Scattered shards of plant flesh cover the ground, doused in the lingering cold of magics yet to fade. The earth has been sundered by the titanic strikes of the now shattered beast, trees on either side of the clearing have been pushed aside, violently torn down, or scarred by the battle that just a short while ago raged.

“Think this’ll keep?” Eshya says, juggling a frozen chunk of flesh between her hands before just letting it fall and rubbing her cold hands together.

“It won’t.” Adler replies, “The ice is still supported by the mana from the spell, but that mana is quickly burning away. When it’s gone, the flesh will leak all its mana as quickly as that which was not frozen. Which is rather regrettable.”

“So, there’s nothing worth scavenging from this beast?” I ask again just to triple check with her, “It’s a little disappointing considering the effort we put into the fight.”

“Another reason our preferred battle method is preferable.” Adler says cheerily, “A well subdued beast can be kept, and executed where their parts can be put to best use. Many materials from this beast might have been useful if harvested immediately after it’s death.”

“Instead, it’s all going towards feeding me.” I declare happily, letting a few hundred more mana churn away in my chest. The familiar razor blades are a nice sensation when I’ve been too long without.

“Are you still having trouble getting past the liquid mana stage?” Eshya asks, coming over now that there’s nothing she can find to do. I thrust some spare mana into a berry and throw it into her mouth.

“Yeah, apparently my control over mana flow isn’t very good, especially when the mana density transitions between gaseous and liquid states. That and I have trouble keeping it attached to my flesh? Is that how you say it?”

“Close enough.” Eshya grunts, “You should meditate. Develop better control over your mana flows and invest it properly into your body.”

“I don’t have the time for meditation, but I have been trying to force the flow of mana into my brain and skin.” I say, still doing just that with the new mana flowing through me.

Eshya looks down at me with an expression filled with pity. She licks her lips, about to say something but pauses for a long while.

“Have you tried focusing on one thing at a time?” She asks.

“I… no?” I reply, suddenly realizing that I may have been making a mistake, “I did cut back to only skin and mind though. I was doing everything before then.”

Eshya sighs at me, and Vii laughs from the side lines.

“When training mana distribution through your body, it is best to focus on one region, or system at a time.” Adler explains in a lecturer’s tone. “For more complex systems it is often best to break them down further and get each part accustomed to dense mana before flooding the entire system.”

“Ah, why didn’t the mana form teacher tell me this?” I ask.

“She likely will next time you get a lesson.” Adler continues, “If I were to guess, she was trying not to overwhelm you with too much at once. I imagine that when developing your mana form from nothing it’s best to get used to directing mana loosely before ever trying to force quickened efficiency within your flesh.”

“Sounds reasonable, if it were anyone but me.” I reply, it does sound like a good enough excuse, even if it’s a bother to hear it.

“So, what are you going to focus on first?” Vii asks, fluttering over, stirring the shards and inciting scattered clinking. String a few frozen chunks together, and it would make for a rather nice sounding, if grotesque, wind chime.

“Mana senses.” I say without hesitating, “There’s too much that I don’t see and that I don’t quite get. Like, I can see the mana stirring when you cast magic, but otherwise it’s a little difficult to see the mana inside people. Is that normal? Also, I want to get to the point where I can actually read those damn tomes.”

“Only those who have mastered their mana senses are able to see clearly the mana moving inside the subtleties of a mana form inside of a person.” Alder says, “Though vague measures of a person, and active spells are not nearly so difficult.”

“So, it’s not just that I’m blind. That’s nice.”

“You’re still pretty blind though.” Eshya says with a laugh.

“Not completely blind,” I reply, taking off my glasses to clean them. “So long as I have my glasses, I see just… fine…”

Halfway through cleaning my glasses on my shirt, something that I’ve been repeatedly told not to do but I don’t see any fancy microfibre cloths around, a spark of realization hits me.

“Can magic fix my eyes?” I ask, blinking up at their slightly fuzzy forms around me.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Vii asks, hopping over glancing down at the glasses in my hands.

“I need to wear glasses,” I say putting them back on, and cleaning up the world around me, “I can’t see clearly otherwise.”

“Why didn’t you tell this to a healer?” Eshya asks, looking at me yet again like I’m an idiot.

“Hey, magics still kind of new to me. None of this is common sense.” I reply waving at the world around me, “That, and I kind of like my glasses.”

“I thought they were just weird fashion.” Vii says, bobbing her head around me, “To highlight your eyes. It works on you, so I never said anything.”

“Same.” Eshya admits, “I wasn’t about to criticize you for your style. Though if we’re talking style, I still think we need proper armour rather than dresses for this sort of thing.”

