Inevitably, it began to get dark and with great reluctance I headed for the edge of the city. "Maybe I shouldn't suck all the mana out of the zombies. That way I'll save a minute or two on every rest," I kept thinking as I headed back to town. "But then again, this way I'm investing in my growth and getting some rest besides..."

As I walked on lost in my thoughts, the imp saw something strange. A group of seven men were hanging over a chest.

"What the hell is that?", I thought to myself and walked over to the group.

“Hello friends.” I yelled from a distance, waving my hand, patting my unloaded crossbow. “Excuse my curiosity, but what is this chest, if it's not a secret?”

"This is Meridin, the Mana Manipulation Instructor.", I heard them through my rat senses.

"Yeah he was with the elections yesterday," said another.

"Don't worry. I don't want to fight you." I approached. "I just want to know more about this chest. Besides, if you need any help you can ask me."

"Well, Jennifer there, spotted this box about 20 minutes ago. " said one of the men who had recognized me, motioning to a middle-aged woman. "There were about 15 zombies next to it, a pretty tough group. We scouted around and then attacked them. After we killed them, the chest opened and we got a message. "

"A strange voice asked us if we wanted to participate in opening the chest as a group. " Jennifer explained. "Everyone who participated would get a chance to receive the prize that was hidden inside."

"Then, we all agreed and I got the prize." one of the men said, holding up a long spear. "This spear, it's much better than my old one. It is made of extremely strong material, has very good balance, and is extremely sharp."

As he said this, the man took aim, and with a well-practiced movement, he stabbed a large boulder lying in the street. The stone splintered to pieces, and there was not a scratch on the spear.

“Magical weapons are no shit,” I said,”Have you heard of other similar chests before now?”

“No, that's the first we're hearing about.”

“Maybe it's something new, or maybe it's extremely rare," I said.

“Besides, we've all seen the contents of the chest. "The man with the spear added." Everyone saw that there was only a spear inside. Right?"

"I see. Thank you for your cooperation", I said and asked a few more questions. In the end I wrote down their names, the chest location, and the situation as they had it described to me and hurried back to town.

When I finally reached the camp, I hurried to get my backpack full of zombie samples and my bag of herbs. There I met Mr. Joseppe and told him about the scene with the chest. We then chatted about various administrative matters and 20 minutes later I managed to get away, promising to send George Bristol to him at “the earliest opportunity”.

I then headed to the restaurant, where I picked up some food in exchange for a few small items I bought from the store for them and enjoyed a long, relaxing dinner. "Maybe, I should buy a bottle of wine before they run out of the store." - However, I quickly gave up on the idea. There were far more practical things I wanted to purchase.

At this point I spotted a volunteer who was one of George's helpers and hurried to catch up with him. He then took me to meet the busy politician.

"Ah Meridin, hello, how are you, sit here." my obviously sleep-deprived colleague greeted me.

We were in a large tent with several tables, lit by torches. George was looking through various papers and giving instructions about something. I hurriedly told him about the chest and handed him the document with the group' names, description and so on. We then talked briefly and I learned that several more such chests had been reported today. They weren't always guarded and their prizes were usually pieces of weapons or armor. No one knew where they had come from, well despite the obvious, but the earliest such chest was found this morning.

Once we had formed a government, there was a huge amount of work to do. I had managed to avoid my duties by going hunting during the day, but now I got down to business.

I helped with whatever I could all evening, going odd jobs, going around to different political camps with messages and meeting people. All the time I was trying to focus attention on the various pressing issues. The good thing was that we already had several groups that formed the nucleus of the new police and army. And the latter had already acted, they had chosen to scout the forest.

In addition, there have already been some ideas about tax collection and coming up with a new points system for rewarding the completion of various tasks. For example, we wanted to build a protective wall around the town, toilets, bathing places, laundry facilities and so on.

For this purpose there would be multiple "tasks" that would earn a certain amount of “contribution points”. With them you could buy different things and use different government services. For example, to access the services of the government healers, you had to have a certain amount of contribution points in your account and at the same time spend some of them on the service. Maybe the morning workouts would also cost a certain amount of contribution points and so on.

Thus the state would create new services to administer. I think everything would be fine unless we focus too much on playing politics. On the other hand, if there is no one to provide safety, it is going to be much slower to gather currency units and build up your skills.

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Anyways, after several hours of hard work I said my goodbyes to the few working people, and went to find a good spot to pitch my tent. As usual, I did some mana intensive activities, summoned my special summons and went to bed for a few hours.

Early on the morning of the ninth day, before the sun was fully up, I set off for the city. I had 295 currency units and only needed another 25 currency units to be able to buy some skill training time!

After killing a few small groups of zombies, I quickly went back into town and stopped in front of tree shops.

"Workouts, workouts... oh here they are." After finding the right menu I once again looked at my choices. "I want to improve my summoning, but Nathan said I need to have more mana before that. Maybe if I improve my Meditation and Mysticism skill, I can improve my mana as well. Also, maybe if I improve my life and mana absorbing skills it will help me build up my mana channels faster?”

