I woke up this morning with a stiff back and the sun shining in my eyes. Ummm damn I forgot how much I hate sleeping on the ground. I really need to start remembering to sleep in trees or something. If I sleep down here in the wrong place I could end up as some besties chew toy.

Grumbling some more I climb to my feet and quickly heal my aching back. After a quick bath in one of the smaller crater pools I start preparing for a long day of walking and training. My senses are telling me that my next target is a little over a day away if I can manage to keep a good pace. I don’t know what I am going to face when I get there so that means it is time to train. Yay. Hmm that didn’t quite sound as excited as I had meant it to but if training doesn’t excite me I know what will. Experimentation! I have a bunch of new skills and magics that I am just dying to try out.

First off I need to start crafting a bow but when I thought about it my skill showed me several different knives that I would need to do the job properly. Now I do not actually own any knives so I am going to have to learn how to turn my mana spikes into the tools that I need. Speaking of knives my hunter class also showed me different kinds of knives. The ones it showed me would be far better in combat than the simple spikes I can make right now so I will also have to practice making those.

After I am done with that I need to try out the elemental arrow spell. I might not have a bow to shoot them with yet but I should still be able to practice making the arrows. If I can level that skill up a few times then it will be much more useful when the time comes to use the bow.

Last but not least I have three new magics to play- cough- I mean practice with! I have to see what I can do with spatial and gravity magic as well as water magic. Spatial I only know how to make things bigger on the inside so I will have to find a use for that. Gravity magic I am a bit hesitant to work with so I think I might wait until I make camp to work with it. My water magic I will have to work with along the way.

Okay that’s my plan so it’s time to go.

I am about to head out when I am stopped by my hunter instincts. “Huu? What now?” I ask. It shows me the long path I made on the way to the blight by practicing my throw skill on the trees along the way. It glares imperiously at me and conveys that if I try to do the same thing it will start zapping me again. “Okay, okay I get it. No more throwing things at trees along the way. I will just have to find something I can carry with me to practice on then.” I start casting around for something I can use as a portable target when the perfect idea comes to me. Turning slowly and letting out a dark chuckle as an evil glint fills my eyes, I face that stupid stump. I am pretty sure that if it could the thing would have shivered.

“Hello friend. Do you remember that time you made me look like a fool and set myself on fire?” Yes I blamed the stump for that incident. I mean there is no way it was my fault. Who in their right mind would set themselves on fire?

The stump was about as wide as my arm so it would make for the perfect target. Using a combination of water magic and my pure mana I was eventually able to cut the stupid thing out of the ground. With an exertion of will I used my wind magic to levitate the stump off of the ground and float it along in front of me. With my preparations complete I set off.

My first order of business was to practice creating knives out of mana. This was easier said than done. My first attempts at it were better off as spikes. Forming the knife all at once was simply not going to work for me yet. Changing tactics, I started by forming a much thicker spike than I was used to. I then focused on the part that was above where I would hold it and started to squish the mana, flattening it out. After getting the correct thickness I worked on properly shaping the edges. Forming a central point at the tip I had the shape curve outward slightly and made an almost oval with the point on one side and rectangle on the other. From the other end of that rectangle I made another smaller oval that fused into the handle I was holding. The end result was an elegant looking blade that extended about two hand lengths from where I held it. Once the shape was done it was time to form the edge.

This point gave me a little bit of pause. The images my hunter class was trying to show me were made of metal and had edges that seemed rather thick. “If I am going to be making these out of mana shouldn’t I just make the edge as thin as I possibly can? Wouldn’t that make it sharper? Also, since it is made of mana wouldn’t that remove the chance of it chipping or breaking due to being too thin?” I asked the other me. Other me just shrugged as if to say ‘I don’t know why don’t you give it a try?’ Taking that as permission I set my mind to it. Focusing on the edge of my blade I compressed the structure as far as I could. The end result was an edge that extended about half the width of my little finger away from what appeared to be the actual edge. I had managed to make it so thin that even being made out of pearly white mana it was invisible to the eye.

Quite content with what I had made I was about to throw it when I stopped myself. This thing did take a lot of effort to make. I should probably try to make another before I throw it away. So I did just that. It did take some time, I could make about 50 spikes in the time it took me to properly make a blade, but I managed it. After confirming that I could in fact make more of the blades I threw my first one at the stump.

