I placed my foot down, lifted my back foot, and painstakingly searched for an area on the forest floor with the least amount of detritus before I placed my foot back down. I’d walked like this for the better for of half an hour because early into my journey I’d noticed the signs of a painted bane beetle colony.

  Painted bane beetles were nasty creatures. On their own, the bugs weren’t much of a threat. Most of the beetles weren’t larger than hip height on the average eight-year-old. Two things made the bugs a threat. The first was their mandibles, of which bane beetles had two sets. The larger of the two contained five interlocking spikes on each mandible designed to keep prey firmly in place; while the second set was far more mobile and designed to shred whatever was trapped in their grip.

  The second and most deadly things about the beetles was that you saw no less than twenty of the creatures at a time. Bane beetles are fiercely territorial animals and anything within what their Hive Queen marks as her territory they pursued relentlessly. Luckily for me, the beetles were famous for their poor eyesight and relied almost entirely on hearing to hunt, hence the slowness of my steps.

  Two hours within the bane beetle territory, I ran across a cluster of thirty. Their shells were an iridescent green that shimmered a faint bronze color in the tree dappled light. Their coloring was a remnant of their heritage as a base species where they’d imitated the coloring of an actually poisonous insect, but now as a species of spirit beasts that mimicry no longer worked.

  In fact, it was a detriment to their survival. Deeper within the Emerald Ocean, a lot of the cults hunted their hives for jewelry materials, and roughly every six months a wave of bane beetle shell jewelry arrives within the cult.

  I swept out off the trail and deeper into the forest in order to avoid their attention. The leaf litter blanketed the forest floor and occasionally forced me to reach up into the canopy and pull myself from branch to branch. Off the ground, I could move faster than on the ground, which was why I missed it when three beetles emerged from my left, the opposite side from the cluster, right as I dropped back onto the ground.

  I landed quietly enough to escape the cluster’s notice, but immediately the three bane beetles I hadn’t seen whipped their heads in my direction. All three of the beetles screeched and clacked the first set of their mandibles in a rhythmic pattern I assumed was a call.

  The bugs dashed over the dead log they’d feasted on and scrambled towards me. Without calling for it, I felt the touch of the Black Hand wrap around the back of my neck. The Howling Winds raced into me and scoured away my worries. Emotion which had clouded around the edges of my awareness faded and I moved.

  I stomped down on the first beetle to reach me and drove its head into the forest floor. The second of the bugs, and largest of the trio, arrived within a second but I kept it at bay with the rim of my shield and brought my hammer down in an arc that pierced the carapace of the still pinned bane beetle with the spike. I twisted the haft and yanked my hammer back, which tore a chunk of carapace off the size of my outspread palm.

  I stepped off the disabled beetle and pounced on the third beetle to arrive. The largest of the trio shrieked in outrage and the crippled bug made small pained chittering sounds. In three quick hammer blows, I caved in the head of the third bug and whipped back around to face the largest of the trio. In the time it’d taken to cripple one and kill another, the thirty on the opposite side of the trail had caught up and would arrive only seconds behind the one before me.

  Rather than fight all thirty-one, I turn and sprinted back to the trail. It took me another three hours to leave the bane beetle’s territory. As I ran, encumbered by almost a hundred pounds of gear. I could feel my body cry out to stop. Yet the fires of pain could not reach me wrapped in the touch of the Black Hand. The cold the Howling Winds brought with them kept the pain from truly registering with me and allowed me to run without rest.

  The entire time, the cluster of bugs had kept within sight of me until I reached the end of their queen’s territory. It was like the bugs hit an invisible wall. All at once, they halted their chase. I pulled to a stop and turned to watch as the bugs paced back and forth at the limit of their territory. Like a pile of mundane beetles, the bugs crawled all over each other as they traced back and forth, grotesque guard dogs behind an invisible fence. Their mandibles clacked, and the bugs hissed and screeched their fury at being outrun, but they remained behind the invisible line in the trail.

  Once I was sure they would no longer chase me, I turned and adopted the long, loping stride taught to every child of the Cult. My long stride propelled me faster and faster until I reached an equilibrium that allowed me to watch my surroundings and move as fast as my meager stats could provide. The touch of the Black Hand was slow to leave me, the Howling Winds never content to leave behind that which they inhabit, but eventually I could once again feel the fires of pain and exhaustion caused by my sprint.

  As I ran, the tree density continued the steady decline that’d begun as soon as I left that initial patch of overgrowth. After another four hours, clearings appeared, and the trailed widened to where I no longer needed to watch where I stepped to avoid tree roots, and other obstacles. When I finally stopped for the day, I’d been travelling for fourteen hours.

