…

…

…

*Gasp*

Kaden woke up suddenly and sat up. He found himself in a bed. The place was also familiar. It was the temple. He then checked himself and noticed his wounds were treated. Any smaller scratches were gone and the bandage covered arm didn’t hurt much. The priest must have cast a healing spell.

Despite being alive and quite well physically, Kaden knew he was in trouble. Someone must have gone looking for him and found him. There was no way around it. No excuses to be made. Still, it was better this way than be in a wolf’s belly.

There was also another thought swirling around Kaden’s mind.

Weak!

“I am weak!” Kaden lamented with his head down. “Stupid! So damn weak and stupid! I could have died along with my dreams!”

He had wandered in the forest brazenly while being clear on the dangers! He had thought himself powerful when he clearly should have known he was weak! He had looked down on the ragged wolf and terribly underestimated his opponent!

Had he met anything stronger. Even just a bit stronger, he knew he would have died.

He was weak! He felt stupid! Shame!

Feeling depressed by such realization, he knew he could not make such a mistake again.

“I won’t do something like that ever again. I have to be more careful from now on too.”

As Kaden was dwelling upon these matters, the door opened. It was the priest. His name was Peil. Basically any place that had any significant population, had at least one priest around. Worship of gods was important. Priest Peil was a kind man and well liked by the village populace. In addition of handling various religious matters, he also used magic to heal people. Peil was one of the Channel Opening stage people in Dashire.

“Ah, you woke up”, said Peil. “Looks like you had run in with a wolf yesterday. You took some hit, but nothing that can’t be healed. Remember to thank gods with some extra prayers.”

Kaden quietly nodded.

He usually only did his daily prayers at morning and evening. Perhaps he was only alive due to luck or perhaps he was being protected by a higher power!

Soon some noise sounded behind the door. Kaden could tell who it was. It was clearly his father and mother.

Ann rushed in the room.

“Kaden! You are finally awake! I was so worried!” Ann said with a relief in her voice.

“Ann, dear, Peil already said he was fine after healing him. He just needed time to rest”, Aden comforted his wife. “We were lucky he was found earlier than later.”

“What were you doing in there, Kaden?!” Ann asked. There was mostly worry in her voice, but also a hint of anger.

“I would like to hear answer to that too”, Aden added and glared at Kaden.

A moment of silence.

“I’ll leave you to talk it out”, Peil the priest said and walked out.

Kaden was still silent with his head down. He decided to tell the truth.

“I wanted to show that I can fight too”, Kaden started. “I managed to reach the first layer and I thought I could use magic to beat some weaker beast.”

Aden sighed. “I knew you wanted be stronger, but this isnt the way to do it, son. I told you to keep cultivating magic. Thats the best way to grow stronger. Fighting can come later. I’m on fifth layer and your mother is third. Do you see us going out to fight some beasts?”

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“Everyone thinks I’m weak!” Kaden shouted angrily. “I… I am weak! I know that very well now, but all I do is beat metal with hammer while everyone else get stronger and stronger!”

“I need to teach my skills to someone”, Aden said patiently. “There needs to be a good smith in Dashire even once I’m too old. Who else I would teach it than you. Without a smith those strong people you mentioned won’t be nearly as strong. That will be your strength!”

Ann whispered something to Aden at this point who then frowned a bit.

Aden sighed again. “It seems there might be a solution, but it is going to take some time. You will get your chance to prove yourself. I’ll tell you about it later. Just stay here for a while now. Peil said healing your wounds probably left you quite weak for a while.”

“Its not like I’m going anywhere”, Kaden said dejectedly. “I get beaten by weakest things in the forest. I’m too weak. I’ll be doing what you said from now on and cultivate magic. ”

“Do that”, Ann said. “Besides you aren’t so weak. You did kill the wolf. You stabbed it full of holes, though. It doesn’t help that it was in bad condition to begin with. I will still be able to make boots out of it for you as reminder, though.”

