The Moonlight squad watched Kade disappear through the gate with mixed expressions.

"I expected that to go worse." Dallas said with a relieved sigh.

"Honestly, the fact that it didn't go worse makes me feel worse about the entire situation."

"Not you too, Vic." Paul huffed "We knew him for less than a month, so why are ya'll so torn up about this?"

"Putting aside if I liked Kade or not, I just don't feel good about doing something like this." Victor wore a guilt-ridden expression "I never thought I'd sink so low."

"You're actin' like we killed his dog or somethin' when all we did was kick him off the team."

"Don't try to spin this in a way that makes it seem like we aren't in the wrong." Julian snapped, stepping toward Paul "We abandoned a teammate and stole his spoils because you three had a problem with him."

He leaned in before poking Paul's chest roughly "If you're going to fuck someone over, at least be man enough to own it."

Paul slapped his hand away "We all chose to kick him off the team, including you! It's not like he can't find another. I'll admit that keeping his split is a little screwed up, but we need it more."

Julian looked at him like he was an idiot before shaking his head and stepping back.

"Everyone has a right to their opinion. but what is done is done. Let's move on." Dallas mediated "Let's figure out our next move. We need to sell our spoils, and decide which faction we will join."

...

Kade sat with his back against a tree, his face resting in his hand.

'How could I have been so stupid?' He should have realized that this was coming, the signs were there.

Paul's dislike was likely a large reason for this, and Chelsea's dislike of being reminded of her own mistake surely added to it. They were all friends before the gates were even announced, so it should have been obvious that the others would be biased.

If he were in that situation he might be a bit biased too. He didn't think their insignificant conflict would amount to anything. In his mind conflict wasn't a bad thing, it allowed everyone to know where they stood and it was far better than bottling things up until emotions exploded.

If you knew someone had an issue with you then steps could be taken to fix the issue. However, both parties had to be mature enough to work it out. Clearly, that wasn't the case here.

They hadn't even bothered discussing it with him before making a decision. Who knew how long they had this planned. Hell, how warped were their perceptions to think that his role was insignificant?

The more he thought about it the more screwed up it seemed and the worse his mindset became. They had used him and discarded him like trash.

It reminded him of his childhood. His mother had kicked him out because his step-father didn't like him, and his biological father had been too wrapped up in his military career to bother with his son. It was only because of Jones's family that he didn't go hungry.

Being abandoned at such a young age had left a deep scar. A fear of abandonment that destroyed his self-esteem. If he had been better would his mother have wanted him? Would his father have made room for him despite his ambitions?

He couldn't understand why these things happened. Was he doing something wrong?

His emotion's changed erratically, from deep sadness and indignation to pure rage as he thought back on the past month. He struggled to find any indication of him being to blame.

"No. No, it's not the same." He mumbled while clenching his fists in an effort to calm himself.

He realized that he was connecting the events of today with his past when he shouldn't. After separating the two he was able to see things clearly.

This event happened because of the Moonlight squads' pride and their uncontrollable greed. Some of them couldn't accept their mistakes and decided to place the blame on him and even went as far as stealing what was his.

Taking deep breaths to calm himself, he ran his fingers through his hair. "Now isn't the time for a pity party." He whispered to himself. Everyone went through tough times, that didn't mean that he should lay down and accept it. He had no intentions of letting his demons win.

He needed a plan, so he took out his notebook and flipped to a new page. Finding another team was a possibility, but he would have issues trusting others. He didn't want to be burned again. That left one option. He would be running solo for the time being, likely until he was ready to form his own team.

"First things first, I need to fix my specialization." His build was centered around crowd control and relied on a team to shore up his weaknesses. Thankfully, crowd control would always be useful and in his mind, it was one of the most important utilities in combat.

Which left offense and defense. He could ignore defense for the moment since his binding spells could provide a measure of safety if utilized properly. His offense, however, was mandatory.

He opened his spell manual and skimmed it, taking note of the spells that inflicted damage. His face scrunched in disappointment at his options. Most were elemental spells similar to Fireball that had low lethality at his level.

He tapped his knee in thought before he remembered the last fight. His freeze spell synergized with water, and he had surmised that fire spells would have some synergy with nature. Which meant that he might be able to take advantage of synergy to increase effectiveness.

He wanted to slap himself as he thought of this. His mindset had been wrong from the beginning. He had thought of this too linearly as if this was a video game. Just because a spell wasn't meant for offense doesn't mean it couldn't be used for it.

