The village mostly manages itself these days but I do need to touch base with the leaders from time to time, especially after I’ve implemented something new. I have sparring with my Bound and weapons’ practice, though I grimace as I see from my status screen that I haven’t spent as much time doing those as I intended – obvious when I see that even Archery, which has improved the most, only went from Novice nine to Initiate five. Considering that those Skills are still quite low level, they really should have increased more.

  Still, they’ve increased enough for me to feel the difference when I go out with the hunters or spar with someone I haven’t fought with in a while. Or when a new Pathwalker joins our ranks and we have a battle to establish their rank. And it does seem that my Skill improvement rate in the more combat-oriented Skills does slow down when I’m not actively fighting. That’s one reason I’ve also tried to make time to go out into the forest with a group of my Bound. That, and the fear that if I don’t experience life or death situations every so often, I’ll lose my edge – and the willingness to put myself in danger. I fear it would be all too easy to slip back into the civilised Markus whose greatest moment of danger was crossing the road – or getting in a car.

  The two largest portions of my time over the last few months have been spent on stat-point acquisition and learning new Skills, Shaping ones, primarily.

  I now know how to increase all of my stats manually. It took quite a lot of exploration and experimentation, but eventually I worked out how to give myself my physical stat points as well as my mental and soul stats.

  The inspiration for my physical stats actually came from an unlikely source – examining Warriors with physical enhancement Skills while they used their Skills. And that was purely by accident. I’ve been trying to work on improving my distance healing, something I still haven’t fully got a grip on, but have started being able to do with my Dominated Bound at least.

  Healing at a distance involves sending my flesh-magic through the Bonds instead of through my fingers, and then controlling it like I’m using a mechanical hand rather than my own to solve a puzzle. I asked my Bound to fight together to simulate combat, trying to improve my ability to help them in that situation.

  While I was doing it with two Warriors, they started using their skills against each other so as to actually make use of the training session for themselves. Since my magic was inside the one who had a body enhancement, I was able to get a front-row seat to seeing exactly how Enhanced Speed works.

  That gave me the inspiration of how to enhance my own Dexterity, and it wasn’t a big leap from there to actually managing to permanently increase my Dexterity stat. Learning how to increase Strength and then Constitution weren’t far behind – Enhanced Strength gave me inspiration for the former, and Constitution came from a new Warrior with Enhanced Vitality, a skill where he can essentially flood his body with Energy to increase his health pool for a short time.

  As was the case when I was just starting out, the lower the stat is to start with, the less Energy it takes to increase. My most recent point in my Constitution, bringing it up to forty points, cost me a little more than a sixth of my progress towards my next level – which made it finally become more expensive than just levelling up. Dexterity, however, only costs me about twelve percent to raise it by another point, and Strength is even cheaper than that, seven percent last time.

  I’ve been concentrating on Constitution, since as a health pool it’s still pretty small in comparison to most of my Bound, but now that it’s more expensive to increase that manually than with levelling up, I’ll have to stop and choose another stat to focus on. With my attention these days on using magic, increasing my Strength really hasn’t been top of my priority list. Dexterity is another matter – my revelations on the way to the Festival about how stamina works indicated that Dexterity affects more than just my physical movement, so that’s what I’ve been working on since increasing my Constitution by eight points.

  I want to get Dexterity up to the same level, but so far have only been able to add four points in total. I don’t want to forget entirely about Strength, though, so have been putting the odd point in that, three in total. I only recently learned how to enhance my Endurance rather than simply Power – that was a lucky find in a Warrior who had an Endurance related skill. My stamina pool has only gone up slightly as a result.

  As for my level up points, I’ve been focussing purely on my mental and soul stats, primarily Willpower and Intelligence. Willpower because it’s my most useful stat for my Class; Intelligence because it increases my mana pool which is an essential part of pretty much everything I’m doing these days. I’ve watched it enough times during level-ups that I’m pretty sure I’ll know how to increase that manually now, though it would no doubt use a lot of Energy to do so. Next level up I’ll put some points into Wisdom now that Intelligence has surpassed it. Again, there’s not much point in doing that manually as it uses more Energy than it would take to level up and get six points for my troubles.