Above all, I wanted to improve my strength. Having more mana would naturally gather currency units faster and also affect the speed of improving all of my other skills.

After a short deliberation, I chose to improve my Meditation and Mysticism skill and paid 320 currency units(CU). I had 322 and was left with 2 CU.

All of the sudden, I lost my orientation and the world spun around me and a few seconds later I found myself in the mystical mountains of my meditation instructor. He was a large man, with a huge beard, down to his waist and thick black hair flowing down behind his back. He hadn't introduced himself when we first met, back in the beginning when I unlocked this skull, so I am calling him “the sage” or just “teacher”. His eyes are somehow strange and I could always look him straight in the eyes without feeling any sort of tension or resistance.

"Hello teacher." I greeted him.

"Hello young man. You have two weeks of training time. Tell me more about your goals and what you want to achieve. Show me what instruction you need."

"For now, I want to learn how to better absorb mana from nature. I want to develop my mana channel network so I can improve my summoning skills."

"This is just a beginning and all paths go from here. Improving your magical channels is an essential step in your development. But first, we need to determine the best method for you. Come with me.”

After that, the sage took me to a spacious meadow, next to a not-large lake with a small waterfall. Following the sage's instructions I made myself comfortable and sat down to meditate. My body was bathed by the warm rays of the sun. Something particularly pleasant, given the cool mountain air.

Later we did about a half hour of refreshing exercise, and then he showed me some weird, slow body exercises. In these, even the most simple movement of the body or limbs was extremely slow, but somehow smooth and beautiful.

As I was doing them, I could feel the mana somehow working itself through my body, but after a while I began to suspect that the sage was somehow helping me manage it.

An hour later, I was completely cleansed and with a particular clarity of thought. The sea of my consciousness was like a deep lake, full of crystal clear water, through which one could see hundreds of meters down to the very bottom of the lake.

Then the teacher slowly started talking to me about different subjects and helped me clarify a lot of things, mostly about who I am and what I want from the world. His questions were so profound that I often pondered the answers for a long time. I felt a deep satisfaction in the process and could see how these reflections enriched the core of my being and would have a great effect on my future.

And so three whole days passed unnoticed. Then the mystic sage took me to a group of geysers, where he showed me some simple meditation practices that I practiced for hours, and when I couldn't take it anymore, he helped me to relax and gather my strength.

Often we walked the trails of the mountain, and sometimes the ever-present mists would lift and reveal breathtaking views.

These walks recharged my body and soul and I found myself ready and even eager to meditate again.

Three days passed in this way, and when the fourth day was over, a whole week had passed. In that time I had learned a lot and felt a tremendous change in my soul and body. I could feel the connection to the mana far clearer and stronger, and it was descending into my body almost of its own accord.

During the last seven days of my training, I have been developing my energy channels almost constantly. The sage kept a watchful eye on my work and often guided me. I knew that I must not make mistakes so I followed his instructions carefully and was more than satisfied with the results.

By the end of the second week, I had completely built up my primary energy channel network and thus had a significant increase of my mana reserves!

In addition, these channels were capable of carrying my mana out of my body, allowing me to cast more complex spells. Also, I was able to direct some of my channels to my muscle groups and so my body was significantly stronger, faster, and more durable.

I also realized (with some envy) that the mages who had this skill since day one had significantly better mana regeneration, exceeding even my ability to absorb mana from the zombies I killed.

Also, even though my body and muscles were stronger, I could hardly match the strength of most martial classes.

However, it was by no means a small achievement and I couldn't wait to try out my new powers.

A few hours before I was to leave the misty mountains we had a long talk and the teacher taught me how to continue developing my powers. He also gave me some important life advices for which I was extremely grateful.

Finally we said our last goodbyes, and I just didn't want to leave this heavenly place. But at just the right hour, the world around me swirled and I was back at camp.

I stood and reflected for a long time, then meditated for another half an hour or so. People walked past me, but my gaze was directed in a completely different direction and I paid them no mind. Finally, I headed back to the city and summoned my animals.

In addition to the bear, I could now afford to summon a few small ethereal creatures. Their name in the Book of Solomon didn't mean anything to me, and besides it was extremely long and complicated to pronounce so I decided to just call them fairies. Their ability was to improve the stats of other creatures I summoned by temporarily increasing their strength and speed.

Furthermore, they could heal the bear's wounds to a limited extent, and most of all, they could fly and scout around. There were other creatures that could improve the ability of the animals I summoned, but out of the list, I liked these flying fairies the most. I liked them so much that from now on I will always summon them along with my summons (though I won't always mention it).

I liked their ability to improve my reconnaissance, and besides, unlike my familiar, I could easily summon them if I lost them.

After getting used to my bear's new strength and the faerie's movements, as well as the ability to manage them better, I headed further into town.