Tyler cheered as the heavy log fell back into place, stabbing fistfuls of branches through the gaps he’d been forced to leave in his hurry to wrench the door closed.

  Not a moment after, a half-dozen duneclaws crashed into the barrier, pincers snapping and scraping against the wood and stone of his cavernous home. He heard them descend upon the location in a wave, a true swarm of creatures driven mad by the stench of their dead brethren. But the barrier held.

  He let out a sigh, a big dumb smile etched on his face as he slumped next to the corpse that he'd thrown into the cave just seconds ago.

  “Wow,” he mumbled. “There's even more of them than I thought.”

  And more would come, he was sure. Duneclaws begat noise begat more duneclaws, or something. He didn’t know how many there were on the island, but he was sure it had to be in the hundreds.

  I won’t truly be free until I’m able to take on those swarms.

  He chuckled as he examined himself, running his thumb over the scrape on his shin. Even after all his growth, he was reminded of just how far he had to go.

  But he’d gotten what he'd come out for.

  The high of victory and survival was still bubbling away, like sea foam after the crash of a ginormous wave. He took a moment to just revel in it, as the adrenaline slowly faded and his heartbeat went back to normal.

  When was the last time he’d really accomplished something? Something that had pushed at the limits of his capabilities, that required effort measured in the span of months and not hours? It must have been before the crash. After it, after that… hell, he was sure he’d lost that spark that had propelled him for so much of his life.

  But he supposed that it was still there inside him, after all.

  Tyler giggled.

  He’d killed a full-grown duneclaw. And it had been… not easy, perhaps, but doable. Replicable. If required, he was confident he could do it again and again as many times as he needed to. And that feeling was powerful for that little spark of ambition that had slowly grown within him over the past month.

  He wasn’t content just hiding away in his little cave any longer. Now, he wanted more.

  With a groan, he dragged his kill over to his fire as the corpse slowly leaked fluid. His gait was shaky now that his limbs had cooled down, but the weeks of training and infusion of Resilience had turned that from a major hindrance to something manageable.

  This one was a lot bigger than the other one — probably as long as he was tall, if you counted the tail. He doubted he could have managed to drag the thing even a couple of steps before eating the banana, but with the Flowing Sands he’d managed a steady half-shuffle-half-sprint for the minute or so it took him to get back to the cave.

  He now had another couple weeks of food at the very least. He would have preferred a more balanced diet, but even if he managed to sneak out and snag some fruit, he would be hard-pressed to find some that the duneclaws hadn’t already gotten their grubby little claws on. The entire island was covered in rotting fruit, courtesy of the giant insects.

  Luckily, he was probably fine in the water department for a while longer. He had maybe a week’s worth of coconuts left from those giant sacks Savadiere had left in the cave, and once he was through he could try and go out to get more. The coconut trees were hard enough to climb that the duneclaws didn't seem to be able to get up them to eat the young, soft ones, and the monsters either weren’t strong enough to bust the mature ones open or they just weren’t smart enough to realize they could. All the marks on the coconuts he’d seen felt incidental, the same way the creatures would claw at tree trunks or stones.

  Tyler silently laughed at them for it. Hah, your entire species is named after your pincers but you still can’t crack open a piece of fruit. My species has been cracking open coconuts for millennia!

  “Oh god, I’m deliriously making fun of the alien species that was five seconds away from murdering me again.”

  He shook his head, drawing in a deep breath and taking a sip of coconut water. Maybe this was what social isolation did to people. Then again, they deserved it. The steady pounding and scraping on his door would make anyone want to mentally bully a swarm of alien insects.

  At least, that was what he told himself.

  He needed to go to bed, he decided. He was too tired to handle the sweltering heat of a cooking session right now, even if he could potentially ventilate the cave more now that he could move the entrance log. He tossed a celebratory twig on the dragonfire embers, watching with a grin as it instantly caught fire.

