Year 1, Summer, Third Month, Second Week.

The hunting party assembled at the village barrier, before dawn. This time around, a lot of villagers came to see them off.

After exchanging goodbyes with their families and friends, they checked their weapons and supplies one last time before heading out.

The party was now formed by 11 members. When planning the hunt, they decided to add four carriers to the team. The other three additions were Carrion and the sisters.

They chose a circular formation to move through the plains until the stream. Inside the formation, stood Karl and four other teens (three boys and one girl) carrying two wooden boards. Since Karl would be responsible for locating and collecting materials he wasn’t carrying anything.

While Karl was excited and looking everywhere to find materials, the other four teens looked scared. In addition to being their first time out of the village, they didn’t hold any weapons. Fortunately, their job was only carrying the wooden boards.

The wooden boards were Karl’s solution for carrying back heavy materials. He crafted two Runes on the side of the boards. The Toughness would make the boards more resistant while the second Rune would make it lighter.

Karl spent the three weeks learning to draw the Lightness Rune, which had the effect of making objects weigh less.

The concept of the Rune was pretty alien to Karl, something called gravity. Master AI taught him that gravity was a force that pulled objects towards the ground, making them weigh downwards instead of upwards.

To Karl that was a very strange thought, imagine if all things started to be pulled upwards instead. Fortunately, Karl didn’t have to completely understand gravity, the important part was that the pulling force made objects weigh more. So, if this force was decreased the object would weigh less.

His understanding came after several tests with falling objects. Sometimes letting them fall without interference, other times pulling them with heavier objects or by hand.

Effectively, the Lightness Rune could decrease gravity on the object or connected objects. The decreased weight would depend on the quality of the drawing and the magic energy available. Also, it couldn’t go as low as no gravity.

The only problem Karl had with the Light Carrier (LC) was that it needed a lot of magic energy to work constantly. Therefore, before leaving the party took all the available crystals from the WETs in the village.

The outer part of the circular formation was kept by Diana, Toni, Tael, Carion, Sania, and Samia. Diana took the lead as she had the fastest reflexes and could do both attack and blocking.

The sides were kept by Toni and Carion with their shields. The reasoning was that they would move with ease to assist either side of the formation in case of an attack.

Since the party was traveling through the open plains, they expected to not be attacked in their rear. Therefore, the members with the least defense capabilities, Tael, Sania, and Samia, were placed in the back of the formation.

Diana moved with confidence and a firm grip on her sword. It would be difficult for any beast to pass through her deadly slash. Toni, on the other hand, was a little distressed and visibly trying to put an image of confidence for the newcomers. Tael was his usual self, excited but concentrated, trying to find any source of disturbance that he could finish with his bow.

Strangely, Sania and Samia were also calm. They held the reinforced daggers tight and also kept a look for possible targets. Besides Diana, only the girls had metal weapons. It was a gift from their grandfather, supposedly, he got it from a Merchant decades ago.

Carion, standing on the right side of Karl, was holding a reinforced shield and looked very stressed. Although he pretended to be cool and composed, he was jumping at any noise. From time to time, he would shoot angry and envious glances at the twins.

The group moved fast and only stopped sometimes for Karl to collect energy crystals and herbs. They arrived at the water stream three hours after their departure. The new members were very tired so they were allowed to rest first. Since they walked barefooted, their feet hurt and even had blisters.

Samia didn’t like to be idle. Instead of sitting, she entered the stream to look for water crystals. Her working ethic was awarded by the cool and refreshing feeling of the water stream.

Seeing that her sister was clearly enjoying the situation, Sania also went into the water to look for crystals. They were soon followed by the other newcomers.

Karl looked at the funny scene and smiled at them. If it wasn’t for the need to keep watch, the old members would also jump into the water.

Two hours later, the team crossed the stream carrying three additional LQ water crystals. The stony mountains were visible from the stream, so they didn’t have to look for it. After choosing a suitable entry to a stone hill, they didn’t hesitate to hike it.

Their pace on top of the stones was greatly reduced. Fortunately, the stones were shaped-friendly enough to stand on without much work.

Some members of the team got distracted by this new experience. Fortunately, the older members didn’t mistake the absence of attacks for lack of danger and continued to be vigilant.

Like agreed, they made regular stops to rest every time Karl found a material to collect, so they didn’t become too tired.

Sometime in the afternoon, Tael stopped the party and pointed to a lower clearing 30 meters from them.

