The monsters refused to give us a breather.

  I watched Tom, Jack, and Mark fan out again, steel and wood flashing as they rushed to bail out the rotating mages. After the last few encounters we had managed to push forward at a steady pace, but the pressure never really eased. If anything, it worsened. More shapes slipped between the trees now, more rustling and shrill cries echoing through the undergrowth.

  I could not tell if the larger group made us more visible or if something else was stirring the area up, but the fights were stacking closer together, bleeding into one another.

  This one was ugly.

  Nearly a dozen eldirs burst from the bushes at once, low and fast, coming from all sides. I snapped hexes outward without breaking stride, the familiar tug in my chest answered by my intent. The creatures slowed, their movements turning syrupy, but even dulled, they were dangerous. The crafters and mages struggled to put them down fast enough; fear and hesitation slowed them more than the monsters did.

  Tom held the line with grim efficiency. His spear found the right angle to strike, while his shield work was clean, angles chosen with care, letting blows slide instead of crashing head-on. The thing should have shattered by now, given its quality, but he treated it like an extension of his body. Jack was holding his own as well; boots planted, the man was a great defender.

  They were improving.

  Still, compared to the vanguard, there was a gap. Levels would close part of it. Experience would close the rest, but neither came cheap.

  A ripple brushed against my senses, a faint presence cutting towards me. I let it be.

  Quinn appeared at my side a heartbeat later, chewing on a fruit that looked vaguely like a peach if peaches had blue fur.

  “Do you think they’ll last until midday?” he asked around a mouthful.

  “They’re starting to improve,” I replied, eyes tracking the fight. “Some of them, at least. Others… fighting just isn’t in them.”

  He hummed. “So the movies didn’t lie. There’s always someone who freezes even when it’s their life on the line.”

  I exhaled. “Sadly.”

  A sharp crack drew our attention.

  Mark’s spear snapped in half. The eldir he had been trying to keep at bay slipped inside his guard and raked across his chest. Two long gashes didn’t even have time to spill blood as the next strike came to end him.

  Fortunately for him, Alya wasn’t of the same opinion.

  Her axe came from below in a blazing arc, red light flaring along the edge as it bit clean through the creature. The split corpse was flung away like refuse, blood splattering on the trees where it landed.

  “Damn”, Quinn whistled. “She’s getting scary. Imagine that hit with a decent axe, like... sharpened and magical.”

  I nodded as Mary rushed to Mark’s side; she used her skills, and in a couple of seconds the bleeding was already under control. She was getting plenty of practice today.

  “If we had better equipment”, Quinn went on, voice heavy with frustration, “we’d be able to do much more than this. I really can't wait to find another safe zone, man; my everything itches, you get me?”

  I chuckled softly while looking at the fight coming to a close. “Yeah, but mostly, information is what I want. If we knew about the tutorial challenge, really knew, we could have prepared… how many people would still be alive? If we had a manual on how the system worked, on magic, achievements ... how many did we lose because of our ignorance?”

  I glanced at him. “And yes, I can see why you itch... Did you take at least one bath these days?”

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  He recoiled. “A bath where? In the river? Are you crazy!? It was like freezing temperature! Did you get a dip in the water?”

  “Of course I did,” I said. “I wasn’t the only one either. Some people at least wiped themselves down. We’re not animals.”

  He snorted. “Ha-ha. Very funny, they should give you an award.”

  “Remember that girls don’t like stinky men…” I told him as he started moving away.

  Quinn drifted off towards Tom, muttering something probably not very flattering under his breath. Teenagers and hygiene… a timeless battle.

  As the fight wound down and we regrouped, my thoughts kept circling. He was right; we needed gear. Spears and shields were being replaced with crude stopgaps, wood lashed together with desperation and hope. The clothes were tearing apart. Mana reserves were another problem. Melissa was helping everybody with her barriers, but she was already flagging; she didn’t have my stats nor my regeneration. Without my cape, I would have felt the drain too.

  Alya with a real weapon would be a menace, and everyone could use more skills.

  And more than anything, I needed information.

  I needed to know where the Tyrant of Aaranor was and get his crown. The thought pressed at the back of my mind, like a phantom weight. I could feel the next shift in my trait, so close it made my pulse quicken. The token would push it to the stage where it was needed, but the crown was the true prise. Aurelia had known what she was doing when she gave me that scrap of knowledge. One of the seven kings of the tutorial was the tyrant; there was no doubt in my mind.

  I had to find it, and more than anything, reach it first.

  The urgency tightened in my chest until I forced myself to look at the people around me. They were tired and scared but moving forward anyway.

  I needed to make them stronger, to move faster. And I needed to become stronger too, they were limiting me too much.too; I wasn’t progressing as fast as I wanted; I needed to find more monsters, higher grades, and accumulate points and experience to push more, much more.

  As we resumed our march, I turned inward. At least if I couldn’t raise my stats or gain achievements for the moment, while travelling I could polish my skills and apply what I talked about with the girls yesterday. So I went to work.

  I cast an arcane blast and held it at my fingertip, suppressing its release, and focused. With Arcane Sense I could not see spells the way Melissa described them, but if I concentrated hard enough, there was something there. A structure just beneath the magic at my fingertip.

  It was frustrating; my skill was great at sensing anything magical, but it was more of a wide scan, not a precision tool. If I could evolve Arcane Sense and refine it, maybe I could see what she saw, but foundational skills behave differently than the ones we earned later. No one knew why – another question added to the pile.

  Or maybe I was chasing the wrong path.

  The thought surfaced uninvited, and I nearly stopped mid-step.

  I was trying to imitate something I already could do, just in a different way. Melissa shaped spells by understanding their structure. I did not; I imposed my will on them. My hexes bent because I told them to; it was in the description… I checked it again, just to be sure.

  The text was bare-bones like always, but there was something to gain from it. My mind whirled to another trait, the one I gained with the debuff mage class I had for like twenty seconds.

  What if I combined the two? Both worked through intent, and intent was under the domain of will, or so I thought. What if I primed the mana before it became a spell?

  I let the arcane blast dissipate harmlessly and drew on my reserves again. I focused my arcane sense; the mana flowed from everywhere at once, like it took a thin strand from every cell, coalescing under my direction. This time I did not cast.

  I focused; I imagined a blade. From the dart I usually conjure, I told the spell to become something longer and flatter. A guard. A grip. I felt my aura start to stir in response to my casting, doing something… Then I will release the manifestation of the spell in my hand and release the mana with that image burned into it.

  The blade formed.

  And it was awful.

  The arcane dart twisted into existence, warped and uneven. One side jutted into a crude edge; the rest buckled and bent, barely holding coherence. It vibrated violently, light stuttering along its surface as if it might detonate at any second.

  I clenched my teeth and poured my will into it, forcing it to dissolve instead of explode. The mana unravelled after some seconds of efforts.

  I let out a slow breath, grinning.

  It had worked. Not well, or cleanly, but enough to prove it was possible.

  I just needed time and a lot of practice.

  I could do it while marching; it was hard, focusing on going forward, scanning the surroundings for threats and improving my spellwork, but I’d have to manage.

  Ha! Who said that man couldn’t multitask?

  20 chapters ahead!