The despair of the first moments, that Marcus felt, eventually turned into a great emptiness. For hours after the portal had closed in front of his eyes, he did not move from the spot. He had no will to move or a goal to move to. But in time his mind focused again and his survival instincts kicked in. He knew for a fact that the chance he would ever leave this planet was slim to zero, but that did not mean he would just give in and die. He wanted to live!

The first few weeks were most likely the worst in his whole life and for once he was happy nobody could see him suffer. Even with the provisions from Janette and Kou he had only food for two to three weeks and even less water. He had to adapt to the micro-organism on this world and that process was hell. The only thing that saved him from death in those days was his abnormal amount of vitality. Without it he would have died, as his body suffered through the change. Not only that, he had to find out by trial and error which fruits and other plants were edible, not many as it turned out. A particular meaty, yellow fruit that grew in vast amounts in the area, proved to be not so bad after he had cooked it for a long time. Meat was off the menu, as Marcus could not catch a living thing at this stage.

The few survival items Marcus had were a god send, a handful of metal tools, a pot and a pan made such a difference. Together with the greatest human invention ever, the firelighter, he had the basic setup to survive. Building some form of shelter was a different matter. Marcus had no idea how those survival experts in the videos made it look so easy, but his first dozen attempts failed very quickly and he had to admit to himself that he sucked at handicraft. Eventually a combination of plastic canvas, large leafs and some branches offered minimum protection against the rain. While the weather here was generally warm it tended to rain nearly every day and a dry place was worth a kingdom. On the other hand Marcus did not need to worry about fresh water for the time being.

The thing he had to worry about was monster attacks. In his second week the first monster attacked him in the middle of the night and nearly killed him by biting through his neck. Thus began Marcus' eternal war with the local monster population that would go on for many months. Even so he was alone and he had no entertainment, he was hardly ever bored. There was always something to do, scrounging for food, upgrading his shelter, fighting monsters, gathering water and so on. Before he knew it, three months had gone by and he had reached basic survival status. Marcus had food, water, a shelter (it was bad) and a set of noise traps around his base. In all this time he did not move more than a kilometer or two from his original camp.

Marcus experimented with the meat of the most common monster in the area, a four legged muscular beast that reminded him of the hell monkeys he had seen before. Roasting the meat for a long time, cutting it down and mixing it with the yellow fruit mash made it edible, but only just. He still suffered through it to gain access to proteins and also salt. The third and last reason was a stupid one, he wanted to make use of those damn monster corpses. These beasts hunted him in packs and he had lost limbs to those motherfuckers more than once. Eating them was his form of payback.

Half a year in and his situation had improved. Marcus performed circular patrols around HIS territory and cut down the monster population before it could get too large. Food and drink was stable and he had greatly expanded his shelter by moving his base of operation a few hundred meter to a better position. A set of rocks provided the foundation of his new shelter and with new opportunity also came new ambitions. His new home had to have several rooms, for storage and sleeping, better walls against the wind and rain, and a nearby place for training.

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As his situation improved, he had more time at his hand and he started to train again. Back on Earth he had been busy with all kinds of things and he had neglected his basic training, luckily he had all the time in the world, now. But not all was well, after half a year he started to feel the effect of the isolation on his mind. He missed his friends and home painfully. There was not much he could do about it besides keeping himself busy and of course fantasizing. Marcus was realist enough to understand that nothing short of a miracle would allow him to ever get back to Earth. Even if a portal would show up somewhere close, like in 100 km distance he would never know about it.

Soooo, having sexy thoughts and fantasies about various women was fine. It kept his stress manageable and his mind busy with creating more and more complex scenarios that involved him and attractive women. It was pure wish fulfillment, sexual power fantasies, but that was all he had left. He would never touch a real woman again, of that he was certain.

An imaginary version of Janette was his go to choice for discussions and talking about the events of the day. It was a sign how far the demon had corrupted him, that he could imagine every answer and opinion she would have to any topic at hand. Marcus missed her dearly.

Eight, or was it nine? months in, he had gained a lot of confidence in dealing with the local monsters. Honestly speaking his combat ability had greatly increased after killing dozens of them with his bare hands and without armor. What was left of his armor after months of combat, he left in his shelter for absolute emergencies. In these days he trusted his toughness and healing ability. The constant fights to the death had also increased his level, in the first year he gained eight levels, bought and paid for in blood.

Emboldened and somewhat bored Marcus prepared small excursions, one or two day trips to investigate the surrounding area. The temple ruins were still off limits for him, and that was for a good reason. When they originally looked at the ruins they had imagined them to be close by, maybe a few kilometers away but that turned out to be very wrong. The reason for the error was simple, dimensions. The ruins were gigantic and that meant further away than expected. After a few calculations Marcus estimated that the largest ruins was actually 500 meter tall, an insane size for any building, but even more so for a ruin. To get there he would have to climb up massive cliffs and travel for at least two or three days to even reach the ruins. A whole week just back and forth, and that did not even count the actual exploration.

Based on the German saying "Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall!" Marcus nearly lost his life on one of his early excursions. He wanted to climb one of the cliffs to get a better view of the surrounding land and trusted his vitality to make up for his lack of climbing skill. The thing he should not have trusted was the rock he held on to, because it cracked and Marcus fell over 200 meter into a gorge. On the way down he collided with the wall several times and tumbled down uncontrolled. The impact shattered bones and organs and that was with Carapace and well over 50 vitality. Not for the first time he did thank the maker that he had the Titan class. Less than a minute after his fall he was already walking up and down and cursing his own stupidity. Getting up the rock wall again was less an endurance problem than a mental one. The fall and impact had left a deep mark on Marcus' mind and for a long time he stayed away from climbing tall cliffs.

The other terrifying thing he found on one of his excursions were signs of a massive monster. A large area of the jungle was flattened, torn apart corpses from a full horde of the ape like monsters lay scattered on the battlefield. Given the size of the destruction and some prints on the ground Marcus decided to never ever get into a fight with that thing. This was by all means the local raid boss and Marcus was just out of a raid team. For the time being he named the unknown monster "Mauler" and left the area.

At his one year anniversary he celebrated with a wide array of foods, some fruit juice and his very last chocolate bar (that stuff lasts forever). After reviewing the year and thinking about his friends Marcus started to cry like a baby, sobbing and screaming. He wanted to go home, he was sick of this place, sick of being alone. He exhausted himself and smashed a dozen trees into small pieces, cracked rocks and cursed the planet with every fiber of his soul. After all was done he just lay down on the ground and stared at the night sky. It all seemed so useless, so meaningless. A few seconds faster and everything would have been different. All his hopes and dreams, his secret ambitions and feelings for Azaa, it was all meaningless now.

The next morning came anyway and his daily tasks called to him again. Marcus slowly got up, gathered his makeshift tools and went into the alien jungle, to survive another day.

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