This hunt started very differently than any of the ones we went on in the few months before my trip to the city. As soon as I finished my early morning routine we took off with little time to replenish the mana I had already expended. I was sitting at around half mana as we made a much faster paced dash through the forest.

After getting a few miles away from the village we finally stopped in a small clearing.

“Let's see what you can do now.” Hatchet said. "Follow these tracks and bring down what you find. Don’t hold back on your mana, I want to see what I am working with.”

I simply nodded and took off after the shallow footsteps. It took less than half an hour to catch up to the boar that made them with barely any use of my earth mana to help speed things along. A quick glance at my teacher showed what I thought was disappointment for the first time on his face.

I drew back the bow, took aim between the eyes of the boar and infused the arrow with the shadow aspect mana. [Judge Threat] put the boar at somewhere around level two so power wasn’t going to be an issue. My shot hit exactly where I wanted before the shadow mana fell off the arrow and killed the boar.

“Interesting, you can already use shadow, even if the power is low the concealment is high.” Hatchet said as he approached the downed boar and inspected the arrow and the wound. “There is a marked effect on the usability of your equipment when exposed to your style of casting. Do you know if it happens during or after the effect?”

“After. I tested it out a few times on the way here after I found out the downsides of my method of casting. While the cast is in effect my weapons maintain their state before activation, they then worsen rapidly after the mana is spent.” It had taken quite a few tries, mostly working with the shadow and light to test this out. “There is also much less degradation based on what element I use, my hammer has suffered little backlash from an Earth augmentation, whereas anything that uses me as the medium has no downsides.”

“Hmm, most likely because metal is connected to earth. That matters not right now. These tracks here next.” he said pointing to a different set for me to hunt down.

The next few hours saw me running around hunting quite a few things from foxes to squirrels and even rabbits. I could tell we were deeper into the forest since even level 4s and fives were starting to show up. For the first time I saw something I had wanted for a long time. Hatchet had on his back a Bag of Holding that was starting to pile up all my kills.

“That’s a handy bag.” I said pointing at it after curiosity got the better of me.

“For me it is yes, for you not so much.” was all he replied.

“Why would it not be useful for me?” I was a bit peeved by his dismissive tone.

He simply took off the backpack and handed it to me. I reached my hand out to grab it , the moment he let go it dropped to the ground taking me with it. I was down on one knee, it was a lot heavier than I would have expected, it took everything I had with both arms to barely lift it off the ground.

“Do you see why now? While the space inside the bag might be a lot bigger this is still a simple expanded bag.” he said as he swiftly and effortlessly took the bag and swung it over his shoulders. "It has no enchantment to reduce the weight, with your physical stats it would do you no good.” again I heard that same disappointment in his voice at the comment.

The next prey took a lot longer to track down. Whatever he had me chasing this time left far fainter and fewer tracks. A small while later I made it to the opening of a cave with four dire wolves in front of it. They were bigger than usual wolves by a foot but tended to travel in much smaller groups.

I drew back the bow and shot a shadow infused arrow to bring the fight from a four on one to only three. It was a good opening shot but they also reacted a lot faster than I had expected. Their levels were above ten, close to becoming monsters if I were to guess.

They moved to surround me but I managed to put a tree at my back and keep them at bay with the spear. A few cuts to the front legs was enough to keep them from closing in but not enough to put me on the offensive.

During all this time Hatchet sat on a tree branch observing me, he was clearly evaluating me, if only I could figure out why he was doing so now. He could have just asked me to show him what I could do with my mana if he wanted to get a good grasp on it, certainly would have given him more information than seeing it in action like this.

A quick application of earth through my feet tripped up two of the wolves right after I deflected the third. This gave me a good follow up to launch the spear and turn the fight into a two vs one. Sadly I had also lost my range advantage as I pulled out my axe and sword.

