. “I have no choice but to go back and bring a stronger weapon, I can also ask Natalia about this marble.” Mal shook his head and started heading out of the cave.

“Wait! I don’t have a weapon to protect myself!” Mal stopped as he after thinking for a minute, took out the katana his predecessors had left. “I hope that is sharp enough to protect myself. Mal opened his bag and pulled out the hilt and the blade of the katana. He had separated them so that they could fit inside his bag.

He attached the hilt back to the sword and pulled out the scabbard from the blade. “Whoaaa!!!” Mal was stunned at the beauty of the sword. The blade of the sword under the light of the marble was giving off a multicolored hue.

Mal swung the blade at a rock nearby to check the sharpness of the blade. Mal had used his full force in the blow as he was sure that the katana would not be strong and sharp enough to cut through the rock but, to his surprise, the knife sliced through the rock without any resistance it was as if Mal was moving it in the air and not at the rock.

“Ouch!” Mal screamed in pain as he fell down after losing his balance.

“Why is this so sharp?” Mal was started as he looked at the mirror-like clean cut on the rock. “Are normal earthly weapons supposed to be this sharp?” After digesting what just happened in his mind, Mal moved back towards the marble and posed to hit the marble. “If this breaks then, I hope my ancestors will forgive me.” Mal closed his eyes and slashed down towards the marble.

“…”

“Why is there no sound? Did I miss?” Mal opened his eyes to check and got stuck in the same position.

“?” What he saw was a cleanly cut piece of marble lying on the ground.

“Huh?” “Huuuuuhhh???!!!!!”

-End Of Chapter-