"Marcus?" Will asked unexpectedly.

"Yes moron, now run away! I will stay behind to give you enough time to escape. Father and mother do not need two dead sons," Marcus said, accepting the impending death.

Will knew Marcus was a stubborn muscle head and fight junkie, but it looked like he had matured in his time as an adventurer. His outdoor man attire suited him much better than his noble suit attire.

"You think I would run from a fight, did I run whenever you beat me as a child, I will not run now either?" Will said in his best heroic tone, feigning offense, and appealing to his brother's battle spirit.

"To think you'd come to have more spirit than me?" Marcus said laughing. "In that case let us fight to live to tell the tale," he said continuing to laugh.

Will could feel his brother's killing intent grow and become oppressive. Grace and Anne moved away Will and Marcus to relieve themselves from his aggressive aura.

Hearing splashing, Will whipped his head from Marcus, to see Mark's group cross the bridge. After the last person crossed the bridge, the soldiers untied the ropes and let the bridge drift downstream.

Will cast [entangle], [meteor], [quicksand], [rock spike], [earthquake], and [iron lance]. Then he took a recovery pill. He cast [entangle] on the other side of the river, the monstrous plant came alive and began to constrict, whip, and poison beast to death. He cast [meteor] above the stampede attempting to cross the river. As Will's [meteor] fell, steam was visible, Will still had not perfected the spell yet to where it would catch fire, but steam was still a marked improvement. The falling boulder of steam was enough to create burn damage on some novice beast. Will cast [quicksand] along the riverbank, and saw countless beasts being trampled to death by other beasts. The spell [rock spike] was particularly effective on stationary beasts who were gorged to death by the hundreds. The spell [earthquake] like [quicksand] swallowed beast dropping beast into a five-meter-deep canyon that was over ten meters in length. Finally, Will gave the [iron lance] to his golem Rocky, who stayed at the fort with Will for the past two weeks.

Marcus's mouth hung open; three eggs could easily fill his mouth. The amount of destruction Will caused with six spells stunned Marcus, but not just Marcus the other instructors, cadets, and soldiers. Since Will did not live on campus, they did not know how strong Will had become. His strength and four months were unparallel. In a matter of minutes, the thousand-strong beast wave was cut by a fourth. His display of strength jarred the other cadets into action.

Mark immediately called for a defensive line in front on either side of Will. The entire infantry, noble or commoner, admired Will's courage and felt courageous enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with swords in hand waiting for the first beast to cross the river, except for Vincent and a few others who decided to abandon the valley. Chloe immediately, set up relay points to keep the second, third, and military fort outside the valley informed. Bradley and the engineers began building wooden caltrops to place in front of the infantry. Grace and Anne brought extra swords and armor from the cellar for the cadets. Mantis and the intelligence began shouting details about the animals' weak points.

The first animal to cross the river was a huge buffalo, who was skewered to death by Rock's lance. Everyone was amazed, it was common knowledge that buffalos had iron hides, it was impossible to cut through their skin, yet Rocky's lance tore through its skin like it was paper. The cadets erupted in cheers, they had seen Rocky walk around the fort, doing different clerical tasks. But, this was the first time they saw the golem fight; they realized the power of Rocky's strike was on par with a master knight.

As more animals began crossing the river, Will cast [iron armor] and unsheathed Asudoragon. Will swung his sword, decapitating the wolf. Will cast [fertile soil], [nature's blessing], and [entangle], this time a larger scarier second poison's vine grew next to Rocky, except this poison vine had a mouth made from leaves. Working in tandem the poisonous vine and Rocky served as the advance group and funneled the beast to either side of them.

As Rocky fought, he drained Will's mana whirlpool constantly. Even after taking the recovery pill, Will's mana whirlpool was not replenished. This was the first time, Will had seen such a ferocious beast before, no matter their low level. There were simply too many of them, thankfully, more and more fell into the canyon created by an earthquake or were ensnared by the quicksand and sent to the river bottom. Drowned corpses could be seen floating down the river.

Will was astonished at the size of the beast wave, but he heard Samuel whisper beside him, "Will in the clouds!"

Looking up Will saw a black cloud, moving a fast clip towards the infantry. He wondered what dire beast could trigger such a beast tide. Seeing the ferocious birds starting to dive-bomb towards the unsuspecting cadets, will triple cast [meteor] and stemmed the birds fell to the ground like acid rain. Seeing the dead birds falling from the sky, made the cadets realize the devastation they dodged. The three meteors not only killed the birds but continued to rain destruction on the beast below. However, after triple casting [meteor] will collapse onto one knee. His mana pool was close to exhaustion.

Marcus fell into a rage when he saw Will, on one knee, covered in sweat, and breathing erratically. Without realizing it, Marcus went berserk, his massive tree-trunk arms swung his bastard long sword cutting down novice, apprentice, and journeyman beast with ease. He left the infantry line and stood to the left of Rocky. The poisonous vine, Rocky, and Marcus began slicing beast in the hundreds. Some beast chose to escape rather than face those three obstacles.

Seeing the beast tide beginning to decline, Will dropped to two knees like he was praying. Some people thought he was praying. In reality, Will was struggling to breathe. Rocky kept drawing more and more mana from Will to repair his cuts, dents, and continue fighting. As Will felt himself blacking out, he suddenly felt a warm heat envelop his body. He felt his mana pool replenish and begin the cycle faster and faster. His mana whirlpool was like a famished dragon who hadn't eaten in a millennium. Then he heard someone weakly yell "Stop!" Will looked behind him to see Elizabeth crash to the ground. She whispered, "Is your mana pool so bottomless?" before becoming unconscious.