The blade flew through the air and hit the stump with a satisfying thud, where it sank all the way up to the handle. Oh my. These really are so much better than those spikes I have been using! Happy with my success I practiced making the knives again and again. I was able to get the time it takes to form the knives all the way down to the time it takes for aa single long breath. No I hadn’t been just practicing making knives. During this time, I also practiced my throw skill. I made the stump I was using as a target move further and further out each time, I started consistently getting all my knives to land in the center of it. At first I was keeping the stump floating with wind magic but eventually switched over to water magic once I figured out how to do it. The only complaint I had about the knives was that being made out of mana they were just too light.

After reaching the point where I was satisfied with my knife making skills I moved on to the experiments with elemental arrow. This skill or spell or a mix of the two had a different feel to it. When I focused on the skill, I had an instinctive understanding of how the mana arrow should be formed. When I practiced forming one it came easily if only slowly into being. What resulted was a long slender shaft that was a little longer than my arm and about as big around as my little finger. At one end there was a little notch that would go on the bow string and at the other the shaft converged to form a nice point. The arrow formed in the middle of my palm, so I wrapped my hand around it and stabbed it into the stump. It barely went in at all.

With my previous success of having the knives sink deep into the stump this result was not pleasing to me. It was time to experiment with making arrows. The first thing I tried was adding a little more mana to the tip and compressing it like I had done with my knives. This worked a little bit better than the first one but still wasn’t good enough for me. Taking inspiration from my knives I made a flatter wider head like the tips of my knives. This produced much better results allowing the arrow to sink deep into the stump. However, I wanted more from my arrows. If my knives had two blades, I wanted my arrows to have three. I had thought about going up to four, but it just didn’t feel right to me, so I stuck with three. I made all three blades on the head in the same way I did wit my knives, spaced them equally around the shaft and brought them to a single point at the tip. The result was a wicked looking tip that resembled my first arrow at the core but had three blades sticking up about the thickness of a finger spaced equally around it. When it was stabbed into the stump it went in easily and left a deep cool looking hole. I loved it.

For a good long while I practiced making arrow after arrow. I alternated between pure mana wind and water as I made them. The two elemental arrows I made were a little less effective against my stump, but I practiced anyway as it would be good to be able to make them if I encountered an enemy where they would be more effective. At some point during all this practice a large fat rabbit hopped across my path. Remembering the image of cooking meat, the other me had taunted me with yesterday I quickly formed a knife and threw it at the rabbit. I frowned slightly as the knife seemingly passed straight through the rabbit before completely burying itself in the ground. I was about to summon up a second knife when the rabbit hopped happily two more times before stopping, when its head fell off. Ah so they might be a bit sharper than I thought they were. Oh well it worked perfectly!

I was about to pick up the rabbit and continue on my way when I realized that the sun was starting to make its way lower in the sky. Oh, is it really that late already? Hmm well I’m not all that far from my next location. If I stopped here, I could be there before midday tomorrow. I also have some other skills to practice so I think stopping now would be a good idea.

Having made up my mind to stay here I quickly brought out some of the wood I had collected for a fire and followed other me’s instructions on how to properly build it. When the time came to light it, I gave a deep glare to the stump, that was looking extremely shabby by this point, and started calling on fire mana. This time I managed to set the wood on fire while managing to avoid doing it to myself. It was close but it didn’t happen. See it really was all that stumps fault that I set myself on fire the first time! With the fire lit I set the rabbit meat on a couple of sticks to cook and set to practicing my gravity magic.

I decided to start with a simple stone and try to make it heavier. Okay so for the spell to work correctly I need to select a target, a direction, and an amount. So, the target is the stone, and it is already pulled towards the ground so let’s try down, and as for amount I’m not sure so let’s say 10? I set the values in my mind and watch as the stone sinks instantly into the earth. Oops. I think I made it too heavy. Good thing I tried that on a stone first. Okay let’s try again, this time I think I will set the amount to two! This time when I form the spell nothing seems to happen. Huu did it not work? Confused I walked over to the stone and tried to pick it up. It was much heavier than it should have been. The stone had doubled in weight. My spell had worked!

I danced around happily and was about to start casting it some more when I got a gentle reminder about my cooking rabbit from other me. Instantly swayed by the thought of hot food I dropped my experiments and rushed over to grab my rabbit from the fire. It was a little overdone but that didn’t matter much after I took my first bite. As the taste of hot meat exploded in my mouth I groaned in pure pleasure. The taste was exquisite, so much better than just nuts or roots or berries. Okay well maybe not the berries I did really like those when I could find them.

With my stomach full of hot meat for the first time that I could remember I lay next to the fire feeling quite content. That feeling lasted me a little while and then it was back to the experimenting.

