“Halia, what is this?”

[Hmm? What do you mean?]

Kai waved his hand at the small cluster of blue text boxes that’d appeared in his field of vision shortly after leaving Golal’s office.

[Oh, I thought you would like it. You’ve always loved organization, maybe too much, so I decided to help you out with it!]

Kai could hear a mischievous smirk in Halia’s voice as she responded. Kai couldn’t deny that it could be useful to have someone else helping keep track of his objectives… if they were actually helping him keep track of his objectives.

[Main Questline: The Future Of Humanity.

Objectives: Teach Angela humility. Show Rylon how to win a proper fight. Consult Entil about mana gathering formations.

Rewards: +3 Mana]

Kai rubbed his forehead as he stared down at the text. Sure, all of the things listed were on his to-do list, but they definitely weren’t worthy of ‘Main Questline’ status. Also… how could they give him mana? Thanks to his sword, Kai was able to absorb mana from beasts that he killed, allowing him to grow stronger at a rapid rate.

Back when we were near Talonia, I also gained some mana from Halia’s experiments, but I haven’t gotten any recently…

“Halia, where is this mana reward coming from?”

[Ehm… It’s, um… a reward for your hard work!]

Kai looked down at his necklace with the most blank, I’m not buying your shit stare that he could manage.

[...Okay, it’s your mana growth over the last week. You haven’t been fighting lately, so I haven’t shown you your stat screen.]

Kai raised an eyebrow skeptically. The Halia he knew would take any chance to show off her floating blue text boxes. She’d even gone so far as to teach Kai how to make them himself.

[Also… now that you’re going to be going on a hunting mission, you’ll probably be using all of your mana to fight. I hoped you might forget about this mana long enough for me to figure out the mana gathering formation, so that I’d at least be able to work on it a bit while you’re traveling… I’m sorry for trying to keep it from you.]

[Mana- 29->32]

Kai let out a sigh, then reached out and grabbed at the blue mana box before it could disappear. His hand went right through it, scattering it into tiny motes of disjointed light.

“Halia, what do you take me for, and who are you?”

[What? I don’t understand.]

Kai straightened his sleeves with one hand, his other holding the ruby stone of Halia’s necklace.

“I’m the future leader of the Crescent Moon Sect. Someone whom countless disciples will look up to and adore. I’m the noble 1st Disciple… and you are someone important to me.”

Kai pushed a small amount of mana into his finger, reforming the text box he destroyed. With a swipe of his finger, the 32 turned into a 27, giving Halia an additional 2 mana to work with while he traveled.

[Mana- 32->27]

Afterwards, Kai glanced back down at the necklace.

Halia really is useful to have around. She’s figuring out magic super fast, and making me stronger at the same time. I’m sure whenever she figures out this formation it’ll be pretty good for us, though I don’t know what she’s planning on using it for yet. She is really important to bringing back the Crescent Moon Sect.

Also… was the ruby always this deep of a red color? And why isn’t Halia saying anything?

Kai didn’t have long to ponder about it, as his attention was drawn by an approaching student. It was Leo, and he had a huge pack slung over his back.

“Kai! I packed up everything as quickly as I could!”

Leo hefted the pack off his back, then dropped it to the ground with a Thunk.

Kai’s eyebrows knit into a frown. “You plan to carry that with for the entire trip?”

Leo nodded proudly. “I managed to pack everything I own into a single bag! Impressive, right?”

“You do realize that we’re going to be walking, right? Do you really think that you can carry that thing for multiple days, traveling the entire day? How are you going to fight with that on your back?”

Leo’s expression started to fall as Kai rooted through his back, sorting the items into two piles… or rather, one pile, and then a single item sitting off to the side.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Here, this is what you want to bring with you on a journey. All of the rest of this junk will only slow you down.”

Leo looked over at the ‘pile’ of one item. “My canteen? But then what am I supposed to sleep on?”

Kai pointed at the ground. Sure, having bedding was nice, but he’d never had trouble falling asleep on grass. As a cultivator, his body was enhanced enough that he rarely woke up with neck pain, and even with just the meager strength he’d recovered, he wasn’t afraid of napping on the ground.

I suppose it wouldn’t be bad for the mages to have a simple bedroll, but aside from that and something to store water, they only need a change of clothes. It’s only a couple days’ travel, so we don’t need much food either. Carrying anything extra will just weigh us down and make fighting beasts much more difficult.

Once Leo’s things were sorted-Kai eventually acquiesced and let him bring his sleeping supplies- the duo met up with Brewan, then headed down the hill to town. Kiin met them at the bottom of the hill, a small pile of bags stacked beside him. The faint scent of seawater wafted from the pile, and Kai could see a couple spikey green leaves poking from the tops of the bags.

“I worked out the delivery with Ledville’s courier.” Kiin grinned as he grabbed a fistful of coins from his pocket and held them up for the other boys to see. “Just as I predicted, he was willing to give us the payment in advance!”

