36 Chapter 36- Natural Camouflage (1/2)

Setting out into the marshlands, Dubs breathed a sigh of relief.

”It seems like that woman is quite paranoid. I will have to keep tabs on her, but I don't think she will pose a threat to me.”, he thought.

Alt, who was walking alongside Dubs with shadowy streaks of energy radiating outwards, responded.

”Haha! But you admitted that she was pretty cute when she was frustrated like that.”

Dubs remained silent and continued walking onward through the wetlands.

The ground squished as Dubs walked, and it required a fair amount of effort to take each step. ”Alt, do you have any sort of mapping ability?”, Dubs asked.

”As of right now, I don't. I would need to have more control over earth magic so that I could propagate a sonar like reading that graphs the location and altitude of the earth particles over a large area.”, Alt replied.

”And I would need to learn the [Cartography] spell, of course.”

Dubs was disappointed but looked around. ”I suppose for now I will head to the north and explore the area around there. The purpose of my current expedition is to gather any materials that might be useful for experimentation, so there isn't really a particular location I am interested in.”

Dubs and Alt headed north and slowly the wet sludge that they trudged their way through became more solid, until they had reached a dry plain. The crooked trees that covered the swamps also disappeared, and Dubs took a look at the sun.

The color of the sky turned from a greenish tint to a bright orange, as the blazing star beamed down with a dry heat, now that they were out of the swamp, and Dubs began to analyze the movement.

”It appears that over the course of an hour that the sun has moved 10 degrees in the sky... this would mean that the period of revolution of the planet is 36 hours- which doesn't line up with the underground sense of time. I will continue to further investigate the natural occurrences on the surface of the world. ”, Dubs thought.

Making this observation, he moved on.

Dubs walked through the soft grass and began to inspect and harvest some of the plants he found as he was walking.

”I can determine the properties of these plants later if I gather enough of them, and analyze their uses.”

He picked some Violet flowers that had 3 petals and yellow tongues sticking out of the center, and stored them in the void that Alt could use.

He also took a few handfuls of the grass and stored them, just in case.

”It doesn't seem as if there are too many useful materials within this plain. Alt, could you fly up to check if there are any landmarks in the area?”, Dubs asked.

”Roger that!”, Alt relayed as he began to fly up and took a look around.

”There is a river just past the hillside up ahead! We might be able to find something useful!”, Alt shouted down to Dubs.

Dubs pressed onward over to the raised plain and when he came to the top he saw a stream of crystal clear water flowing through the valley.

”Perhaps there are some riverbed plants that would be useful... I am going to take a look.”, Dubs stated as he slid down the hill.

Stopping himself from sliding as he came close to the river, Dubs began to search the surrounding area and found some seaweed like plants under the shallow surface of the water. Dubs waded into the water, and the cold stream began to repel itself from Dubs feet, creating air bubbles surrounding them.

”This reminds me of when my head was shoved into that irradiated water for minutes at a time. If I hadn't developed a resistance to the radiation, creating an air pocket, I most likely would have drowned.”

Dubs began to rant madly. ”I can't believe they would do such a thing to a fellow innocent human... I will make them pay... I will lock them up in chambers far worse than what they put me through...”

A light-bulb flashed inside Dubs head and he began to snicker at his ideas. ”Ehehe... I will first create a regenerative medicine... and then I will have them be tortured... ripped and torn apart from the inside out... only to regenerate their lost flesh so that the process may be repeated...”

Dubs went back to normal, and began to think again. ”Did I just say something, Alt? I feel like I was ranting about something but I cant seem to recall what...”

Alt simply snickered and brushed off the topic. ”It will be interesting to watch and find out whether the insanity or the sanity in you wins out...”

Dubs gave him an odd stare but then continued to gather the plants. ”Ah, yes! I believe I decided just now to try to find some sort of herb with medicinal properties...”

Alt began to laugh hysterically, but this only further confused Dubs.