Devon finished off the rolt with a spear thrust into its body, Bravery deactivating as he pulled out the spear. It actually gave a level, probably because he stood on a log, trying to stay on for the majority of the fight.

He found himself secretly enjoying the self imposed challenges, even though he knew that they were risking his life. This was both because the challenge gave him more strength, and because Bravery made the fights easier and less scary.

He had come to terms with the mind-affecting skill over the past day. He couldn’t do anything to stop it from activating, and it was a straight boost in combat power. Even if it temporarily changed his brain, he had a feel for what it was actually doing.

What he was more worried about were the implications. If the system could so easily affect his mind, did that mean there were skills that could affect his mind too? It made him want to invest some more points into the mind stats, but he decided that his distribution was good enough already.

Devon shelved that for later. Maybe when I meet some people I’ll reconsider.

Next up on his list of things to work on were his skills. Spear Master hadn’t gone up at all, but he could feel that it was almost there the same way he could feel that he was barely into level 9. He had discovered this when he was peering at his item list, trying to figure out what gave his sneakers a stat.

The System responded with a feeling just like the ones he got during class selection, informing him that they barely qualified for the dexterity stat. He didn’t get an exact decimal, but he could almost get an imprecise fraction out of it. Maybe 1 and 1/16 of a dexterity stat point, though again it was very vague.

He looted the rolt, getting another patch of leather. At some point he could probably use it for a waterskin or a materials pouch, but as of now he didn’t really want to forage for some thread and didn’t have enough anyways. Experimenting with the system and growing stronger seemed more important, especially considering the system gave him what he needed to survive from the bodies of the rolts.

Devon jumped off the mossy log and walked off, unaware that something far more powerful than an infant rolt was watching him.

* ••

The Matriarch silently gazed at the intruder on her domain through the scrying tool Ibrahel had so generously provided. She had noticed the intruder an hour ago, around the center of the valley. Ibrahel had promised her time for her children to grow before the adventurers came to grow themselves, and yet something had gotten into the secluded valley she used to let her children fight for dominance.

At this point they could hardly be called children, each rolt hardly having more intelligence than the antlered prey they hunted. Fights were common and a part of the growth of the children, and around 200 would eventually die before the rest gained enough intelligence and strength to stop fighting.

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However, this intruder could harm the system that she had carefully built to grow the unintelligent creatures into something worthy of her care if she didn’t stop it. Which begged the question, how did it get in?

Ibrahel had promised that nothing would come from their side of the valley as per their agreement, and on the other side were the Scorpion Lords, territorial creatures that wouldn’t let something as weak as the intruder through. But it had to be one of those two, because the intruder simply clearly did not have the physical strength or supplies to make it through the plains from Aletan and over the mountain into the valley.

She ruled out the possibility that the intruder was an independent actor quickly. It had either come from the forest to the south, towards Ibrahel, or the valley to the north, the domain of the Scorpion Lords. This meant it had help from one of those powers.

It also meant that the Matriarch had to tread carefully. Both her neighbors had an army that far outclassed her own, and while she was getting stronger through the rearing program, an army of adventurers or a wave of the lesser scorpions living just outside of her domain could destroy all she had built.

For now, she sent messengers to both. She was uncertain on the purpose of sending such a weak thing to her domain, but she had to discover and crush any plans that her neighbors had. Ah, and she also had to crush the bug in her domain. A rolt warrior should have no trouble taking out such a weak thing, but just to be safe she sent two. That should be the end of that problem.

* ••

Devon’s “house” was barely better than the lean to he had constructed the first night, but it was certainly better than nothing. He had found another fallen tree and hastily stacked some branches tied together with grass from the river bank. The inside just had a pelt wrapped around the sharp crystal from the scorpion cave, preventing the glow from getting out.

The “ceiling” was just high enough closest to the tree for him to squat down in, but it would certainly serve its purpose of preventing any rolt attacks long enough that he could wake up. The entire thing also smelled strongly of sap, which Devon considered a plus, though he didn’t know how good the rolt sense of smell was.

Devon had one purpose in going back to the lean to, determining what the crystal was. Inspecting it revealed it as a Skill Shard, but he couldn’t activate it no matter how hard he tried. However, the one thing he hadn’t done was inject mana, and Devon was certain that this was the key to using it. And if it isn’t, it’s definitely the sharpest rock I’ve found yet.

Devon tentatively put some mana into it, not wanting to break it, but the shard only glowed slightly brighter. Feeling confident that it was doing something, he put even more in. The shard kept growing brighter, but nothing happened until Devon put almost the entirety of his 350 mana pool into it.

The shard glowed even brighter until Devon couldn’t see the blue bloodstains on it, and finally disappeared abruptly. He looked around, wondering if it had launched out of his grasp, but he noticed no difference. That is, until he looked at his status. Under both Titles and General Skills, a new entry had been added.

Prodigy, and Tier 10 Aura Manipulation (0)