Carlos and Little One follow me as I stroll at the tail of the group on the side of the river. Little One is slightly smaller than Carlos—The Mingan I fought against, the day that all of this started— he took a liking to me for reasons I don't fully comprehend, maybe he likes me because I am often his playmate to entertain him. The younger ones of them are the most attached to me, from the older ones all I can say is that they are kind but kinda cold, like most teachers and instructors were like back in Town. The leader scares me a little, though, seems like it's always ready to fight. No, isn't always ready, he always wants to fight.

They are smart and silent, each with distinct behavior. They are that or it's my mind playing tricks for my necessity of human contact. Sometimes I even talk to them, more often than I would like to admit, but it doesn't matter how much they resemble people, I can't think of them like that. They aren't people. At least not to me. I am grateful to them but it's different, I want to see real persons again. I am not fond of pets even though theoretically summoning is my strongest point and summons are like pets, I know, ironic. The spirits I can summon aren't pets though, they are... weird.

About that, I have felt it sometimes, my mana reacting to the younger Mingan but nothing has happened so far. I have read about it, the first summoning contracts were made with spontaneous and wild magic, not with a defined matrix spell. I hope it's that and not the puberty I read about too, or worse, me having a thing for animals. Maybe my biggest chance to contract one of the Mingan is with the cubs, as it's said, they are more impressionable, isn't it?.

I don't know how to do it so no point in rushing it, I already have other important projects in hand.

I use the idle time to toss sticks and rocks to both Carlos and Little One so they fetch them back like dogs are supposed to do. At first, Carlos was somewhat warier of me than the others but with the time I have stayed here he has reduced his wariness towards me by a lot. It's difficult to be sure when talking about animals but I think that sometimes he displays his scar in the eye to the others with pride. Not sure of what he is proud of either but scars may be cool even among animals.

The rest of the day passes fast and we arrive at a new spot to rest for the night. With only an hour of light left, the creatures start to sleep and rest. But I can't, this morning's events still fresh in my memory and maintaining me wide awake.

I think it's about time that I explore the mysterious woods a little more. I am strong enough to survive casual danger. My survival skills, although not at the level of the Mingan, aren't too far behind. I have learned from them after all. How to reduce noise while moving is one of those and with that, I consider myself sneaky enough for the task, avoiding danger my greatest priority.

Normally, I don't go more than a couple of minutes of walking distance from the group. This time I will just go a little further away, five minutes. Starting small.

Even though the skies are already painted orange the cacophony of sounds of the lively woods doesn't decrease. The sounds the monsters make don't bother me, I am used to it and they work just fine to make me even more undetectable.

Under the cover of the noise, I start going in a random direction away from the group, being careful of being seen but not followed. I walk away but not without a plan as it appears at first sight. I have learned to navigate through here and I have a goal in mind. There are two ways to navigate in the Great Wild, both of which I learned from watching the Mingan. For the method I am using now, it's fairly easy to guess if you put attention to your surroundings and can enter the state of attunement, you can avoid both the most dangers and the more treacherous situations. It's as simple as to detect the subtle changes in the mana density and stay away from areas with the highest of it. Right now, though, I am doing the opposite. Approaching one of those areas deliberately. I just need to locate one of them so, this is just walking in one sole direction until I sense the change in the ambient mana.

My plan turns out to be fructiferous and I enter one of those areas I talked about. I slide through the vegetation like a ghost, experience palpable in each step, seeing before being saw and taking the paths of the shadows to avoid encounters with simple-minded creatures. More often than not the sound of fighting draws more contenders to battle than it makes monsters run away from. I mostly need to be wary of ambush predators as they are good in the art of 'hide and wait' and of some monsters that effectively camouflages as trees.

I need to be especially careful of those trees that aren't really trees. There are a surprisingly elevated number of monsters that try to pass as inanimate objects in the Great Wild. Either way, monsters that ambush are a headache.

All around me, trees taller than I populate the canopy, they have different heights; the majority above a hundred meters. Pretty tall indeed, so much I can't see their tops but I can still spot trees that range between ten to twenty meters and even more. However, even though the small trees are probably young ones that feed on the ambient mana, at the lack of solar light down here, I stick mainly to the highest of them because experience had thought me the lesson that the highest the tree the less the chance of it being a monster. Also, I have yet to see a monster of a hundred meters of height so, yes, I feel more confident walking in the vicinity of the biggest ones than at the side of their smaller cousins.

As I get closer to whatever I am nearing I sense movement on the branches of some trees. It seems I am not alone around here anymore. I am being stalked now.

