Jack woke up. It was cold. The sun was rising in the east. When he went away from the warming rune, it was even cooler. Not only that. There was a layer of snow on the ground. Jack sighed. ‘Walking is going to be much harder,’ he thought.

The plan was continue yesterday activities. Jack was tempted to use a fire spell to warm himself, but he didn’t want to lose his light affinity. He used the light kinetic spell, and started to redirect light from the surroundings to him. For him, it was like light was coming from everywhere. For others, there was a darkness surrounding Jack. It wasn’t similar to shadow affinity spells. The darkness was attention catching and everyone could see there was something not right. A shadow affinity spell would naturally conceal surroundings, making it inconspicuous.

The spell wasn’t giving much warmth, but it helped a bit. Jack was forced to stop it, however, as he didn’t want to spend all his clarity on warming up.

After using remnants of the boar for breakfast, the whole group started exploring the forest looking for prey. They hunted down more rodents, finally allowing Jack to gain a level.

Ding… LEVEL UP! You have reached lv. 12

After two hours they managed to find a fox, probably around level 20. The older hunters were keeping a distance, and the fox wasn’t overly scared. It even tried to attack, but Aleena was faster. The fox dodged and increased the distance, trying to come closer from another direction. They started throwing spears, but the fox was agile and used trees for cover. After another fire attack from Aleena, the fox decided that it was too dangerous and ran away.

They tried to give chase, but the fox was too fast. Jack cast his beam spell, but the fox used trees for cover, and the spell wasn’t strong enough to kill an enemy instantly.

The fight revealed fire mana’s weakness. The mana types were too slow on their own. They could be accelerated further with a lot of spell vectors, but that was tiring. Normally, most mages just used kinetic spells to throw things. It was only natural. Earth mana wasn’t doing much damage to the enemy, while a huge boulder could kill instantly.

The fire kinetic spell was a bit awkward. When heat was moved, extreme cold was left behind.

The team wandered for some time. After the midday, they found a cave.

“I think there is something inside. I mean, some monster,” Lillie said.

Jack used his earth mana to fill the cave and was able to discover a shape, a meter and half long and wide, high for a meter.

“It’s alive. It has a higher temperature that the surroundings, but not much higher”, Aleena said. “I think it may be a hibernating bear.” Her eyes were shining. A bear could be in the 3rd tier.

“Where is the entrance?” Stanley asked.

“There.” Jack and Lillie pointed.

They wanted to go as fast as possible and harvest the essence, but they were stopped by the older hunters.

“You should be careful with that. Bears can reach 4 or even 5 tier. It’s fairly common. You don’t know how strong the bear is.”

“So, are we forbidden from hunting it down?” Aleena asked.

The leading hunter chuckled. “It’s just an advice. A hunter need to risk it sometimes. Well, we are here to provide some safety on your first time outside, but we are not going to die for you. If the bear is 2nd or 3rd tier, we are going to help you. If it is in 4th tier, well, it would depend on the bear’s strength, but we will probably try to help. If the bear is in the 5th tier or higher, we are going to run away as fast as we can, hoping your meat will be enough for it.” He said it without a bit of shame.

“Guys,” Lillie said hesitantly, “I think we should reconsider our plans.”

Aleena frowned.

“Can we somehow check its tier?” Staley asked. They were taught how to distinguish the tiers, and even levels of monsters, which was the reason for rise of Jack’s analyze skill.

“I suppose we would at least need to see it.” Aleena replied. With an evolution, there was nearly always increase in mass and density. A tier could be judged by how deep marks an animal leaves on the ground.

“Well, the bear has a standard size for its own kind. Maybe its tier isn’t high,” Lillie said. Monsters often grew in size with an evolution. It wasn’t a rule, as humans also had options for increasing size and height, but weren’t taking them normally, preferring classes with good class skills. The boar could have done the same.

“Jack, can you send your eye?” Stanley asked.

Jack frowned. “I could, but I don’t know if it is a good move. The light can wake the bear up.”

“I don’t think so. It is hibernating, something this minor won’t wake it up.” Stanley said.

“Fine.” Jack cast the spell. Soon, a sparky trail appeared in the air and it was elongating from Jack to the entrance of the cave.

“So, what do you see?” Lillie asked.

