You have killed a level thirty-nine-night raven. You receive bonus experience for killing a being above your tier. You have gained 39,630 (3963) experience.

Congratulations! You have reached level forty-six.

Zane took a deep breath as he felt energy surge through him. A few seconds later he felt warmth surge through his body and he knew his bloodline activated. However, he wasn’t happy. Zane wanted his Basic War Hammer Mastery skill to reach the level fifty, but it stopped at level forty-nine. Feeling that he was just a tiny bit away from reaching the next level Zane decide to sit down and use Meditation.

Skill: Meditation

Level: 36 53%

Tier: 0

Effect: Closes the five senses while enhancing the sixth. Improves sensitivity, recovery and control of mana and stamina. Recovery increases by 9% in general and 90% while meditating.

Special Effect: Sixth sense vision

Cost: none

Entering Meditation while he was surrounded by fresh corpses and sitting in front of a valuable material was dangerous. However, Zane didn’t consider his actions to be foolish. The special effect of his meditation skill let him observe the world the same way he would with his five senses active through his sixth sense. The only difference was the range he was able to observe. In addition to his skill, Zane was trained to sense incoming danger in a meditative state. If an enemy approached, he would be able to quickly react. In fact, having another enemy would be beneficial for him.

The time Zane spent meditating was brief. He only started to visualize the fight for a few moments before he sensed something approaching him. It didn’t enter the range of his sixth sense yet, but he wasn’t going to sit and wait until it did. The moment Zane stood up he heard a playful voice.

“Ah, No way!” Luna shouted. “How did he sense me?”

“I told you it was useless,” Lana coldly replied.

“It’s good to see you two,” Zane said. “Do you mind protecting me while I meditate? I’ll do my best to be quick.”

“Leave it to us.” Luna confidently patted his chest.

Zane smiled and thanked them before he sat back down. With people to protect him he could place his entire focus on visualizing the fight and his usage of the Basic War Hammer skill. Zane was immersed in his own mind and only woke up when he received a system message.

Congratulations! You have completed the Basic War Hammer Mastery Skill Ⅱ class quest.

Quest: Basic War Hammer Mastery Ⅱ

Description: Every skill is capable of improving the ability and foundation of the user. Explore and level up the Basic Shield Mastery skill.

Quest Objective: Reach level 50 in the Basic War Hammer Mastery skill

Quest Reward: 10 class points and 1,000 exp.

Quest Failure: Failure to reach level 50 in the Basic War Hammer Mastery skill.

Failure Penalty: None

After Zane received the system message, he started choosing his second special effect. It didn’t take long for Zane to make his decision. The special effect he chose allowed Zane to spend stamina to increase the weight of the head of his war hammer. This complimented well with the first special effect that boosted the attack damage of his weapon by twenty percent.

Skill: Basic War Hammer Mastery

Level: 50, MAX%

Tier: 0

Effect: Increases the users physical attack damage when wielding a war hammer. Damage 25 + Str/3

Special effect (1): More power

Special effect (2): More weight

Cost: None

Excitement surged through Zane as he looked at his skill. He finally completed all the necessary requirements. Zane stood up and happily greeted Luna and Lana. He explained what happened during the battle and why he wanted to meditate while he moved through the battlefield. Zane made sure he collected all of his kill and obtain the violet mana fruit. Once he was done Luna and Lana agreed to return to the shelter with him.

The trip back was uneventful. The group traveled on the tree branches and avoided unnecessary battles. During the trip back Lana was silent while Luan and Zane spoke with each other. Over the past few days Zane was surprised to find out that Luna was a lot more talkative than Lana. Usually, Lana would speak while Luna remained silent. However, Luna began to speak a lot more over the past few days.

While they ran on the tree branches Luna excitedly spoke about what she experienced in the forest. The things she liked about the forest, the things she disliked and many other things. Zane spoke less and listened more. He found Luna’s retelling of her experiences entertaining, and he knew that she wouldn’t feel comfortable speaking when they arrived at the shelter.