I keep going at the same pace, regardless of the growing activity high on the trees. To say that I am always ready to fight—apart from being arrogant— is an understatement. I am the first to admit that I have survived many close calls only thanks to my capacity to launch barrages of magical attacks on a moment's notice in the face of my opponents. Facts like that make them stop and reconsider the threat level I represent and if it's worth it to take me down.

Today's encounter with the ants wasn't different. If everything goes wrong, attacking blindly is not below me, not if it can guarantee my survival. Having spiritual energy to run faster and escape helps too.

I can barely see anything beyond ten meters away from me. The Sun's orange warm light that manages to pierce through the canopy is too dim, barely enough to let me make out figures in my proximity.

And at this point, I finally stop my advance. I know that more than one monster is hidden, high on the branches; and they are about to make their move. The only sound present is that of the wind whistling through the woods, the place seemingly hollow and desolate in the night, though I know that is not the case. If I strain my hearing I can make out other monsters' noise in the distance.

I let my arms dangle at my sides, arching my back a little and flexing my legs, making myself look small. Two spells long ago chantlessly cast ready to be released. Were I on this moment the me of the past I would have chosen the spell Earth Lance as one of my reserves without a second thought, just to secure a fast instant kill and scare whatever other monsters are in the vicinity. So foolish, I have learned that once one of the monsters dies the others tend to go into a frenzy. Fortunately, time has made me wiser. Well, not just time but painful memories too; memories of distasteful encounters with weirdly skilled monsters in the arts of junk throwing. These rocks weren't just thrown very hard but painfully accurate too.

Yeah, I am pretty sure of what are these monsters up in the branches. I can more or less make out their shapes of those within my range of the state of attunement.

The spell currently replacing my beloved Earth Lance is Ghost Hand, to protect me from long-range attacks. Blocking with it is just a waste of mana, of course, but using it to parry one attack results in a worthy investment. I have been practicing the parrying, with leaves falling, then branches thrown into the air, and finally tripping the cubs while they walk.

The other spell is Fireball, certainly deadly but slow enough as to have good chances to avoid, would be good if I can make it as fast as my fastest spell. It's excellent to distract and scare, though, it also would have been one of my elections in the past, when I was young—funny considering that not even a year has passed— and is my election right now too.

Earth Lance is not my first option either because I don't plan to kill or slaughter my way out of this place of high mana density disturbances. Not plan A anyway. I am not planning to run away just like that either, I hoped to pass undetected all the while to the center of the place but that is not an option anymore.

As I wait for them to do something I can try better to prepare all the stakes in my favor too so I close my eyes for a brief moment, to meditate and increase the range of the state of attunement.

Regardless, in the case of things going awry, it's not that much of a crisis, I can always insta-cast the summoning spell when things go shit and use it as a decoy as I leg it.

I don't even need to point with my hands to launch my spells in this particular instance, my arms are relaxed at my sides but I have been practicing a technique I saw one of my instructors use a lot to show off back in Town. Basically, it consists of launching spells from every angle you want, without a need to use your hands or arms.

I figured out that it had to do with the matrix of the spell and fairly enough, it had. After a few painfully failed experiments including angry explosions, I realized that it was not just about replacing the pattern in charge of launching the spell from my hand but a whole bunch of patterns that determinate that the spell must leave where the caster wills it to, which I derived from comparing all my spells together. It's a dangerous method though, just one mistake is necessary for everything to fuck up. If your thoughts betray you, you can end with the spell launched at your feet.

Pointing is not necessary for the use of the Ghost Hand spell but it's necessary for the standard Fireball. With these and other deductions, I could infer a way to modify my spells. I could see that there is safety in the design of the standard spells too.

Easily enough I identified the patterns to replace in the standard Fireball to make it launch like the Ghost Hand spell. It worked. Now I can will the direction my spell is launched. However, insta-casting a new spell—even a modified one—is not an easy thing. I need a lot of practice to familiarize myself with it and truth to be told I still feel more comfortable just having to point with my hand to aim.

Also, I feel confident enough to say that the monsters surrounding me at this moment aren't especially strong. There seems to have a pattern of behavior on the monsters in the Great Wild. Typically lone monsters are the powerful and more dangerous and the ones that stay on large herds are relatively weak. This is definitely not the case with the creatures I travel with but it's still far more common. Even so, I have seen many monsters, alone or in numbers, enter and leave these places with high mana density, maybe these places aren't as dangerous as I think. Ha, fat chance. Everything is dangerous here, and better I don't start to talk about poisonous plants.

After almost fifteen seconds I get to the current limit of my attunement with the world and my eyes burst open again. I am completely ready now.

