Chapter 393: Chapter 381 - First Encounter With A Jumper
With his name established, Zeel felt as if he was on the pinnacle of something great…
His objective couldn't be clearer – be better than he was…
And if there was one thing Zeel Crawford, now Croft, could be, was better than everyone else…
Every species, every God, every trace of life in the wide Universe... NO!
Multiverse!
Zeel pushed himself out of his sleep space, punching the walls as he exited…
He would be moving on today, and he was not one to leave resources available for the next guy to use…
Zeel grabbed the cloths covering the hole, and drew the rune for 'CONTAINER' on the stone…
When a large clay bottle morphed from the surrounding rock, Zeel squeezed all the moisture captured by the cloth into the bottle…
The water almost overflowed, causing Zeel to create another bottle for the remaining water…
There was nothing to pack, so after strapping both bottles to his body, Zeel continued with the journey of a thousand miles…
Five minutes into the journey felt like hours…
The sun had reemerged as daunting as ever…
Had this happened before when he was still the Young Master of the Crawford Family, Zeel had little doubt that he would blow up the sun…
Just like that – destroy the pesky thing…
But now that he had the humble roots of a Treasure Hunter (as far as his fake identity was concerned), he would endure like any other human…
Five minutes turned into an hour…
One hour turned into five hours…
Zeel passed the time walking by practicing his concentration…
Lightning flickered on his fingers, and every time he felt his instincts pang, Zeel sent a flickered of lightning towards the ground ahead…
Snakes, Scorpions, Lizards, and Spiders were reduced to spasming messes as he passed by their homes…
He was probably destroying an ecosystem but oh well…
When seven hours of constant walking had passed and the sun was at its hottest, Zeel found himself losing patience for the journey…
Sadly, there were no anti-gravity boots to hasten the journey, but that didn't mean he was completely out of options…
In a moment of spontaneity, Zeel rushed through the sand until he arrived at the top of a sandhill, and then, he leaped into the air…
Two Feet…
Five Feet…
Ten Feet…
He arrived at nearly fifteen feet with a single vertical leap, and as he gazed over towards another hill about five hundred meters away, Zeel activated his warp…
A shock rippled through his body, indicating just how much he had stretched his capabilities, but, he pushed through the sensation…
The air trembled and screamed…
Then with a sharp crack, Zeel found himself a couple of feet above the sandhill five hundred meters away…
A moment of triumph overcame him, but such a feeling of success did not last long…
As soon as he felt the release of freedom, Zeel felt the quick tug of gravity…
Only, the tug came from behind and not below…
---SWOOOSH---
Just as swiftly as he appeared five hundred meters away, Zeel was pulled through space to his previous location, slamming into the sandhill he had leaped off of…
The force rippled through his body, injuring several organs…
Luckily, his brain was not injured, and organs would regenerate eventually…
"Well…" Zeel groaned, pushing himself up and out of the sandhill "That wasn't a total failure… at least I now know that overextending my abilities will lead to a sling-shot effect…"
Already, Zeel calculated a hundred ways to reduce the backlash and even negate it entirely, but most of them involved tech that he no longer had access to…
Well, he could just build it…
Nonetheless, after the previous impact, Zeel wasn't going to attempt warping beyond his means for the rest of this journey…
The walking resumed; though, with a little lumping here and there…
A little pain to enforce the lesson learned…
Hours passed, and it wasn't long until the sun was starting to hide behind the sandhills to the west…
That was when Zeel first got the nagging sensation he was being watched…
At first, he looked to the skies, wondering if satellites had detected the faint traces of MU radiation unique to Divine Energy, but it definitely wasn't that…
Because he sensed the gaze coming from the desert hills, and not the skies, meaning animal or human…
And to get his attention, it would definitely not be a Kangaroo Rat…
It would have to be an animal or person that could genuinely threaten his life…
Even if he wasn't at 100%, Zeel trusted his instincts more than he trusted his own wives…
The walking continued for another hour…
Several times, Zeel had tried to bait whoever was watching, but it just continued to watch…
He could not attempt to bait the person out of hiding because then the person would become aware that Zeel knew he was being watched…