  No more rationing out his furniture, either. Now that he was strong enough to get out, he could scavenge branches, crack the door open to vent air and have a constant little flame going. The thought made him smile, and he —

  Pop.

  Tyler shot up, hands grasping for a spear that wasn’t next to him. What was that? Had the duneclaws broken through the barrier? Why was…

  The barrier was fine, and now that Tyler was on high-alert he realized that the sound wasn’t anything like the constant scraping noises of the army of claws fighting against the log.

  It had almost sounded like popcorn. And it had come from next to him, not the cave entrance. But there wasn’t anything in that direction, nothing except…

  The seeds. He’d gathered a collection of seeds from all the fruit that he’d eaten over the past month, and without noticing, he’d let the duneclaw corpse leak bug blood on them.

  And from the very smallest pile, where the acidic fluid had just begun to pool, he glimpsed something green, rising from the sea of black.

  It shouldn’t have been very noticeable — the duneclaw blood itself was green, and there was a smattering of leaves and grass scattered across the cave as it was. Its shape didn’t catch the eye, and it was small enough that he’d barely noticed it was actually standing upright.

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  But there was something about it that seemed to Resonate with him.

  Tyler shuffled over to the small shoot, which he soon recognized as a sprout coming out of one of the seeds. Small roots crawled along the floor beside it, and the dried blood seemed to fade as it reached them, as if the plant had drunk it all to fuel the sprout’s growth.

  Resilience-Touched Banana Seed

  This seed has received positive effects from the Dimensional Storm, and has been catalyzed with the blood of a Storm-Cursed entity. It may draw upon the Resilience within its environment, harnessing the Aspect to grow and fuel its fruit.

  “Shit.”

  He read the description over again.

  “Shit.”

  Of course, it was a seed from the magic banana. But he’d Analyzed each and every one of them at the beginning of his stay, and the descriptions hadn’t been like that at all. He’d tried planting a few, both outside and in the dirt that lined the far corner of the cave that he, uh, regularly fertilized, and nothing had happened.

  But the seeds could grow — they just needed a different nutrient. He quickly fished the rest of the seeds out from the pile before they could be touched by the duneclaw fluids, Analyzing each one to see which had already been catalyzed by his own blood.

  “Okay, you’re all going in a far safer space.”

  He wrapped them in leaves, then again in his long-forgotten pajama shirt, which he’d abandoned within the first couple of days of being stranded in the cave. But though the future possibilities were shining bright in his mind, they were altogether outshone by the blinding revelation right in front of him.

  Some of the seeds were duds. Some of them just hadn’t been bled on. But this one had sprouted.

  He’d had the right idea all along. Like a normal seed, it could feed on biological matter. But not for the matter itself — for the Resilience inside of it.

  Tyler carefully took the sprout in his palm, tracing each tiny root that had emerged from the seed. Slowly, carefully, he dragged the roots along the spilled bug blood, watching in fascination as it absorbed it and grew in real time.

  He could sense the Resonance accumulating within it. He often didn’t pay much attention to the Resilience of the outside world, trapped as his mana was inside of his own body, but now he began to notice just how bright the duneclaw shone with the substance. It was slowly fading — likely dispersing now that the thing was dead — but it glimmered like glitter in his senses.

  After a moment of thought, he snapped the tail off of his kill. It took quite a bit of effort, but the time flashed by in an instant as his thoughts were consumed by anticipation.

  Then, he dragged the rest of the body over to the dirt. The cave was large enough that he rarely came over to this area other than to do his business, but he’d left the most shovel-shaped piece of wood he could find leaning against the wall to help with that purpose.

  Now, he began digging. He worked his still-sore muscles, letting the Flowing Sands wash over him as he carved out a hole that was far larger than he was used to. By the time he was done, it almost looked like a grave. Which it kind of was, he supposed.

  With a deep breath, he cracked open the duneclaw’s main carapace as best as he could and nestled the seed deep in its flesh. He plopped it onto the bed of dirt and drained the blood of the tail directly on top of the seed.

