The pack of wolves surrounded the unsuspecting travellers that had unknowingly entered their territory, not bothering to hide their presence as they were the king in this area of the woods. Although these beasts are named wolves, they made the wolves from Kyros’s old home ‘Earth’ look like domesticated dogs. They were nearing 1.6m in height and weighed a monstrous amount of 200kgs, all lean muscle that held a terrifying amount of power.

“Just 12 of them. These beasts think too little of us.” Gerald said as he drew his sword from his waist, eager to battle the wolves. Birch silent as usual, drew an arrow and readied his bow for the upcoming battle.

Gerald faced the direction with the most wolves, 5 of them to be exact, and Birch had claimed the direction with 3 of the wolves. That left Kyros to guard the rear, where four of the wolves had stalked up. Kyros hadn’t made a move to draw any weapons, opting to stand calmly as the wolves slowly crept forward.

The wolves were creatures of instinct and knew immediately that their prey had suddenly became threats. They bared their fangs and let out vicious growls, saliva dripping from their jaws. The sight was enough to instil fear on any untrained warrior. Unfortunately for the wolves, two of their prey were guards who had faced worse and Kyros had already faced numerous beasts the past week.

Gerald who had taken the position of the leader as the group had given Birch the nod, who responded by releasing the arrow he had readied into one of the wolves eyes, killing it instantly. As soon as the arrow was released, the wolves unanimously pounced towards their prey, letting out vicious snarls.

Birch easily rolled out of the way, while drawing another arrow mid roll and releasing it into another wolfs throat. Gerald also easily dispatched the wolves, his blade flashing across their bodies and throat.

Kyros still hadn’t moved from his position even as the wolves were pouncing on him. Once the four wolves were close enough to his liking, he raised his hand and shot out the fireball that he had readied from the start. The fireball was nearly two times as large as the one he had released in the mines, and far hotter.

The fireball which was nearly 2 metres in diameter, shot into the four wolves which had been near each other. The wolves were sent hurdling metres into trees, their bodies alit. They had instantly died.

+2450 EXP Fireball has levelled up to Class 1 – level 6

Kyros turned around to see if the other two needed a hand, he wasn’t surprised to see the ground littered with wolf carcases, some with arrows protruding and others with long bloody gashes along their bodies. Kyros was positive that he was more powerful than either of his two companions, however, if it came to a fight he wasn’t sure he’d win. They had one thing over him, experience.

He had learned how valuable that was when Kyros had let his guard down against an earlier pack of wolves, only coming out uninjured due to Birch’s arrow hitting the wolf that was about to strike his back.

“Ah no matter how many times I see it, it’s still impossible to believe that the Mervis family had a magician working for them as a slave…” Gerald said after witnessing Kyros’s spell.

“I’m not a mage yet… I just learned a few things from master. Anyway, it’s you two who are pulling most the weight.” Kyros replied humbly. The way he saw it, yeah he might have a lot of destructive power, but he wasn’t as capable as either of his two companions.

“Lad, don’t underestimate your power. Birch and I may be killing more efficiently then you right now, but if we run into a beast that’s hide is too thick, we’d be relying on you.” Gerald gave Kyros a pat on the shoulder as he walked past him, finished with what he had to say.

“He’s right. Your potential for pure destructive power is… frightening.” Birch suddenly said, causing Kyros a slight shock that the usual quiet man spoke.

“Yeah I know mages are mighty, I just want to start pulling my weight.” This was especially true the first few encounters, where he’d only hand a single beast at a time.

Birch didn’t care for his reply though, as he walked off to dissect the wolves and collect loot. Kyros had long gotten use to Birch’s behaviour, in fact he liked it as he wasn’t very talkative himself. Although ever since he had arrived in this new life, Kyros had been starting to open up more and more.

Kyros walked over and helped dissect the wolves as well, seeing as though he had nothing else to do. He collected the teeth, fur, and cuts of meat from the wolves.

The three of them finished collecting their loot, placing it into the wagon, they got back on their way, while the sun was still up. The three of them would take watches on who had to be on lookout while the other two got to relax in the wagon. It was Gerald’s watch, so Kyros and Birch sat in the back. Birch had closed his eyes immediately and drifted off to sleep, leaving Kyros to his thoughts.

Kyros was salting the wolf meat they had just collected and hanging it out, to make jerky. They had passed through so small villages where they had traded meat for spices and salt.

Kyros had been disappointed on seeing his first village though, with all the fantasy and magic of this world, he assumed the village would have been exciting. However, all that he saw were men and woman struggling to find food to stay alive, sheltering themselves in wooden and clay houses. He had figured being a slave was the worse it could be, but those villagers didn’t have it much better aside from the freedom.

The worse thing was that there was nothing that Kyros could have done about it, how was he going to accommodate 100 people when he himself didn’t even have place to call home. With Gerald’s agreement, the best he could do was leave as much meat as they could, which had brought many tears and a lot of cheers from the villagers.

