Don flew through the dark jungle like a wraith. His feet hardly had to tap the ground to send him from a mostly buried stone to the base of a tree. Then sailing over a briar patch with a little assistance from a passing branch, and finally touching down on a rare bit of unclaimed earth only to run up an ancient limb which had drooped to the ground, gaining the height needed to bypass a 5-foot hedge of thick vegetation. His Dark Vision saw through every bramble and behind every leaf, allowing him to navigate the shadows, plotting out his course with ease.

Despite his speed, the air around him was hardly moving, at least from his perspective. His own slipstream was drawn in and projected forward by his whirlwind trait. It flowed past him from behind, urging him to go just a little bit faster as it cleared the path ahead. Bushes and ferns shied away from him while hanging vines leaned to the side. It wasn't strong enough to damage any of the vegetation but a small path opened up before Don wherever he ran.

Even that was hardly necessary with his new natural armor. He could now trample the annoying thorn bushes without harm. He still got scratched if he tried to plow through them but it was nothing like the deep gouges he got before. Hardened was probably his favorite Trait at the moment.

He was almost too fast. If it wasn't for his Nimble trait, he probably couldn't keep up this pace even with his [dark vision] keeping him informed of his surroundings. He would probably need to increase his Wisdom at his next level up if he wanted to keep focusing on speed. For now, he was content to enjoy the tangible progress and revel in his new abilities. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced.

He still couldn't keep up with the ColoColo but their [forest walk] was basically cheating when combined with their low Constitution scores.

"Are you sure want to just leave Hendrix out there?" Cel asked

"It's better than killing him, this way he will at least have to find his way back if he gets loose. With any luck, he will just starve to death over the next week." Don replied as if he wasn't talking about leaving a man for dead in the middle of the jungle.

"Okay, I guess that's a decent option all things considered. What do you want to do now that you're done grinding up your attributes?"

"I think I should finish training the [low kick] tonight and then finish up my alchemy quest."

"Alright, we should look for some herbs while were out here too. Otherwise, we're just wasting time while traveling around the jungle."

Don grimaced

"I don't want to go running all over the place looking for ingredients when the ColoColo are doing a decent job and I have martial skills to train."

"Good, because that would be pretty dumb. I'm just suggesting that we passively scan for ingredients anytime we're moving through the jungle. It's not like you have to worry about inventory space anymore."

She was right, with eight ranks in herbalism and 25 strength, he could carry a downright silly amount of ingredients.

"What about the mana cost? What was it? 1 every ten seconds? I can only generate 1 mana every few minutes..."

"Don't forget about your Clarity trait, when we're just running around like this you're regenerating 21 MP every minute."

Don could have facepalmed if he didn't need his hands to keep his balance. He had forgotten about the increases after so long in combat with the slower regeneration rates.

"So I'll still have a surplus of 14 Mana per minute if I keep [dark vision] and [natural resonance] going constantly?"

"More like 8." Cel replied "When you leveled up, my abilities got upgrades too. The range on [natural resonance] increases in pace with your area of influence but the mana cost increases as well."

"What is the deal with this 'area of influence' anyways?" Don asked

"It has to do with the strength of your soul. As you level up, your soul matures and can influence the world further away from your body. It's basically your maximum range with spells. You're at 10 meters now so if I fly around the edge of the 10-meter tether attaching us, and use [natural resonance] I can now scan an area 40 meters wide!"

Don missed his next step. The illusion of his own lightness was shattered when he slammed into the ground, catching his fall with his hands but completely unable to arrest his forward momentum. He continued rolling forward at a frightening speed before slamming into a tree.

"Oof, you okay?" Cel asked

"Ugh, give me a second," Don said. He lost 17 points of health from the fall. He decided right then to increase his wisdom when he reached level 2. He was just too fast now. Even with his [dark vision] giving him accurate and useful information, he barely had time to plot his course one step ahead as he was now.

"What else changed with your abilities?" He asked while waiting for the trees to stop spinning around him.

"I can hold a charge of [fairy dust] in reserve now and it takes 23 hours to generate the charges instead of 24. I can also make an illusory training dummy."

"What was that last bit?"

"Oh, right. Your Monk profession lets me make an insubstantial dummy for you to practice with."

"Then why did I just spend hours training with those centurions? I could have just had the ColoColo run them to different parts of the jungle and tie them to random trees!"

