I was back in that familiar place, the place that no one would believe existed. Everytime I slept as far back as I could remember I would see bits and pieces of another life. Nothing concrete of course, no names or places, just grand visions of sprawling grey cities, buildings that touched the sky.

This time I was inside of a metal carriage, and through the window I could see above the clouds. I always loved these dreams, though I could never figure out where I was or how it was so high.

Looking out the window, the clouds looked grey and stormy, almost reflecting the storm I had to brave for my awakening. Suddenly the carriage shook and I-

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-woke up.

The memories of my dream began to fade, until I was left with the barest feeling of soaring above the clouds and I began to take in my surroundings. A glance outside showed that it was still pitch dark, and I wondered why I’d woken up so early.

I wasn’t left wondering for long, as I heard a faint rustle and a growl. Something was outside, most likely a wolf but I couldn’t be sure. Extricating myself from my blankets, I crawled through the tent’s flap and tried to make out any shapes in the night. Obviously, without some kind of light actually seeing anything would be impossible, but thankfully it seemed the wolf had that particular problem covered.

Something snapped to my right and I spun around to see a set of glowing fangs rushing towards me, somehow not illuminating the form they were attached to but betraying what it was regardless. The only creatures in these woods with fangs like those so low to the ground were the wolves, and I knew that I ordinarily wouldn’t stand a chance against them.

I almost grinned at the chance to see how my lightning fared in battle, the thrill of finding something useful to do with magic spiking my adrenaline more than anything else, and immediately lightning burst from my palms to arc between my fingers like dozens of tiny snakes, small but venomous all the same.

The wolf, in a manner that I didn’t expect, recoiled from the sudden bright light and paused its charge. At this point I was already charging, planning to blindly swing at the beast but changing tactics at the last moment to instead wrap my hands around its neck.

I could feel my Mana drain faster as I forced Lightning Generator to its limits, but it wasn’t enough to stun the wolf for long. It tried and failed to reach its jaws around to my arms for a few seconds, seeming to be dead set on using those above all else. Seeing its attempt fail, it instead began wildly clawing with all four of its limbs. Each attack was inaccurate and barely cut past my clothes, but it was enough to make me panic and pull back my arms.

The wolf took the opportunity to scramble back a few steps and growl at me cautiously. Its guard was up so it wasn’t likely to take me easy any more, but I could tell that it was severely damaged from our exchange, more so than I was at least. A scorch mark formed a rough ring around its neck, and it looked to be moving a little more sluggish than it ought to be.

My grin faded from my face as I began to realise the danger I was in. My Mana Pool was over half empty already, and it was going to be difficult to get another hit on the wolf at close range. At least without getting injured myself.

Fortunately, generating a small amount of lightning constantly seemed to be able to provide enough light that I could see the wolf somewhat. Unfortunately, it probably still had better vision than I did, so that was less of an advantage and more of a reduced disadvantage.

For a few moments we stared at each other, the wolf likely trying to find a weakness, and me trying to do the same. An idea occurred to me, which must have changed something in my posture as the wolf immediately pounced. Thankfully, it wouldn’t be fast enough to outspeed my attack.

I held out both hands towards it and willed the lightning to snap towards the wolf, and this time it drained almost all of my mana. The attack was proportionally much better than what I managed to do whilst walking yesterday, or maybe earlier the same day, hard to tell. The wolf wasn’t quite blown back, but its momentum was greatly reduced and it landed limply at my feet.

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It was still moving, albeit weakly, and my Mana Pool was close to depleted, so I would have to finish it off the old fashioned way. The idea made me somewhat uncomfortable, but at the end of the day I couldn’t let this thing survive. I’d heard that wolves were notoriously good at judging an opponent's strength (or weakness) so it would surely know that I wouldn’t be able to fight back anymore.

My decision made, I used the last of my meagre Mana Pool in order to provide the light needed to find the knife in my travelling pack. Once I’d done so, I set about the grisly task of executing the poor thing.

