It's been three weeks now since I figured out how to make progress in unlocking my skill.

These weeks I started widening the variety of my prey.

I ate giant spider workers, an orc and also some kind of blue wolf.

Many of these monsters I could only kill with help from the others.

Especially the fight against the wolf was tough, since it was incredibly fast, so I couldn't keep up even with my special eyes.

But my strength grew fast, and now I can move through these caves a lot faster than in the beginning.

I'm also strong enough to fight slightly stronger monsters on my own, for example, I can face one orc alone.

But everything more than that is still too much for me.

Some stronger monsters, like the orc, or the wolf contributed even more than one point.

The orc gave three and the wolf gave two.

And with this, I eventually got close to unlocking this locked thingy.

While grinding for food against these strong monsters I also levelled up considerably.

I reached level 7 today. So far, I only invested in physical skills to increase the chance of my survival.

But from now on I'll start increasing my intelligence, willpower and magic as well.

To increase Intelligence or willpower, each costs two stat points.

Increasing magic cost me ten points for the first time, but will need 4 points, from now on.

[For learning magic, strong willpower, as well as high intelligence is even more important than magic compatibility.

Since the former is needed to understand the foundations and basics, as well as for shaping your mana,

while the latter just improves the strength of your spells and decreases the cast time.

It might also increase your maximum mana, but for now, you should have enough to practice.]

I started trusting them more and more these days, so I don't even hesitate before answering.

"Sure thing! I'll just pump it all equally into intelligence and willpower."

After I assign all my stat points, my stats look like this.

Name: Civitas

Race: [Error]

HP: 289/300 | MP:10/10

Class: none

Level: 7

XP: 45/700

Vitality: 30 | Strength: 30 | Agility: 24 | Dexterity: 24 | Intelligence: 5 | Willpower: 5 | Magic: 1

Available Stat Points: 0

Passive Skills: Common Sword-mastery (81%), Dragon's eye,

Active Abilities: none

Innate Talent: [Error]

LOCKED (126/150)

I'd be extremely proud of my stats if it wouldn't have been for these guys.

When I voiced my satisfaction, they first congratulated me and then told me about their stats, when they were still alive...

If what they say is the truth, then they had stats in the millions and even billions! This feels unreachable... When I asked if this would be possible for me as well, they just told me to wait for my class change.

They said the growth of humans would drastically increase when changing class.

Also, I need to learn some skills to boost my combat prowess, the only thing I currently have is sword mastery tier 1.

Now that I think of it, is it normal for skill mastery to go up that slow?

I guess asking them won't hurt.

"Gabriel, I've got a question for you. Is it normal for skill practice to be slow in such an early state?

I thought skill levelling only gets hard in the higher tiers?"

After a short time of thinking, Gabriel answers my questions.

[Every skill with tiers has its own stat belonging to it. For example, the stat that helps the most for your Sword-Mastery practice, his dexterity.

But two other stats influence your learning speed as well. Which are intelligence and willpower.

This is the same for every skill. On top of that, I have to say, you already learn insanely fast. Normally it already takes months and maybe years to even get close to reaching tier 2 in a skill.]

Why do I hear this for the first time?

"So I could have levelled faster if I had invested in intelligence and willpower earlier?

Why didn't you tell me until now? And am I really levelling that fast? It doesn't seem like that to me."

Wouldn't this have helped me?

[We didn't tell you because it wasn't important so far.

Skill practice is really slow and only pays off in the long term, so it wouldn't

have increased your immediate survival chances.]

{We all just want the best for you Civitas, because that is also the best for us...}

It almost got friendly. Almost, I say.

"But you said it takes years in the later stages? How could someone even master a skill with the limited lifetime we have?"

[Didn't you know? The stronger you get, the more you get influenced by mana. One of the side effects is a prolonged life.

Although we aren't human, we could live for millions of years already, thanks to mana.]

Never mind that. I still want to start to learn magic today, not only when I'm a million years old.

I'll first go out to secure the food for today since I don't want to interrupt my practice later to do this.

Sometime later I finished preparing food, resting for a short while and eating a bit.

Magic, here I come!

[First, to get started, you have to get a feeling for the mana in your body, as well as the mana surrounding you.

