Jack woke up. There was no attack. No monsters. If not for the view of the open sky above him, he would think that he was still in his old hut. Everyone was sleeping in the fortress or also waking up. A few were keeping a watch, or so Jack thought. Soon, his mother probably prepare something for the breakfast . Jack started a day with the spell practicing. After a while he was called for the breakfast. He looked at his clarity – 87/130 – not that bad. The breakfast wasn’t very gloomy, but his family also wasn’t happy. After that, everyone went their own way, most people still tinkering with scythes.

‘I suppose if I were in their place I would also make sure that my weapon won’t break in a fight.’

He practiced runes for an hour, and when his clarity fell below 50, his thinking started to be sluggish. He took the bow and practiced shooting. After two hours his archery skill rose to level 13. He started hitting his target from 10 meters.

Suddenly, someone shouted, “wolves!” Jack stopped his shooting exercises and ran to the wall. On the horizon three wolves were visible.

'Shit! I shouldn’t have spent all clarity on the exercises.’

He had only about 40 clarity and was mentally tired. He sat down and stopped thinking, rather than running into the battle.

'I need to recover as much as possible'

The elder and farmers weren’t stupid. They should do everything they could. After a while, when he was listening to shouts and rapid steps he heard wolf's howl. He opened his eyes and looked at the clarity bar.

’58 – not bad, not great'

Jack went to the wall. There were around 60 wolves in 3 groups. Farmers took positions close to the wall with their scythes – around 80 of them. The rest – about 50 people – was sitting in the center of the fortress. Straightened scythes were 3 meters long, and while couldn’t be used as spears, scythes still were giving reach superiority.

Wolves were running around and most likely searching for a weak point. Jack shot an arrow, but he missed.

‘It's way harder to hit a moving target. I will need to predict their movement.’

The first group of monsters tried charging the wall, but they were repelled by the scythe's blades. Jack shot at some wolf. The arrow hit the target, but it was reflected by wolf’s fur.

‘Ugh! I need to draw bowstring further, but I don’t have enough arm strength.’

Wolves hadn’t given up yet and tried to attack from different direction, but the fortress was not very big and farmers could defend it, keeping ranks tightly.

‘Since my arms are too weak...’

Jack raised his left leg and placed the bow beneath his feet, drawing bow with both his arms. This time he could draw it completely.

'I won’t be able to aim properly like this, but as long as I aim in a large group I should hit something.’

He aimed at one point and waited. Some farmers were looking funny at him, and would probably laugh if the situation was not so grim. When a wolfs group approached, he send the arrow. It didn’t hit the wolf he was targeting, but luckily a one beside.

Ding... Your archery skill has reached lv. 14

The wolf fell onto ground and shortly whined.

Ding.. You have killed lv. 21 Wolf

Wolves stopped their assault and every one of them looked at Jack. He could feel creeps on his back. He quickly make notice that half of farmers was also glancing at him from the corner of their eyes. When he had let the arrow go, the bow fell on the ground. He bent over and took it in his hand.

It was the first causality, counting for the both sides. Jack felt proud of his achievement, but also threatened by the wolves’ attention. 2 meters long and 1,5 meters tall alpha wolf howled to the sky. Soon all wolves dispersed. They were running around the fortress still, but this time wolves were taking a peek at Jack from time to time. Even standing behind the wall and a line of farmers, Jack could feel he became one of the primary targets of wolves.

‘I don’t like how they are giving me so much attention.’

He shot an arrow again, but this time a wolf noticed it and evaded.

‘Even if it didn’t evade that arrow, I would most likely miss anyway.’

Jack had only 6 arrows left at this point.

‘I need to wait for some opportunity’

The situation looked stable and was more of a skirmish, than actual life and death battle since there was still only one casualty. Jack shot again and while the wolf didn’t notice the arrow, Jack missed.

Suddenly, on Jack’s the right side wolves attacked. This time they endured hits, two of them dying, and the rest lunged above the wall. One of the farmers was bit in the throat and fell on the ground. Soon a few farmers from the other sides broke off their line and run to reinforce the right side.