After they had left, Kyros had started to question Gerald on what the kingdoms living conditions were like, having realised that he knew nothing about the kingdom he currently lived in. Gerald loved to talk, so he happily chatted with Kyros about some the details about the kingdom.

The kingdom wasn’t that different from what he imagined a kingdom would be. There was a clear set of social classes, ranging from the peasants he had already seen to the nobles who ran the country. He also found out there was a royal family, the Callux family, of which the kingdom was named. However, it was common knowledge they had long been made into figureheads by the 12 great families who truly ran the kingdom.

Also he now knows that his located in the far north of the kingdom, and that his destination is in the east. Gerald approximated that it’d take around 2 months of travel until they reached the Nerva family’s main headquarters. However, there were a few large cities that’d they were to stop at during the trip, the first only being a few days away.

After finishing off hanging the jerky out, Kyros started the routine he was following the past few days to ease the boredom of travel. First he’d sit on the edge of the wagon, and shoot fireballs off the end, levelling up his skill. Once his mana started to run low and he felt dizzy, he’d shuffle back into the safety of the wagon and mediate. After mediating he’d usually relax by crafting a few arrows using sticks as the shaft, the massive wolf fangs as the head and feathers he collected from birds that Birch had shot down.

The crafting wasn’t training but a hobby to him, as he couldn’t spend the whole day training. He felt the process of making the arrows soothed him and made him train even more effectively. Also Birch had started the use the arrows he made. At first, Birch wouldn’t even give them a second glance. But now that his crafting is level 7, the arrows he made had passed Birch’s standard.

So he’d repeat this cycle endlessly, even when he was on watch, stopping only when he needed to sleep or eat. At first Birch and Gerald gave him weird looks when they saw him shooting fireballs into the sky. Gerald had finally outright asked him what he was doing, but Kyros just responded by telling them it was mages training, which wasn’t necessarily a lie. It’s wasn’t how normal mages trained, but it was how he trained.

The following days were spent training, and dealing with beast encounters along the way. Although the most threatening beasts they came across were the wolves which were also the most common. Kyros enjoyed it though because he could visibly see the effects the training was having on his magic.

It was Kyros’s turn to be on watch, so he sat on the front of the wagon and continued his training, using his perception skill to keep an eye out for any sign of hostility. He was training more vigorously then usual, because both fireball and crafting mastery had reached level 10 and were getting close to hitting the next stage. He was excited for his crafting, but he was mainly focused on his fireball skill.

He wasn’t an idiot, he could guess that when the spell levelled up once more, it’d move up to a class 2 spell. He was excited to see what changes would occur to spell once that happened.

As he was mediating, waiting for his mana to replenish, he could hear a faint sound. Focusing a bit more he could make out that someone in the distance was shouting, but he wasn’t able to make out the words. The shout was coming from the direction he was heading, so he stayed at full alert, reading to warn his two companions who were most likely sleeping in the back.

“run!” Kyros could barely make out the word run. He guessed that there must be someone in trouble in the distance, most likely being attacked by wolves.

“Someone, help! Please!” This time the shout was audible, Kyros could hear the distress in it. After a few seconds of hesitation, he made his mind up.

“Gerald! Birch!” He shouted into the back.

“What is it?! Are we under attack?” Gerald almost instantly rushed out, sword in hand.

“No. Someone’s in distress and needs help. I’m going to go see if I can help, can you watch over the wagon?” Kyros couldn’t turn a deaf ear to someone’s cries for help.

“Ah lad, you can’t be too soft-hearted, sometimes you need to let nature run its course.” Gerald tried to dissuade him. Gerald was an ex guard leader, he was use to making tough decisions.

“I know you’re right. Logically it makes sense not to. However, something tells me I have to.” Kyros not wanting to be dissuaded, runs off In the direction of the cries for help.

*sigh* “You better follow him.” Gerald said with a sigh.

“I know.” Birch had already intended to, however, he followed at a distance. He had his own intentions rather than going to help some random people.

Kyros had no clue that he was being followed, he thought he was alone. If he had used his perception skill, he’d be able to find Birch, however, he was in too much of a rush and forgot to use it to check his surroundings.

The cries were getting louder and louder, until Kyros could see the origin of the shouts. Ahead of him was a massive clearing in the forest, dozens of trees had been snapped at the base and fallen over. Following the shouts, he could see a young man in his twenties dressed in a thick leather armour. Beside him was a female who matched him in age, she wore a similar armour but obviously made for a females figure as it accounted for certain body proportions.

Cuts and abrasions covered their body where the armour didn’t protect, they had looks of absolute terror on their faces as they ran in Kyros’s direction. Behind them, was a massive gorilla which seemed to have been made from stone, the cause for the surrounding destruction. It stood a massive 6m tall and would easily weigh over 2ton. Kyros couldn’t help but be fascinated with the creature.

How can something made of stone be alive?

Although Kyros didn’t have the time to ponder on an answer, because the two had seen Kyros and started to run towards him.

“You have to run!” The young man shouted towards Kyros, seeming to worry for his safety. The girl beside him just ran with tears in her eyes, unable to shout anything coherent. Noticing Kyros hadn’t started running, the young man bit his lip and resolved himself.

