'what the hell was that? why did it compel me? i wouldn't have dared to cross it either way. it felt so overwhelming in every sense of the word. a god? and how is it still sane if it was trapped here for more than a millennium? how does one even trap such a being? and wulfram managed? and is it true what it said about garuna? i mean i didn't want to release some massive evil on this world. seriously, how the hell did I just trust the first piece of jewelry I came across? if the being is right, i definitely fucked up. Big time. how did I miss the signs? were there any? i mean, he refused to tell me his history. and then there was his demanding behavior. but both can simply hint at an asshole. then again, it was weird how he simply shrugged off that his own apprentice was dead and instantly recruited me. but i can see a lot of things in hindsight. it doesn't matter if i was blind at the moment it happened. how can he even upset such a powerful being? because he trapped it? hopefully. and now i need to fear getting visited by a dragon. are they more powerful than this being? at least i didn't choose astral magic as my focus. what was even this advice from the being? forge my own path? in this realm? where i have limited food, am stuck in a valley that is supposedly swarmed by monsters in a few months and only go from crisis to crisis. yeah. own path. i just can't deal with this right now. i need sleep!'

Liz slowly trudged back to the stairs, totally spent from the simple conversation with the being. With slow steps she returned to the suite. The cats were closely following her, less affected by the mana that had assaulted them moments ago.

'How powerful must this being be that a simple conversation exhausts me so much?'

Liz's mind was still reeling from the encounter, causing her to perform her evening chores on autopilot. Even when she was lying in bed, did her mind not stray from the overwhelming experience.

Yet, within seconds of her head hitting the pillow was she out. It was a dreamless sleep, neither nightmares nor memories emerging.

The next day left little time to further contemplation. Overnight it had snowed again, covering the landscape in an even deeper layer of white dust. Liz had to spend every waking minute gathering resources if she wanted to have any chance of surviving the winter, which had almost fully arrived. While the fort was completely covered in snow, the valley was still clear of it, however this was possible.

Liz spent her day hunting more of the deer and gathering still hanging berries and wood. As a first course of action she felled two lone trees on the mountainside, which were quickly transformed into a primitive sled, allowing her to move up to half a dozen bodies or logs in one go. More if the cats were willing to use the rope harnesses she manufactured during the evening. She even went out into the valley twice that day.

The next days were spent similarly. With little noteworthy happenings.

Yet, one rather annoying affair was that she had to regularly change her hunting spots as the wolves found her trail after often only a few forays and ambushed her. She had learned this the hard way, when she had lost four kills to them and had to flee nearly a dozen of them on her way back. Even her flight was a near-miss, the cats with their shadow-teleport the only reason the wolves even fell behind in the ensuing chase.

The little time she had during the evenings was filled with dissecting the game of the day. At night, she would typically fall asleep instantly. It was a demanding workload. And her body just wasn't made out for it. But it also required little sleep to use the day fully, leaving Liz struggling to cope with the mental fatigue. Her only true way was meditating every free moment, normally while sitting high up in a tree.

This routine continued for just over a week, earning her quite the considerable food store. A whole hallway near the mage tower was also filled to the brim with logs of wood, to be used or turned into firewood. Unfortunately she hadn't found any more berries after the second day.

Camping in a tree continuously for more than five hours also brought her to the point of gaining

-- You have successfully learned the skill [Cold Tolerance] --

Cold Tolerance - lvl 1

Frostbite is no more. Your body feels comfortable at lower temperatures. Skill level decreases tolerable temperature

She even managed to level the skill twice more. It was only through this that she realized how dangerous her behavior must be. Afterwards Liz made a special effort to cloth herself warmly enough. It slightly decreased her mobility but after her trips it made her not feel like needing a few hours in front of the flames just to thaw.

She achieved several other gains as well, including another class level. This was also when she realized that she had unspent points from her previous level-up. She had promptly invested 5 points in Vitality, withholding one in case of an emergency. The automatically assigned points had been assigned to Dexterity, Perception, Wisdom and Intelligence, proving that Tamer really impacted the distribution.

-- [Arcane Blast] has reached level 7 --

-- [Meditation] has reached level 3 --

-- [Cold Tolerance] has reached level 2 --

-- [Cold Tolerance] has reached level 3 --

-- [Arcane Blast] has reached level 8 --

-- [Bond] has reached level 2 --

-- [Spell Channeling] has reached level 4 --

-- [Meditation] has reached level 4 --

-- [Arcane Mage] has reached level 17. 2 stats points distributed. 3 additional stat points awarded. --

-- Endurance has reached 21 --

On the eighth morning Liz was taking things a lot slower, as even after half a night of sleep, more than the days before, she still had to struggle to get out of bed. She felt sore all over and her head was pounding as if she had the best night-out of her life the day before, both sensation somehow not blocked by Pain Suppression.

