Once it was the start of the 6th day Zhao Wei had already begun his descent. Panda had curled up in his back pack even from the night before as if it was afraid Zhao Wei would leave without it. Zhao Wei"s supplies were much bigger than usual.Usually, he"d have some ropes, two spears, a few stacks of jerky, a flash of water and the pole on his back. This time he"d brought a full set of spears in his back pack which was filled at 8, a whole other pack for the jerky, at least 30 meters of rope, 2 flasks of water and a large bundle rolled up on top of his backpack. For some reason he also brought a few beast hides with him as well as a bundle of sticks with him.
Walking for 26 of the day hours, Zhao Wei arrived at a point he predicted the Clay Eaters would reach in about a week or so. It wasn"t that he was fast so much as the Clay Eaters were slow, they required their area as it served both as ammunition and hunting ground. If it couldn"t produce more clay, it would eat up the clay it had spread around to reuse. So to move forward they needed to continuously spew their clay towards the direction they were going, which means they needed to both reuse their old clay and eat new beasts to sustain their production. This was the only thing keeping them from directly reaching the white ape village.
Zhao Wei needed to work fast, to plan his route, traps and tactics to deal with this beasts as well as a contingency if the hunter came. With everything he had little over a week left, so today he first checked about a kilometer in all directions to make sure he wasn"t in any of the beast"s hunting routes. Then he established the areas around him such as water sources and set some traps up in a 100 meter radius around his sleeping area.
Releasing the large bundle, he revealed it to be a large sleeping bag, it wasn"t that it contained a lot of s.p.a.ce really but Zhao Wei had st.i.tched a few layers of beast hide on top of a sleep bag his friends had left, making it a lot bulkier. Additionally, he"d woven a net like structure with ropes going through the back of the sleeping bag, one part of the rope exited right under where the feet was while the other exited just below where the head cover was.
He found two trees of good distance and climb up the tree until he was about 500 meters up before tying one end of the ropes to either tree with the bag hanging in the middle, almost like a hammock with the woven net supporting his weight. This way he could lay down in relative safety from most of the land beasts that came around these parts.
He wasn"t as frightened as flying beasts as they generally lived near rock protrusions as most of them didn"t fly so much as they glided. The change had been most unkind to this specific type as their hollow bones couldn"t support their increased muscle ma.s.s. If they tried to flap it continuously, their bones would snap from the exertion, so they just glided around rock protrusions where the wind moved upwards.
There were however ones which retained their ability of flight, with all other increases their bone strength increased proportionately. Their flaps didn"t just lift them off the ground, but could simultaneously generate sharp gales of wind which jetted towards their opponents. But these few flew high above the canopy of the forest, and even higher above the mountains.
All his other items were left at the bottom save for his jaw-sword which he brought up with him as he slept. Tying a rope about 4 meters around the tree and onto his feet, he used his one hand to hold on to the tree itself while his other hand held onto Panda who seemed to enjoy the ride up pretty well. To the top it was tapping it"s back leg like rabbits did while they were excited, except this one bunny had super powerful back legs which hurt the hand she was positioned on.
Zhao Wei got p.i.s.sed at her in a split decision threw her up. Her light body flew up wards with a "CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii....."
As he climbed up a few steps the sound came back again but this time in reverse volume, "....iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII"
Just as it sound reached it"s peak Zhao Wei reached out his hand and caught her by the ears. Panda"s scream was caught in her throat in a cute "Yip!"
Zhao Wei"s heart beat out of his chest, he may be tough and a wild man who hunted beasts regularly. But he was a sucker for the cute and cuddly. He almost wanted to throw her up again just to see that reaction again. Panda seeing his eyes, could feel his intent and gave him a death glare as if warning him, don"t you dare.
Once they reached they entered the sleeping bag. Zhao Wei entered the main bedding area and zipped himself in. Panda slept on top of Zhao Wei"s chest, her head poking out from the head cover next to Zhao Wei"s. Somehow during their time on the hill, Panda had gotten used to sleeping with Zhao Wei.
Before she used to retain a layer of fat to last the night. As she trained with Zhao Wei her energy was almost always depleted which reduced this fat as well. She became much faster, but the cold did affect her more. At some point both Zhao Wei and Panda would snuggle together to keep warm.
As they were laying in a sleeping bag, both could only look up towards the sky where the leaves of the trees broke apart. The black sky was speckled with stars.
A few minutes pa.s.s as they laid there.
"You asleep yet Panda?", he checked.
"Chi", she replied.
"You know the world where I came from, the world before this one, it might"ve been a lot more different if everybody looked up at the stars more."
She shifted her head up to look at Zhao Wei, questioning what he just said.
"If we had looked up to the stars, we"d probably understand how truly insignificant whatever it was we were striving for."
"Whether it was our success, sense of fulfillment or accomplishments, it was almost inconsequential to the grand scale of things."
"We"d worked so hard that even in the night we put up lights so we didn"t need to sleep, and while doing so we blew up gases and dust into the air."
"By then even when we wanted to see the stars, we were already blinded by our own works." He sighed.
"If we looked up and understood how we were like dust to all the greater creations in the universe, maybe we"d cherish our moments with everyone else instead of striving for an ultimately futile endeavor."
"Chiii"
Staring down, Zhao Wei saw that Panda had already nodded off by herself.
"If we saw the stars maybe we wouldn"t be so lost" he said before he finally closed his eyes to rest. A thousand stars above his head and in his mind.