I hum a random tune while walking to distract myself from the almost jog pace at what we are going. Lately, our daily walks have increased to a higher pace.

I took out of my backpack a fruit and start eating it. I have accumulated a fair amount of them and now I know how to identify the comestible ones from the poisonous ones. I just need to show it to the green wolf, Vilkas, as I named her, I haven't really checked but I think that she is a female. I have been following her around like a chick and mother hen and have been learning a lot from the Great Wild's flora.

Of course, all that I can decipher from her behavior.

However, I was amazed when I realized that the trees around here tend to hide their fruits. Some are well hidden among the leaves, others are inside the bark of the tree itself and you even need to break it to get them.

Now I am more accustomed to climb and walk through the forest. I have adapted very quickly as I needed to climb some trees to collect fruits. Even though I lost my shoes with so much mistreatment. Doesn't matter, my feet are tough so it's not a real problem.

Since my first day as a member, I suppose, of the creatures' tribe, two weeks have passed. Life is hard but I still linger around with all my energy.

There have been more one to one fights, the opponents not as dangerous as the one on the first day but still not foes whom I could easily defeat alone.

These spars aren't uncommon and from what I have gathered so far they don't occur when the opponents are two or more, the creatures avoid fights against numbers but if an encounter with numerous enemies evolves into a fight then it becomes something akin to a massacre. The creatures don't mind attacking from every flank too, even from above.

Also, I finally named the creatures, from now on they are the Mingan. I still don't get used to calling them like that, though.

At first, I thought that we only walked randomly but then I noticed that we tend to avoid some places or hills, I don't know why but one can infer. And regarding this, today my mood is somewhat better than mos-

Something burst out of the ground a few meters ahead of me.

It's big. It envelops a creature just after biting it with its humongous head and teeth like spikes. It is green and its arms are like vines, it must be something like a plant monster.

However, without even thinking, the moment it appeared my right hand was already open in its direction.

Gale.

Dust is raised. Leaves are shoot flying. Pebbles rolls away.

Everything ahead of me is pushed back by a strong mass of wind, the monster loses its balance and forgets to bite the creature to death for a moment.

A second later an Earth Lance pierces the monster's head and it grunts in pain. My attacks didn't manage to free the creature or neither kill the monster but bought enough time for the other creatures to act.

Immediately, two of them charge at the plant monster. And the monster dies.

In no time it's shredded to pieces and tore apart. It explodes. A green liquid-like bloodstain everywhere nearby. It doesn't seem to be corrosive or poisonous but still, I avoided the blast as soon as it happened.

The creature was freed of his restraints in the explosion. I recognize the creature as Dusk Walker, a Mingan that I named because he always goes away to adventure in the woods when the sky starts to get orange. I have already named some others. Dusk is injured but not very heavily, just some perforations in his legs and left side.

I let go of a breath I was holding. He will recover. I am sure that his regenerative abilities can put him in good health in no time. In fact, I think that their special saliva can heal everything short of amputations or death with due time. Such a powerful feature they have.

We start walking again, it would be dangerous to stay long in one place so narrow, fighting sounds tend to attract undesirable company. Dusk is carried on the back of another creature for the time being until we find a good place to rest.

Truth be told I just can thank my luck that it wasn't me the target of the ambush, maybe because I don't have that much meat.

I was quick to react this time. It wasn't like this before, as this one is not the first time we were ambushed, it's the third. I have been warier at all moments since then. Fortunately, there haven't been causalities in these types of attacks so far. Although we have sustained one in another type of attack. A night raid. Reminds me of the past, a not very far past.

That day was tiring. After the darkening of the sky and finding a good place to rest I was so exhausted that I remember falling asleep a little while after lying down.

After some time I suddenly opened my eyes, fully awake. My body felt heavy and was completely soaked in sweat. My hair stood on end. I couldn't see anything apart from the darkness of the night as moonlight was nowhere to be found.

I could sense movement all around me, as if the creatures were also awakening, preparing for something.

I knew it. Something was wrong. My guts told me and so the creatures' behavior. I lifted my right hand and instant-casted a spell. I remember that I squinted, trying to half-protect my eyes of what was to come.

Mage Light

The Mingan weren't surprised by my spell, as I have used this one and summoning in their presence one time before so when I needed to use these spells in an emergency I wouldn't startle them.

