TIT Chapter 12: Power Up?

“Hmmm? Didn’t possessing this body prevent me from accessing the pavilion’s abilities…? Or is the pavilion still with me?” As Jie Jun tapped down his own body to discover anything peculiar about it, he failed to discover any new symptoms on his own body. It seemed that things were not as simple as it seemed.

Lying down on the grass patch, Jie Jun tapped on the synthesis option, eager to find out what his new ability could do. Upon opening it up, an option popped up immediately.

1    1.)    Bone Spearhead

Hovering his finger above the option, he sensed something suspicious about this. Realising that this could once again come at the cost of “something” again, he hesitated over whether he should enact the option or not.

With the sun setting once again, Jie Jun knew that he had limited time to himself, and now that Imani had left, it was the best time to experiment with his supposed abilities. Clenching his left fist, he pressed down onto the option, ready to bear the necessary pain he assumed was coming.

Peeking through his closed eyes as he grimaced himself for the pain, he realised that the stash of raw materials he brought over to create his weaponry diminished by a certain amount. A bone spearhead appeared in front of him, without a single form of notice. Touching its sharp edge, Jie Jun realised that the spearhead was exactly the same as the one he made before as he noted down the chips in the spearhead that mimicked his first prototype in the exact same position. This meant that it was not just able to create objects from materials, it even borrowed his own creation beforehand as a “template” of sorts before it recreated the spearhead.

Realising how special this ability was, Jie Jun knew that this ability would bring upon upheavals to his social status and power that he could have within the tribe. With his tribe’s major lack of decent weaponry, his ability to mass-produce items like this would come in handy as it required very little effort for him to do so. To ease any suspicion off anyone else that inspected his equipment, he purposely carved different symbols onto the subsequent spearheads that he “synthesised” so as to establish a certain difference between all of them. After all, his tribe was of a warring tribe with little specialising in equipment manufacturing. For him to be able to create tools of such similarity indicated godly precision that would be very suspicious. Although the Tribal Chief knew he was special, he did not want word to spread as he still wanted to stay in the tribe for a while longer.

Looking up at the path back to the tribe, he knew that this moment would signify a turning point for “Ode’s” status from now on.

                                --

As Jie Jun walked on back, he tried his best to unravel as much of Ode’s memories as he could. After all, the time from when he began possessing Ode’s body was short and he was unable to acquire too much information from it. Surprisingly, although his attempt at gathering information was to no avail, he was able to discover more about the characteristics of his “possession” ability. Somehow, the ability had allowed him to grasp the skills and instincts of the body’s original owner easily. He was able to avoid Imani’s pursuit before at his hiding spot due to the body’s original sharp instincts and flexibility. This would come in handy for any combat that he had to engage in as Jie Jun had no prior experience with such primitive matters. However, he still had to prep himself for combat emotionally and spiritually even with such a handy “body”. He still lacked the cruelty and decisiveness that a proper warrior needed. After all, this was a world where the strong ruled, and the weak obeyed and if he wanted to thrive and live on, he would need to be able to take care of himself.

Juggling with the 5 spearheads he had in his hands, he pondered about his next step…

Without any particular goal or aim, all he wanted to do was survive. With the one-month deadline that the Tribal Chief had set for him, he needed to be able to live on independently, even without the tribe. For now, gathering information and getting accustomed to his own body would be his number one priority. This would ensure that even if he were thrown in the depths of the jungle, he would be resourceful enough to survive on his own.

With such ideas in mind, he walked to his own tent within the tribal grounds. Ode only had an uncle as his relative, as his parents had supposedly passed away on one of the skirmishes that the tribe had with other tribes. Greeting his uncle, he took his seat at the table as they both ate their meals together.

His uncle was a crippled man, left with only one leg. However, that did not undermine his confidence in himself nor did it affect him too much. His uncle lived off mixing herbs for the tribe, so his income was not affected by his disability. Feasting on the meat that the hunting group brought back and preserved a few days ago, he noticed a slight rise in his red bar again. This time, he wasn’t caught off guard. He had already long ago suspected that this red bar of his was similar in terms to “blood energy” and that consuming other’s life energy would be able to replenish this. The only problem was in terms of how he could restock on his other bars in this world. Based on what he knew so far, it was most likely that there were no cultivators in this world so his blue bar might remain stagnant for a while. However, given how he could not use any of his menu options, it didn’t really matter whether he could replenish any of them in the first place. The only reason he was slightly happy with the red bar filling up was because he took it to be a “pseudo-health bar” of sorts. However, he still had many questions as to why his bars were all lowered greatly after the possession.

Entertaining all these thoughts, he continued munching on his food silently. His uncle noted the long silence and proceeded to break the ice.

“How was your day, Ode? Are you coping well ever since the tribulation? Any discomforts?”

“Oh it was fine. I spent it mainly resting and playing around, still feeling a little under the weather since yesterday.”

“Ah, I see. If you need any herbs to replenish your energy then let me know, I’ll see to it that you get some.”

“Thanks Uncle Choco. I should be fine.”

Noticing the new trinkets on his waist, Choco asked, “What’s with the get-up? Trying out crafting?”

As he asked the question, the light in his eyes glistened. He had always hoped that Ode would get into craftmanship so that he could pass down his skills to him. Ever since his brother died, he had always cared for Ode like a son, and wanted him to stay safe as a craftsman rather than go out to die as a warrior. It wasn’t easy to become a craftsman in the tribe as it required one to be either highly skilled or crippled, but that didn’t stop Choco from hoping so.

Jie Jun replied amusingly, “Yeap, I think that I would like to try out weapon crafting. Here are a few of my works Uncle Choco. Could you appraise them for me?”

Being able to get a fellow craftsman to appraise his work would make it clearer as to whether what he worked on was worth anything in the tribe. Tossing a spearhead over, Jie Jun watched Choco’s reaction to his work.

“Hmm, not bad. I can tell this has quite a bit of work put into it. It’s sharper than most spearheads due to the extra hours of work. You could get about half a kilo worth of beast meat with one of these.” Choco murmured as he stared at the spearhead. “How many more do you have? I can trade in these for you tomorrow when I go bartering.”

“Oh, it seems that it’s more valuable than expected? Well, I might as well try and stock up as much as I can and try to replenish the red bar while I can.” Jie Jun thought to himself as he passed the rest of his work to his uncle.

Shocked with the amount, Choco remarked, “It appears you have quite a bit of talent for weapon crafting? To have finished so many in such a short span of time is remarkable. I’ll pass you your meat tomorrow.”

  --

After returning to his room, Jie Jun decided to do some of the exercises that Ode was used to doing before he went to wash up and rest. However, as he did his workout, he noticed that his body was strengthening at a fast pace, way beyond what he knew was possible based on Ode’s memories.

“Strange…? Could it be? I knew it!” Jie Jun noticed that at the corner of his eyes, his red bar was depleting at a sluggish pace, using up whatever it was he gained from eating his dinner before.