Ariel broke out in cold sweat and without any hesitation, hugged the ground. Overhead, he could feel something jumping over him with great force. He raised his head and saw a wolf, double in size of any that he has ever seen on earth, it was adorned with grey fur that had a metallic luster as well as razor sharp fangs, which seemed to be able to bite through steel.

From the encyclopedia he has read, he could indentify it being an iron hide wolf, a monster which usually lives in packs at the deeper parts of the forests. They are infamous for killing countless beginner travelers and adventurers, because of their inexperience.

Individually, fully matured iron hide wolves are usually only mid Acolyte rank of strength and end up different, only if it is a variant. The one standing in front of Ariel, from its sized should be one that matured not to long ago and went out to hunt solo.

When they are alone an iron hide wolf is no problem for adventurers and other fighting profession, since they are still relatively weak. Unfortunately, for unranked people like Ariel even the weakest monster is a nightmare, especially when considering that unranked mages are weaker than unranked warriors.

Without a doubt the only thing Ariel could do was run, but monsters, unlike animals, had some form of intelligence. Trying to calm down Ariel slowly got up while putting the water stone into his chest pocket, as well as picking up a rock from the ground and hiding it in his sleeve.

When his eyes finally met with the ones belonging to the wolf, Ariel noticed that they had cruel, sadistic light in them. Ariel now understood that the wolf was planning on playing with him until he slowly died, but that might be this filthy dogs undoing.

Taking the opportunity that the wolf seems to be planning to prolong this hunt, Ariel started running down the river with all his strength. It didn’t take long until he heard the wolf’s growls right behind him, silently, sending chill down his spine.

The problem was that Ariel’s weak body was already screaming in pain, the only reason he was able to keep going was trough his sheer willpower. Thankfully, the place he came out from to the river wasn’t too far away from the waterfall.

After reaching the location, Ariel took one deep breath, knowing that he couldn’t make a single mistake, or his life would end just like that. He turned around to look at the wolf, which had a cruel expression in its eyes. Breathing heavily Ariel seemed like he wasn’t able to run a second more. And that is what he wanted to look like, so the wolf would attack him. The iron hide wolf easily took the bait and lunged at him, wanting to pin him down to the ground, but at that critical moment, Ariel jumped to the side as far as he could, and at the same time threw the rock he had in his sleeve at the wolf’s face.

Not expecting it, the wolf got hit in the eye, without much difficulty, however, it didn’t really do any significant damage, but it was enough to throw him off balance in the air, which resulted in him falling into the river.

Knowing that this wouldn’t delay it for long, Ariel with all of his leftover stamina started running towards the mansion as quickly as his legs carried him. Few moments having pasted, the wolf climbed out of the river, his fur being completely soaked in water. Furious from having been humiliated, he let out and angry howl and started running after him once more.

Ariel hearing the howl was really depressed. ‘You don’t know when to give up do you’ Putting even more efforts into running, Ariel manage to once again raise his speed by a tiny amount.

Thankfully, the wolf’s fur now was wet, which slightly reduced its speed, but it was not enough and soon the wolf was once again on Ariel’s heels. When he was already close to the mansion, suddenly Ariel felt something coming at him from the back, and he barely, thanks to his instincts, managed to step to the side, dodging the wolf’s attack.

Only now, the wolf was blocking his way, and he could barely stand at the same time. Not knowing what to do, he slowly started walking backwards, to only stumble over a root and fall down. The wolf took that opportunity and jumped at its defenseless pray, wanting to finish Ariel as fast as possible.

Seeing the approaching doom, the time for Ariel stopped and couldn’t think of any way out of this. He wanted to do much in this world, but lie this, he will soon end up dying a meaningless death. But what could he do, he was just an unranked mage with zero spell he could use, suddenly a thought hit him. ‘If I am going to die, I might as well die trying.’ Extending his hands he gathered as much Mana as possible, more than he ever had, and tried to form the first thing that came to mind when thinking of ice. For him it was an icicle, only a bigger and stronger than a normal one.

