“I need more information.” Kiefer thought, as he began making plans for the future. Originally, his goal was to survive, but with Shearwood by his side now, he was fairly confident that he’ll live. As such, he thought about what his next target and ultimately what his end game would be.

“I guess I would like to meet my parents again. And possibly complete my research just to spite that old man.” Kiefer grinned, thinking of his parent’s reactions, and at the same time looking forward to the warm family that he so very much cherished.

Preparing for the night, Kiefer salvaged what was left over from the carriage. While Shearwood had taken a bite out of the passenger section, there seems to be a storage unit attached to the rear of the carriage. Opening the lid, Kiefer started smiling, elated at the treasure trove he had found.

He had found some linen shirts, pants, robes, 2 thick blankets, a sleeping bag with an insignia embroidered onto it, dried meat, various fruits as well as a canteen of water. With a thought, Kiefer summoned several mana ropes to carry all the items back into his shelter.

After finally getting dressed decently, Kiefer spent a good hour staring at the fruits, memorising every detail of them, because these are the first clues he’s had as to which fruits are edible. He burned into his memory the colour, shape, size, and smell of each of the 4 fruits he found.

They were all brightly coloured, 2 red, one yellow, and another lime green. This was a problem, because from what he recalls, brightly coloured fruits not only meant ripe, but it could also be a warning sign of poison.

Sitting in front of him, was a large red uneven fruit, the size of a watermelon, with a crunchy texture. It was only edible on the outside, while the core gets hard as a rock. Breaking the core with his mana whip revealed a large soft seed inside. There was another round red fruit, the size of his palm. It had seeds embedded on the outside and strangely resembled an overgrown strawberry. The yellow fruit was oddly shaped, with weird extensions in random directions, covered in a tough skin that Kiefer had to peel to eat the juicy purple flesh inside. The lime green fruit resembled a banana, but with a texture that felt like a plum. It was a little sour to taste, so Kiefer thought that it might not be ripe enough yet.

Kiefer wished he had a notebook and a pen right at this moment. It would be a lot easier to just write down all his observations for later reference. As a cold breeze blew in through the opening in his shelter, Kiefer decided to go to sleep, tired from all the events that happened that day. He went to pick up the 2 thick blankets from the corner of the shelter and a small blue snake dropped out from within the layers, still groggy from being rudely awakened.

“I guess despite being a titan, Sher is still a cold blooded animal after all.” Kiefer smiled at himself as he lay down in his bed and threw both blankets over himself. The little blue snake dove in beneath the blankets and coiled up on her master’s chest. Kiefer had the best sleep in a while that night.

[The next morning]

Shearwood came back down from the sky just as Kiefer finished loading up his (stolen) belongings onto the tarsus. He had given the remainder of the fruits to the tarsus to eat to ensure it had enough energy for the journey.

“Master, it’s as you predicted, there is indeed a walled city a fair distance from here in the direction that the convoy cut through.” (Sher)

“Ok good. Come back into my robe, it’s still cold out. We’ll take it slow for now and see how things progress." kiefer commanded while silently thinking to himself," I’m still not confident in my mana pool. The change is too drastic and I’m not sure exactly how much of it I can actually still use.”

Shearwood dove into Kiefer’s robes and wrapped herself around his neck like a scarf as Kiefer pulled the brown woollen hood over his head. He had woken up this morning, shocked by the changes in his mana pool. What used to be a torrential blizzard of mana particles in his body had now returned to being a hazy, almost clear mist.

He had tried siphoning mana from Shearwood, but he could tell that he was already at his limit, and anymore would lead to mana overload and that dreadful headache again. Confused by the changes, he decided to move forward with his plan while relying on Shearwood. Praying that she wouldn’t find out and betray him, he had begun treating her more favourably.

The tarsus had been trotting through the Agrean forest, following the path the convoy had cut through for about half a day already. Kiefer had yet to meet with any wild animals and just sat comfortably high atop the tarsus, munching leisurely on a piece of dried meat.

Despite looking like a fragile crystalline horse, Kiefer could tell that the crystals only made up the outer covering, sort of like a defensive shell. The tarsus was still an animal with flesh and bone underneath the tough crystals. The body felt warm and depressed easily when pressure was applied. The tarsus remained meek throughout the journey, afraid of its new owner and his companion.

Kiefer followed the pace that the convoy had used to arrive at the lake, taking breaks at large clearings that the convoy must have cleared for their stops. All the time, Kiefer was trying to come up with new cost effective offensive measures to adapt to his now tiny mana pool. However, he did not try any of it out in practice for fear that Shearwood might suspect something was wrong with him. He could not afford to lose his only lifeline at this crucial juncture.

