They were standing on the edge of the Megalo Forest, Mark started to explain the task at hand to Donny.

“Ok, from now on, I am evaluating you. Do everything you have to not get detected in the forest, find the goblins, and kill them. Most of them are lower level than you and as a weaker race overall, have fewer statistics than humans. Their detection abilities are very weak against ranged attacks, even if they know from where the attack comes, if you are hidden well enough, you can kill all of them without them finding you.

I will be hidden, you will not see me, but I will be there. I want you to focus on the goblins mainly, but your side task is to try to find me and point out my exact location. If you find me I will give you additional credit. Credit is what from now on reflects your merit.

You do good you gain credits, you mess up, and you lose credits. At the end of every month your credits reflect how much use I have of you, and will reflect your pay and standing among my other subordinates should I have any. Understand?”

“Yes, and what if my credits go into negatives?”

“They better not, that would mean I have no use for you wouldn’t it?”

The boy swallowed hard. If he was of no use he would be abandoned, he couldn’t allow that, he didn’t know what he would do if Mark left him now. Mark knew how the boy felt, but he himself never had a normal childhood, he was never thought how to raise children, all he could do, was raise Donny as a competent fighter, a warrior that would be self-sufficient in any situation and environment.

Of course, he didn’t want to abandon the boy, he gave his word he would take him in. So the only thing he could do was to make sure the boy was strong enough to never disappoint him. This way he would not have any reason to leave the boy behind.

He pushed the boy into the forest and when Donny turned around to clarify the credit system some more, all he saw was an empty plain. Mark was nowhere to be found. Disappeared in a second without a sound. Donny started wondering how he was supposed to find Mark when he didn’t even notice him vanishing under his nose. Knowing that his evaluation period has started he decided to push on and kill the goblins.

He lowered the center of his gravity and slipped into a slow and rhythmic gait his father showed him. Mark already informed him of the direction of the goblins hiding in the forest. He carefully jogged through the forest, breathing in the air, and extending his senses to the forest around him. Shortly after a trace of energy traveled to his legs and his walk became even smoother. Suddenly all the branches seemed to make way for him without a sound, the leaves under his feet stopped crunching, and the bushes stopped catching onto his clothes.

To Mark watching from a couple of meters back it was truly a mystical sight, it was as if the forest itself was making way for the boy like he was one with it. He couldn’t explain the phenomenon with logic, like many other things happening in this world. He was closely observing the boy trying to discern how exactly he was causing this.

He was hyper-focused and a thought suddenly came to his mind, what if he tried to use the energy inside himself to try and discern anything hidden. Slowly he reached for the energy inside of him, but without a Skill to draw it out in the first place, it was suddenly much harder to draw it.

Even then he passively tried to find it in himself while silently following Donny.

They went like that for maybe another fifteen minutes, when Mark dropped his Stealth and continued following Donny hiding behind trees to recover some SP. Another thought hit him then he could maybe trace the origin of the energy when he went into Stealth. The energy would then travel through him, but it would have to come from somewhere first.

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Waiting for some time as he recovered his stamina he observed Donny.

The kid was fairly competent in traveling through a forest, especially with his Skill, but Mark could tell, he was using his Forest Stride too much like a crutch. He could tell that without the skill he would do much worse. He couldn’t allow for that, the skill surely used stamina, and you always need some stamina for other skills, so it was super wasteful to use it to just go through a forest.

That would be one thing to teach him, to properly travel through foliage without skill usage. It raised another question for him. How many people didn’t train things properly because of the Skills in this world?

Besides that, he saw that the boy was alert and actively trying to find him, but what it did, was make the boy extremely aware of his surroundings, it was another thing Mark was making the boy do if he was searching for him all the time, he would be ready for any approaching enemy, it was much more draining, but he had to start gaining resistance to strain and stress as soon possible, the more you trained the more you could ignore strain in high-stress situations. It was dangerous to lose caution in the middle of a mission, sometimes even deadly.

The boy was moving with his bow at the ready and an arrow in his hand looking for him when Mark noticed three goblins walking in their direction about eighty meters ahead. He unslung his bow and got ready in case Donny needed help. It seemed the boy also noticed them soon after.

He hid behind a wide oak-looking tree with some shrubbery around it and aimed at the leading goblin, after a while an arrow with a slight green glow shot between the trees and sunk into the goblin’s chest. The goblin sunk to the ground slowly reaching his hand to the arrow protruding from his heart.

Instantly after the shot Donny sunk behind the bushes and walked to the other side of the tree to again aim at the two remaining goblins. Mark was impressed, it would seem that the boy’s father was a very competent hunter if he knew to change his position after a shot. It greatly increased the difficulty of finding the archer from the arrow’s trajectory.

Donny pulled back the bowstring again and peeked out of the bushes releasing another arrow toward the goblins, penetrating the belly of the one to the left, Mark could see that his one no longer had the green tint to it, also soon after Donny lost his Forest Stride and his shirt got caught on the branches of the bush he was hiding behind.

The Goblins looked in his direction and finally seemed to have found him, they ran in his direction, quickly shortening the distance between them.

Donny panicked a little and quickly reached for an arrow from the quiver on his belt and fumbled a little pulling two instead of one, one fell on the ground and he almost reached to pick it up but stopped and nocked the one in his hand onto the bow, quickly releasing it towards the remaining healthy goblin running towards him. The arrow hit it in the arm and threw it back a little, but it recovered and continued running, with the one with an arrow to its stomach slowly falling behind.

Donny reached for another arrow and shot at the less injured one again, this time hitting it in the throat and completely stopping it in its tracks. Now only the slow one remained. Now much calmer, Donny drew another arrow and shot it into its heart, finally killing it.

He was breathing heavily, his adrenaline slowly going down, and his cheeks reddened a little in shame as he looked around looking for Mark, ready for a harsh yelling but no one appeared.

Mark saw that, but he wouldn’t reveal himself until the end of the assignment. He was here to silently judge the boy’s competence not hang on his back and yell at him for everything he did wrong, without ever telling him what was wrong and not. He wasn’t stupid. Unless you instructed someone on something, you didn’t have the right to expect him to know that. What was the logic in it?

He just made a note to inform the boy properly after, and then he would expect him to remember it and penalize him when he didn’t follow his instructions.

Donny seeing that there was nothing more happening, decided to gather his arrows and see if the Goblins had anything of use on them. He went through the corpses and on the leader he found a little purse with a couple silver and copper inside.

Soon he was back on his way and he seemed to have learned his lesson, no longer using his Forest Stride on the way, slowly recovering his energy. Mark went behind him with his energy full he decided to try to find the origin of his SP. He focused his senses inside and went into stealth, suddenly wisp of green energy escaped from his heart and went along his blood vessels, all this happened in milliseconds, so quickly Mark almost missed it.

Finally, he could try to experiment a little and try to draw it out and what he could do with it in its raw form, without a Skill’s influence.