About half an hour later we finally arrived at the thankfully brown hut. It looked more like a small house you would regularly encounter in the city, with the exception of a dimly glowing membrane that spread out in a radius of a hundred meters around it.

It was almost astonishing how much mana the hut itself radiated though. I was able discern a faint mixture of a strikingly light gold and red that covered the walls even with my mana vision being switched off.

Note to self: NEVER activate mana vision in the house.

It was located in a several hundred meters wide clearing, giving us enough space to do pretty much anything we wanted to. Beyond that was a terrifyingly dark forest of gigantic trees that stretched far into the heavens. A dense undergrowth covered the ground in it, making even walking a difficult task.

Fortunately, I couldn’t see any beast in the area, most likely due to our feathery companion.

“What are you standing around for?” Owen asked my unmoving self. I turned my head into the direction of the house, where the others had already opened the heavy looking wooden door.

“What are you stressing around for? We have all the time in the world.” I replied in a relaxed manner while walking closer to them.

“Yeah, sure we have.” Was the message that Owens rolling eyes seemed to convey.

Ignoring him, I walked past the open door.

A cozy looking room with a chimney located at the far end of the room was the first thing I saw. A white pelt of unknown origin covered the ground, accentuating the two brown couches which were arranged around the calmly burning flame.

A stairway was leading into the next floor, which I couldn’t clearly see from my current position.

“Look! There are loads of food in this room!” Greta’s voice came from my right where a door led into what I presume to be the food storage.

“Uhh, now that you mention food, do any of you know how to cook?” Frank shouted from above.

He made an…excellent point. How are we supposed to feed ourselves if none of us can cook?

“Don’t worry, the food is already prepared.” Greta replied.

I subtly noted that no one said that they were capable of cooking. I sighed, thinking about the drawbacks of an upbringing centered on becoming a warrior.

“So, do any of you want to eat now? I’m pretty hungry now to be honest.” I inquired as I walked towards the food storage room.

Owens head appeared on the doorframe. “What do you want?” He had an orange apple and a loaf of bread in each of his hands.

I took the bread from both of his hands. “Is there anything to drink?” Owen shrugged his shoulders at my question.

“Why don’t you conjure some? It’s not like you are in dire need of mana anyways.” Frank, who came down with a white bedroll in his hands, reminded me.

Damn, those kids have far better common sense than me.

I promptly conjured some water from my lake. This would be the first time I actually tried drinking I created myself, so I carefully sipped at the prone ball of water in the air.

When I didn’t notice anything unusual about it I sat down and began eating earnestly. Soon enough the others joined me and we shared our first meal in our new home.

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A pinkly glowing deer lowered its head to nibble at one of the many green bushes. The rest of its herd was about a dozen meters away, quietly doing the same.

My gloved hands slowly pulled the bow in my hands back. An arrow with three white feathers attached at its back and a broad metallic tip in my hands moving in the same speed as my hands.

I let out a long breath, steadying my aim while doing so.

*twang*

The arrow flew in a straight line, hitting the deer in the throat. Pink colored blood ran down the thick arrow shaft as the deer jumped up at the sudden pain.

It didn’t come far though as I quickly shot another arrow at its heart, effectively stopping it for a second. I pulled my greatsword out of the ground and approached the wildly jumping beast.

As soon as the deer saw me coming out from the bush I hid in it charged at me, its sharp antlers directed at my comparably small frame.

I sidestepped a few times, the heavy metallic sword quickly building up momentum as I swung it horizontally against the nearing deer.

The antlers directly coming in contact with the sword were cut apart and it tumbled down in pain as the blade cut deeply into its side.

The ground was rumbling due to the rest of the herd fleeing the scene whilst I jumped off the ground. My blade smoothly cut through its neck, decapitated it and causing small fountains of blood to spurt out.

I kneeled down and touched the still warm body of the deer, absorbing the small amounts of pink mana escaping into the air. The blood spurts became a slow trickle as its heart stopped beating, but I as I didn’t want my clothes to be dirtied by it I slapped the deer’s neck, causing it to tighten up.

When I was finished sucking the last remnants of its mana out I used my hammer to crush it skull, exposing the pink brain in it. The sight was grueling, but my hand penetrated the gross mass regardless of that. After searching around for a bit I finally found it: The deer's core.

My grip around the small round bead-like thing tightened and I promptly ripped it out, causing another small fountain of blood to gush out. I deposited it in a small pouch hanging at my side after washing it with a small ball of water.

At the beginning Teacher taught us that all living beings with a certain amount of intelligence possess a core that can store mana and be used to cultivate. Curiously enough the only beings that are known to cultivate are humans, but it didn't change the fact that there are far more powerful beings than any human out there.

Well, even if they can't use their cores for cultivation there is a certain amount of mana corresponding to its strength in their core, enabling any warrior who manages to absorb it to get a sudden boost in power. They can also be used for emergencies, though that isn't recommended due to the strain it puts on the mana channels.

I would really like to know how beasts are capable of becoming this strong without any conscious strengthening though. I mean humans use the mana produced in the core to enhance their bodies but how do beasts do that?

Putting another question I would likely never get an answer to into the back of my mind, I heaved the at least three meters big deer onto my shoulders, my knees slightly bending due to the sudden increase in weight.

