[Ding!]
Aris snapped his eyes open, meeting the biochip panel as it flickered into existence against the cavern's darkness
[Recipe synthesized. Material processing parameters established. Instructional data uploaded to storage.]
"Huh, already," Aris muttered, pushing himself away from the cavern wall. He turned his focus inward, and a new folder appeared in his mind.
As he accessed it, a series of instructions; clear, ordered, and much more profound than the technical manual he'd expected, unfolded so completely that, for a moment, it felt like a book he had written himself over decades, an intimate familiarity born from the chip's storage feature.
But he didn't dwell on the sensation. He simply stood up and gathered his tools: the wooden board, the knife taken from the two men, the herbs, and an empty bamboo container. He moved toward the waterfall's curtain, where the diffused light was strong enough to work by. Three meters from the spray, far enough to stay dry, he set up his workstation, then took the herbs and container to the waterfall.
He washed the herbs in the cascade with the bamboo container until the chip flagged their surfaces as sanitized.
Returning to the board, he sat cross-legged and laid out the wet stalks. He triggered a final scan; the chip hummed, confirming the samples were free of abnormalities, though not one hundred percent sanitized, which he'd expected.
He reached for the knife, and as he hovered the blade above the first stalk, his vision dimmed and shifted, replaced by a high-contrast overlay of lines and numbers scrolling across his retinas. The stalk before him was suddenly mapped with a grid of glowing green patterns: the precise incisions the biochip had calculated to isolate the active compounds.
Following the first green line, he made the cut. When his hand deviated by a fraction of a millimeter, the overlay flared a sharp, angry red. He corrected his grip instantly, the line settling back into a steady green glow.
With Prime guiding every movement, error was impossible. He lacked the years of a master apothecary; however, under the chip's steady guidance, every flick of his wrist was perfect. The rhythmic snick of the blade against wood and the roar of the waterfall filled the cave as the refinement began.
Cutting the nine stalks took him half an hour. He performed each step meticulously, his focus narrowing until the world outside the cutting ceased to exist. He gathered every sliver of the processed herbs and placed them into the bamboo container, leaving not a single fragment behind.
Inside the narrow container, their scents began to mingle in a sharp, green top note that mellowed into something earthy and grounded. He placed the container to the side, stood up, passed through the curtain of the waterfall, and dove into the pool. He swam to the edge, his eyes scanning the bank for some time until they locked onto a smooth, cylindrical stone.
With the improvised pestle in hand, he returned through the falls to the cave. He wrung the excess water from his clothes until they were merely damp, moving with agonizing care to ensure no stray drop contaminated the interior of the container.
Once satisfied with the dampness, he walked back to the container, picked it up, and returned to the waterfall to pour in exactly 100 milliliters of water—the precise volume the recipe demanded.
Then, he began to beat the stalks with the stone. Every downward strike and every ounce of applied force was calculated by the chip, appearing as pressure-sensitive gauges in his field of vision.
Aris followed the guidance with unwavering focus. He couldn't afford a single error; finding another set of herbs in this forest while Lilly remained unconscious would be nearly impossible. He glanced back at her still form in the dark and felt his chest tighten. She was weakening by the second.
I have to hurry.
Two hours later, as the sunlight filtering through the waterfall began to dim, he stopped and placed the container to the left. His hands were shaking, his entire body pushed to the edge of exhaustion. But as he looked at the foul, green swamp slurry within the bamboo, a faint, weary smile formed on his face.
He glanced at Lilly, still submerged in sleep, and a wave of relief washed through him; he then slumped to the floor to catch his breath.
After resting for some time, he picked up the container and brought it to his mouth, only to recoil from the pungent stench. He clenched his jaw, forced the protest down, and took a mouthful. An overwhelming bitterness struck, coating his tongue, but before he could dwell on it, his eyes snapped wide as if struck by a bolt of unknown energy.
A bloom of heat erupted from below his navel, surging outward in all directions until it washed over his entire body. Nausea followed instantly, a violent urge to vomit, but he tightened his fists and fought it. According to the recipe data, this was merely one of the side effects.
