After a somewhat difficult night, I woke up feeling surprisingly well-rested.
Last night I had gone to sleep full of doubts and worries, not knowing exactly what kind of world I was in or having any idea what exact abilities I possessed.
But today was no time to sit idly by: I had to find a way to keep getting as strong as possible while gathering information about this place.
After deciding on my course of action, the first thing I did was check to see if everything I’d discovered yesterday was still the same.
My control over my energy had increased slightly, and the total amount in my reserve had also grown—albeit very slightly, by about 1%.
“Looks like that little training session paid off,” I thought cheerfully.
Considering I didn’t expend a great deal of energy yesterday, that was good progress.
On the other hand, the fruits I’d stored in my inventory were still in the exact same condition as when I had put them there.
Seeing that twenty fruits had only taken up 70% of the space, I figured that, for now, I’d use this ability as a makeshift fridge where food wouldn’t go to waste—at least until I found something more valuable to store.
Speaking of food, despite exercising for several hours yesterday and staying up all night, I wasn’t hungry yet.
I didn’t know if this was a trait of my race or some kind of passive ability.
For now, I would go gather more fruit and water to fill up the rest of my inventory.
While gathering supplies in the same area as yesterday, I reflected on what I would need to do from now on.
Dwelling on my past life and feeling sad for my loved ones didn’t make much sense at this point; it was a tragic situation, but I had to keep moving forward.
For now, the priority was to increase my power and gain a clearer understanding of the skills I was dealing with.
I also needed to take advantage of my food storage capacity to make my way through this forest, which appeared to be quite rich in resources.
All of this, of course, without taking too many risks.
In any case, food didn’t seem like it would be a major problem in the short term.
Author’s Note: The exact size of the Great Forest of Jura is never specified in the original work.
However, considering that the author stated that “El Dorado”—the island ruled by Leon—is larger than Australia, we can conclude that the Forest of Jura, being even larger, is approximately 5,500 km long from east to west.
Our protagonist appears at the eastern end of the forest, so he’ll have to travel a tremendous distance to reach Veldora’s cave, located near the western end.
The protagonist’s arrival in this world coincides with Rimuru’s.
Since it takes Rimuru about 120 days—roughly four months—to emerge from the cave, our protagonist will have to cover about 5,000 km in those 120 days to meet him at the start of his journey.
Since I didn’t want to run into any trouble, I made my way westward as carefully as possible, covering what I estimated to be about 30 or 35 kilometers.
Why such a long distance?
The main reason was that this body was far superior to a human’s, so that distance wasn’t enough to tire me out.
The other reason was that, no matter which way I turned, the surrounding landscape didn’t change at all.
Given the situation, I decided to stop.
I figured my safest strategy would be to cover about 40 kilometers every morning until I found something different, and use the rest of the day to train.
On this first day, covering those 30 kilometers took me longer than it should have; my fear of running into something dangerous stripped away any desire I had to hurry.
If I jogged or ran lightly, I should be able to cover the 40 kilometers in less than five hours—something that shouldn’t be too demanding for my body.
With that in mind, I organized my routine: I would use the mornings to travel and the rest of the day until nightfall to train and discover my abilities.
My most obvious shortcoming at the moment was a general lack of power, but without a doubt, what I needed most right now was a way to damage potential enemies from a distance so I wouldn’t have to risk taking damage myself.
Since my current physical abilities seemed to be better than my magical ones, I decided I would train my body using the stones and wood in the area for a couple of hours, and devote all the remaining time to magic and skills.
I’m no Boy Scout or astronomer, but judging by the sun’s position, it had to be around 4:00 p.m.
Today, I would do sets of push-ups, squats, sit-ups, and pull-ups until I felt tired, all without any extra weight.
I just wanted to get a more accurate sense of my current physical condition.
As for the magic part, knowing I had to focus on some kind of ranged attack, I decided to try recreating a basic technique from another anime to see if the feeling I had yesterday was real or not.
