“Try not to kill anyone, it will draw undue attention and we need those stuck-up soldier types to be focused on the rifts and not us. For every kill I hear of from one of you, whoever did it won’t be eating for a week and whoever stood by and watched while they could have stopped it is getting half that. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Boss!” Samuel shouted along with the rest of his new Pack, their voices mixing and melding through the Alpha’s magic into a cohesive whole that shook the forest around them.

“Good,” the Werewolf King said, his snout pulled into what Sam thought might have been an attempt at a feral grin. “You know the squads. Follow the orders of the leaders. I want every squad to come back with at least a week’s worth of food and water. Anything less and you’ll be left charging those enchantments until you run dry. Now go! GO MY PACK AND HUNT!”

The towering werewolf rose to his full height, which stood a head above the lowest branches. By Sam’s eyeballing of it, he looked to be at least three metres tall. He heard he’d been only two metres in his wolf form before he deposed the previous Alpha in a blood duel, but now he stood head and shoulders above even the largest of them.

The Werewolf King howled, and the sound knocked the breath out of Sam’s lungs, then he felt energy filling him and his vision went red. He felt his squad mates around him, and he felt the Pack like a giant warm hug. While he had them at his back, he was unstoppable, unkillable. Nothing could stand in their way. The Pack wouldn’t let him down, not like … not like his friends.

He’d thought Brent was strong, that Mia’s magic was powerful, but now he knew how little of the world he understood back then. It was understandable; he was missing a part of himself; he wasn’t whole. He was broken, but now with the Pack he was whole.

Sam grinned, but held back his own voice as the Beta — a Lion Shifter only a head shorter than the Alpha — roared, quickly followed by some of the stronger squad leaders. Still, Sam stayed silent. He wasn’t a magical beast, and he wasn’t a shifter either. He was just a little Panther Beastkin with an above average bloodline that made him stronger than most other beastkin.

Still, he wasn’t anywhere close enough to be able to let out a roar mighty enough to not get laughed at.

The howls, roars and the screeches lasted for what felt like eternity and Sam spent it all in an adrenaline high. His heart thrummed in synch with the Pack, he felt his blood surging through his veins. He was ready.

“MOVE OUT!” The Werewolf King roared, raising a pair of trunk-like arms that ended in wicked claws to the air. “MAKE US PROUD!”

This time, Sam couldn’t hold back a roar of his own, but thankfully what felt like the mewling of a kitten in comparison to the previous roar got drowned out as the whole Pack echoed him.

He felt the Pack-magic tighten and looked over at Darius, the leader of his squad. The man was a giant by human standards and wore only a tank top and some shorts. He had no outward signs of any bestial heritage, which meant he was a Shifter. What kind though, Sam hadn’t been able to figure out yet.

What he did know though, was that Darius didn’t need his other form to beat all four other members of his squad into the dirt. He hit like a truck and hitting him felt like hitting a wall. Inwardly, Sam was guessing a Rhino or a Hippo, but that might have had more to do with the potbelly the man sported, which could have fit Sam inside of it, than his abilities.

“Get moving,” Darius said, his feral brown eyes glimmering with an inner light. He was grinning, Sam noticed, all of them were. “We are hitting the Geidorf panels this time. Keep behind me and don’t run ahead, ye?”

The squad nodded. In all they had Sam, a swiftness-based Air brawler, Darius, who was half tank, half punching things to death and then there were Joel, Aaron and Matt. Joel and Aaron were brothers and some kind of canine beastkins who were superb trackers and could grapple somewhat well, but had little else going for them while Matt was some strange knock-off spider-man. He even had built-in webslingers in his fingers.

“Can’t we go to Arditz again?” Joel whined, getting a glare from Darius.

“Yeah, we had to leave a bunch of crates behind the last time,” Aaron backed up his brother. “Plus the whole Geidorf part is full with those disgusting goblins. You know how bad those fuckers smell?”

The two scrunched up their noses and Sam decided to back off so as not to be caught up in whatever this was. Sure, he would have liked to head to Arditz for … reasons — like getting back on that bitch who so heartlessly trampled all over him — but he knew better than to question Darius. The man was a bit trigger-happy, or rather, fist-happy.

That girl, Mia … it still hurt just thinking about her. Was this what heartbreak felt like? He saw those cold, disdainful azure eyes every night he closed his own. He felt like someone bolted a spike of ice into his heart whenever he thought of her, but then it would morph into anger, wrath and hate.