My feet pushed off the ground in quick frequency as I ran through the thick vegetation whilst a dark blue field shoved anything that was in my way to the side, quickly reaching a big, sun lit clearing.

“What took you so long?” Frank, who, if you take his height out of the equation, hadn’t changed considerably in the past five years, asked me impatiently.

The last five years had passed pretty peacefully. Although homesickness is still a big problem it is not nearly as bad as in the first year.

To distract ourselves we spent most of the first three years quietly meditating and playing some games with conjured materials. Of course we didn’t neglect increasing the matter in our cores as we wouldn’t have been able to meditate for a longer period of time otherwise.

But that kind of lifestyle got boring pretty fast.

After we felt we were ready we finally asked Teacher to teach us how to hunt the surrounding beasts. He didn’t really react very accommodating at first but quickly gave in when he realized how bored out of our mind we were.

Our first hunt was…disappointing to be honest. Teacher took us out and asked us to activate our mana senses, which had been unlocked after about two years.

Owen and Frank had gotten mana hearing whilst Greta developed mana smelling. Our different ways of sensing not only didn’t hinder us, no, it even helped us during that trip.

Teacher instructed us to use our senses to find docile, or at least relatively harmless animals, which we were able to do after about twenty minutes of searching.

It was a young boar about as tall as we were back then. Naturally it wasn’t exactly the definition of harmless or docile, but as we outnumbered it four to one we weren’t concerned. Thankfully we had already upgraded our weapons at that time and attacked it together.

Frank used his spear to repeatedly stab it, effectively diverting its attention while Owen used his double bladed axe to slash its thick and durable hide into pieces. Greta and I teamed up to deal devastating blows, she with her oversized club and me with my warhammer.

I don’t think it needs to be said that it died very quickly when we hit its head multiple times with all our might.

“Stop standing around and help me skin the deer.” Frank interrupted my reminiscing.

I sighed and reluctantly moved over to the spread out body of the deer. Frank had already started cutting up some lines that would be crucial to properly skinning it.

Skinning the beasts we hunted was a necessary act, one we had to practice a long time until we became somewhat proficient at it. We would then clean and dry the hide to give it to our teacher, who in turn sells it in the city, giving us a somewhat stable source of income.

Granted, we didn’t particularly need money out here but the currency in Frumentum, which I had never seen before I was exiled, had a special property that made it very desirable for any warrior: It was a stone made up of pure mana that one can easily absorb without having to go into the core space first.

Of course that meant that any warrior could produce them, but they rarely do that due to the high mana costs.

The mana stones glowed in a faint grey even without mana vision, another special property that made it quite hard to miss.

They are called mana marbles and the most common ones had a small amount of mana stored and are about one centimeters wide and big. It quite resembles the object it was named after and most people carry it around in small pouches. I heard that it is quite bothersome to pay with them as it is easy to mess the counting up or even accidentally lose them.

The more valuable ones were just one centimeter bigger versions with each of them being ten times more valuable than the last one.

That goes until it reaches the size of five centimeters, where the previously grey material suddenly becomes white. The marble in its name is replaced with pearl and it starts with the size of one centimeter again, repeating the circle until the five centimeter mark, which is the most valuable stone.

I really want to know why they had to add mana to each name though. If those names were colloquial I would understand the strange names but they are official.

Maybe Frumentum’s naming sense is just as bad as his ability to use multiple colors.

After we finished skinning the deer I conjured a small ball of water to remove the blood still clinging to the hide while Frank went to deliver the meat to Owen, who will prepare and cook it.

Due to Greta’s absolute lack of cooking talent she is delegated as the dishwasher, which, due to our conjuring skills, is far too easy.

The ground started to shake, making me stop in my tracks. I turned around scanned the area for anything that was heavy enough to cause such vibrations, but found nothing.

“Guys! Come out, we have a problem!” I shouted, quickly summoning my bow out to shoot anything that comes into sight.

The door slammed open and the others came out fully armed.

The rumbling continued to become stronger but we didn’t find anything despite our full use of all the senses available.

*ROAAAR*

Even though the owner of that voice seemed far away a roar that loud must mean that the beast is quite powerful.

Good, it has been quite some time since a powerful enemy appeared. This will be the perfect opportunity to test myself. Even if it is more powerful than I anticipated I highly doubt that it stands a chance against our combined power.

A black blur mowed the trees in front of it down as if they were made out of cotton, approaching us in a frightening speed.

Oh my fucking shit, I’ve never seen a beast topple one of the ancient trees before, not to mention carving a path through the forest like this.

“Fucking get into the house! We won’t able to fight that thing!” I pulled the unmoving figure of Frank with me as I screamed that.

We ran into the house with lightning speed, closing the door behind us.

Just as we began to feel safe an enormous impact caused us to fall onto the ground.

The unknown being roared again, this time shaking us to our very core.

The shields that Frumentum laid down abruptly vanished, letting the frightening aura of the beast, no, I think that it’s more appropriate to call it monster, seep into the house.

My whole body felt constricted, making any movement, even breathing, an extremely taxing task. As I was in the process of getting up I crashed onto the ground with a bang.

My vision slowly darkened at the edges and from the corner of my eye I could see that the Owen wasn’t in a better condition.

Another impact threw me around, everything suddenly going black when I felt a painful impact on the back of my head.