Chapter 50: Project "Camp -> Settlement" (5)

Though Alpha was still livid, he nodded his head in response, understanding that he was being a tad too dramatic.

"Wait for me. Even if you can take them all out yourself, just wait for me," he whispered, before leaving to inform his men.

"That, I can do," Lucius whispered in response.

"Okay, now time to discuss today's training exercises. Ghost, I spotted you five times during our travels. And towards the end, you lost track of me completely. I'm certain that only the sound of this thing's screams brought you to me," Lucius said after a moment of silence.

"You know what that means, don't you?" he smiled.

"I-I didn't lose track. I was just letting you run ahead, for more space... y'know," she tried explaining, but Lucius was already moving on to Hannibal.

"You're still waiting? 55 Laps, let's go," Lucius said, turning back to look at her once she was done trying to explain herself.

She whispered something under her breath in response but started doing her laps anyway. The whole time complaining.

"And finally, you Hannibal. Tell me what you've come up with," he said, dragging the shroom behind a shrub as he spoke.

"I-I'm not sure if my answers are correct. But... for one, the concept can be used to remove things from the ground. Some pebbles are lodged into the ground, perhaps this could be used to extract them?" Hannibal answered.

Lucius simply nodded in response, moving back a few steps to see if the area he had hidden the shroom in was good enough.

"U-Uhm, second, it could be used to climb up areas. If we put a 'force' on one side of the twig, we can climb up the other without worrying about it falling over," Hannibal continued.

"Force? What's a force?" Lucius asked, surprised that Hannibal was already using the word so comfortably.

"You said the concept was force equivalence. So I... I assumed that the reason the twigs were balancing was due to forces," Hannibal replied awkwardly.

"Hmm, that's good. You're right. And what about the third reason?" Lucius asked, leading him back to the main camp.

"This is the answer I wasn't certain of. But perhaps... it can be used to throw things into the air?"

"Why would we ever need that?" Lucius asked, greeting a few leaflings as he walked through the camp.

"If we can launch pebbles into the air, dealing with threats might be easier. W-we wouldn't have to engage with them, it'd be safer," Hannibal stuttered, trying to keep up with Lucius's long quadrupedal gait.

~So like a catapult?~ Lucius thought to himself, the idea having never crossed his mind before.

"I suppose. But explain to me how you came to that. I showed you force equivalents, how to make things balance, not how to launch things," Lucius replied, moving towards the supplies area to see how much the leaflings had collected.

~Hmm, these are quite a number of twigs. A few more and I'm sure that we'll have more than enough for construction,~ he thought to himself.

"While I was testing the concepts, I asked someone to stand on one end while I stood on the other. But I ended up getting on too fast, and the leafling was launched into the air," Hannibal answered after pondering over it for a moment.

"Momentum. But I'm not going to teach you that," Lucius replied, finding that the concept itself would be easy to teach surface-wise, but had a depth he wasn't ready to explain. He would allow Hannibal to discover some things himself, the kid seemed fairly smart, he digested his teachings quite fast so long as Lucius left them open to interpretation.

"So, did you find this fun?" Lucius asked as he walked towards the shed.

"Somewhat. It gave me a feeling that I'd never felt before. At times I got a bit confused with my findings, but when I did discover something new, it felt... it felt good," Hannibal replied, following Lucius to the shed as well.

"That's good to hear. When you evolve I'll teach you stuff that's even better. But for now, you not having any arms will be a hindrance," Lucius said, before stopping abruptly.

"There you are," he said immediately after, finding the insectoid creature resting beside Pagan.

"I thought you'd left," he said, patting the insectoid on the back before checking up on Pagan.

*

As always Lucius woke up early the next day, and this time he started his morning with a few tree hops. At this point, he wasn't getting any stats out of it, but it was quite the fun excersize, and gave him some form of familiarity with his new body.

After that, he checked up on Ghost's progress, which seemed to have plateaued. Her head kick wasn't getting any better, and her spin kick only seemed to be getting worse with every try.

"You'll evolve soon enough, you've done well thus far," Lucius commented before leaving her to her struggles.

Today was the day he would get all the pebble work done. He loaded a few pebbles onto a sled -just enough for him to struggle with- and began his journey.

He had given Alpha today's orders; Everyone was to collect twigs, and during the afternoon they would take their rest as they wouldn't be having a session today.

As for the shroom, Lucius ordered them not to talk to it. He had built a makeshift cage using twigs and grass before he left, and put a relatively large pebble on top of it so it couldn't escape. He was fairly certain that the shroom was incapable of getting out even if it got out of its binds.

*

The journey to the 'grinding' cluster was grueling due to the uneven ground. There were even incidents where massive roots would block his path, and he would be forced to carry the pebbles over them individually, before loading them into the sled again and proceeding.

And it didn't get any easier once he finally arrived there, as the grinding process was just as hard. He took as few breaks as he could manage, wanting to cover as much work as possible, but still managed to make time for a 1-hour photosynthesis session, allocating all the cultivated Helios into growth.

In the end, he managed to grind out four axe heads, three chisels, a sharp-tipped head for boring holes, and two stone knives. Of course he would've had way more if he had known what he was doing, but he in fact did not.

A couple of times he got the shapes wrong and was forced to toss whole pebbles away due to his incompetence. Not to mention the number of injuries he got during the crafting. But it was a learning process, and he had learned quite a bit grinding these tools.

He got back to the camp way past nightfall, finding the leaflings already in the shed.