“Or armoured dresses at least.” I reply, feeling my head grow a little warm from how much mana is flooding through it now that I’ve pulled focus from everything else. Focusing on it right now with my currently overwhelming mana, it really feels like I’m making an impact on the organ. It’s like my mana senses are clearing even as I’m watching.

“Everything okay?” Vii asks quietly by my side.

“I mean, we’re all still alive and well. I have some more mana to chew on, and my mana senses are freaking amazing now, so yeah, I’m doing okay. I do miss Fluffy though.”

Vii laughs quietly, the sound not at all refined but it still warms my heart.

“I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but Eshya and I were talking, and we’re thinking of getting you a big fluffy teddy. Would that make you feel better?”

“Vii,” I say, turning to her, “I think I might love you.”

“Well, I do hope so,” She replies laughing quietly, “About that thing from earlier. My dangerous magic. Does it still bother you?”

“Of course, it does.” I reply, grabbing her close before she can take it the wrong way, “It’s something that could hurt you, and everyone I care about. Of course, it bothers me, but I trust you. You’ll come to me the moment there’s trouble, right?”

She nods vigorously, as she meets my eyes, hers flicking about nervously.

“Good. Then I’ll focus on the things I can do.” I reply, “For example, how long do you think it’ll be before Freid gets here? I thought he’d be here by now.”

“Maybe something is holding him up?” Vii asks.

“Guys!” Eshya shouts, “Beasts! I mean, collared beasts! The bad guys?! You get the picture.”

At her shout, we group up together, and I stabilise my mana form into something suitable for combat, pulling some attention away from my mana senses.

We stand together but not too close. Tactics class taught us the dangers of that well enough, but we do still stay close enough to support one another.

“Well, hello.” Vin says, the familiar foxen beast tamer striding out of the forest with a small army of her beasts. Clearly more than enough to deal with us, no matter how good of a fight we put up.

“It seems you’ve found quite the bounty here.” She says, looking over at the mana dense flesh of the beast that we’ve killed.

“It won’t last for long, we could share… Truce?” I suggest.

“I would, but we’re on something of a tight schedule. Did you come across any other beasts out here that we should know about, or that you’ll be mentioning to your teacher?” For some reason she looks between us and the old shrine behind us but doesn’t mention it directly.

“Nope.” I reply laxly, kicking up a few shards of icy flesh and keeping the majority of them between us and the foxen woman.

“Is that so?”

“Pretty much?” I reply.

“You didn’t come across a young, foxen boy?” She replies.

I chew on my lower lip in thought while watching the foxen beast tamer carefully, trying to figure her out. She stares back, the beasts by her side rather relaxed, but for some reason she doesn’t have them surround us as she probably should.

The others stand by my side leaving the decisions to me.

“I came across a strange pair of people out here.” I reply, “Would you happen to be familiar with a few people that live out here. They’re the quiet sort and get rather shy when people talk about them… or rub her tummy.”

The foxen woman sputters a moment, hearing the whispered words at the end with her sharp fox-like ears. I didn’t actually mean for her to hear that… perhaps I should be more mindful of the better senses of people out in the universe.

“Pair?” She asks after calming down.

“A young boy was with her. He seemed rather happy.” I say.

“I… see.” She says, looking down at her own hands with a sad smile. “He was braver than I was…”

“What was that?”

“I don’t think anyone else needs to know about these shy people living out here, wouldn’t you agree?” she asks.

“We get it.” Eshya says with a sigh, “Do we really need to talk like this? Everyone here is in on the secret, right?”

Even I jolt at her cutting into the conversation, but soon let out the laughter bubbling up inside at her reaction.

“Quite so, but I’m not sure there’s anything else we need to say, is there?” I ask Vin, who stares between us while shaking her head in amazement.

“I think the matter is settled, but there is another. I’m sorry about this, but I still have a task to do. This class is still going, and it’s my responsibility to capture you. You’ll be treated nicely if you just allow yourselves to be taken in.”

“Is that offer a part of the lesson?” I ask, with a laugh, as I stir the mana inside and prepare a blast of fire.

The foxen woman laughs, essentially admitting the fact.

I open fire, blasting at the ice between us with successive flame bursts before turning and running. The fire is enough to cause the ice to shatter, and thankfully creates enough of a distraction to cover our retreat. Though Eshya grumbles about it.

Vin doesn’t seem overeager in her pursuit of us, making nothing more than a token effort in chasing us.

“We’ll fight them later!” I shout to Eshya, who looks back at the enemy a little too eagerly.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We in fact do not fight them later.

