Camp was packed early, the quick cleaning done yesterday did nothing to help with the carcasses that reeked not only of blood and death but of worse, the foul smells lingered strong in the air as the rising sun did little to make it better. The bodies started to rot and waiting would only make it worse, we all knew, and even if we moved them - more - it would simple not be worth the effort - there were a lot to move after all, it was better to just get our tired asses off and start searching for a new place to stay.

Not that people were - are - happy with this, half of the camp has yet to sleep as the fight took most of the night before we literally cleaned the forest out of animal and beast alike. The ones with good luck got to sleep the latter half of it, but sadly for the unlucky they got to keep watch over another wave of possible beasts, it was harsh but it’s better be tired than dead. Saying that earned me a few angry glares though, maybe because I was in the bunch that got the big sticks and was able to sleep, or maybe because my little stealth act of growing said stick with essence was not so stealthy. In the end we’ll never know.

That aside, normally going awake for a night would not weight so much on them, the body of a practitioner is way stronger than the norm and can take on small things like that easily, that is, if you have essence to back you up. They didn’t, but fortunately the air was soaked with it after whatever the boy did so keeping yourself awake was not that hard, in fact, even after only sleeping most woke up to find that their reserves actually increased - for a little.

Obviously, that only served to add up the feeling of curiosity, surprise and resentment that filled the camp in the morning, although the later came mostly from a small group. In general people simply wanted to know what the boy did - and how he did- to the essence go crazy like that, and if what happened was an event that could be replicated or not.

And I can hardly blame them for their curiosity, to have someone's reserves of essence grow only by a few hours of sleeping it's unreal, and to cultivate in such heavy filled essence air would be even more, sadly we could not, but what if someone could actually find a way to replicate, and control those events at will? They would be able to turn years of cultivation into months.

But although I can not blame them for being curious, I was ready to step in case someone would be to enthusiastic, "someone" being pretty much Eann, of the frasan, as he was the one that gained more with what happened, and had already proved time and time again his lack of honor. I worried for nothing however, the boy was already awake in the morning, seemingly yet to sleep, awaking from his meditative state deep into the night and making company to Fliytch since then. Fliytch, that pretty much used his night shift to ask every possible question about what happened that he was able to think of, but found no answers.

No that the others cared, so they joined him, searching for said answers as new questions surged and old ones kept pending, what of course, was only like throwing oil into the fire as they kept trying to unveil some kind of universal truth or insight about the Four. I pretty much gave up in the moment that I glanced over the boy though, excluding myself from such pointless act of pestering someone for answers that he clearly didn't have. The boy was still essenceless, and as those fools know, only essence can move essence, meaning that whatever happened had little to do with him.

As they talked chaotically between each other in search for answers that they would not find I used the time to do something useful, like taking my breakfast and filling the rest of my essence reserves. One would think that in ambient with so much of it that would be an easy task, but for some reason the essence that came to the boy was of Wind and wind alone, so although the task of replenishing my used reserves was not hard, it was also not easy, simply normal.

When I was done with both eating and meditating they were still at it, wasting time, so I took my hands to my face, a big breath and loudly shouted them back into order. Not that I was trying to take away from them the chance of getting a good insight, or even somehow understand how or what happened, I'm the kind of man that will never force someone to give up an insight, but that was clearly not a situation of enlightenment. They were simply running in circles, blindly searching for something while having no clue on where to even start, all that while seventy or more bodies rotted right around us, attracting who knows how many possibly beasts.

I ordered the boys to prepare to move out, Eann tried to say something about waiting but I gave him no ears, he did not wait for the boy did he? It served him right, so what we were in a place that some would kill to cultivate in, it was not of our element, so why would I take the risk? Better, this time the contract was on my favor so he had to either move with the rest or break it and suffer its consequences, both fine for me.

I put the ones that rested through the night to harvest the cores from the beasts that had one, and useful materials from the ones that didn't. I told them to priorize the lighter materials like horns, eyes, fangs and the like, but we still ended with a lot of cargo to carry. Still, the tedious work served to calm things down, giving them the time to think things through, most coming to the same understating that there was more in what happened than the boy alone.

After the bloody work was done I let them get a quick breakfast and we leaved, so here we are, cutting our way through the forest and searching for new place to camp, this time way deeper inside the forest than the previous spot as we meet - and surpassed - our quota of level ones in one night. A pleasant surprise that made almost three weeks of delay jump back all the way up to a little over a week and a half. We are still behind schedule but it's definitely not as bad it was, like they say, opportunities and dangers truly walk hand on hand.