  But I’ll only focus on that when I’ve got Strength up to thirty, I think. I don’t want that falling too far behind. I would have done another Willpower Challenge, but when I tried to take it, I wasn’t allowed to do so. I’ve tried a couple of times since then, but have had been met with the same refusal. Evidently, there’s some sort of limitation to it. Whether it’s time or some other event, I don’t know; I’ll have to just keep trying.

  In addition to my points, I’ve also learned a few more Skills. Watching and helping River and Tarra has given me Alchemy – the ability to infuse Energy or mana into an ingredient or concoction, and to control the Energy already within it. I’m still very much a beginner and both River and Tarra could knock the socks off me without even trying, but at least I have an idea of where I could start if both of them decide to stay here when I leave this world.

  River’s Fire Herbalism is fascinating to watch, especially with my magic sight – her fire-affinity mana twines with whatever she’s working with and carefully burns away everything that won’t be useful for her intentions, allowing her to create incredibly pure potions, poisons, and various other alchemical products. Of course, that also requires an incredibly fine sense of control, and I’ve seen her fully burn far too many things, destroying the desirable with the undesirable. But she’s getting there. I’m not sure if she’ll ever be able to infuse mana into substances like Tarra, except fire-aspected ones, perhaps, but she’s likely to surpass her teacher in the power of her brews as long as she has access to good quality ingredients.

  More immediately useful for me is that I’ve finally completed the set of elemental Skills that I wanted. Happy helped me gain Metal-Shaping, Dusty taught me about Water-Shaping, and Windy, reluctantly, helped me with Air-Shaping. I’m pretty sure that once they’re all at the same rank, I’ll be offered a combined Skill much as with Inspect, but that’s likely to take a while since Earth-Shaping is already at Journeyman. Still, something to aim towards.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  My feet have continued walking even through my musings. Finally reaching the gates, I see the representative standing outside. It’s a Warrior – predictably. I think my village is probably the only one where Pathwalkers regularly go out with the hunting parties – since reaching Tier three, Windy has been keen on using her new abilities to literally rain down destruction. Hunting has therefore been right up her street even if the forest has been a little worse for wear a few times. I’ve actually been called out twice to deal with the forest fire she provoked with her indiscriminate lightning.

  Several of the others have also been keen on working on their combat capabilities in practice as well as theory and have been using the hunting trips to do that. It’s amazing what happens when groups of Warriors or mixed Warriors and Unevolved are the ones to go out hunting. They’re far more efficient and productive, not to mention safer than the Unevolved doing it before. Being able to trust each other and go out in groups is a major factor in that – gone are the days when grouping up meant more chance of betrayal or needing to share the food tokens they received. Of course, they do have to share the Energy Heart fragments, but those are less necessary than food.

  “Hi Stony, Rocky,” I say as I step into the gateway and glance at the two guards. Who do we have here? I continue over the Bond. We actually have proper gates now – a project Joy, Sticks, and Flower worked on together. They’re open for now, but they add an extra level of security. We’ve improved the fence too – hands willing to work for Energy Heart fragments can make a significant difference when directed in the right way.

  The strange Warrior seems to be rather startled at the improvements if his wide, roving eyes are anything to go by.

  I don’t recognise him, Rolls-a-stone answers immediately – unsurprising since he Evolved a month ago so didn’t come with us to the festival. However, Rocky does. I don’t look at the samuran in question, but I do the mental equivalent – by this point, I’m almost as comfortable communicating mentally as I am out loud. The samurans who have been part of my network for the longest are the same, often managing to keep their emotions out of their spikes, even. Something which the strange Warrior clearly isn’t capable of – his spikes are roiling with nervousness and tension. Does he think we’ll attack him?

  He is Stabs-a-stone from the red tribe of the sixth mountain, Rocky tells me, his mental voice a deep rumble that matches his speaking tone. They didn’t make it to the Festival this year.

