Infinite Evolution: Return of the Talentless Mage-Chapter 30 - 0. An Accomplice

The sun’s rays hit him like a plasma gun to the face, and his eyes fluttered open. For the first time in hours, Ralph felt warm, extremely warm. To the point he was dripping with sweat.

He had somehow successfully survived the night despite the enraging cold that swept across the forest, sinking deep into everything around, both living and non-living.

Coupled with his drenched clothes, he felt tired, extremely tired that his vision had become blurry. He covered his eyes with his palms, protecting them from the sun’s rays.

With another try, he opened his eyes again with the intention of seeing his environment clearly this time around. Opening them the second time, everything around him became clearer and sharper.

Before him sat the wolf cub, wagging its tail with its tongue out. It sat not too far from him, eyes locked on his movements with a smile.

"What?!" He skidded backwards out of fear at first glance. Easing the tension on his nerves with a hand placed on his chest, he glanced back at it with a clearer mind.

He glanced at his body, checking his legs and arms for any bite marks or scratches, but his body was just as he left it before sleeping.

He noticed from the way it wagged its tail. It had become agile overnight. Some hours ago, it was weak and couldn’t even move properly, but now it was active like it was never in a situation like that.

"What happened to you? How did you heal up so fast?!" He moved closer, rubbing his hands through its fur out of inner happiness.

He was somehow happy that the beast survived the night, even though they were predator and prey. "Good boy, you deserved a treat"

The wolf cub barked in reaction, jumping and running around like it was trying to direct him somewhere. He stood up and followed it, moving toward the riverbank.

At the bank of the river, he saw fish, not one or two but a whole bunch. Enough to make him breakfast and lunch if he had a way to preserve them.

’Did it hunt all this by itself?! That’s quite a number of fish for a young cub to hunt alone. How did it manage? Did it get help from someone or something?’ His mind spiralled, surprised by what he saw.

"Did you catch these by yourself??" He bent low, patting the cub on the head. ’This cub can really help me on this journey. If it actually caught all this by itself, then I must praise its skilful nature’

’It could be of help along the way, gathering food while I prepare camp and fire to cook it. Division of labour between a human and a wild animal, what am I thinking!’ He chuckled to himself internally.

The cub snuggled in his hand, wagging its tail with happiness from the head pats.

’Normally I wouldn’t do this, but you deserve it.’ He took the cub in his arms and tickled it with a smile appearing on his face.

"You practically just saved me from the stress of hunting for food this morning, you little animal!" he fell to the ground, giggling along with the cub.

After playing with it for a while, he picked up the fishes and took them back to where he camped. The only problem was how he would generate fire, unlike the night before he had energy.

But this morning, his energy had surprisingly depleted, despite eating food before sleeping. He was expected to have gained a reasonable amount of energy from the food he ate because he was practically eating a two-in-one meal.

’I wonder what happened, was it because of the cold? Could it have been the cause of the massive depletion in energy? I feel so tired, I’m not sure I can start up a fire.’

He sat close to the remaining embers of wood from the fire last night, rummaging through his thoughts for a possible solution. The cub circled around him in anticipation, probably waiting for him to roast another meat for it to eat.

"Sorry bud, but I won’t be able to cook this, I have no way to generate heat energy in this place. My stupid self forgot to carry a matchstick with me, or I wouldn’t have been stressing this much for a flame each time."

His stomach growled softly, reminding him of his empty stomach. The cub heard the grumble and sat close to him with its head tilted one side, to the left, then to the right with a disturbed expression.

Trying to give it another head pat, he noticed something strange around its chest region. It was glowing brighter than the other parts of its body, despite the morning sunlight illuminating the whole forest.

"Huh...that’s odd." He murmured to himself, moving his hands towards its chest region. Out of curiosity, he noticed it was hot.

"Ouch!!" He yelled, pulling his hand away immediately. His palms got burnt from the heat around its chest region. For some reason, it was burning hot.

No steam or smoke was escaping its body, but it was hot around its chest region. ’How is it doing that?!’ he questioned himself, holding the injured palm upright and blowing gently on it.

He stared closer and hovered his hands just above it and noticed it wasn’t a product of his imagination but an actual reality. Heat escaped its chest region, but there were no signs except the constant glow.

"Only if I could figure a way to utilise this heat and turn it into a firepod, that would be awesome. But there’s nothing on my mind right now."

He stared at the cub with all intelligence, trying to figure out a way to use the heat energy escaping the body of the cub to fix his current problem, but nothing came to mind. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

He sighed deeply with an empty mind, ’There’s nothing I can think of currently....maybe I need a different approach.’

The cub moved closer to him, barking loudly with intensity. At that moment, an idea struck him, and he bent low to pick up a stick from the floor.

"Let’s see if this works..."