That was how Northern fainted a second time and was left in the embrace of time, the monster left for a while and didn't return.
Food was not administered to him.
He helplessly lay on the ground slowly expecting his death… he occasionally tried to summon his clone to try help him tidy up the wound and do something so he could survive.
But the attempt was not successful… the only reason he could think of was that the clone didn't dissipate from back then.
When Northern encountered the Night Terror, the clone was in front observing the surrounding, the Night Terror attacked from the back.
As a last ditch of his effort, he had ordered the clone not to come over to his side and make sure he stayed 100 meters away at all cost.
After waking up there was no sign of the clone, he couldn't receive any mental report from it, then he just thought the clone and failed and summoning it with his angel of death stubbornly watching over him was a dumb call.
He just needed to wait for some time when he could. The first time the monster left, he tried, it was futile.
Northern didn't think about it. In fact, there was no chance to.
But now that he desperately needed the clone to appear he wandered about the things that could have gone wrong and also got to observe that either something was blocking his command or something was blocking him from using the talent ability.
He doubted the latter was possible. The system is a concept of power that exist outside this world… he doubted if it was recognized at all.
What is not recognized cannot be hindered, so most likely it was the former. Something was definitely blocking out his command.
So many questions ran helter-skelter in his head as he laid in the puddle of his blood, staring at the joyless grey sky.
Was the clone even alive… he couldn't feel it at all, in or out of it, he couldn't tell.
Northern didn't tell how long passed, his stomach started to cry for food, nothing of which was given to him since the monster left.
The bastard had probably communicated with the others to let him die. Maybe when he died, they would come with another replacement.
At the very least he was getting the rest he desperately wished for.
The hunger became unbearable for Northern and when it did, he began to scramble for anything he could get his hands on.
Wandering if maybe one day he had left scrubs of one of the baked monster bones they always served him… or maybe some kind of food had dropped from the heavens.
With the harrowing pain on his shoulders, a sore muscle and a dirtied pale body designed with shallow red cuts.
However, mining had its good effect on Northern's body.
His pale and lean frame had not changed but his muscles were now coiling beneath that ivory coat of his, abs subtly forming contours on his abdomen.
Northern's body was slowly being smelted by the strenuous labor he was being put through.
Right now, it was just covered in a pool of blood, those glory unseen.
Northern was met with only one choice of food. Very little shards of red crystal that were impossible for the monster to pick but possible for him to, due to the difference of the kind of hands they had.
Northern turned and slowly picked a tiny, the idea was crazy, maybe it was an hallucination or just craziness, he saw it as a hardened blood meal that should at least satisfy him.
If not, how is it supposed to release a killing intent that was as sharp as weapon of war.
Only masters could use killing intents like that and it was owed to the role that spiritual release played.
Spiritual released was the act of using once soul essence to manifest their spirituality into a tangible form.
Most time it was an intangible form but when used by master drifters, it could become an invisible blade capable of harvesting gore.
A crystal being able to do such a technical thing was a wild thought. But it wasn't like it was impossible.
After all, a crystal was playing the role of measuring drifter's soul power, another was serving as an anti-gravity source for a flying ship.
Northern slowly moved the crystal into his mouth.
To his shock, it wasn't that hard to chew on and left a slight bitter sweet taste in his mouth.
After that one, he looked around and pitifully crawled, leaving trace of his blood. He bit deep on his lips to endure the pain, then managed to chew on the crystal.
Every time he crawled and ate the crystal, he ironed his mind with the hatred for the monster and swore that he was going to have his revenge no matter what.
This monster and the Night Terror would die by his own hands, even if it was not this life and was the next.
He promised himself as he fed on bitter sweet crystals while painfully waiting for his end.
But strangely that end got farther and farther away from him the more he fed on the crystals.
Slowly, he gained the strength to stand, walk some few distance to pick up red crystals to it.
Sometimes the effect on his stomach was dreadful to deal with. He would vomit blood and almost feel his intestines about to drop through his mouth.
Other tines it was in his stooling, he had marked a corner to the right side of the wall where he often dropped his poop.
He was over all not enjoyable feeding on such a thing.
However, Northern did not know why this thing was keeping him alive, so he just decided that he was going to live on it for as long as possible.
Maybe till he is strong enough to swing the axe again.
Time passed, Northern got plenty of rest, the gash on his shoulder was now a crude scar marking his left side, the small cuts had also become scars.
His body was a patchwork of healed wounds.
One day, the monster came in with a new prisoner… but saw its former prisoner standing healthy, a dark frown weathered on his face.
The monster had clearly never expected Northern to survive a crude wound like that one.
Northern picked the axe and confidently walked over to the monster.
Looked him in the face and for the first time since he found himself in the mine prison, his voice cold and shrewd:
"What? I am not done with you and you want to replace me?"
And that was how Northern won his place back in the mine prison, he wasn't sure what had happened, the other prisoner, a humanoid creature with the head of an insect was taken out and the monster resumed its job as his angel of death.
Northern mined diligently while thinking several ways to kill the monster, overpower it, ways he could grow stronger.
However, nights flowed by like waves of sea, the distance of mined rocks Northern left behind him became frightening and alarming.
And still, greater waves of rock merged with the horizon and seemed to even sprawled further than it.
Thinking about it how far it was became a harrowing torment to his head, over time he decided to take the things he could control by its helm.
For now, the only thing was mining. He mined and mined and soon was mining his mind again.
At the very least nothing he did could ever get rid of the hatred he had for his angel of death and the Night Terror.
Northern was quickly becoming a slave again.
That was when two things happened…that day the number of talent fragments absorbed by Northern increased…yet he did nothing to deserve it.
The second was… he got out… for the first time since reaching the prison, he saw the kingdom of red mine.