‘That’s my chance!’

Three wolves were locked in the close combat with farmers and were incapable of paying attention to Jack. They were also fairy close – about 20 meters. He drew the bow and shot. The arrow pierced a wolf’s side.

Ding.. You have killed lv. 19 Wolf

Ding… LEVEL UP! You have reached lv. 7

‘Already? Killing higher leveled monsters is really rewarding.’

Jack bent over and pulled the bow and nocked another arrow. When he looked up, two wolves were running in his direction.

‘Crap! That’s why I mustn’t draw attention!’

Three nearby farmers broke off from their line and turned around to face the wolves. Meanwhile, Jack could hear shouts from his left side. Quick glance revealed over 20 wolves, along with the alpha breaking the line in that direction. Jack couldn’t keep his attention on that, as two wolves closed on him.

‘They are observing me and preparing to dodge. If I want to hit them, I will need to wait unlit they will be closer.’

Jack’s awkward position of shooting using his leg, made dodging nearly impossible. When the wolves were a few meters far from Jack, he let the arrow go. The wolf tried to dodge, but was too close and was hit in its stomach. The second one dodged flying scythes in its direction and jumped on Jack. Jack abandoned bow lying on the ground and tried to roll to the side, unsuccessfully, as he was too slow. Jack desperately blocked the wolf with his right arm, in which the wolf bit and scratched with its claws. Jack fell on his butt, wolf released his arm and was going for his throat. He though that’s his death, his life flashed before his eyes, but splash of red droplets in his face and notification told him otherwise.

Ding… You have participated in killing of lv. 16 Wolf

The wolf was bisected by one of scythes, its entrails were flowing out. Jack puked. It was the first time he had seen entrails of living being , not counting insects. There were no animals being kept by farmers. Soon, a second notification appeared.

Ding… You have participated in killing of lv. 19 Wolf

‘That arrow haven’t killed it.’

Jack looked at his forearm. It was bleeding and mangled where the wolf bit. His vitality dropped to 385/444. Jack took a grasp of soil in his left hand and spilled over open wounds.

‘That should stop the bleeding.’

Jack looked around. Main wolf groups were fighting farmers inside the walls, while the rest were harassing farmers from the outside, forcing them to keep defenses up. Farmers were not panicking, there was a scythe wall and wolves were kept at a distance. There were some human’s and wolf’s bodies lying close to the wall in the wolf occupied area of the fortress. Jack tried to shoot some wolves down, but…

‘Damn! I can’t use my right arm properly or my wounds will get worse, but…’

Jack nocked an arrow anyway and once again drew the bow with both arms. It was hard to aim, farmers were in the way, and Jack wasn’t confident to not shoot them when aiming with his foot. In the end, he managed to shoot down a wolf when an opportunity presented itself.

Ding… You have killed lv. 12 Wolf

Ding… LEVEL UP! You have reached lv. 8

Ding… Your archery skill has reached lv. 15

Jack tried to drew the bow again, but…

CRACK! The bow broke!

“Damn it! It seems this is the reason Rick never let me use it – the bow was not very durable.’

Wolves were not staying around much longer. Soon, the alpha howled and every wolf took one body in its jaw and jumped above the wall. They ran for around 100 meters and started eating human bodies.

Situation gradually calmed down. The elder calculated losses on both side. On the human side – 11 farmers died, while on the wolves side – 19 monsters died. Amount of the fighting force titled even further towards the human side, but that was not a victory. Wolves didn’t go away.

“We have limited amount of food,” the elder said, “and we won’t be able to last this siege very long. As long as wolves are staying here we can’t go to the dugouts. They also have taken their own corpses, so we can’t even eat them. From now on, we are going to ration the foot.”

Jack was extremely displeased with rationing. He was out of fat, as he recently changed class. He was also wounded and his upgraded regeneration demanded material to do his work. He managed to bargain with the elder for an additional ration, but that was it.