The following few exchanges went poorly for me, despite the week long practice against opponents with more physical strength than me that I got in the guard courtyard I had no experience facing such high statted wolves. While I managed to keep any major injury from occurring at all they left a few scratches on my forearms.

The battle went in my favor when one of the wolves managed to get a good bit onto my balde. Holding it with its mouth was a good move to pull me off balance and give his partner an open shot at me. What he didn’t count on was me infusing the blade with fire, he quickly let go with a wiper of anguish. With my balance regained I gave up my axe to fend off the attack and create an opening to embedded the sword in the other wolves head.

With only one of them left I pulled out my last two melee weapons. My shield and my hammer. The ensuing fight was a one sided stomp. Without any more allies all it took for me to bash the wolves head in was a well timed shield charge and earth manipulation to trip it before crushing its skull.

I was only just catching my breath when I heard a howl behind me. I looked back to see a monster wolf a foot taller than the ones I killed starting a charge towards me. I didn’t have time to shoot arrows at it at the speed it was moving so I tried creating a small ditch to trip it up.

For the first time since my battle with the boar when I first added mana to my combat repertoire I felt the wolves own earth mana work to counteract mine. It was doing something similar to what I did to speed myself up only it also reinforced the earth keeping me from changing the landscape.

With only my shield and hammer I went to my last resort, infusing my shield with a good amount of light mana. I started off the flashing pattern and readied my hammer, imbuing it with earth mana ready to bash the wolves head in.

My surprise was short lived as the wolf was unaffected by my light show. His paw made contact with my shield right before the mana ran out, luckily for me that meant that the shield had its full integrity and only launched me into the tree instead of both it and me being torn to shreds.

Pain erupted from my lower back where I made contact with the tree. I looked up in time to see the monster launch itself at me before Hatchet dropped down impaling his sword through the creature's head.

“What the hell were you doing at the end there? Hoping it will forgive you for killing its pack if you flash some colored light?” his voice was outraged.

“I thought it would disorient it, a rapid change in the bright color has that effect, I didn’t know wolves would be immune, it worked just fine with the lynxes near the city .” It had worked for me before with the cats so I didn’t see why it wouldn't this time.

“First of all there is a big difference between wolves and lynxes. Wolves are colorblind whereas lynxes are not. So all that fancy coloring didn’t do much of anything. Secondly, monsters have much faster mental reactions, you saw the speed it was charging you with. Even if this monster had been one that could interpret color, your little light trick wouldn’t have worked on it. Start up on your healing spell while I grab them then we’re heading back to the village.” he said as he started stuffing one wolf after the next in his backpack.

The trip to the village was still rather short and he made for us to stop right before we exited the forest.

“This is a good place for us to spar now.” He said as he dropped his backpack and motioned for me to attack him. “From today onwards we will finish all our hunts like this”

I went to charge after him with my blade, despite him being unarmed I was under no impression that I could actually hurt him as I was. What I didn’t expect was the beating I got in return. Every time he attacked he would point out an opening in my guard and land an openhanded slap against my torso. By the time he finished with me I was on 2/210 health.

“ We’ll get those physical stats of yours up to snuff in due time now go rest.” he said as he left, leaving me to hobble back toward my home a little confused.

Hatchet P.O.V

That god damn kid. He had so much talent and he wasted all on that silly mana. With the number of skills he had he should have been at least level seven but from his stats he put no more than two levels worth of them in his physical attributes. His way of using mana certainly had some advantages but if this was the level of output he got from what must be some decent investment I didn’t think it was worth it.

I took one final look towards the letter that arrived with the caravan that arrived yesterday. It had been a long while since I last heard from her so I picked up the letter and read it again.

Dear Hatchet,

I have heard that you have finally taken to rejoin the world from your isolation. It has gotten back to me that you even have taken on an apprentice. It's great to see you finally started to heal after all this time. I look forward to seeing you again and meeting the young lad if you ever pass through the capital.

Your friend ,

Luna.