“No night ambush. That’s unfortunate?” Alan snorted.

“Jeez, you’re wicked crazy. I hope you slept well, you didn’t have to let me sleep for so long. The sun rose almost immediately.”

Alan shrugged. “Like I said, I’ve slept a lot recently.”

The two continued moving, for the most part, towards the large tree in the distance.

There had been a solid two hours of uninterrupted, wolf-free trekking through the dense jungle underbrush, but now, with Bobby having detected the soft murmur of water and a chance to wash away the grime and blood, the pair's interest was seriously piqued.

They pushed through a wall of vines, and the thick jungle gave way to a sunlit clearing. Alan and Bobby cautiously approached the pool’s edge, finding crystal waters that shimmered in the sunlight with an ethereal blue glow that spanned into impossibly clear depths. It was packed with a latent thrum of energy he now recognized as mana, and it was all for him to experience.

“Do you think it’s safe?” Bobby asked, watching dragonflies humming and darting their iridescent wings across fleeting rainbows of light. There were also small, bright blue birds playing on the other side of the spring.

“It's infused with mana!” Alan exclaimed. Kneeling beside the water, he closed his eyes and focused. The resonance was unmistakable—a pure vein of magical energy flowing through the pool.

With a mischievous smile, Bobby said, “I dare you to take a dip in the magic water—” Before Bobby could finish, Alan shed his pack and dove headlong into the radiant waters. Bobby stood agape.

“It works!” Alan shouted between strokes, “Feels like I've got a second wind.”

Bobby needed no further convincing. He joined Alan, immersing himself in the pool's invigorating embrace. It was as though the water washed away the preceding day's exertions, renewing their mind and body.

“You were right. This is like a slice of paradise,” Bobby, observing the pool's effects on Alan, remarked. “And speaking of which, I bet I can make this water drinkable.”

Bobby climbed out of the pool and began rummaging through his bag. Soon, he pulled out a piece of cloth and a small container.

“What's that for?” Alan inquired, joining him.

“Another Boy Scout trick,” Bobby replied, with a hint of pride. “We can filter the water through the cloth and then boil it using a makeshift container and a quick fire. Should make it safe to drink.”

Alan, impressed by Bobby's resourcefulness, took notes on his notepad as Bobby expertly set up the contraption, using the cloth to filter out any debris before collecting the shimmering water. He then combined it with a charcoal filtration method to purify it; he had made charcoal the previous day.”

The process took a while, but soon, they had a few containers full of purified, mana-rich water. Luckily, they had saved their empty health potion flasks.

“To new experiences,” Bobby toasted, taking a gulp. The water was cool and refreshing, and it seemed to bolster their spirits even further.

With his flask up in the air, Alan tried to identify it.

[Mana Potion (Common): Restores 50 mana.]

“Did you try using Identify?”

“No, why—” The mana water sprayed out of Bobby’s mouth. “This is groundbreaking.”

“You practically created a mana potion.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” Almost immediately, Bobby ran north along the edge of the pool like a kid racing to an ice cream truck.

Alan followed closely, curious about Bobby’s sudden enthusiasm.

Bananas?! The yellow, curved fruit hung in bunches from tall, thin trees, with long, broad leaves that provided ample shade beneath.

[Mirabanis Fructus (Common): Common fruit.]

Thanks a lot, Alan snickered at himself. On peeling one, he immediately realized it wasn’t a banana. The inside revealed segmented, magenta-hued, jewel-toned, translucent pulp, reminiscent of pomegranate seeds but larger and more gel-like.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Bobby munched on them without hesitation. “Don’t eat more than one,” he said with a mouthful. Bobby explained that the fruit rapidly replenished physical stamina. Apparently, his ‘Identify x3’ yielded more information.

“Think this might be the piece of fruit we have to find?” Bobby asked with hope in his eyes.

“Nope. Check your tutorial pane.”

Bobby’s face dropped. Alan laughed.

Their bags were overflowing with wolf meat, potions, and mirabanis fructus.

As they got ready to depart, on the far side of the pool, something caught Alan’s eye—a patch of ground that stood out like a sore thumb.

They hurried over and carefully removed the soft, damp earth from the half-buried object. “Treasure map?” Alan whispered, bemused, pointing at the old, weather-beaten parchment.