On the clearing, there was a meerkat-like beast fighting to excavate something. The beast was so invested in its work that it didn’t notice them. Tael pointed his bow and looked for Diana and Karl visually asking for permission to shoot it. Diana exchanged a confirmation glance with Karl signaled Tael to wait.

She signaled the rest of the party to take the ‘unexpected ambush’ positions. Samia and Toni moved silently to a lower position circling the beast and getting ready to advance on it. Diana, Sania, and Carion tightened the formation and covered different sides of the remaining group. They had agreed previously that in case of an unexpected ambush the priority would be the protection of the party against possible unseen dangers.

In less than five minutes, all the party members were in position so Diana gave Tael the go signal. Tael remembered the training with Old Bill and breathed slowly feeling the wind’s direction and strength. When he was sure, he let the arrow loose. The arrow whistled through the air and hit the beast on its head.

The party didn’t cheer because they were too tense. For the newcomers, it was their first time confronting a beast while the old party members were concerned about ambushes.

Since the beast dropped dead, Karl moved with the attacking team (Toni and Samia) to collect the materials. When Karl picked the beast, he noticed a half-buried purplish crystal. In his mind, Master Al said:

‘-- Karl, you are very lucky. Without even looking for it, you found a MQ (medium quality) crystal. --'. Karl almost jumped from excitement when he realized the size of the loot.

The party only moved when Karl finish extracting the blood from the beast and placed the materials on one of the LCs. To mask the smell of blood, Karl rubbed on the beast’s body a strong smelly herb that he acquired previously.

A couple of hours before dusk, the party finally saw the caves. After checking that there weren’t any beasts nearby, they rehearse the ambush plan.

They planned to bait the wolves out of the caves to an ambush location with a blood-soaked cloth.

Diana went down to place the bait. The chosen place was a clearing with only one entrance through a narrow stony path. Toni and Samia moved to a hideout near the stony path. Tael and the displeased Carion moved to a position closer to the bait and also prepared for the attack. Karl and the rest of the group stood on stand by protected by Sania.

Diana quickly placed the bait on the ground and moved to join Toni and Samia. The team was on high alert and looking for hidden dangers everywhere.

After waiting for about 40 minutes, they saw movement in a stone near the bait. It was an animal similar to a rat that got out from a hole in the stones. The team tensed because the rat could run with the cloth and destroy their ambush.

Fortunately, right when the rat was moving towards the bait, a group of six grey wolves appeared from a cave 100 meters north. The wolves moved carefully and bared their fangs when they noticed the rat.

They looked at the leading wolf as if they were waiting for its permission. The leading wolf was slightly bigger than the rest. It looked everywhere, supposedly checking the surroundings. It didn’t notice anything wrong, so it charged at the rat.

The rat readily turned back and ran to its hole. It only escaped the wolves with a second of leeway. Seeing the wolves trying to breach the hole, Diana saw the opportunity and didn’t waste time. She signaled Tael to start shooting the wolves.

Tael was already aiming at the wolves and thus he only took an instant to let the first arrow fly. Since he didn’t want to waste the surprise arrow, he aimed it directly at one of the less moving wolves.

The flying arrow found the mark, hitting the wolf on its head.

The wolf dropped to the ground dying on the spot. The rest of the pack felt the danger and became restless. Their advanced hearing quickly located the origin of the arrow but the attacker was too high to reach.

Right when the next arrow flew at them, missing a wolf, the leading wolf decided to flee. It ran towards the narrow stony path.

Toni didn’t waste time and blocked the wolves' path with his shield. He used an energy crystal to activate the extra effects of the Toughness Rune. With this, the wolves’ momentum was stopped and before they had time to recover, Toni moved to the right side giving space for Diana to do a sword thrust at the wolves.

The sword passed the sharp fangs and arrived at the right side of the leading Wolf chest. The wolf cried and move back barring its fangs even more.

The party repeated the block and attack routine several times but failed to do any more damage.

While they were attacking, Tael continued to shot arrows at the moving wolves. However, it was difficult to hit them while moving. He tried to focus on the less moving targets, only hitting one wolf’s back. The wounded wolf became less active but didn’t die.

Diana wanted to create a better opening to attack the wolves. She asked Toni to push them back. He gritted his teeth, backed the shield with his right shoulder, and pushed the wolves with all his might.

Right after him, Diana jumped using the stone wall for impulse and thrust her sword at the leading wolf’s throat.

