Pov: Vik
After leaving the mouse couple alone, I headed toward a small lake on the west side of the forest. This lake is much smaller than the other ones and formed after rain, which works in my favor. It doesn't have large predators like snakes or crocodiles; only some small lizards and animals come here to drink.
This spot is ideal for me to hunt small mammals and frogs. They make up a big part of a snake's diet. I hid myself along the lake shore, making sure drinking animals wouldn't notice anything unusual. I crouched quietly, focusing on my situation when a small frog hopped nearby. It got within my striking range, and I quickly lunged at it, using my body to coil around it and bite its neck. The frog stopped struggling and lay still. I swallowed it whole, as snakes don't have teeth to chew their food.
After satisfying my hunger, I climbed up a tree to bask in the sunlight, which comforts me since snakes are cold-blooded. Over ten days of surviving in this forest, I learned that despite the magical powers animals here have, they share almost the same biological traits as creatures back on Earth.
I discovered something interesting about my body and the other animals here. We all have a different biological feature, which is our hunger. For example, snakes and other reptiles can often go a week without eating because they don't require much food. However, I need to hunt every two days due to my hunger. Other creatures here also hunt daily, making them more dangerous than animals on Earth. Perhaps this intense hunger is why they grow quickly and become large.
I shifted my focus from hunger to the magical energy present in this world. I began wondering if I could harness this unusual power. After realizing this, I tried several methods to tap into it, like visualizing fire to summon it, similar to how wizards might. I also attempted to feel and absorb energy, as cultivators do in the novels I've read. Nothing worked. Maybe there's another method or perhaps I wasn't executing these techniques properly. After five days of trying new methods, I reverted to something I was familiar with. I started observing nature to understand the laws governing this world. In my previous world, humans deciphered the laws of physics and used that knowledge to meet their needs, like controlling combustion to power cars. I knew the laws from my former world might not apply here, but I figured this world probably has fundamental laws or forces that could help me harness magical powers.
This scholarly approach seemed effective. I realized this world shares many similarities with my previous one. It has a sun and moon, but different planetary systems. I noticed a large purple planet in the distant night sky. Therefore, this world should also have forces like gravity along with centripetal and centrifugal forces to support its planetary system. Focusing on the next force, I rubbed my body against a tree branch. After a while, I felt warmth, suggesting that this world has an electromagnetic force. I don't have enough knowledge or tools to prove the existence of other forces, but they should be there. As for the difference, I noticed this world has a fifth force that allows inhabitants to easily manipulate the four fundamental forces with enough will. I named this "force X." Regarding how force X bends normal laws, I'm still unsure, but I suspect it relates to a creature's consciousness.
In the previous five days, I tried visualizing fire to make force X bend normal laws and summon fire for myself, but I never succeeded. After experimenting with visualization, I felt I was halfway to success; I just needed to take that final step.
Changing my mindset, I focused on executing my plan. First, I calmed my mind and body. In a relaxed state, I ignored every sound around me, whether it was animal noises or the wind. I concentrated solely on visualizing fire.
I began to think about fire. To ignite it, three elements are necessary: air, sufficient temperature, and fuel. This triad is essential for starting a fire. In addition to this scientific understanding, I needed to visualize fire in its purest form—not the type that burns in stars or expands in supernovae, but the fire humanity first encountered. I pictured a landscape filled with grasslands and forests under a sky heavy with dark clouds and occasional thunder. I stabilized this image in my mind, focusing entirely on it. Then I started my last step. A flash of lightning struck a tree, causing rain to begin falling. The most striking part of this image was the tree struck by lightning, now engulfed in flames. This fire burned fiercely despite the rain. It wasn't flashy or excessively hot, just a deep red flame with orange embers occasionally flickering. It created terror in anything that saw it, whether a small animal or a large predator. It consumed everything, leaving only ash in its wake.
I focused all my consciousness on that flame. Soon, I felt warmth in my body, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that the branch in front of me was burned by fire conjured through my visualization.
A sudden wave of euphoria surged through me as my experiment resulted in success, but it was accompanied by intense weakness. I blanked out, aware that losing consciousness in this forest could be as good as death, leaving me vulnerable. My body ached, and my eyelids slowly closed.
After Vik blanked out, something strange happened. The fire he visualized began to burn with increasing intensity. It consumed the entire branch and moved toward the trunk of the tree where he lay, unaware of the world. The fire spread slowly but soon engulfed Vik without harming him. It felt as though the flames embraced him, but the tree suffered, burning with a fire unlike any other—a fire as ancient as the very concept of fire itself.
Once the fire consumed the tree, it began to spread to other trees in the forest, burning everything in its path—be it trees or creatures. It grew into a massive flame that even the largest beasts nervously avoided. These intelligent creatures tried everything to put it out, like calling for rain from the clouds, launching columns of water at the fire, and throwing powerful tornadoes and mountains of ice toward it. None succeeded. Not wanting to remain near this phenomenon, they retreated, building a wall of soil and rocks reinforced with ice to contain it.
This fire anomaly forced many large creatures to migrate to other parts of the forest, with some even venturing into human territories, sparking conflict with neighboring civilizations. In the future, this event would be remembered as the great fire calamity.