Liz would have preferred to do another two trips to the valley, but had to relent to the warning signs her body was throwing her way. After all, if she overexerted herself to the point of breaking, she probably wouldn't be able to go out at all.

So she stayed until early afternoon, doing a recount of all in her storage and sharpening some of her dull blades. By her calculations, her food would now last for about three moons in rationed amounts, more if portioned even smaller. The cats would likely have no issue, as there was plenty of scraps. If the last days brought Liz to any realization, it was that she would be highly unlikely to find her calling as a butcher.

When she felt rested enough and with still some time before dusk, Liz set out to another trip into the valley. Her objective would be more meat, as there was enough wood, and it would be easier to log a few trees in the winter than hunting more game in even denser snow.

The snow had become a real trouble. Down in the valley it was still completely absent but on the mountainsides, just a few hundred meters away from clear meadows, it almost reached Liz's knees. Soggy boots had become a given to her by now. It didn't exactly help her travel speed either.

Already back in her routine, Liz made her way to one of the nearest hunting grounds in the valley. Like all the others it was a rather small clearing in the dense forest. A small brook crossed one end of the elongated clearing. Her look-out tree was located at the very end of it, opposite the water. The deer somehow tended to keep a closer look on their drinking water than on their rear. Most likely due to some horrible monsters living in the bigger lakes deeper into the valley.

Once Liz had realized their tactics and behaviors, it had become much easier to ambush them. Her tested method was to spread out the fast cats to direct the herds towards her position, before encircling up to four of the deer and taking them out one by one.

It was the same strategy she employed now, leaving the four cats in trees around the clearing while she climbed the tree with the best view of the forest edge.

To spend the time, Liz watched the various snowflakes tumble through the air. Only after half an hour did she realize that it was the first time she saw any snow in the valley.

'Shit, I guess it was really only a matter of time before the magically snow-free valley failed. So I probably only have a few days left to hunt. The more pressing it is that something shows up soon'

It took nearly three hours until prey finally showed up. It was another herd, about 15 animals strong. A typical size for their kind. There were almost always two particularly big ones, Liz never managed to catch them, and 10 to 14 smaller and possibly younger ones. The lead animals ranged in levels into the high twenties, while the rest were between level 16 to 20.

The cats had already taken to their positions. Liz jumped down to the ground in the cover of the tree and sneaked towards the water edge.

Before she could get into reach of the herd, she was thrown to the ground violently by something barreling into her side. Her shoulder hit a root hard, the throbbing pain quickly muted by her respective skill.

The jaw that afterwards enclosed her leg, revealed her assailant to be another wolf, shaking her leg, and growling around the blockage in its maw.

[Young Lian Wolf - lvl 28]

Too stunned to react accordingly, Liz just trashed on the ground in an effort to dislodge the jaw from her numb leg.

Not long after, she caught her senses and charged mana in her hand. The wolf was still determined to pull her leg. While it couldn't dislodge the limb from her body, its razor-sharp fangs were still dragged through her flesh, leaving deep gashes from which the blood flowed freely.

Liz felt her health quickly declining. It wouldn't take long and she would weaken. Fortunately, her Blast managed to hit the canine directly on its snout. Just as predicted it seemed to be a sensitive area, as the wolf released some pressure from her leg, leaving Liz to move her leg free, with a lot of skin ripped open by the sharp teeth. Her trousers were already completely trenched in her blood.

Before she could do anything else, another jaw enclosed her left arm, alerting her to another growling wolf.

With her arm arrested, Liz was unable to twist away, and the first wolf regained its grip on her leg, leaving Liz's actions for naught.

'Fuck. WHERE ARE THE CATS!?'

Both beasts started to shake her in their jaws, exerting a considerable amount of force on her limb joints. Liz was starting to panic, her blood loss through the torn artery in her leg too much to bear for much longer. She already felt the fog invading her mind.

Desperate, she used her remaining stat point to increase her still lacking Vitality. The small trickle of healing closed the artery torn open in her leg. Still the deep gashes in both arm and leg remained.

The wolves didn't stop dragging her across the floor and tearing into her flesh either. While even two of them weren't enough to whip her around, like they intended, their movements still dragged her across the hard floor and let their jaws dig deeper into her body. Luckily she felt none of it, letting her focus on defending herself.