As night fell, Kiefer would secure the tarsus firmly to a tree with vines he brought, and then throw a blanket over the big animal in case it felt cold. He did not want to risk compromising the performance of his only ride. He would then proceed to wrap Shearwood snuggly in the other spare blanket and bring the bundle into the sleeping bag with him to sleep.

3 days passed without any incident, spending each night like that. There had been no attacks from any animals and the forest was always suspiciously quiet. Kiefer knew that it was because Shearwood was with him that all other living things kept away from him. But this was becoming a problem as he was running out of meat.

The tarsus was fine grazing and eating random plants and fruits in the forest while Shearwood did not need to eat to survive. Kiefer, on the other hand, calculated only another day’s worth of dried meat left. He had tried stretching his food by supplementing it with wild fruits he found in the forest, but it would eventually run out.

On the 4th day, Kiefer knew he was in serious trouble. He was standing at the edge of the Agrean forest, overlooking a wide lush green grassland as far as the eye could see. There were 2 main problems with this. 1 – The convoy never mentioned anything about a grassland, so he must have accidentally ventured onto another path that does not lead to the city. 2. Being in the grassland, he could no longer forage for fruits in the forest, which means his food supply would just run out quicker.

Kiefer took a deep breath and decided to tackle his problems one at a time in a logical order. He had always gotten out of sticky situations by planning ahead and calm analysis. This would be no different. Kiefer sent Shearwood into the sky again, to re-orientate himself with a birds-eye view. Then he would think of what to do about food.

He only had a few options to choose from. If he was to go through the grassland, he could forage as much fruits from the forest now before heading out, an in case of desperate times, he could always eat the tarsus and continue the journey on foot.

If he had to backtrack his way through the forest, he might have to resort to hunting, leaving shearwood behind and then venture deep into the forest to hunt by himself, risk running out of mana and losing his way at the same time.

The last desperate measure would be to simply fly though the sky in a straight line on Shearwood, and be exposed to all the attention of the city, even risk being shot down (not that Shearwood could ever be shot down that is).

In the end he just could not make up his mind and simply waited for Shearwood to return. He was beginning to worry since Shearwood should have been back at least an hour ago, but he still could not see any signs of the small blue snake in the dim red morning sky.

After yet another hour’s wait, Shearwood was not back yet and Kiefer had convinced himself that he had been abandoned. He started packing up his things and loaded them onto the tarsus when all off a sudden, a huge brown mass dropped down from the sky.

“Master!! Sorry I’m late. Please don’t be mad, I brought this back for you!” Shearwood cheerfully exclaimed. “You haven’t been feeling well recently, not practicing your magic and not eating much, so I thought I would hunt something to help u recover”

Kiefer was staring at the large brown 6 legged bull(?) thing, about half the size of his tarsus. Its neck had been ripped off with fresh blood still flowing out of the gaping hole. Shearwood lowered her enormous serpent head and nudged Kiefer in his side, as if asking to be petted.

All of a sudden, his problems had been solved, by the one he assumed to have betrayed him. Kiefer felt guilty and remorse, while feeling glad and relieved. He glanced at Shearwood, gave her a rub on her massive head and then hugged her.

He has never hugged anybody, not even his foster parents in his life. He definitely regretted it when he died, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to miss this chance. Shearwood had become the only person (?) other than his parents that he trusted.

Kiefer was overcome with a turmoil of emotions. He had obstinately refused to acknowledge all that Shearwood had done for him till this point of time, always convinced she was only doing it out of fear for him. She did not have any binding obligation to follow him after all. And yet, after this, knowing she had been worried about him, observing him and thinking about his well being, Kiefer could only softly say "Thank you... Sher. Sorry I doubted you" while hugging her enormous head.

Feeling pampered like a little child, and knowing that expressing emotions was not really her master's forte, Shearwood reverted back into her miniature form and dove straight back into Kiefer’s robes, sighing out loud, “Ahhh.. So much warmer than flying in the sky” to break the awkward silence in the air.

Feeling hungry and relieved, Kiefer completely forgot to ask Shearwood about the direction to the city, but instead started a fire going to roast the cut up pieces of beef. With one less worry, tearing a slice of medium rare meat, Kiefer felt a weight on his shoulder lifted off, all thanks to that little reptile.

That morning had been full of surprises, but there was one more surprise coming up. As Kiefer was smoking the rest of the meat to dry it, he noticed the tarsus looking in his direction, staring holes into the meat while visibly drooling. Seeeing this, Kiefer was shocked. He had assumed the tarsus was a herbivour because it looked like a horse.

