Three days.
Three days since the "small sun" in my stomach woke me with a gnawing hunger. Not a normal stomach hunger, but a terrible sensation as if every cell in my body was begging to be filled with fuel. The leather pouch of Spirit Ore from Overseer Yan had been empty since yesterday. Now, all that remained was a piercing emptiness.
I crouched in a quiet corner of the mining tunnel, trying to regulate my breath. Every intake of air felt like sucking the last bits of my energy. My vision was slightly blurry. My "Seed," previously warm and pulsing with energy, now felt like a dying ember, cold but still holding a stinging remnant of pain.
Eat...
Not a voice. Not a word. But a primal urge emerging from the core of my being. A blind instinct urging me to seek, take, swallow. Anything.
"Look at him," a voice mocked from the tunnel. Borok. He stood with two new slaves—two men I didn't know, with empty eyes and broad shoulders. "The Stone-Eater is hungry. Maybe we should give him some ordinary rocks to eat."
Their rough laughter echoed. But this time, their mockery didn't touch me. There was only empty space in my head for the hunger that dominated everything.
Suddenly, one of Borok's new slaves, a man with burn scars on his face, took a small piece of Spirit Ore from his pouch—his ration for the day. He threw it towards me, like giving a crumb to a dog.
"Here, Stone-Eater," he said contemptuously. "Eat."
The stone landed in the dust in front of me. Dull green, its energy weak. But for my starving "Seed," it was like a sip of water in the desert.
Without thinking. Almost uncontrollably. My hand snatched the stone. The urge to absorb it was so strong, it was almost shameful. But I felt something else. A faint warning. The hunger was no longer just a physical drive. It had a will.
No, I thought, trying to hold it back. Not like this. Not like an animal.
I forced my will, trying to create distance between myself and the hunger. I held the stone, but didn't immediately absorb it. I felt it. I felt the flow of weak, chaotic energy within it, and I felt my "Seed" screaming for it.
"Look! He's praying to his rock!" Borok shouted, and they laughed again.
They didn't understand. This wasn't prayer. This was negotiation.
I focused my remaining consciousness, imagining a channel, a valve. I wouldn't let the hunger take control. I would allow it to eat, but on my terms. I would control the flow.
Then, with a gasp, I let the valve open, just a little.
Energy from the stone flowed, but not in the painful flood like before. It was a slow, controlled stream. The hunger subsided, not like a fire being extinguished, but like being tamed. My "Seed" responded, no longer looting, but accepting. There was satisfaction, not greed.
The stone crumbled to dust in my hand, but this time, my hand wasn't charred. It just felt warm. The weakness gnawing at my body eased, if only slightly. My mind became clearer.
I opened my eyes and looked at Borok and his men. They had stopped laughing. They looked at me, then at the dust in my hand, and back at me. There was something different in the way I absorbed energy this time. More subtle. More... deliberate.
Borok clicked his tongue, his face cloudy. "Damn怪物 (monster)," he grumbled, then turned and left, followed by his two now-silent henchmen.
I stood up, my body still weak but no longer unsteady. I looked at the stone dust in my hand. A small victory. Very small. But it proved something: I could negotiate with my own hunger. I could, little by little, become its master.
But this small victory didn't fill my rumbling stomach. The hunger was only silenced for a while, not gone. I needed more. My stone ration from Overseer Yan was gone. I had to find another source.
My eyes turned to the mine walls, to the strange plant roots creeping between the rocks, glowing with a faint light. Nirnroot. The plant that grew by feeding on the souls of slaves. The plant I avoided because it was a terrifying symbol of this system.
But now, with hunger speaking louder than morals, I began to wonder... could their energy be absorbed too?
I approached one of the Nirnroot roots, creeping on the wall near my cell. I reached out my hand, almost touching it. My "Seed" reacted, pulsing with anticipation. It seemed it didn't care where the energy came from.
Suddenly, a cold, wrinkled hand gripped my wrist.
I turned. Old Man.
"Don't," he whispered, his eyes sharp. "Their energy... it's different. It's digested soul energy. It will... change you. Make you more like them." He pointed towards the overseers in the distance.
He released me. "You learned to control your hunger. That's good. But now, you must learn to distinguish what you eat. Some things, once swallowed, will forever pollute your soul."
He bent down and took something from behind a rock—a small, pale blue mushroom that glowed faintly. I had never seen it before.
"There are other sources in this darkness," he said, giving it to me. "Those that don't feed on souls. But they are hidden, and often poisonous. You and your 'guest' must learn to digest them."
The blue mushroom felt cold in my hand. Its energy was strange, like burning ice. My "Seed" responded, but cautiously, full of curiosity, not blind hunger.
I looked at the mushroom, then at the Nirnroot root, and finally at Old Man. This world was full of toxic choices. To survive, I had to learn not only how to eat, but also what was worth eating.
And the next lesson, it seemed, was in the art of poisoning. Or perhaps, the art of surviving poison.
Hunger might speak, but I, Wa Lang, would learn to answer. Not by submitting, but by choice.
The blue mushroom felt cold as ice in my palm, yet its faint light emitted an energy that was both familiar and alien. Not the chaos of Spirit Ore, nor the eeriness of Nirnroot. It was like a night wind—subtle, piercing, and full of secrets.
My "Seed" reacted with unusual caution. Not greed, but wary curiosity, like a cat sniffing new prey.
"Darkmoon Cap," whispered Old Man, his eyes watching every change in me. "Grows in crevices untouched by crystal light, filtering toxins from the air and soil to transform into its own essence. Deadly to the unaccustomed. But for us... it can be food."
Food. The word felt strange to my ears. How could something that "bleaches stone" be food?
"How do you know? How do you eat it without dying?" I asked, my voice still hoarse from residual hunger.
Old Man clicked his nearly toothless tongue. "By trying. Like everything in this place. Some die. Some survive. Some... change." He looked at me deeply. "You and your 'guest' have shown you can swallow the dirty. Now, let's see if you can digest the subtle."
He didn't tell me how. He just gave me the mushroom and a meaningful look before turning and returning to his dark corner, leaving me alone with the poisonous choice in my hand.
I looked at the blue mushroom. This was a much more dangerous guess than Spirit Ore. At least with the rock, I knew the pain was immediate. With this... who knew?
But the hunger still gnawing at the base of my stomach was a cruel whip. I had no other choice.
Carefully, I broke off a small piece from the edge of the mushroom. Very small, like a fingernail clipping. I brought it close to my nose. No smell. Only a cold vapor that slightly numbed my nose.
This is crazy, I thought, but still put the small piece in my mouth.
It didn't melt. It sublimated. Changed from solid to a cold mist directly on my tongue. The sensation was strange—like inhaling extremely cold mountain air that burns. The mist went down my throat, freezing everything it touched.
Then it reached my stomach.
My "Seed" reacted instantly.
Not with greed, but with a kind of hungry vigilance. It greeted the cold mist, not by swallowing it whole, but as if surrounding it, examining it. I could feel a subtle struggle inside me—the parasitic entity trying to break down this foreign essence, understand its structure.
The pain came not like from Spirit Ore. Not a burning sensation, but a freezing one. Like ice spreading through my veins, freezing everything in its path. My breath formed white mist. My fingertips went numb.
But behind the freezing pain, there was something else... clarity.