The next morning couldn't come soon enough. Despite our relatively safe and comfortable accommodations, I couldn't help being startled by random weird animal sounds and ended up tossing and turning through most of the night. Just as I was starting to get some proper sleep, there was a polite knock at the door of my tent. I rolled over and covered my face with my blanket but decided there was no point since I was mostly awake by now.

I got up, then changed out of my sleeping clothes and into my travelling clothes that consisted of a pair of track pants, t-shirt and windbreaker combo. It wasn't particularly glamorous, but the important thing was that it was easy to move about in. I tied up my hair into my usual ponytail and grabbed a face towel from my Void before opening my tent door and heading for the stream to wash my face.

"Ohayou," I greeted Masa, who already had another small fire going. And were those skewered fish I saw cooking beside the fire? I couldn't help commenting, "Wow, did you wake so early that you even had time to catch fish?"

"Good morning to you too," he said, checking one of the skewers. "Nah, it's just my habit to wake up early, and when I saw these guys swimming so sluggishly I couldn't help myself."

"Huh." I tilted my head to the side as he explained further. Apparently he had manipulated the water to drop the fish onto dry land. What excellent cheating. I myself could only have conjured a bucket or net to catch them instead.

The water from the stream was colder than I expected, and woke me up completely. I still didn't dare to drink it directly, but gargling with it was probably fine. After my morning ablutions were done, I returned to the fire and took out a couple of granola bars and apples for breakfast. I handed Masa his share and he handed me a fish skewer in exchange. "Glad I can contribute to our meals too," he said with a smile.

"Oh, you've contributed plenty!" I insisted, waving my hands at him. "The fire is one thing, but you also provided water for our noodles yesterday, didn't you?"

"I guess so." He regarded his fish skewer thoughtfully, then asked, "Have you tried multiplying something like this?"

I shook my head. "I could try," I said, concentrating on my own skewer, studying every single detail. I had succeeded in multiplying dead leaves, but not a biscuit in an opaque wrapper, so I suspected that my visualisation was a factor. I couldn't see how the biscuit looked like inside the wrapper after all. Anyway, I tried my best to picture a second skewer in my hand and cast the magic. As usual, there was no accompanying sensation apart from a slight breathlessness, but the second skewer materialised in my hand. I showed it to Masa in triumph, and his eyes widened, then narrowed as he grinned back at me.

"Now the question is: how does it taste like?" he asked, biting into his own skewer. "By the way, I only seasoned it with a bit of salt, so don't expect too much."

While I still had the image clear in my mind, I produced another skewer and handed it to him. "It's not hot, so I guess it can't replicate the temperature as well."

He gingerly bit into the second skewer and chewed. "Hmm, there doesn't seem to be much difference apart from the lack of heat. Your Conjuration seems to be more intuitive somehow? Like either it works or it doesn't. My magic is much more dangerous to experiment with. I was literally playing with fire when I first started. Then I got smarter and played with water instead."

I chuckled as I munched on my skewers as well. "Playing with the elements does sound risky. Fortunately both of my affinities are relatively safe."

"Maybe our affinities have to do with our personalities?" suggested Masa. "I'm a nature-lover who puts all his focus into his hobby while you're a relatively sheltered girl who likes her conveniences, from what I've seen anyway. Supposedly anyone who enters Shyi'eld has magical affinities, right?"

I pouted a little at his description of me, but couldn't deny it. "Feyril only told me that the Conjuration affinity was common, but most people only used it at a basic level due to a low capacity for mana. I would have thought that the natives here would actually have more mana since they are exposed to macli all the time."

"Surely they could increase their capacity through training?" asked Masa. "It would be too sad to be stuck with low mana without being able to do anything about it, right?"

"Apparently they don't need it much for normal life, so only very motivated people strive to become fully fledged mages. Even then, mages do not earn much unless they are highly ranked," I said with a shrug. "I suppose adventurers and such do use magic too. Feyril didn't mention the existence of dungeons though."

"The messages I received at the start said that monsters are more common in forests and caves, so those might be the equivalent of dungeons here," said Masa as he finished off his fish and unwrapped his granola bar.

"Another thing I've noticed is that the Levels we gain don't seem to do much," I added. "The skills improve with use, but since the status is not shown in numbers, I can't tell whether there's been any improvement or not."

Masa tilted his head. "Really? I can see the numbers just fine. Want me to read yours out for you?"

My jaw dropped and I nodded quickly. "Please do! And how do yours compare?"

According to Masa, my status looked like this:

Rynn Tan

Level: 24

Attack: 260

Endurance: 254

Agility: 489

Speed: 312

Intelligence: 286

Mana: 395

His were:

Masahiro Tanaka

Level: 33

Attack: 490

Endurance: 515

Agility: 336

Speed: 348

Intelligence: 522

Mana: 487