By midday, Torrin's core was noticing the first signs of mana depletion. Not wanting to slow his pace, he activated his core mid-stride to absorb ambient mana. Confusion lined Torrin's face in the set of his brow as he sped toward the ground face-first.

A groan escaped his lips after he stopped tumbling forward, ending up in a haphazard sprawl of limbs, "Fuck..." he grumbled to himself. As soon as he activated the rune, he'd felt his core reverse directions, instantly withdrawing his active mana threads back within itself, causing him to lose control over his earthen transport. Deciding now was as good a time as any for a break, he continued laying on the ground as his body slowly recovered. A wry chuckle escaped his lips and he took out a couple of the books Grams had sent with him.

'I guess I'll have to avoid using my core's Absorb rune while I'm actively using mana.' Torrin pondered his situation, 'Or at least focus my intent on not reversing my mana's flow when I'm using it.' Torrin was unsure if his second option was viable. It would require extensive testing.

As Torrin's arm popped back into its socket, he grunted and rotated the slowly healing joint. Once it felt usable, he summoned his old backpack, held the book he was reading in both hands and finally laid back in a more comfortable position.

A yawn split his lips as the dry book on mana crystal extraction was consumed. He sped up his perception and the pages flew by within minutes. It was a dull read that more or less recommended moving the earth around a crystal with spells to access it, rather than using any physical force that might damage the crystal in the process. It seemed obvious to Torrin that manipulating the earth was the proper process for extracting a crystal--at least now that he had such a smoother control over the earth element from the turtle's memories--but he guessed most people would need the spell provided within the text.

The book on ores was a much more interesting read, if only because it contained information that Torrin had never heard of. The names Adamantite and Mythril caught his eyes. Both were metals harder than steel and more durable, but whereas Adamantite was heavier than steel, Mythril was lighter. Both materials were good at conducting mana, comparable to if not better than Spell-Steel.

The book claimed Adamantite was a greenish material that was useful in making heavy weaponry, such as greatswords, axes, or hammers. The point of using these more durable ores when making weapons or even armor was the fact that they could conduct mana into rune scripts that were stronger than the ones Spell-Steel could withstand.

This bit of information caught Torrin's attention and his mind flickered back to his own Celestial Bronze sword. Grams had engraved his sword with runes he'd assumed were passive enchantments, but now he wondered if there was more. It'd be just like her to not fully explain what she'd given him. He sat up and withdrew his sword from his ring.

The line of runes running down the blade made him wish Grams had sent a book on runes with him as well. He had no real reference for what the runes were supposed to be used for other than "making the blade stronger and more durable" as Grams had said. But he also remembered her mentioning making it better at conducting energy. Curiously, he stretched a few mana tendrils from his refilled core. Tentatively, he tried infusing the rune-marked blade with the mana to no great effect.

He wasn't disheartened by the lack of reaction, as he was now used to testing out various methods to achieve success--like with all the doors he kept coming across. Next, he focused his mana threads on the jewel set in the pommel, which had a much different reaction. The jewel glimmered slightly as it sucked in his mana. The runes on the blade lit up slightly before dimming once more. Seeing the reaction, he pumped more and more mana into the jewel and the runes shone brighter and stayed that way longer, proportional to the amount of mana he infused. After charging the blade with what he assumed was a fair amount of mana, he stood and swung the blade, testing it for any changes.

As the blade moved, a crackling sound could be heard as flickering lightning danced along the blade. Torrin's eyes widened in surprise. He looked around the empty plain around him, trying to find a test subject. It was as if everything around him had seen the future and made a pact to avoid him. There weren't even any of the usual beasts flying in the sky above. After sweeping his eyes around once more, he decided to stir up a beast instead.

Torrin sank mana into the ground and made a ruckus, shifting the earth beside him for long moments in the hopes of attracting one of the never-too-far-away moles. To his great surprise, none bothered coming to check out the commotion. Now that he thought about it, no moles had bothered him on his entire journey since leaving the earth temple. Unsure if it was coincidence or something else, he shrugged. He decided that for now, less beasts attacking him could only ever be counted as a good thing.