“Not much.” Jack replied shortly. Rather than describe, he changed his illusion spell, and made a panoramic illusion in the air. The light was made directly from light mana, so the spell was hungry on essence. A small illusion in the eye needed a lot less. Jack could conserve the essence by manipulating the light, but he didn’t have enough intelligence for something that complicated.

“Not much for real,” Stanley said. The cave was dark. There was some light coming from the entrance and from the Jack’s spell, but the bear was barely visible.

“At least we can confirm it is a bear,” Stanley added. The image was a bit blurry due to its nature, but there was a shape of a bear. There weren’t much of colors or details, however.

“So?” Jack asked. Maintaining the spell was tiring him.

“We are not going to get anything from that,” Aleena said. Jack dropped the spell.

“What now?” Lillie asked.

There was a silence. They wanted essence, but they weren’t idiots. Charging ahead without a plan or even information was a suicide.

“Let’s find something else,” Stanley said.

“I think I know a way,” Jack surprised the rest.

“How?” Aleena asked.

“The best method is to check its weight. I can slightly move some soil under it. It shouldn’t notice.”

Others looked at him. “What If you make too much disturbance?” Staley asked.

“I doubt it. In the worst case we will have enough time to create a distance, anyway. I mean, the bear is in the cave, and after waking up it will be most likely dazed.”

Others thought it over for some time and agreed in the end.

Jack walked closer and carefully send earth mana to the cave. He kept the feedback component of the detection spell. Now, he added the kinetic spell, barely holding all those spells up. Jack send the kinetic spell, which shape was formed from earth mana forward. When the spell was below the bear, Jack manipulated mana a bit to complete the spell. It started working, pushing the soil to the sides. Jack was slowly adding more mana, and spell vectors, increasing spell’s might. He was getting information from the detection spell about the result.

Jack had 65 intelligence, and he needed about 40 for the kinetic spell and detection spell. One intelligence in vectors is enough to move 5 kilograms from a meter, so he could move about 125 kilograms from a meter, and it was 20 meters between him and the bear, meaning four hundred times decline in strength. It was around 300 grams of force, that Jack could project from that distance. The spell wasn’t strong enough to move the soil up, Jack could only deduce from the pressure the bear’s weight squeezed the earth.

Moving an element from the distance was hard and complicated. A mage needed to maintain mana link, and calculating all vectors was a lot harder. The effect was meager as well, enough for the test, but unusable in a fight. It was hard to move mana at the distance, but he wasn’t expecting to move the bear.

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“How it is?” Lillie asked.

“Well…” Jack got his results, but there was a problem. He didn’t know how much a bear should weight.

“I need some comparison. Don’t move Stanley. I am going to weigh you.” He used to same method on Stanley and compared the results.

“I think the bear is in 3rd or 4th tier. It is pretty heavy. Can’t say for sure, I have never weighed a bear before, and you know the math” Jack said. The team members were looking at each other meaningfully, as they found the prey.

“How do you want to kill it?” Patrick asked. “Should we go to the cave and stab it with spears?”

“I can kill the bear with fire mana. It will be the safest and fastest method.” Aleena said.

“You are not going to take all essence!” Lillie shouted. “Don’t you have the highest level of us already?”

“It’s unrelated. The military is not essence charity.” Aleena replied with a disdain.

“Stop.” Staley tried to intervene. “Aleena, we are here as a group. You should cooperate. Besides, since you are the strongest, it is possible you will deal the finishing blow anyway. We need to think a plan for killing 4th tier bear.”

“It could be in the 3rd tier.” Lillie interrupted.

“We need to have a plan for 4th tier. It’s better to be over prepared.” Jack said calmly. “Actually, I have another idea.” Everyone was listening to him, since his previous idea was very good. “Lillie can still the air in the entrance to the cave. The bear will die to suffocation, possibly in sleep. I think it will be the safest plan, though it could take a bit long.”

“It won’t work.” Aleena was shaking her head. “The bear will wake up. You could try to suffocate it slowly, the bear is hibernating, it doesn’t need much air. Lillie will spend all clarity before the bear will die.”

Jack shrugged. ‘Well, no harm in asking,’ he thought. Plus Lillie was looking grateful.

“We need to discuss this with them anyway,” Jack said, subtly pointing at 3rd tier hunters.

After a quick discussion, older hunters reluctantly acknowledged Jack’s findings, and promised to help with 4th tier, and not interfere with 3rd tier, unless someone was going to die.

