As I arrive at the gate it is closed. I see a different guard who is intently looking outside from a raised platform. I wait a few seconds until he notices me.

“Hey what are you doing here?”

“I was hoping to explore the forest some.”

“You shouldn’t go out at night, the monsters get much stronger.”

“Really, what level?”

“Level 5 Rabid wolves instead of the level 0 Rabbits. They are much stronger and while having a similar speed. They also have sharp teeth. It is very dangerous to go out at night, especially alone. If you are not at least level 10, you are probably gonna die.”

I sense something a bit strange in his words. I have always had a strong gut feeling when people were lying to me. This guy ticked all of the boxes.

But why he is lying? I should be careful. Given their extra mass and teeth, the wolves would be much more dangerous.

“But why are they so dangerous?”

“Besides all the reasons I already presented, they run in packs, and you guys don’t have any skills or experience yet.”

“How large are their packs?”

“Usually three wolves, unless one of them was killed in the same night. But sometimes you run into higher-leveled packs with more than three.”

I try to drag more information out of him, but it’s like trying to squeeze the worse lemon bought in a bowl on the open market, instead of properly choosing each one. Each drop of juice is a fight for your life, and it makes you regret the whole endeavor.

Right now though, I don’t have much of a choice, so I keep pressing for as long as I can.

As I learn more and more, his predictions start to look even more ridiculous. I need to be careful, but it wasn’t as bad as he was trying to convince me.

“I will be fine. I’m going to be extra careful.”

“Ok.” He says “It is your death. You are woefully unprepared, you are not even wearing shoes.”

I ignore his barb and ask:

“Do these dangerous monsters ever attack the village?”

“No, well, not unless provoked, and you guys would need to be much higher level for the wolves to be a threat to the village.”

He seems to be telling the truth this time. But I still find it strange. One second each word I drag out of him is a fight, other times it’s the opposite. Are there certain things he is required to tell us? And why would he try to mislead us? I keep thinking about it as I leave the village behind. Soon, I put it out of my mind as I leave the clearing and enter the brush of the forest.

The forest is such a familiar place by now. I’m in no way against the comforts of modern life but my love of Pando and how much time I spend in forests around the grove means this has become normal for me.

I feel the dirt seep in between my fingers as I move on the softer soil. I step in leaves, roots, rocks, and everything else you expect to find in a forest. My ears are opened and I’m focused. I carefully chose my path to avoid ambushes and keep a good pace so any wolves will have trouble blindsiding me. I look everywhere from the ground to high up in the trees. Once in a while I see and hear the brushes rustling with what I imagine are rabbits. In the dark, when the wolves come out to play, they will be easy prey.

The hours go by as I mentally map everything around. I’m in my element and I take note of where people have walked during the day, the river, and the patterns of the forest.

I look at what trees are the healthiest, the youngest, the oldest, the dying. I compare the soils and catalog them according to their use, just like Pando taught me.

Almost an hour in, I find a broken branch that would be perfect for a staff, so I grab it.

I Look for some quiet place that would be hard to ambush me. In a couple of minutes, I find an elevated clearing with only a couple of sparsely leaved trees. I stop to cut the excess and the branches off, scrape it with a rock, and get it as smooth as possible until I’m happy with the final product.

I keep running until I notice movement behind me. I pretend not to notice but a few seconds later increase my pace. The forms behind me advance at a very high speed. I see four wolves. The very first pack I run is already larger than what the guard told me, but nothing too outside the norm. I turn as soon as I find a place where the trees are further apart enough to effectively wield my staff. I wait and prepare myself for their attack.

As they get closer I manage to get a good look at them. They are monstrous things of rage. Each of them weighs a good 100 pounds. I cannot perfectly see them because it’s night and the only light comes from the moon. This moon is a little brighter than Earth’s, but still not enough to make out very fine details.

I try to identify them, and get the following message:

Rabid wolves Lv.5 – This is a pack of wolves that attacks anyone on sight.

They are powerfully built, but their fur is thin and patchy. Their skin looks diseased and they barely have any skin hiding their mouths and teeth. All of them start circling me. Sometimes one of them threatens to attack me but I mostly manage to recognize the faints. I’m left with a couple of scratches from close calls, but if their teeth are sharp, their claws are blunt and not very dangerous.