He’d just had to get away from them, from her and those disdainful eyes. He couldn’t bear it, not from her. He didn’t know where he would go, but he’d hoped he’d be fine with that ragtag group in the panels … but then he heard the call.

Still, how dare she treat him like that? After all that he's done for her? Hadn’t he slaved away for years, fixing, helping and doing just about anything to spend even just a minute of her time. All he needed was a smile, a thank you or a few words as payment and he’d have been the happiest man on Earth, but-

Sam shook his head, frowning. He slapped himself, forcing those annoying thoughts out of his head. He had the Pack now; he didn’t need that bitch. She could go around frolicking with whoever she wanted for all he cared. Yeah.

Success is the best revenge. He thought and steeled his heart. When she saw him again, the power he now wielded and how much higher still he’d climb, she’d know her mistake and she’d despair. I’ll show her. I’ll show them all.

Sam smirked as the large man’s fists smacked the two brothers upside the head hard enough that both stumbled.

“The Boss decided who goes where,” Darius said with a severe glare. “So shut up and do as I say, ye?”

“Yeah,” the two said, wincing as they cradled the forming bumps on their heads.

“Now move your asses, we have only this night to raid and loot enough food not to be left on mana-battery duty.”

Sam grimaced, remembering the one time he’d been punished by having to feed every last drop of his mana to a damnable crystal. It was the most horrible experience of his life, the emptiness he felt was even worse than not having a Pack, much worse.

Never again. He promised himself. All I have to do is not to disappoint the Boss. Should be easy enough, just take the food from those assholes who think they are better than us because they aren’t ‘mutants’.

The five bounded off, racing into the ancient forest with crawling shadows and monsters beyond Sam’s imagination. They circled around the parts where they knew the Alpha kept the things, making sure to keep at least a hundred meters or so between their squad and the things and went towards their target for the night.

*****

[Attributes]

[Free Attribute Points: 0]

[Gained Attributes: 35 / 100]

[Body: 8]

* Agility: 11 - (80%)

* Strength: 6 - (40%)

* Flexibility: 8 - (70%)

[Mind: 11]

* Cognity: 12 - (70%)

* Memory: 8 - (60%)

* Will: 12 - (40%)

[Spirit: 12]

* Control: 10 - (50%)

* Sensitivity: 11 - (90%)

* Manifestation: 13 - (60%)

***

Mia nodded in satisfaction at the slightly reworked System window. It might have been confusing to some, but she quite liked how it came out. Everything of import she’d need was there, and it wasn’t too cluttered up either.

The Gained Attribute counter showed her that she could still get 65 stat points at her level by whatever means she could, like eating Natural Treasures or something of the like. Mia doubted she could max it out entirely, but she hoped she could at least get some more.

She’d learned from one of the books Zeigler lent them that the main difference between Classes of different rarities — aside from the strength of their given Skills — was how many stat points they gave per level. It went something like …

***

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Grey - Poor -> 0 points per level

White - Common -> 1 points per level

Green - Uncommon -> 2 points per level

Blue - Rare -> 3 points per level

Purple - Epic -> 4 points per level

Orange - Legendary -> 5 points per level

***

This same scale went for the number of Subskill slots the Class Skill of the Classes of the various rarities got. Mia had two Subskills by default, plus three free slots. An Epic Class would have gotten four free slots, while a legendary would have gotten five. Likewise, a Poor quality grey class would have to make do with the two Subskills it got by default and that was it.

Another thing she’d learned was that Class Skills and Primary Skills were not the same, not by a long shot despite both taking up one Primary Skill slot — slots she’d only be getting one per Rank Up, putting her at 6 slots if she ever got to Rank 5. While Class Skills had two Subskills plus a number of empty Subskill slots based on their source Class’ Rarity, regular Primary Skills would have a number pre-existing Subskills proportional to the Skill’s Rarity without any Empty Subskill slots.

Meaning, while an Epic Class Skill would have 2 base Subskills plus 4 Empty slots, an Epic Primary Skill would only have 4 predetermined Subskills and no empty slots. That meant upgrading Primary Skills without the ability to incorporate new Subskills was much harder than to upgrade Classes.

Also, the ten Gained stats per level thingy didn’t change even as the rarities went up. It just meant someone with a Legendary Class only had to get five points from some other source per level instead of seven like Mia had to.