  It took me a while to find a clearing that was big enough for me to set up a temporary camp and defensive enough that I’d be able to hold off an attacker if required. The first thing to be unpacked was the boulder of soapstone, I planned to divide it into tablets tonight, and hoped I’d be able to extract at least ten, but with my level of skill I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get that. Next out of my bag was my hammock and tarp. The hammock I strung between two of the eldest trees, so I rested above the middle of the clearing while the tarp I hung to the three closest. The last things to be pulled from my bag were the set of stone carving tools Dale had gifted me for my birthday and my rations for tonight.

  Being the chosen of Ylena and son of the [High Priestess] came with a lot of privileges in daily life. Circumventing tradition was not one of those privileges. The only food permitted to me was our most basic military rations; pemmican and hardtack. When the tradition was first established, we forced participants to forage for all their food, but as time passed, the restriction lessened and now foraging most of your food was for fun more than any real purpose.

  Bane beetles, unfortunately, are the Emerald Ocean’s premier scavengers and will eat everything within their territory. There’d been nothing to forage for most of the day, and even if I could hunt game, bane beetles drive out or kill every other animal within range of their hives. It wasn’t all bad because the last few hours of the run I’d been able to stop occasionally to forage and while I hadn’t picked a lot; I was happy with what I’d grabbed.

  I’d been able to find a handful of glowhorns, a cluster of [Witch’s] butter mushrooms, and three tinderhoofs. [Witch’s] butter would probably wind up being most of my meals once the rations were gone. That wasn’t too bad because it was mostly tasteless, but each mushroom was incredibly nutrient dense and the Cult often relied on them when times got lean.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The glowhorns, however, were a lucky find. As the name suggests, the berries are faintly bioluminescent and incredibly rare to find outside of the deeper parts of the Emerald Ocean. They were bitter and admittedly an acquired taste, but I was a fan.

  The tinderhoofs were far and away my best find. Tinderhoofs are a parasitic plant that latches onto old-growth trees and grows out in the shape of a horse’s hoof. Once the main body of the plant gets heavy enough, it breaks from the tree and falls to the forest floor.

  On impact, the mana it stored during its growth explodes and shoots seeds in all directions. Usually, the explosion of mana results in a small forest fire, and the fertile ash helps the seeds grow. They were a popular fire starter within the cult because if you threw one hard enough into a fire pit, you’d get a small burst of flame.

  Once everything was set out, I built a small fire pit and used one of the tinderhoofs to light some of the deadwood I’d collected from around the clearing. Once I’d built the fire, I settled next to the soapstone and carved it into tablets. The soft bang of my mallet against the chisel was almost meditative, and I soon lost myself in the rhythmic task.

  I’d first taken up stone carving when I was fourteen. I’d just returned from the Culling to the news that Delia and Thalia, Ylena’s youngest daughters, had implemented a new program for children within the cult. Each child was to take up a craft or an art. It was all part of the initiative to promote culture within the Weeping Forest. Lost when it came to art, I asked Iona what she thought I should pick. She’d suggested stone carving because the hammer skills and hand-eye coordination required would help me train. Dale, who hadn’t been married to Joel at the time, was kind enough to allow me to study under him even though he knew I would never become his [Apprentice]. Over time, I’d developed a genuine love for the craft. It felt amazing to have my hands bring out art from a vessel as unassuming as stone.

  When the last tap of my mallet echoed out around the clearing, my hand still slightly numb from the vibrations, I had twenty tablets. Some were no larger than my hand, while others were as long as my forearm. I’d gotten more pieces out of the stone than I’d expected. None were a consistent size, and shards of stone littered the surrounding ground. Getting the tablets packed was a struggle and while ten of them could fit at the bottom of my bag, the rest had to be strapped to the sides of my pack. Covered in stone and secured with leather straps, my bag now looked like a damaged turtle shell.

  It took me an hour to finish eating. Hardtack was never a simple thing to eat and by the time I had finished, I was only fifty percent sure I hadn’t cracked a tooth. Once I put everything away, I stomped out the fire and hopped up into my hammock.

  Finally in bed, I began the breathing technique taught to me when I was younger. I breathed in cycles; each rotation a silent prayer to Ylena, each inhale an act of Renewal. It was a basic technique and slowly I felt my connection to her open slightly. Her attention remained away from me, but the connection allowed her Domain to wash through me. I’d performed this prayer since I was a child, and even with the chill of Stagnation, the sensation felt like being wrapped in my childhood blanket.

  This was the first time I not only had the opportunity to meditate, but to be alone since I’d chose my class. The previous day had been a whirlwind of congratulations, goodbyes, and compensation for soon to be lost time. Now that I was alone and in a place to meditate, I could finally check my status.

  I sent my focus towards my heart and tried to feel the rhythm of its beating. It took a while, but once I could focus on it, each beat filled my entire body. I felt like I could sense my very essence pulse within me. I tried to follow that pulse like a spiritual wave throughout my body.

