Throughout the next two weeks, nothing happened. Shad constantly used his bow and the shapes he learned from the mage. He hunted the boars, wolves, and harpies.

There were no adventurers around and no news from Terry.

The tierless enemies prove to be a challenge. They were weak individually but never let themselves be easy prey. Especially wolfs they always used pack tactics. Which cost Shad two health potions and quite a lot of healing spell training.

He was curious what would be going to happen when the month of survival end. He looked at his stats and skills.

Shadik Orc Assasin Tier: 1

Stats:

Strenght: 1.7 Agility: 1.7 Toughness: 1.2 Vitalty: 1.3 Vitalty Reg: 1.3

Stamina: 1.6 Stamina Reg: 1.6 Mana: 1.4 Mana Reg: 1.4 Perception: 1.8

Dexterity: 1.7 Calculation: 2.0

Skills:

Stealth: 1.5 Tracking: 1.4

Melee combat: 1.7, Dual Blades: 1.7 Spear: 0.5 Hand to hand: 0.3

Ranged combat: 1.9 Crossbows: 1.9 Bows: 1.3 Trowing: 1.0

Magic: 1.2 Telekinesis: 1.2 Fire magic: 0.7 Life Magic: 0.4

He felt good about himself. He had been grown a lot in the skill department while he has grown somewhat in size too. Now he looked like a fourteen-year-old instead of thirteen.

Shad watched the sun going down from his camp. He heard mother Dryad's voice in his head. "My sons, return tomorrow morning to my tree. Your test has ended.

The next morning he left most of his loot at his camp. He intentionally left his bow too. He wanted to look successful but not too successful. He not intended to show his skills with bow or magic. He left the bear pelt too.

He was never intended to say how he managed to kill it. So Shad not going to talk about his dealings with humans too. He wanted to keep his secrets to himself.

His return to the orc village took him over half a day. When he returned it was already noon. Nine guys are waiting with eyes filled with worry. While other people giving them solace. When Shad returned he didn't like what he was seeing. Out of 50, only 11 had been returned by noon including himself.

His father Kalra was about to cry, he guessed any of his brothers made it. When Kalra saw Shad his face suddenly brightened. He ran to him with open arms and hugged him. Shad just hugged back. In his previous life, he desperately wanted to be loved, when he was little he dreamed he got adopted by a loving family. A mother who embraced him, a father who took him on his shoulders.

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When the hug stopped he asked his father "Am I the only one who returned?" He shook his head "Tello returned early, one week into the test. He now has to live the rest of his life as a gardener for the mother. That is not a bad end. Just not suitable for a proud orc. He can only become tier two and can only see inside of the forest. No raiding, no fighting, no heaving children only serving to the mother.

Shad asked, "Why no one told us what early return would bring?" Kalra said, "Tarhas said you to stay one month and mother only tell to you only run away when you have no other option left." Shad wondered "How many returned early?" Kalra "Only two."

He calculated in his mind two from before and eleven nowhere, 13 out of 50. Then he heard Sarchi's cry of joy "One more, one more is coming." He said in his mind "14 out of 50"

Fifteen minutes later last orc youngling had returned. When Shadik looked at other orc younglings he saw how badly battered they are. Out of twelve, only three had new gear including himself, others clothes were torn up. Although some animal skin had been used for missing clothes they were looked like castaways.

Tarhas get there and started to speak to the gathered crowd. "This year is successful. First time in ten years we have this many survivers. One of the kids who utterly malnourished asked "Why? Why we had to suffer all this?"

Tarhas "Kid, do you think we like to do this on our own? But we have to do this for two reasons. First, we are a hunter-gatherer society. Unless you want to become mother dryads servant and get feed with her magic fruits you have to hunt and gather.

But there can only a limited number of orcs can be fed by forest. If we allow more than forest capacity we had to start fighting each other.

Also not just infighting there would be a skill problem too. With the survival of the fittest, even our weakest warriors are tier three. This way we can answer human's quantity advantage with our quality advantage.

Simply put, we feed best warriors with our limited resources. Second, unless you see how weak when you are alone you won't work as a team. That is orc nature. Orcs like to be individual fighters but against humans who hold many advantages over us that would be our undoing."

Tarhas said, "Tomorrow be ready, we will select a leader among you. You will fight against each other and the winner going to be the leader. This is the orc way."

One of the kids asked, "I lost my weapons can I get new ones?" Tarhas said "No. The ones who managed to take down adventures and take their gear should be rewarded."

They go to the cozy, small home of Kalra, the house made out of wood. They got in, There was only one bed, Kalra said "Rest son, also I usually stay in my hunting ground, I won't always be around the village so whenever you come here you can use this home."

Shad said "Dad, where are you going to sleep? Kalra pulled out a bedding mat from a closet, I will sleep in the ground. Tomorrow is a big day for you, rest well. I will bring you the best food now, just rest then we will eat dinner in a couple of hours until then you rest some more. Tomorrow you are going to need a lot of energy.