Even though I had only been walking for a few minutes, my legs already felt like jelly, and I could barely keep myself upright - no wonder after four years of not moving at all.

At the same time, I felt terrific. Whereas my first few steps had been extremely awkward and jerky, a bit like a zombie, by the end of my little walk I felt my gait become a lot smoother, the steps less jarring, and my balance infinitely better.

The rapid improvement was, in fact, incredible. Usually, people that wake up from a coma after years of inactivity need to relearn how to walk, and I was able to get up and move right away.

I would have loved to chalk that down to me being unique, exceptionally gifted or whatnot, but the more likely explanation was that it was somehow connected to the mana circulating in my body. Of course, that was pure speculation at this point, but it best matched my overall experience so far.

Contemplating the mysteries of this new world, I leaned against the wall to take some weight off my legs. It was tempting to sit down, but I was sure that once my ass was on the ground, I wouldn’t be able to get up any longer.

Suddenly, I saw a fast-moving disturbance in the mana flows in front of me. Before I had time to react, a creature, about the size of a cat, but with enormous leathery wings, slammed into my chest. Immediately, sharp claws and teeth started tearing into my skin as I stumbled back in complete shock.

With a shriek of panic, I started hitting the thing with my bare hands, cursing myself for dropping both sticks to the ground. Luckily, the creature was not particularly sturdy, and I could feel bones break under my somewhat feeble strikes. Within seconds, the beast tried to disengage and flee, but I was not having any of that.

“No way, you fucker. You are dead!” I furiously growled while grabbing one of the wings and breaking the bones like twigs.

Oddly enough, the creature didn’t make much in terms of noise, apart from furious clicking sounds. Not that I stood around and listened to it. No, I pummeled the shit out of the thing, until it stopped twitching.

Trying to catch my breath, I sank to the floor, utterly exhausted. That fight had taken a lot out of me, and the new set of wounds was not helping. Fiercely burning gashes crisscrossed my chest, leaving my t-shirt in bloody tatters and me worse for the wear.

What the fuck was going on?

First a giant spider and now a giant… bat?

Or, at least, something similar to a bat. Unfortunately, Mana Vision didn’t lend itself to providing a detailed image of what I was dealing with. It gave me a rough outline, but that was about it.

And the ten-foot radius was not enough to get sufficient warning against surprise attacks like that. But without any light, that was about as good as it got. That said, four extra feet of vision might mean the difference between life and death… reluctantly, I dumped my final two spell points into Mana Vision, bringing the total up to seven. Immediately, I could feel the radius of my vision expand to about fourteen feet, which felt a lot less claustrophobic already. Given the change I had experienced going from four to five points, I was hoping that perhaps at level ten, Mana Vision might get a further upgrade to the level of detail of what I could see. But to get there, I needed to either level up the spell by using it, at least that is what I assumed how it worked, or somehow get a higher rank than the Initiate 1 I had right now.

Since I was flat on my ass and needed the break anyway, I decided to check out the changes in my status.

Name

Daniel Hollander

Rank

Initiate 1

Title:

Mental Bastion, First Initiate

Strength:

3 [+2]

Intuitive Reasoning:

14

Mana

Free

Current

Potential

Agility:

5 [+2]

Complex Reasoning:

17

Silver

0

4

10

Speed:

3 [+2]

Emotional Intelligence:

9

Black

2

9

10

Dexterity:

4 [+1]

Perception:

13

Endurance:

4 [+3]

Spatial Awareness:

21

Vitality:

7

Willpower:

21

Available characteristic points: 5

Spells

Mana Vision

Level 7 [+5]

Twilight Vision

Level 1 [+1]

Available spell points: 0 [-5]

Skills

Mental Ward

Level 1

Mental Fortitude

Level 1

Multitasking

Level 2

Internal Mana Manipulation

Level 1

Meditation

Level 1

Available skill points: 0

Well, that confirmed basically what I had thought – my physical stats had already recovered rather rapidly. In fact, it looked like amazingly fast recovery, but since it was unclear what the numbers exactly represented, it was too early to draw definite conclusions. For instance, did a score of one mean that one was as weak as a baby? Or one of the weakest adults? How did that number compare to the strength of a fly? Was there a score lower than one? Was the progression linear, so a person with a score of two was twice as strong as one with a score of one?

To answer these questions, I would have to conduct some real research, which, obviously was not an option at this point.

What struck me in this latest status screen was that I had now something called free mana. What was that supposed to be? It was not a lot, but anything might help, especially because using my vision spells did consume the mana somewhat rapidly. I had barely used Mana Vision for an hour and already had depleted half of my available silver mana. That was something I had to keep an eye on, so I was not suddenly stuck in the middle of nowhere, or worse, a fight, and lost my ability to see.

Which raised the question… how could I recover my mana? Was that an automatic process? Or something that I had to initiate somehow? Questions over questions and no good answers.

Studying the character screen some more, I wondered what Meditation did as a skill and if there was some description available for Twilight Vision.

As I focused on Meditation, a blue box popped up.

Meditation: You can find internal balance and tranquility. This allows you to gain a deeper understanding of what goes on inside of your body and speeds up the rate of mana recovery when actively used. The rate of recovery and degree of insights depend on the level of Meditation. Meditation Level 1

Well, that turned out to be useful information. So mana recovered automatically but could be sped up using this skill. Since I was resting anyway, I decided to check how fast the recovery rate was if I did nothing and how that would change if I were to meditate.

