Wei Shen awoke to a sharp pain tearing through his left arm. It wasn't just a dull ache or weakness, but a throbbing, burning agony that extended from the bite left by the Thornwood Gnawer all the way to his shoulder. Darkness still enveloped the cave, but Wei Shen sensed that many hours had passed since his harrowing return to this rocky refuge.
He felt his arm with his uninjured right hand. The crude bandage he had fashioned from a torn piece of cloth was stiff with dried, clotted blood. Every touch sent a wave of nausea and pain through his body.
"This body… is unbearably fragile," Wei Shen thought with bitterness, ignoring the urgent desire to scream or groan. There was no room for complaint. Complaining neither healed wounds nor filled the empty stomach that was now making loud, protesting rumbles, like the beating of hollow drums in the cave's silence.
He had lost all the food he had painstakingly gathered. To risk venturing out again in this condition, with this injury, was a form of madness.
He reached out his other hand heavily towards the stone still embedded in the wall near him. The faint warmth emanating from it was the only semblance of comfort in this cold and darkness. As he examined the stone with light touches, he noticed that some drops of his blood, spilled from his wound the previous day, had dried on its smooth surface, leaving small, dark stains.
He remembered the faint red glimmer that had emanated from the stone when his blood had touched it in the midst of his pain and exhaustion. It hadn't been a mere thermal reaction. There was something more.
A cold, desperate idea began to form in his mind. A dangerous idea, but perhaps his only chance. "It reacted to my blood… or to my deteriorating condition," Wei Shen mused. "Does it feed on vital energy? Or on blood itself?"
In his old world, Arthur's world, there were technologies that dealt with biological energy, but they were complex and required precise instruments. Here, everything was primitive, instinctual. And this stone seemed to belong to this primitive order.
He made his decision. He truly had nothing left to lose. If he did nothing, he would die of hunger or an infected wound.
With great difficulty, he sat up straighter and retrieved the sharpened piece of stone that was his only weapon. He looked at his injured arm. It still ached terribly. Then, with a slow, hesitant movement, he pricked the tip of an uninjured finger on his right hand with the edge of the sharpened stone. It wasn't a deep cut, just a scratch sufficient to draw a few drops of dark red blood.
A light, sharp pain shot through his finger, but he ignored it. He brought his bleeding finger close to the stone and pressed it gently against its smooth surface.
At first, nothing happened except the stone becoming smudged with blood. Then, after a few moments, the stone's faint warmth began to increase noticeably, faster than it had on previous occasions. And Wei Shen felt a strange sensation, as if the stone… were absorbing the blood! It wasn't a violent absorption, but rather like blotting paper slowly drawing out moisture.
The blood-red glimmer that had appeared intermittently from the stone now became more intense and steady, radiating a faint but visible light in the darkness, revealing the contours of Wei Shen's pale hand pressed against the stone. The red light seemed to concentrate around the blood drops, as if the stone were feeding on them.
As this slow absorption continued, Wei Shen didn't feel any additional weakness as he had expected. On the contrary, the throbbing pain in his injured arm began to lessen very slightly, as if the increasing warmth of the stone, or this mysterious interaction, had a soothing effect. It wasn't healing—the wound was still there—but the intensity of the pain began to recede a little.
"It responds to fresh blood… and more strongly," Wei Shen registered this observation, his eyes fixed on the faintly glowing stone. "And this glow… it wasn't this strong before."
The stone continued to absorb the blood for a few more minutes, then the red glow gradually faded, and the warmth returned to its usual faint level. The blood drops on the stone's surface had almost vanished, as if the rock had licked them clean.
Wei Shen looked at his pricked finger. The bleeding had nearly stopped. Then he looked at his injured arm. The pain was still there, but it had become more bearable.
"This stone… is not just a rock," Wei Shen thought, a mixture of caution and anticipation filling his being. "It is… thirsty. But it might also be… a key."
But his own blood was a precious resource he couldn't keep offering like this. This body couldn't afford more blood loss. If the stone needed blood to "awaken" or to reveal its true abilities, he had to find another source.
And here, memories of the original "Wei Shen" about the forest returned to him. The outer layer contained ordinary animals that hadn't cultivated the pure energy of heaven and earth.
A new idea, bolder and more dangerous than merely gathering herbs, began to take shape in Wei Shen's mind.
"If the stone needs blood, I will offer it blood," he decided coldly. "But not my own."
He knew that going out to hunt in his current state, with this injury, was a tremendous risk. The Thornwood Gnawer was still out there, and perhaps there were other, more dangerous beasts. But staying in the cave without food and without a deeper understanding of this stone's capabilities also meant a slow, painful end.
He had to become a predator, albeit the weakest of predators in this forest.
He spent what he assumed was the remainder of the day in forced rest, trying to gather every ounce of his energy. He thought, he planned. How would he hunt even a small animal with these primitive tools and this exhausted body?
As near-total darkness returned to the cave entrance, signaling the approach of a new night, Wei Shen made his final decision. He would go out again.
He picked up the sharpened piece of stone, ensuring it was still as sharp as possible. He tore more strips from his ragged clothes, fashioning them into something like additional bindings for his wound, and perhaps for use as primitive snares.
Then, he looked at the stone, which had returned to its usual quiescence in the wall.
"Wait for me," Wei Shen whispered to it in the darkness, as if speaking to a living being. "I will return to you with an offering."
And with steps heavier and more painful than the last time, yet driven by a stronger determination, Wei Shen began to crawl once more towards the cave entrance, towards the unknown, and towards his new, grim mission.
He didn't know if this stone would grant him a legendary technique or access to an ancient legacy as he had hoped for a moment. All he knew was that it had shown a reaction.