Since nothing was around to fight, he sighed. He was torn between running off to find a creature and heading towards the elves now that his core was full. He wanted to test his sword's enchantments, but also wanted to see if he could catch up with the elves at the water temple, curious to see if there was another altar within it. If there was, it would take an extensive amount of time to view the beast's memories.

With nothing to test his weapon's enchantments on, his eyes slowly fell on his free hand before returning to the blade in his right hand. He swung his blade once more, lightning flickering to life as it moved, and shuddered slightly. He could only blame Grams for putting him through such torment that using himself as a training dummy now seemed like a reasonable course of action to save time.

Huffing out a puff of air, he slowly sliced the blade across his open palm, being careful to only cause a shallow cut. Pain erupted as lightning licked at the wound, scorching and paralyzing his free hand for a few seconds. The paralysis passed quickly and the cauterized wound healed itself with a push of restoration, but a phantom pain lingered in the spot he'd cut.

Torrin nodded, impressed by Gram's handiwork, "Now... if only she'd told me about the enchantment before sending me off, it would have been perfect," he grumbled to himself. Torrin put away his sword and shook out the hand he'd cut to try and relieve the phantom pain that lingered. It didn't seem to help all that much so he decided to just ignore it until it went away on its own.

Torrin tried thinking of all the uses for his blade's enchantment, trying to come up with future plans of attack using it. After a while spent pondering the possibilities, he lay on the ground once more, but not before lifting a small half dome from the earth to block out some of the glaring sun. The only reason he hadn't before was the thought of attracting annoying moles to his location, but since they seemed to be taking the day off, he took the chance to do so now. Seeing as he'd saved time by testing the blade on himself, he decided to rest a bit longer.

The two herbology books were taken from his ring. He perused their contents with much more interest than the previous two books. The book contained various rare plants that grew in mana dense environments, such as this pocket dimension. It also contained a few recipes near the back of it that didn't seem to require a master alchemist to throw together, which drew Torrin's attention. The first few were simple healing tinctures or balms that could relieve small wounds and even one for helping an upset stomach. The final one required an actual cauldron to make and seemed to be written in Grams' own handwriting, taking up the final page of the book.

"Mix the Tonfal herb in a pot after making a mana beast bone broth... Add mana to the mixture to help restrain some of the wilder properties of the herb... You'll know it's ready when a fragrant scent wafts from the pot. Add in spices for taste...?" One of the steps in the recipe gave Torrin pause. He reread the previous steps to make sure he hadn't missed something before continuing, "Once mixture has been flavored, add in meat of your choice, though chicken or beef is recommended...?"

Torrin swore he could almost hear Grams' cackling laughter in his head. The old bat had defiled one of the herbology books to add in a damn stew recipe. Torrin shook his head, a wry smile slinking onto his face. He closed the first herbology book and took up the other one, checking the last page to make sure Grams hadn't snuck anything into this one. The final page was blank, causing an unexpected pang of disappointment to bubble in Torrin's chest. He was unsure why he felt that way and ignored it, reading through the book's contents.

An hour passed quickly as he tried memorizing as many of the plants as he could. Satisfied, he stood and stretched. He wanted to check out Grams' journal more than anything, but decided now wasn't the right time. The only reason he took the time to check the others just then was this was the first moment he didn't feel that he had to be on high alert to protect the elves.

He chuckled slightly, surprised at himself when he realized how much his outlook on the elves had changed since coming to the pocket dimension. Though many of them only listened to him because he was stronger than them, some seemed to actually like him now. The biggest hangup was Yawnel's slowly growing group of idiots. Thinking of Yawnel caused him to grimace, readying himself to head off once more.

He ran until the sun sunk low in the sky, the horizon covering it like a kid tucked in for bed. Torrin had only needed to rest once more during his trip to recover his mana. As he set up a small camp for himself, he manipulated a ball of mana into a light orb so he could scan through Grams' journal once more. The runes representing Time and Space still seemed far outside of his capabilities, so he ignored them. What drew his attention was a section on "Gravity".

As Torrin read through a brief description, he realized this must be how Grams had weighed him down before sending him to the elves. This section described gravity as the force of a larger object attracting a smaller one, though Grams also added, "An example of gravity is people being stuck to a planet instead of floating away; this is just a simple description that doesn't encompass the full breadth of information on the subject."