Slowly, he set the container aside lest he make all his effort go to waste, then collapsed onto the rocky floor, curling into a fetal position. His body temperature swung wildly between shivering cold and a searing, internal heat. His damp clothes grew wetter, soaked through with a sudden, feverish sweat.
He lay there for minutes, monitoring his own biological feedback until the violent tremors began to subside, replaced by a cool, serene feeling—neither hot nor cold—that was perfect enough to border on euphoria.
But the euphoria was short-lived.
[Warning! Warning! Anomaly detected: Unknown energy signature within the host body.]
"Huh, unknown energy..." Aris whispered, the exhaustion suddenly vanishing from his voice.
[Initiating analysis… Analysis 0.000001%. Analysis failed.]
[PARAMETER ERROR: TARGET ENERGY EXCEEDS SENSOR CALIBRATION.]
[Refractory attempt 2. Broadening search parameters... Failure.]
[Data overflow.]
[Nature of Energy: Indeterminate. Chaotic. Hyperdense information matrix. Cannot parse. Cannot store. Cannot translate.]
[Conclusion: UNKNOWN]
"Wait! Wait! Unknown energy?" Aris's voice echoed sharply through the cave as he sat up.
"Didn't it say this was safe? Now you're flagging an anomaly? Prime, care to explain?"
[NO CLEAR ANSWER. ADDITIONAL BIOMETRIC DATA REQUIRED.]
"Okay, scan my body for abnormalities," he commanded, standing up in one smooth, fluid motion. He felt strangely light—and then it hit him. The dull, persistent ache from the wound on his chest was now negligible, as if weeks had passed since the injury, as if the concoction had accelerated his body's natural healing.
[Status Update: Strength: 1.3 | Agility: 1.4 | Vitality: 1.2]
"Vitality 1.2?" he mumbled, staring at the readout in disbelief. "Did two mere gulps really do this?" He had expected a minor boost, but this was a significant jump in baseline stats. How could a handful of wild herbs possess this kind of potency?
He paused, the logic settling into place. Either this world's plants are inherently overpowered, or Prime is. If herbs were this potent by default, the village would be full of super-soldiers. They're not geniuses, but they would have stumbled onto a 'health potion' or something like that eventually.
He looked down at the slurry. No. It's the Biochip. The raw materials are everywhere in the forest, but without Prime's guidance, it would be impossible to refine this without decades of stumbling.
He picked up the bamboo container and ran a deep-layer scan. The Biochip detected nothing but plant matter and water. He tried again. Still nothing.
The unknown energy was invisible to the scan in its liquid state. Perhaps the reaction only triggered upon contact with a biological host—that was his hypothesis. To test it, he swallowed another mouthful, leaving exactly half for Lilly.
The series of side effects hit him again: the heat, the nausea, the sudden systemic purge. But this time his body was stronger; the effects were diminished, and he was back on his feet within three minutes.
As expected, the Biochip's warning flared in his vision, and as expected, the analysis failed to parse the source of the energy.
But he had confirmed the most vital data point: the unknown energy wasn't a virus or a toxin, but a restorative that left his body feeling more energetic and potent than he had ever felt in either of his lives.
"Perhaps more gulps might increase the stats," he murmured, a pang of pure greed sparking in his chest. He looked at the remaining concoction, but the sight of Lilly in the dark pushed the impulse aside. This was hers.
With the recipe already cached in his memory, brewing another batch wouldn't be an issue. Given better tools; proper lab equipment, refined instruments, he might even be able to create a more concentrated version, something powerful enough to force the Biochip to finally parse the data.
All of that, however, depended on one thing: surviving the forest long enough to build his own lab. Everything else was just a dream.
He walked over to Lilly, knelt beside her sleeping form, and gently shook her shoulder. She stirred, her eyelids fluttering open with worrying slowness. "Brother..." she whispered, the word barely a thread of sound.
In the absolute darkness of the cavern's interior, Aris didn't need light. He used the Biochip's scan feature to track her mouth, guiding the bamboo container to her dried lips with steady hands. She swallowed, and a weak sound of irritation escaped her as the medicinal bitterness coated her tongue.