Both Jack’s parent took part in the battle, but they weren’t wounded. The limiting factor for farmers was amount of scythes blades. Most of them survived and so – people who were previously in the center were pushed to the wall. Jack was wounded and low leveled, a scythe wasn’t given to him. He was spending his time practicing spells. Lack of foot quickly started a discussion about what to do. The idea of attacking wolves was dismissed, as wolves had a greater mobility than humans. They could just retreat and strike when farmers were unprepared. Similarly any idea of somehow moving to a dugout wasn’t good. There were 30 children in the fortress who mustn’t had been abandoned. Abandoning the fortress with bunch of children in the middle of formation was a recipe for disaster, especially that the dugouts were not in the defensible position and inside was too cold to live permanently. Splitting was also ruled out by the elder – there wasn’t anybody way stronger than others. It was impossible to assemble some elite strike force, and letting normal farmers go was just giving a snack to wolves. In the end, it was decided to wait. There were most likely other people nearby. Moreover, while wolves went through the frontier, it was still not certain that the frontier broken down.

Rest of the day was uneventful. Jack practiced spells and tried to stay still as much as possible to conserve his body’s resources. Unfortunately it didn’t help and Jack was roused up from his sleep that night by a terrible hunger. He lost all fat and some muscles in the class change. Now, his body ate itself. He was starving. The pain was unbearable, Jack didn’t go to sleep again that night. He tried to practice the rune shaping, but it was hard to concentrate. Suffering alone in the middle of the night Jack was thinking of the past and about magic.

Rick had known only 2 spells – a minor recovery and a reinforce material. The minor recovery boosted regeneration, allowing to close small wounds and speed up recovery of more serious ones. It only boosted natural regeneration however, so it was impossible to recover completely from serious injuries. The reinforce made a reinforced material stronger and sturdier. Rick – as an archer – used it mostly to reinforce arrows.

Jack still remembered how Rick explained magic to Jack and other children.

“Magic is a use of essence. You can think of essence as a fuel. To make use of it, you need to create a rune.”

Rick then sketched a complicated symbol on the ground. It was a bit over 2 meters in diameter and had at least hundred lines.

“This rune is the minor recovery spell. It is using essence of the world and changing it into a boost to regeneration. To cast this spell you need to create this rune in your mind.”

Jack was initially excited to learn magic, even if it was only some minor spells. However, now he felt helpless. The rune was super complicated and that was only a basic spell! No wonder most people do not know magic. He and most children felt completely dejected. They most likely wouldn’t be able to use magic.

“Don’t be so sad! Even if it so complicated – magic is still possible!”

“But mister Rick! You are a monster hunter. It isn’t that strange that you can do magic,” said one of the children.

“When I was a child, I worked in the fields as most of you. I learned magic when I got recruited by the imperial court to the military to fight at the frontier. I remember that I was quite ambitious at that point. Old times! When the officer asked to choose between the recruit class to guard the frontier and the monster killer class to hunt the most dangerous beast who breached defenses, I have actually chosen latter. That was when I get acquainted of magic. Learning it however - took me years! Oh, I remember when I first met with a monster. It was a feline, a level 16 chameleon tiger. Not that high leveled. It actually somehow sneaked past the frontier – that was the reason I was send with 9 others to hunt it down. I was only level 7. After the class change to the monster killer I hadn’t actually killed anything. I get this two level only from the natural seeping of world essence into me. So, when I saw that tiger I actually nearly soiled my pants, and…

“Mister Rick! Can you return to magic?”

Jack was a bit angry at that child. He liked when Rick was telling stories of his past. Jack never left his home or at least he had not had any memories of anything else. The Great Migration happened when he was 4. He only knew what his parents had told him of the outside world, at least, outside of 2 kilometers of the nearby fields. Jack at that time was not very close to Rick and couldn’t just ask him to tell stories.

“Oh, yes. Well, as I said, you need time to learn magic. A lot of time. The most important thing is to not surrender and keep trying.”