Kaden turned to look at his mother. “I’m not even sure how I killed it. The wolf had me pinned down quite well and my knife was not doing much damage. Then I suddenly somehow hit it very hard.”

“Peil said you seemed to suffer from overuse of mana”, Aden pointed out. “You must have used that mana you had in your first layer to empower you strike. Being in the first layer must have toughened you a bit too. You are probably alive only because of it. That just shows how useful magic is. Even at lowest level you gained from it. This is why I keep telling you to just concentrate on cultivating magic and see how far you get.”

Aden didn’t really need to tell Kaden what to do anymore.

Aden and Ann left soon afterwards saying they would still have a talk later. Apparently Kaden should be fine to return home before sundown.

Kaden had some time to waste so he decided to take his own decision and what his father had told him and started cultivating. Some mana had returned on its own while he had been unconscious and his layer was about half full. He also inspected his own body for any remaining damage. Self inspection was nearly always better than anyone else doing it. Maybe Peil had not noticed everything. It seemed like everything was right, though.

There was also something Kaden noticed. It felt like that single layer of mana was slightly larger. Not much, but barely noticeable under the magic of self inspection. Kaden wondered about it for a moment and then recalled using mana would slightly improve mana too. Those who use a lot of magic tend to grow faster, but directly cultivating was definitely more efficient. Still it was quite a bit of extra over extended period of time.

After pondering for a moment Kaden concentrated and started moving around the mana he had. At first he just pulled out some from the layer to feel it a bit. Then he tried to remember the moment when he struck the wolf. This time he wasn’t unloading all of his mana in a single move so he felt fairly sure he wouldn’t faint again. He transferred the mana into his hand. It didn’t seem to do anything just that way.

“Hmmm, my hand moves because of the muscles in it”, Kaden thought. He then tried putting the mana inside his mucles. Suddenly he felt like his hand was charged. Like a fully drawn bowstring ready to shoot an arrow. This was it! Mana had to be used right way for it to do much!

Kaden used some more mana and put it in his entire arm, not just hand. He started swinging his arm around. It felt like there was a lot of force in it. Kaden didn’t have anything around to try his strength with, but simple swings made it clear his strength should be much greater with mana.

“What, if I put mana in other parts of my body?” Kaden suddenly thought. Legs? Would he be able to run faster? Eyes? Ears?

The posibilities opened up in Kaden’s mind. While he had almost lost the fight against the wolf, the ordeal had brought Kaden to this point of realization. Maybe it would have come eventually, but the earlier the better. If he was able to do this much at level of first layer, what would he be able to do later?

Gaining more layers and more total mana in body improved your performance passively too. Using mana directly like Kaden did, he used his free mana stores to break beyond his limits momentarily. Just how many layers would he need until his body toughness, strength and ability was all the time able to perform just like he was currently by using significant amount of his mana? Kaden gained even greater understanding of the potential as he thought of this.

He had obviously seen people use magic, but this was just villagers that might not have been much stronger than him. Nor was it combat related that would show limits of what was possible. He had only sometimes seen hunters practice, but that still wasn’t the greatest extent of their ability.

What of the beasts in forest? Kaden shuddered for a moment. What, if he had ran into a beast that was equivalent of a human with several layers worth of strength? He might have been torn to shreds before he could even react. The pathetic wolf had just been really weak.

Stupid. Weak. The words repeated in his mind once more.

“I need to get stronger”, Kaden thought to himself again. This time understanding slightly better why. He felt cultivation was indeed pressing matter. Not just something he would do on the side. Magic would be the foundation of everything he did.

“I don’t have much resources to go with, but it will have to do”, Kaden pondered for a moment. “I’m not like that bastard Jon who gets everything handed to him, but I can train my strength and ability to use mana while forging with father. If I don’t want to be a weakling, I must not slack. If there is a next time I run into a wild beast, whether by my own choice or not, I might easily perish otherwise.”

With such thoughts in his mind Kaden began cycling his mana system. He wanted more power!