Rise Of The Worm Sovereign

Chapter 4 - Energy Source?

"Hnggggg…"

Lin Wu woke up after an unknown amount of time with a loud grunt. Though the grunt was perhaps only audible to him and even imaginary on a level. He opened his eyes and looked around finding himself lying in a small pit.

"Huh? What happened?" Lin Wu said to himself wondering the reason for his fainting.

He turned around and saw something that made him fall back on the ground.

~Ahhhhh~

"Wha-what is that?" He questioned.

There was a desiccated corpse of a bird lying in front of him. The corpse was half crushed and looked as if someone had forcefully stomped on it. Though no blood could be seen anywhere near it. The corpse was completely dry as if it had been drying out in the sun for days.

"Is this the same bird that attacked me? How is it dead now?" Lin Wu spoke.

He then moved closer to take a look and found out the reason. Just behind the corpse, he could see a deep hoof print. He climbed up on a grass blade and was able to spot a few more hoof prints a small distance away from the corpse of the bird.

'Seems like the bird was crushed to death by some animal's foot. But why is it dry and dessicated?' Lin Wu thought to himself.

Suddenly Lin Wu realized the possible reason for that.

"Don't tell me I've been lying unconscious for many days now." Lin Wu guessed.

To confirm his guess, he checked the grass around him and noticed that they were the same length as before and even the soil seemed to be the same. The place where he had eaten the grass was still wet and fresh.

"Huh, seems like my guess is wrong. If it had been days, then this part should have dried out." Lin Wu answered himself.

'But what exactly happened?' He tried to remember.

"The notification!" Lin Wu suddenly realized.

"There was some kind of warning that appeared before I fell unconscious." Lin Wu remembered.

'How do I see the notification window again?"

"Umm, help? Notification?" Lin Wu called out.

He tried a few words, but they didn't seem to work and he got frustrated.

"Ah, goddamn it, you stupid system!" He cursed.

~Ding~

NOTIFICATION: Would you like to view the previous logs?

The notification window suddenly popped up in front of his eyes.

"Oh? Is the word stupid or system?" Lin Wu tried calling out again.

"Oh, so it's just system. Still, I'll call you a stupid system like the one you are. Hehe." Lin Wu decided.

Lin Wu then checked the log that was stored in the system to get an idea of what had happened. Most of it was the same that he had seen before fainting, but there were a few new lines added to it.

'These must have come up when I was unconscious.' Lin Wu thought.

The new lines read-

ABNORMAL ENERGY SOURCE DETECTED: Recalibrating

ANALYZING ENERGY SOURCE: Unknown high-quality energy type found

PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS COMPLETE: Energy source found to be blood

PARTIAL INTEGRATION PROCESS: Link established, energy source viable

PROCEEDING:-

HOST VITALS: Analyzing

WARNING!: Non-human host detected

IDENTIFYING HOST: Unknown species detected

WARNING!: Energy resources low

PARTIAL INTEGRATION PROCESS: Halted

WARNING!: Please gather more energy resources

Lin Wu kept on reading the logs over and over again as he felt a little lost.

"So the energy source it found was blood?" Lin Wu guessed.

He then looked at the dessicated bird corpse and remembered the feeling of something warm and sticky covering him before he fell unconscious.

"Seems like the bird's blood was the energy source and was absorbed by the system after it got splattered on me." Lin Wu concluded.

'So if I need to complete the quest, I need to get more blood? Is it just the blood from a bird I need or any blood would work?' Lin Wu thought.

Lin Wu then looked around for any more blood that he could see, but due to his small stature, he couldn't look much farther.

"Dammit you stupid system, if you want blood at least tell me where to find it." Lin Wu cursed.

~Ding~

ENVIRONMENT ANALYZED: Preliminary coordinates obtained

MAP FUNCTION: Activated

ENERGY RADIATION DETECTED: Calculating co-ordinates

ENERGY RESOURCE LOCATED: Marking on map

Lin Wu was dumbfounded by this new revelation that he had just read.

"You have a maaap!? Why didn't you tell me before? Well, at least you are not completely stupid." Lin Wu said.

"Open map." Lin Wu ordered.

~Ding~

A new screen then appeared in front of Lin Wu. It was the map screen. The map was rather simplistic, in the way that it only showed the position of Lin Wu and the location of the said energy resource. There was nothing else in the maps, except for these two dots.

Lin Wu checked the distance between the two points and found that they were diagonally at the very opposite sides of the map.

"How far is this, though? I can't really tell from just these two points. What's the distance between the two points?" Lin Wu questioned.

~Ding~

Error!: Command cannot be executed

Warning!: Energy resources low

~sign~

"So it won't be able to tell me unless I get it more resources, huh." Lin Wu said to himself.

Lin Wu then oriented himself according to the location of the energy source and started crawling towards it. At first, he was fine, he knew that because he was small, it would take him a while to reach the location. But when six hours passed by and the sun had gone down, Lin Wu could not take it anymore.

"Ah, I give up! How far is this energy source even? The markers have not even moved a little bit." Lin Wu said while looking at the map.

He had been keeping a watch on the map and was looking to see how much the distance was but found that there seemed to be no sign of the position markers moving at all. He thought that he would see at least a slight change, but to no avail. The distance was still too far from him.

"Is the map function broken? Is that why it's telling me that I'm at the same location?" Lin Wu thought with a little helpless expression.

~rumble~

A strange rumbling sound was coming from Lin Wu's stomach.

~Ding~

WARNING!: Host's personal energy levels at critical level, please consume nutrients.

"Wait, why am I suddenly so hungry? Why did it go from like 0 to 100 immediately, shouldn't it be a gradual increase?" Lin Wu wondered as he struggled from the wave of hunger.

Lin Wu looked at the nearest blade of grass and chomped down on it. A couple of hours later, he had eaten a small radius of grass area.

"This should be enough. If I get hungry I can eat any time later. I'm surrounded by grass, anyway." Lin Wu said to himself.

He then started his journey again and kept on going. He would sleep when he was tired and eat when he was hungry. Days went by and Lin Wu's mind had become blurred. He could not tell what day it was.

Finally, one day he saw the change in the map. The distance between the two dots had finally come close.

"YES! YESSSSSSS!" Lin Wu shouted.

"Finally, I should be close to the energy source now." Lin Wu said to himself.

Ten hours later, Lin Wu finally reached the energy source. But when he saw it, he was utterly shocked. There were two corpses in front of him. One was of an oversized boar, which had a sword stabbed in its back. While the other corpse was a man who was dressed in ancient styled robes, he had been gored in his stomach by the boar's tusks.

"What the hell? What happened here? Why is the boar so big and the man wearing clothes like this?" Lin Wu wondered.

It was now that he closely looked at the man's corpse and the gears in his mind started turning. He realized what may have happened and who that man could be.

"Let's not jump to conclusions. I'll first get the energy source first." Lin Wu decided.

He then followed the directions of the system and crawled up to the arm of the man. The map was pointing towards the exact place where the man was holding the sword in a stabbing position. It was covered with blood and one could not tell whose blood it was.

It took Lin Wu another hour to climb up to the point, but as soon as he did another notification sounded.

~Ding~

ENERGY SOURCE DETECTED: Absorbing

WARNING!: Extremely high-quality energy source obtained.

WARNING!: Host's vitals unstable.

RECALCULATING PARAMETERS: Analyzing

ERROR!: Energy source unstable

WARNING!: Tranquilizing host to stabilize energy source

"What do you mean? No! Don't you dare you stupid system." Lin Wu cursed.

And with this, he fell unconscious again.