We are moving slowly, weight and fatigue pressing us down to a turtle pace as we force or way through the dense vegetation, no one wanted to leave the hard fought prizes behind to be eaten and they cannot be blamed for it, but it weight us hard nonetheless. Again, normally I would just move the green out of our way and we would not have to suffer all this, but my words still ring true, better be tired than dead. Last night events were too flashy and our group is not one of the stealthiest so if something is coming I want to be in the best condition that I can, unfortunately that means that we are stuck to keep moving in the traditional way.

Even if the traditional way is disgustingly slow.

-

I’m tired, no I'm not tired. Keep moving, one, two, one, two. Smile, back straight, look up - I repeat the mantra in my head, time pausing and time accelerating while changing tones and lengths of words so to keep myself distracted, anything to keep me moving. My legs hurt and my arms weight dozens of times more than I thought possible, but the worst and real problem is keeping myself awake, a constant and unwinnable battle where any second of distraction is enough to make me trip, black out, or both.

The only thing keeping me going being my mom’s voice on the back of my head, soft words of encouragement and heavy words of responsibility that were both burned in my soul and body as a proud member of The Frasan. I cannot shame the family and I will not, - not more - so I grit my teeth harder and keep walking while not showing any speck of tiredness or discomfort. Such is my responsibility and pleasure.

That said, I want to sleep so much, holy Four, why did I volunteer to take the watch? No, I did it because it was the polite thing to do, and they should have declined like every normal person. I said that I wanted to be on watch out of politeness! You should’ve reacted as such and brushed it off while trading some flowery words about how I fought valiantly, about how I was a beast among men or whatever, don’t you know anything about social interactions? - I hate this, I want to go home.

How I hate this fucking trip, everything is going exactly on the opposite way that they said it would be, the battle is over and all that left is more walking, more carrying and more pain. Where are the recognition and the glory? I want to cry, and I want to sleep, holy fuck I want to drop on the ground and never wake.

Maybe not the last part.

Although sleeping in the ground proved itself to be not as bad as thought it would, who knew you could actually use essence to make the earth soft and comfy? It’s so good that I almost want to replace my bed with an actual bunch of free soil. Not the most respectable idea but I think I could pull it off, mom and dad would not approve literally replacing that kind of expensive bed for, well, earth. But maybe if I did some kind of napping… place? I could actually use one of the private training rooms, and if someone gets suspicious I could just say that it is for practicing, who could prove otherwise?

I keep the thought of a napping spot for later and do a mental note of it, also a side note to maybe pack some of the earth from here too. I’m not a hundred percent sure but I think that there is something different with it, the way it responds at my will it’s just, faster and more natural. Who knows if sleeping here feels good because of it? Better be safe than sorry as I don't know when I’ll come back.

Soon the state championship starts and when I win I’ll have to move to the capital of Talhamn, and although it's not an impossible distance to move it is not one that I can just cross to bring some bags of soil. Also… thinking about it, that is the kind of thing that it's better that if I do, I do it myself. Don’t want people thinking that I have some kind of weird inclination and starting some nasty rumors, I can’t even think of w-

My thoughts are cut as I dump into something - someone, too distracted with my useless thoughts to notice that the chief of the band called for a stop. The mercenary that I bumped into looks over his shoulders, Ainmh, he looks at me with a silent question in his eyes, looking neither annoyed nor angry as usual. He is a silent type, he is also one of the few that don't eye me with hate for what previously happened and the one that told me the earth trick, so I rush an apology.

He accepts it easily, shrugging it off without a word and pointing at the reason that we stopped, or so I believe. At the movement I force my tired eyes to search for whatever it is, I catch uncle and two of the mercenaries talking ahead, what is not common, but that aside nothing that could give us a reason to stop.

I could use essence to see further,it would not even use that much of it to do so, but I choose no to. I've hurt people before, of course I did, I've been in dozens of spars before, I have even hurt people when I didn't want to, that's happen, it was what I thought. But after what happened I came to understand that I should take more care when using essence, because if someone dies, there is no amount that gifts that can buy a life back.

Of course, using a little essence in my eyes can hardly be compared with using essence to attack someone without thinking, but as dad said once, "there is no half vows". And even if my reasoning is somewhat extreme, what if I killed the kid? I would not only have taken a life but I would also pay its price with my own, what would be of the family then? They had put all their efforts on me for years, and I would pay them back by dying.