We camp out under the stars again, hunt, cook, eat, sleep, and start moving again the day after. When the day gets to lunch time and we settle down to cook ourselves a meal, Freid finally finds us.

“Well done.” He says, “The exercise is now over, please follow us back to town.”

“Aren’t you supposed to force us to come back?” Eshya asks, “Where’s the fight?”

“You were never meant to fight anyone.” He says, glaring back at her, “Rather, this exercise was meant to be about survival. In the case of meeting a superior foe, that means escape. Something which I had hoped you might learn.”

Eshya quietly grumps all the way back to town where we meet again with the rest of the class. Most look the worse for wear, covered in dirt and bruises that look to be less from combat and more from tripping over in the forest. Though, there are a few exceptions in the sorry lot.

Alo, the plant girl stands clean and happy in the middle of the group, chatting with a few other students who seem far less eager. I exchanged a few messages with her over the course of the event, but it was never anything actually meaningful. She’s just the type to overshare, and without social media she just has to make do.

The old man, who lost the kid, is nowhere to be seen for which I’m a little glad. I’m still a little uncertain about the morals of the entire situation between him and the boy, and what other solutions might have been better for everyone. All I can say for sure, is that I’m glad that I didn’t interfere overmuch.

The boy deserves his own choices. We all do.

“I hope you learned exactly how weak you all are.” Freid starts his speech as such, not unexpectedly considering him.

“The wilds are not a comfortable place to live, you will constantly contend with the beasts that call it home and you must never allow yourself to feel save. You will struggle, and sometimes you will go days without food and without water. After this, I hope you will all take this class a little more seriously.

“I know that most of you were not paying attention last week, during our theory class. If you had been, you would have been more prepared. You wouldn’t have made such a pathetic showing today.”

I feel a little called out. I mean, I’m not pathetic so he’s not talking about me, but I did completely forget even going to his theory class last week.

“Now, onto the competition. Your performance throughout this week was being closely observed and based upon this, we have determined who has performed the most admirably, someone who should be looked up to.”

He stands at the front, “Vii Falnor, please step forwards.”

I didn’t know she had a last name.

“Vii employed a number of experimental tactics and team compositions during the battles earlier this week. She made the most of the opportunities available during this class, rather than just pressing her advantage, which would likely have won her more battles in the end.

“In wilderness survival class, she quickly ensured that the team had sufficient water, communicated clearly when she was unable to carry her weight in luggage, and worked hard in covering tracks and scouting for her group.

“You, Vii Falnor, will one day be an invaluable member of society. Please keep up the work.” Vii stands a little awkwardly beside the tall wolfman, not quite knowing what to do as she’s put up on a pedestal in front of us.

Eshya and I cheer for her as the rest of the class just stares in a daze. They seem too tired to really understand what’s going on.

At least Alo joins our small cheer team.

“With that, we’re heading back to the academy.” Freid says, cutting us off, “Make the most of your time there, and prepare for our next lessons properly.”

He let’s us gather our possessions, and has us return our survival gear, before heading out towards the port. I make sure that the non-magic, magic tome is still safe with me, alongside the crumpled remains of my pipe gun.

We don’t get the chance to say goodbye to Vin or any of her beasts, but I’m still intending on coming back to this world one day, so it’s not that big of an issue.

The foxen town is just the same as I remember it, the people gather and bow to us as we pass. They’re trying desperately to appeal to an alien culture for protection. They imitate the Unified States just in hope that they’ll be protected from the dangerous beasts, while they abandon those out there fighting for them.

I see pitiful men and women who have been supressed into believing that they can’t do anything to save themselves. I don’t know for sure whether this is an intentional effect of the Unified States doctrine, but it isn’t something that I want to be a part of.

The ship pops into existence and lowers to the landing as we gather in wait for it. I hear a notification come from the mark on the back of my hand. Another message, it’s not the first and even here I’ve been using my Skills to keep my relationships going well. I quickly look over the new message, expecting nothing more than the usual.

It’s from Nel.

There’s been an attack. I was injured, but I’m alright now. Be careful when you get back.

Gritting my teeth, I force a smile and turn to the other girls.

“It seems that some beast has hurt Nel. I hope you two are ready for hunt.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 712 units

~Mana distribution:

Catagory Current Max. Skin 0% 24% Muscle 0% 12% Mind 30% 30% Cardiovascular 0% 11% Misc. 0% 10% Efficiency 30% 79%

~Skills:

~Mana sense

-Mana drain touch

-Mana skin

-Mana shield.

-Mana surge strike

-Mana surge kick

-Grapple

-Flame burst

-Fireball

-Infused delayed casting

-Harsh petting

-Chaos dance

~Multi-mind messenger