He didn't add that they wouldn't have escaped so soon if that had happened.

"Because the training dummy doesn't count as an enemy combatant and while it takes a thousand repetitions of a form to develop it in training, it only takes a hundred when you're in combat."

"Fine, but let me know about new abilities right when you get them next time."

Don picked himself up off the ground, nodded to the ColoColo guiding him and set off at half speed. Of course for Don, half-speed was the same as an average person's flat out sprint now. His all-around high attributes made it as easy to maintain as a light jog.

"Okay so, training, alchemy quest, and looking for herbs. Fire up the resonator, or whatever you do."

Don felt the tug of mana being pulled from him just before Cel activated her tracking skill. It was more pronounced than before but so was the effect. Cel began flying in circles around Don, looking like a streak of light whenever Don caught glimpses of her through the plant life. She stopped him from time to time so they could alter course and pick up random plants. They continued like this until their guide brought them back to the clearing near the refuge.

A surge of mana was pulled from Don as Cel started glowing, but oddly enough, the glow didn't push back Don's dark vision. The glow expanded until it turned into a doughy humanoid shape. It was roughly the same size as Don but the face was featureless and it had no fingers or toes. His [dark vision] told him that there was nothing there.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Why doesn't this register in my [dark vision]" Don asked.

"Because it's an illusion, just like all the light I emit. That's why only certain people can see me. I can target specific races with my illusions but if I don't, they won't see or hear anything I do."

Don shrugged, it didn't seem that important. He could still see the illusion after all. What followed was a mind-numbing exercise in kicking thin air. After a hundred repetitions during which his progress increased a measly 8.3%, Cel recommended that he try using [harmony] while practicing. It technically let him meditate while using his forms but he had never tried to use it that way before.

He fell into a cycle of steady breathing, measuring out each repetition of the kick with a sharp exhale, resetting his stance with a slow inhale. He couldn't focus, however. He kept seeing Gaz's head being crushed under his shin, or the centurions torturing him. Worst of all, he saw and heard the citizens jeering at him as he was killed again and again. It seemed like no amount of blood would satisfy them. Nothing he could do would ever redeem him in their eyes. He didn't understand why that should bother him so much. He didn't want anything to do with such barbaric people.

Another hundred repetitions passed while he fumed over the events of the last few days. Another hundred passed as he resolved to never be so helpless again. After three hundred repetitions, he was more than halfway through the development, and he finally sank into a meditative trance.

The world faded around him. Even his [dark vision] couldn’t provide more than hazy suggestions as to his surroundings. Oddly, the dummy before him grew brighter and easier to spot. His world shrank to the training dummy, his breathing, and his internal mana flow. 

With [Harmony] active, his mana pool lit up like a beacon. A shining vortex turning slowly just above Don’s navel. Where hazy tracks used to imply mana flow, clear lines visibly took in mana from the pool before diverting it through smaller and smaller branching vessels until the channels disappeared into an indistinct haze. A small amount evaporated to waft out of his pores, surrounding himself in a cool blue mist which left pleasing afterimages wherever he moved. His target was constructed entirely of Mana and similarly stood out in the murky darkness that obscured everything else around him. 

After watching his leg paint a track of hazy blue smoke through the air dozens of times, Don tried to hold the mist closer to himself. A few kicks later, the mist was a bit more confined. Less drifted away to form afterimages and over time, more and more built up around his leg. He was only able to hold so much near himself though and before long his leg began leaving smokey trails behind it again despite the fluorescent layer of compressed mana that Don had gathered.

He let go of his control over the mana and it puffed away all at once. Don felt a slight pressure as the mana dissipated. Next, he tried to manipulate the mana still inside his body. There no way to influence the mana in his channels. The pressure was just too intense and it resisted any attempts to slow or speed up the flow. He was able to stretch the opening at the bottom of his mana pool slightly. That allowed more mana to leak into his body. He was encouraged by the small success until the extra mana reached his head, a massive headache started pounding at Don and his meditation broke. He crouched down and held his head between his hands.

"Ahhhhhh" He moaned

"What's wrong?" Cel asked, concerned at the sudden shift from his previous calm.

"Rusting headache" Was all he could manage. The debilitating pain passed quickly enough but Don decided not to mess with internal mana again. He checked on his notifications to see how much further he had to go and was surprised to find the form was already complete and it had even leveled it up twice. Apparently, the training dummy was good for more than just developing his techniques.

