After lunch, the crew went straight back to training. Chuck was rested enough to at least move his arms again. He chalked up the speedy recovery to his constitution. His goal was to reach ten consecutive spells before dinner. He decided to check on his skills.

Ice Arrow: 1030/1600SP to level 5

Multitasking: 9134/20000SP to level 3

Short Sword: 16/20TP to level 1

Looked like he had a little over three hours to max out ice arrow. His short sword skill was getting close as well. That was another skill he wanted to get to at least level one. It seemed within reach now. One thing was obvious, casting fifteen spells in a row was a far off goal. He could keep at it though. Since Erwin and his team took him in he didn't want to disappoint them or be a hindrance. To achieve that goal he threw himself into the training with tenacity.

Hours passed and still, he trained. His hard work was rewarded as he earned the first level in the short sword skill. He would inspect it later, for now, he switched back to casting spells. Another advantage he saw was his casting time was reduced. He could now cast the spell in a little under two seconds or as quickly as he could say the spells name.

He decided to blitz the spells out as fast as possible to see what happened. With every shouted word a spear of ice shot out, approximately every second and a half or so. Chuck managed to get ten of the spears of ice out before his head swam. He caught himself on a nearby post and shook off the dizziness. Then he looked towards the target. His accuracy... had not been the best. Only three of the magical arrows struck the target, the rest had missed.

Chuck looked over at the chuckling group, "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up."

Erwin walked over and slapped Chuck on the shoulder. The boy had managed to expand his mana pool to allow him to cast his spell ten times. That was impressive in and of itself, but even more so with the quickness, in which he was able to accomplish the task. Erwin felt proud of the boy.

After some congratulatory pats on the back, that left Chuck sore, the group headed into the tavern again. There really wasn't much else to do in this town. He decided not to share his discoveries in the ruined city. Not that he didn't like this group but he didn't know them all that well yet. Perhaps in time, he would share the discoveries with them. There was a quick meal and they all headed towards the building that Chuck thought was a store.

The inside wasn't large so only Erwin, Mellas, and he went inside. Chuck would have waited outside but Erwin wanted him to come in. Erwin and Mellas spoke with the man behind the counter while Chuck looked around. There wasn't much to see at the front of the store.

Erwin was finishing up purchasing the supplies they would need when Chuck walked up.

"Pack," he said in broken common.

It took Erwin a second to understand. He recalled Chuck had a pack when they first met, but he had returned without one. He would simply give him Sha's pack but that needed to be returned to the guild for his family.

Erwin turned to the man behind the counter, "how much is a pack."

"We ain't got anything special. Simple pack that can hold a few days rations and bedroll will be two silver."

Erwin cringed at the cost. Everything in the wilds was astronomically more expensive than the cities. He haggled with the man for a bit and got the price down to fifteen copper. A savings of five copper was a decent deal, even though he could have purchased a better bag in the city for a silver. He was about to hand the merchant the money when Chuck tugged on his arm.

Erwin turned to see what he wanted. The kid held two silver in his hand for Erwin. They had taught the kid some basic words and numbers. Apparently, he had heard the merchant mention the first price. That wasn't the surprising part though. Where had the kid managed to get two silver? Erwin grinned, the kid was full of surprises. He took the silver and gave them to the merchant who handed back five copper.

A minute later the man returned with the bag and bedroll. It was a low-quality bag at best but it should hold up. Erwin handed the extra coins and bag to Chuck. The boy responded with something in his language before he paused and sounded out Th...ank... You in common.

Erwin was impressed with the boy's comprehension skills. He must have a rather high Intuition, he would make a good mage. Erwin turned to the merchant, "how long to get our order together?"

"Give me about an hour and it should be ready for pickup."

"Alright, I will return then."

The rest of the night went by quickly for Chuck. There was no drinking this night, everyone seemed to be preparing to leave. It seemed like they were going to bring him along as well., Since he knew just how dangerous it was outside the palisade, he decided to practice his swordsmanship as long as he could tonight. He would have done the same with ice arrow but he couldn't very well do that inside his room. At least ice arrow had finally completed a few minutes ago.

He finished the latest rep with his sword forms and decided to check on his skills

Ice Arrow: 5-5

Multitasking: 9219/20000SP to level 3

Sneaking: 21/1600SP to level 5

Short Sword: 8/150TP to level 2

Mana Manipulation1: 0-5

Tracking2: 3-5

Ice Arrow: The speed of the projectile is increased. Has a high chance of piercing light armor within 30m range. Extended range of 5m with a low chance to piece light armor.

The extra five-meter range and additional speed on ice arrow were nice. He wondered how it compared to a bow. He didn't think it traveled quite as far or as fast as a normal arrow. Still, it seemed to possess the ability to penetrate armor, at least light armor. He knew it could go through rusted metal, it was likely able to at least dent heavier armors. Not that he wanted to fight people. Still, it was a possibility. He didn't know this world enough to rule it out.

He also saw the requirement for level two of his short sword skill and winced. That would take some time to accomplish. He opened his eyes, deciding that was enough training for tonight. He lay in bed and pulled out the second skill book he couldn't open before. He tried again and it still wouldn't open. Oh well, he would try again in a few days to see if anything changed.

Chuck retrieved the weird amulet from the storage bag and began to toy around with it. He knew it produced a hologram if he looked through the gem, what would happen if he wore it?

He might as well test that theory. He slid the necklace over his head. As soon as the gem landed against his chest he blacked out.