For a second, I couldn't see anything, the bright light banished all darkness away. At the same time, I heard animals hissing in the distance. Then, my eyes adjusted and I could see what was wrong.

Thanks to the orb of light that was floating above me I could see some monsters that were taken away from the cover of darkness. They were on the edge of the clearing, about twenty meters away from us. At first, there were only a few of them but those had their eyes closed, these were the ones that were looking in my direction when my spell activated and thus, blinded them.

Then, there was mayhem. The monsters left the edge of the clearing and the creatures rushed forward to meet them. Dozens of monsters appeared from their hiding places too. The clash between them was brutal.

The monsters had numerical superiority but the tide of the battle went clearly on the creatures' side since the beginning, as the monsters were slaughtered mercilessly, not without injuring their foes, of course.

That left me a moment to take on the monsters' features. They were almost as tall as me. Majorly covered in black scales and white ones in other places. Their tails were as long as their bodies and their legs were weirdly getting out of their sides. They had three tongues. Their jaws were... In the wrong way, let's say, their jaws didn't snap vertically but horizontally. However, their most outstanding attribute was without any doubt their horrendous breath.

Once they started hissing at the top of their lungs, the smell almost made me lost the grasp in the Magelight spell I was still holding. Luckily for me at the time, that didn't seem to be an ability of theirs, they just smelled bad.

I started channeling two Earth Lances too.

The fight erupted everywhere but a clear line between the creatures and the monsters was drawn. I noticed one of the creatures going too deep into the monsters' side. It was a mistake. Monsters that were still hidden rushed from the edge of the forest to attack it.

They caught it fast. One of them bit a leg firmly between its jaws, then it twisted and spun its upper body, ripping apart the leg with the movement. The creature's howls were heard just for a moment before it died shortly after.

The creatures were immediately enraged, but they didn't get reckless. They started to kill faster. The monsters' pieces were sent flying everywhere. A carnage. The monsters tried to retreat a second after that, only a few managed.

I suppose that some of the biggest creatures in the group weren't satisfied with this because quickly after the monsters' retreat they started to chase them through the forest, out of my sight.

I wasn't attacked that night. Maybe I wasn't considered that big of a threat by the monsters and I was far from the edge too.

I remember that all devolved to an eerie silence in just a few seconds. It was broken when the creatures got near the corpse of their fallen kin. The youngest ones were whimpering, mourning their fallen friend.

Sometime later, those who left to chase the monsters came back, they had only minor injuries. That was a long night. Nobody slept. At some point, the creatures started digging and then introduced the dead body in the hole. After that, we started to walk again and ended sleeping for a couple of hours during the day.

The next day all was back to normal, just that the creatures left the group to adventure in the woods less often and when a fight happened it was ended quickly.

By now everything is normal again, just like in the beginning. The inhabitants of this place are accustomed to death.

All the time that I have been here I have started to notice that we just don't wander without reason or rhyme. The leader is often scratching trees, likely as a way of orientation and we tend to avoid places with a higher mana concentration than the normal one inside the forest. Some places around here are especially thick with mana, so much that I can sense it without even trying.

Out of the Great Wild, to sense the mana in the environment you need to get into the state of attunement. There, when in the state of attunement I was able to only sense the immediate mana next to my body. Here, I can sense the same, without even entering attunement.

Put in simple words, the grade of mana density in this place is mind-blowing. And not even mentioning those areas we avoid, those must be dangerous, though.

After a ten minutes walk the leader decides to stop in a clearing. It considers the place good to rest. Now that I think about it, this was what I was thinking just before the plant-monster attacked us.

My mood was better than normal because today we stop walking for a few days. I think that I already figured out part of the creatures' transportation habits. I am fairly confident in my deduction, even if I have only experienced the cycle once.

The cycle I am thinking about is a walk of five days, then a stop to rest five days more. And then it starts again. A ten days cycle. Very simple.

These stops to rest, like the one just now, forces us to make a sort of temporal home, or base. I prefer base. Some creatures leave the security of the base and the safety in the numbers to adventure to the woods in small groups, of at least two individuals. Sometimes they don't come back for some hours and sometimes for days. Of course, less than five days or the rest would have left by then.

Regardless of that, at least half of the creatures are always in the main group.

The place this time is some sort of clearing, it's at the feet of a rocky hill and there is a stream nearby. I can even hear splashing water in the distance, maybe there is a waterfall nearby.

