The streets were empty, the marketplace closed and the only ruckus was caused by the rowdy locals coming from the nearby taverns. The nightlife in the small town was a stark contrast to the city, where the streets are filled with people and food stalls, and the gabble made it hard to hear one's own thoughts. It was to be expected though, small towns didn't have much to offer in the sense of going out and having fun. Which made what Bones set out to do more difficult, and that was to level up Soul Magic.

With no other option, Bones entered the rowdiest of the taverns on the street and found a table in the small corner on the upper floor to sit on. Contrary to what he expected, the crowded tavern would serve him well. There were plenty of people around to hide in and the easiest targets to influence were intoxicated individuals. Bones had targets lined up!

His first target was on the ground floor and already swayed, wobbling and bumping into others. Easy target no doubt and Bones focused on the man, establishing a soul link. The connection between the two worked as intended and Bones was hit by a plethora of jumbled up information he had hard time processing.

*slam*

Bones slammed a mug of beer onto the table. What a mess. This won't do! I need to pick my targets more carefully. He dismissed the link with the target, picked up his mug before standing up and taking a stroll around the upper floor. He noticed quite a few easy targets, but all as intoxicated as his first target. He ignored the type and turned his focus on the group of people at the table, gambling and playing cards. He slowly circled the crowd, observing the players and decided they would make for decent targets - nervous, distressed and impatient, just the kind he needed to make the tavern a bit more livelier.

After establishing a link with each of the players, one at a time, Bones decided on a fuming man with the least currency on the table to be his target. Just putting pressure on the man's soul would be the easiest way to do it and he already did that to people back in Hagos, but what Bones hoped to achieve this time required precise control. Luckily, his targets were simple men, without a combat class, low level and easily influenced.

Bones' second class was Soul Weaver, a class focused on manipulation rather than direct damage to the soul and as such, he hoped to not just read the emotions of his targets, but influence them and force them to act out. Slight pressure to the soul was a must! Just enough for the person to feel their heart tightening. Bones carefully timed when to act and when the players went all in on the table, he magnified the emotions they already felt. The excitement, nervousness, doubt and where Bones most excelled at, fear. The fuming guy lost it all. The man gnashed his teeth in anger and regret, and then the fear kicked in.

*slam* He slammed his fist against the table and pointed at the man sitting across, the winner of the pool.

"You fucking…You cheated!!" He yelled and jumped over the table, his hands grabbing at the other man's throat. The other players backed away from the table while the onlookers jumped in to separate the two. Hiding behind the crowd of people, Bones grinned and focused on the other two players. Afterall, they too lost the money and when they heard about the cheating…

By midnight, the upper floor of the tavern was turned upside down. The furniture was broken, the drinks spilt all over the floor and the patron was forced to close the upper area. In the meantime,Bones switched taverns and continued to cause disturbance everywhere he went. Before dawn, he was back in his room, reflecting on the experience gained.

"Failed to earn a single level huh?" Bones voiced his thoughts. The start of the evening looked promising and he gained experience like he normally would, but after repeating the same thing over and over, the experience diminished. Halfway through the night, Bones drew the conclusion that his targets simply weren't challenging enough to warrant enough experience.

He was close to leveling though, and without waiting for morning, Bones headed out of the inn and toward the eastern exit. If the townsfolk weren't enough, the wolves should provide enough of a challenge to justify a much desired level up.

The hunting grounds were just six kilometers away from the town, at the start of one of the largest forests in the kingdom - Silent Gale. The forest was aptly named after the sound the skill Wind Blade makes. The signature skill used by the direwolf alphas.

The forest had many different inhabitants but the dominating species were direwolves and the ones leading them were two elite direwolf alphas. A male and a female, together leading the largest pack of forty wolves. When Bones entered the hunting grounds, he saw he wasn't the only one there. It was a frigid morning. The forest was covered in frost and already crowded with hunters hunting in pairs.

The wolves weren't hard to find. The first pack of low level wolves appeared soon after entering the grounds, but Bones didn't dawdle. He wasn't interested in hunting small fry so he ignored the pathetic attempts to engage in a fight and quickly ran deeper. His only interest was in the alphas and their territory began at the ten kilometer mark, stretching all the way until the end of the forest.

Bones followed the experienced party of three from behind at a distance, as they slowly culled away the number of wolves and made their way toward the center of the forest. The decision he easily made after realizing he didn't know where to go. The party averaged level twenty-six and had experience fighting together. They easily repelled the attacks but as they progressed, the level of their prey started outleveling them. Soon, the wolves became too much for them to handle and the party retreated. Bones had seen enough of how the party had handled the way the wolves fought. He stepped up from the sidelines, and proceeded into the maw of the beast.

The wolves were intelligent. More than Bones gave them credit for. They always appeared in a pack and would retreat after losing one or two members. They baited, maimed and only went for the kill when given an opportunity. Once Bones reached the central area, a new kind of threat appeared. The kind he recognized to be exactly what he was looking for, the direwolves belonging to the main pack. At the head of the pack was a single elite alpha. A female, bigger than the rest, with beautiful white coated fur.

The elite moved behind the pack and with growls communicated with the rest of the pack. At least that's how it seemed to Bones who tried to approach unnoticed but failed to do so. The pack sniffed him coming, or was it the elite alpha? Bones wasn't sure, but the pack of nine direwolves closed in on him and started circling, surrounding him. Bones let them.

