Huddled up and attempting to thaw out, Aoni sat staring down at the final Health Potion tube. It was one of the toughest decisions he had faced in his life so far, and Aoni''s hesitation to just go for it and hope for the best waspletely understandable.


    Not only had he been transported to a strangend, but with the altitude, terrain, and istion from civilization, plus the 35-day window before he could head back home, using the Potion seemed like a really bad idea.


    Anything could happen, and it was his literal only saving grace when it came to injuries.


    However, the longer he sat before the fire, the more the pain Aoni was feeling increased, along with the itching sensation brought about by the pins-and-needles effect.


    Even so, Aoni knew that this pain would only increase until he reached a mental breaking point, so after having weighed his options for several tens of minutes, he slithered his left arm out of the safety of the sleeping bag and emergency nket, snatched up the Potion, tore off the cap with his teeth and squeezed the jelly-like substance into his mouth.


    Like before, the effect of the Potion was practically instant, dulling the pain Aoni was feeling as the medication worked its way through his system.


    Generally, potionsst between 15-30 minutes, with more severe injuries taking up to an hour to resolve. This was especially true for Mundanes, which Aoni technically wasn''t; still, a basic healing potion could heal basic bone fractures at most, which was technically pretty good.


    Anyway, since Aoni was already on the mend thanks to the first Potion, the secondbined with it and hyper-elerated his ''healing factor'' or basic regeneration, and before the Cave had even had the opportunity to heat up to afortable temperature, the pain was gone.


    Unfortunately, that was when "buyer''s remorse" kicked in, and Aoni felt a sense of loss at what he''d done. Even if it was a matter of survival and movability, he''d burned the only life-saving trump card in his arsenal, meaning from this point onward, Aoni would be forced into a life of excessive caution for several days until he had a few summons who would be able to move in this climate.


    Letting out a sorrowful sigh and shaking his head to clear the dark thoughts, Aoni scooched like a caterpir closer to the fire, then, for the first time since his arrival, looked around the Cave, observing his surroundings.


    Thanks to the illumination provided by the fire, the entirety of the Cave was more or less visible, and to hisck of surprise, Aoni found a few things located around the 25x25 square foot cave.


    For starters, there was arge, rickety, empty bookcase on the far wall, opposite Aoni''s location, and beside it was a small chair and desk.


    Some distance away on what would technically be the back wall of the Cave was a single wooden bed made of some type of hide and what he guessed to be moss or something of the like.


    And much to his dismay, roughly six feet to his right, on the same wall Aoni had ced the fire in a hurry…was a small, empty firece.


    So basically, he''dpletely ignored this fact and started one in a stupid location.


    Closing his eyes, Aoni inhaled deeply and tried not to scream in annoyance at hisck of observation skills. Had thed been paying a little better attention, he could have heated this Cave SO much faster!


    Baring that thought in mind, Aoni pulled off the emergency nket and wrapped it around his hand. If the Tinder kit were to be relocated while lit, he would need the non-mmable properties of the emergency nket to do so, as he damn sure wasn''t about to put the fire out.


    The next couple of minutes involved thed testing out his body to ensure he was able to move properly before gently and carefully lifting the ming half-brick and migrating it to the firece before making his way over to the object faintly resembling a real bed and copsing onto it.


    Without an awakened Traveler''s disy, there was no telling how long it had been since Aoni made it here, so while he understood the immediate need to make a move on setting up the Flume, Aoni didn''t have the physical strength to do so.


    He was tired…so very tired, and the faint crackling of the fire wasn''t helping Aoni stay awake.


    Before long, since he was out of danger, his body healed, and he was bundled up warmly in the nket/sleeping bagbo; Aoni''s eyes fluttered onest time before he finally passed out.


    ---


    When he awoke an unknown number of hourster, the first thing Aoni noticed was that it was pitch ck outside the Cave and hot enough inside it that he was drenched from head to toe in sweat.


    "Putting the tinder kit into the firece was the best option for sure." He mused while shooting a nce at the crackling fire.


    ~Grooooolll~@@novelbin@@


    Hearing the rumblingsing from his abdomen, Aoni shrugged off the emergency nket and slinked out of the sleeping bag before falling onto the hard rocky floor with a thud and holding his stomach.


    "Hungry….food first, then it''s time to set up my Flume and get this show on the road." Standing up, Aoni noticed that his body was free of all pain and stiffness. He took a second to acknowledge this fact and then walked over to where he had left the survival pack.


    Scooping it up with surprisingly little effort, Aoni made his way across the Cave back toward the bed before dumping out all its contents and organizing them by order of importance.


    Next, he tore open the box filled with rations and took stock of the packages. Although the box was norger than aptopputer, it housed 90 individual vacuum-sealed packages, each the size of a phone but incredibly thin, so after locating the packagebeled D-01, Aoni sighed and plucked it out.


    "I hate MRE''s *Meal Ready to Eat* but calories are calories, and these are packed with a lot more than the normal Mundane ones I would eat during survival training." Without further ado, Aoni ripped the package open and dumped the small bags onto the bed.


    The contents of the MRE included One heating pack, one water pouch equivalent to a single bottle of water, one full meal of beef stew, some crackers, and a fun-sized chocte bar.


    Using a small amount of water from the pouch, Aoni then activated the heating element, dumped the dehydrated stew into the heating bag, and "cooked" with a few shakes and some waiting; his meal was ready…to eat.