I need to take my power more seriously, I want to be a practitioner of the highest level, I want to be someone that people will look up to, that will be talked with pride and envy, not fear and hate. Not only for me, but to repay what the family did for me.

I-

"Seeing something?" He asks, for the second time bringing me back to reality as I lose myself in thoughts.

"No"

"Well, if Fr- boss made the stop sign than he must have a reason, for now we should just enjoy the early rest" - He says, already throwing whatever he was carrying and sitting on the ground even before ending the last word. Ainmh was one of the three that ended with the night watch so I can understand the feeling, because so was I, and I'm pretty tired myself.

Remembered how tired am I, I shake the previous thoughts for later and take glance to uncle, he's still talking with the two other men and will probably have no problems settling whatever made us stop by himself, so with excruciating calm and grace I free myself from my backpack, my muscles screaming in pain as the heavy burden slowly finds the earth, followed by me, as I find myself a sit on the ground.

I fight the urge to give myself in into the earth, fall asleep and again, never awake but that would be a loss of face, so I start meditating, the second best option. I free myself from the senses of a tired body, embracing with open arms the cold world of darkness and pulses.

At least until the eventual, but no far, time when I'll again have to again get up and keep walking. But I refuse to think about it for now.

_

“So, it is it?”

“I’m sure that yes, we stumbled on an almost two decades old neòinean although I still don’t know how it survived for so long, maybe because the forest’s beasts are predominately of Earth and Wind but, two whole decades old? It would be naivety to think that no one eyed it for the pure burst of essence alone after all this time.

Obviously there is some kind of top dog that has keeping it protected while waiting to it mature more, but even so, two decades is a lot of time, it should have eaten it long ago. I can only say that are lucky.”

“Can you estimate its strength?”

“Hard to say, it could be a level three but it also could be a level two variant. There is no way to know that the creature is doing it because of some kind of instinct or if it thought the decision of waiting by itself. One thing that I’m sure however, is that no matter if it's by instinct or not, it would not get far from the flower for long no matter what, not if it has been protecting it for twenty years”

“Okay, do not harvest it yet as we don’t know its strength, I don’t want a crazy beast on our backs because of a flower no matter how much it is worth” I say, dismissing the surprisingly knowledge in flora healer.

About ten minutes ago we saw a clearing through the woods, it was about fifty meters large for what we could see at the distance, and one of that size this deep into the forest would be a beast's den eleven out of ten times, so I brought the representative of the frasan - as the contract bounds me to - and Fliytch, so I could hear their - Fliytch's - thoughts on the matter.

We could not see the beast, but it could have caught our trace before we saw the clearing and gone to hiding, so we needed to decide what would we do. We ended choosing to fight it on the clearing as it was the best place if it was truly hiding, and one just as good if it was truly away. It would also let the boys rest and recharge some essence.

As we entered the clearing it became obvious that it was truly a beast den - not that I doubted, the ground was filled with tracks and the place had a faint smell of wet fur all over it. It was a good place though, and as I said early today, opportunities and dangers truly walk hand on hand. Not only we found a new place to camp but we also found a rare herb that can be sold for quite a coin.

It is not much, but it would help, every coin would help. But the flower will not run, so first things first. I find my way back to the middle of the band, most know what'll say already, if the clearing was not enough of a sign to let them know than the tracks were, but they'll be happy to know that the fight will at least gain them something.

I raise my voice -

“Hear me out you bunch, I have good and bad news, the good news is that this nicely patched piece of place will be our camp for now.”

No reaction, so I continue -

“Not only that, but we also found a two decade old neòinean sunflower with the estimate price of 2 cheuds or more”

This time my words find true and I see some cheering, it's a good new after all.

“Said that, the bad news”

“…”

I smile.

“Both this place and the flower are being protected by a at least level two variant beast so get the fuck up and make a protective circle, we are fighting it” - I finish my little speech, the cheers dying as soon as it started to spread.

"Common, move faster you lazy buns, you'll be able to rest when the work is done, or when you die"

As a level three variant I could kill it fairly easily, no matter if it was a level two variant or not, or even if it was a level three as I would outrank it nonetheless. But I'm not that greed, no, the opposite in fact, I'm a man of many virtues.

And I would not dare to take from those people that searched so fervently for insights just this morning the chance to fight with a stronger enemy.

How could I? It would simply hurt me so much to do so, everyone knows that the best way to gain insight it's to have your back against the wall after all. And what would be better to than fighting a stronger foe while being both tired and with your reserves of essence low to do it?

If there is, I truly can't think of such a thing.