Year 1, Summer, First Month, Fourth Week.

“Ow! This is amazing! The sword gets sharper when the crystal touches it! Muhaha, see how I’ll cut down the beasts!” Diana laughed maniacally while testing her sword.

For the past week, Karl made some improvements to all weapons. First, he remade the Rune imprints in the weapons using the golden grass he collected. Since the golden grass had better magic conductivity than the white grass, the Runes’ effects would be strengthened.

Hopefully, Tael’s arrows would stop breaking. If training was enough to damage their weapons, imagine when they start the actual fighting. Except for Diana’s sword, their weapons lacked quality. Even so, they couldn’t complain, it was amazing how Old Bill was able to craft it without proper materials.

He also wanted to add the energy crystals to boost the effects further. However, if he added the crystal directly to weapons, the crystal’s energy would be drained constantly, and this wouldn’t be ideal.

First, because using the crystals constantly would decrease its durability. Second, because the energy entering the crystal would constantly flow to the Arrays in the weapon.

But if the crystal could be used only at certain times, it would have time to accumulate more energy, providing stronger effects and it would last more.

The problem was solved with grandma Marlen’s help. She gave the idea of tying the crystal to a straw glove. After some tests, the crystal would be positioned in a way that it would only touch the drawing when one had a specific grasp over the weapon.

They took some time to implement the idea successfully, matching the crystal positioning and the fighting grasp was difficult. Doing it for Tael’s arrow was even more challenging, but in the end, it worked out.

To add the power of the crystal, Karl also had to draw a line from the Rune to the handle of the weapon, in Tael’s case was from the arrowhead to the fletching, so that the energy could be transmitted from the crystal to the Rune.

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Presently, the group was on their second excursion outside the village, heading towards a water stream located eight km southeast of the village. They decided to use the same formation, with Diana and Toni protecting the sides.

‘-- Elemental crystals store elemental energy, just like the energy crystals store magic energy. Elemental energy and the elements are different things. For example, water is not water energy, but you will always find water energy in the water because they attract each other, and the water was once water energy --’

‘-- Since they attract each other, the best place to find a water crystal is in the water. The quality of the crystal will also depend on the elemental energy concentration of the environment. If you go to a water stream, you will probably find only LQ water crystals. To find better quality crystals, you should go to a river, lake, or a place with high water energy concentration --’

‘-- Another option is taking the elemental crystals from beasts. Beasts are born with elemental crystals in their core. However, beasts with higher quality crystals will be stronger and thus difficult to slay. Therefore, either way, collecting a higher quality crystal will be difficult --’

‘-- The most obvious use for an elemental crystal is to manipulate the element. To do it, you will have to use either an Extraction Array or an Extract Properties Array --’

.........

The first part of their journey was uneventful. They didn’t meet with any beasts and only stopped to collect plants and magic crystals. A couple of hours before noon, they arrived at the water stream.

The view was fantastical. Previously, the team only had contact with the poor vegetation commonly seen in the village and around it.

Their views were being expanded by the contact with the natural environment fuelled by magic energy.

The water line that poured between stones, spilling through the muddy land was especially a wonder for them. The sense of freshness brought by the flowing water gave the team an urge to touch and drink it. Diana even thought about how good it would be to bathe in the stream every day.

Their daze was suddenly broke by the anxious Karl:

“That’s Pickerel weed! I need to collect it... Quickly guys, go into the water and look for water crystals.... Ah! Just look for cold blue crystals...”

‘-- You should collect the Pickerel later, before going back. The plant’s properties start to decay once it is taken from a water energy environment. Therefore, you should store it together with a water crystal. --’

For the first time, the team enjoyed their trip. The feeling of drinking and sulking their body into flowing natural water was amazing. Although the village didn’t lack water from its wells, the work to draw it would keep them from wasting it. So they didn’t have enough to play or to take a proper bath.

Fortunately, Diana organized a rotating watch, or they would be left unguarded and completed lost in the experience.

.........

After playing around for a while, the teens sobered up and remembered the dangers that could be lurking around. They started to seriously look for the water crystals. One hour past noon, they had found four crystals and were ready to go back.

On the way back, Tael heard a noise and stopped the group. He whispered:

“Stop! I heard... There’s something in the bushes.” He said pointing to the bushes less than 20 meters in front of them.

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They all reacted fast, tightening the grip on their weapons. Toni slowly walked to the front. His steps were a little uncertain, showing that he was nervous. But he firmly held to the shield and didn’t hesitate moving forward, a clear display of his courage.

From the start, Diana was excited and couldn’t wait to fight, but her anxiety now turned into fear and a bit of desperation. She wasn’t afraid of fighting, in fact, for some time she had developed an urge for it. But the disparity of an imagined situation and reality hit her deeply. The possibility of their lives ending here made her feel hesitant.

Surprisingly, the hyperactive Tael was the one that better kept his calm. He was the first to notice the strange noises and since he did it, he had held an arrow on the bow and was ready to shoot anything.

For the last two months, the team spent their time trying to prepare for a real combat situation. Besides weaponry and resistance training, they also trained in engaging strategies and synchronized attack/defense.

Despite being amateurs, they worked hard under Diana’s supervision and were very confident in using their weapons. Therefore, it only took half a minute for their training to kick in.

“Move into the retreat formation.” Diana commanded.

They nodded and changed the formation.

The so-called retreat formation changed their positions to a vertical line. The idea was to place Toni at the front to block any advances, followed by Tael backing him up with his arrows. Karl would be protected at the center, and Diana would be at the rear, protecting their retreat and cleaning any obstacles while they steadily move back from the danger.

