01/02/ AWAD 201

Jay realized the acrid smell from earlier was burnt flesh and vomited at the thought.

He whispered, “what happened?”

Only the crackle of fires dying down answered.

Still hoping some people survived, Jay trudged past walls reduced to charcoal. There was too much static in the mana scape for his mana sight to be sure everyone was dead. Something crunched under his left foot. Lifting his foot revealed a skull rendered brittle by fire.

Jay jumped to the side with a yelp and through the smoke, scorched bodies came into sight. The people he laughed with, struggled with, and fought together with laid huddled in the town square, unrecognizable. The image was too much. Another blast of the odor of scorched flesh sent him running away.

The town hall somehow remained standing, but investigating why would mean picking his way through the scattered bodies. After a deep breath, Jay headed back inside the ruins.

The town hall turned out to only be blackened with ash and his mana sight revealed why. The town hall was riddled with defensive wards. One ward stood out and instructed him to infuse the door with his mana, even addressing Jay by name.

Inside the town hall was a single book and nothing else. Jay picked up the book and stashed it in his pouch. The mana scape rippled. Cursing, he dove to the ground allocating as much mana to his mana field as possible. Instead of a mana storm as he feared, all the lingering mana of everyone gathered up and shot off to somewhere in the distance.

Before Jay could wonder what that meant, a faint moan of pain finally registered in his ears. There was a survivor!

Jay rushed past burnt trees and more scorched bodies to where he heard the moan from. The survivor was Jax--Jax who was stuck under a tree.

”Ah hey Jack. I need you to do something for me,” Jax rasped out.

He must have accidentally inhaled smoke from the flames.

Jay grabbed a hold of the tree pinning Jax down, ”Jax, don’t worry. I’ll get you out from under this tree. You don’t look like you’re bleeding out, so you’ll survive.”

”Damn it Jack! I’m screwed, because our tyrant suddenly decided to drain me dry. What I care about is what happened back in town,” Jax hollered hoarsely.

Jay’s mana sight confirmed Jax’s vital mana draining.

“I’m guessing the tyrant invoked a regis for the town’s death,” Jax coughed out.

Jay stopped still, stunned. How had everyone been forced to allow such power over them? And why?

“I don’t know why I am being drained instead of outright killed, but my sisters should still be alive. They haven't turned ten yet, so they haven’t been forced into contracts,” Jax paused to take a shaky breath.

Jay dreaded but could guess his next words.

“Jack, take care of my sisters for me,” Jax requested on his last breath.

“I will do my best,” Jay promised shakingly.

Jax’s sisters were dead already, but Jay could at least bury them. Everyone would get a burial.

01/06/ AWAD 201

Jay spent the next four days burying everybody. No tools survived the fire, so his swords had to be used to soften up the dirt. Reinforcement spell recasts kept them from breaking. The crops and the well had survived, so food and water weren’t an issue.

In the end, identifying most of the bodies proved impossible, so a single gravestone had to suffice for most of them. The gravestone was carved from the cave of the magi that held him captive.

Jay tried to recite what he carved, “here lies: Jehan, Dasia, Dakisa, Daven, Jana, Jafta, Jefus, Kefian, Jenia, Gina, Nafen, Hisa, Han, Gavan, Senia, Saman, Janjoh, Sia, Janani, Kenjo, and Jave...”

His voice trailed off unable to go on.

He was able to give Jax and his family their own burial, since his mother and sisters died in their house. Shannah, Magi Silvia, Jervoh, Seran all got their own graves, since they remained identifiable. The tyrant must have drained them also.

When all the bodies were buried, Jay finally broke down crying in sadness and fear. The world had god-like-people who could kill whole towns with a snap of their fingers and he was their persona non grata. Jay fell asleep from exhaustion, whimpering.

01/09/ AWAD 201

“You went over with Jervoh how there are wars between kingdoms on the economic level too, right? Here is the list of trade dealings between Savernan and Hazernan. I’m sure you can tell what Savernan is trying to do to Hazernan, but can you guess how Savernan or Hazernan winning would be perceived by the other countries? ”

Jay woke up to rain on his face and surrounded by a forest. After burying everyone, staying anywhere near the town’s ruins became unbearable. Any longer in the rain risked hypothermia, so shelter was an utmost necessity.

Jervoh and Shannah taught Jay a spell that sent out a pulse of mana for scanning the surrounding terrain, but Jay could only go through the motions. His mana had to be run through his mana lungs at least more than a couple times for the necessary level of refinement. Without a channel flowing from his mana core to his mana lungs, the situation wasn’t bright.

In desperation, he ran through his sword drills, hoping to focus more and also stay heated from exertion. Then, the budding connections between his swords and his hands dawned on him. Through constant sword practice, the mana channels in his hands and swords became familiar with each other. Pushing more mana through the two forming channels enlarged them, and with a mental pop, two new major mana channels formed in him.

With no time to lose, Jay pumped his mana through the two loops linking his mana core, mana lungs, and swords. Fortunately, no new issue rose. After a second of using the new mana channels, casting the terrain scan spell became more than possible.