When he started to form it he noticed that he lacked a lot of Mana for it, so once again he tried extracting even more of it from his core, every little bit he could find, yet it was still not enough. What he chose to do next was to actually gather it from the outside, and quickly refine it, and use it. This action brought him unbearable pain, which was not a surprise when trying such a crazy thing, but he didn’t stop and continued greedily taking Mana from around himself and pumping it into the icicle. Still, it was not fast enough and at this rate, he would soon fail achieving his desired result.

At that instance, unexpectedly, he felt like something broke inside of him, like a damn holding a large amount of water got let loose. In this case, the water was Mana, and thankfully, more than enough to finish what he wanted. When the wolf was only centimeters away from him, he let his icicle fly out hitting the not expecting wolf right in its chest.

The icicle pierced the hide of the wolf, with some difficulty, at the same moment braking several of its ribs, until finally it barely reached the heart, quickly ending the wolf’s life.

Seeing the wolf getting hit and falling down, Ariel didn’t have time to feel happy, as his vision has started becoming dizzy and he could barely keep his consciousness together, but he had to get back home, before anyone noticed that he was missing.

Walking at a snail’s pace towards the garden like a drunkard, Ariel managed to only reach his favorite tree of meditation, when his vision went black, leaving his body to fall to the ground..

Waking up, Ariel could feel himself sleeping on a soft bed, instead of the hard ground he has fallen down on. Sitting up on the bed, his mind was jumbled as he tried to recall what happened, remembering his chase with the wolf as well as the encounters ending.

Then he recollected about the unusual quantity of Mana he gained at that time. Ariel quickly went into meditation to see what has actually changed and understand what happened. What he saw, was that his Mana density increased by a very large amount, which made him extremely exited, since the only way such a big increase of Mana could happen, was only if he advanced a level.

In all, that means that right now, he was an early level Disciple, and only 5 years old one at that. ‘Now I took the first important step in becoming stronger. People are called geniuses if they reach this level before ten. I wonder what, am I then?’ Before he had time to finish his taught he felt something moving near him, that he didn’t pay attention to before. Turning his head to the side, he could see a beautiful, blond haired woman sleeping in a chair with her head resting on his bed.

It was actually his mother, who seemed to have stayed by his side for quite some time. Seeing this even the coldhearted Ariel couldn’t stop himself from feeling warm inside. At this moment, his mother seemed to have woken up.

When she raised her head and saw that Ariel woke up, she immediately rose up and hugged, him not saying anything. After several seconds she let him go and started berating him with words. “Do you know how worried I was? We couldn’t find you for a long time and when we finally did, you laid dirty and unconscious on the hard ground. Since then, you have been asleep for two entire days, straight.” Ariel could see the bags under his mother’s eyes, which made him have a guilty feeling, knowing that she probably stayed with him the entire time, ignoring all of her work and rest.

“I’m sorry mother I just over exerted my body. I will make sure it never happens again” After apologizing, he saw his mother freeze and look at him slightly abnormally, which he wasn’t able to understand, however, it didn’t last long and soon she once more hugged him and spoke. “Its fine, just be careful in the future and get ready to go for breakfast, you haven’t eaten anything for two days” After she finished talking, Ariel heard a rumble coming from his mothers stomach, indicating that he wasn’t the only one who hasn’t eaten for a long time.

“Please hurry, I will be waiting for you there.” With her beautiful face completely red, she quickly left the room in a fast pace. At this moment, Ariel’s mood was very light, due to the joy of advancing his strength as well as the warmth he was feeling from interacting with his mother.

After getting out of bed, he notice how dirty he was and went straight to the bathroom to clean up. When he returned to put on his clothes, he noticed his dirty ones from before, which still haven’t been washed. He got near them and took out the water stone from his jackets pocket, to only find it to already have turned gray and to have lost its luster. “So it was indeed this magic stone that helped me in that critical moment.’ Thinking for a moment, he unknowingly let out a small smile. ‘Maybe I wasn’t so unlucky after all.’

Putting down the stone on his work desk Ariel left the room for breakfast, still thinking about what his future.

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If you want to read further, visit https://verathragna.wordpress.com/ I will always have an extra chapter there