But forget the latter for now and only focus on the mana inside you.

Sit down in a comfortable position and close your eyes to shut off the stream of information from the outside world.

Now, start breathing slow and steady.]

After some time I managed to direct my attention to only my body. This was a bit harder than usual,

because I can still see, even if I close my eyes, due to my Dragons' Eyes.

But after Some time I still managed to do it.

[Now, I will start to circulate the mana in your body. Try to get a grasp of the

paths in which the mana flows. Try to form a map in your mind with all the different paths.]

The feeling is similar to the times when they cast magic through me, but it's a lot calmer and less violent than usual.

I can clearly feel the way it moves all over my body.

Like this, some time passes in which I only feel the mana flow inside me.

After hours of doing this, Gabriel proceeds with his plan. Magic training often takes this long.

This is nothing abnormal.

[Now I will slowly stop influencing your mana. Try to keep up the flow without my help.]

First I was completely lost on what to do. Nothing I tried seemed to work, even if I concentrate with all my power.

It seems I won't manage to do it this time. I will just try to do it the next time. There is nothing to lose from this.

And just as these thoughts crossed my mind and I calmed down, something changed.

Suddenly it felt like invisible gears fell to their predetermined places.

These gears got a grip on the flowing mana that was just about to stop its movement completely.

From this point onwards I could power these gears with my mind. I feel like moving a third arm. Weird, but familiar.

Controlling and speeding up my mana like this, triggered huge joy in me, as this was the greatest feeling I've ever felt in my life.

While being in this ecstasy he didn't even notice the others talking.

But they were really impressed because it's insanely rare for someone to be able to make the mana in one's body flow on the first try.

On top of that Civitas sped up the mana to a quite high level without losing control of it.

They all agreed on him being a natural talent in handling mana.

Almost a whole day later, the pleasure I felt slowly subsided and I came back to my senses.

I slowly stretched my legs, which felt as heavy as lead.

"How long did I practice?"

I ask while adjusting to the current situation.

Although I did not move I somehow feel disoriented right now.

/About a day I think. At least long enough for me to tell you, not to cook that rabbit over there.

I can already smell it.../

Damn, I was this long gone?

/I did not think you'd be able to last that long. Most people have to stop way earlier because of the strain on their minds.

But you had to stop eventually because of exhaustion, just as we thought./

Exhaustion? I feel like I could have done this way longer, I just stopped because I thought I took too long.

And also, my stomach is as empty as it could get.

"Was it really supposed to be exhausting? You're not joking?"

/Of course it is, you should have noticed right? Why are you asking such a weird question?/

I could play along and act as if everything was like he said, but secrets can't be kept in this group.

Eventually, everyone sees every side of each other so hiding things is pointless.

"No, I really don't feel exhausted! I only stopped circulating because I felt like too much time passed!

Practising like that gave me the best feeling ever! If I could, I never would have stopped! Well, the only exhaustion I feel is in my stomach, I am incredibly hungry!"

A short period of silence took place while Dorminil thought about my words. Then...

/ Chicken! Gabriel!? Your apprentice is saying weird things about his training!/

After a short time, the voice of Gabriel sounded.

[*yawn* What are you talking about? What happened?]

A short time of explaining later...

[So you are telling me you did not feel any sort of exhaustion.

I have not heard of anyone ever experiencing something like this.]

"So the list of unexplainable things gets extended by one again. That's just great! I should start to write those things down!"

I say sarcastically. As if the other things wouldn't have been enough!

{But at least this time there aren't any drawbacks to it!}

Some time while I was explaining my situation to Gabriel, Zabula woke up as well,

So she knows about this as well. And she's got a point. Theoretically, there are only good things from me not being exhausted by magic practice.

"I just hope there aren't any drawbacks that aren't obvious right now."

Because the rabbit went bad over the one and a half days, I have to get rid of it and hunt a new one because I am starving.

As I leave the cave I do as Gabriel suggested and try to keep up my mana flow while on the move.

Apparently circulating mana increases my overall stats a fair bit, so it is essential in fights.

Usually, people can only do these circulations for some time before getting exhausted, so they wait for fights before activating it, but I can keep it active all the time.