The most humane way to do it must be by slitting its throat, right? It should die pretty quickly.

It was not as fast as I’d hoped. I could only take solace in the fact that the lightning may have fried its nerves enough that it could barely feel it. I mean, it was struggling to move properly, which is probably a sign of that.

The grass was covered in blood, and as it seeped down it became a reddish brown mud which I stepped back from to avoid getting on my shoes. Regular mud is one thing, but blood mud? Not ideal.

This entire ordeal had drained me greatly, so I crawled back into the tent and curled up to sleep, content to leave any more thinking to the morning. Sleep didn’t come quite as easy as it had before, but at least it came soon enough.

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Once I was awoken by the soft rays of dawn peeking through the flaps I blearily unwrapped the blankets from around myself and noticed that I had another notification.

Combat Cleared 1 Wolf [Level 4] defeated

Reached Level 2

Once I remembered the events of last night, my grin returned in full force. I’d managed to shoot an honest to God lightning bolt! Or at least a lesser version.

In nearly every book I’d studied, very few abilities of the greatest Archmages were documented, but one of the most common ones was a spell called Call Lightning. I imagined that I’d managed something similar completely on my own. Of course those great mages would have probably been able to vaporise that wolf in an instant, but I was still proud of my achievement anyway.

Path Skills Lightning Generator 4

As expected, I’d pushed that skill quite a lot in that fight, so it makes sense that it would level up. My excitement dimmed slightly at the thought that it would only get harder to level it up without fighting, but it would only need to be high level if I planned on doing a lot of fighting anyway so I didn’t let it get to me too much.

Emerging from my tent, I stretched under the morning sun and almost didn’t see the corpse of the wolf, the knife still in its throat from the night before. I frowned at the smell, but tried to ignore it as I wrenched my knife free and attempted to clean it on the wolf’s pelt. I wasn’t very successful, the dried blood made sure of that, but I had to at least try.

Something glinted in the corner of my eye as I was packing away the knife and, looking over, I saw that the wolf’s two largest fangs were unusually bright. At this point I remembered a small detail about how the skills of Monsters differed from the Sapient races.

To put it simply, whilst we have our Affinity spread throughout our very being, subtly allowing us better command over particular elements, monsters had theirs focused at certain body parts.

For wolves that tended to be their fangs, since they were the obvious choice for empowering attacks, but they could also often be found in the pelt, claws, and eyes. During the fight the wolf's fangs were glowing, so it stands to reason that it must have had a Skill to empower its bite.

The only reason this knowledge is known outside of a few dedicated scholars’ libraries is the fact that this gathering of Affinity makes these monster parts significantly more valuable for crafting and alchemy, which made them valuable enough that many adventurers made a living just by selling them, without even bothering to do any paid jobs.

I likely wouldn’t be doing this for a living, but a little extra coin never hurt anyone, so I grabbed the fang and began to pull. I quickly recoiled in pain when I realised that it was still sharp even in death.

I wonder if 3 Wisdom is actually generous.

I grumbled as I cut off a strip of a blanket and wrapped it around the fang before I pulled. This time I was much more successful and managed to pull it, plus a few strands of gore, free from the jaws. I repeated this process with the other fang and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was still intact.

Sturdy stuff.

In an unparalleled stroke of genius, I wrapped the fangs up in the strip of cloth to prevent any blood from getting into the rest of my stuff and placed them in one of the outside pockets on the pack, making sure to securely tie the pocket shut.

After packing away my tent and continuing my walk, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride well up in my chest.

That wolf was three levels my superior, and I still beat it. That’s gotta be impressive.

Plus, I could technically cast a spell! Feeling like having a little fun, I gathered lightning in my palm and fired off a bolt at a nearby tree whilst shouting “Lightning Bolt!” and felt a grin form on my face.

Things are really looking up for me now.