"At least she told me she was excluding information this time." Torrin mumbled as he read the page.

After perusing the section completely, Torrin set himself to work analyzing the spell still wrapped around his body. The added weight had stopped being a nuisance after the first few days of travel in the pocket dimension. He was less curious with how to undo the spell, more so wanting to make it stronger. As this realization washed over him he began to worry that he was a bit too masochistic. He eventually shrugged and got back to scanning his wrist with mana sight.

After a long time staring at seemingly nothing, he sucked his teeth and shook his head. The spell included upwards of fifteen separate runes put together in a way to take qualities of earth mana and ascribe them onto air mana. That was the best guess he could come up with after studying the spell for two whole hours. It seemed like a reasonable conclusion the more he thought it over. To him, gravity sounded like heavy air, so that's the lens that colored his explanation, he guessed.

As he studied the rune that embodied Grams' understanding of Gravity, his head began to throb lightly. It felt as if outside thoughts were trying to worm themselves into his mind as he tried to understand the rune. Unlike when he studied the Change rune, he wasn't able to make out the various thoughts and images clearly. After a while, he decided he needed to rest in order to recover so he would feel fresh tomorrow. His floating orb of light winked out as he set up a pallet for himself.

Torrin lay on the ground with a small stone wall blocking the chilly air of the night. Though his head hurt and his mana pathways in his legs felt worn down, he couldn't sleep. The silence in the night was heavy, only a slight whistling of the wind making any noise. The lack of snoring and sniffling from the elves weighed on him, making him realize just how alone he was again.

He lay wondering about what the elves were doing. He wondered if they were successful at the water temple or if they had already moved on. He wondered what his family might be doing right now, assuming they were still alive.

That thought caught him off guard. He had purposefully been unwilling to think of his family for the longest time. He chalked it up to being alone once again after spending so much time with other people. Since he was unable to confirm if his family was still alive until he went back to his own world or confronted Virtus, he tried to shrug off the thought.

"Virtus..." Torrin unintentionally growled. He sat up, feeling his muscles tense from just thinking about them. The cold glow of his rage ignited. His body burned with an inner warmth, causing the tiredness of the day's travel to slough off him. He forgot all about the pounding in his head from trying to understand the complex rune in Grams' journal. His thoughts circled back to his family then.

"If they were killed, it would have been from Virtus as well." Torrin's voice had a sharp quality to it as he put his thoughts into words, "It just keeps coming back to Virtus. Even Little Lark's home was attacked by them eventually." Torrin winced as his thoughts came to Velin Village.

Torrin admittedly had been less worried about the kids from Velin than he should have. The more time he'd spent with the elves, the more he remembered how nice it felt to be a part of something. A group...A community...A family. These were things he'd forgotten in his haste to grow stronger. This realization made his callous actions in the first week of his new life grate at him.

"What's the point of having power if I don't use it for good? Isn't that why I worked so hard in my past life?" Torrin wondered aloud as he began pacing. Now that he felt more awake, he couldn't stop his thoughts from nagging at him.

In his previous life, he thought of himself as honorable. The type of leader who knew his people and cared for them. Since coming to this world, he hardly recognized himself. His physical appearance had changed, sure, but his actions also seemed as if they were performed by a stranger. He realized, now, that he'd lost himself when he died. His body changed as much as his nature when he came to this world. He hadn't only distracted himself from his trauma, but also his own values. He didn't blame himself for the kids being taken from Velin. He still didn't think he could have stopped the attack; but he sure as hell blamed himself for being so callous.

Torrin sat in silence, disgusted at the person he'd become. The longer he sat thinking, the more he began to wonder at his decisions. 'Running away from Velin had been the right decision', he thought, 'as well as agreeing to Grams' teachings and experiments.' But he couldn't deny that he should have urged Grams more about the kids and regretted being so self-centered now.

"You could also have spent more time with them, asshole," he mumbled, his old self speaking up. The new Torrin shook his head at himself, arguing that he was more busy at that time distracting himself from the raging storm of emotions from his death and subsequent reincarnation. As his thoughts went in circles, berating and defending himself over and over, he decided he'd just have to make up for it by saving them.