He directed the terrain scan spell to form the terrain model on his right hand. The nearest cave turned out to be only half a kilometer away to the west. The cave hadn’t been visible, because the entrance also faced west. A sigh left his mouth. The distance was manageable.

The possibility of something already inhabiting the cave crossed Jay’s mind only when entering the cave. After taking a couple steps inside, he sensed a blow coming for his head. With a leap to the right, the blow only swept through the edge of his mana field and crashed into the wall next to him.

Casting a reinforcement and sharpen spell on his swords, he stabbed his attacker in the chest, but his bastard sword found no purchase, skittering off of something. In response, his attacker sent a stream of mana underneath him. Favoring caution, Jay leaped backwards, and a pillar of rock shot up where he had stood.

Jay rushed outside, figuring remaining inside the cave as dangerous. His attacker followed him and became visible in a flash of lightning. A bear with tusks, massive size, and hands dragging a stone club along from behind came into view. Mana sight revealed the club to have mana channels connected to the ogre bear. It must have used the club to defend itself.

Anticipating the second time the beast activated their ability, Jay knocked aside the spell with his mana. The creature swung its club at him, but Jay dodged and punished the over-swing. Its club hand mutilated, the beast dropped its club in a roar of pain. After having several more attempts at using its ability knocked away, the animal sensed its inability to win and fled back into its cave.

Jay sighed, but he would die without shelter. Lunging forward, he severed the tendons of the monster. The beast’s attempt at calling up stone in defense was also knocked aside. The creature fell forward and let out a pitiful cry as a swing of his bastard sword took its head. Some of the blood splattered onto him.

Before he could appreciate his kill, a powerful hunger overwhelmed him. Suddenly, he found himself gorging on one of the flanks of the unfortunate bear ogre. His mouth watered when more monsters showed up, his exhaustion forgotten.

Jay lost himself to hunger, slashing, stabbing, and devouring. None of the monsters could land a spell effect on him. At one point, a scorpion like monster attacked but was shoved into his mouth after having its limbs lopped off. The pain from the monster-turned-prey struggling a little before being crushed brought him to his senses. Unfortunately, the moment of clarity was brief.

Eventually there were no more monsters to feed on, and Jay stumbled deep into the cave before passing out.

01/10/ AWAD 201

"Come on let’s grab the kid. I don’t know how, but he survived an impromptu aura initiation. Eating so many monsters should have killed him. Should be worth a lot of gold, maybe even a platinum or two,” a man excitedly exclaimed.

Jay stood up with his swords in hand, “I don’t think you will want to mess with me.”

He brought his mana field to bear and continuously cycled his mana through his refinery loops. Oddly enough, his mana had a golden hue rather than the usual yellow even after being refined so often.

Seeing the enslavers tense up, Jay gave a feral grin.

”He’s quite the catch. Completing our route for the usual quota of twenty would no longer be necessary,” a second enslaver spoke up.

The third enslaver shook his head, “we shouldn’t take the risk in trying to subjugate him. Curse Havanza’s trickery, Reven probably woke him up.”

The enslavers walked out of Jay’s sight.

Jay growled. Would he let profiteers of slavery go free? The answer was a hard no.

He carefully made his way up to the cave entrance and heard one of the enslavers exclaim.

“He’s coming up!”

Out of suspicion, Jay cast a terrain scan spell emphasizing detail over distance. The results elicited a snarl from him. The enslavers were burying some sort of contraption at the entrance of the cave.

"Feya's tits, he knows what we’re trying to pull!" the enslavers cursed.

Jay decided creating another exit would be safer than trying to barrel through. Another terrain scan spell told him the thinnest part of the cave walls was to the right. After three slashes with reinforcement and sharpen re-casted, he was outside.

The three enslavers squinted as Jay stood with the sun at his back.

“Aren’t you quite the specimen? Maybe too much for us.” The third enslaver smiled, “how about joining us? Our trade is lucrative.”

Jay locked eyes with him and snarled, “I came up to execute you.”

Without responding, the slavers began casting earth binding spells. Jay followed suit taking a gamble. As he’d hoped, ‘over-refining’ his mana made imitating the enslaver’s spells possible. Enough mistakes rendered all mana glyphs inert, though. Fortunately, roughly casting the same earth spell proved manageable.

“Son of a gavitch, Reven what monstrocity did you lead us to?” the second slaver complained.

Jay had the wave of dirt and stone he created clash with the others’, and smiled wolfishly rushing the complainer.

The second enslaver yelped in fear and rushed a spell, but Jay disrupted the attempt, close enough to use unspelled mana. The enslaver tried to ward him off with their sword, but taking their head was simple after an easy parry.

The remaining two enslavers sent fireballs from a distance, but he cut those down. The stunt’s cost in mana was a bit much, but the fear in the enslavers’ eyes made him grin ferociously.

“What are you?!” they screamed as Jay rushed them.

