Before descending to the ground, Milo chose the tallest tree within twenty meters and named it ‘Backletree’. Then, he Skimmed for Backletree. It lit up.

Perfect. Now he would be able to find this spot again. That would be very important if he wanted to come back and enter the Descent. If nobles really had locked down all the other entrances, this was a priceless resource.

He returned to the ground, making sure to note the position of the sun in relation to the direction he wanted to go. It turned out it would be directly at his back since he was heading west, which was handy. That meant he would be able to walk away from the sun in the morning and toward it in the latter half of the day. Easy navigation.

Milo had decided he would explore in the direction of the fog bank. Besides the fact that the fog could be hiding a town for all he knew, he figured there was a good chance of finding lots of water that direction. Water would further increase his chances of finding civilization, which he would need before long; his Soylent was running low.

He considered spending a few mana at the start of his journey to fly so as to not leave any tracks that led directly to the dig site. He quickly realized that that would be pointless, however, given the fact that he’d already explored this direction and left a blindingly obvious trail of marked trees for several miles.

Milo abruptly remembered that Backlebutt still had his hammer and experienced a spike of irritation.

Whatever, I have better weapons. Still.

Milo decided he would spend two mana to get further away faster in case someone was coming to find him right now, then save up his mana for when he reached the end of his trail of marked trees. At that point, he could spend a bunch of it to fly for minutes at a time and create a large gap in the trail he left behind, just in case that mattered.

He fervently hoped it didn’t; if someone was coming to investigate and they found the dig site, they were more likely than not to fill it in, sealing away his chance at growing significantly stronger.

Although my cap is already 14, which I guess is pretty unusual. Hm. The Descent wasn’t necessary, per se, but those permanent boosts for clearing a level were irreplaceable. He wanted them if at all possible.

Milo found the first tree with an ‘x’ on it, momentarily surprised to see it was much fainter than he remembered making it. Then he recalled that it had been more than a year since he’d made it.

Maybe people won’t notice it?

He wasn’t counting on it. His only real hope was that nobody ever came this way.

He spent forty seconds flying at breakneck speeds, weaving in and out of the towering trees while riding his book and using his binder to help him balance. After that, teary-eyed and perilously low on mana, he touched down and settled into a walk. A brisk walk. He was anxious to put as much distance between himself and the incriminating Descent entrance as possible.

In what felt like a much too brief amount of time, he came to the small river that he’d crossed previously with the aid of the fallen log. He was tempted to find a good spot to take a bath and wash his grimy clothes—especially the wool blanket wrapped around his book, which was still caked with undead alligator brains, dingo blood, and boss baby saliva—but he needed to keep moving. He stopped only to get a drink and top up his water before proceeding. He nearly filled up the bottle with the cassowary feathers, having forgotten he’d stuffed them in there.

Wonder if those would have come in handy with the boss? Probably not.

Still, he chided himself for once again neglecting to take stock of all his resources. He’d specifically made a rule for himself about that! And yet, his poisoned feathers had waited outside of the boss room, forgotten and out of reach. And what were his other rules? One was to never start a fight without mostly full mana. He was sure there’d been others.

I really need to pick up that Improved Memory skill.

Milo pushed himself hard, much harder than he had the first time he’d made this trek. His body was weaker as a result of the potion that had healed him, sure, but he also wasn’t marking trees or recovering from a grievous injury. Any time his path took him downhill, he broke into a jog aided by the pull of gravity, then settled back into a quick walking pace when it leveled out again. He was determined to make as much progress as possible.

Even so, he was surprised when he made it to the end of the trail he’d made previously, thinking at first that he simply couldn’t find the next marked tree. After continuing on in search of the next tree after that, however, he realized that he’d already surpassed the furthest point he’d explored in the past. From his mana regeneration, he knew that it had been only a little over an hour since he’d started out. He remembered it taking at least twice that long last time.

Time to fly again.

He was sitting at 14 mana. He arbitrarily decided he would spend ten of it flying. That was three minutes and twenty seconds at a pace somewhat faster than a sprint, which should put something like a mile between his most recent set of footprints and his next. Probably more. Before continuing west, however, he chose to spend half a minute going north, which meant that anyone following in a straight line in hopes of picking up his trail again was going to have a hard time. Hopefully.

Milo picked up some scratches on his arms and face while flying, moving too fast through the woods to avoid every little branch in his path. He flew a few feet off the ground, sort of between the ferns and what tended to be the lowest branches of the enormous trees. Forests were messy, though. Sometimes there were denser patches. Occasionally there would be smaller trees, or bigger bushes, and then things got tricky. It was incredibly thrilling, however, so much so that he wore a big grin and occasionally let out a ‘whoop’ of excitement. He saw and heard quite a few forest critters scurrying away, startled, as he went zipping past. A couple minutes in he had to stop for five full seconds, coughing and hacking, when something—probably a bug—flew straight into the back of his throat. He kept his mouth shut after that.

