Chapter 40 - Air Cutter
Ning had been looking around the places the rabbit took him when he happened to see something red on a bush. 'Hmm… is that a berry?' he was surprised to find some so easily. He looked more carefully and realized the bush had a bunch of red berries, all bunched up in small sections.
'Nice, I found some berries. That should help them a bit.' Ning started getting happy. Coincidentally, the rabbit jumped towards the berry's bush as well.
'Hmm… what is that dry lump over there?' he wondered but didn't care much about what he saw. The rabbit reached the bush and climbed over the dry lumps on the ground to eat some berry.
Ning was ecstatic at reaching the berries. 'Alright, so I just have to put them inside the storage. Can I do that while they are still attached to the plant?' he wondered.
'Trying won't hurt,' he thought and started concentrating on making the berries go into his storage. He tried for a bit, but it didn't work at all.
'Sh*t. I will have to think of something else. Uh… what if I pick it off of the tree first? No, I don't have hands or telekinesis for that. If I could just cut it off the tree… hmm… that could work. Hey, system! Do you have something to cut those small vines those berries are attached to?' he asked.
<System suggests you get the skill 'Air Cutter'>
'Air Cutter? Cutting the air?' he was confused. 'Oh, wait, using air to cut? Is that it?'
<Yes. You send a sharp slash made up of Air and cut whatever is in the way>
'What's the price then?' he asked.
<Air Cutter costs 5,000,000 Energy>
'Huh? That's… surprisingly cheap. Considering how useful it is. Well, compared to Candle fire, it's not. But that costs energy to use as wel— Wait! Don't tell me this one does too?' Ning asked nervously.
<Air Cutter uses 200 energy per centimeter of the cut and 2000 energy per 5 meters of distance traveled>
<Distance of fewer than 5 meters has no distance-based cost>
<Remaining energy costs based on the power of the slash>
'Oh, it's not as bad as fire then. Alright, buy it,' he ordered the system.
<Confirmed>
<Congratulations. You have successfully obtained 'Air Cutter'>
'Oooh, nice. Alright, let's chop that vine then,' he thought. 'Distance won't cost energy for now, and since that vine is so tiny, I doubt I would even need more than 1 cm of length. This should be a piece of cake,' he thought.
He concentrated on the little vine that held one of the bunch of berries. With a single thought, a small, barely visible slash originated from him, traveling to the vine. And in a single slash, it cut it.
The bunch of berries started falling, and before it even fell to the ground it started changing trajectory. It flew straight towards the rabbit and then disappeared.
'Yes!' Ning shouted excitedly. Just as the berries had fallen, he had sent the berries to Interdimensional Storage. 'Thank god it works now that the berries aren't connected to the vine.'
He then proceeded to collect more berries. He would send the Air Cutter flying towards the vine and use his storage ability to store them before they even fell.
He was really excited. He collected them for a while before something happened. 'Why do I feel so bloated? Almost like I ate too much,' he thought.
'System, what is going on?' he asked.
<Interdimensional Storage with Stopped Time is at full Capacity>
'Oh, we're full already? So we collected all 5 KGs of berries. That was quite fast. Guess that's it then.' He decided to wait for the rabbit to finish eating and then leave.
He waited for a few minutes. Slowly, the few minutes turned to a lot of minutes. Which seemed to extend as well.
'What is going on?' he looked outside and saw that the rabbit wasn't moving at all. It wasn't even eating. 'What's wrong with it?' he thought as he looked at it.
The rabbit had half a chewed berry, with some froth at the mouth. And it was absolutely not breathing. 'Huh? What's wrong?' he was shocked. 'Is it dead?' he thought.
It was then that something caught his eyes. It was one of the dry lumps that were on the ground. It looked surprisingly like a…
'A rabbit?' he then turned to another lump. This one looked like a bird. Another one looked like a squirrel. Another one looked like something else.
All in all, every single one of the dry lumps was in the shape of some sort of animal. They were all corpses left out after dying.
'Does that mean...,' a frightening thought appeared in his mind. 'Are these berries poisonous?' he thought. 'System, are these berries poisonous?' he asked.
<Yes>
The system confirmed his suspicions.
'Oh my god. I would've killed that entire village of people if I hadn't seen these dead animals.' He could feel just how scared he was right now. 'That was a close call. I will need to get rid of all of those berries I collected.'
'How do I do that though?' he fell into a small problem. 'System, how do I throw out the items in my storage?' he asked.
<Taking items out of storage is the same as storing them>
<You have an all-seeing eye over everything in your Interdimensional storage>
<You can see everything in your storage with a single thought and choose what to take out>
'Do I? Let's see.' He concentrated on trying to see if he could see into his storage. Suddenly, a bunch of information started popping into his mind.
'Woah. I do.'
It was as if he knew everything about his storage. He knew that there were 244 berries in 16 different vines. He could also see the 6 stones he collected just this morning.
He tried thinking of throwing every single item out in the wild, and suddenly the entirety of his storage poured out. All the berries and stones were out in the field.
And finally, Ning stopped feeling so bloated.