Ashwin awoke just as the sun was setting, he came to slowly, yawning and wiping the sleep out of his eyes.
He had slept the day away.
He stood up and stretched, yawning lazily again.
“That was a nice sleep, and I feel…stronger.”
Ashwin closed his eyes and looked into his Dantian with his inner sight.
Before him was a small pond of spiritual energy, but it had grown slightly.
Ashwin was thrilled, even this small level of growth was impressive for a humble cultivator of his status.
But what could have been the cause?
He opened his eyes and looked over at the fruit pods of the purple baobab tree that saved his life.
“They added to my cultivation because they possess spiritual power or animus.
And they can only have that if the baobab tree possesses spiritual knowledge.”
Ashwin understood the basic working idea behind animus.
Animus was spiritual energy taken in from the spiritual planes or ether through the act of breathing, but it was also something else.
It was knowledge.
And knowledge itself was nothing more than a living things amount of accumulated experience or exp.
Ashwin had just gained exp from the baobab tree.
But it wasn’t just that, he felt sharper, clearer minded, focused.
He walked back over to the route he had taken up the tree and looked down.
His rod was still where he left it.
He could tap his animus and leap down, or he could take things the slow way.
Ashwin was now apprehensive about using animus if it alerted powerful giga creatures like the Death Gigas to his presence.
Ashwin decided that he would only use animus in a life-or-death situation.
But Ashwin wondered if the same was true for touching his mental energy.
He tested it by touching his mental energy and performing an area sweep, a simple technique taught to him by his clan.
He detected a few small animus signatures.
The signatures did not flee, and no new larger signatures appeared in response to his probing.
With his fears eased, Ashwin made his way down the Baobab tree using the same hand and foot holds he had used to ascend and when he was four meters from the ground he jumped down.
Ashwin picked up the translucent antennae and headed to the fossilized bank.
Once there he picked a location by what looked like a shattered kneecap for a bit of cover and began to collect stones.
First, he was going to get his campfire on and then he would attempt to see if the Mantis Beasts antennae would make for a viable fishing rod.
Ashwin Assembled a stone circle, afterwards he walked along the sandy bone fossil bed looking for flint.
“I didn’t bother to take the stones with me from earlier, not that I could have carried them anyway.”
“But rocks like, flint, granite and obsidian are plentiful enough out here in Death
Valley.”
Ashwin searched the fossilized bank for flint while he gathered driftwood for fire, but he couldn’t find a flint rock.
The moon was rising bright and full, but Ashwin couldn’t find any flint, but his campfire was now fully stocked with wood.
He would need to make a bow drill.
But to do that he would need to collect plant fiber for the cord.
He would waste some time doing that.
Stomach pain came violently again, and Ashwin dropped to his knees in a ball clutching his abdomen, fighting through the pain Ashwin hissed through his teeth again; “ALRIGHT ALREADY!”
A thought struck him and he looked over at the rod whip.
The flexible yet strong seven-foot section of the rod would become the bow, and the ultra-fine filament the cord.
Now he would just need to shape a spindle with his clever, make a simple hearth board and find a suitable bearing block which would he would hold the top of the spindle with.
Ashwin didn’t dawdle; he quickly shaped a long skinny stick into a pointy spindle.
Afterwards he drilled a hole into a thin long flat piece of wood that he would use to collect the fine
black powder that would condense into a glowing ember.
The handhold or bearing block for the spindle to spin rapidly and not burn his hand was easy as bones and bone fragment was everywhere, he simply had but to reach over and pick one up.
Ashwin begun by unspooling the ultra-fine and translucent filament from the rod.
Ashwin didn’t know if the rod would even bend enough for him to reach the needed bow shape, or even if he could bend it.
But as he gradually applied pressure, he was delighted to see that the rod portion was not stubbornly stiff.
With a little doing Ashwin managed to wrap the filament around the base of the rod a few times.
He noticed a problem.
It was a very large bow drill.
He would have to stand inside the bow drill to make this work.
On the positive side a large bow drill would generate a longer amount of spin on the spindle into the tinder bundle, requiring less work.
Speaking of the tinder bundle, Ashwin would have to quickly work some up.
Ashwin searched out some dried-up plant fiber and hacked it up until it was fine thatch.
Stepping inside the bow drill and gripping the spindle with both his knees, he careful picked up the ultra-fine filament cord with both hands and pulled together twisting, this put a
loop in the cord which he placed around the spindle, he gently released pressure and the spindle was now set in the bow drill.
Releasing the spindle from his knees Ashwin cupped the top of the spindle with his right hand, Palming the fossilized curved bone fragment he began to spin the bow drill with his left free hand.
Because the bow drill was oversized the spindle spun rapidly, creating more friction.
Nonetheless Ashwin soon found himself panting from the effort.
His front and rear deltoid muscles were screaming in agony, but soon he began to smell that familiar smell of burning wood.
He leaned down quickly and gently blew into the fire board and a tiny ember shot to life.
The tiny ember glowed.
Ashwin didn’t move.
He barely breathed.
One careless exhale…
One clumsy movement…
And ten minutes of work would disappear.
He cupped it gently.
Almost reverently.
Then transferred it into the tinder bundle, and blew on it gently, until the whole tinder bundle ignited.
Smiling Ashwin waved the tinder bundle around showing it to an invisible audience; “And there you have it friends.’
Ashwin placed the tinder bundle in his campfire and blew until a roaring campfire came to life.
Ashwin unwrapped the filament from the end of the rod and smiled at it, “Now let’s catch something to put on this fire.”