Everything felt so translucent, fabricated in a sense. It didn’t feel real. The voice’s echoed, familiar voices, old voices.

“They abandoned you!” One screamed. “They left you to rot!”

“They are not your people.” Another one said, with quiet malice. “Put away your doubts and win us the war.”

The voices kept going but they began to become blurred and out of reach as a bright light began to glow and glow even brighter.

The rising sun penetrated my retinas, even with my eyes closed. And even when I finally opened my eyes, they took a couple of seconds to adjust to where I could actually see, and not just blurs of colors.

I clenched my jaw, What the hell was that?

I looked up to the sky, my view crowded by tree foliage, and tried to clear my mind from the odd dream.

It's been almost ten years since I’ve been in this world, so why now?

I looked to my left where Rye was sleeping last night. He was no longer there.

I let out a yawn and began stretching, as I tried to contact him through telepathy, ‘Rye, where are you?’

He responded in an instant, ‘You’re up? I'm down catching breakfast. I didn't want to wake you so I just went alone.’

‘What do you mean catching breakfa…’ My question trailed off as I looked down from the tree and saw Rye in the lake, trying to catch fish. ‘I see.’

When he finally managed to catch one he brought it back to an already generous pile of fish bones and began to eat it. When he was done, he added the new bones to the pile.

“Save some for me,” I said, as I hopped straight down from the tree, using the wind to cushion my fall. Landing on my feet and made my way to the lake.

“First come first serve.” Rye laughed, as he ran back into the lake.

“You little rascal.” I took off my shirt, cloak, and boots, not wanting to get them wet, and ran after him.

The lake water rippled and I ran into it. The water was crystal clear, allowing me to see right down to the bottom. I could see the fish swimming in unpredictable patterns, too many fish to count.

“So this is how you were catching fish so easily. You can to them so clearly.”

He scoffed, “I wouldn't say it's easy. Just try it and you’ll see.”

Letting his words linger I looked around for my first fish. It didn't take long until I spotted one within my reaching distance. It was moving quite slowly and I halted my movements not wanting to scare it away.

I stood as still as a statue for a split second and then struck. And even with my speed and years of training the fish still managed to get away.

I heard Rye snicker from afar, “See. I told you.”

It wasn’t because I wasn’t fast enough to catch the fish, it was the sunlight bending in the water that made the fish seem closer than it really was that was throwing me off. Where I had thought I was going to grab its mid-section, I really reached for its tail area and that's how it managed to slip away.

Aty the revelation I had already figured out several ways in my mind to catch the fish, but that wouldn't be any fun.

I put on a frustrated facade, “Rye, what’s your secret? I'm starving, please, help me out.”

His feline feature contorted into a smirk of superiority. He lifted one paw and exposed his claws, “I am beyond human capabilities.”

“Pfft!” I let out, not able to hold in my laughter any longer. “So that’s how you’ve done it.”

Rye wasn't paying attention to the light changing his view inside the water. It didn't matter to him, as long as his claws struck deep enough into the fish’s body, it would be caught.

“What are you laughing at? You still haven't caught any fish.”

“I’ll admit, I don’t have anything in my arsenal quite like that, besides my dagger, but using that would take too long.”

His cat eyes squinted, “What are you getting at?”

I looked into the water, and at least forty fish could be seen swimming around in the vicinity. I gently placed the tips of my fingers in the water and waited a moment.

When I felt it was the right time I surged water and wind attribute mana through my body and froze five fish in separate orbs of ice in an instant.

“Hey! That’s cheating, Fal. Not fair.” Rye called.

I laughed as I brought the ice orbs out of the water and to the land, “You never set any rules, so how is it cheating?”

I let go of my control over the ice orbs and let them fall with no intervention. They shattered like glass when they hit the ground and the fish were all scattered lazily on the ground, some still flopping around.

Rye swiped his tail, “Whatever.”

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I let Rye continue his pouting as I began to prep a fire for my newly caught breakfast. It wasn't until he smelled the aroma of cooked fish did he stop pouting.

I tossed him one of my cooked fish and his face lit up with a toothy smile, “Thanks.”

“No problem buddy.” I was never a fan of fish or any type of seafood, so I didn't mind sharing. The only reason I was eating it now was that I didn't want to dig into my food reserves if there was food available.

“So are we about to continue going forward after we eat?” Rye asked as he took a generous bite of his food.

“Yeah,” I said, as I put on my clothes. “After I dry off a little more we’ll head out.”

Rye nodded and continued eating again, as I put out the fire.

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It was hard to tell how deep we were into the forest at this point. We had been walking for hours even running into more wolves, vicious stags, and also a couple of weird menacing bunny creatures.

Slaying them all, I put their corpses into my spatial ring to sell them later on.

But the last beast I killed was a while back ago and I hadn’t run into any since. It made me become weary, Maybe something stronger is near.

Rye was trotting beside me without a care in the world, on the lookout for the next beast to come running our way. He had taken down some of the beasts himself and felt pretty prideful about it, saying, “I can’t let you do all the work.”