The creatures start to sit and rest around and a couple of them even enters the forest again. The injured creature rests near the wall of rock that is the hill. The hill is very steep and almost seems like a small cliff. It would be very hard to climb.

For me, is time to start to train my magic. I shouldn't slack, not that I want, training is like a form of distraction for me from this beautiful and deadly place, almost as much as my inner monolog.

Today I will start with the summoning spell. This time would be the second that I do it in the creatures' presence. I need them to become used to it because once I thought it well enough if I were to have used it the night of our encounter they would have shredded me to pieces.

The fight would have been stopped being one versus one. I have seen some fights like that around here. The last time was three days ago, a monster came to help its kin from the tyranny of the creatures, only for the both of them to be killed by all the creatures. Seems like they don't like interferences in their weird battles.

I suppress a shudder. It's not a pretty sight to see when many animals attack one at the same time.

Forgetting about dangerous possibilities for the sake of my mental health.

For summoning, I only have a basic spell, which is a common one, which means that is not rare to see someone in possession of it. But one must not be fooled by its rarity, this spell is far from weak or useless. Moreover, mages capable of summoning magic are rare themselves.

I would have been taught more summoning spells with time but now these spells are likely lost, at least to me.

This is the more complex of my spells too, it has patterns that are present in many of my other spells and many others that are unique to it so I can't even start to figure out what is the purpose of each of them.

I begin to cast it and like each time before I am marveled by its design. A spell like this a wonder of magic.

The chant of this spell is long, even at my best of times I can't chant it in less than fifteen seconds. Instant-casting becomes a massive advantage with large chants like this one. Of course, you need to practice it to the point of crying blood and to sacrifice its potency for speed. It's still worth it most of the time.

This spell doesn't have a name. Not in the chant, like all my other spells at least. These have a name in the ancient tongue that is mentioned in their chants, not this one.

Regardless, it has a name in the Empire´s Common and also in the language of the town; it's the same name to be precise.

"-to serve."

The spell is activated as I finish Speaking. I felt something, always is like this, like others minds trying to reach for my own, but only one manages it first, then the others vanish from my conscience.

In the span of a second since the spell activation my mana becomes visible with an otherworldly blue hue and takes a shape and a solid form. It appears from thin air, without flashy lights like others summoning spells I have read of in books, just a faint glow. The only sound heard is that of air being displaced by the now tangible magic taking form.

I feel a strange mental connection with the spirit. It's faint but is there. I know that it's my summon and it knows that it was summoned by me.

Now, the spirit's form is one I haven't seen before. The shape seems to be one of a big and fat armored animal. It has three horns that go from its nose to its forehead. It has four short legs and a tiny tail behind it. Plate armor seems to cover its blue and ghostly body. Seems kind of funny to me.

Summon Spirit is different from other spells of its kind. A normal summoning spell brings a creature and its body from somewhere. This spell brings a spirit and creates a body for it from my mana.

As things for me are right now, the spirit is the one to chose the shape of the body, so sometimes the result is an awkward chimera or a strange shapeless mass. This shouldn't happen but I'm still not strong enough to control the shape. I hope that I will just need more mana for that.

If only I had more mana, it would resolve many of my problems.

According to the Elder who taught me the spell, the spirits aren't souls or dead people but strange creatures from a strange plane or dimension that is closer in reach than others. They don't have thoughts or sentience and when they die here they just go back to the place where they came.

Supposedly there are many of them in whatever plane they come from and they are just too happy to be summoned here and be given a body. It's strange, why they would want that? But even so, when casting the spell I don't feel any ill binding with them so maybe that is partially true.

The Elder also said that there are so many of them that I probably will never summon the same one twice.

Well, I disagree with that statement.

I am almost entirely sure that the same four or five spirits always come when I use the spell. They almost always take different forms but their behaviors betray them.

They obey every one of my voice commands but when I give them mental commands no one of them listens to me, however, one of them shudders and the other glances at me. The others just ignore me. I don't know why they don't follow mental commands, though. It would be more effective if your opponent doesn't know what you will do.

I will try. Attack the tree in front of you.

The half-transparent ghostly spirit which gives off a light blue hue just turns its head to look at me. That is one of their behaviors, probably the behavior of only one of them. I could be wrong too.

Also, doesn't matter how cool the blue color and eerie hue are, these shouldn't happen and are too eye-catching. What if I need sneakiness?

