The outer edge of the Wolf Forest is home to numerous types of low level monsters. On top of the abundance of weak monsters the forest is also home to countless herbs and plant life that are a useful material for making many different common products such as potions and antidotes. This combination makes it a haven for novice adventurers to explore while they gain experience and knowledge that they’ll need to survive riggers of being a true adventurer.

Many veteran adventurers even bring youths who are wet behind the ears there to train them in hopes of increasing their chances of survival when they leave the nest. Today Mac, a retired adventurer, is also doing his part in passing on knowledge to the younger generation as he mentors a group of promising youngsters deep in the Wolf Forest.

The party Mac is mentoring are typical newbies who want to rush ahead thoughtlessly and make a name for themselves. Despite having mentored them for more than a week he can only shake his head in disappointment at their lack of improvements in their maturity. In fact, he would argue that their mentality has gotten worse the more their physical abilities have improved.

Under Mac’s watchful eye the group of fledglings finally finish off the goblins they’d been fighting. The greenhorns are proud of their accomplishment and even complain about how easy it is to kill goblins. Their unfounded arrogance leaves Mac astonished as he wonders how they’re able to be so proud of taking five minutes to kill three goblins when they even had a two person advantage.

The heads of the youths swell as they eagerly cut the mana stone out of the goblins’ chests. It wasn’t until the fastest of them had finished that they noticed another goblin leaning against a tree in the distance. Mac had noticed the goblin when it showed up but didn’t tell the fledglings because he wanted them to understand how important it is to always be aware of your surroundings. That was only at first though, when he noticed the goblin’s abnormal behavior alarm bells started ringing in his head as he silently prayed that the brats he was looking after wouldn’t notice it.

A hot headed swordsman was the first to rush at the goblin, not even bothering to wait for the rest of the party to join him. When the rest of the melee specialists noticed him bolting toward the goblin they were quick to follow not wanting to miss out on the action. Mac tried to stop them but they ignored their mentor and rushed ahead, throwing caution to the wind. Once they got close they kicked it down a gear approaching the goblin casually, wanting to toy with it before they killed it.

[What do you want? Do you have a death wish perchance?]

[Hahaha, a talking goblin! Don’t worry little guy, after you become rust on my blade you’ll make for a good story to tell some ladies while I’m drinking.]

The young man could already see the look on the waitress’ face when he tells the story at the inn. He’d heard that she likes to listen to interesting stories from adventurers, and this interesting story would hopefully help him win her affection. While his mind was wandering off he approached carelessly with sword in hand, ready to cut down the goblin.

Hearing the response he was given Jellal could only take it as a yes and silently pulled out his saw. The young man foolishly tried to slash him but ended up dying without knowing how he was killed. The rest of the fledgling adventurers shocked beyond belief. The scene that had occurred was so far outside their expectations that it took a moment for it to register.

[You Bastard! How dare you?]

[Kekeke, how dare I? You all attack me and you have the gall to call me a bastard? Your parents should have taught you better than that. You shouldn’t try to kill others if you aren’t prepared to be killed yourself, especially when you’re dealing with a superior being such as myself.]

The other two melee specialist rushed in at the same time while a hooded young man at the back covered them by firing arrows. Jellal easily dodged the first arrow before moving so one of the melee fighters would be between him and the archer.

The pair of melee fighters attacked simultaneously. Unfortunately their swings were overly large and full of hole. Before their attacks had the chance to arrive the greenhorn who wasn’t blocking the archer’s line of sight was cut in half with a single strike. When the remaining attack finally arrived Jellal simply stepped past it and the attacker while cutting his head off while he was at it.

An arrow flew at Jellal the moment he started moving past the melee fighter but by the time it arrived all the front line fighters had already been killed. In one smooth motion he used his saw to slightly change the course of the arrow while turning his body and throwing a knife at the archer. The poor archer was caught off guard and was unable to respond do to his lack of experience, resulting in his untimely demise.

With the four fledgling adventurers that attacked being killed in a matter of seconds Mac didn’t have enough time to intervene. If he were to go all out he could have most likely blocked the throwing knife that killed the archer but he decided to forgo the archer to ensure he would be in a position to protect the last member of the party. With his sword drawn he took a defensive stance in front of the last surviving youth, his gray hair and scraggly beard blowing softly in the wind.

