By the time Ophelia released me from my ‘training’, I was an aching mess. I hurt in places that I didn’t even know it was possible to overwork.

For all of my grievances, my partner in suffering had it even worse. The exercises Ophelia put him through were as merciless as they were spectacular. Even Salvador’s inhuman agility had been put to the test.

Needless to say, we were both utterly exhausted as Ophelia happily led the way towards a building I had yet to visit. She cheerfully informed me that it was called the ‘mess hall’.

Inside, lunch was being served. People from all across the camp were seated at tables with plates and bowls of food in front of them. At the far end of the room was a low wall with cooks hard at work behind it.

We lined up behind a few workers to get food. When it was our turn, we were each handed a bowl of soup, or in Salvador’s case, a plate of roast meat and vegetables. Another of the cooks handed us each a piece of bread.

On the way to one of the tables, I took another look around the room. Most of the ruggedly dressed builders were at a pair of large tables at the edge of the room eating their soup. Maria and a few others were eating alongside them.

At other tables, I noticed that people with plates instead of bowls tended to group together. I wasn’t sure why that was though.

After we took our seats, Salvador offered to trade some of his food for some of ours. I was happy to accept the trade, as his food smelled even better than my soup.

As we ate our wonderfully tasty meal, I listened to some of the other nearby conversations. I had gotten pretty good at using my translation boon to keep up with what people were saying, but still needed to focus on some of the unfamiliar words.

Most of the people at the tables next to us were complaining about recent monster attacks. From the sound of things, they had been growing increasingly frequent and dangerous.

“It’s that big fox thing I tell you.” A burly man stated. “The bloody thing only ever shows up before the nastiest attacks. Thing’s a harbinger of misfortune if there ever was one.”

“Yer just mad that you still haven’t managed to hit it.” His friend laughed. “Thing’s bigger than a horse and ya can’t even come close to stickin’ it with one of yer bolts. What’s it been now? A dozen times you’ve missed the thing?”

“Ah, shove off. I don’t see you doin’ much good with that pointy stick of yours.”

As the two fell into what sounded like an often repeated argument about whose weapon was better, I turned my attention to another group that seemed to be talking about one of their recent excursions into the jungle.

“I still say we should have pushed further. The flakes we’ve found in the streams clearly indicate a sizable deposit further upstream.” One woman argued.

“Too far.” A man wearing an odd device on his face replied while adjusting the transparent disks in front of his eyes. “Even making it to that stream already pushed the limit of what our warriors could handle. I doubt we could have made it through another ambush.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

The woman grumbled her acknowledgement, before returning to her soup.

----------------------------------------

After we finished eating, Salvador and Ophelia both informed me that they had work they needed to get to. With farewells said, I was once more left alone in the strange camp.

I wasn’t feeling quite so overwhelmed as I had the day before. The camp was no longer such an unfamiliar place to me.

The fact that I had been forced to run laps around the place earlier that day probably helped with that.

Now that I was no longer being pushed well past the limits of my stamina, I wanted to take a closer look at some of the runes I had seen around the camp.

The lights lining the streets were far from the only magic around the camp. Small runes were carved along all of the paths and into the sides of most of the buildings.

Most of the runes were designed to either absorb ambient mana or move it around. Following the trails of absorbed mana mostly led to large blocks of stone set into the base of the wall around the camp. Compared to the relatively thin mana of the camp, I could sense a very large amount of mana stored in each of the stones.

While I was at the wall, I examined the runes carved all across it. In addition to the mana absorbing and moving runes, there were plenty of runes of invisible force and other defensive runes.

I couldn’t imagine anything short of a titan breaching such an impressively magical barricade.

To my magical senses, it was clear that the magical barrier didn’t just cover the walls. The wall of invisible force formed a dome over the entire camp, protecting from even airborne threats.

While admiring the barrier, I noticed another magical effect hovering above the top of the dome. It was difficult to make out at the distance, but it didn’t seem to be connected to the barrier at all.

I was quite curious as to what the unknown spell was, but I couldn’t get any closer. It was frustrating, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Or maybe there was something I could do?

Mana sight, one of the first spells I ever mastered, had a much greater range than my regular mana perception. Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly detailed.

I hadn’t looked at the spell in quite some time. Perhaps it could be improved? Using my codex, I examined the mana forms for the spell.

The spell was fairly straightforward. It used only relatively simple analysis and light mana forms.

With how much my magical capabilities had improved since acquiring the system, simple was no longer my limit.

It didn’t take me long to craft a new spell capable of utilizing my increased finesse with mana. I double checked it a few times before weaving together the proper mana forms.

Immediately, the world was bathed in a wash of colors. I needed to take a few moments to adapt to what I was seeing. Slowly, I was able to make out the different types of mana forms around me.

I could easily trace the lines of control and gathering runes running along the path beneath my feet. Looking upwards, I followed the dome of invisible force to its peak. There I was finally able to identify what kinds of mana forms were used in the previously unknown spell.

Similar to my mana sight, the spell was formed from light and analysis mana forms. A trail of control mana led off into the jungle. I still didn’t know exactly what the spell was for, but at least I had a better idea. It did leave me wondering why someone out in the jungle was gathering information from above the camp though.

I was about to go ask someone when another flash of color caught my eye. This time, it wasn’t from my spell.

My boon had finally finished upgrading.

It had been very close to finishing when I started picking out updates I wanted. Evidently, the system could only work on integrating boons or updates, not both. A good thing to know for later.

For now, I had a new class to pick out.