The real suckers were the people who only had grey, poor quality classes and wouldn’t be able to get their hands on any stat points without some outside help. Seeing as grey classes were also … rather bad, Mia knew it was unlikely anyone with one of those classes would have much of a chance at thriving in this new world.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand! The percentile numbers within the brackets were how she decided to show her Base Attributes for now. They represented the percentile value of each point of stat. For example, since agility was at 11 and had an 80% — since she had 8 Base Agility — next to it, to get her real Agility she had to multiply 11 by 0.8, then round it down. That got her an 8.

Mia had tried other looks, like just showing the real value instead of overcomplicating it and such or showing it as ‘-20%’ instead of the ‘80%’, but looking at minuses made her monkey brain sad and depressed. Numbers were ought to be going up, not down. Which was why she decided on this format. With time, those percentiles would grow and grow until almost all of them were above 100%.

Maybe she’d change it again then, so it only showed ‘+10%’ or something, but for now, she liked the way it looked. Thankfully, likely because of her Newcomer Title, the System was willing to change up its Interface based on her mental commands.

Mia sank into the warm, bubbly tub of water and let out a pleasurable sigh. Life was good. Numbers were going up, and she had a bath … and friends out in the house, safe and sound. But mainly, she was happy about the bath at the moment. She’d never quite felt ‘clean’ enough after a rub-down with a wet towel.

More importantly though, nothing ever quite managed to relax her nerves more than taking a long, warm bath and her nerves sure were in need of some relaxing.

Ever since Mia had arrived back into the house, she couldn’t quite banish the worry that nagged at her. What if Avery was sick? What if the refugees got run down by soldiers and were getting gunned down right that moment? What if, what if, what if … she just couldn’t stop thinking about the possibilities.

Which, along with her anxious pacing and squirming ended up with Carmilla declaring that she’s had enough and was heading out to check up on the refugees so Mia could finally stop worrying.

It was a nice gesture; it made Mia feel warm inside in a way even the scalding water couldn’t. Still, now that she was taking a dip, her head was blissfully empty. No thoughts, no worries. Just … bubbles.

She spent maybe half an hour like that, just enjoying the warmth as she sank into the water up till her chin was touching the surface.

Having an idea, Mia mentally dialled up her heat eater Skill. She should be doing something with that, she thought. Both the thermal and the kinetic energy eating skills were Lesser Skills, which was just about the lowest grade of Skill there was.

Mia wasn’t quite certain how they all came together, but if she was right, they were something like this: Minor < Lesser < Greater < Major < Superior. But it was confusing, since sometimes lists like these left out either Lesser and Greater or Minor and Major. Maybe Minor equalled Lesser and Major was the same as Greater? Well, fuck her if she knew. The damned books didn’t go into detail about these extremely basic sorts of things.

Whatever. It still stands that my Skills are extremely shit, so I should try to upgrade them. Mia thought, making the skill suck out the heat from the near-boiling water she was lying in. Mark managed to upgrade his Earth Manipulation Skill, and even the Earth Mana Manipulation Skill before the System ate the latter to make his Class. How did he say he did it?

With Earth Manipulation, apparently all he did was to exhibit higher capabilities than before. He got the Lesser version of the Skill by making a glob of mud splatter against the wall, but to take away that Lesser modifier, he had to make an actual bolt of stone and shoot it at the wall with enough speed for it to hurt.

So I have to push beyond the Skill’s natural upper limit, and do what the Skill can’t do manually. Mia concluded. But how the fuck do I do that? I can’t even copy what it’s doing now manually … I guess that would be a good place to start.

Mia turned her focus inward, her Mind curling in around her Spirit and peering inside deeply as she once more activated her skill.

It was fizzy, but she could tell the Skill was doing something. It was vague, cloudy and hardly useful, but something was better than nothing. It had been the latter before, after all with her just noting the consequences of her activating the Skill.

The Skill, the mere Lesser Secondary Skill was barely a little blip in her Spirit, a tiny construct that was nonetheless much more complex than any spell Mia had ever cast before. Not that it followed any conventional structures either, nor was it a magical circle.

Sighing, Mia pulled her focus away from the jumbled mess of stuff that was her Secondary Skill. Her Sensitivity and Cognity weren’t enough to truly see the construct, not nearly enough. If she had fifty of both, things might be different, but for now, it was hopeless.

More likely though, a 100 of each is the minimum. Mia thought, frowning inwardly at the miniature, ever-shifting construct that was giving her a headache just by existing.

I don’t need to understand the source. Mia decided, changing the direction of her focus and pushed it towards the infinitesimal flickers of arcane mana the Skill sent to cover her skin.

