“Help!”

  Immediately, I snagged my knife out, ready to go.

  The call sent everyone in the area into action. Weapons appeared from inventories, and Dengu took up a stance in front of the three children he had gathered.

  Three Azurafolk dashed in our direction down the road as a mass of Harvesters followed. Arrows flew through the air faster than I could count, yet I didn’t move as others surged forward to meet the approaching line.

  Each and every Harvester stood below my level. Mostly they were in the 90s, with only one above level 100, but Kabi went after that one. He baited it into attacking him first, which was smart.

  Lenna held back, too, along with Asceto and me.

  The Azurafolk plowed into the mess of Harvesters, doing a lot of damage and generally avoiding their own injuries, yet the battle raged on and on. It took longer than I expected for them to finish the fifteen Harvesters in the flock. Multiple times I resisted entering the fray, but I didn’t.

  They needed the experience. They needed justice.

  Standing there doing nothing sucked.

  “This is going to be a long journey south, isn’t it?” I asked Lenna, wondering how many times this would repeat on our journey.

  “I hope not. Just watching people fight is going to get boring fast.” She turned to glance at Dengu, who still stood like an attack guard near the children. “At least we should get some rest in.”

  “And hopefully find an entrance to the dungeon near Kabi’s village. That will provide a good challenge to us.” At least, I hoped it would, given that Noseen didn’t want me to leave this planet just yet. Once the portal was fixed or what not, maybe that’d change.

  Finally the last Harvester went down and again people celebrated. No one needed any major healing, which was good. I kept my healing crystal under my armor.

  Kabi walked back to us where we still stood waiting. “That felt good!”

  “You’re reclaiming your forest, it should!” I smiled, and motioned to the cart. “I think we’re ready, just waiting for…”

  Dengu padded closer as the parents walked back to their kids. “Go?”

  “Yep, we’re gonna go.” I agreed.

  It didn’t take long for us to be practically flying down the road, wind in our hair as Asceto drove the hover cart. Kabi held on for dear life, while Dengu sat in the middle next to Lenna.

  I sat next to Asceto, doing my best to relax.

  We slowed down every time something arose on my radar, but whatever it was always fled. No more people, or even signs of Forgers, came up as we traveled. Just an empty road with lots of trees on either side. The canopy stretched out overhead, but did not reach the very center of the road. It left a thick stripe of clear sky.

  The Crystal Neutralizer practically vibrated with energy, which hadn’t been my intention. I used my other sight for a second, and it glowed with mana. Pain behind my eyes caused me to pause my investigation and instead open my character sheet.

  Intelligence had outpaced my toughness again. So I allocated my free stats to Toughness, and then Quickness and Flexibility. I needed those to remain higher than anything else, and I’d forgotten to allocate my free stats to keep things how I wanted them.

  Name: Alex

  Level: 112

  Race: Human

  Traits: Survivability, Adaptation, Hangry

  Class: Shadowstalker, level 112

  Profession: Elementary Mana Crafter, level 80

  Stats:

  STR: 440(447)

  QUICK: 1067(1144)

  FLEX: 1066(1143)

  TOUGH: 530(582)

  INT: 1054(1121)

  FORT: 1066(1133)

  WILL: 534(551)

  CHA: 293(310)

  FREE: 4

  Monstrosity: 11%

  Titles & Achievements:

  Jack-of-all-Trades

  Lucky Stars

  Giant Slayer

  Citizen

  Ahead of the Curve

  The First

  System Enforcer

  Rogue Ascendant

  Manaweaver

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Skill: 10/10

  Fortified Adaptation - II

  Mana Channeling

  Shadowstalker Form

  Perceptive Analysis

  Unwavering Hunter

  Shadow Walking

  Razer’s Embrace

  Venomous Chomp - II

  Tensile Claw Strike - II

  Sovereign’s Call - V

  Thirty-two levels separated my profession from my class, but now I had a path forward. Use my free stats to keep my top 3 ahead of the others, and do cool stuff with mana, not just crystals and runes. Though, I wanted to learn more about runes, and go over all the notes I’d taken.

  Progress. So much progress since I last saw Lakeside Landing. Following Lenna hadn’t just been the morally correct thing to do. I’d been rewarded for it with so much growth in such a short period of time, I wasn’t sure what to think.

  Not that I hadn’t put in the work. I had. I put in so much freaking work that Lenna wanted us both to take some time off to recover and celebrate the gains. Closing my sheet I switched my focus back to the Crystal Neutralizer, which hummed with energy.

  This time I stared at it with my other sight. Bright light surrounded it, and flared off it, before consolidating at the center. Warmth buzzed around the ring.

  “Asceto, what do you see when you look at this?” I asked, holding it up.

  The road was pretty straight, so I wasn’t worried about us crashing even though he steered while looking at the crystal.

  “It feels weird even from here. Those crystals from the collars don’t even feel like crystals anymore. Almost glass.” He shivered lightly as his eyes skittered away from the Neutralizer and back to the road. “Not sure what you did.”

  That didn’t help. I knew what I’d planned, and what my intentions had been, and the crystal had reacted this way.

  Maybe it had less to do with the crystals, and more with the mana side of things.

  I traced the paths that the mana flowed in around the ring. The increase in energy came from the other crystals.

  A dark thought crossed my mind.

  Did this eat the presences in the other crystals? Did I make a devouring crystal?

