"Hah, so you knew all along and never taught us?"

Currently, the four were together. Sitting around a bonfire. The fresh scent of recently cooked meat could be smelt in the air.

As guards in charge of dealing with the mundane troubles, the four had already finished eating. The caravan workers were still eating. There were specific people in charge of looking out when the convoy was stopped. If trouble came, they would need to deal with it.

Looking at the wry smile on Saleh's face. Claire spoke with a bit of uncertainty, "While it is a bit disheartening. It is also understanding. Nobody is entitled to anything."

Sighing, "It wasn’t like I never wanted to say anything. When you learn from a teacher, you can't go around blabbering their lessons to others. Even if I wanted to, I first need to think about my teacher before I can share anything thought to me. It isn’t like I didn’t leave any signs, I thought my actions were obvious enough. I never tried to hide it."

If not for Leo, none of the three would have come to the realization. The old man had never explained this to her. Nor had she ever done so on her own.

As someone who was always alone. She never had the luxury to enter mediation after a fight. At least not on a regular basis. It even took her a while to receive concrete evidence. Therefore, there was no way she could figure this out alone.

Being alone always meant being vulnerable after a fight. Instead of focusing on recovery, being used to being slightly mana starved was a norm. Generally, even if she wasn’t doing her old work, she couldn’t afford sticking around. Even when she was attacked, just the risk alone was not something she was willing to put herself, in such a position.

With that in mind, the longer you went. The lower the efficiency. Ignoring the fact that the fight itself had to be handled efficiently. She had done this inside the dungeon, only, what she did there was recover lost mana. Here, the fights were dangerous.

Still within reason, as time went on the fights were less draining as their enemies changed. Experimenting with more physically taxing, while withholding mana. That is what allowed her slight progress, the less mana she used, the less time spent on just recovering mana.

While it was obvious when Saleh did it, he had always done so. There was no reason to think there was a specific reason. As someone who grew up in the animal tribes, he was generally different from other people. He had a many quarks that hid what was normal and abnormal for him compared to someone else.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Seeing a strange, sudden shift in Jessica's behavior, did draw their attention. Finally, commenting on it. Jessica gave them confirmation of what she found from watching Saleh, after she was able to confirm there was really a benefit. No matter how small.

It appeared she was not abnormal. To enter a meditative state after fighting was a weird change in her behavior. Such a state put the individual in a questionable spot. For Jessica, changes in behavior were warning signs for lone travelers to watch for. This seemed to hold true for adventurers from Mercury City.

Here, they needed time to secure the carriages. This wasn't something for their group to do. Therefore, given time, it was enough to reap small benefits along the journey.

Only now, goblins had stopped attacking. The few that did appear were sporadic. Even still, there were a few human attacks every so often.

Jack finally gave up trying to reprimand Saleh, "I guess we should thank the humans for being so greedy."

Nobody knew what to say. At this moment, they were going to be entering animal tribe lands soon. The tension in the air felt thick enough to cut with a knife.

While goblin society had a huge stranglehold on it. The human world was different. From the perspective of an outsider, humans banded together.

Out here, humans came from different powers. Goblins had learned their lesson. After a single Grade C troop tried to raid them.

The female Grade B made a single appearance. That was all it took. The rest of the goblin attacks were sparse and random. As if word had spread, there was not a single attack of sophistication again. Now, the only difficult battles were against humans.

Humans, unlike the goblins, had a far less strict hierarchy. Let alone, even when fighting out here. The humans weren’t allies. So while, all the organized goblin attacks stopped. Human attacks continued to occur randomly.

Appearing to mean, human troops out here never shared information amongst themselves like the goblins apparently did. For that reason, it was a sad state to see as a member of the human race. This did allow them, even if slightly, a road to progression.

"We should be fine. Animal tribes have too much pride to raid a convoy. So long as we don't trespass. With the goblins having spread word. All that is left is this final push."

Tension hovering over the rest of the convoy soon took over their atmosphere. What little happiness at the discovery of a new way to get stronger was quickly overtaken.

The only people to attack, when they reached over the boarder, were those with a good set of skills. Anyone daring enough to raid in animal tribe land was clearly no pushover.

So far, the journey has been good. The woman at the back of the caravan was too arrogant and stubborn to lower herself. With mana radiating from the back carriage, almost every single Grade C had been cautious enough to stay away.

As for running into a Grade B. It was now or never. Chances were actually higher. Being daring enough to attack a trade convoy en route to the animal tribe was lucrative as well as insulting.

For low graded beings, they could be hunted down. Not much was known about the animal tribes, however, territorial was a common known trait. This included hunting down such bandits, their fates were said to be worse than death.