There were flickers of the same kind all over her body, but she barely caught glimpses of those with her current Sensitivity. It was easier to feel them up over her skin, where the mana in her body didn’t cloud her senses.

The little flickers went out, slowly absorbing heat and swelled in size. How they did it, she still couldn’t tell even as she watched one of those enlarged smudges of mana join the stream of ambient mana flowing into her pool.

Mia sank deeper into her mind, letting her focus on this arcane process become the only thing that existed to her. Her world dimmed, then the details cleared up.

Unfortunately, what she found was disappointing. Inside every little flicker of heat-absorbing arcane mana was an even tinier, microscopic structure similar to the Secondary Skill that made them. But even smaller.

Even in the depths of her Meditation, with the Skill increasing her Sensitivity, she couldn’t tell more about the microscopic structure than that it existed. She couldn’t even see these ones clearly enough for them to give her a headache.

Okay. This isn’t it either. Mia scowled, her mood dampening at the repeated failures. She was still doing something wrong, clearly. Mark could use his Earth Mana Manipulation to make spikes of rock and have them shoot at targets and Mia was pretty sure he didn’t somehow manage to replicate the construct of his eventual Earth Manipulation Skill.

He just … did it, by willing it. Was that all it took? Could she do it too?

Mia gave it a try, sending a little trickle of mana down to her fingers that she had flow out of her energy channels and flow over her lower hand like a glove.

She smiled, her increasing control — and not just her capital C, Control — was showing its effects. A week ago, her skin would have been ruptured underneath this exercise from the wild and chaotic arcane mana she used.

Next step. Eat the heat. Eat the thermal energy. She sent her Will crashing down on the mana-glove like when she cast an especially challenging spell.

Something happened, which Mia would have celebrated had she not had to stifle a scream as right hand went numb from hypothermia. The dumb glove drained her hand of heat too, not just the water around it.

Worse, it didn’t convert it into arcane mana, but spent itself to practically annihilate the heat. Mia activated her ring, seeing the tips of her finger already turning purple.

A comforting warmth flowed into her hand with a buzz that sent tingles all over her limb. Mia felt feelings returning to her palm first and then to her digits.

She let out a relieved sigh, fiddling her fingers gingerly. Once she made sure the digits weren’t about to fall off, she allowed herself a grin.

It wasn’t a total success, but it was a success nonetheless. She’d used her Lesser Arcane Mana Manipulation for something other than just expelling mana from her fingers for the first time. Her grin only widened when she saw the System rewarding her for her stumbling effort.

[Congratulations! You have managed to upgrade a Secondary Skill!]

[Lesser Arcane Mana Manipulation] -> [Arcane Mana Manipulation]

Mia didn’t waste a second as she aimed her focus back on the construct in her Spirit she associated with the Skill. It was … even more headache inducing now, and just a mental glimpse at it sent a spike of pain into the back of her eyes.

Once she managed to massage the pain out of her temples while groaning and wincing, she modified her mental list for Skill grades.

Minor < Lesser < No Modifier < Greater < Major < Superior

That looked about right.

A knock on the door of the bathroom snapped her out of her musings. Her ears twitched, the heartbeat and the breathing rhythm of the person on the other side gave Mia a hint as to who it was, but her Spirit Sense made sure.

Wild, ferocious, blood, roses, pines, elegant, graceful, primal, powerful. The impressions were still vague, but Mia was starting to get better at making them out from the people she kept around and was familiar enough with.

Mia smiled, then called out through the closed door. “Carmilla? What’s up?”

“I got news,” the girl said, sounding a touch anxious as she did. “I think it’s best if we call everyone and speak. It’s … it could be serious.”

“I’ll be out in a minute!” Mia shouted, an icy hand twisting her guts into a knot. Just what could get that vampire worried? Did something happen to the refugees? To Avery?

Mia wanted answers asap, so she jumped out of the tub, almost slipped on the wet floor, then quickly got herself dry and dressed.

By the time she was out in the living room, Brent, Helene and Mark were already there with Carmilla perched on the armrest of an armchair which Mia plopped down into without further ado.

A few minutes later, Lina came in from the garden, huffing and puffing as she wiped a trail of sweat from her temples.

“Oh, it’s this serious?” The blonde startled, looking over the group. With a shrug, she pulled a chair from the kitchen table, spun it around then sat down with her chin resting on the backrest’s top. “So? What’s going on?”