Switching off my Mana Vision, I slowly and steadily counted how long it would take me to recover one point of mana.

A long time, it turned out.

I had counted to 150, when, finally, the silver mana count increased by one. So about two and a half minutes for each point of mana. Now I repeated the process while in meditation, which turned out to be somewhat challenging, as counting, looking at the status sheet, and meditating at the same time were somewhat conflicting activities.

In the end, it took a bit more than two minutes to recharge one mana, which probably was on the lower end, because I had not been able to effectively get into a state of meditation with the various things, I had to keep track of. So, perhaps, conservatively estimated, meditation sped up the recovery rate by maybe twenty percent on level 1. That was a considerable improvement. I just wondered how fast it would be at higher levels…

My little experiment had also just demonstrated how much of a difference-maker that title of ‘First Initiate’ was – without it, my automatic recovery rate would have been, presumably, around five minutes per point of mana…. which seemed like an insanely long time.

Turning my mind to Twilight Vision, I was met with another blue box.

Dark Vision: You can see clearly in conditions with minimal to moderate light. How well and how far you can see depends on the level of the spell. Twilight Vision Level 1

Well, no surprises there. For the tunnel or cave, I was currently in, it was not useful, because there was absolutely no light, but I could see how this might come in handy in certain conditions.

Perhaps it was time to figure out what to do about that free mana… just the wording indicated there was mana that was not free, so, perhaps, bound. And just maybe that referred to mana that was somehow structured, or integrated.

I slipped into a meditative state, which had become a lot easier since I had first achieved that feat. Immediately, I noticed the increased amount of black mana, floating around in a diffuse cloud, a stark contrast to the beautifully intertwined silver and black man cycling through my body. Tentatively, I pushed the cloud of black mana toward the cycling energy. As the mana got closer, it slowly began to drift forward, as if there was some gravitational pull in the cycling mana. The black mana started becoming a bit fuzzy and then separated into two strands, each one going to a different type of mana.

With intense curiosity, I waited to see what would happen.

Once the black mana reached the two mana streams, the flow accelerated rapidly as the force applied on the free-floating mana seemed to increase exponentially. And then, almost quicker than I could follow, the mana was sucked into the two different types of mana and disappeared. The black mana cycling through my body seemed slightly more substantial as if the energy had increased in potency. The silver mana seemed utterly unchanged.

Interestingly enough, on the status, it now said that my black mana had gone from ten to eleven, whereas silver mana remained at ten.

Scratching my head, I tried to come up with a good theory on what had just happened.

But before I could further dwell on this, I had a foreboding feeling that something bad was going to happen. Maybe a sixth sense, if something like that exists.

I snapped out of my thoughts, and instinctively leaned my body to the side, raising my truncheon in the same motion.

And then all hell broke loose.

Out of a sudden, there were creatures all around me, scratching, biting, and even hitting with leathery wings. Only by leaning out of the way in the last split-second, had I escaped the brunt of the attack as the silently gliding bats had been going right for my face.

I quickly activated Mana Vision and saw a mass of shapes clawing all over each other to get at me.

With a yelp, I rolled back toward the wall to have my back covered and then started flailing around with my truncheon. Given the density of the bats, it was not hard to hit one with each of my strokes, breaking fragile bones left and right.

But they kept on coming in a frenzy. There must have been ten or more of those crazed bastards. And the fight turned out one of the scariest experiences I had ever had. Of course, I was not used to fights to the death against wild creatures. But worse, I was only able to make out the shapes of the bat-like creatures in the mana spectrum, which, together with the near silence of the winged predators, made the whole fight feel rather surreal.

Despite swinging my truncheon around with the strength of desperation, more and more bats managed to bite or scratch my body. None of those wounds were individually threatening, but I could feel the sum of them taking a toll. I needed to finish this fight quickly.

Looking around, I noticed a small fissure in the wall of the tunnel only a couple of yards away. The little alcove seemed just tall enough for a human to back into. Determined, I smashed my truncheon in a sweeping motion into the winged beasts around me. Immediately, I rushed through the momentary opening and threw myself back first into the recess, holding the truncheon up in a guard position to defend against any bats coming after me.

Initially, that didn’t deter the crazed flying rodents, and they kept on coming at me with their claws and teeth. But from my position of relative safety, I could fight back much more effectively with bashes of my truncheon against their snouts, teeth, or even bodies. Even though I only had the strength of a kitten, my bashes were still quite dangerous for the bats due to their fragile bodies, breaking their bones with ease. After I managed to knock down and finish two more bats, the others finally backed away, clicking furiously. One by one, they turned around and silently flew off into the darkness.

By then, my arms and legs felt like they were full of lead and I could barely stand upright. I leaned back against the wall for support because I was afraid that otherwise, I might just fall. And then my whole body started shaking. Post-combat stress, I guessed, the aftereffects of the adrenalin rush.

I took my time to calm down, before eventually deciding that I couldn’t wait in my little nook forever and would have to brave walking further, despite the potential danger of the giant bats. Just in case they were waiting for me I pretended to move into the open, only to turn around and sprint right back into the alcove.

With my heart pounding, I strained to see any movement or hear any noise coming towards me, but thankfully, nothing approached, and I was a bit more confident in moving further into the cave.