“Please friend. Take her with you and run. I’ll hold it back. Now go!” He held his sword as he faced the massive oncoming stone gorilla, although Kyros could see the mans hands were shaking in terror.

“No! I won’t leave you!” The girl latched onto the mans arm, refusing to be shacked off.

“Damnit Jean, we don’t have time for this!” He shouted in anger, but there was also a sense of relief to his voice, happy that she hadn’t just ran off not caring about him.

The girl, Jean, went to retort when a bright light suddenly flashed over her head, bringing a great wave of heat with it.

“Wha…t?” The man confusedly said as he witnessed the ball of fire crash into the stone gorilla in the distance.

However, the gorilla just let out a roar filled with rage as it shook off the fireball and started to charge faster. The man realising what’s going on quickly turned to Kyros.

“You’re a mage! Quick, use another element apart from fire! The stone has high resistance to the fire!” The man shouted towards Kyros.

“… That’s the only spell I know.” Kyros said, somewhat awkwardly.

The man and female just looked at Kyros in amazement. It wasn’t unusual for a magician to only have one element affinity, but they’d have multiple spells. Kyros could see the hint of disappointment in their eyes, and couldn’t blame them. He had given them a sense of hope to only rip it away in front of them. Of course they’d be disappointed.

“You two, start running. I might not be able to kill it, but I can hold it back for a while.” Kyros figured he should at least be able to draw the gorillas attention. Not waiting around to hear those two protest, he started to circle around the gorilla. The gorilla had immediately forgotten about the other two, and chased Kyros, knowing it was him that had shot the fireball at it.

Kyros continued to circle around it, dodging its strikes and reply with a fireball towards it. He was anxious at first, but realised the beast was terrifyingly powerful, but also really slow. Kyros had already made sure the man and girl had left, so he figured he’d distract it for a little bit longer to give them time to run, and then he’d leave.

So for the next couple of minutes, Kyros would dodge the gorillas strike, cast a fireball and then run around the beast, doing it all over again. He started to relax, why would he fear something that couldn’t hit him?

A few more fireball strikes and he finally decided that was enough time for those two to run. He was starting to get tired from the lack of mana, so he cast one last fireball and turned to leave. However, when he dodged he was met with a giant rock fist this time. The gorilla was a slow beast, but even it would learn if given enough time, which Kyros had generously done.

-380hp

Kyros was sent flying, smashing through a tree trunk, causing the tree to collapse almost on top of him.

-260hp

Luckily the tree had missed him narrowly, but he was still in a terrible state. Kyros coughed up bloody, the cough causing agony in his body. He could tell a few of his ribs were broken, and most likely suffering from internal bleeding.

Fuck, I got careless. Such a stupid mistake! Kyros berated himself.

He could feel the tremors in the ground as the stone gorilla neared towards him.

Shit! I refuse to die to some fucking stone for brain ape! Kyros angrily resolved himself. Crawling up to a tree stump, he pulled himself up and leaned against the stump, groaning in agony. He looked up at the gorilla which was angrily charging towards him. The strike had sent Kyros tumbling over 100 metres, so the gorilla was still a little way off.

Kyros aimed and shot most likely his last fireball, as his mana was too low at this point. The fireball flew off and resulted in the same as every other fireball, the beast just shook off, growing angrier.

Congratulations! Fireball has reached max level! The class 2 spell Firebolt has been created using your vast knowledge of Fireball as the base.

Skill Name:

Skill Rank:

Skill Level:

Skill Experience:

Firebolt

Class 2

1

00.00%

The evolved version of the class 1 spell, Fireball. Compacting the size of Fireball into a smaller bolt while using more power, has created a vastly hotter and more destructive spell.

Fuck, why couldn’t this have happened earlier! Kyros didn’t have the luxury of being happy about his new skill.

Kyros opened his status screen to see what he was working with.

Status Screen

Name:

Kyros

Level:

40

Race:

High Elf

Mana:

32/930

Health:

370/810

Stamina

3400/840

Titles:

None

Fuck! That’s not enough to even cast a fireball! Fuck! This stupid fucking gorilla, I swear after this I will slaughter your kind on sight! Kyros decided to make a last ditch plan.

He closed his eyes and focused on everything he had, hopefully making this 32 mana worth something. He felt the mana rush towards his hand as he chanted the spell in his mind, he felt his body go weak, barely holding on. However, he ignored it and continued to draw more mana, making sure he had done everything he could have after this was over.

Barely able to stand, Kyros decided he had drawn everything he possibly could. He felt the vast amount of power in his hand, he finished his chant and he released.

Faintly opening his eyes, his eyes could barely follow the bolt of fire that shot out and through the gorilla. The bolt had burned a 1m diameter hole in the middle of the gorilla. The gorilla was launched off its feet by the power of the collision, sending it onto its back, where it’d never move from again.

Overdrawn mana! Proceeding into unconscious state.

Kyros had failed to see that far ahead though, he had already passed out.