Aris remained patient, coaxing her through another swallow, then another. After the fourth and final gulp, her body convulsed. He held her steady, his eyes locked on the scrolling metrics. As he had anticipated, the purge phase hit her just as it had him—the alternating waves of heat and cold.
A genuine smile spread across his face as he watched the digital readout of her status. Her Vitality began to climb: 0.3... 0.4... 0.6... 0.7. Each incremental increase lifted a heavy weight he had been carrying since the moment they fled the village.
Moments later, the tremors ceased, and she fell back into a deep, restorative sleep, her nervous system overwhelmed by the sheer potency of the unknown energy she had just processed.
He released her and sat beside her in the silence for a long time. The immediate threat of the cold had been neutralized, but he knew this was temporary. The only way to truly survive was to avoid exposure entirely, and the cold was not the only enemy in this forest.
"I need to find a better hiding place," he murmured to the darkness. "Somewhere with better ventilation."
His mind snapped back to the pool and the subterranean world he suspected lay beneath its surface. The stillness of that water was an anomaly, a flaw in the landscape that suggested a hidden drainage point. He cut the speculation short; he would examine the pool tomorrow.
He turned toward the western wall where the stolen loot lay. His own stomach cramped with hunger at the thought of the dried meat, but he restrained the impulse. He needed to ensure Lilly had food the moment she woke. The deer carcass would sustain them for a few days, provided he could keep the scent from drawing predators.
For now, he allowed himself to lean back against the cavern wall, closed his eyes, letting the muffled roar of the waterfall lull him into sleep, ready to begin the real work at dawn.
••••
At the village gate, the silhouette of the Chief remained motionless like a dark statue carved against the fading sunlight. Behind him, his two sons watched the three orcs vanish into the forest. The expression on all three men's faces was that of those who had been forced to swallow stones.
"How dare he," the Chief growled, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the gate's rough timber. "Father, what do we do?" the eldest son asked, stepping forward.
"Should we send men to search the woods? That brat is no woodsman, and the girl is a burden. They aren't experienced enough to survive the night; we will find them."
The Chief didn't answer immediately. His mind was churning, replaying the meeting with the Masters, searching for a variable he had missed.
"No," he finally said, a cold understanding flickering in his eyes. "I am afraid this is not something we can escape. Even after I told them a human spoke their tongue without the gu worm... they weren't bothered. It was as if they didn't believe me at all. They dismissed the anomaly and sent those three merely to survey the village."
"Why wouldn't something like this concern them?" the youngest son interjected. "What if another orc tribe is using the brat to claim this territory? To possess us?"
"I already told you—it is impossible for that boy to have been implanted with the gu," the Chief snapped, turning to face them.
"Even last night, I saw no signs of the gu's strength in his limbs. His fluency was broken, though he did claim he was learning the tongue directly from the 'Mighty Valrog.' Every sign led to another puzzle. I am afraid of what this brat means for this village. And as for them—they simply didn't care to verify my words."
"What now, then?" the eldest pressed, his competitive gaze flicking toward his younger brother. "Let me gather the men. We can bring him back in chains before dawn."
The younger brother immediately stepped forward, bowing his head. "Father, let me go instead. I have a hound that can track a scent to the end of the world. I'll find that brat's trail."
The Chief looked at his sons, seeing the raw, untempered ambition in their eyes, and let out a deep, weary sigh. "You are both too inexperienced to see the trap. Do you truly believe they would let a ten-year-old girl simply slip from their grasp? If she had actually escaped, they would have scoured every inch of this forest in earnest."
The brothers' eyes widened as the implication settled.
"They have already decided to harvest us," the Chief said, the words falling like lead. "I do not know how many they will kill. I do not know how much they will take in the name of punishment. But I doubt even delivering that boy and his sister on a silver platter would change their plans now."
The two brothers clenched their fists, their muscles taut with a helpless, vibrating rage. The Chief placed a heavy hand on each of their shoulders, his grip tight with warning.
"Don't entertain foolish ideas of resistance. This is not something any of us can overcome. It is not a war humankind dares to fight." He released them, the weight of his hands leaving a lingering chill.
He turned and walked toward his house, his shoulders hunched under an invisible burden, leaving his sons at the gate to watch his back disappear into the swallowing night.