We kept going on our path for a while, but as I had assumed earlier, something seemed off. And to my expectations, I felt an aura coming from somewhere in the vicinity. It wasn’t a weak aura either.

“Do you feel that?” Rye whispered, looking around.

“Yeah,” I said, “Follow me.”

Enhancing my body with wind I climbed the nearest tree to get a better view of my surroundings.

When I made it to the top it didn't take long to spot the source of the aura. About fifteen meters away from us was a large bear walking around like he owned the place.

From what I could gauge the beast wasn't any normal bear. Bronze-class, maybe even silver, I thought. He probably uses that aura of his to lord his power over the other beast in this area. Interesting.

My best bet was to just go around and avoid the beast entirely, but I couldn't do that. Beast that could use mana to their advantage went for good money, and I couldn't pass that up. Plus, I was confident in my abilities.

I looked over at Rye who was sitting next to me on the tree branch and smiled. He knew exactly what I was thinking, and I could tell he was all for it.

“You ready, Rye?”

He bore his fangs as he smiled back, “I get to fight too, right?”

“Of course. I wouldn't want to take all the fun.”

At this, we jumped down from the tree and dashed in the direction of the bear. It didn’t take long for the bear to notice us and it let are a roar as the no doubt, two hostile threats ran towards it.

As I got closer the bear just seemed to get more large, much larger than I was anticipating, and I slowed my movements.

The bear kept roaring and I saw it dig both its giant paw into the ground.

“Rye! Run!” I yelled as the bear lifted its paw from the ground and a huge clump of earthen rock, the size of a building, flew straight toward us.

I dashed right and Rye went left. The rock collided with the ground where we just stood, sending a powerful shockwave of force. The ground rumbled and the tree leaves shook around us.

“Rye!” I called, over the bear's continuous roaring, “Are you okay?”

But there was no answer.

“Rye!”

As I called and called for Rye, the bear turned its attention to me. It glared at me and let out a much more defined roar. It dug its hand in the earth once more and this time I paid attention to its channeling mana.

The bear was at least at the peak of bronze class with these attacks. It was a mistake to just charge in like this. I got too ahead of myself and now Rye was probably hurt.

I unconsciously clenched my jaw and fist in annoyance and chapped my mana.

The bear threw another giant rock of earth my way, but this time I shadow stepped, concealing my movement until I was out of the beats line of sight.

The rock collided with the ground making everything rumble and shake once more.

I took this as my queue to unsheath my dagger and jumped toward the beast. Wind enhanced my speed and dagger as I flew toward it. I felt my mana surge through me and I pulsed with power.

The bear must’ve sensed it, and whipped its attention toward me, cladding its giant paw in earth and letting out a roar that sent waves of wind toward me.

The bear swung its paw with frightening strength and speed, and I did the same as I struck with my dagger. The sound of clashing metal on rock resounded through the forest and the shockwave of our blow caused the many tree leaves around us to shake in unison.

Despite all the power and mana I put into the strike, I didn't even make a dent in the bears rock covered paw.

The beast let out an earth-shaking roar once more as It lashed out with another strike with its paw.

I Shadow Stepped until I was behind it once more and this time I unleashed tens of Ice spears.

The beast had strength, yes, but its speed and reaction time were poor, too poor, to say the least.

Every single one of my ice spears pierced the bear's back and it grunted in pain, whipping its head to the source, but I was already on the beast, lashing out with another spell, “Ice Pillars!”

It didn't even have time to let out another roar as two giant pillars of ice conjured and shot toward the beast. One pierced its jaw and went through its head, and the other went through the heart.

The beast's menacing eyes slowly died out and I disbursed my mana. The ice pillars made the beast lean upright, making the sight look like some sort of crucifixion.

I almost stumbled over at the taxing mana usage the Ice Pillar spell caused but managed to keep standing.

Some people would say my four years of training were well spent, making it to the light purple stage of my mana core, on the verge of hitting blue. Hell, most kids my age had just awakened. But even simple spells, like Ice Pillars, were still taxing and I hated it.

I have to get stronger, I thought as I clutched my solar plexus. My mind though trailed off from my meaningless thought for now. There's a bigger problem on hand other than my strength…

‘Rye!?’ I called, via telepathy, ‘Where are you? Are you okay?’

There was no answer, and I began to get worried as my heart began to sink. ‘Rye? Please tell me you're okay. Say something!’

‘I’m fine, Fal…’ At the words, I felt my sinking heart become afloat again and I felt our connection as strong as ever.

‘Where are you, buddy?’ I asked.

‘I really don’t know, Fal, but there's a problem.’

‘What is it? Is there another beast on you?’ I asked as I started running to where I felt our connection. I wasn't able to track Rye, but I was able to feel the direction he was in, in a sense, but only when he was using telepathy with me. It was kind of like there was an invisible string forever tying us together.

‘No, even worse. There are humans here.’