The night passed uneventfully, in the morning Nic shared some of his hardtack with me. After our meagre breakfast, we started clearing up the camp and packing up Nic’s cart. Notch took care of all our waste, and I mean… all of it. Tug made a lot of waste throughout the night. With the three of us working it only took us about 30 minutes to have Nic’s cart packed up with his things and Tug attached to the cart.

“Well Nox, I’ll be back here tonight to camp again before heading back to Dondton, but I have an offer for you. Why don’t you come with me back to Ignus to help offload my wares and we can head back to Dondton together,” offers Nic from up on his cart.

With a quick glance to my partner, I say, “I would rather not go back to Ignus… I uh… have bad memories of the place that I would rather leave behind. But if you still want some company on the way back, I can stay here, set up camp for the night, or at least try too…, and hitch a ride with you to Dondton from there. If that’s okay with you.”

“Running away from something huh? Well, no matter, that does sound like a plan then Nox I’ll see you again tonight hopefully before sundown,” after saying this Nic gives a wave and leaves the clearing towards the road.

After gathering what I think is enough wood for tonight, I look to Notch. “So, what should we do now?”

Notch shrugs, so I continue.

“I guess I can practice Mana Bolt and Mana Sense then we can try hunting for something to eat.”

Notch shrugs then nods. My Mana bolt, well my excuse for one anyways, takes 5 mp to cast, so I can attempt to shoot two times before I’m out of mp completely. So I decided I would fire off one now, then practice mana sense.

I point my finger at the nearest tree and shout “Mana Bolt!” and a weak wisp of white seeps out of my finger before dissipating into the air. “Well, that didn’t help shed any light on how to actually cast the damn thing. What am I doing wrong… it’s just Mana Bolt…” I say dejectedly but think there’s nothing I can do about it so, “On to Mana Sense then” and to myself think, hopefully, there are no dancing slimes this time.

Sitting with my back against a tree I try to think about how I can sense mana. I guess I can try that meditation thing one of my instructors was always talking about. So I close my eyes and try to think of nothing and feel the world around me.

Well, it turns out… I can’t think of nothing. It ends up being something like this, “Nothing, grass is itchy, nothing, do penguins have knees? Nothing, why do people sleep? Nothing, what the hell is a penguin and why would I care if they have knees? Nothing, food, nothing, this is stupid” or something along that thought stream, which is apparently terrible for sensing mana because I wasn’t able to. So let’s try something different. I think I remember something from a book I used to read. Okay, brain… think of the color black and nothing else. Okay, good, now fall into it. “Ow!” Apparently, my body decided to follow my brain… let’s try again without falling onto my face… Falling into the pool of blackness, in mind only this time, I am encompassed entirely, and finally, my whole body and mind relax. I am able to hold this meditative state for I don’t know how long when I am surprised and start to see some colored mists all around me. Unfortunately, this shocked me out of the meditative state and back into reality, but that didn’t matter, because I think I sensed the mana around me.

Turning to the only source of information about mana sensing I have available. I ask, “Hey Notch, when you use Mana Sense does it show you it in a kind of mist of different colors?”

Notch nods then wiggles in surprise as I jump to my feet and cheer. After a round of celebrating, I check my status.

Name: Nox

Spirit Level: 1

Health: 10

Mana: 8

1 mp/per hour

Skills:

Weak Mana Sense Level 0

Magic:

Mana Bolt Level 0

Partnered Monsters:

Notch (Basic Green Slime) Spirit Level: 1

Partnered Monsters Skills/Magic:

Notch:

Weak Mana Sight Level 10 Weak Mana Sense Level 10 Dissolve MAX Mana Bolt Level 5

Tamed Monster: None

Tamed Monsters Skills/Magic: NA

Okay, nothing changed… I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Mana Sense didn’t level up, but at the same time I just spent three hours, going by my mana regen, and was barely able to sense anything. This is going to take a long time to train.

Sitting back down intending to continue practicing Mana Sense when an idea strikes, it’s a long shot but, “Hey Notch, can you teach me or give me tips on how to practice Mana Sense and Mana Bolt?”

Notch looks at me like he is thinking then with some hesitation nods.

“Really?!”

With more confidence Notch nods again.

“Let’s start with Mana Bolt then. So what do I need to do?” I say excitedly sitting in front of the small slime.

Thinking for a moment Notch points at the top of his body then waits.

“Head?” Notch first shakes then nods.

“Okay, so not the head but close?” A nod this time.

“What about the head then…” Notch continues to point at his head.