“Um, mister Rick,” started Jack, “should we learn the rune in parts then?”

“Yes! But it cannot be just any parts. Learning magic like that can be dangerous. Think about it like that: there is a recovery rune, right? So – there can be an opposite rune – a killing rune. If you sketch some random runes in your head the effect can be unpredictable. Or at least this is what I was told in the military. To rise your skills however, you need to start from something easier than a complete rune. I will tell you now which parts you need to start with, and what parts go next, step by step. I don’t really understand what that all means, but this is the method used to teach magic in the military.”

Rick explained that rune over half a day. It was a winter that time so there was not much to do for Jack. Learning magic was very tiring. At first, Jack could only practice for about 20 minutes. After that, his thinking got completely sluggish and his clarity dropped to 30%. He and the other children asked about that.

“It’s natural. Drawing runes is very tiring for yours minds, because you need to use yours minds completely for that task. Even with that, your intelligence and rune shaping skills are lacking and you can only draw the rune partially. Think about it as using all your physical strength all time. Even with a high endurance level you will get tired quickly. There is also a good side. Practicing rune shaping will not only rise your respective skills, but also intelligence and mental endurance. When you get your intelligence to a high point, you should be able to create a complete spell. Your training of the skill shaping skill will also be more productive. For some things, you need high enough stats.”

“Mister Rick, what is the difference between intelligence and the rune shaping skill? Which should we concentrate more on rising?” One of the children asked.

“Both, obviously. Intelligence rises your thinking speed and will help you with drawing a larger fragment of the rune and keeping it in your mind.”

“Shouldn’t mental endurance do this?”

“No. Mental endurance will let you keep a rune longer, not create a larger rune. If you want to master strong spells you need to have great intelligence. The skill makes your work more precise. With a high level of intelligence, but a low rune shaping skill level, you will be able to draw large runes, but they will be crude and may backfire. The skill will also help you a bit with larger spells. You won’t need to concentrate as much on keeping lines straight in your head.”

“Mister Rick, shouldn’t the rune you drew on the ground work?” Jack asked.

“Yes, it should, but only if a rune is flawless, or close. See that line? It should be perfectly straight. That, that and this line the same. That circle? As you can see, it’s not a circle – more of a ellipse, when it should be a circle. Not only it’s hard to draw on the ground, if there are some mistakes a spell may backfire. Rather than risking that, I made mistakes in most lines to botch the spell. Just remember to draw all this lines as close to perfectly as possible in yours minds. “

Most children stayed and continued practicing, a few left. Half a year later a monster broke through the frontier – a mammoth. A few meters tall and super large and strong. Most soldiers at the frontier are not very strong. They are mostly fighting with typical low level monsters at the frontier. The mammoth – it just broke through. Fortunately, that beast is herbivorous. Not ideal – as it still devoured the green spring wheat from the fields and what it not ate, it trampled. The mammoth actually got close to Jack’s neighborhood as it was only about 10 kilometers away from the frontier. Since the monster wasn’t looking aggressive, some children from Rick’s class decided to come close to it. “To find it weakness,” they said. The outcome was not great or glorious, however. When the children got close, the mammoth swiped at them with tusks. Only two of them survived and started running away. The mammoth chased at them for dozen meters and killed them off and then resumed eating the wheat.

Jack was somehow bewildered by that. Not very sad, though. He had not been a friend to the death children. But the mammoth…

Why kill people, though the mammoth doesn’t eat meat? After some thinking, answer was kind of obvious. Why should the beast decline free essence? Even if it wasn’t much – it was free. That thought gnawed at him, because that meant, everything that could kill him – would kill him. Before, he was kind of thinking, that most of the monsters were stupid. That was wrong. Even if a beast or an animal had not been very bright initially, after essence boosting it could be as smart as him or even smarter.

After what happened most children gave up. When Jack saw the mammoth chasing and killing his schoolmates, he was also scarred, but when he thought that everything wanted to kill him, he was determined instead. He asked Rick about that.