He went back to the beginning and quickly skimmed over all of the spells. One possibility entered his head after the next. This was what a mage needed. Creativity and ingenuity!

He copied the names of five spells that he planned to learn. Water cannon, Shape earth, Gust, and Shock. Feeling as though these would satisfy the first requirement he moved on.

Next, he needed to figure out how to increase his level. The levels were just indications of how strong a champion was, and for mages, it was determined by the amount of altaris they could contain and generate.

Following the most logical path, he determined that he was already doing the right thing by studying and training his altaris, so he noted that down.

He continued ironing out a plan until deep into the night. Finally satisfied, he closed the notebook and stood up before walking into the darkness.

...

Kade took a bite of meat while he studied. It was the only thing he could successfully hunt, the same squirrel-like beast he had helped Julian hunt.

Two days had passed. He had already learned water cannon and moved on to shape earth. Now that he was alone, he didn't have responsibilities or other distractions other than hunting for food and gathering water.

As such, all of his time was devoted to self-improvement. He had questioned why he did so on the new world instead of on Earth where he had a reasonable level of safety and comfort but realized that just being in the new world was beneficial.

Everything here was new and unknown, so everything he did increased his knowledge. This world was the foundation for his legend so he needed to be familiar with it.

Even as weak as he was right now, he could survive as long as he didn't venture too far from the gate.

"Hm." He raised a brow while stroking a trace in the spellbook. After a moment he flipped a few pages and examined a different trace. He did this for a few spells before both brows shot up in surprise. "Ah, so that's how it is."

He had noticed a similarity in all of the traces. There was a circular pattern in one of the inner partitions. Following the discovery, he found that some traces share other similarities.

Closing the book, he channeled his altaris and began forming the trace for water cannon, but he changed the partition in question to the one from the fireball spell.

A ball of water the size of a melon formed above his palm. He narrowed his eyes. The shape had changed. Before, the spell formed a cylinder, but now it was in the shape of a sphere.

Upon casting the spell he verified that it functioned similarly, though more water was lost and the form warped during flight.

He leaned against the tree while stroking the short beard that had grown on his chin. "Is it truly so simple?" He couldn't help being suspicious. He had believed that each trace was unique to the spell, but this revelation indicated the opposite.

Traces were formed of multiple partitions that each altered the result of the spell. Now, it seemed that there were partition templates. If he wanted a spell to be in the shape of a sphere, he just needed to use the shape partition from Fireball.

Suddenly, traces didn't seem so ethereal. He could relate it to programming, or even something as simple as legos.

With his new understanding, he decided to shift his focus to testing the different partitions to deduce their function.

However, he found that it truly wasn't so simple. He could freely substitute the shape partition, but others might cause the spell to fail. Even so, this was an important discovery that marked his first understanding of traces and spell creation.

Putting the testing aside for the moment, he returned to learning the shape earth spell.

This would be the sixth spell he learned and he found that it was taking less time to learn new ones. He had only spent two days learning water cannon, and shape earth would likely be quicker.

...

*Splash*

A ball of water slammed into a tree, causing the branches to shake. A second later, a ball of ice landed in the same spot and broke into pieces. Within the blink of an eye, ice had spread nearly two meters and after a few seconds, it had already become several centimeters thick.

Kade picked up a rock the size of a grape and held it in his palm before channeling his altaris. A faded green color trace appeared as the air began to swirl into a cylinder above his hand.

He dropped the rock onto the cylinder, which sucked it inside and held it in the center. He cast the spell at the ice. The wind created a low whistle before slamming into the tree and blowing past, but the rock embedded into the ice.

Next, he tested the synergy between fire and wind by casting a fireball onto nearby leaves and then hitting the flames with the gust spell. Unfortunately, the wind created was too powerful and blew most of the fire out.

He continued experimenting with his new spells, at times smiling and at others frowning. However, in the end, he was satisfied.

He plopped down onto the ground before pulling out his notebook and striking out a line. He had satisfied the requirement of increased offensive capability.

He allowed a smile to spread on his face. Though he was still weak, he had improved. Now, it was time to test his spells in combat.

After checking his map, he headed out.

He had marked a semi-circle on one side of the gate that he dubbed the outskirts. The area within the semi-circle was relatively safe. Outside of it was the boundary where stronger animals could be found. The further he went, the more common stronger enemies would be.

He had been camping close to the outskirts, so it didn't take a long time to find a target. This was the oddest creature he had seen so far. The only thing he could relate it to was a dire wolf from fantasy, and that was only in size and shape.

