As the dead of night approached and the humidity fell, Marc was still running, using the last of his adrenaline to numb the pain in his body.
He knew that the moment he cooled down and the adrenaline faded, he had better have found shelter, or he would become food for the insects.
Deep in the forest, monsters could appear anywhere. In villages, hunters usually cleared the outskirts often, since there were no walls separating them from the wilderness.
But Alex was deep in, and while building a fire might scare some creatures away, others were drawn to the warmth it gave.
So Alex needed a place where he could hide and treat his wounds, somewhere small enough to seal off from the outside.
But it seemed luck was on his side tonight, since he found a small cave with an entrance just thin enough for him to crawl through.
And so he did. The arrow twisted painfully as he dragged himself inside. He managed to pull his bag in as well, though he had to take a few items out and pass them through one by one.
Moonlight illuminated the cave lightly, but the mayority of the cave was still in the dark, so Alex sticked close to the entrance.
He needed to tend to his wounds quickly. Pulling off his pajama top from the bag, he took an expensive-looking knife and began cuttinging it into strips.
He soaked one strip by reaching out of the cave and wiping it against the moisture that clung to the rocks outside.
Then, with a trembling hand, he used the damp cloth to clean the wound on his chest.
"Hrrngh…" Biting down on a piece of fabric, Alex grunted in pain. It was an essential step. He couldn't afford to let the wound become infected.
It was now that the countless nights spent reading countless books were paying off.
He knew how vital it was to clean a wound and to close it, if possible. But since he didn't have anything to stitch or seal it with, he could only wrap his chest tightly in cloth.
On the other hand he didn't want to remove the bolt on his shoulder, He knew the theory, cut off the head and pull it out, but with no way of dealing with the aftermath, he would only make things worse.
So instead, he took another strip of cloth and bound it tightly around the bolt and his shoulder, keeping it stable.
He also covered with some fabric the wound at his side, the least serious of the three, and left it at that.
He was in a dire situation, not because of the bolt, but because of the wound on his chest.
The cut Medric had given him refused to stop bleeding, and he had neither a potion nor a first-aid kit in his bag.
An idea struck him. He rummaged through his bag and pulled out a book, (Wind Gathering).
Alex remembered from his nightmares that mana could slow bleeding from small wounds, not heal them, but at least make them less deadly.
opening it and reading it the book detailed how to make a core or mana arteries from wind mana.
Opening the book, he began to read. It described how to form a core or mana arteries using wind mana. The method was simple, close your eyes, breathe in a specific pattern, and feel the mana carried by the air.
The method was inefficient as it was simple. A beginner's technique, the lowest of the low. But Alex only needed a tiny bit of mana,enough to stop the bleeding.
So he began to follow the instructions.
Time passed, and a bone-chilling cold crept through his body. He was bleeding out, he knew, and still he hadn't grasped a single trace of mana.
Still, the only thing he could do, is keep trying, and as the cold dulled the pain that was preventing him from totally focusing on the method, Alex managed to actually concentrate properly.
Then, finally, he felt it. Mana. He tried to draw it in with his breath, just as the book described, but failed. He tried again, failed again, but he didn't give up.
After five minutes of trying, and starting to feel his head light, he succeded, mana was sucked in with his breath. He holded his breath as the book said and exhaled very slowly, feeling the mana move in his body.
He exhaled a great deal of the mana he breathed back out, but he kept doing it, and after six or seven cycles, he tried to move the mana he had to chis chest, and it responded.
Following the same sensation he had felt in his nightmares, the way the soldier once moved mana toward a wound, Alex felt a gentle warmth spread across his chest.
He opened his eyes. The cloth was soaked through, blood seeping down and staining his pants.
He unwrapped it, cleaned what he could, and stared. The wound had stopped bleeding.
He could have jumped from happines, but his body was very weak, so he will probably fall and break something.
Covering his wound again, he felt dizzy, gritting his teeth as he adjusted the bolt in his shoulder
He grimaced from pain, but the small amount of adrenaline he secreted kept him awake.
So he started the brething again, to gather mana to treat the wound on his shoulder.
After another ten or fifteen breaths, he felt he had enough mana. he needed to make haste, as his mana would dissipate in minutes since he didnt have a core to store it in.
Opening his eyes, he noticed his pocket watch lying on the ground where he had dropped it earlier while taking the book from the bag.
He saw that the watch was shimmering faintly. Turning it over, he saw that the engravings were glowing.
Now that his body had mana, his vision was affected by it, allowing him to see the flow of mana better.
He tried channeling his mana following the sensation the soldier had, while channeling mana to his staff.
Then he discovered something, and he was exited.