Liz released a good amount of pent-up mana in the direction of the wounds. While it didn't really hit the wolves, leaving them near completely unharmed, it still loosened their grip and stopped their jerking for a moment. Before they could regain their senses, Liz scrambled to reach for a dagger with her right hand. Gaining a grip on one, she drew it and plunged it towards the wolf on her left arm.

Her awkward position on the ground, sandwiched between the two predators, let her miss. Most of her muscles lacking feedback, didn't help either. Stabbing again and again, she finally nicked the snout of her assailant.

With a yelp and growl it released her arm. Liz immediately spun away from the powerful maw, leaving her backpack between the teeth and her back. The wolf in her leg was not perturbed by her actions.

It still stood strong, trying to tear away parts of her flesh. Before it could succeed, Liz plunged her blade in the direction of its flesh. Her positioning caused her thrusts to only graze the hide of the beast, leaving gashes as deep as on her body.

Liz constantly channeled mana through the dagger into the exposed flesh of the monster. Her left arm simultaneously fumbled for a healing potion.

The second wolf regained its composure and tried to gain purchase on Liz's limbs again. To keep it from succeeding, Liz twisted her upper body every which way, her lower body still locked in position by the growling wolf. Her health was back down to a third, and Liz started to feel the effects again.

The wolf seemingly had no such problem, as despite the wounds adorning its body, it defiantly stared her in the eyes, growled, and never let go of her leg.

Although the second wolf made it harder, Liz succeeded in moving a vial of healing potion to her mouth. Spilling half of it, Liz gulped down the clear liquid while still cutting the wolf's hide into strips.

She never gained the same purchase she had on the Alpha in her first wolf battle. But her actions still showed results, the wolf's grip on her legs loosening slightly over the duration of her assault.

To her horror, however, Liz saw the first wounds on the wolf already beginning to heal.

'Oh shit, they can regenerate without potions!'

Redoubling her mana expenditure into the wounds, stopped the visible progress of the regenerating tissue. The second wolf seemed to have a similar skill, as the wound on its snout was missing when it emerged in Liz view again. She needed to move herself again to stop it from biting down on her arm.

By now the fight had sapped nearly all of Liz's stamina and additionally to the blood loss she felt the exhaustion creeping in. She needed to quickly end this or this would be her end. There was only one high-risk option left.

Exposing herself to the currently free wolf, Liz went directly for the wolf on her leg. While the second beast used the opening to regain its grip on her arm, Liz was able to plunge the dagger deep into the soft flesh of the flanks of her first opponent.

Ignoring the jaw clamping down on her arm, Liz channeled more and more mana into the monsters body. In just a fraction of the time it took to overwhelm the Alpha, the wolf went down with a whimper and finally released her leg.

While it wasn't completely out, it didn't immediately attack again. Liz left the dagger in the injured predator and drew another to confront the second one.

While she had finally defeated the first beast, it had secured its grip on her arm. Liz still felt none of it, but estimated the damage to be quite severe. She was already running on fumes in regard to mana, leaving the need to make calculated and devastating blows if she was to defeat the beast.

Still she was focused and didn't panic like she had done times before. This was life or death for both of them. And Liz intended to win.

With calculated strikes, she was able to slowly draw an amount of blood equal to her own from the beast. Yet, it acted just like the first, defiantly clamped down on her limb, ignoring all damage to its own body. The only indication it perceived the damage was the slight hitch in its continuous growling, whenever Liz struck.

When Liz was near completely exhausted, the blade finally managed to slip between the ribs. Immediately, Liz delivered the small amount of mana she still held directly into its flesh, near its heart. Afterwards Liz would have no more offensive power.

But fortunately the Blast finally did it for the monster. With a whimper it released her arm before dropping without moving another muscle.

Liz immediately went for the killing blow. With one precise strike, the first of wolves was no more. The second soon followed.

-- You have killed a [Young Lian Wolf - lvl 28] --

-- You have killed a [Young Lian Wolf - lvl 29] --

Panting from exertion, Liz dropped to the ground before draining both healing and replenishment potions from her backpack. A bit recovered, Liz searched the surroundings for the cats, having expected them to come to her aid.

The four of them were fighting three wolves twice their size. Already getting up again, Liz quickly scanned the surrounding trees for more of the canines. Fortunately there were no more.

Still the situation wasn't in the favor of Liz and the cats. The felines were already struggling with three of the beasts and advanced little in subduing the three of them. Not to mention that any moment more of beasts could emerge from the dark forest.