Wanting to see what happens, Kiefer tossed a slab of beef in front of the tied up tarsus and watched as the tarsus finished the slab in one go, like those cartoon cats slurping up a fish in one swift movement.

“I see. Not only have I been suspicious of Sher with no good reason, I had also been mistreating my ride, making it eat only plants. I really need to get my act together.” (Kiefer)

Smoking and drying the meat took the whole day, so Kiefer chose to camp out at the edge of the forest, watching the night breeze move through the tall grass in the grasslands. In an all or nothing decision, Kiefer decided to test out his new skill, and afterwards, consult Shearwood about his mana problems, while not placing expectations on her answer.

Taking a deep breathe, under the bright moonlight Kiefer stood up and faced the grasslands. Curious, Shearwood poked her head out from within Kiefer’s robes to look at what he was doing.

“Yet another weird magic.” Shearwood thought, keeping silent and just observing her master.

Kiefer raised his right hand, palm facing up, half afraid the spell might go wrong, and half afraid he might not have enough mana to make an effective skill. He closed his eyes and condensed his mana particles into a small bead that slowly elongated into a pointed end. A bullet.

Kiefer opened his eyes, examining the bullet and smiled, glad that the first phase was a success. Next, the small silver bullet began spinning. Slowly at first, as Kiefer saw the silver mana particles being flung out in a spiral from the bullet due to the rotation. He concentrated on condensing even more mana into the bullet and making it maintain its shape, while increasing the rotational velocity.

Finally, Kiefer was satisfied when he achieved a rotational speed of approximately 300 thousand rpm. That was a little higher than a rifle bullet’s rotation. Kiefer prepared to proceed to phase 3, the most difficult phase.

Honestly, Kiefer had absolutely no idea how to propel his bullet forwards. Even with his whip, he could control them only within a distance of 30m from him. He thought of 2 ways to propel the bullet during his travels, but no way to execute each method.

He could either accelerate the bullet while it was still under his control range of 30m like he does with his whips, or he could simulate an explosive cartridge to provide the bullet with burst speed. Either way had its impracticalities and both were difficult to execute.

He wasn’t confident in propelling the bullet in a straight line for 30m while maintaining its orientation, and he did not know what an explosion in his hand could result in, or even how to create the explosion in the first place.

Now, with the bullet in his hand, Kiefer simply acted according to his instincts. He propelled the bullet from the back as fast as he could, as straight as he could. The gyroscopic action of the bullet helped maintain its orientation and soon the bullet was out of his range, hitting the grassland approximately 150m away, leaving a poof of dust and silver sparkles around its impact point.

Not really effective he thought, as he checked his mana pool, silently glad that not much has changed. The white mist had not become thinner at all. He was relieved he did not waste too much of his precious mana on a failed prototype.

He quickly conjured up another silver bullet, this time spinning it a little faster and programmed his mana to do so with every thought of a bullet. He did not need to consciously control the shape, form and spin of the bullet anymore.

With another thought, he formed a dense cartridge casing around the bullet. The casing was physically the strongest object he had ever created out of his mana thus far, hoping it would withstand an explosion.

Thinking hard with the bullet and cartridge floating above his hand, Kiefer decided to try out one of his hypothesis. He started by programing individual mana particles to repel other mana particles. Then, he summoned a few of such particles within the cartridge. He added the particles slowly, cramming and squeezing as much as he could. Finally, there was a dense cloud of repulsion particles stuffed inside the cartridge, which he then sealed with the spinning bullet.

Kiefer intended to aim the bullet into the sky, but with a slip of his concentration, the repulsion particles were no longer held in place by his mental fortitude, and expanded rapidly, pushing each other away. With a loud “BANG”, the bullet disappeared, leaving only the cartridge which Kiefer managed to maintain in its position in a last second concentration.

A few seconds later, in the grasslands roughly 2 kilometres away, Kiefer saw an explosion that left a crafter, and a shockwave travelling outwards, ripping the grass from its roots. Kiefer heard the boom from the explosion moments later and he could hear the forest wake up, as birds flew out of the forest canopy.

Stunned, Kiefer and Shearwood could only stare at the impact point in silence, jaws wide open.

“Master.. Scary..” Shearwood broke the silence with a single comment.

Its the start of the week again, and I will most likely only be releasing the chapters at around this time of the night till the next weekend. Enjoy.

In case its unclear at this point, the growth refers to Kiefer's emotional growth.