Aleena agreed to compromise,  as it was too dangerous to get into the cave together with a bear. They were going to force the bear out, using Lillie magic to suck out the air. Jack was going to place a trap just outside the entrance, and then Aleena was going to fry the bear. 

Jack walked to the entrance. He created his own spell for placing traps. He was sure the spell was already invented, but it wasn’t in the library, so Jack needed to create it on his own. Jack was planning to inscribe a spell-trap on the ground. He wasn’t going to manually sketch the spell on the ground, as it would be too time and clarity consuming. His spell was creating automatically runes he created in his mind. The spell was shaping earth mana, which was dispersing slowly on the ground, creating thin earthen lines of the trap.

The trap was very simple. It just created fire mana upon activating. The most complicated part was the activator, which still used only a simple detection spell and some magical switches. 

Lillie cast her spell. Gust of wind from the cave signaled successful cast.

“I am not able to totally suck the air, but there isn’t much left,” Lillie said.

The group waited for a dozen of minutes, until they heard a roar. ‘It’s coming!’ Jack thought. The bear crawled from the cave and walked into the trap. In a moment, there was blinding ball of fire in its place. Aleena wasn’t idle and started throwing even more fire.

For a moment, they thought that was it, but…

“There is no notification,” Stanley said. “Aleena, stop for a moment. Let’s see bear’s condition.”

When the fire disappeared, they could see the bear. It heavy breathed, gasping for air, and eying Jack’s team. Its fur was lightly burned, but not much.

The bear opened his mount wider, and it breathed fire itself. A lot of fire mana was flying at Jack with greater speed than Aleena’s fire. He immediately started creating spell vectors in his mind to repel the fire. ‘Shit! It won’t be enough!’

The fire mana hit his barrier, but to Jack’s surprise, the barrier held. He looked around. Everyone had either surprised or serious face. ‘I see. Everyone created a barrier. It was the team effort.’ He changed vectors, pushing fire mana to the side. The bear slowly marched in their direction.

“What now?” Lillie asked, panicked.

“Why fire affinity!?” Aleena shouted. 

“We need to think of something. The bear is a bit suffocated, but it’s going to get better soon!” Stanley shouted. They dispersed, increasing the distance to the bear. Jack threw a spear. Everyone took three spears for the hunt, so he still had two.

The spear hit, but it barely drew blood. The spear fallen on the ground, and only the tip had some blood. ‘Even if I use the minor strength spell there won’t be much difference,’ Jack thought. He was searching in his mind for a method to kill the bear.

The bear attacked with fire again, this time, shooting it at Stanley. He evaded, his magical barrier was keeping the mana at bay.  Jack cast a spell and lifted a dozen of kilograms of soil and rocks from the ground. He filled it with earth mana, hardening the mass, and sent it at the monster.

The flying boulder hit, pushing the bear for some centimeters, but the bear was fine. Jack was depressed. It seemed he could only inflict scrapes and bruises on the enemy.

The air blew around the bear, stirring up the snow. “I am going to try to suffocate it further. I am too weak physically to harm it, anyway!” Lillie shouted.

A spear flew for the bear’s head, forcing the monster to move its head. “Aim for the weak points!” Stanley shouted. Jack threw a spear, aiming for the bear’s eyes, but the bear moved its head, dodging.

‘The beam spell won’t do anything. It’s a light spell, but the light itself is harmless, only heat is dangerous, and this one has the fire affinity. The bear is resistant to high temperatures,” Jack thought.

‘Weak points!’ Jack had an idea. He started creating his beam spell. There was darkness around him, which took bear’s attention. The monster was staring at Jack.

‘Great! Now, it will be even easier.’ He fired the beam at bear’s eye. He missed, but he quickly corrected spell vectors, sending light into bear’s eye. The bear roared in pain. Others threw spears, hoping to use the moment in which the monster wasn’t paying attention to them.

The bear shook its head in pain. A wall of flame surrounded the monster, trying to work as a shield.

‘Damn!’ Fire mana could block light mana, but there was no light mana in Jack’s attacks. It was just the light. However, heat form bear’s flames created mirages and distorted light. Jack’s beam was changing directions randomly in the heated air.

‘The bear probably doesn’t even know why it works. It’s just acting subconsciously, trying to defend with its fire. Damn it!’

They were dealing some damage, the bear’s eye was blinded, but it wasn’t enough.