When the real attack comes, I’m prepared. I block the wolf's bite with my staff. He bites hard and tries to pull it from my grasp. I hold strong and with help of the momentum of one of his tugs I leap over him. The wolf that was attacking from behind now is blocked by the one bitting, my staff.

The wolf on my right moves to attack and I twist the staff enough to block his path with my right hand. The smallest wolf to the left moves to attack and I reach for his neck. I almost grabbed him. But in the end, he moves his head and I fail to get a good hold.

Running out of time I push my staff with both my hands and all my weight. All the wolves except the one on the right fall. The wolf on the right attacks my flank as I catch my balance back. Almost desperately, I release the grip on my staff and bring back my right elbow with all my might. My elbow connects with the cranium of this wolf and he goes sprawling.

I get my balance back and sprint to my left. A few steps in I sharply turn around. The closest wolf is the smallest one and the farthest is the one I elbowed. He does get up but he seems confused. As I make my turn I swing my staff around and give a good hit on the side of the smallest wolf. He retreats, and the three hold back waiting for the furthest wolf to shake off the blow.

I think for a moment, these wolves don’t look so rabid after all. They look sick. I advance trying to flank their semicircle but they are smart and keep pace with me. I then jump and grab a branch of a tree with the fewest leaves. They start circling it as I watch them. I take a better look at it while keeping one eye on the wolves. I don’t see any animals or snakes, so that is a relief.

I can easily run from these wolves. I’m less than a mile from the village and as long as I get there I’m safe. I also go over the guard’s account of the danger. Most people could probably survive as long as they don’t try to directly confront these wolves. People might also be using torches and that was bound to give the wolves pause.

I decided to try one last thing. I drop hanging from my legs, swinging from one of the branches I try to hit them with my staff. The swings are very awkward and I only manage glancing blows. But, not being able to effectively climb the tree, and being forced to move further and further away from the tree discourages them.

When they are some thirty meters back, I come down from the tree but the wolves don’t approach again. I lazily spin the staff around. I

“Yeah, take that.”

We are on a stand-off, but after five minutes, they hear a howl and retreat. I climb the tree and start to look through my messages.

You have participated in a battle against a pack of Rabid Wolves Lv.5. your contributions have awarded you: 214XP Increased skill level: Running lv. 26 to 27 You have acquired the skill: Staff mastery – Increases your mastery over this weapon of your choice. Increased levels may grant bonuses to increase damage and control over your Weapon.

Very interesting, I must have been close to leveling running to get a boost now. What I have done till now was a more leisurely stroll than a proper run. Checking my health, I think over the implications:

180/205

A couple of hours and I should be back to full. Not that these scratches are bothering me.

I look up at the moon trying to gauge the time. It’s about 1 am, so I continue for another hour before returning to the village. I did see another couple of tracks that matched what I had seen around the tree but I didn't try to chase them. No pack came after me as well, even with me being much less circumspect. I pass through a couple of places on my return collecting pieces of wood for a few experiments. As I slow my run, I see the city’s gates and the guard lets me inside.

“Damn, you actually made it. You got lucky. Did you find anything out there?”

“I explored a bit,” I say shrugging. No need to give any more information than is absolutely necessary.

“Well, I tell you, you did get lucky. If you hadn’t you would be wolf’s chow.”

“Let’s hope I continue to get lucky.”

Entering the city, I hear the guard mumbling under his breath. I can’t make out what he's saying. I pull my stat sheet to check on my messages. I’m glad to see I gained a couple of attribute points.

You have increased your Constitution by 1 You have increased your Agility by 1 You have increased your Dexterity by 1

I look at how fast I’m gaining attribute points. I gained 5 points in a single day. That should not be normal. Perhaps an athlete or people that do a lot of exercises have an easier time gaining attribute points given they are already so used to pushing their bodies to the limit. I should pass by the Guildhall and fill them in on what I know. Maybe they already have a better idea about how the stat gain system works.

As I walk I think about the Exp I gained.

You get some even if you didn’t kill your opponent. That could be a game-changer. We need to explore the concept more. Maybe we could level simply by training against each other, but I doubted it. Another possible problem this would avoid would be us killing off all the mobs in our region. Respawn might not exist, or be dependent on mechanics like the higher the population, the faster the respawn.