Whoever this person was, he was obviously an experienced Hunter…
Hence, when the day had been completely replaced by night, Zeel burrowed into the ground with cloth wrapping around his body…
But, instead of remaining in the same place, he dug and dug until he exited behind a nearby hill…
Such a feat would be impossible for any human, but for a Homo-Superior, it can with some Hybrid Runes and slightly pained fingers…
Zeel snuck back to the site of his burrow, and waited in the nearby hillside darkness…
He watched and waited…
And watched and waited to see what, or who would come…
'Kill it?' He thought, but shook his head the next moment 'Killing was something he would avoid – maybe torture first for information, then kill it…'
Eventually, Zeel shook his head again, wondering what was wrong with his thought processes to always conclude that killing was necessary…
After all, nothing everything deserves to die… just most things…
As he was looking over the site of his burrow, Zeel detected a sudden stirring of space, not dissimilar to his warp but somewhat stronger…
Then, like a ghost, or in this case a Jumper, someone appeared in front of his burrow…
The figure was a typical, white, American male with blonde hair, dressed in an Irish kilt, African Dashiki, and American Skinny Jeans…
'This is definitely a Jumper…' Zeel thought, judging by the many cultural clothing from destinations all over the world.
A Jumper was dangerous, but it also brought a sense of relief knowing he was in the Jumper Universe…
Maybe not exactly the Jumper Universe because he had checked on the Universe when he had his Mbeamer, and it showed indications that Earth had been destroyed in that Universe…
Hence, this was a neighboring Universe, or maybe even a branch…
At first glance, Zeel could tell that this Jumper was not a friendly person…
Zeel could tell from the way the Jumper scanned his surroundings, he was trained…
Possibly military…
But the Jumper's unrestrained atmosphere also indicated a mercenary-like attitude that did not match the rather normal bone density he possessed…
Yet, he had a certain confidence about him, and that displeased Zeel…
'This is a Mercenary who runs away at the first sign of danger… probably abandons his comrades as well…' Zeel thought, and warped into action…
[Warp]
The air churned and an instant later, Zeel was next to the Jumper…
At first, Zeel wanted to dissipate the atmosphere by introducing himself, but as if his mind had a will of its own, Zeel had already gripped the Jumper around the neck…
The motion was so fluid… so smooth that it seemed planned from the beginning, but again, it was merely instinct…
As natural as breathing – restrain the target to stop escape…
Seeing the water had already been spilled, Zeel raised the Jumper with one arm, attempting to slam the man into the ground, knocking him unconscious, but the Jumper had other plans…
---WHOOOOOSH---
The air stirred and the next moment, Zeel felt both himself and the Jumper rolling down a sandhill…
It was difficult to breathe, but Zeel didn't release the Jumper's neck for a moment…
As they rolled down the hill, Zeel leveraged his body and landed on his feet, hands twitching as he restrained the urge to just snap the Jumper's neck…
Zeel felt the air stir and knew another jump was inevitable, but he also activated his [Warp], attempting to cancel the disruption in space, but the power of the Jumper somewhat exceeded his spatial abilities…
Luckily, instead of warping halfway around the world, Zeel managed to negate the jump to a couple of meters from their current location…
---WHOOOOSH---
Zeel and the Jumper appeared crammed inside his burrow, and this time, Zeel was the first to act…
[Warp]
The air stirred and Zeel felt solid ground – not sand, but rocks…
Clearly, he had warped them at least a hundred meters to the nearby rocky hills – something that shouldn't have been possible in his current weakened state…
But all those questions should come later…
Zeel jabbed his hand at the heart of the squirming, blue-faced, Jumper and released the man…
The Jumper sunk to his knees, desperately trying to breathe as his body went into a mild shock…
Zeel had temporarily disrupted the circulation of his blood flow, but it wasn't anything truly life-threatening unless the Jumper had some kind of chronic heart disease…
Well… hopefully, he didn't…
Zeel waited a couple of seconds, giving the Jumper adequate time to breathe and collect his thoughts, then…
It was time for questioning…
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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