“To tell you the truth, sometimes I go for a run in the forest with Lana during the day. There are a lot of interesting and tasty items to see during the day. We usually try to run as far as possible. The further away we are the more likely we are to find good items. Sister said that the system created these items for people with the walker class. They are hard to get to but it always worth the effort. We see interesting items at night too. But the places we have to go to are usually smelly, dirty or dangerous. But it’s worth it to see all the interesting and tasty items. Oh, sister mentioned these items before. They’re the ones we used to boost our stats. Do you remember? We found fruits, dust, clouds, rocks, dirt, leaves, grass…”

Mana Treasures. Gifts of the World. Precious Resources. There are many names for the resources Luna was talking about. Teacher Isabelle tended to call them Mana Treasures, so Zane did to. When Luna and Lana found these items, they offered to share them with the group. However, the group declined. Luna and Lana usually found one or two Mana Treasures. Each item they found was at tier zero, and would only increase a single stat by one point, and could only be consumed once. There were ways to increase the effect and the number of times it could be consumed but it couldn’t be done at the starting village.

“We’ve arrived at the shelter,” Lana said.

Luna immediately faced forward and stopped talking. Zane was amazed at how quickly she could go from very chatty to completely silent. The three of them carefully slid down the trunk of a tree and landed on the ground. The sound of their feet hitting the ground drew the attention of many people.

The ground area where they built their shelter had gained a lot of people over the past few days. It started when Zane told Brad the reason why they didn’t encounter any mana creatures in this area. Brad immediately suggested that they spread the information. He made a sign to let people know that there were areas in the forest that mana creatures were less likely to visit and told them how to recognize those places. This resulted in over a hundred people arriving at the area by their shelter.

A few people looked at the trio as they walked by. There were multiple tents and shelters created from leaves and branches littered around the area. Most of the tents were around the pond and the rest were spread throughout the rest of the area.

Most of the tents and shelters were empty. Some of the people were exploring the forest and other were gathered in small groups throughout the area. Zane saw groups of people talking, eating and sparing as he walked toward the tree, they built their shelter on. At the base Zane saw Sophie and the others sitting with new and familiar faces.

“Welcome back.” Jason waved as they walked up.

“Anything exciting happened?” Sophie asked.

“Fought a lot more tonight, but it was only mana creatures,” Zane replied.

“Nothing special,” Lana answered.

“You came at a good time,” Sophie said. “We were about to tell them the story of The Three Children of Fate.”

The Three Children of Fate was a story about three paths to greatness. A person could take the path of the brilliant mages, the powerful kings or the fearless heroes. There were many ways to tell the story, but each version focused on two necessary characteristics for each path. A mage needed to be talented and work hard to understand magic. A king needed to be talented and face many dangers on the path to the throne. The hero needed to work hard and face many dangers to become strong enough to defeat evil threats.

“I’ll pass,” Zane said. “I plan to challenge a lot of people tomorrow and I expect to receive one or two challenges from someone.”

“Who are you fighting? And why are you fighting them?”

Zane started explaining the challenger and champion quest to Sophie and the others. Tomorrow would be the tenth day Zane went unchallenged as a champion. He would be able to move up a bracket and earn 100,000 village points if nobody challenged him. If someone did challenge him and defeated him, he would get nothing. Other than receiving challenges Zane planned to issue a few of his own. He would be focusing on people who were on their tenth day of being a champion like him.

“I forgot about that,” Shane said.

“Me too,” Brad added “Do you think I will get challenged?”

“You don’t have to worry,” Zane replied. “You entered the rankings two days after us. It’s unlikely for someone to challenge you tomorrow. But it’s not impossible. I suggest you prepare for someone to challenge you tomorrow to be safe.”

After saying goodnight to everyone Zane ran up the tree. It was easy to do with his current dexterity stat. Once Zane entered the shelter, he saw twelve wooden chairs surrounding a rectangular wooden table. Zane moved around them and walked through a door that led to a horizontal hallway. Zane walked through the door immediately in front of him and entered what he temporarily called his room.

Zane took off his clock and laid down on the bedding in the ground. He tried to go to sleep but his mind wouldn’t relax. He kept thinking and rethinking the fusion of his nine skills. He planned out his choices and Teacher Isabelle had verified it, but he still had doubts. The tier one skill he was trying to learn wasn’t a new skill or a skill he created. However, with the approval of Teacher, Zane decided to change the approach people took when they learned this skill. Failure wouldn’t cause death or injury, but it would deal a significant mental blow to Zane’s confidence. Success meant he made the correct decision about his path while failure meant he made the wrong decision and every other decision he made could have been wrong as well. So, Zane doubted himself, and continued to doubt himself as he drifted in to slumber.