[Do you have a death wish as well?]

Seeing the last novice showing no signs of attacking and the old man moving with intentions to protect them rather than attack Jellal couldn’t help but see how they would respond to his question.

Mac was unsure why the strange goblin was asking him such a cryptic message and took it as a sign of ill will. He unintentionally let out a tiny amount of killing intent when he responded angrily.

[What kind of idiots do you take us for? We aren’t idiots out to get ourselves killed you know!]

[Really? Then why are you releasing killing intent towards me? The only reason you would have to do that is if you have a death wish.]

[Humph, cocky bastard. If you even think about thinking about touching a hair on Silica’s head I’ll kill you where you stand.]

[Kekeke, you’re quite cocky yourself damn geezer. Silica was it. How about you? Do you have a death wish like your friends did? Or perhaps you want to kill me to get revenge?]

[No]

[Say old man, is she always so taciturn? Even though I went out of my way to speak to her I only get a one word response in return. I know, she must be so honored that I would talk to her that she couldn’t muster a proper response due to the overwhelming glee.]

The longer the conversation continued on the stranger the goblin seemed to Mac, leaving him confused. He shook of his confusion and tightened his focus not wanting to fall for the goblin’s tricks.

‘That was almost bad! He almost got me to drop my guard by confusing me with his egotistical routine. It’s a good thing he’s so op- wait all those openings are traps! Kuh, to think he would act all innocent and stand in a way that shows a bunch of openings while actually being in a perfect position to counter attack if someone were to try to exploit the gaps in his defense.’

With both sides guarded against each other the conversation stagnated and was replaced with an awkward silence. Not wanting to waste any more time that he could be using to practice or hunt Jellal started walking toward Silica and Mac. When he reached the archer’s body which was a short distance in front of them he stopped and narrowed his eyes before cautiously retrieving his throwing knife.

After getting back his knife he took a wide berth as he circled around Silica and Mac, always making sure they were in his line of site. Once he had put a considerable distance between him and the duo he high tailed it leaving them standing there alone.

Jellal moved through the forest as if nothing had happened. His hunting trip had gotten off to a rocky start but eventually his luck took a turn for the better when he encountered a horned rabbit. Instead of killing it instantly with a throwing knife he refrained so he could test out his theories regarding magic.

He started by taking a deep breath and concentrating on sensing the mana in his body. From there he expanded to sensing the environment. Carefully controlling his mana he began to radiate mana out from his body slowly before adjusting his mana emissions to match one particular type of mana which he felt most clearly and had the most affinity with. When they perfectly matched he began manipulating his mana to act as a guide to make the resonating mana in the air act according to his will. With immense difficulty he steadily got the hang of how to use his mana and mix it with the environmental mana allowing him to more easily control it when compared to when he just used his mana as a guide.

Even though he had managed to successfully control mana he didn’t let it get to his head and instead redoubled his focus. Bringing the mana together he began to concentrate it constantly increasing the amount of mana while decreasing the amount of space it’s being controlled in. The process was a lot slower than he had hoped but he knew it was a matter of practice and proficiency not a problem with his theory. After he concentrated the mana as much as possible he began forming it into the shape he desired. Soon a small needle made of wind was floating in front of him constantly rotating like a drill.

With his magic formed he began practicing controlling the magic. Surprisingly he found that the formed magic was harder to control than loose mana. Rather than controlling the magic directly he opted to use loose mana as a guide while simultaneously manipulating the magic, in this way he would be controlling it both directly and indirectly at the same time. Of course, in order to do such a thing the person doing it needs to be able to focus on both facets at once and perform the necessary manipulations with high enough proficiency to not get in their own way. That is to say that only a freak of nature would be able to control both formed magic and mana simultaneously without unintentionally exerting them in different directions or losing focus and control over one or both.

Once his level of control reached a level he deemed acceptable (for now) he finally decided it was time to test the power of the magic he had created. The wind needle took merely a fraction of a second to reach the horned rabbit which was minding its own business nearly fifty meters away. The needle passed straight through the horned rabbit’s skull without resistance, killing it instantly.

