I quickly gutted the deer and we started to make our way back to the city. We still had quite a bit of time before it got dark but neither of us were willing to take our chances with a vampire. We were almost out of the feline’s territory when I spotted another one hiding in a bush ready to pounce.

I had been in this scenario four more times just today so I thought nothing of it. I approached the ambush spot with my shield raised and my trusty hammer in my right hand. Just as predicted, the cat launched itself at me. I wound back the hammer ready to bash when something unexpected happened, its claws tore through my shield and into my arm. The sudden spike of pain from 8 gashes also made me lose my footing and I stumbled backwards while the cat leaped back as well.

In the next moment the cat's skull was crushed by Tom and he was by my side to see what happened. Something was definitely wrong since the cat was weak and I felt no mana coming from it. How could a normal beast like that cut through steel?

“What the hell happened, you should have let me deal with it if it was a monster.” Tom sounded a bit mad but mostly just concerned.

“That’s the thing, it wasn’t a monster. It didn’t use any mana.” I was just as dumbfounded as Tom but the pain broke me out of it. I started to wrap up my arm to stop the bleeding. “Tom, this was the worst hit I have ever taken, it shredded through my arm, how come it only dealt 45 points of damage to me?”

“Because it only got your arm, if it got you in the chest it could well have killed you. Even if a level 500 smashes your arm with a hammer, as long as it's only your arm it won’t kill you. The bleeding might and the overdamage might be high enough to make it unhealable but losing an arm won’t kill you.”

I supposed that made sense, despite the similarities this wasn’t a video game. You could lose and arm and survive, there had to be damaged caps on what nonessential parts of your body could do to you.

“That doesn’t matter though, what happened? If it wasn’t a monster how did it shred your shield like that?”

“I’m not sure, but it didn’t use any mana and if it could do that with raw strength you wouldn’t be able to kill it with just one punch.”

I examined the shield closely after applying the dressing to the wound. This was too deep a wound for me to try to heal so I would have to wait for Kate to fix me up. I grabbed the shield with my good arm to try to examine the cut but the metal bent. It was like a slightly hardent play-dough, it took a bit of force but I could shape it.

“What the hell happened to your shield?”

“I think I have an idea”

I pulled out my sword and started examining the edge, I had only used wind to enhance the edge so it wasn’t obvious but looking at it closely now I could see the wear. The blade was blunt, the only reason I could still cut with it today was the wind augmentation and the small surface area the blunt blade had. I next picked up the hammer and slammed the nearest tree. It wasn’t quite as bad as I thought and still took out a good chunk of bark but one corner of my hammer chipped.

My augmentation had side effects. Since the shield one took so much more mana and infused the whole shield not just the side it must have fully compromised it.

“Seems my tricks with mana come with a downside, whatever I use them on loses some of its endurance.” I said to Tom.

“That makes no sense, you used the shield only once and I’ve seen you swing that hammer last time we came out here as well.”

He was right. Unlike the blade I infused the whole hammer just like I did the shield, so why was the shield so affected. Even more why could the kobold keep using his hammer despite always empowering it. Something wasn’t adding up.

“The blade as well, you’ve been using that a lot more but it only just blunted.” He pressed on.

“The blade is just as bad as the shield. I was only using the mana on the edge and I lost about a quarter inch of the blade.” I absentmindedly said, think on what could be the cause of all this.

Thinking of something I went to the nearest chunk of rock I could find and picked it up. I then used the earth mana to enhance it and smashed it into a tree ripping through the bark. I then tossed it without enhancement at another only for it to make a dent and bound off.

I then picked up a different rock and used the light enhancement to turn it into a lightbulb. A few seconds later after the enchantment ended I tossed this one at a tree as well but it smashed into dust on impact.

“I think I have a pretty good idea of what's happening. Metal is technically part of Earth, but not part of Air or Light, infusing other elements seems to damage the base weapon. That's why the kobold’s hammers didn’t suffer, they were made of rocks so once the mana left it was the same.” It all made sense, even if it promised high repair fees in my future.

“Well this is going to cost you. I’ve never seen an elemental aligned weapon yet but the ores are super expensive. Getting your hands on them is even harder, without connections you can only get them at auctions.” he said, shaking his head.

Of course, there were elemental ores, though the price was out of my immediate future from the sound of it.

“Anyway let's get going. We got to get you to Kate to get that arm fixed.” He said as he picked up the deer and we both picked up the pace towards the city.

Once at the gate we were taken aside instead of just getting waved through because of my arm.

“What happened to his arm?” the guard asked.

“Linx got the drop on him.” Tom explained.

“What does it matter. How does this check even help. The vampire can fly over the wall and back in.” I said irritated. The pain from my arm getting to me a little.

“People like us guards maybe, but the Royal squad scout can sense the whole city.” he grinned at me, seeming to forgive my rather rude outburst with a look of pity at my shredded arm. “Are you going to be ok patching that back up?”

“Yeah Kate should be able to fix him up as soon as we get home.”

At that the guard waved us through after a quick look over the deer to make sure we had killed it like we said. I wasn’t sure what connection there could be between my arm and the deer.

“It’s in case we traded blood for the deer to a vampire.” Tom said, seeming to pick up on my question without me even voicing it. “Lots of people are greedy enough to make deals like this. After a few deals they get turned and are then used to lure out other victims.”

When we entered the house we found a veritable feast on the table with Kate still bringing over another plate of food.

“I passed, I passed today.” She yelled right as she noticed us enter. “ Oh dear, what happened to you?”.

She quickly sobered up with one look at my hand and got to work fixim me up.

I could feel my arm stitching back together. “What did you pass?” I asked.

“The healer exam.”

“I’m pretty sure I heard you were the best they had seen in a while, was there doubt you will pass?” It was all true, spending 6 days at the guard courtyard and talking to the healers so often I picked up quite a bit of gossip.

“Half the healers who take the exam fail, they then have to keep being on shift for the same pay until they pass.” Tom said as he came back in the room from dropping off the pray in the basement. “And that's for healers who take the exam after ten years. She took it after only nine.”

“Do you know if any of the commanders offered you a position?” he asked her.

“Not yet, I’ll find out tomorrow.” Kate said as she finished patching up my arm.

“Then tonight we celebrate!” Tom joined in with her enthusiasm as he brought out two rather large fancy bottles.

“What are we celebrating?” Judy said as she and Alana came in.

“Kate passed her healer exam.”

“Isn’t that next year? I thought you were the same age.” Alana asked.

“We are. I took mine early” she said as she passed out filled muggs to all of us.

“That really is worth celebrating,” Judy said as she raised her cup to offer a toast. “ To Kate!”

“To Kate” we followed up.

The drink didn’t seem all that strong, though I guess that might be because of my poison resistance so I went for another cup.

The last thing I remember is grabbing a third cup halfway through the meal.