Alister considered his options. Fire was out. If they were going to cook the crab, it couldn’t be burnt. That ruled out poison as well for obvious reasons.

That left concussive force or hemomancy. Truth be told, he leaned towards hemomancy. That gun was powerful but destroyed a lot of meat. Not to mention messy… that rock was covered in gunpowder. Maybe he could one-up his cousin here.

Back in his last life, he would hunt beasts in a way that did a good job of avoiding drawing attention; cutting off blood flow to the brain. Such an intrusive manipulation was impossible against anything with a soul even approaching a person in strength, but it let him kill something as weak as an animal quickly and easily. Now that he no longer needed to unlock his system, he could shake off the dust from those skills.

Focusing on what he remembered about crabs, which admittedly wasn’t a ton, he reached out and felt its blood flow with a quiet chant. Feeling them out, he found just the flow he was looking for… and pushed the blood back against itself, blocking it from going to the brain. After a very brief period, the crab lost consciousness. Shortly after that, it died. Not an ounce of meat lost, and the suffering would be brief.

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 2 has been killed.]

Turning to Wisteria, he grinned smugly, "See? Who needs a gun anyway!"

Wisteria gave him a puzzled look, as it seemed as though the crab simply dropped dead, "What did you do?"

Alister hemmed and pretended to think about if he should tell her. With a little insistence, he spoke. "Simple! I used a little blood magic to make it lose consciousness and die quickly, painlessly, and quietly," he said with a boastful tone. With the resulting silence, he gave a confused look, "What?"

Morgan rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, "Oh. Uh… blood magic huh? Well, you didn't hurt yourself for it, so I guess it's okay, but… ah. People don't like it."

This just made Alister balk. "What? Still? Why?" He flapped his hands, exasperated, “Five thousand years, and people are still afraid of blood! Ridiculous.”

Morgan shuffled her feet, "I guess because it's so easy to get hurt and, honestly, people usually turn to it out of desperation. So that kinda compounds to blood mages dying in pretty horrific fashions to their own magic. Seems like you know what you're doing, but I wouldn't be so… open about it, ya know? The only people really accepted who do it are healers."

“I’m hardly a hemomancer but I know a thing or two,” he scoffed, “It’s only dangerous if you go overboard or don’t know your limits, or if you simply don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Sure… or you just pull a little too much… or a spell goes wrong… or a spell explodes on you. I’m not going to say don’t use it… just… I don’t know. Be careful.”

“Gods above… We’ve made such amazing technical progress and yet we still fear messy mistakes. It’s on the mage. If it fails; then it’s a reflection of the mage. As long as no one else gets hurt it shouldn’t be a problem,” Alister grumbled, “Besides. I’m saving meat this way.”

“Yeah yeah… such a brutal worldview, but fine. I won’t stop you,” Morgan said, and Wisteria nodded along, not saying anything. Both girls had concern clear on their faces, but they refocused to gather the bodies that soon began flowing in.

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 2 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 5 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 4 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 1 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 6 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 3 has been killed.]

[Electric Tidefisher Crab - Level 2 has been killed.]

[Sand Tidefisher Crab - Level 2 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 1 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 4 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 2 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 5 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 3 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 1 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 1 has been killed.]

[Tidefisher Crab - Level 7 has been killed.]

[Electric Tidefisher Crab - Level 1 has been killed.]

[Level up! - 4]

Alister huffed, shaking growing numbness out of his hands. It wasn’t easy to keep this up nonstop. His body was still woefully inept to cast over and over without a focus or a circle or a full chant. Morgan had crystals, did she not? He glanced to her as he clenched and unclenched feeling into his fingertips.

“Morgan! Can I use one of your crystal focuses?”

“Oh? I figured the big bad blood mage doesn’t need a focus. You’ve been doing so well without it, after all.”

“Just shut up and give me it. I can’t channel this much mana at this age.”

“Say pleeeeease! Please, my older cousin Morgan? My amaaaazing cousin. The wonderful and wondrous woman that she is!”

Alister groaned, covering his face with his palms, “Please? I don’t want to take all day.”

“Fiiiine. I guess you asked nicely enough,” Morgan said with a grin, handing over a rose-colored crystal the size of a playing card. Alister grabbed it and went back to work against the crabs, now focusing his energy through the crystal before casting instead of his own body.

[Level up! - 5]

[Level up! - 6]

[Level up! - 7]

After four hours and countless crabs' deaths, one final notification pinged in Alister’s head.

[Level up! - 8]

The exhausted boy let out a relieved sigh. He got ever closer to level 10… but he was absolutely exhausted by this point. His limbs shook, his head hurt, he’d had more cramps than he cared to admit, and his ears were ringing from countless gunshots beside him, but he got closer and closer still.

Alister had to switch to a simple Magic Missile spell eventually, as a small crowd had started to gather and he didn’t want rumors spreading. First came the city guards, investigating the gunshots, then came the personal guards sent to track them down with a very strongly worded message from Alliana that sent chills down Alister’s spine, and over time civilians had begun congregating to watch. Morgan had handed her gun off to Wisteria so she could assist Alister and gain some skill with the thing herself, and had opted to instead spend some time handing out the crabs that were killed. People muttered in curiosity about the legality of this act, and Morgan proudly touted her status as an adventurer fit to oversee the kids, so the guards let it continue, albeit they prevented anyone from getting into the beach to collect crabs themselves.

But while the populace was enamored with the influx of foodstuffs, what most caught the eye of Morgan and anyone there with experience with magic or combat was Alister and Wisteria. The girl had taken to the gun quickly and was now firing with precision not too far off from Morgan's own. While this wasn’t the most surprising thing, Morgan only sometimes used it and was a melee fighter first and foremost, it was impressive all the same. And Alister… the educated and magically skilled among them was keeping track of how much mana he must be spending.

Insofar as they could tell, he had already used as much mana as most members of the crowd contained collectively. This got the people chattering, especially when word spread about who it was. The as of yet mostly unseen son of Duke Blas Severin, not only here among them, but also providing them with food and solving a problem that had vexed them for some time, and the guard didn’t seem terribly interested in solving themselves. Could it be that the boy would walk in his father's shoes and be a leader of the people directly? Or was he merely whimsical? The answer they came to depended upon how cynical the individual was.