Chuck blinked his eyes. He appeared to be standing in a room. He also appeared to be talking to another individual in said room. It was a strange sensation but he realized he must be reliving the memories stored in the item.

The two appeared to be testing some sort of alchemical process and discussing the results. He realized they were standing in the room where he found the necklace. There were fewer boxes than he remembered but he recognized the steel doors.

The vision cut out and skipped to a point much later. Chuck could tell because the age of the person the memory stone belonged to had aged. They were arguing about something. The other man holding up a skill book and pointing to it. The man who owned the amulet was adamantly opposed to whatever skill the man was holding.

Chuck watched the other man get angry and smash something over the owner's head. The vision went black, returning again with him lying on the floor. The man checked his head, the hand coming back with a bit of blood. He stood up on wobbly feet and went over to the door. His attempts to open it failing. The man pounded on the door and even cast a few spells against it that all seemed to be absorbed.

The vision faded out and Chuck found himself back in his room. Chuck was glad whatever protections the door held had faded away. Otherwise, he would have been stuck down there just as well. He was curious as to what sort of experiments they were doing. When he had a chance he would go back into the memories, there must be some way to control them. He would worry about it later, stuffing the amulet back in his bag, he rolled over and went to sleep.

Morning came quickly, the team packing their gear and heading out the main gate. Turns out they were heading down the same road Chuck followed to find them. It was a good thing he chose the correct direction before. From the conversation, and what little he managed to parse out it would take about a week to reach the nearest town.

Numbers were easier to learn since the guys would include a finger count along with it. Of course, they could do that with items too and they did, when the item in question was available. His high intuition seemed to help him retain the words he learned easier. He definitely didn't have this ability in his previous life. He couldn't recall hardly anything from his time in school and remedial Spanish.

Chuck would have continued the language lessons but everyone seemed tense as they left the outpost. Hands were on swords and eyes scanned the woodline as we walked. He decided to watch the motions. Eventually, he would try and mimic what he saw, maybe a skill could be acquired as a result.

"Head's up boys, we have company."

Chuck looked in the same direction that Mellas was looking, twenty of the short green creatures screamed and ran out of the forest. These were the same ones he had run into the day he met Erwin and his group.

Chuck took a step back in fright at the unexpected encounter. Bargo put a hand on his back and gave him a confident smile. It helped with the fear. Ricardo and Erwin were already throwing single target spells at the beasts. Ricardo's were much more impressive, lances of rock spearing through the creatures. Chuck focused his mind, it was much harder to do in combat he noticed. After three seconds he managed to fire off an ice arrow, it took the goblin in the head. His practice paying off.

That's the name he decided to call them, they fit all the fantasy tropes he remembered from his past life.

The creature went down as the ones behind trampled it to continue their mad rush to get to us. Chuck was able to fire off another ice arrow before they got too close to use magic against.

He drew his sword, adrenaline, and fear racing through his body as the screaming creatures closed in. One of the screaming creatures came at him with a club. Chuck froze but his body seemed to respond before his mind locked up. His sword slashed out, taking the goblin's hand off at the wrist. The club still struck his shoulder with a solid hit but it had no weight behind it.

The goblin ran straight into him, clawing at his leg with its remaining sharp claws. It also tried to bite him in the chest but the armor protected that area. Chuck unfroze when the pain blossomed in his leg. He instinctively kicked out, tossing the creature away.

"Ice arrow!" he called, aiming for the downed creature. It pierced through the wounded creature's belly.

The creature thrashed about but it seemed like its spine was injured by the attack. Chuck was going to finish it off when he was tackled to the side by another one. The blow knocked his sword out of his grip. Chuck rolled around the ground until he managed to pin the creature below him. He pulled out his dagger and stabbed it straight through the goblin's chest, pinning it to the ground.

Expecting another attacker he scrambled to his feet, pulling the dagger out with a wet thwop. He looked around in fear, dagger at the ready. He didn't need to worry, the rest of the goblins had been finished off.

Erwin walked over while cleaning the green blood from his sword, "You should bandage those wounds, Chuck."

Chuck looked to where Erwin was pointing and saw the bloody claw marks along his leg. Erwin reached into his pack and pulled out a wrap. Chuck declined the wrap with a shake of his head, instead, concentrating on activating his healing ability.

Erwin watched in amazement as Chuck cast a healing skill. It seemed to be a very basic skill as it only scabbed over the deeper cuts. Even so, healing abilities were expensive.

Bargo walked up, "Did the boy just heal?"

"That he did," Erwin replied, "Chuck?"

Chuck looked at Erwin as he called his name. The man pointed to some scratches that he and Bargo sported. Chuck shrugged, readying the spell again, only this time touching Erwin and Bargo. The spell took a lot more out of him as he cast it on multiple people. Both men clapped him on the shoulder appreciatively. He repeated the spell on Mellas and Ricardo, both men nodding.

He pointed towards the dead creatures after he retrieved his sword, "What?"

Erwin supplied the word and Chuck just associated it with 'goblin' in his head. The group gathered up the bodies and tossed them into a pile, in a shallow ditch that was dug along the road. Ricardo used another spell that looked like a torch, setting fire to the pile of sticks underneath the bodies. The greasy dirty corpses went up quickly, oily black smoke billowing up as they burned. Once the pile burned down to ash they covered it with the dirt that was removed.

Packs were retrieved as they continued along the road.