The formation prioritized backing off from unknown dangers, ambushes, circling enemies. When Chief Omero taught Diana this arrangement, she was reluctant to turn her back to danger and focus on providing a retreat path.

Her logic told her that the best fighter should hold the enemies while the others escaped. But after his explanation, she bitterly agreed with the reasoning. She was a close-range attacker and her position should always be leading their movements.

If Toni led the retreat, they would stop moving as soon as they made contact with enemies at the rear. Tael could shoot enemies from distance, but if they managed to get close, he would be finished. Finally, if they used the combined Toni and Tael to lead the retreat, she would be unable to move back while fending from an overwhelming attack at the front.

Following their retreat movement, two hyena-like beats jumped out of the bushes. The beasts had short light brown fur and a little more than half a meter of height. They bared their fangs at the group but didn’t attack immediately, probably because the team didn’t react to their threat.

The biggest hyena started to move slowly towards Toni, exuding a dangerous presence, while the other one moved around to circle the group.

The team didn’t want to precipitate the confrontation, but the formation’s purpose was to prevent or break the encirclement, so they couldn’t let the beast circle them.

Tael aimed at the circling beast, slowed his breath, signaled that he was gonna shoot it and let his arrow loose. The beast received Tael’s arrow on its paw and let out a painful cry. At the same time, the other beast roared, ran forward, and jump at Toni with gritting sharp fangs.

Like training, Toni quickly moved to intercept the beast with his shield. However, he mistakenly displaced his step, decreasing the barring strength. The collision impact was mostly transferred to his arm, hurting him. Luckily, Toni was the strongest of the group and his arm didn’t break. The Rune was also activated timely and the shield held against the beast’s force.

While Toni stopped the hyena’s momentum, Tael nocked another arrow and prepared to shoot it again.

When the wounded beast crushed in the shield, it took damage and was temporarily stunned hence the next arrow easily found its back. The beast winced in pain. Toni didn’t let it recover, he pushed the shield diagonally pressing the beast against the ground. Tael followed his cue and moved forward to aimed better.

In heat of the situation, he missed the shot, but soon a fourth arrow went through the beast’s head and claimed its life. From the first shot arrow to the death of the beast only twenty seconds passed.

While Tael and Toni were fighting the first beast, Diana didn’t lose sight of the second one. The beast wasn’t stopped by the arrow and also moved to attack the group.

The correct response, was for the team to move back while fending. But Tael and Toni were focused on finishing the leading beast. If she continued to hold her position, they would be separated into two groups and the second beast would have an opening to attack either Karl or the boys’ rear.

Diana firmly grabbed her sword and move to block the beast. When the first beast winced in pain from the shot, the second one jumped with fangs and claws ready to slice Diana.

Although she trained a lot for this, she miscalculated and the beast got too close. Diana knew that a sword thrust would kill it but would also drop the beast’s weight on her. To avoid it, she sidestepped to the left while performing a left to right slice.

Her grasp activated the Sharpness Rune in the sword, letting a deep cut in the beast’s right side. The beast rolled and winced in pain and Diana moved fast to finish it with a thrust to the throat.

Karl saw everything ending in less than a minute. Initially, he was panicking, but after seeing that the group could hold the situation, he became excited. With the magic weapons he crafted and some training, the group of village teens could slay a beast.

At this moment, he realized another truth: While magic could only make him powerful, Alchemy had the potential to make everyone around him powerful. At first, he was looking for power to change his fate, but this was the beginning of something greater.

Diana cleaned the sweat in her face and said breathing hard:

“Ow... That was... amazing! For a moment I thought we were screwed, but we finished them good!”

Diana was about to thrust the sword inside the beast again but Karl stopped her.

“We should bring the beasts to the village and try not to cause more damage to the fur...”

Before they retrieved the broken arrows, their adrenaline rush ran out. They won the fight, but they were in a miserable condition. If they faced another attack, they would be finished.

Karl wanted to collect some materials from the beasts but Diana dismissed him. They were dying to take a break, they desperately needed one, but if they stopped here, it would be asking to die.

In the next hours, they dragged the beasts’ bodies back to the village. All of them had to help and they thought about dropping it more than one time. But how could they give up on such a treasure?

Soon, the sun left and night came.

From the darkness, a group of teens appeared dragging beasts and weapons.

They looked worse than the beasts that were being dragged. They stopped paying attention to their surroundings a long time ago and only had the energy to move forward. Fortunately, with Master AI’s help, Karl safely led the group back.

“What’s happ... mom?” Tael asked forcing his eyes to focus on the woman pushing through the crowd.

A sound of claps and cheers broke the teens’ trance.

“I told you it would be dangerous! Son, we thought you were... You can’t go out again!”

Rainer didn’t pay attention to her husband’s words and ran to hug Karl. Kanin gave up cursing and also embrace his son.

There was a lot of commotion from the villagers that start talking about the beasts and asking endless questions. Of course, the concerned parents moved to check if their kids were okay.

For Karl’s embarrassment, his parents hugged him tightly and his mother even started crying. Even though she defended his plans, when she came back from work and learned that they were still outside she was filled with fear.

The two other boys were also embraced by their parents and blushed embarrassed. While Toni had his two parents checking him, Tael only had his mother and grandpa because his father already died.

In contrast with the boys, Diana stood, filled with pride while her grandpa gave her an approving smile.