The bear started running at Jack. He was surprised that he was calm. Jack moved earth before him, elevating it two meters up. The bear threw fire at him, but Jack filled his cover with light mana, which blocked bear’s fire mana, while the soil blocked heat from the bear’s spell.

The monster tried to avoid the cover, but Jack just elevated more soil. The bear decided to climb up. Jack was prepared to form a dome, but the bear was interrupted. Aleena attacked it in close quarters. She was indifferent to the fire, as she also had a high resistance to extreme temperatures from her fire affinity.

She was keeping the bear at bay, using her superior reach thanks to the spear in her hands. The bear advances on her, while she was retreating. The bear was heavy breathing, since Lillie was suffocating it by blowing strong winds under its nose. The bear must have decided this cannot continue, and rushed at Lillie. She dropped her spell and started to run away.

Stanley rushed at the bear, hoping to pin it down. The bear threw fire at him. Stanley erected a magical barrier, but while fire mana was stopped, how air flew forward. Staley grasped his face in the groan of pain. His face was burned. The bear continued its chase. Now, with full access to the air, it was capable of a very fast run.

Lillie was too slow, but when the bear was closing to her, she jumped up. She flew for a few meters high, landing on a tree. ‘She must have filled her body with air mana,’ Jack thought. Decreasing mass was the air mana base effect.

The bear started climbing the tree. The monster threw fire at Lillie, but her fire barrier held fire mana, while she redirected hot air with her air magic. She started climbing the tree, and once again used air magic to suffocate the monster.

Jack tried to cast the beam spell to blind second bear’s eye, to completely blind the monster, but when he started, the bear noticed and once again created his flame shield. Jack could only give up.

‘Damn! It’s my fault!’ He thought. ‘I should have created an electrical trap, or just a bunch of traps. I have used fire trap, because the fire mana is the most deadly and easy to use, but Aleena can use fire as well. I just tried to kill the beast faster than Aleena.’

Jack was angry at himself. If he had created an electrical trap, the bear would have been wounded. The entire fight would have been different.

‘The bear is on the tree. This is a weakness.’ Jack had an idea.

He ran to the tree, and moved soil, digging with magic a few meters deep cavity. The magic was working slow. There wasn’t enough essence in the air, as everyone was using essence for their own spells. He managed to complete his hole, however. Lillie was already on the top of the tree, the bear was climbing after her. The rest was throwing spears, which were lying here and there after they fallen of the bear’s skin.

He ran for 30 meters away from the tree and used once again the earth kinetic spell. He repeated his move from the beginning of the fight, creating a large boulder and he aimed it at the bear.

‘I need to hit.’ He thought two times about the spell vectors and tossed the boulder. He immediately ran towards the tree. The boulder hit the bear, throwing the bear off the tree with the boulder’s momentum. The bear crashed in the hole. Jack used his spell to close to the hole, the buried the monster under a meter of soil. He used his earth mana to harden the soil and make it impossible for the bear to escape.

The bear used his fire, burning everything around. Jack’s hand got burned, as the earth beneath him was heated. His fire barrier was barely able to repel the fire mana from only a meter from an innate fire spell user.

“Stop using spells!” Jack shouted. There wasn’t enough essence in the air. It was also weakening the bear’s fire spells, but it would be able to dig itself out from the loose soil.

The soil was mixed with snow, but now, it was rapidly vaporizing. Hot steam was wetting Jack’s clothes. Jack kept the spells, trying to harden the earth as much as he could.

Ding… You have killed lv. 34 Fire Bear

Ding… LEVEL UP! You have reached lv. 13

Jack fell on his knees. Only now the exhaustion hit him. He checked his bars.

Vitality

544/563

Stamina

249/330

Clarity

105/580

After all those spells his clarity was low. ‘I must have ran on the adrenaline.’ He knew about adrenaline from his biology studies.

“Congratulations.” Aleena said with a bit bitter tone.

“Thanks.” He replied simply. He didn’t care. He was too tired.

He and Staley regenerated burned skin with the minor recovery spell. The group dug out the bear. Its fur, bones and skin were resources.

After a few hours of rest, the group continued the hunt. They weren’t able to find much prey. Jack had an idea to kill young 2nd tier trees, as their bark wasn’t protecting against life mana. Everyone killed a few trees, which earned another level for Jack.

They returned to the headquarters a few hours after the dusk.