  I lost focus six times. Each time I would hear something within the clearing and have my attention drawn to it, or I lost the sensation of my heart, or I got distracted by something within my body. However, with each try, it became easier to gain that meditative state where I could focus on the beating of my heart.

  On the seventh try, I followed that spiritual wave closely as it left my heart. Occasionally, things within my body called out to me and tried to catch my attention. Each time I ignored it, and followed that wave until finally it bounced off something that wasn’t supposed to be there.

  Common knowledge was that you accessed the System through your class, and every class was located at a different point in your body. My trainers had always hated that explanation as it simplified things too much, but all of them agreed that after I found my class for the first time, it would be easier to find again.

  [Grove Guard] was within my spine, just below the shoulder blades. I focused all of my attention on that spot. The spiritual pulse of my heart broke against whatever made up the class and formed irregular patterns in the area that surrounded the class. Once I had the spot locked in my mind, I willed the System to respond to me. Without fanfare words, written in the Low Grace Chant, appeared in my vision stamped into the space before me one at a time.

  Name: Bran

  Class: [Grove Guard], Level 1

  Attributes:

  Strength – 15

  Dexterity – 11

  Constitution – 16

  Endurance – 22

  Wisdom – 6

  Intelligence – 9

  Aura – 6

  Luck – 5

  Class Skills: (0/5)

  General Skills: (0/3)

  Mastered Skills:

  None.

  It was a strange feeling to see your very being quantified right before you. Although pleased with my physical attributes, ten being the human average for stats upon awakening, and 22 in Endurance was something I was going to brag about as soon as I got home.

  The 6 in Wisdom, that would follow me into the pyre.

  When I shifted my attention to the Skills part of my status, a new notification appeared. The stamped letters of the System overlaid on top of my status but remained perfectly legible.

  Congratulations on surviving to your species’ age of majority and choosing to Awaken! As this is your very first level, you have the Right to select both a Class and General skill! Would you like to do so now? (Y/N).

  Surprised at the notification, if not its contents, I selected yes. That brought up another new notification that stamped itself directly upon the last two yet remained perfectly legible.

  Class Skills Available

  Beginner’s Shield Art -> A basic martial style designed by the System to acquaint one with the basic footwork, blocks, parries, and strikes of wielding a shield.

  Beginner’s Sword Art -> A basic martial style designed by the System to acquaint one with the basic footwork, strikes, parries, and blocks of wielding a sword.

  Beginner’s Spear Art -> A basic martial style designed by the System to acquaint one with the basic footwork, strikes, parries, and blocks of wielding a spear.

  Beginner’s Axe Art -> A basic martial style designed by the System to acquaint one with the basic footwork, strikes, blocks, and parries of wielding an axe.

  Beginner’s Hammer Art -> A basic martial style designed by the System to acquaint one with the basic footwork, strikes, blocks, and parries of wielding a hammer.

  Beginner’s Woodcraft -> A generalized guide on how to survive in forested terrain.

  The class skills available to me were lackluster, but that was to be expected. The official doctrine from Mera’s church was that she’d designed the System to help those without access to education grow, and as a result, it gave everyone skills to secure their foundations at the beginning. That focus on the fundamentals was a good thing, even if you’d had training in a discipline before. It never hurt to be given lessons on the fundamentals from the vastest depository of knowledge the Material Plane has ever known. That didn’t mean that a small part of me hadn’t hoped to be the exception and be offered some ultra-powerful, over to the top skill. I consoled that part of myself with Beginner’s Shield Art.

  My class skills chosen, the rest disappeared and new letters stamped themselves into my vision. Each subsequent letter appeared faster than the last. Until all I could see before me was a wall of black text that scrolled by too fast to read. It took minutes for the letters to stop. Thousands of options had appeared and simply vanished outside my field of view. Rather than read all the options now, I willed the System to show me only the skills that were within a level of being mastered. The options that remained after the System had removed the rest were depressingly short and centered mainly on ways to improve how I functioned in my day-to-day life. There were less than twenty options in total and out of that, there were only two I would ever consider.

  General Skills available:

  The Willow’s Wrath -> A martial style native to the Weeping Forest of the Emerald Ocean. Adapted from the Cult of Weeping Grace’s main martial style by Iona Ylenadottir. This martial style relies on shield work and footwork to wear down an opponent before ending the fight in a series of precise, devastating attacks. (Skill Level - 24/25)

  Basic Stone Carving -> A basic guide designed by the System on how to wield the various tools required by this craft and its foundational techniques. (Skill Level – 9/10).

  The choice wasn’t even a question. As much as I enjoyed stone carving, I’d trained for as long as I can remember in the Willow’s Wrath. I’d mastered it in the eyes of my trainers a long time ago, and I’d be a fool not to master it in the eyes of the System. Skills selected the notifications disappeared and left only my updated status, which I checked briefly, dismissed, then settled into my hammock to fall asleep.