Putting my hand in its armor-like skin, as my hand pets it a tiny bit of mist-like substance leaves its body. It's mana and it's leaking from its body, even with a slight touch. This is a rare side-effect, usually they are more resilient.

Sigh. Because of these issues, I wasn't taught another summoning spell yet. The Elder said I needed to master it before teaching me the next.

I was told that most of the problem is the result of the spell adapting to the limited amount of mana I am barely capable of administrating to it. My summoned spirits shouldn't have a ghost-like appearance and a mastered spell doesn't work half-way so the mana wasn't the whole problem.

But he wasn't a summoner and neither there was another in the town so he couldn’t have known for sure about that, but he was adamant with his posture about the issue, treating me like an annoying child.

If I remember correctly, in all the town the only person with the affinity to wield and manifest summoning spells was me. Summoning magic is rare, of course, but usually not that much, though. Regardless, some spells can somehow imitate other affinities so it becomes possible to use a summoning spell that doesn't depend on the summoning affinity, so some mages are able to call forth a summon despite a lacking affinity. This is most commonly seen when summoning elementals.

The spell is so complex that it adapts to the quantity of mana you put at it, without a necessity to change the patterns. So, theoretically, I only need enough mana to make it work properly.

Thinking of that all is futile now, though.

My summoned spirit will remain here for about fifteen minutes, and that if it doesn't do anything. Meanwhile, if the spell worked the way it was meant to, the spirit would last half an hour and that whilst fighting.

The spirits' strength is mostly physical, sometimes they get other abilities but almost always that depends on the summoner shaping of the body. Of course, mine so far are mostly pure muscle-heads.

Let's see how strong it's this time.

"Charge at that tree." I point to its target.

The spirit is almost as tall as me and seems pretty sturdy, that weight at least must add some damage.

The spirit starts charging to the tree at the edge of the clearing. It's not that fast, I have summoned much faster spirits.

Thuck.

Then, its charge ends anticlimactically. Hitting the tree and barely shaking it a little. Judging from the gas-like mana that leaves from its head it made more damage to itself than to the tree.

I shake my head. It's not too strong but I think it is big enough to be used as a good meat shield.

A low growl is heard, coming from behind me. I turn my head. One of the Mingan. It's moving near my spirit with an almost inaudible but very drawn out growl. I have seen this before. The creatures do that when they want to spar among themselves.

This could be interesting. I walk to the rocks of the hill and sit on them. I will pause my training to enjoy the battle between my summon and this Mingan. My summon will lose, of course, but maybe it can stand a few hits.

"Attack it," I say in their direction and the battle starts.

My summon is not that dumb as even with my vague command it rushes to the correct opponent in the same manner that with the tree. The Mingan easily avoids the charge and jumps at my summon's back, from where it starts biting the spirit. A large amount of gas-like mana starts to abandon the spirit.

My summon tries to shake it off and after a few tries, it manages to do it. Then, it twists its neck to the side and hits the beast with the side of its head. It is sent flying away while frantically moving its limbs but still crashes on the trees in the forest.

Well. That surprised me. Could it be that in this form the spirit's strength is focalized in the muscles of its neck? It would explain its pitiful charges and pathetic speed. Those spirits come up with such strange ways to invest my mana.

The Mingan jumps to the scene again. It surely must be annoyed. It charges my summon and my summon reacts quickly to meet it with a blow of its powerful neck but is still too slow; its opponent stops its charge and with the residual speed jumps to my summon's side while rolling in mid-air, just to land standing and charges again right away, this time much faster and head-on.

My summon is sent rolling away and a second after, it disappears in a blue mist that quickly disperses into the air.

The creature's attack was so fast that I had no time to cancel the summoning and save myself from a slight headache caused by the forceful unsummoning.

The creature seems puzzled from its opponent's disappearance but then it glances at me and sort of snorts before going back to whatever it was doing, laze around, probably.

Letting this fight happen was a bad idea. Now I have to get back to training with a slight headache.

Wonderful.

There is not much sense in keeping to practice spells in what I am already very proficient on, like Summon Spirit and Earth Lance, better became accustomed to Water and Ghost hand, those will surely become very handy later.

Thanks to the mana density in this place my mana regenerates much faster, I will keep casting spells and figure out ways to master them to a higher level but my priority right now will be getting a bigger mana pool.

Yes, for now, getting more mana is my principal goal.