Training consumed far more energy than I expected.

  Flying.

  Falling.

  Healing.

  Repeating the process again and again.

  Each of those things demanded energy, and my body burned through it quickly. The Life attribute especially wasn’t something I could use endlessly without consequences.

  Regeneration wasn’t free.

  It required fuel.

  Which meant one thing.

  Food.

  Fortunately, I already had a small reserve.

  Near the back of my cave, partially buried under loose stones and dirt, were the tomb moles I had stored earlier as emergency food.

  They were meant for situations where hunting became impossible.

  Storms.

  Injuries.

  Or being forced to hide for long periods.

  But my training schedule was intense enough that I had to start eating them regularly.

  Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to finish my entire emergency supply.

  That would be stupid.

  Instead, I adopted a simple rule.

  Whenever I encountered a tomb mole outside, I would hunt it.

  Then I would bring it back to the cave and add it to the reserve.

  That way my stored food would never run out.

  And the system worked surprisingly well.

  Tomb moles weren’t exactly rare in this region. They liked soft soil and places with plenty of plant roots.

  Once I learned how to spot their tunnels, finding them became much easier.

  When I caught one, I carried it back to the cave.

  Alive.

  The small pit I had prepared for storing them gradually turned into a crude holding area.

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  To keep them alive and healthy, I even brought entire bushes from the forest. Their roots still carried soil and small insects, which the moles happily ate.

  Occasionally, I also threw in scraps from other prey.

  Small predators.

  Rodents.

  Anything edible.

  Which made my little “food reserve” surprisingly easy to maintain.

  Of course, once it was time to actually eat…

  I did things a bit differently.

  Unlike most beasts in this forest, I wasn’t interested in eating raw meat.

  After all, I still had the mind of someone from the twenty-first century.

  Which meant I cooked.

  Right outside the entrance of my cave, I built a small fire pit.

  Not with phoenix flames.

  That wouldn’t work.

  Despite how they looked, the flames produced by phoenix bloodlines weren’t always real fire.

  To creatures without fire elemental affinity, most phoenix “flames” didn’t actually burn like normal fire.

  For example, an ice phoenix could produce pale blue flames.

  They looked like fire.

  Moved like fire.

  But instead of burning, they froze everything they touched.

  In other words, they weren’t truly flames.

  Just manifestations of elemental energy.

  Since my phoenix lineage wasn’t fire-aligned, I couldn’t rely on it to cook.

  So I used the most primitive method imaginable.

  I placed a dry stick against a piece of wood and spun it rapidly between my claws.

  Friction.

  Heat.

  Smoke.

  Eventually…

  A small spark.

  A moment later, a weak flame appeared inside a bundle of dry leaves.

  Success.

  Soon a proper campfire burned at the cave entrance.

  The smell of roasting meat spread through the air as I carefully turned the tomb mole over the flames.

  It wasn’t fancy cooking.

  But it worked.

  And more importantly, it provided what I needed.

  Energy.

  In a dangerous forest like this one, running out of stamina was the same as inviting death.

  A tired body couldn’t run.

  A tired body couldn’t fly.

  And a tired body definitely couldn’t fight.

  So I ate.

  Regularly.

  Cooking the meat was only part of the process.

  The rest of the carcass was too useful to waste.

  Even in my previous life, throwing away perfectly usable resources would have been stupid. In a forest like this one, it was practically suicidal.

  So I used everything.

  After finishing the meat, I separated the remaining parts carefully. Bones were useful later, hides sometimes had value, and the organs…

  The organs had a very specific purpose.

  for the tombs moles, organs was Bait.

  A short distance from my cave—far enough that the smell wouldn’t attract trouble too close—I prepared a small trap.

  It wasn’t anything complicated.

  Just a hole dug into the ground and covered with thin branches, dry leaves, and loose soil. From above it looked like ordinary forest floor.

  But underneath was an empty pit deep enough to trap small animals.

  Then I tossed a few organs near the center.

  The smell carried surprisingly far.

  Carrion eaters.

  Small scavengers.

  Even curious predators.

  Sooner or later, something always came to investigate.

  Sometimes it was just a rodent or a lizard.

  Sometimes something a little bigger.

  Either way, if they stepped in the wrong place…

  They dropped straight into the pit.

  Simple.

  Efficient.

  And most importantly, it saved me time.

  The organs from other creatures didn’t go to waste either.

  Those I carried back to the cave and tossed into the holding pit where the tomb moles lived.

  They devoured them enthusiastically.

  Which worked perfectly for me.

  The stronger and healthier they stayed, the better .

  A sustainable system.

  Food storage.

  Traps.

  Cooking.

  Training.

  My days gradually settled into a routine.

  Wake up.

  Eat.

  Train.

  Hunt if necessary.

  Set traps.

  Cook again.

  Repeat.

  It wasn’t the kind of life most people from the twenty-first century would imagine.

  But here in the forest…

  Efficiency meant survival.

  And survival meant preparation.

  It wasn’t glamorous.

  But survival rarely was.