Chapter 4

There was a certain kind excitement I felt at the prospect of exploring the unknown woods around me. A wanderlust I didn’t know I had in me, being used to live in the relative security of modern society. Maybe it was the lack of any genuinely unexplored places on Earth that stopped me from feeling this excitement in my original world. Access to all most infinite knowledge of areas from all around them at our fingertips, just a simple few clicks away. This access to constant knowledge and information must have killed this feeling excitement for many. It must have been a significant reason why so many people were drawn to different forms of fiction, they wanted to feel the thrill of adventure. And most of them achieved it through fictional stories from books, video games, movies, TV-shows and so on, I was the same. But now that I was facing my own adventure to the unknown, I felt overjoyed.

With no knowledge of my surroundings, I decided to pick the direction of my march by throwing a stick in the air and head towards where the narrower end pointed, it seemed as good of a plan as any. I reached the edge of the clearing and thought it would be a good idea to mark my path, just in case I wanted to find my way back. Every now and then I burned small marks on the trees I passed.

Only a few hundred feet into the forest, the trees were growing more thickly, their leaves hiding the sky in the green canopy which I couldn’t see through. It almost felt like walking in a dimly lit cave. I kept walking under the trees, I was trying to keep my eyes open for any kind of signs of animal tracks.

If I can find animal tracks, they might lead to a source of clean water. Or they might lead me to a den of wolves, literally in my case. But most animals are afraid of fire, so I should be relatively safe. I think my survival skill should help me in this as well.

I went into my skills list to activate Survival.

Survival Survival skill helps the user to track animals, find edible plants, find shelter in the wilds and see signs of nearby predators.

As the skill activated, I could feel a slight change in my perception of the forest around me. My ears and nose started to pick up the sounds and smell of the woods more sharply. My sight was also a lot keener, my vision kept being drawn to the foliage around me and I noticed different signs of animals that had passed through this area. In the form of few broken branches and disturbed leaves on the ground, but they didn't look to be recently made. I kept on walking with my survival skill now activated

I wonder if my survival skill will level up by merely having it enabled or if I’ll actually have to be tracking something for it to level up. I guess I’ll find out soon enough. If it does then, I might as well keep it active most of the time.

I walked for what must have been hours until finally noticing the first recent tracks of animals passing. These animal tracks seemed to have a slight orange glow to them.

Hhm, what animal made these, the tracks are quite small, close to cat-sized if I’d have to make a guess and clearly it has four legs. I just hope it is something close to average and appetising looking, I would hate for it to be another weird crossbreed of animals, like the bat I killed.

I followed the tracks for a good thirty minutes and noticed how the orange glow started to change into a more reddish hue.

So this skill seems to work like heat vision of some sort. But still, no level up for the skill, even though I have been following these tracks for over thirty minutes now. Do I actually have to catch my prey before I gain any XP for the skill or maybe levelling skills just require a lot of time, even with my buffs?

Now that I was getting closer towards my prey, I thought it prudent to try and be as sneaky as possible, trying my best not to step on any twigs or dry leaves, but it seemed almost an impossible task. After all, I was no real hunter on Earth or in this world. Thus I lacked the skills and the knowledge on how to move quietly. I’m sure any experienced woodsman would have laughed their head off, looking at me trying to walk silently through the woods, while wearing a toga made out of white bed sheets no less. The hunger and thirst I was feeling didn’t help either, while I was trying to concentrate on keeping quiet. But I kept on going, hoping that my prey wasn’t too far off.

After maybe twenty to thirty minutes of trying to walk silently, my enhanced hearing picked up the unmistakable sound of running water. I started to head towards the sound of the water, redoubling my effort of trying to stay silent. It didn’t take long until I saw a small stream of water close by, about 30 feet away from me. And there next to flowing water, a little hare covered in greyish brown fur was drinking from it. I stopped moving.

How should I proceed, should I just create a ball of fire and hurl it towards the jackrabbit? I was never that good at throwing things though. But since I’m able to manipulate my mana, I could just try to make it bigger and try to bypass the act of throwing something accurately. And even if I miss my throw, worst case scenario I still have the stream water to drink from and the bat to eat.

I activated Arcana manipulation and pointed at the hare.

Let’s put some more mana into this one since this my first time trying to cast my spell so far away.

I started gathering mana into my palm, but I had no way of knowing how much I was going to need or how much I had already collected there. I gave it a few more seconds after which I could see my hand starting to release faint yellow mist, even though my mana was usually tightly locked inside me.

I think that might be enough, here goes nothing.

I suddenly released all the gathered mana in my hand and tried to funnel it towards my target. What came out took me by complete surprise. A vast, roaring pillar of flame leapt out from my palm and reached the rabbit in less than a second. The pillar of flame was at least two foot in diameter, it didn’t stop when it hit the hare; instead, it continued well past it to the other side of the stream and hit a large tree. I panicked and quickly stopped feeding it more mana. As I did so, it died down almost instantly.

“Holy shit…” I mumbled, “I really need to watch out how much mana I put into my spells.”

My target was utterly gone, there was no sign of the hare. And the thick tree I hit had a two feet diameter hole in it, the edge of the hole was still burning. As I stared at the aftermath of my magic for a couple of seconds, I heard a loud groaning and cracking sound. The tree was falling down, its trunk no longer able to hold its weight now that it had a big hole going through it. With a loud bang and snapping of branches it fell.

I was still looking at the fallen tree when a System window opened up in front of me.

You have learned a new spell “Pillar of Flame”

You release a pillar of flame from your hand. Size and strength of the pillar is dependant on how much mana you feed into it.

Casting time: instantaneous

Mana cost: Casters choice

Components: Somatic

Congratulations! Mana Overflow has levelled up!

“Holy shit…” I mumbled again

How much mana did I feed that thing?

I quickly went to my status page to take a look

Status

Health 120 / 120

Stamina 54 / 120

Mana 23 / 180

Overflow Mana: 0 / 180

Mana regeneration: 1,8 per minute

Bloody hell! I used up almost all of my mana casting this spell and all of my Overflow mana on top of it. The skill even levelled up. I need to get more training on being an Archmage if I don't want random people caught up in my spells and if I want to have anything left of me targets. I really don't want to lose my next dinner to an uncontrolled spell. Well, I guess I really do need to eat this damn bat now, who knows how long it would take for me to find something else to eat.