Mike was shaken awake two hours later, Martin letting him know it was his shift to watch. For a moment, he forgot the new world he was in, and nearly rolled over to fall back asleep. He tried, but Martin pulled the helmet from under his head, causing his head to hit the ground with a thunk. Grumbling, Mike stood and walked to the entrance of the cave. It was boring just watching the fire in front of him for ten straight minutes, so he tried practicing his mana control a bit more. He started by bringing his mana back into his palm, he found it easy, having done it before, and having the new skill made specifically to help the process along.

He began trying to push it out of his palm, but found that he lost control of the mana past just an inch from his palm. He tried moving it between his hands, touching his other palm with the mana, he began bringing mana out from his other palm. Both palms were now glowing, casting a blue glow brighter than the campfire produced. Having an idea, Mike pressed his palms together, mana suddenly connecting between his palm, fingers, and thumbs. It felt like how the mana flowed through the rest of his body, uninterrupted and constant. The difference was that the mana felt like it was flowing between his hands at a far more pronounced rate than the rest of him.

He basked in the feeling, trying to understand the new energy more, when the glowing stopped and he felt, well the only way he could describe it was empty. He felt like he was missing something, and taking a quick look at his stat sheet, he quickly saw why.

Health: 270/270

Mana: 0/110

Stamina: 225/225

If he hadn't been so absorbed in observing the mana, he would have felt the growing sense of emptiness he was feeling. Grumbling, he looked once more at his stats sheet, doing a bit of mental math and realizing he had just a bit over ten minutes until his mana would be full. Deciding that staring at the fire for another 10 minutes sounded like hell, he decided to occupy himself with something else.

It was cold in the cave, and he would rather not need to lie in the cold again. He grabbed a few of the messy pelts from the pile Martin had made. He thought briefly of making a blanket, but quickly gave up after realizing how little material he had. He settled on trying to line his armor with fur, to help hold as much precious warmth as possible. He first needed to clean the pelts, as they were still covered in blood and chunks of wolf. He scraped as much as he could off with a stick, before holding it over the fire, trying not to let it catch fire. He had to pat a few flames out, but the pelt was dry, and more importantly, cleaned.

Mike took off his leather shirt. The term chestplate would be incorrect, as it wasn’t made from metal and thus didn't have plates. He tried figuring out how to keep the fur on the armor, but repeatedly came up blank. After a few more minutes of thinking, he held them together and placed them over the flame once more. It took a while, but eventually the fire heated the armor enough to create a weak heat seal, melting the two together. It was finicky, but after just 30 minutes, all of his armor apart from his helmet had wolf fur lining the interior.

He was about to sit back down and try practicing controlling his mana, when a notification appeared, giving him quite the pleasant surprise.

*Profession unlocked. Crafter (level 1)*

Crafter (level 1)

Work with the tools at your disposal to create or improve various items. Gain +3 Agility, +2 Strength and perception, +1 Wisdom, Intelligence, Constitution, Charisma, and Fortitude per level. Gain +3 free points per level.

*Skill gained. Combine (common)*

Mike was pleased, not only at the gain of a profession finally, but at the new source of stats. It felt good to be stronger, even if he was already stronger than even the strongest human pre-system. He took a look at his stats, seeing how the profession affected them.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Strength: 27

Agility: 16

Constitution: 18

Wisdom: 11

Intelligence: 12

Charisma: 11

Perception: 12

Fortitude: 14

Unspent points: 3

He added 2 points to wisdom, and one to intelligence, bringing them both to 13. He looked at his strength stat, seeing just how much higher it was than his next highest stat. He remembered that system guy in the starting room, saying he was balanced and well rounded in terms of stats. That had gone out the window real quick. He felt that he could have likely taken on the wolf alpha now, if he had to fight another one.

If he took some risks and got lucky, he might have been able to take out a pack. He settled back in, ready to give his mana control some more practice. He truly began experimenting with just how far he could extend his mana out. He felt himself able to extend it out just a bit further than before, but only barley. It felt like a much harder limit than he had expected.

He still wasn't sure what affected the range of his mana, but he was sure he would figure it out in time. Going back to his practice, he found himself able to create bullets similar to what John had made. It wasn't anything significant enough to warrant getting a skill from it, but was nice to have nonetheless. He began understanding what John meant when he said that it required too much focus to do on the fly.

It felt like it was getting easier, but he knew it would take quite a bit of practice before it would come effortlessly. Luckily for Mike, he had plenty of it. He hadn’t even noticed in his hours of practice, but a lot more time had passed than he had expected. By the time he remembered that his team was supposed to be doing shifts, the sun was already cresting over the tree line.

He had gotten a lot of practice making those bullets, and the poor tree he had been testing them on for the past 8 hours had scorch marks scarring its bark. Mike felt a bit of spite towards that particular tree, as hours of throwing mana at it hadn't even done damage that looked like it would be permanent. The time wasn’t entirely a waste, however. He had improved his casting speed with the bullets quite a lot, requiring only 5 seconds of concentration to form.

Unfortunately, he could only conjure 3 bullets before running entirely out of mana. He really felt impatient while waiting for his mana to regenerate, and tried utilizing his new profession. He had tried forming the pelts into different shapes, stretching and tearing them into his desired forms. Without anything sharp to cut the pelts, he had resorted to tearing them with his hands, which was imprecise at best.

He had not made anything particularly useful, apart from a water skin with a stopper made from a cork shaped stone he found on the ground. He fastened it to his waist with the wolf leather belt he had also made. The night of making things also led to another level in his profession, and one in his race on top of that. This solidified in his mind that his race level was just his average level between his class and profession, rounded down.

Adding all the points into wisdom, he had continued his work, with the time between mana practiced reduced by a bit. After all was said and done, the night had been productive for Mike. He began his next session of mana practice, excited at what his second day in this new, interesting world would be like.

-----------

Martin woke up to one of the wolf cubs rubbing against his face. The one who he named “Stumpy” Due to having a flatter nose than the other licked his face, trying to wake him. He wasn't sure how long he was asleep, but he was sure something had gone wrong at some point last night, especially when he saw the sunlight. He was supposed to have taken a second shift at some point in the night, and him having not been woken meant something happened on someone else's shift. He looked around, seeing both Hailey and John still fast asleep. He shook them both awake, both of them realizing not long after waking that neither of them had been woken at any point in the night. They slowly crept out of the cave, weapons at the ready, when they heard the enraged shout of a familiar voice.

“JUST FALL ALREADY!” Mike shouted, just out of view from the others. “HOW CAN WOOD BE THIS DAMN TOUGH!?”

The group rounded the corner, seeing their fellow teammate wailing against a lightly burned tree with his maul. The speed and power with which each blow landed made each of them flinch back involuntarily. It was like his hammer had become a fully automatic rifle with the loud bangs that came with each hit. On top of all that, He was wearing the most hideous apparel any of them had ever seen. Wolf fur stuck out of parts of the armor where gaps could be found.

Fur came out of the neck, hands, feet, waist, and even back of the armor. As they watched, his hammer began tearing away chunks from the tree, taking more and more wood with each swing. With one final, particularly anger fueled swing, the tree fell, making a loud, hollow noise as it hit the ground. Mike stopped, taking a breath. Stomping away from the defeated tree, he noticed the others, a smile splitting his face the moment he saw them.

“Hey guys, what do you think of my new fur lining? Made it myself.” He sounded way too proud of himself considering the terrible aesthetic he had created. After seeing the anger he brought down on a tree, none of them dared to tell him their true feelings about the apparel.