[New Side Quest!]

[Deliver saltweed to Ledville. Due to the rising number of monsters in the area, the courier is having trouble making the trip to Ledville.]

[Goods delivered: 0/4]

[Rewards (already received): 15 Gold.]

“Nice!” Leo raised his arm for a fist bump with Kiin, “Now we have enough money to get grimoires!”

Both Kai and Brewan were already good in terms of magic- Brewan already had a grimoire, and Kai had Halia- but over the last week, their two friends had either borrowed Brewan’s to practice or just casted spells on their own. Having grimoires would make their magic much more potent, and after over a week of studying the language, both of them understood it enough to cast basic spells.

Fifteen gold wasn’t enough for them to get anything but the most basic grimoires on the market, but having more advanced ones wouldn’t do them any good, since they had neither the mana to cast stronger spells nor the ability to read more complex runes. Basic ones were perfect for them at the moment.

The whole crew made a stop at a general store to pick up the grimoires and rations for their trip, then made their way toward the exit of town. Thanks to Kai forcing Leo to only bring the essentials, he and Kiin had more than enough backpack space for the bags of saltweed.

As the crew approached the edge of town, they spotted a group of familiar figures. Angela and Rylon stood at the front of their group, both of them clad in sturdy leather armor and with heavy backpacks over their shoulders. Their other two party members, Cain and Dane, didn’t have the same armor, but they made up for the saved weight by having even larger backpacks.

As they approached the other group, Leo started making observations just loud enough for Angela to hear. “Wow, look at those idiots. Five gold says they collapse under the weight of their own luggage before they make it halfway to Ledville.”

Kai rolled his eyes, but didn’t call Leo out for his hypocrisy.

Angela sneered back as she heard Leo’s remark. “We’re not weak and poor like you. If you can’t even lift your travel supplies, how do you think you can fight beasts?”

Leo instantly opened his mouth to shoot back, but realized what she was saying made sense. He looked over to Kai for help, but Kai just scoffed. “We can ask her again in a week, when she makes it to Ledville.”

“Peh. What kind of fool do you have to be to think it takes a week to travel to Ledville? I knew you were illiterate, but you can’t even read a map?”

Kai just rolled his eyes as he turned away. Angela and Rylon were both quite fit, but Kai could tell from a glance that the Cain-Dane twins wouldn’t be able to keep up, especially with how much gear they had stuffed into their packs.

[Hey Kai, how about we start teaching them a lesson right now?]

A grin started to grow on Kai’s face as Halia spoke, and he turned back around to face Angela. “How about a race, then? Whichever team makes it there first owes the other a favor.”

“Please, stop assuming that my intelligence is on the same level as yours. None of you have any gear, so even with your honestly depressing strength, you might be able to run past everything and make it there before us.”

Leo scoffed at Angela’s answer. “Scared? We’ll give you a handicap. If you can make it there within three days, we’ll call it your win.”

Angela snorted at the generous terms of Leo’s offer. “Hmph, fine. You better not try to worm out of the bet when we make it there before you.”

It would normally take two days to make it there… but it’ll probably take them four, at least. Considering how entitled and stuck up the people traveling are though, five is more realistic. I’ll eat my shoes if they make it there in under three days.

The two groups broke off from each other as they left town. As soon as they were out of earshot of Angela’s group, Kai signaled for the crew to stop.

“Everyone, keep watch for any beasts along the road. There are multiple reports of them along the path, so keep your eyes open.”

Well, they won’t really need to right now, since Halia is with and can detect anything before it even gets close, but they will definitely be traveling on their own at some point down the line. I need to teach them as much as I can to prepare them for the future.

“This isn’t just a good chance to get experience in real battles. There are a lot more ways to grow other than just fighting and studying… in fact, why don’t we start right now.”

[Oh… I know what’s coming. I heard all about this from the other disciples.]

Kai frowned a bit at Halia’s dark tone, but kept talking. “Endurance goes a long way in a fight, and despite what you might think, it’s even more valuable for people who attack from a range.”

Kai pointed at Leo. “If there is a big, slow brute of a knight chasing after you, what do you do?”

“Run?”

Kai nodded. “Not just that, you run, and while you run, throw spells back at the enemy. If you’re faster than them, you can just keep running and chucking spells until they either die or give up. I call it ‘kiting’. if you run out of stamina, though, you’ll get caught and die.”

[HUH?!?! You call it kiting?!]

“I see! That way we can fight beasts way stronger than us!” Leo made a pose like he was throwing a fireball behind him, and Kai nodded sagely.

“Exactly.”

[Shameless! Pretentious bastard, I had to explain kiting to you four times!]

Kai tried and failed to keep a shit-eating smirk off his face as he stretched his legs.

“We’ll start off our stamina training with a jog. None of us have heavy bags, so you should all be able to keep up!”

Kai took off jogging down the path toward Ledville, and the rest of the crew followed after him.