  The red tribe? Is he from the same village who lost the Hunt at the festival? I ask, immediately wary. I send out a pulse of Inspect, looking for any other samurans in the local area.

  There are two more, hiding in the bushes, but I can’t feel any more than that. It doesn’t help that, even if my Inspect has increased in rank to Initiate two, its range still isn’t quite big enough to cover the whole of the village. Not unless I want to use my whole mana pool, anyway. When I don’t know if this is going to come to a fight, I’d rather not do that.

  Instead, I decide to use other resources I have available. Samuran ones.

  Sorry to interrupt your rest day, I project to all my Bound – it’s easier to do that than to pick and choose when I want to send the message to a large number, but I need some patrols organised to investigate the area around the village for hidden threats. We have a visitor from the red tribe and at least two hidden observers.

  Heard and understood, Tamer, Shrieks answers grimly. I leave the matter in his capable claws.

  Rocky has patiently been waiting for me to finish my message before answering the question I’d asked him. This is a different village from the same tribe, he tells me. It is one of our closest neighbours – a village only about two days away. Less if we travel fast. They are small. I was not surprised to see them absent from the Festival.

  That reassures me a little, but not entirely. From what I’ve come to understand, though the tribes do have plenty of in-fighting, they tend to pull together against an outsider, and I’m definitely recognised as that. It’s been peaceful in the three months since we returned, but I have a nagging feeling that it has been the calm before a storm. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.

  I step forward cautiously towards the samuran waiting nervously outside our open gates. My Inspect didn’t pick up any ranged weapons, but a rock thrown through the air is as good a weapon as any. I’m not wearing my full armour – I wasn’t expecting to need it. So, instead of a helmet, I clumsily pull together a whirling disc of air. I won’t be able to keep it contained for long, but hopefully long enough to determine if it’s safe or if I need more protection than my disc of air can give me.

  The Warrior, seeing my approach, lifts his chin high into the air. Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem too surprised at my presence. Did the Warriors have a conversation before I arrived? Did Rocky talk about me? He must have, I decide, a moment later when the new Warrior addresses me by name.

  “Pathwalker Tamer, greetings from the village of the red tribe of the sixth mountain,” he says quickly. “May the ancestors smile on our meeting.”

  “May the ancestors be pleased at our meeting,” I return. “And may our actions be in keeping with their values,” I finish. It’s a warning, and the samuran knows it. He lowers his chin slowly, his spikes flashing with increased wariness. I don’t invite him in to share a carcass either, which technically should be the next step. He will know from that he’s not an honoured or even recognised guest – and that should his words be displeasing, we could attack him without breaking any customs.

  “My village is grateful that you would hear us out,” the Warrior continues formally. “We have a boon to beg from our brethren and bring these gifts to offer you, in hopes that you will aid us.” So saying, he turns towards the forest and grunts wordlessly.

  The two samurans who had been hiding in the forest now stand up and walk forwards. They are Unevolved and one is leading two beasts by woven vine leashes. Both beasts walk forwards without struggle, obviously tamed in some way. They are the same as each other and look vaguely similar to Artemis’ pack of wolf-like deris.

  Their legs are long and their bodies are slim – built for running. Their heads are most similar to a canine’s with long muzzles filled with sharp teeth. However, these ones have a set of wings like Bastet and something on the tips of their long whip-like tails – I can’t tell exactly what it is since it’s been wrapped in vine bindings.

  The Warrior sees me looking. “Venomous stingers,” he tells me casually, my reaction apparently having pleased him. “We keep them wrapped unless they are being milked as they contain deadly venom. Deadly venom which I’m sure your Herbalist could transform into either poison or healing potion if she has sufficient supply.

  If you will hear our request and consider it with due seriousness, we will give you both these beasts and their Unevolved handler. Though he is Unevolved, our beast tamer has been employing him as an assistant and deems him likely to Evolve. The other is also a gift for you, one of our best hunters.”

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