Martial Art Form Learned! Low Kick: initiate 1 --> 3 Effect: +(5 --> 6)% STR and AGI (9.9 --> 10 damage)

+(25 --> 26)% chance to cripple target Cost: 2 SP

Cooldown: 5 seconds

He even increased his [harmony] skill in the process.

Harmony: initiate 5 --> 6 +(10 --> 12)% effect of meditation

+(27 --> 27.5)% awareness of your surroundings while meditating

Unfortunately, he spent more time practicing his martial skills than intended. [Harmony] boosted his already high SP regen to the point that rest was unnecessary and time had slipped by, unnoticed by Don in his meditative trance. The pale light of morning was already encroaching on the night sky, revealing the landscape and obscuring the stars. 

"Why didn't you stop me when I finished with the form?" He asked Cel who shrugged

"You were in the zone, It's going to take a lot of work to get your Monk profession up to a respectable standard so I figured it was better not to distract you while you were making such good progress."

Truthfully, Don didn't mind too much. He could always work on his alchemy during the day but he wanted to sleep again before the 'tired' debuff started stacking up too high. 

"Well, next time don't let me spend all night doing just one thing. I could have gotten in some progress on my [axe kick]. Don't let me go more than three hours without a check-in from now on okay?"

"Alright, lets head home for now though."

The two didn't rush on the way back, Don set an easy pace and Cel started up her [natural resonance] search pattern again. That caused them to take a rather indirect path back to the refuge. The jungle started to wake up around them. Most of the critters kept quiet due to all the noise Don made while traversing the tangled underbrush. 

Most of the critters didn't mean all though. The bushes rustled with something small darting away at his approach at least a dozen times before he made it back to the refuge. He caught occasional glimpses of tan fur and long ears but didn't give chase. He wasn't willing to get lost so close to dawn. As they neared the refuge and the sky brightened, his [dark vision] grew increasingly hazy until it provided worse information than he could get with unaugmented eyes.

He decided to use the hidden entrance, washing the ash and sweat from himself in the process. When he surfaced inside the entrance chamber, his [dark vision] was suddenly very useful again and he saw the small hill of nuts filling up nearly a third of the room. He was amazed at how their food stores had grown. He should start keeping closer track of what they had. They probably didn't need to forage for food for the next week and they could focus on gathering more ingredients for Don to work with. 

He wanted each ColoColo to have a healing and energizing potion before he tried to stand up to the apes. It would take a few days to make enough for everyone but he could also use that time to prepare a few more magical potions. 

First, he wanted to make an uncommon potion so he could continue advancing his Alchemist profession. It felt wasteful every time he saw the +0% Concoction-EXP message while crafting over the last few days. Before he could do that, he had to pass all the ColoColo filling up the entrance chamber and tunnels. There really wasn't enough room for them here but it would have to do for a little while longer. He took the time to congratulate a pair of ColoColo for making it up to level 4. 

Don's new catch-and-release policy for rabbit hunting was already showing results as the tribe's overall EXP increased rapidly. The ColoColo were getting triple the EXP from hunting that they used to and some had reported that the rabbit population in the area was increasing. Don thought that was due to the tribe not killing them anymore but Cel chose that time to drop a bombshell on him.

"Oh, that's because you beat the Jackalope," She said in an offhand comment

"How is that related at all? Killing rabbits shouldn't increase the local population..." Don said, confused

"You might be right if the Jackalope was a regular rabbit, but it wasn't. It was a rare creature with its own behavioral patterns. Jackalopes are kind of gross actually. They survive by protecting a harem of females. Well, protecting or holding captive depending on your perspective. It drives off any male offspring but keeps the females around, growing its harem over time. When you killed it, the harem escaped and after they found all the exiled males, they started doing what rabbits do best. The population explosion is only getting started too. We'll be up to our eyeballs in rabbits before long. At least until some predators find out about all the fresh meat."

Don remembered the stream of rabbits that poured out of the burnt tree after he dealt with the Jackalope. If they weren't part of the local population beforehand, and if they were all females... He could only imagine the impact that would have on the local ecosystem. At least they weren't dangerous. Void, this should just make it easier for his remaining level 2 and 3 subjects to get up to their maximum level, increasing their speed and charges of [venomous bite] in the process.

He was starting to feel good about his chances against the apes.