The fun had to end eventually, however. After that, he only used Fetch Book when the terrain grew exceptionally bothersome, which was rare. He let his mana pool build back up, occasionally spending a point on Power Nap—Just One More Chapter—since he had the mana to spare. It was a nice pick-me-up whenever he felt his energy dip, refreshing both his body and mind.

Can I keep going indefinitely if I use Power Nap enough? The skill description says it rejuvenates both my mind and body. Seems like I should be able to. Doesn’t that make it almost like a heal, a little bit? A really, really crappy heal?

It was an interesting thought. He might even be able to use it to get into shape faster. Probably the biggest reason getting fit took so long was that the body required a rest day between workouts to build up the muscle fibers you trained. What if he could fast-forward through rest periods, though? Would the skill let him do that?

I guess it would depend on how much of the recovery happens during sleep versus the rest of the time. I’m positive the brain gets extra recovery during sleep, but I don’t know if the body benefits from the sleep so much as the not moving. What if I actually hurt my progress by never giving my body time to relax?

He would just have to test it out if he ever got back into training his body again. Although, who knew if that would even happen? It was unlikely he’d stumble on an Anytime Fitness anywhere in Altabar. There were certainly plenty of ways to train away from a gym, but Milo had found that going to a gym made it significantly easier to progressively overload—keep gradually adding weight—and to track and measure progress. Besides that, he had the System now, which could grant him strength magically with the right investment in skills and attributes.

He did enjoy being fit for its own sake, though. And having a kind-of six pack was nice.

Milo’s motivation to work out got a boost when he stopped at the next stream he found, feeling it was probably safe to take a break and finally get clean. After stripping out of all of his clothing, he was not pleased by what he saw when he looked down. He’d never really been powerfully built in his upper body, so losing his abs and some of the muscle in his arms wasn’t nearly the blow that finally seeing his much-scrawnier legs was. Without his fleshier thighs, his knees looked weird and knobby compared to what he was accustomed to.

That’s it. As soon as I have access to more food, I’m back on the fitness wagon again.

Milo cleaned himself quickly in the shallow, swift-moving stream. The water was frigid, and his teeth were chattering by the time he was finished. He cleaned the befouled wool blanket while he let his body air-dry, along with the rope that he used to keep the blanket bound to his textbook.

When he’d cleaned it as well as he could, he strung the blanket up on the rope in between two trees before dressing in his single spare set of clothes, then washed all of the clothes he’d been wearing. He hung them on the line with the blanket, lamenting the lack of wind in the forest. One by one he took each piece off and wrung them out again, trying to speed things up as much as possible.

He was going to be here a while. He drank some Soylent, then decided to thumb through his textbook to check out the extent of the damage.

It was bad, but could have been worse. There was less moisture damage than Milo had feared, but the baby had still done a number on it. Several enormous teeth had gone most of the way through from both sides, destroying a lot of text.

Not much I can do about it.

He tried to rest after that, but he’d been using Power Nap enough that he just wasn’t into it. Instead, he re-wrapped his book in its bands, minus the one that had broken when the baby had bitten it, and then flew up above the trees to have a look around.

It turned out that he was very close to the edge of the thick fog. If he hadn’t stopped, he’d probably have reached it already. There was nothing else of note.

He returned to the ground, thinking of what else he could do with his time, when he remembered something that made him perk up.

Coins!

They needed cleaning, too. He could finally get a little bit more of a feel for how well he was doing in the world. He was excited to eventually find people, but they’d definitely be a lot more excited to see him if he could pay them for stuff.

He was very careful with the coins, mindful of his experience with the mana stone; it wouldn’t do to get so excited about cleaning them that he lost them in the stream.

Milo scrubbed at them for quite a while; the grime was caked on hard, and he didn’t exactly have a Brillo pad. He eventually figured out that he could get some sand from the stream and sandwich it between two coins, then rub them around. Between that and scraping with his fingernails, he was eventually able to determine that he had eleven coppery-looking coins, five silver, and one that he was fairly certain was gold, rather than an extra-shiny copper; it was still dirty enough that it was hard to tell, and he was sick of scrubbing.

He tucked the money away, satisfied with his haul, then looked at his laundry reproachfully.

Knowing it wasn’t time yet, he went and checked them. Damp. Not terribly so, but definitely still damp.

Screw it.

He put two of the shirts on, figuring he could walk them dry, then tied the extra shirt and pair of pants to his backpack. The blanket, he simply re-wrapped around the book.

The book survived when the blanket was soaked in much worse than water, it’ll be fine.

Milo set off once more, feeling clean and refreshed, but also like he was now late to wherever he was going. This was despite the fact that nobody was waiting for him and his only deadline was several days after he ran out of food.

He walked until he hit the fog, at which point he continued to walk until he smelled a familiar smell and, not long after that, heard a familiar sound.

Ocean.