Now we needed to find out the exact way it worked. Maybe I Only gained Exp because They retreated, if I had run away I may not have gained anything or much less. The time of battle could be another factor. All the time I spent on the tree might not even have counted, only the seconds I spend in close quarters combat might have counted.

I arrive at the guildhall and I find only one person. He sees me arriving and greets me:

“Hey, what brings you to the guildhall?”

“I just came back from my exploration. I wanted to ask a few things and maybe put a couple of things on the tally.”

He grabs a charcoal stick and prepares himself to write.

“You are brave. I’m pretty sure no one left after sunset, everybody was just too tired, and with the guard talking about the wolves, it discouraged the couple of people that were thinking about it….. Ok, Go ahead.” He says with the pen in hand and a new page to copy information on.

“I saw a few of those wolves. A pack of four, which is more than most according to the guard. I don’t have combat skills, but my physical stats average 13 so I managed to hold my own. The danger is real, but the guard seemed to have played it up a lot. With a group of 5 abled fighters, they should be safe. Also by the time we hit level 5, everyone should have enough experience, skills, and stats to easily evade the wolves if not outright defeat them.”

“Interesting, we also find that the account of the guard was probably exaggerated. There have been reports of information that may not be entirely accurate. We are having trouble separating what is disinformation and what is simply strange.”

“Yeah, I was expecting something like that. We should also take a good look at exactly who is spreading misinformation. It may be intermittent or just a few people.”

“Don’t worry, we are on top of it. If you hear anything, do tell us.”

“I will. Something else I came to talk about is experience. I gained over 200 Exp. on my encounter with the wolves. I didn’t need to kill any of them, just drive them off.”

“A few people have reported gaining Experience like that. It seems that as long as you damage your opponent and you dare in danger you gain some experience. So sparring matches don’t count, but even taking damage and running away will give some Exp.” “

“How much?” I ask.

“Depends on how much danger, how much damage, and how long the fight lasts. Someone even gained 2 points in a fight that happened at the Inn’s bar. Testing on the rabbits, it seems as long you killed the mob you always get the maximum Exp., and no matter how long you make the fight last, you can never get more than by killing.

I think for a moment and then ask:

“How many points were the rabbits worth?”

“It varied, but around 100 EXP.”

“I got points for crafting, but you probably already knew about that.”

“Yes. Most things you make give Exp. Even cooking food.”

I run out of things to ask and to tell him. He finishes writing everything up and after thanking him, I leave to explore the village.

Minutes later, behind the Townhall I find a place where I might make my experiments without anyone bothering me. I drop the few pieces of wood I dragged in and I attempt to infuse them with my mana.

And this first part works wonderfully. Just 50 tries and I find how to hold the mana in place. The problem comes when I light the wood on fire. As the wood burns, the mana disperses without any reaction. I try to recover it but I’m only successful in gathering a tiny amount of the mana infused and it’s different from the mana from my body. So I just infuse it in the next piece of wood. I try dozens of different things, but all of them run into the same problem. I try to think logically. The only thing that comes to mind is that I’m missing at least one crucial step.

When I heard Mr. Blackwood talking about infusing wood, I thought it would be so easy. I’m already able to wield 4 different elements and my stats along with a soul stat have led me to believe I would be slinging spells in the middle of battle soon, but magic was much more challenging than that.

I start to realize the monumental task in front of me. To have even minimal effect in battle, I would need to reduce my rune writing to less than a second. After that, I would need to improve my mana handling enough I could dump my entire pool in a single spell and wait for my enemy to come close enough. All of that, however, would be useless against a ranged enemy or someone with even the slightest intelligence.

I finish my experiments, still keeping half my mana in reserve. Getting up, I collect the unburned wood and find a secluded tree. I organize the wood beside me and clean the ground of leaves and fallen branches. I lay down and slowly let go of everything in my mind. Today was a good day and a smile slowly appeared on my face.

I may not know what the future holds. Nobody does. Everybody is subjected to the whims of fate and you just have to find happiness where you can. With practiced ease, I'm asleep at the foot of the tree in less than a minute.