The next day I once again send out Ratina to hunt insects.

I tasted a few since they are the safest food source within my sustainable magic perception range, and while they tasted bad, it wasn’t as bad as they looked.

It is undesirable, but for now I will live off them.

There have been less insects within my detection range lately, likely from overhunting, so I am trying to see if I can move myself.

I look over my new class options, and there is no way to make them sub-classes or add them without removing my tamer class, so I stop bothering with them.

My higher physical stats still won’t even let me support my own weight, so I resort to magic again.

I try to move my mana into the ground, mixing it with the earth and trying to move the earth with it.

[learned earth magic: soil manipulation] INT +2 (113)

That was surprisingly easy, and also didn’t give as much of a boost, I have a few ideas on why, but none I can confirm yet.

Moving the soil allow me to basically surf around without straining my neck, and it is a bit fun.

I play around with it for a few hours until I figure out more specifically how it works.

The MP consumption is also lower than I thought, it takes a minute of shifting around to use 5 MP if I account for my recovery rate and active mana perception.

Unfortunately, it moves slowly, I can move soil very quickly if I use 100x the consumption, but that risks damaging my body and isn’t sustainable.

And for some reason there is no in between speed, only when going the full 100x consumption does the speed change at all.

I plan to make a burrow much like Ratina used to live in near a body of water or a place where animals frequently visit so that I can snipe them with magic within cover.

The cave entrance is a better start then an open clearing, but it is about time I transferred my base of operations.

I don’t know my strength compared to other beings of the forest well, but from Ratina’s memories the top predator of the ecosystem is a flying deer that breaths fire and hunts bears.

I repeat, a FLYING DEER THAT BREATHS FIRE and HUNTS FRIGGEN BEARS.

I would think that she was messing with me if I couldn’t tell she was serious from the link.

This is absolutely ridiculous from a normal standpoint, but since I am in a world where magic is normal, I should probably throw common sense out the window and shoot it in the face repeatedly.

Other forest creatures are regular deer, rabbits, birds, large birds like eagles, snakes, giant spiders, slimes, treants, giant bugs, wolves, and some kind of trap flower.

And not like the gender trap flower, like the loose vine on the ground is actually a snare for a plant with teeth that wants to eat you kind.

I asked about things like trolls, goblins, and lizardmen, but none of them seem to live around here, if they exist in this world at all.

Ratina seems to be a good candidate for a scout, and I can act as a mage, so having a good tank would help balance the group.

I am hesitant to get a deer or bear however, as I don’t want the attention of the top predator of the forest, and slimes are either useless or extremely adaptable and valuable.

According to Ratina, slimes are scavengers and she doesn’t know of any variants or higher forms of slimes.

I will hold off on finalizing my second monster until I see if Ratina can evolve, or if monsters are stuck at whatever their born as.

Unfortunately, there is nothing like convenient racial memories that would allow Ratina to answer many of my questions.

I decide now is the time to hunt that centipede I noticed earlier.

The centipede is about the same size as me, but has the same mana concentration Ratina used to have.

It should be mentioned that my own mana concentration is larger than both of theres combined by a ridiculous amount, I am guessing more MP= greater mana concentration.

Mice are known to be intelligent though, so the centipede is likely a higher level as it should have more of a physical focus.

I use earth magic to hide under a nearby tree’s roots, and have Ratina hide in a branch waiting to ambush.

Then I use fire ball with 50 points of mana while focusing on concentrating it to do large damage to a small area, and fire it at the centipede.

I levelled up 4 times CHR+12 WIL+8 INT+6 WIS+6 Other stats+4, and got

Title: Dark horse Defeat a foe at least twice you own level, gives +5% experience for all future battles Title: Heroic victory Defeat a foe at least 5 times you own level, gives +10% bonus to all stats when against a stronger opponent Title: Legendary victory Defeat a foe at least 10 times your own level, all opponents you face will suffer a 15% penalty for all stats as long as you are in combat Skill: Assassination gives a 3% damage buff when you successfully ambush an opponent

STR+2

Choose a skill

Monster buff Group telepathy Ease of domination

I choose monster buff as group telepathy is less needed due to my link and I don’t need ease of domination with my willpower already so high.

I chose the monster buff skill

Skill: Monster buff LV1 Increases your monster’s stats by 5% of your Charisma stat + 3% Willpower stat+ 2% Intelligence stat MP cost 15 cooldown 25 duration 15

CHR+2

The centipede died in one hit with a blackened section of it’s body.