“It’s true that only strong survive. If you stop practicing like others, you will be a weak fighter, but that not necessary a bad thing. You can be useful to the humanity in other ways.”

“Mister Rick, do all living things get essence for killings other livings things?”

“Hmm, yes. That is how it works.”

“But… like… for example, will I get essence for killing, regardless what I will kill?”

Rick looked at Jack suspiciously for a few seconds.

“And what concretely are you asking about? “

“I mean… Do humans gets essence for killing humans? “

“…Yes, but such thing is the greatest crime.” Rick had a serious face and talked sternly. “Never even think about it. In this world, humans are besieged from nearly all sides. To fight another human is to fight the humanity itself. You see, humans are pack animals. To survive, we need to help each other. Some people fight monsters, some cultivate fields and produce food. Some people are crafters and brings us tools. As I said, you don’t need to be a great warrior. You can be a great farmer or a crafter.

Jack was not too keen on that. Day after some of his friends died, monster hunters came to kill the beast. Jack was looking at the spectacle from about 400 meters. On average. The mammoth had not stayed still. In the fight, the beast trampled 3 huts and killed 2 civilians and a hunter. The lost farmers were a couple staying home with their children. The mammoth trampling their home had killed them. Three children managed to escape in time, but in the end also died. Children died from hunters’ magic. Hunters were concentrated on killing the beast. One of them had been already heavy injured and later that guy died. Analyzing after the fact the whole fight, Jack come to the conclusion that if the hunters held back, most likely another of them would have died. They never wanted to kill the children, but in the end, they chose their owns rather than some kids.

So, why should he become a farmer? Only strong can survive. You can be the greatest farmer, but in the moment of danger some hunter may decide, that he rather save his low leveled companion or a family member. Helping humanity was good, but helping yourself was even better.

Only strong can kill and steal essence of other living beings. Sure, the field worker and later the farmer class gets a boost to natural essence seep from a hard work and being in place with a lot of flora. To reach the level 5, Jack needed 12 years as he reached the cap 2 years ago. All that boosts meant, that leveling as a farmer would be faster than a human child, but still… His father is 42 and the level 27 farmer. The best local farmer is 56 and the level 41 farmer. Hunters who killed the mammoth were about 30-some in level and age both and they were not even that great, apparently. After this events, Jack was even more motivated to become a hunter himself.

After killing the beast, the hunters stayed for the night at Jack’s neighbor’s home. Jack had gone there and asked hunters about many things as Rick’s knowledge about the imperial court, the military and the frontier was outdated by 25 years. Maybe because they lost one of they own, and hadn’t anything to do but mourning, they talked with Jack about a lot of things. That conversation was the source of the most information Jack had about the realm of men – the interior.

After that, Jack slowly became the only person coming to Rick. Rick and Jack started to be close to each other.

Jack ended his thinking about the past only when the breakfast was served. The starvation pain disappeared and Jack took a nap.

He waked up around the midday. There wasn’t anything new – wolves were still besieging the fortress and there were not much to eat. Jack practiced a rune shaping for two hours until hunger returned. I was obvious, that there wasn’t enough food to sustain Jack’s body. He asked for more, his arm was barely getting better. Jack was refused. His parent gave his a fragment of their rations, but it wasn’t enough. He once again was waked up by the pain.

This time Jack tried to practice rune shaping, rather than miserably endure until breakfast.

Ding… You have now skill – Pain Tolerance lv.1

It wasn’t helping him, maybe after hitting level 25, but Jack wasn’t keen on checking out. The rising skill level wasn’t even caused by the pain lessening with time. Jack was just getting used to it and to doing things despite the pain. He wasn’t able to even get close to a rune pattern he had created previously, but it wasn’t a complete failure.

Jack had an idea to sleep when hungry the next night and then eat. He wasn’t able to withstand the pain. He practiced the rune shaping half the night to take thoughts away from the hunger.

At the start of the third day of siege, Jack’s pain tolerance skill was already at the level 15. Moreover, the elder decided to lower rations even further. The day was, however, more eventful.