Relying on his Omnipresent Perception, Bones carefully followed their movements, both from the front and the back, and the blind spots which he didn't have any. He waited for them to strike first and prepared to counterattack. When the two direwolves pounced at him from his blind spots, Bones grinned and unleashed the perfectly timed Mana Blast. The rest of the direwolves didn't waste time after the first two attacked and immediately followed just a step behind.

The Mana Blast ripped through the first direwolf and knocked back the second one, heavily injuring it. The rest of the pack stopped its charge, recognizing the danger of the blast and retreating in a timely manner, suffering only light injuries.

After the failed first attempt, the elite alpha reorganized the pack and proceeded with caution but didn't retreat. Bones laughed, somewhat expecting after seeing such a behavior before. He felt the excitement brewing inside him. He locked eyes with the elite alpha and spread his arms wide, while smirking and provoking the pack to come at him.

A few hours later, Bones wasn't smirking anymore. The direwolves were too tricky to deal with, the elite alpha too cautious but more importantly, too nimble for Bones to catch up to or hit with his Bone Lance. Bones optimized the use of Quick Steps to the extent of his abilities but barely managed to keep up.

The rest of the pack was between level twenty nine and thirty two and weren't much of a problem, but they followed orders to a point and so far, managed to avoid too many casualties. After the initial Mana Blast that killed one and heavily injured the other direwolf, Bones didn't have a single opportunity to effectively use the skill again.

The direwolves scattered, kept distance and would attack one at a time. Bones chased but they retreated, and when he would manage to catch up to one of them and was about to deliver the finishing blow, the elite alpha would intervene. They've been at it for a while now and Bones' initial enthusiasm for the fight that was to come, diminished. The elite alpha was no joke. It was too intelligent to let something like pride affect its decisions. Bones noticed that for some time now, he was being led on. Still, he chased, wanting to see where his chase would end.

The central area of the forest was denser in trees, saplings and shrubberies. Bones' chase ended in front of a large grotto entrance, hallowed out from the elevated forest floor. Thousands of vines from the nearby trees grew around the grotto, surrounding it and almost covering the entrance. A large boulder sat on the top of the entrance and on top of the boulder, two predatory eyes watched him warily.

It was another alpha, bigger than the one Bones was chasing and after a moment of measuring each other out, the female appeared on the boulder from behind and took a stance next to the male. Bones only had a moment of time to Identify the two before the male alpha raised his head and howled.

Elite Gray Direwolf Alpha, level 39

Elite Gray Direwolf Alpha, level 37

As if out of nowhere, the direwolves began appearing in large numbers. Bones meekly smiled after identifying the two and watching the pack surround him. At mere glance he estimated there were around thirty direwolves closing in on him. He turned his attention back to the alphas and saw a light green hue envelope the female's body and start healing the wounds he inflicted during the chase.

The male alpha jumped down from the boulder and took a defensive stance in front of the wolf's den, while the female stayed and healed her wounds. The rest of the pack sped up into a sprint and charged Bones.

As cautious as ever. Bones scoffed, dropped the golem core beneath his feet while also springing forth into a sprint and heading straight toward the alpha. A second later, Skully appeared swinging his spear in a wide arc and deflecting a number of charging direwolves. The male alpha howled and met Bones' charge head on. Physically, both alphas were stronger and faster than Bones, but what made them so hard to fight was the experience.

The alpha jumped to the side, avoiding Bones' thrust with a lance and pounced from the flank, aiming for his neck. Bones didn't stop moving and immediately swirled, swinging his lance into a sweep. The alpha stopped his pounce mid-air, ducked his head and immediately took on a low stance upon landing, the sweep grazing the fur on his back. Just when Bones wanted to follow up with an overhead attack, the alpha jumped back and out of the range of his weapon. In the alpha’s place, more than twenty direwolves charged Bones who was forced to retreat, circle and find another opportunity to attack the alpha.

Things got complicated when the female joined in. Bones thought with the two of them, they would take on a more aggressive stance but instead, the two alpha became even more defensive. Bones exerted himself using Soul Gaze to halt their movements and the two recognized Bones to be a real threat, and coordinated around avoiding direct confrontation.

Over time, Bones analyzed and identified the skills alphas used. The male alpha used Wolf's Howl to call reinforcements and had a reinforced bite, resulting in a broken and cracked forearm Bones used to defend against. And finally, a signature magic attack, Wind Blade Bones had a fortune to experience first hand.

The alphas shared the Wind Blade skill, but the female alpha had a different skill set. The light green hue was a regeneration ability and her third ability was Swiftness, a support skill that buffed nearby allies. The two alphas complimented each other well and as the sky dusked and the shadows got long, the area darkened. The alphas fighting power wasn't at the level it was at the beginning of their fight and Bones' interest in fighting them throughout the night vaned. He got what he came for and was overall satisfied with the result, so he decided to retreat.

The cautious nature of the alphas leading the pack was what allowed them to avoid getting caught and stay the dominating species despite the frequency of hunters in the forest. Bones wasn't going to be the one to spell their end and he wasn't sure if he even could. No, he was sure at least the two of them could escape safely. The pack stayed vigilant for a long time after Bones left, no doubt exhausted and wounded from the whole ordeal.

Bones in the meantime, was completely lost. He hadn't considered the possibility that he wouldn't be able to discern the direction of the town so he wondered until he spotted a campfire in the distance. He made sure to make enough noise while approaching so as not to startle the three figures sitting by the fire.

"Well hello there."