By the time the sun set, I was completely exhausted.
My body felt heavy, and my energy was at an all-time low.
During my physical training, I discovered that I could do about 300 push-ups, 350 squats, 400 sit-ups, and about 200 pull-ups all in one go.
Considering I must weigh around 110 kg, that wasn’t bad at all.
Honestly, it was highly impressive, but it still wasn’t that far off from what an elite human from my previous world could achieve, so I hoped to improve my physical condition over the coming days.
What I did notice, though, was that this body lagged quite a bit in terms of flexibility—another area I would have to work on.
As for the magical side of things, I decided to try recreating Naruto’s basic Fireball Jutsu.
I started by trying to spark a small flame in my hand, but I couldn’t manage it; I could only produce faint sparks with the meager control I had over my new energy, even when I tried to apply my scientific knowledge.
To test whether I possessed any analytical or observational skills—as I thought I had sensed the day before—I built a campfire, though lighting it took me longer than I’d like to admit.
The result wasn’t mind-blowing or surprising, but it did confirm my theory: after lighting the fire and observing it closely while trying to replicate the flame, the rate at which I improved increased considerably.
It took me until nightfall to reach this conclusion; I guess I’m not exactly a genius or a prodigy.
Tomorrow, I’ll try to complete the fireball and confirm my other hypothesis.
Exhausted, I went to sleep, hoping the next day would be more productive.
The next day, I woke up just as the first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon.
This time I was a little hungry, but not nearly as much as I should have been after going more than forty hours without food and exercising so intensely.
Without giving it much thought, I took out three pieces of fruit—each slightly larger than an apple—and ate them, washing them down with a little water.
Afterward, I jogged the 40 kilometers west that I had planned for the day.
Surprisingly, despite all the exercise from the day before and how exhausted I had been by the end of it, I woke up today feeling fully recovered—even before eating anything.
I didn’t know if it was due to some ability I hadn’t discovered yet or simply because this body—or this race—was just built that way.
Once I finished covering the set distance, I looked for food to replenish what I had burned off that morning.
I scouted the area a couple of times just in case I wouldn’t be able to forage so easily in the future; I preferred not to take any chances and stock up while I could.
I found a few pieces of fruit, which were enough, though I didn’t run into any water sources.
With that done, I resumed my physical exercises.
This time, I added some weight—about 30 kilograms—using some heavy rocks I found nearby.
My total repetitions went down, but I didn’t mind: the main thing was to push my body.
When I finished, I practiced some kicking and punching movements alongside flexibility exercises.
I didn’t know if my form was technically correct, but I wanted to keep practicing so I wouldn’t run into trouble later on.
That way, my body would get used to those kinds of movements and build flexibility, which was currently one of my biggest weaknesses.
After finishing my physical training, I decided to resume the magic practice I had left unfinished the day before.
Just to be sure, I tried conjuring the flame I had managed to create yesterday.
It took a little effort, but I was able to do it without any trouble—and without needing to rub sticks and branches together.
I decided to move straight on to conjuring the fireball.
I was having a hard time grasping the method, but to test if the theory I’d formed on the first day was correct, I decided to draw inspiration entirely from Naruto’s system, focusing on breathing, my lungs, and similar concepts.
The result wasn’t as instantaneous as my success on the first day; however, as soon as I approached it from that angle, I noticed that making progress became much easier, and after two hours, I finally succeeded.
This definitively confirmed my theory: it seemed I possessed some kind of ability that made it easier for me to learn magic and skills from works of fiction, as long as they weren’t far above my current level.
It also seemed to grant me a minor capacity for analysis and observation.
For the rest of the day, I practiced my new fireball spell as much as I could using my magic reserves, exhausting and regenerating them a couple of times throughout the afternoon.
With no energy left for anything else, I looked for the safest spot I could find and lay down to sleep on the cold ground.
Even though it was only my third night doing this, I was already sick of it.