His thoughts quickly skipped over his time in the forest, shuddering at the madness he'd felt then. He thought of Bolin Town, hoping that The Playful Badger crew was doing alright. A smile touched his face as he thought of Bell and Uncle Roland, along with the stern guard captain Dane. He scowled as his mind turned to his actions against the thugs. The simpering ember of rage in his chest seemed to liven up as he thought of how angry he'd felt by their attempted mugging. He tamped down the burning feelings, his disgust at himself returning in full force. He groaned and rubbed his face, wondering why he was worried about this now.

An image of the elves flashed in his mind. Dawn leading her group charging at a recently released mana beast Torrin had caught for them to practice with. Tillien smiling brightly after defeating another such beast. The grateful nods of a few elves as he passed them delicious food.

A weak laugh passed his lips. As much as he was loathe to admit it, he liked the elves. Even the ones that looked like frightened animals when his attention was fully on them or the ones who spouted disdainful comments constantly. He realized that each of the elves he'd met so far were genuine in their own way and each had a talent. Most were strong, though, only lacking confidence and actual combat experience.

An idea began to form in his head at the thought. The elven leaders seemed to hate Virtus as much as Torrin did. Maybe he could get them to agree to help fight the group. Torrin had planned to keep to himself as much as possible, but if he could convince the elves to fight with him and Grams, they'd surely have a much better chance at taking the group out. As the thought came to him, he could almost hear Grams cackling in the back of his mind. A scowl formed on his face and he raised his head to face the dark sky above him.

"Why can she never explain anything?!" he roared to no one in particular, his voice spreading through the quiet, grassy plain.

A howl answered his call, followed by another a short while later. Torrin smiled slightly, wondering if he would have something to test his weapon on after all. It didn't take long for the wolves to show up. A group of five relatively normal looking wolves with a sixth wolf double their size approached Torrin cautiously, the breeze of the night ruffling their silver coats that shone in the moonlight. The more he looked, the more he realized how unnaturally their fur moved. After activating his mana sight, Torrin realized the wolves were coated in a smattering of wind mana.

He wondered at the reasoning for this, but was soon distracted by the leader's charge. The giant wolf leaped forward at a speed that surprised Torrin greatly, a slight wave of wind mana flowing before the wolf. A sharp pain tore into his side a moment later. He'd only been fast enough to twist his body out of the wolf's way slightly, avoiding being disemboweled.

Saen flowed to patch the wound as much as it did to enhance his entire body. Mana flowed through his pathways to form a shield around him. As his perception sped up from a thread of mana snaking through a pathway to his mind, he saw five more darting streaks slow into a mass of fur and fangs. His sword appeared in his hand and an arc of sword energy materialized on the blade. It shot out to intercept the closest two wolves. He saw the other three hesitate at the sight.

As his blade moved, he pivoted on the ball of his left foot as mana sank into the gem of his sword, igniting it with streaks of lightning. His body turned to counter the leader's followup attack. The growing, glowing tendrils of lightning flashed quickly even to his enhanced perception as his blade dug into the approaching paw of the pack's leader.

A shriek of pain rang out as the leader limped backwards--it avoided putting any weight on its now limp front leg--trailing blood from its injury as it did. Torrin's free hand moved mana and sent a few wind blades at the retreating pack leader as he stomped his foot on the earth toward the five wolves behind him and moved a wave of mana through his leg, sending it through the ground and forming ten jagged spears of earth surging from the ground to hit the wolves.

He was still highly inaccurate and only caused a glancing blow on the three wolves that had previously been hesitant. The sheer amount of spears he formed made up for his terrible aim as the two wolves recently slashed by his sword energy were hit. One was pinned in the chest and the other's head exploded from the impact.

Torrin kept his eyes focused on the leader, only his will stretching his senses to take stock of the rest of the pack. The leader's eyes glanced at his pack and rage could be seen as clear as day in the set of its jaw and the tightening of its gaze as it looked back to Torrin. Torrin didn't waste any more time, he shot forward just as the other wolves moved to attack him.

He engaged the leader but quickly found it hard to keep up with it. It somehow moved too fast for him to land a proper blow or react when it attacked him. His mana shield was the only thing keeping him from losing a limb. His eyes took in each action with his enhanced perception and his mana sight caught the fluctuating wind mana moving just before the wolf did.