  He began piling a thin layer of dirt on top of it.

  Before he could even finish, the sprout had broken through.

  Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

  Before his eyes it grew, first at a pace so slow that he was half-sure it was a trick of the firelight, and then faster and faster until it must have been growing an inch every couple of seconds. He instinctually Analyzed it, mouth hanging agape as he witnessed the birth of a magical tree in real time.

  Resilience-Touched Banana Tree (Sapling)

  This young sapling has been fed with compounds containing a minor Resonance with the Aspect of Resilience. It will slowly grow under normal conditions, but one may accelerate its growth and production by feeding it more matter containing Resilience.

  Flat palm-sized leaves sprouted from the top of the plant, and motes of Resilience-tinged light shimmered into existence as its trunk gradually turned from fresh green to an older, steady brown.

  Tyler brushed his hand against one of the luminescent specks, shivering as the magic tickled his skin before disappearing in a puff of light. The tree was almost up to his chest now, and more and more leaves were sprouting from it, shooting up in twisted lines and then unfurling like a blooming flower.

  One especially large one shot up and flopped onto his head.

  He took a step back and regretfully realized that he should have planted it further away from the wall. The tree's leaves facing the cave's wall curved as they pressed against the stone, conforming to the shape of the cave in a contorted but somehow pleasing way.

  But Tyler only had a moment to think about the tree’s leaves before something even more amazing occurred. Another green shoot sprouted from the tree’s trunk, but rather than being another leaf, this one had a small red bulb at the tip, which he slowly realized was a flower.

  The motes of light coalesced around the bulb, until it shone like a lantern as it hung steadily from the tree’s outstretched limb.

  Resilience-Touched Banana Blossom

  This flower is the first blossom of a Mana-Touched Banana Tree. It can be eaten to increase the cultivation of Resonance within its consumer. If the tree is continually fed, it may bloom into a host of Mana-Touched fruit.

  The bulb slowly grew as it drooped, growing longer and fatter by the minute as Tyler stared at it, ensnared by the magical process. Its smooth exterior grew darker and more textured, and the motes of light gradually winked out until it was illuminated only by the light of the flickering flames.

  Then, as the tree finally finished its extraordinary growth, a single petal bloomed outwards, revealing a trio of baby flowers underneath.

  As the tree finally stopped its extraordinary growth, he gingerly reached out, plucking the petal from its place of growth.

  With a quick prayer to whichever gods held purview over magical fruits and people stranded on islands, he popped the thing into his mouth.

  It was tough and chewy, like he'd just chomped on a particularly fibrous leaf. Which, he supposed, was pretty close to what he'd done.

  He chewed on it for a minute until it became this mushy little ball of plant in his mouth. It was a little disgusting, but it also had some pleasant floral notes that he could appreciate behind the astringent bitterness that was dominating his taste buds. He ground the glob between his molars, trying to break down the fibers and hopefully release more of the magic inside of the thing.

  And then when he thought he’d chewed it up to the best of his ability, he swallowed the whole thing like a big pill.

  He sat down, half-expecting nothing to happen because he’d already reached Saturation. But immediately, he felt that melody within him began to grow. Something within his soul had tipped.

  He’d already accumulated a giant buildup of Resonance from his fight, and now the petal’s energy surged through him, meshing together with it and buzzing with a frequency that fittingly Resonated with the Resilience already saturating his mana.

  Tyler gasped, furiously circulating his mana in the cultivation form.

  The tension of his built-up Resilience grew greater by the second, accumulating in the swirling sea of mana foaming in his core. The vibrations intensified, building and building until he was scared something in his soul would break.

  And then woosh.

  The excess Resilience was subsumed.

  The already-massive pool of energy within him grew even further, the ambient mana circulating deeper into his muscles like water seeping into cracked, dry soil. The bleeding of his scrape slowly came to a stop, and his strained muscles relaxed, the burden on his joints eased by the Aspect as it suffused his very being.

  Congratulations! You have advanced to Mid-Novice.