Looking at all the places in movement on the trees I can't help but think that maybe would be better to fight a lone, powerful monster. Numbers are difficult to deal with. My original plan has better chances of working with weak ones, though. They can be intimidated into inaction easier, and I can even convince them of me being inoffensive. One can dream.

Rudely interrupting my idle thoughts, the monsters decide to act now. There is a lot of movement on the trees and I make out some shapes among the leaves. A head sticks out from a hiding place ahead of me and the other monsters went still.

A humanoid creature, shorter than me, whose shape reminds me of one, that unfortunately died, of the monsters that traveled along with the Mingan and me, slowly walks towards me, as if careful to avoid upsetting me with an abrupt movement.

This is good, some monsters would prefer to avoid combat as much as me, maybe I can make something work and pass through here without spilling blood, would be a waste otherwise. Understanding humanoid monsters seem to be slightly easier too.

The monster's height is barely more than half my own, it has brown colored fur, two legs, two arms and it's hairy almost everywhere. A tail sways from side to side from behind it as its big eyes stare at me in a mix of wariness and curiosity. I stay motionless but ready to attack as we seize up each other for a few seconds.

"Uuh hu uu uh," The monster makes sounds in what I guess is a language of their own, or maybe just random sounds, probably. I just stare at it as he stares back at me expectantly. I don't know what to do now.

"Hello...?" I try to sound friendly but it just came out slowly and as if talking to a baby. Hopefully, the monster takes no offense. It's not like I planned for the situation to play out like this, didn't think they would get so close to me and suddenly start 'talking'.

For me it was simple, either they attack me or leave me alone.

I pat myself on the chest and bet for the approach between a barbarian and a man of civilization I read a long time ago. "Me friend," I say while nodding. I am not insulting its intelligence, my social skills are a little bit rusted. Well, they weren’t that good, to begin with. Also, I am not even completely sure if a fireball to the face qualifies as a warm greeting or not. But I smartly refrain from finding that out on this particular occasion.

The monster makes more sounds in response to my words and start to change the support of the weight of its body from one leg to the other, once and again.

I am completely confused by the monster's antics but my face betrays no emotion. At least I hope it doesn't, I haven't had many opportunities to see my reflection, much less time to practice my poker face. It's hard to find a reflective surface here, after all.

I shrug and start imitating it because it became annoying after the first minutes as my words proved useless time and again to cause a different reaction to the monster. Swaying from side to side as I change my body's weight from leg to leg as it does. We continue like that for a full minute as I watch incredulously how more and more of the monster's kin go out of their hiding places and start to copy our movements until all of us are performing them.

Is this some sort of ritual? I don't know if it would be better to stop or try something else.

There is no way of knowing except for trying so I add my own pace to the ritual, expecting the monsters to tag along. I clap once after swaying to the left and once again when tilting right. After a few seconds of silly display the monsters add my own move too and a short while after that they stop swaying and start to jump from leg to leg. Almost hypnotized by the strange movements I find myself unconsciously adding a step more, raising both arms and opening my hands to the sky between the clapping pauses.

The monster adds this movement too and then... Then I realize this must be the silliest dance ever. I feel my head warming up, blushing in embarrassment.

With hostility and weariness suddenly washed away from the monsters, they seem to enter a frenzy while shouting excitedly. I suppose they accomplished whatever they tried to accomplish because they stopped dancing, leaving me in an awkward position, and started leaving the place.

They didn't swarm me or invaded my personal space just one of them took me by the arm and tried to drag me along, directly deeper into the high-density mana area. I wanted to go there in the first place so I may as well glance at it now that I have 'permission'.

I felt a little uneasy, of course, but I am still ready to rain down hell upon them at a moment's notice, they don't even seem that strong either. Their main method of defense must be a reproduction or something. Tree rabbits perhaps.

We arrive at a large clearing where more of the monsters are gathered, doing their own things. However, what catches my attention is what lies behind the clearing. A very thick foliage of plants that must be difficult to pass through there and I can sense the mana density skyrocketed in that place.

I move to the center of the clearing, following the monsters and even though they don't pay me any heed I suddenly don't feel that confident. What if they are doing a dark ritual to summon a dark god and I am a sacrifice or something like that?

My worries turn out to be meaningless as the night passes with me in the company of the monsters. First, some climbed down from the trees with tools holding fruits with them. I noticed these were baskets, impressed. Then, something akin to a celebration started. Many shouts, food, and friendly fights erupted everywhere. I noticed, to my relief, that I wasn't the focus of attention but just a guest more in all of this, I could leave whenever I wanted, probably.

