CHAPTER 10

After getting the hare, another surprise awaited Isaia, revealing one very important and key characteristic of his new unique power.

Though it happened rather quickly, the lad, having received something so coveted, managed to forget that he knew nothing of its existence until a couple of hours ago. He was so greedily addicted to what he had received that it seemed as if he had been a user of the skill for an eternity and now could not imagine himself without it.

In the midst of his feelings of joy, he almost lost sight of something overly important that was directly related to the skill he had learned. The surprise that appeared before the young man was the strange nature of the skill itself and why his senses constantly led him to the poor animal.

The thing was that at the moment of touching the corpse of the creature, namely the area around the torn section of the body, something unexpected happened.

All the blood, even the blood that had been in the eye area and had managed to drain out of it, first overflowed back into the beast's body, and then, apparently having traveled down the torso inside, came out from the side of the torn flesh Isaia had grasped all this time.

And that same blood that had traveled toward the hand, along with the blood that had been in the hare, vanished without a trace as soon as it touched Isaia's hand. It was as if it had magically dissolved, absorbed into the young man's own body.

This was all accompanied by a small surge of strength, but the full vigor of getting rid of the malaise as a whole was not achieved, but at least he did see some positive outcome and gained vital information for himself.

For the sake of validity, it should also be noted that hunger and fatigue are quantities that are difficult to comprehend and almost impossible to pinpoint, hence the young man concluded that these sensations could also be self-defeating and the application of the skill had nothing to do with it.

This was Isaia's thought at the moment of digging up the hare, having given up the idea of doing it with the help of a strange ability, because he felt a deterioration of his health after using it for prolonged time. Now, as Isaia absorbed the blood, he felt the change and was instantly convinced that the feelings he had felt before were not self-deception, for they immediately allowed him to recognize the difference at the moment of absorption.

Both the process of getting the hare using the skill and killing it made him realize the interrelation of the feelings of hunger and fatigue with the use of the skill, and vice versa, absorbing the blood that just happened helps to eliminate these feelings. He wasn't a fool, and he'd figured out the real nature of the ability quickly enough.

There were still a few things to check, but Isaia was already certain that he would need to go in search of other living creatures. If his hunch was correct, he would need a large amount of prey.

Another issue was the reason of his concern, namely, the simplistic use of this power, because he had received it relatively recently, but then he remembered something else. People use parts of their bodies on an instinctive level, and they can't even explain how they do it when they want to move their arm in a certain order. There are no clear levers of control or order, only instinctive and subconscious control, which happens automatically and autonomously.

This new ability of his, it was as if on an instinctive level it had been with him for very long years, and so he was able to use it easily.

It would be truly unfortunate if, with so much fatigue and desire for refreshment, he would come to a hasty end, due to the need to slowly and gradually learn the newly emerged ability out of nowhere. For as long as he learned to use it properly, fatigue and hunger would send him to the grave.

But he could not deny one thing, he was in absolute ecstasy. Even the unquenched hunger couldn't dampen the feeling of power and command over something magical.

It didn't last long, though, the hare, albeit a rather large one, wasn't even enough to satisfy his needs. Isaia even tried to bite off some of the flesh where the hare had been torn, but the nausea that came with it made him realize something and opened his eyes to the nature of his new ability.

He had tasted raw meat once before, and preferred lightly fried meat when cooking, but the sensations that arose when he tried to chew and swallow a piece of hare made him draw other conclusions, for the nauseous sensations were unbearable, and he had to spit it out.

Isaia could not explain the reason for the change, and the only thing that came to mind was the presence of a magical ability, and that it was precisely this ability, having an interest in blood, negated and repelled everything else. The blood that the ability absorbed on its own as soon as he touched it without asking permission confirmed its attachment to the skill.

The flesh itself was probably not only unnecessary, but could also cause undesirable consequences, if only a small piece of it made him nauseous. If it had any value, it would have been consumed as well as the hare's blood, for Isaia didn't need to do anything. The skill, like a starving thousand-year-old demon, absorbed the blood itself, leaving the flesh untouched as if it had no value at all, which was perhaps a reasonable conclusion.

The good thing was that this power also tore the flesh, but it happened involuntarily, or the young man would have no idea how to cut open this animal, which had a rather rough and tough coat. He did not even want to think about the necessity of testing the capabilities of the human body, namely the teeth to tear the coat and fur of a rather large hare.