There was no fur, just ashen grey skin. Its tail long and narrow, swaying back and forth dramatically. Bones protruded from its back like a spine of tiny shark fins. Its four eyes had a bright purple sheen. It didn't even have lips, but instead, the gnarly jagged teeth were exposed.

It was by far the most alien and terrifying thing he had seen so far, but he didn't feel the same pressure from it as he did beasts. This was likely a normal animal of this world.

His spine shivered lightly at the thought that a normal creature could be so horrifying. When he brought his gaze back to the creature, his eyes widened.

It was staring at him and its posture had changed to be more aggressive. It crept forward while releasing an odd whistling sound.

Kade was surprised and slightly confused. He was over thirty meters away, yet this animal had detected him. Why hadn't the beasts detected his team when they were much closer?

He shook his head, now wasn't the time for that. He immediately began channeling his altaris but didn't form a trace. Preparing the wrong spell could prove disastrous.

Kade almost found the situation comical as he circled to his right while watching the canine's cautious approach. It felt like a standoff that happens in professional wrestling. This served to calm his nerves despite the approaching danger.

It felt slow, but the distance had reduced to twenty meters in under a minute. Then, like a spark off flint, the creature charged.

Kade immediately backpedaled in a straight line while forming a verdant green trace in his hand. He cast the moment it finished, and without hesitation, began forming another trace.

The canine had closed the distance by this point and leaped forward with its jaws stretched wide. When it was almost upon him, vines sprouted and wrapped around the creature, stopping it mid-flight.

Kade watched the creature struggle to stand among the hindrance of vines with a rapid heartbeat. Then, when the trace finished, he cast a ball of water forward. It struck the canine, knocking it off balance and dousing it.

The force of impact destroyed all of the progress the creature had made in collecting itself.

'It's working!' He couldn't help cheer himself on. Winning this battle would be a big milestone for his future.

A bright yellow trace was already forming in his hand, followed by a ball of lightning that buzzed. He pushed his hand forward as if he was practicing tai chi before the ball flew out of his hand and struck the canine.

"Awooo"

The canine cried out as its body began to convulse. A thin shroud of lightning covered it, streaks moving around like a colony of ants.

Knowing that this wasn't enough, Kade began casting one shock after the other until the creature was so weak that it couldn't lift its head.

"It's over." He panted. He had exhausted slightly more than two-thirds of his altaris just to incapacitate the creature.

He retrieved the knife from his belt while channeling altaris in his other hand and approached. The canine's breathing was rapid and shallow, burn marks marred its entire body, and traces of smoke faintly rose from it.

The animal made odd sounds that he could only assume were cries. It sounded similar to the blow-off valve of a turbo as if a high volume of air was being forced through a small opening.

The animal flinched as he stepped closer. He could tell that it wanted to flee but its body wouldn't respond. His expression couldn't help but turn complicated.

He wasn't a stranger to violence and killing. As a Marine, he had taken lives, perhaps more than he knew. That fact had haunted him with guilt at one point. However, he had mostly worked through the mental strain caused by taking a life.

He wouldn't kill indiscriminately without reason, but he also wouldn't hesitate when it was deserved. That being said, he was still a human with emotions.

This animal, which was quaking in fear before him, reminded him of a scared child. Normally, this wouldn't bother him a single iota, after all, it wasn't human and it had attacked him first. This was a creature that was dominated by instinct and leaving it alive would be to invite disaster upon himself.

So why was he hesitating? What did he see in this creature that prevented him from ending its life as he had done to so many others?

He ground his teeth as he shook his head roughly in an attempt to throw his emotions away. His arm rose as he knelt on one knee and prepared to finish the animal off. His eyes drifted to the canines. It met his gaze and he paused with furrowed brows.

He sighed before his arm swung down.

"I swear, if you fuckin' bite me, I'll rip you to pieces." He mumbled as he wrapped the vines around it, forming a harness. He muzzled the canine with as many vines as he could and when he felt safe, he cut it free.

He tried to heft it onto his shoulders, but it was far too heavy. So he settled to dragging it behind him as he looked for a good place to camp.

Luckily, he found a small clearance close and tied the canine to a tree before getting to work creating a camp.

Shape Earth was a spell that he learned for offense, but its intended use was utility. It allowed the caster to manipulate the earth within up to three cubic meters. The earth within the range could be manipulated in any manner the caster thought of, which was extremely useful.

It would allow a mage to do the work of twenty men in a fraction of the time. He could create shelter, defensive measures, or even art. It could even be used offensively with some preparation. Versatile was the perfect word to describe the spell.