Since the beginning, as the monsters shouted, ate, danced, and played overly-friendly, as the Mingan do sometimes too, I started to move near the thick foliage little by little.

And now my eyes dart left and right, to make sure that I am not being watched right now. I quickly sneak away towards the edge of the clearing.

"Uuuuu uh uh!" A few shouts stop my advance and one of the monsters nears me after exiting a hiding place on the foliage. So, I was being watched after all or maybe this is a guard. Better luck next time.

I move my arms trying to gesture that I want to get there to the monster that stopped me, maybe I can convince it to let me enter or confuse it enough as to slip away. Can I bribe him somehow? The monster just waits there ignoring all my attempts at charming its little mind and a minute later the same monster who I 'talked' to first—who has a darker brown fur— arrives and after repeating the gestures I showed to the monster 'guard' he motions me to wait, or at least that is what I interpret its hands all extended to me. The monster turns around and goes through the foliage.

I sigh. I didn't consider it before but maybe, behind this are the young of this monsters' tribe, here on the clearing are just a few of those small monsters. I just wait and glance around as the minutes run free. After a while, the prodigal son comes back and brings something with it. A bag, it has no lid.

After walking to my front, the monster introduces its hand on it and takes out a rock from it. A rock with a glow of its own. It literally emits a dim light. I have been in attunement all this time since I started waiting here, I can hold it for very long once I am on it even if I can't reach it without meditating first. By reflex, I sweep the rock with my sense. I find no mana on it. Nothing out of the ordinary. But my eyes don't betray me, I have heard of special rocks and jewels but never of glowing ones before.

The rock is white, produces a faint white light, and seems almost spherical. I can confidently say that it's special. The skyrocket in mana density has not changed at all so this rock is probably not the cause of that. I doubt that the monsters will let me in and I don't have enough time to waste investigating more, the Mingan and the others will be leaving in a few hours. My decision is made.

The monster put the rock back on the bag and make a dismissing motion with its hand. I don't understand but it seems to forget all related to the rock and walks back to the strange celebration. I follow it.

I ate, danced foolishly some more, and even brawled friendlily with some of the monsters. A couple of hours passed quickly until this moment. I am ready to head back.

Without being noticed this time I step behind the trees opposite to the foliage and make my way back stealthy. I travel unseen and unheard on my way back to the Mingan's resting camp and cast Clean to get rid of the smells that got impregnated on me from the monsters.

I reach the camp and Little One comes to greet me, hopping around excitedly. It seems everyone is awakening.

This was a crazy day, more than normal. A very weird adventure. We will move again soon, likely in a few minutes. Thankfully, I decided to adventure away on the last day of resting, like this, I can avoid the monster's retribution if there is any.

I snort and reach for the hidden pocket on my shorts with my hand, taking out the rock. It briefly illuminates Little One's head and my other surroundings with its faint light until I put it back again.

That which is well learned is never forgotten.

I hope they don't get too angry when they realize what happened, maybe this rock is not that important. Those monsters didn't notice when I used Ghost Hand for that short moment. Truly weird, monsters tend to detect my magic immediately. The only difference this time was that I activated the spell very slowly, maybe they couldn't distinguish my mana from the ambient's one, what with that crazy high density. Who knows.

The monsters were kind and nice, and although I wish I could stay with them just to know more about them I am aware that doing so is impossible. My goal is to leave the Great Wild alive and the highest possibility of that happening is with me sticking close to the creatures I call Mingan and the other accompanying beasts.

I have been remembering the dead and flames that happened that day more and more. I miss everyone, I miss talking with someone. To see a person again. This is not life, it's just struggling to see the Sun's light the next day and the one after that and again and again.

I know the way to leave this place, though, there are two ways to travel through this forest. One, as I already did is to avoid most of the danger, sensing the mana in the air. The other way lets you effectively know the direction you have to go to leave the woods by using the trees. It's still too early, though, I need to be stronger if I think of traveling for a long period alone, at least until I figure out the Mingan's ability. Yes, at least until I get an edge like that.

For a moment I remember the silly dance with the monsters and shake my head as I feel my face heating up.

Thankfully, nobody knows about that. If I ever tell someone about this I will hold back the method I used to bewitch the horrifying and hairy monsters, two meters tall with four arms and six tails ending in spikes into letting me into their liar, how in its deepest part, surrounded by hundreds of these monsters I fought the powerful ten meters, Guardian, in a bloody battle and how I heroically slew it with my bare hands despite its black magics and curses, taking the legendary artifact encrusted on its still breathing and howling body.

Yeah, definitely more believable than today's events. Now I just need a scar for it.