The wolf gave a short wince and dropped to the ground. However, Diana couldn’t move back fast enough and got bitten by another wolf that took the front.

Karl almost panicked and ran to her side. Fortunately, Toni reacted and pushed his shield in front of Diana separating her from the wolves.

Samia calmly observed Diana and Toni’s movements, without any hint of fear or concern. After Diana was bitten, she found her opportunity and quickly passed through the left side of Toni’s shield. She was holding the dagger downwards in her right hand and when she was close enough, she buried it in the attacking wolf’s head.

The attack was so sudden that even the team members were shocked.

Tael also didn’t waste time and shot another arrow on the back of the wolf that he previously hit. The two remaining wolves felt even more threatened and attacked the party without holding back.

Diana was hurt and lost her rhythm, failing to pick her sword up while Samia was trying to move back behind the security of Toni’s shield.

Karl saw that the attacking team was in a bad situation, so he decided to risk and call a retreat. He yelled to Toni to let a path out of the ambush site and prayed that the wolves would take this chance to run.

Fortunately, the grey wolves are coward beasts. They ran through the opening without looking back. Everyone breathed again in relief and the rest of the team got down to the ambush site.

Diana got up and composed herself. She gave orders to form a safety perimeter so that Karl could gather the materials. Everyone was very tense and the general mood only improved when Carion started to complain that it would go differently if he was allowed to participate in the fight. Since the beginning, he was angry because in the main fight his job would only be protecting Tael. Listening to his complaints, everyone’s nerves recovered to some extent.

Karl looked at Diana’s wound with concerning eyes. Master Al said in his mind:

‘-- She is a tough girl. However, she does not have magic resistance and her wounds will suffer from mild inflammation. Without proper rest and care, she may have permanent damage. But do not be concerned, on the way back I will lead you to some Burdock to assist her recovery --'.

Karl was initially very scared but after learning about the solution, he calmed himself.

After getting the blood and the wolves’ bodies, the party looked for the cave from which the wolves came from. Even though they saw the wolves running in the opposite direction, they didn’t relax and checked the cave for other threats before starting camp there.

With dusk already upon them, they quickly place the beasts and materials inside the cave and started a small fire. Thankfully, Diana was well enough to teach Tael how to start the fire.

They also moved the LCs to the entrance of the cave to block it. The entrance wasn’t completely blocked. In fact, there was a big gap on the top side. Which was good to allow the smoke out of the cave.

Karl convinced Diana to stay out of the guarding schedule by telling her that she could lose her arm. They ate bread and heated vegetable soup before sleeping. They took shifts of two to allow everyone to sleep a little while preventing any surprises. The night passed without any accidents besides some noises and probing outside.

In the morning, the group ate a little more and left the cave to go back to the village. Luckily, the way back was uneventful and they only stopped to get more crystals and look for the Burdock.

Karl found the plant near the water stream without much difficulty. Karl crushed the leaves with some water and gave it to Diana to drink. Besides the strange taste, the concoction didn’t have any side effects.

This time, the team didn’t suffer much to carry the materials back. Besides having extra members to carry it, they also had the LCs. Before leaving the cave, Karl tested the MQ crystal to power the LC.

Master AI told him that the difference between different tiers could be enormous. The MQ crystal could replace ten LQ crystals. So the carriers didn’t found it heavy at all.

On the way back, Karl noticed that Diana was disappointed while the general mood was of relief. He guessed that she was feeling defeated because of her battle performance and also because two wolves escaped. So, he moved near her and asked in a low voice that nobody else could hear it:

“Diana, why aren’t you happy?” Diana looked at him and felt a little ashamed.

“If it wasn’t for me failing to defend against that wolf we would have killed all of them... Grandpa is expecting great results from us, Karl... From me... The village is in a bad situation and I failed it.” Karl looked at her with disbelief, and said smiling:

“You didn’t fail. It’s the opposite. Without you leading us, we would have died and the village would be in a worse situation. Also, we’re bringing home five beasts, so we’re not lacking. As for your mistakes, I learned while crafting magic tools that sometimes the mistakes teach us far more than the successes. If you hadn’t got bitten, Samia wouldn’t have an opportunity to experience real fighting and I wouldn’t have experience making fast life or death decisions. In the end, we’re better because of it. Be proud, you deserve it.”

After thinking about it, Diana agreed with him a gave a simple smile.

‘I never noticed that he was so smart...’

Finally, sometime in the afternoon, the team arrived in the village.