'It's using wind mana to somehow make itself faster?' Torrin wondered as he dodged the leader's bite by anticipating the movement. If he moved as soon as he noticed the mana fluctuate in a certain direction, he could dodge the gaping maw that followed. The wolf seemed to move the air out of its way with mana to make its movement in the cleared path quicker.

Torrin didn't understand anything further, but was glad he could now move before the wolf attacked. A claw cut into Torrin's mana shield, nearly scarring his back as he instantly moved. The rest of the pack was joining in and Torrin now had to fend off not only the leader's insanely quick movements, but also the three lesser wolves.

Torrin tried using the same trick he'd used on the mole as he waved his blade to fend off the lesser wolves. He muddied the ground between him and the pack with a torrent of water ripped from the air around him. This had the great effect of making one of the wolves slip, which Torrin quickly ended. The other wolves avoided the muddied ground and backed away.

The leader's rage seemed to burn brighter as its gaze pierced Torrin. It lifted its head slightly, opened its maw and a howl erupted forth. At first glance, Torrin thought it might be calling reinforcements. That theory was soon wiped away as the wolf lowered its maw, lining it up with Torrin's head.

Before he could react, the wolf howled once more. He felt as if someone had launched a rock from a catapult and it landed directly on his head. He head shot back from the force of the sound attack, nearly ripping itself from his body. The rest of him soon followed, he was sent flipping end over end. He lost control of the mana enhancing his perception. As soon as his body moved from the blow, the two remaining lesser wolves pounced at him.

He landed on the ground in a crumpled heap, his brain rattled, but adrenaline and Saen helped dispel most of the damage. He quickly reformed his mana shield and enhanced it with earth mana. He was grateful he did as two slavering maws tore into his shield a moment later. He quickly batted them away with a Saen enhanced punch to one and a kick to the other.

Torrin shot to his feet quickly, ignoring his pounding skull as he enhanced his mind once more. He had lost his sword when he was hit, so he tried finding it. As his gaze landed on the sword, he saw the pack leader taking aim once more. Torrin grabbed the scruff of one of the wolves just in time to place it in front of him. The wolf was pulped and a marble sized ball of compressed air shot into Torrin's gut, causing him to bend double and puke.

The second wolf didn't seem too dismayed at its pack-mate's demise as it tried tearing into Torrin's exposed throat. Torrin cried out as his shield hadn't recovered enough after absorbing most of the leader's ranged attack and the wolf's teeth tore through the last shreds of his defense and into his neck.

The pain clarified his thoughts and his hands gripped the wolf's jaws tightly. His body had been tempered by the tank of Saen as he forged his core and was now enhanced further by the Saen he poured into himself from the crystal within his mana core. This meant the wolf's jaws hardly sank into his neck, so his life wasn't in danger unless it began shaking its head. This also meant that Torrin's grip on the wolf's jaws caused the bones within its face to crack.

Torrin removed the wolf gingerly, pumping restoration to his wound as he did. The leader seemed hesitant to kill another of its subordinates and charged towards them instead of shooting another ranged attack. Torrin used the wolf he held in his hands like a club and intercepted the incoming leader by swinging the wolf at it. The yelp the leader let out as it was hit with the body of its pack-mate was pure surprise, lacking any pain. The next yelp as Torrin summoned a plethora of earthen spears from below as it landed was definitely pain, though.

Torrin huffed a breath and allowed his mana and Saen to recede into his core. His legs ached fiercely. His pathways were now a bit ragged from the over exertion of him haphazardly gushing mana through them to summon his earth spears. He needed more time to work on control and finesse. What he was currently doing was no better than when he blasted the rock with Saen during his earth affinity test. It was more instinct than an actual spell.

Torrin finished off the wolves and gathered the corpses inside his ring. He made three more walls of earth to go with his original one once he made it back to his camp. He fished a healing potion from his ring and downed it, a soothing feeling stretching from his stomach to the aching mana pathways in his legs. He wrapped himself in a hardened mana shield in case anything else attacked him that night. He didn't think on anything further, instantly falling asleep as his head hit his ragged backpack.