He continued watching the bear and the mole rat. They conjured flames and moved earth from the ground, though they mostly used these elements around their own bodies.
It reminded him of a show he used to watch as a kid, where people could bend the elements. These beasts seemed to be doing something similar.
The bear resembled a firebender, while the mole rat acted like an earthbender. Their physical traits probably reflected their affinity to these bending styles, or so Marcel hypothesised.
He couldn't help but feel a slight sense of excitement at the idea of uncovering the logic behind how it all worked.
Meanwhile, Marcel noticed the hamster beside him convulsing more violently as the battle between the beasts intensified. That's when it clicked.
The law of conservation of matter says, "Matter cannot be created or destroyed."
So, how was the bear creating fire, seemingly out of thin air?
He recalled the square-cube law, which, combined with gravity, metabolism, and skeletal mechanics, places strict limits on how large animals can get. Yet these two creatures were massive, far beyond Earth's standards.
That's when Marcel concluded: there had to be another energy source—something he decided to call mana from all the novels he read. He believed it was this mana that enabled the gigantification of animals on this planet.
And it was also mana that caused the hamster's convulsions. It reminded him of hyperoxia—a condition caused by excess oxygen—but in this case, it was an overload of mana.
Marcel moved, touching the hamster, its pitiful eyes reminded him of his late pet hamster Mister Chukz, apart from the colour of their fur & the discrepancy in size, this black hamster reminded him of Mister Chukz.
He inched closer to the hamster, and when he touched the hamster, he could feel a black, almost ethereal energy, aka man, inside the hamster, somewhere close to where the heart of hamster should have been.
This black mana was being pushed out of the hamster, and instead, red and brown mana was displacing it.
By touching the hamster, Marcel was able to somewhat see the energy inside the hamster due to the density of mana inside the hamster. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to sense it.
It was even rarer to find a lower-tier beast in the area of the higher-tier beast of a different element, exactly for this reason. So the hamster ending up where it did was very much an anomaly.
Marcel utilised this time to observe the way the energy moved and how the energy felt, and a sense of deja vu, along with emotions of sadness, disappointment, and sorrow filled his mind.
Marcel guessed that these emotions likely had something to do with the owner of the body and he might have gone through this experience and probably failed.
Nevertheless, as Marcel observed the mana he instinctively tried absorbing the mana. But mana felt elusive; the more he absorbed, the more it leaked out. It felt as though he was filling a water bottle with the bottom broken. Regardless of how much red or brown mana he absorbed it just felt like it didn't stay.
The amount of energy only increased, and even Marcel began to feel a sense of pressure, something that made his body feel like it needed to kneel.
Marcel wanted to leave, but then he remembered his dwindling meat supply. He could drag the incapacitated hamster back to the cave and replenish his stores.
"I'm not saving the hamster, just… making sure I don't starve," he told himself.
Marcel wasn't sure if that was an excuse or if he was genuinely planning on doing what he intended. But one thing was certain he needed to move the Hamster as close to his cave as possible
Despite Marcel's current body being a stick figurine compared to his previously well-toned muscles from his time on earth. He still managed to stay conscious and fight the wave of mana that kept flooding his way.
Marcel attempted to do a fireman's carry on the Hamster only to stumble into a tree. Regardless of Marcel's mental fortitude, his body simply was not able to carry the hamster.
Instead, he solved the problem the best way he could; by rolling the hamster onto its side. Luckily for Marcel, the ground sloped gently back toward the area he had come from, making the task of rolling the hamster like pushing a cylinder slightly less exhausting.
Before he left, he looked one last time at the ongoing fight; the area around the bear was completely scorched, with all the trees around it turning into charcoal. Their terrain had some stone spikes dangerously protruding next to the bear. The Mole rat, true to its name, had left its area with a massive hole through which it used to go under the ground. However, the hole was riddled with jagged stones resembling shark teeth.
Instead, it somehow shot stones from inside the hole towards the bear at alarming speed, which the bear casually swiped away, close enough to Marcel to warrant him to hurry his retreat.
If another boulder landed, Marcel would abandon the hamster without hesitation to ensure his own survival.
As he rolled, the ground suddenly rose into a steeper slope, and the gentle incline gave way to a full landslide. Both Marcel and the hamster tumbled uncontrollably down together.
***
A few minutes after they ended their hurdling towards the ground, Marcel got himself up and made his way towards the cave, covered in dust and bruises. He abandoned the idea of helping the hamster or butchering it for meat later.
Though he was still disoriented from the sudden shift in terrain, Marcel could make out the faint footprints and tree markings he had left earlier. They were his breadcrumbs, guiding him back through the silent forest toward his cave.
By the time he stepped inside, the haze of new discoveries had begun to fade. The adrenaline that had been keeping him upright bled away, leaving only the deep, aching fatigue in its place. His body felt heavier with every step, and even breathing seemed like it took more effort than it should.
He glanced at the scrapes and bruises along his arms and the rest of the body, he didn't even have the will to try cleaning them. The thought of moving around to tend to them felt to tiring.
With a heavy sigh, he dropped onto his makeshift bed of leaves. The moment his body touched the uneven pile, his muscles gave out entirely, and his eyes drifted shut before he could even think about food or fire.