  Yet, something else came to mind and I pulled the crystals out from under my armor. I placed the crystal neutralizer near my battery, but instead of trying to neutralize it, I instead pushed the mana out of it to charge the battery.

  Sweat dripped down my brow, but the glow dimmed the tiniest bit, then again, then it started rushing inside the crystal battery like it was meant to.

  [You have created a Mana Transfer crystal.]

  [You have leveled your profession.]

  My energy sagged, but I pulled on the battery, which was brimming. The glowing energy raced through me much like the injection had. I cut off the flow rather quickly.

  It didn’t satisfy the urge to eat something, but I didn’t feel as drained.

  The bracelet didn’t go all the way back to its original dim state, but close enough. Yet, something nagged at the back of my mind.

  My radar suddenly flared as a group of creatures raced to the roadside from deep within the forest. “We have incoming,” I said to the others, not really worried.

  Everyone tensed a little in the hover cart, but I did the opposite. There wasn’t much within the forest to worry me.

  But food? Food sounded good.

  A group of ten Harvesters leaped out of the mass of trees, and Asceto slowed the cart down. Only three were high enough for me to care about.

  [Harvester, Whispering Trap, Level 109, Prey, Chicken.]

  [Harvester, Stalking, Level 110, Prey, Chicken.]

  [Harvester, Fear, Level 109, Prey, Chicken.]

  The others I ignored as Dengu leaped off the cart, making it wobble. Lenna fired her arrows into the bunch, but also targeted the higher level creatures. Kabi joined Dengu and waited until they attacked him. Which they didn’t have a problem with.

  I joined the fray as well, slicing through the crowd with my knife.

  Fear suddenly drenched the area as one Harvester used a skill. It rolled right off me and I leaped in its direction. It tried to stab me with a leg, but lost it instead. The fear cut off.

  Dengu and Kabi tore through several, working as a great team. Lenna stayed back with Asceto, only firing to keep one off my back.

  Down went the one with fear, and I twisted to get the one with Stalking. I didn’t know what that skill did, but I wanted to find out. Lenna didn’t finish it and let me get a few slashes in by removing two legs, before it also joined the other in death.

  The last higher level one Dengu took out before I had a chance.

  Suddenly, everything went quiet as Kabi killed the last one that flailed about.

  My mouth watered, thinking of the chicken flavor, and I went to work. First, the one with Stalking. I cut into the chest and removed the heart, and chunks of meat went into my inventory.

  I cut the heart in half before tossing it into my mouth. It practically melted, which was unsettling.

  [You have devoured a level 109 Harvester and gained insight into Unwavering Hunter. Unwavering Hunter: You possess an unparalleled ability to locate and pursue any target, whether a fugitive, dangerous creature, or hidden facility. Increased damage to any stealth attack or attack on any outlawed facility.]

  The notification changed nothing about the ability, but it reminded me about all that the skill did.

  I continued to cut only the easiest pieces of meat off the creature before moving to the next, this one with Fear. The heart again melted inside my mouth without me getting a good chance to chew.

  [You have devoured a level 109 Harvester and gained additional experience.]

  Eh, not super useful.

  Again, I only took the easy cuts as everyone waited around for me. Though, Kabi helpfully cut up the third, after Dengu took a few bites. All the chicken flavored meat went into my inventory, enough that I wouldn’t need to worry for a while.

  Once we all climbed back into the cart, Asceto pulled us back onto the road and off we went.

  “How long will it take to get to the southern outpost?” he asked.

  I didn’t know, and turned to Kabi.

  “Well, it took us several days to walk north, just to reach the cloning facility, and we haven’t even run into that turn off yet. This is faster than walking, but it’s a long ways.” Kabi glanced up, then shook his head. “A couple of days at least, is my guess.”

  “I’ll be able to tell once night falls,” added Lenna, with a grin. “But not until then.”

  “But probably a week,” I said, thinking of how long it’d taken, and trying to estimate how far we’d actually gone since we hadn’t hit any branches.

  Time to try to figure out more with my class, plus the book of runes. If I used those as a template for how the mana needed to flow, and applied that in general to working with mana, I might make some leaps.

  Yanking the book out of my inventory and flipping open the pages felt good. It felt like I finally had time to relax. And I wasn’t starving, which was a nice change from the past day or two.

  Thankfully, I got lost in the pages and practiced imagining the runes inside my head. Each line basically directed the mana into specific shapes that meant things, but you could overlap them to add complexity.

  Intention.

  It all went back to intention.

  I snagged out the charcoal and practiced the clarity rune that Lorinee had given me. After the fifth time, I didn’t even need to get the lines smooth, I could brush over it with my intention then trigger it from the back of my hand.

  [You have gained insight into Mana Channeling. Mana Channeling - II: You can locate and manipulate mana sources like crystals and runes, including cleansing them of impurities. You have gained an understanding of the flow of mana within Runes and Crystals. The voices within mana sources are easier to hear and understand.

  [You have leveled your profession.]

  [You have leveled your profession.]

  The hover cart slowed down, knocking me out of my zen. I blinked as Asceto pulled over to the side of the road near a large clearing.

  “Why are we stopping?” I asked. Yet, my question felt dumb as I realized just how much time had passed.

  The trees cast shadows across the clearing, as everyone else immediately left the cart and stretched.

  Nothing crossed my radar, but at the edges something hovered.