For a while I went around making things heavier to varying degrees until I got bored and then I thoroughly enjoyed myself as I made things lighter. I would giggle happily as I watched pebbles and sticks slowly float away like tiny birds. In a fit of joy, I pointed at a large rock and set the spell to maximum power going up. Afterwards I made a large mental not to never, ever cast that on myself. By the time I was done playing with gravity I had thoroughly exhausted my mana pool. Feeling tired and happy I sat down next to the fire and worked on improving my coalescence skill. After making some progress in that area it was finally time for me to make my first bow.

I pulled a branch out of my storage belt, summoned up a mana knife, and perused the different options of bows that my skill said could be made. I set myself on something called a recurve bow, it looked pretty, and started to carve. I worked for a good long while slowly whittling down the branch so that it would be the proper shape. My motions were a bit jerky and I couldn’t get the smooth lies that my skill was showing were possible. After finally finishing by creating a string out of condensed mana I looked over my creation and was not happy with what I saw. Rather than smooth elegant curves it was a collection of jagged lines and hard edges. Its surfaces were uneven, and it was covered in nicks and scratches. Even my skill seemed to cringe when it appraised my work. The text that imposed itself over my vision made my face flush in shame.

[Bow? Quality: Very Low?]

Bow? It was so bad that it couldn’t even be recognized as a bow. I really, really need to practice this skill some more if I ever want to make use of the heart tree’s branch. Letting out a sigh of resignation I tossed my attempt at a bow into the fire and decided to pull up my notifications from the day.

Ding!

Mana Manipulation has reached level 20!

Threshold achieved! Mana Manipulation skill has been updated to allow for the simultaneous manipulation of three separate targets or for the ability to combine three types of mana!

Throw has reached level 12!

Elemental Arrow has reached level 4!

Spellweaver has reached level 10!

Coalescence has reached level 10!

Threshold reached! You have compressed your mana as far as you can with your current understanding. To progress further you must discover a fundamental truth about compressed mana and apply it to your core.

Bow Crafting has reached level 2!

Smiling happily at the gains I had gotten I pulled up my status screen to get a picture of my progress as a whole.

Status

Name:

Reiza

Classes

Druidic Defender lv. 12

Level:

1

Orionian Archer lv. 1

Race:

Beast-kin: Celestial Fox

-

Gender:

Female

Final Class

-

Age

14

Atributes

Strength:

20

Stamina:

30/170

Dexterity:

124

Mana:

162/690

Constitution:

27

Endurance:

17

Free stat points

17

Intelligence:

74

Wisdom:

69

Luck:

9

Grimacing slightly at the growing disparity in most of my stats I eyed the large number of free stat point that I had accumulated. I think things are getting to the point where I need to use some of these. I am getting tired far to quickly for the level of speed I am now capable of. I think I will leave 5 of the points for an emergency and dump the rest of them into my endurance. I am no longer making any gains in that area and until I can find a new way to train it this is the only way for me to improve it. With that I quickly dumped 12 points into my endurance bringing it up to 29.

As I finished applying the points an unpleasant itching and burning sensation filled my entire body. Having been set on fire for real just the previous day the feeling wasn’t much of a bother, so I simply ignored it.

Deciding that I had done all I could for the day I quickly used some water magic to put out my fire and climbed into a tree to sleep. As I curled up in a comfortable place and wrapped my tail around myself, I ran a hand over the long this scar that was now on my chest. It was the place where I had been impaled by the Defiler right before I had killed her. It would have been easy for me to heal it after I woke up, but I decided to keep it. The scar would be a constant reminder of the price I had paid for my weakness. As I drifted off to sleep, I whispered, “I’m getting stronger. I will get strong enough to keep my promise.” With my words fading into the darkness I fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, I woke again with the rising of the sun and was able to quickly be on my way. Carrying my new practice stump along in a ball of wind and water I made quick progress Very glad for the huge increase to my endurance. With its value almost doubling I was able to maintain a much faster pace that I had previously been able to. Due to my increased pace I was able to arrive at my destination a little before the sun reached its highest point in the sky.

As I got the first look at what I was running towards I almost stopped as a tide of rage filled me. OUTSIDERS! What have they done! Such useless… Such pointless destruction! How could they do something like this!

I let the rage flow over me and was barely ably to suppress a scream as I stepped out of the trees. The outsiders had carved a path 30 paces wide through the forest. Every tree as far as I could see in either direction had been felled. The ground had been packed so hard that almost nothing was able to grow. They had destroyed everything along this path. They had carved a massive scar into my forest.