“Seriously?” Bobby inquired, peering over Alan’s shoulder.

Alan nodded. “Yeah, look at the tree at the top.” Excitement bubbled up inside him. A real treasure map!

“Shit, we’re wicked lucky.”

The map showed four spiraling paths winding through diverse biomes, converging at the central point - the tree.

His finger traced the spiraled pathways. “So, if the quadrants are tracks, we should be somewhere here,” Alan said, pointing to the southernmost spiral. “According to the map, this quadrant here contains this mana pool,” he paused for a moment. “Okay, I get it. These quadrants that spiral across the entire planet are like territories. It looks like we could follow this track all the way to Vitendrea, and we'll only encounter wolves, but that'll take too long. The fastest way will be to go straight to the tree, crossing through every quadrant…”

Alan's fingertip hovered over intricate, rune-like markings that adorned each section of the map. “…they seem to signify something, maybe types of mobs? This one, where we are, kind of looks like a wolf. This is fantastic; we'll get to see all of these different places.”

“Jeez man, you don’t have to sound so enthusiastic about it. And I’ve always been told that I was impulsive,but you my friend...”

Alan smirked, “Passion. Not impulse. There’s a difference. Can you carry the map, or should I?”

“You keep it. My bag’s crammed. Just be gentle with it. Looks like it might crumble if you sneeze.”

The next few uneventful hours consisted of wolf hunting and assisting Bobby in unlocking the resonance reveal spell which led to an advancement in his Identify aptitude. Thunderhowl wolves were becoming common but also much…much easier to kill.

Thankfully, Alan had gotten better at dodging their ‘Thunder Howl,’ as he called it. The area of effect came as a cone and he discovered that they could only produce it once every ten seconds.

They maintained a brisk pace, capitalizing on the current peace.

But as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon, they found a convenient area and Bobby got busy setting up camp; it turned out almost identical to their last setup, down to the way the platform swayed lightly in the breeze.

The map they’d found was still fresh in Alan’s mind. I think this seems realistic, the math checks out, he thought with a smidge of pride.

“Thanks for cooking more meat. We don’t know what the food situation will be like in the other quadrants,” Alan explained.

“Yah, smart move, right?”

“Hey Bobby, I’ve mostly figured out what our hike will look like,” Alan said, carefully unfolding the map.

“Is that so? What’s the scoop?”

Alan pointed at the map. “So as you can see here the quadrants spiral up to the tree.”

Bobby nodded. “Yeah.”

“But as you can see the paths get wider as they get closer to the tree. Anyway…with the ground we’ve covered today, we should be out of this quadrant sometime tomorrow. The next should take five days, the following six or seven, and the final one around ten days—assuming this map is to scale.”

“I get it. I was thinking the Vitendrea is about fifty miles away, so that adds up,” Bobby said.

Alan perked up. “Really? How'd you figure?”

“Just a distance-guessing trick—” Bobby said, cutting himself off. “I mean, do I have to say it?”

“Yeah, I get it, Boy Scout training,” Alan nodded. “Anyways, that confirms the map's scale, then. I think the average walking speed is around three miles per hour, but considering our frequent stops, I've accounted for a slower pace”

Alan threw himself back on the grass contemplating the burnt orange and twilight purple hues painted on the sky. “Can you believe it’s been two days already?”

“Days? Feels more like years,” Bobby grumbled, picking a blade of grass and twirling it between his fingers. “But you know what? Today was better than yesterday. It's like we've managed to carve out a little slice of life, even here in this wild place.”

“You might be right.” Alan smiled faintly, exhaling a long breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He felt his shoulders relax.

Bobby turned his gaze to the crackling fire. “Alan, there’s something I want to tell you.”

A firefly meandered through the gathering darkness, eventually disappearing into the thick foliage that pressed close around their makeshift camp.

“What’s up?”

“It’s about my life back home. The friends that told you about, they will look—”

“WAIT! Stop right there,” Alan cut in sharply, sitting up. He took a breath before continuing calmly, “I told you, everything's different now. What we were back home doesn't matter here; this is a new chapter.” Alan said, pausing for a moment before adding, “And for what it's worth, there are things from my past I'd rather keep to myself, too.”

“Holy shit. It makes sense. It explains why you enjoy fighting so much…you were also a convict.”