When I stepped out of our little "room" I almost got overwhelmed by the sheer amount of colours all around me.

"What are these colours everywhere? What is this?"

I shout because this seems extremely unnatural.

[What do you see? Wait, can you see mana, just like the lizard said?]

"If that's supposed to be mana, there's a lot of it here!"

/You're right in these caves is a high amount of mana.

That's the reason why mana crystals appear here in the first place./

This seems like a whole new world to me!

"Can you see mana as well?"

/Yes, I could, when I was still alive, but not anymore./

{I didn't have an ability like this, but nevertheless, I could sense the surrounding mana in a very clear way.}

[Same for me.]

"Does that mean this is the ability of these eyes? So these eyes really are good for something!

Is there any way for me to allow you to use this ability of my eyes?]

[It seems this change got triggered by your mana flow, so they react to mana. This is something we have to

study a bit more later on! And yes, theoretically, you have to imbue your mana with the intention of us being able to use your ability, but that may be a bit too complicated to the current you.]

After a short time of getting used to this new colourful world I see now, I march onwards to my well-earned food.

As I get ready to kill the rabbit I just spotted, I notice another change.

The flow of time seems to be slowed down even more!

Although the slowdown is still minuscule, I can feel it.

After killing the rabbit I head back to the safe cave, where the mana level is surprisingly low.

Which is the reason why I could only see the changes when stepping out of here.

By now I got a bit more skilled when gutting rabbits, so it's not as much a bloodbath as before.

I eat the meat with pleasure because my hunger got unbearable over time.

Just when I wanted to prepare for one more practice session, I heard something, that I haven't heard for some time.

A human voice, that did not belong to me, or my mind!

But the man is screaming! Should I help him? Am I even strong enough to help him?

What if he sees me as a monster as well because of my eyes?

"Do you think I should go?" I ask with a voice, silent enough to be mistaken for a whisper.

{I think, if you want to go, so you should. I know you feel obliged to do so.

Don't hold back your feelings and go to save him! Just be careful, and if anything happens, we can still

help you out!}

I know she is right. I feel obliged to help because I feel guilty for causing many people to die.

So I rush out while working out a plan.

I currently can't hide my eyes with Zabulas illusion, because I need my mana for the upcoming fight.

When I arrive at the location, where the screams came from, I see a party of three men and two women fighting a troll.

They seem to not have a magician with them. That seems to be the reason for their struggles.

Trolls have a very high regeneration rate which only gets lowered when they burn. Some people say there are powerful trolls who can even regenerate their heads if they get decapitated.

So you need a magic caster to suppress the regeneration of the troll.

"Dorminil, Is it possible to Ignite the troll for long enough to give the other a chance to kill it?"

Luckily I have Dorminil with me. He's one of the best in casting fire magic.

/It's possible, but with your mana, it could only last for 3 seconds, maybe 4 seconds.

If you hadn't refined your mana until now, it would have been impossible for me./

"Alright, cast the spell when you see it fit. I'll give a signal to the humans."

Like this, I sneaked closer to the troll.

"Get ready to attack him with all that you have! I can only keep him ignited for about 3 seconds!"

I shout to the party. First, they seem startled, and tried to take a look at me, but realized fast, this wasn't the important thing right now.

They soon seemed determined to lay their lives in my hands, as four of them started rushing at the troll.

Dorminil waited until the moment, right before the sword of one of them hit the troll to unleash the spell.

And right the moment, when the troll lit up, he received four deep wounds from the team.

Trolls aren't difficult enemies. They are slow, dumb and too big to fight efficiently.

The only thing, which makes trolls dangerous is their tenacity. If a fight is long enough, even the most experienced fighter is doomed to make a mistake.

This is the way a troll usually fights.

So the moment he lost his regeneration ability, it only took two seconds for the strong fighters to take him down. Those warriors are probably on a way higher level than me.

One of them pierced its brain through its eye. Usually, a troll could recover even from that, but now it sufficed to kill him in an instant.

The people cheered in joy at their win. After winning they headed towards me, seemingly to thank me.

I'm currently turned away from them to hide my eyes.

What should I do? Talk, but keep turned away? Talk, and reveal my inhumanity to them?

Maybe just run? I have to decide fast.