The fire ball wasn’t that large, and the fire didn’t show any signs of spreading.

Assassination was probably learned from either ambushing or from killing it in one hit.

Ratina is glaring at me, I can tell from the link that she is annoyed that I one-shotted something worth a lot of exp without letting her get any.

Actually she seems seriously angry for getting her hopes up for a fight and having her take up an ambushing position, only to defeat the enemy on my own.

Next time I will try spending a bit less MP and give Ratina a chance to participate.

Though I can’t help but feel that Ratina seems be looking forward to killing enemies a little too much.

That may be a bit hypocritical considering how I was getting all excited by setting up the ambush, and was a bit disappointed when I didn’t need to use my preparations.

At any rate I should check my menu to see the new changes.

Name Auxentius Race Human, male Age 0 Lv 5 Class Tamer LV 1 Rank 1 HP 24/24 MP 14/91 (increases by 0.86/sec) Strength 12 Intelligence 113 Dexterity 11 Willpower 138 Stamina 10 Wisdom 86 Luck 41 Charisma 67 Skills Mana perception:ability to sense the mana of your surroundings Analyze: show known information about an object Mana manipulation: able to alter the shape and properties of mana Magic mana sense: able to make a field of mana that will detect objects within it, Uses more MP/second the larger the field Magic connection: links senses with another being, being must either willingly accept the link or first be dominated. Certain skills are buffed when used between members of a magic connection. Telepathy LV1: allows communication through thoughts, MP cost increases with distance TameLV1: ability to tame a monster and enslave it to your will, either by forcing it into submission or by having it agree to serve you by a contract, current capacity 1/2 Assassination: gives a 3% damage buff when you successfully ambush an opponent Fire magic: fireball cooldown 5 seconds (cooldowns and durations will always be in seconds unless specified)

Water magic: waterball cooldown 5

Wind magic: windball cooldown 5 Earth magic: throw rock cooldown 5 Earth magic: soil manipulation continuous MP cost Monster buff LV1: increases your monster’s stats by 5% of your Charisma stat + 3% Willpower stat+ 2% Intelligence stat MP cost 15 cooldown 25 duration 15 Titles Child prodigy: learned 5 non-race skills and has exceeded 50 points in at least 2 stats before age 6, all stats +5 Dark Horse: Defeat a foe at least twice you own level, gives +5% experience for all future battles

Heroic victory: Defeat a foe at least 5 times you own level, gives +10% bonus to all stats when against a stronger opponent

Legendary Victory: Defeat a foe at least 10 times your own level, all opponents you face will suffer a 15% penalty for all stats as long as you are in combat Tamed monsters common mouse LV4 Linked beings common mouse LV4

\Well it looks like that centipede was at least level 10, and like I exploited the system pretty majorly by being stronger at level 1 than I should be.

Legendary victory gives a super op buff that should make my life so much easier.

My tamer rank seems to have rose automatically, it may rise every 5 levels, or it may rise at certain increments.

Monster buff seems pretty op for now, but depending in how it scales as it levels up it may not be as useful later.

I think that the stats that increase more on each level up are from my class, and based on my skill description it looks like all of them will be influencing my skills later.

Increasing Ratina’s 5 STR to about 13 even if temporarily should be quite useful.

I stay in the hole I made while my MP recovers, and just to be safe I use all my MP to use mana perception on the surrounding forest.

When I do so, I notice that most of the larger creatures have about half my mana, but the 3 bears I sense all have over 3 times my mana O.o .

Apparently my stats aren’t quite as impressive as I thought.

I knew I would be behind the fire-breathing deer, but I wasn’t expecting to be so far behind the second biggest threat in the woods.

I abandon my prior plan to find a river, and instead decide that I should prepare some more back at the cave like learning Ratina’s hide skill in case I piss off one of the big-shots of the woods.

Or more accurately when I inevitably piss one off by throwing a full force spell at it just to see what happens.

I can’t help it y’know curiosity killed the house and everything it a 5km radius and whatnot.

Ratina is giving me a serious glare right now, I was just kidding! Nothing serious. Definitely, probably…. Possibly okay so maybe there is a good chance I would go for it but I stopped myself, I am properly preparing to hide and cower after I whip up a shit storm.

It takes a bit longer to get back to the cave as I am bringing the centipede corpse in case I can use it for something.