Jay refused to answer and they held up their swords as if hoping to ward off evil - as if they had the right!

He worried initially about taking on two people in his first serious fight, but in their terror, the two remaining enslavers became frantic. Maneuvering for them to get in each other’s way was almost trivial. Jay de-armed one enslaver when he over-extended and the other enslaver tried to run.

The cooling bodies of the three enslavers hit the ground with the fight only having lasted a minute. Ironically, the enslaver that ran wasn’t the one who tried to negotiate. Jay mentally added the motion of de-arming that enslaver to his drills.

The fight could have gone drastically different if they weren’t trying to keep him alive at least initially. His opponents wasted time on an earth spell rather than use a lethal spell. They couldn’t have known he could copy their spells, but if they had chosen an explicitly lethal spell, one that used acid for instance, then he might have lost. They probably were used to only fighting monsters or the inexperienced, for their enslaving operation.

Jay sat down to recuperate, but a plethora of new details overwhelmed him. The rapid outflow of blood from the corpses, insect-like creatures presumably pollinating plants, to panicking horses, his mana field began registering numerous more movements.

The cause of the change baffled him until he focused on his mana sight. His mana field used to give off mana but that was no longer the case. A new cohesiveness eliminated the loss of mana, expanding the effective range to fifteen yards away from him. Had consuming monsters grant his mana the cohesiveness? Minimizing his mana field to extend only two yards made the inflow of information tolerable but threw away a potential edge to use.

Jay’s eyes flicked to where the enslavers had set their trap. If he hadn’t known the trap’s existence, then he might have been on his way to bondage. The trap had only shown up in his mana sight as a blur in the mana scape. Avoiding dirt lacking vegetation to disturb would be necessary until learning to detect such traps. That wasn’t the only issue, though.

If people could camouflage traps in the mana scape, then some could probably do the same to themselves. Seran had always seemed to attack from blindspots in Jay’s mana sight but maybe that wasn’t the case. A larger mana field would at least give him more warning.

“Awwww!” Jay hollered.

He was already sick of the idea of living in fear.

Calming down, Jay looked for the enslavers’ means of transport. They seemed too well kept to have been walking. Transporting twenty slaves would be easier with something to transport them. Plus, the movement of panicking horses registered in his mana field when expanded.

Jay found a wagon in a clearing a couple yards away and a lot of things showed up when he rummaged through the storage unit. Twenty collars were the first things he found, confirming what he thought. The collars had to be destroyed, but bread, salted meat, water, and a couple of useful odds and ends like flint and steel showed up. All these were stored in a spatially enchanted chest.

He looked around for the trail the enslavers were using but had no luck. They left out a map with a pin indicating where they were and even had a trail marked out. The clearing wasn’t indicated on the map, curiously. Focusing his mana sight revealed the mana scape to be severely disturbed as though… They were using earth spells to move the trees around them! The clearing wasn’t on the map, because the enslavers moved the clearing with them. Clever bastards.

Jay cast the earth spell he learned from the enslavers. The spell ‘restrained’ the tree he targeted, wrapping stone around it. He casted the spell again but omitted a series of mana glyphs that roughly meant capture. Instead of wrapping stone around the next tree he targeted, the spell impaled the tree with several spikes.

He face-palmed. Finding the right spell would take a while.

01/13/ AWAD 201

Several days later, Jay finally managed to puzzle out a earth spell to move the trees around the clearing and behind from the earth restraint spell. After burning through half his mana, he stopped to take a rest. The horses stopped without prompting, probably trained to stay in the middle of the clearing.

Munching on some bread and a slice of gazenja, a meat tasting like pork and beef, he cracked open the book he found in the town hall. The first pages had lists of phrases from Enchanting for Idiots, Dalfton’s skeletons to Taxes of Gajanistan in columns, but the majority of the massive book was blank. A grin crept onto Jay’s face, as a sneaking suspicion came to mind, and he smothered the phrase Dalfton’s skeletons in mana.

In a burst of mana, writing formed on several pages and a dark laugh also burst out of Jay. If he was already a persona non grata, then he would at least provide a proper reason. If the world wanted a piece of him, then the world would get a full course. He fell asleep reading.

Jay woke up to the sun's rays and went through his drills. The drills were soothing as ever, similar to what taichi must feel like. The poisoning of the waterways came to mind. Why wasn't he sick? Then again, the poisoning was magical in nature so maybe the effects didn’t reach beyond the tyrant’s territory.

A lizard like animal tried to take a chunk out of him but became a chunk of meat for him instead. The beastie tried to rush him head on, so beheading it was easy. After a quick fire spell, it became breakfast.

After finishing breakfast, Jay uprooted a tree using the earth bending spell he figured out. The tree was a halfy, but after being uprooted, they no longer possessed their absurd durability. He fashioned hundreds of pieces of wood, with an axe he found in the enslavers’ supplies.

Grabbing one of the pieces of wood, he began whittling at it with his short sword. After a hundred scrapped pieces, the a carving of the first glyph he learned but reversed took form.