Zane let his backpack slide off his shoulders as he laid down on the ground, stretching out his arms and legs so that as much sun would hit him as possible. He had his eyes closed and soon felt the familiar weight of Gwen on his chest as she also stretched out, basking in the sun. He laid there for a long while, dozing in the sunlight. The long stretch that he had spent in the dungeon had worn on him more than he realized. The warmth of the sun reminded him of what he had been missing, and he felt a tension released from his body as the energy from the world's life giver sunk into him.
After some time, he finally opened his eyes. "Gwen, will you change into your larger form please?"
"Meow."
"I would really like to use words this time instead of just having the words placed in my head or whatever this is between us when you're in kitten form."
The cat growled a little before hopping off his chest. "I don't see why I must use words to talk about this. You understand me as a kitten, but I will humor you at this time."
Zane glanced over at the large Panther. "Hearing the words spoken helped me to think. We need to discuss this next portion of our journey. Do you know the way to the nearest human settlement?"
"Yes."
"How long will it take us to get there?"
"Considering how long it takes humans to travel, I'd estimate 40 to 50 days."
"That's about as many ration packs I was given. I wonder if I can see where they're going to go. Open map." He scanned the map around this area and found a small dot to the northeast. "Is this town northeast of us?"
"Yes."
Zane noticed that there was a large mountain between them and the town they were headed to. The best routes seemed to be to go West and skirt around the edge of the mountain. Then he noticed that a river, that was fairly close to them, ran through the mountains and passed by the town that we're headed to. "Are you planning to take us around the West side of the mountain?"
"Yes."
Zane nodded. "That does seem like the safest path, but that adds weeks to our journey. I'd like to get there faster."
"Well, going to the east would take twice as long and you can't follow the river because there are parts of the river that are enclosed by steep cliffs."
"I want to take the river. I don't think it'll be a problem if it gets a little narrow on the way there."
Gwen looked at him like he was crazy. "Have you suddenly gained the ability to walk on water?"
Zane laughed. "No, but I do have the ability to walk on mana."
"You do realize you will run out of mana before we get anywhere near that village."
"You're right. That's why I have a way to replenish it." Zane said as he patted the pack he had been carrying. "I have all this water from the fountain in the dungeon. Drinking that replenishes my stamina health and mana. I just need to figure out how much I need to drink to replenish my mana. If it's not too much, I can figure out how to do this, and we can move along faster."
"How do you propose that we test to see how much of that water it takes to replenish your mana?"
"We'll run to the river from here and I will make sure to use up all my mana on the way. Once there, we can begin to test how much water I need to get a full idea of how much water it takes."
He got up on his feet and put his pack back on, looking over at Gwen. "Do you think you can keep up with me?"
Gwen hissed at him. "The fact that you think you can keep up with me is amusing."
"You people keep telling me I have a very high stats for my dexterity. Maybe I won't be able to keep up with you, but I think I'll be faster than you expect me to be." Zane smiled at her and took off as fast as he could along the bottom of the cliff face. The map had shown him that this cliff ran all the way to the river, and he hoped that the vegetation was sparse along the entirety of its length as it was here.
Gwen stared in shock for just a moment before she darted after him, her legs churning as fast as they could. She was slowly gaining on him, but not as fast as she was expecting. Her hunters' spirit began to take over, and it was like she was tracking an elusive prey. If she had the ability to smile, she would have had the biggest one on her face that you could ever see. She was in for another surprise when all a sudden, he started rising into the air and then twisting until it looked like he was running on the cliff face. It was one of the oddest things she'd ever seen, a human running sideways at breakneck speeds.
Zane couldn't believe how fast he was running. He figured that his speed would be a bit better than what he was back on earth, but this was on a whole different level. He had to be going at least 60 mph. Maybe even faster. Right now, he was running sideways across the cliff and couldn't be happier about it. Suddenly the idea of running parkour in mountain ranges was a possibility. Running on the cliff had its advantages. There were spots where vegetation had grown right up to the rock and other times where boulders had fallen from the cliff that would have blocked his path. Running on the click face solves that problem. He looked back over his shoulder and saw that Gwen was fairly close to him. Given that she couldn't run like he could, the vegetation and boulders were slowing her down, otherwise she would have caught him by now.
After another 20 minutes, she had finally caught up with him and was running just underneath him. He could see the river and saw that the Cliff face ended a little before it. He jumped down next to Gwen and finished the run beside her.
As they stopped at the river, he was surprised but he wasn't more out of breath. This must be a result of his high constitution. He checked his mana and found that it was almost gone. He took out his water bottle and swallowed a mouthful. He was so happy when he found that his mana had been completely restored.
"Well, how much did you recover?" Gwen asked.
"All of it," Zane said with a smile. "I figure that I can just run on the river and take mouthfuls of water when my mana runs low. If I'm right about how fast I was running, it shouldn't take us more than a day or two to get to that town."
"That sounds great and all, but I can't run on water. How am I supposed to follow you?"
"The same way you've been traveling with me this whole time period as a kitten on top of my backpack."