He couldn’t help but smile when he looked at the results. He had finally used magic for the first time and as he walked over to the horned rabbit’s body he believed that the hard work he had put in to get to this point was all worth it. Of course he wouldn’t be satisfied with just this. This was just an initial test, proof that the basic magic theory that all his other original theories and ideas branched out from was indeed correct and grounded in reality and not limited to just theory but able to be put into practice.

Jellal picked up the horned rabbit and inspected the wound carefully. The edges of the wound were smooth without any cracks, tears, or flaying proving that the attack had far more power than was strictly necessary to kill the poor rabbit.

Carrying the rabbit in his left hand he continued on with his hunt. It wasn’t long before he found more signs of life. Unfortunately it turned out to be a small group of goblins which weren’t on the menu. After bypassing the goblins he continued his quest for food back towards the direction of his hideout.

On the way he found another horned rabbit which had the ill-fated honor of being used as a target for his magic practice. The second time around the process was a lot smoother on the whole. It took less time to concentrate the mana to form the magic, and he was also more comfortable controlling the formed magic and mana. In the end the second horned rabbit joined its brethren in his hand with a hole in its head.

It took Jellal nearly an hour find his next target to hunt. Twenty meters away an unsuspecting boar was moseying along without a care in the world, unaware that a predator had already set eyes on it. Jellal was planning on using magic to kill the boar, though he wasn’t planning on using a wind needle like he had for the horned rabbits. He was certain a wind needle would be able to kill it but he wanted to use the boar to test a different style of magic.

He pulled out a throwing knife and started concentrating wind mana onto the surface of the knife. Next he concentrated mana around the knife making it just dense enough to form magic. He threw the knife at the boar while using mana to coat it and wind magic to propel it while drastically reducing its air resistance. The throwing knife struck the oblivious boar in the side of the head before passing through to the other side like a hot knife through butter easily killing the poor boar. The knife continued on until it embedded itself deep in the ground.

‘The wind needle’s powerful but it lacks substance. If I tried to use it against an enemy that had a solid defense its efficiency and usability would drop significantly. If I use a throwing knife as a base and use magic around it then it’ll be less powerful but having actual substance will make up for that making it far better to use against enemies with solid defense.’

Satisfied with the results of the test he walked past the boar to try to recover his throwing knife. Rather than being annoyed at the knife being buried in the dirt he was excited because it gave him the chance to test another theory he had come up with.

At the general location where the knife should be he leaned over and put his hands on the ground. Adjusting his mana to match the mana in the earth he slowly started resonating with it. After resonating he started sending mana out like waves scanning the ground. His theory was actually fairly simple; if you resonate with one type of mana and use it to sense then theoretically you would be able to notice any foreign object that didn’t resonate with the mana. If things worked out the way he planned then he’s able to put it to practical use then he would be able to resonate with the mana in the air and be able to sense anything that wasn’t perfectly resonating with that mana which would include people, trees, monsters, and pretty much anything that isn’t air.

As his scan deepened he began to notice various pebbles and other objects that didn’t resonate with the mana in the dirt. Finally he found his knife. Although he can sense things that don’t resonate it’s not so easy to identify what they are. If a rock is in water then the water will surround the rock, if your consciousness is the water then you’ll know the shape of the rock but if you didn’t already know it was a rock than you would only be able to guess what it was based off the shape which is what Jellal was experiencing when he was sensing with resonance.

Using the earth mana he was already sensing and manipulating he formed earth magic around the knife. The earth magic moved the knife through the ground by pulling the dirt from in front of the knife around it and using it to push it from behind. It wasn’t long before his knife poked through the surface of the ground next to him as if it had never been buried in the first place.

He retrieved his knife and inspected it for damage before putting in back in his pouch. Thanks to the mana coating he had given the knife it managed to get by relatively unscathed confirming his theory that mana and magic could be used in a similar manner to aura. Of course aura specialized in coating things and acting as a physical entity while mana and magic tend to be the opposite being more specialized in acting intangible without being too effected by physical things.

Having gotten his knife back he returned to the body of the boar he’d killed. Hoisting it up over his shoulder he started carrying it back to the base along with the horned rabbits that he had hunted along the way. It didn’t take long for him to give up carrying it over his shoulder. The extra weight messed with his balance which quickly got on his nerves, and the blood leaking from its head kept falling on the back of his foot while he was walking. Rather than suffer through such annoyances he instead elected to hold it by its back legs and drag it behind him.