"She'll be fine. She gave all her mana to you, so you can continue to fight," said an auburn-haired girl, with bright red freckles Will resembled seeing at the light mage duels standing next to Elizabeth.

Will stood up, cycled his mana, his mana became turbulent and rapid. People could see a funnel appear in rock armor sucking in mana. Rocky beat his chest in excitement, he could feel his dwindling mana leaving him, his body being chipped away to pieces; but now, Rocky felt a torrent of mana. In an instant, Rocky's body healed, and his iron lance became sharpened. When Marcus saw Will standing, he stopped berserking and returned to stand beside Will.

For a moment everything seemed okay, the beast stampede was all but over. No more beasts were able to cross the river, the earthquake, quicksand, and the smaller less monstrous poison vine killed the remaining beast. Will saw a red flash blinking in the corner of his eye, but decided to check it out later.

Cheers went up, people howled in excitement and cried for joy. People prayed for thanksgiving. Healers healed the scraps and cuts, sustained by the infantry. Chloe's Signal Command sent out the victory notice. Mantis, Samuel, and the rest of the Intelligence Command crossed the river to investigate if there would be a second beast wave and the reason for the stampede. Bradley and the Engineer Command reattached and repaired the bridge. Grace and Anne inventoried armor and weapons.

Slowly everyone returned to the Death Valley fort to rest. Sentinels were placed on the watched tower, the fort's cook made an early dinner. The cadets in the great hall, replayed the battle in their conversations, embellishing every detail.

Will and Marcus climbed up the west watchtower and looked over the bodies of the dead beast. Vultures and other carrion birds and rodents feasted on the dead.

Starring out over the carnage, Marcus said, "I never knew you were this strong, otherwise I would not try to convince you to run away."

"Mother misses you. She cried thinking about you, it's been years since she's seen you," Will said. After 14 years, Will considered Helen vont Ballard his mother, he loved her. For him, Helen and his first mother held the same love in his heart.

"Yeah, it has been a while. I miss dearly too," said Marcus. "Brother promises me you'll always stay safe, worrying about you made my heart tremble," he replied affectionately.

"What happened to you brother?" Will could tell Marcus had seen something terrible.

"Life, little brother, the life of an adventurer is filled with hope and loss. I'm just happy today was filled with hope," Marcus hugged Will before leaving for his barrack room.

Seeing he was alone, Will pulled up his screen.

Name: William vont Ballard

Race: Human

Rank: 0

Class: Merchant

Sub Class: Spellsword

Attributes:

Constitution—42+8

Strength—45+5

Dexterity—36+10

Intellect—65+1

Charisma—15

Ranks Skills: Management (50), Diplomacy (35), Accounting (50)

Class Skills: Appraisal (10, 100), [Radar]

Abilities: Journeyman Swordsmanship (1, 50), Journeyman Terramancer (1, 50), Gaia's Blessing (multiplies your spell strength x2).

Will had finally broken through to journeyman, and all his attributes except for luck increased. Even better he received another class skill, a spell called [radar]. As long as Will was on land, he could sense the materials within a 10-meter radius. Will noticed he gained attributes slower the closer he got to level 50, he would have to ask Elder Thaddeus about that later.

Will cast [radar] and could see the stones underground and mineral deposits by the river.

As Will stood overlooking the carnage and burned forest. He saw a beast looking at him from a distance away. The glare sent shivers down his spine, "A grandmaster dire beast?" He asked. The more he stared at the beast, the more his heart was filled with fear. "Hurry," Will said to the guard, "bring me, Chloe."

Turning his head from the beast, Will walked along with the fort's high walls casting [rock wall]. Will wanted to encase the fort's wooden walls with rock. Even this, could not stop a grandmaster beast from getting in, the most it could do would deter the beast for a few seconds. Still, this proved to be an exercise in patience. Will had never cast a 50-meter-long rock wall, and his first attempt was a one-meter tall, 20-meter-long rock wall. Moreover, the second cast [rock wall] when placed on top of his first, caused the rock way to crumble.

'I need to rethink this,' Will thought. Will knew he wanted the rock wall to be about four meters tall, but a wall that tall would need a strong base. Will cast [rock wall] and created a meter-wide rock wall that was 25 meters long. It resembled a ledge or rock bench more than a wall. Rationally, Will figured that the wall base needed to be wider at the bottom to support the weight of the wall. Just to be sure he cast another one-meter wide, 25-meter-long rock wall.

Although it was not impressive, Will thought it was a rather respectable start. This would not be a perfect rock wall, it would accomplish its job nonetheless. Will continued to cast the [rock wall] three more times until he had stacked three one-meter wide, 25-meter-long rock walls on top of each other. After ten minutes, Will noticed the wall did not crumble, the four-layered wall stood firm. Then Will began walking along the fort's wall casting layering the one by 25-meter rock walls.

After his first circuit around the fort, he laid the base walls for the entire fort. It took him about an hour to finish, because he kept having trouble layering the base around the fort's entrance. He finished another circuit around the fort before deciding to rest and let his mana whirlpool regenerate.

As Will looked at the majestic scenery from the western watchtower, he heard a creak on the platform below. He turned to look around as Elizabeth's head popped through the watchtower latch.

"I hope you don't mind me joining you, I couldn't resist looking over this landscape one last time before we leave tomorrow," Elizabeth said circling the watchtower, as the first stars began to appear in the night sky.