One quick look at the fight left Liz calling for retreat. She promptly grabbed her backpack and ran back towards the fort. She felt the cats heed her directions and disengage from the wolves. The following pursuit reminded Liz of just days ago. While she ran in a nearly straight line, the cats would regularly diverge, leading the wolves astray before returning through the shadows. But unlike the first chase, Liz had already started with weakened stamina.

Wheezing she reached the path to the fort, using her last reserves. The wolves had fallen back a hundred meters at this point. Unsure whether they would pursue her in the open, Liz left her sled in the meadow where she had stashed it before and ran up the mountain without stopping.

She soon entered the snow territory, ceasing her momentum near completely. Stumbling through the knee-high powder, Liz still tried to gain her distance.

Looking back, Liz realized that no wolves had followed past the forest edge. She immediately dropped into the snow once the fact became obvious, heavily breathing and her heart beating a mile a minute. It took nearly ten minutes for her heartbeat and breathing to slow down to normal levels.

'Holy hell. That came totally unexpected! And could have gone so wrong so easily!'

Before the cold could permeate her to the point of lethargy, Liz struggled to get up again and started inspecting the cats for injuries. There were a lot. Nothing immediately life-threatening but Liz still took care of all of them with the healing potions.

'I am way too dependent on them. I wouldn't survive a day without these potions. But I have no Arcane skill slot to accommodate a healing skill'

Not interested in dawdling for too long, Liz returned to her sled and started the trek back to the fortifications, without achieving what she had set out for, hunting more game. At least she gained some levels.

-- [Arcane Blast] has reached level 9 --

-- [Spell Channeling] has reached level 5 --

-- [Spell Channeling] has reached level 6 --

-- [Pain Suppression] has reached level 18 --

-- [Arcane Mage] has reached level 18. 2 stats points distributed. 3 additional stat points awarded. --

⋮

-- [Arcane Mage] has reached level 20. 2 stats points distributed. 3 additional stat points awarded. --

When she reached the warmth of the fort again, Liz really felt the exhaustion drag her down again.

'I should have really paced myself better over the last week. Today was really unfortunate. I would have probably been more attentive to wolves if I had enough sleep. And no new food today. Fuck. And soon the valley will be snowed in, reducing the still-active deer even further. Maybe two or three more trips over the next days and this will be it.'

Without new deer to dissect, Liz made herself comfortable in front of the flames, the cats arranged around and above her on the couches. It was time to apply her new stat points. Her chosen distribution was

Vitality: 17 (+4)

Endurance: 21 (+2)

Strength: 20 (+2)

Dexterity: 23 (+3)

Perception: 29 (+1)

Wisdom: 32 (+1)

Intelligence: 30 (+1)

She still held back one in case of another emergency, although the healing effect seemed to scale down with more Vitality. It would probably not do much good in the future.

'So I'm becoming even more dependent on the healing potions'

Actually spending the points brought back the rush of dopamine she had felt when leveling in the caverns.

'God, these stat points and their euphoric effects. It really feels like a drug. Seems like I simply need to spend more than one levels worth at the same time.'

Name: Elisabeth Larson

Class: Arcane Mage - lvl 20

Title: Deviant

Status:

Health: 252/252

Stamina: 250/253

Mana: 528/528

Vitality: 21

Endurance: 23

Strength: 22

Dexterity: 26

Perception: 30

Wisdom: 33

Intelligence: 31

Unassigned stat points: 1

Traits: Persevering, Arcane Enhanced

General skills:

Arcane Magic Immunity - lvl 3

Cold Tolerance - lvl 3

Compulsion Resistance - lvl 3

Eastern Plains Common - lvl 0

English - lvl 7

Health Drain Resistance - lvl 1

Identify - lvl 3

Lightning Resilience - lvl 1

Mathematics - lvl 1

Meditation - lvl 4

Pain Suppression - lvl 18

Stamina Drain Resistance - lvl 1

Class skills:

Arcane

Arcane Blast - lvl 9

Runic Intuition - lvl 3

Spell Channeling - lvl 6

Mana Draw - lvl 1

Tamer

Bond - lvl 2

- empty slot -

Her Vitality was closing in on pre-coma levels. What worried Liz was how disproportional her skills leveled. While Arcane Blast would soon reach double digits, Mana Draw was still stuck at lvl 1. She vowed to train the skills lacking behind, except potentially the Resistances and Tolerances. Only someone insane would voluntarily expose themselves to the dangers necessary to level these skills. Liz however expected some of them to level anyway, Cold and Pain in particular.