“Let me think…” Notch vigorously nods this time.

“Think?” Notch nods then forms his body into a ball.

“Ball?” Another nod then he makes a flat portion at the end of a tentacle and the points at the center of it with the other.

“Hand? Palm?” Another nod then he remakes every motion in the same order again.

“Think, ball, palm? Think of a ball in the palm of my hand. Is that it?” Notch thinks for a minute then nods.

“Okay, let’s try it.” Looking at the palm of my hand I try to imagine a ball of mana. I sit there staring at my hand for an hour before I shout, “Why won't this stupid Mana Bolt.” Is all I was able to get out before a ball of mana hits my head then dissipates.

“Ah!” I shout out and fall on my back. After I settle down and Notch stops laughing at me I say, “Well it kind of worked and I learned something fundamental. Don’t point the hand you are trying to shoot a spell from towards anything you don’t want to hit. Other than that, I will need to keep practicing because it did no damage to me.”

Notch starts laughing again. “Okay Notch, if you’re done laughing at me, any tips on Mana Sense?”

Notch becomes entirely still for a moment as if thinking very hard the shakes no and wiggles as if to say sorry.

“It’s no big deal little guy you helped a lot, plus, from looking at the sun, it's going to be night soon so we should try hunting again.

Notch wiggles yes then starts to slide out of the clearing with me following. Once we get into the forest, I say, “Uh, Notch… would you be able to find the clearing again if we go in to far because I don’t.” Notch sighs nods and continues forward.

Before we go in to far, I find a thick branch to use as a makeshift club against anything we come across. I follow behind Notch for a while, but we didn’t find anything, so we started to head back to camp. When we see our first monster a Leaf Chyba, a spirit level 2 earth element bug that looks like a one-foot long leaf sprouted six legs and antenna. Heart racing I raise my makeshift weapon I and get ready to defend myself. The Leaf Chyba had other plans and flew off deeper into the forest.

“That’s right run away!” I say quietly to myself, but apparently, Notch heard me and starts wiggle laughing at me again. “Stupid slime,” I mutter to myself then louder, “Alright Notch let’s head back to camp. Nic is probably going to be there soon, and I want to watch him light a fire again.” Laughing some more Notch, and we head back to camp.

When we finally make it into the clearing, the sun is just starting to set, and I hear what sounds like a cart coming to our direction. Sure enough not even a minute later Nic and Tug go into sight waving.

“Hey, did you have some luck selling your wares?” I ask after I help Nic get camp settled, a fire started, and dinner, a vegetable soup that I contributed some of my potatoes too, cooking.

“Yeah, I have a shop that I know the owner of so selling everything is the easy part. What did you do to occupy your time?” asks Nic while stirring the soup.

“Just practiced my new skills and spells. Also tried to hunt something up for dinner but only came across a Leaf Chyba that flew away.”

“Makes sense these parts are usually pretty empty due to the constant patrols, by the Road Guards, on all the main roads. As we get closer to Dondton, the forest will become more populated with monsters because there isn’t a constant patrol on the side roads.”

“Makes sense, so how long will it take us to get to Dondton from here?”

“If we make some good time and nothing goes wrong we should be there about mid-afternoon the day after next. So what’s your plan when you make it to Dondton anyways?”

“I ah… haven’t thought about it, but I figured I would dive the dungeon and make some money selling my loot.”

“Ha… young people always say that, but I’m sorry to tell you Nox, I run the general store in town and let me tell you. Unless you know how to skin a monster or know how to extract the alchemical ingredients even if you farmed the dungeon all day I don’t think you could come up with enough talons for a room at the inn.”

“That can’t be right… dungeons are supposed to drop lots magic items that should be worth far more than a small room at an inn.”

“Yeah, you do realize Dondton is home to the weakest dungeon in all of Thcerbla. The average drop there is a dagger that can barely be used to butter toast.”

“I guess it looks like I’ll be sleeping outside a lot in my coming days then,” I say dejectedly and vow to learn how to get the alchemical ingredients and how to skin different monsters for their pelts.

“Really Nox? Did you even think of trying to get a job before you came to that conclusion? The youth these days...” Nic says with a mock shake of his head.

“I… I didn’t even think to do that honestly. Thanks for the idea Nic are you hiring?” I ask with a grin.

“Nope, but you could check with some of the other shops for a job but think about it. Well, I'm going to get some sleep now can you take first watch again?”

“Yeah, no problem you’ve given me a lot to think about. Goodnight.”