Elijah’s eyebrows stretched to the sky and his pupils shrunk to the size of atoms. He didn’t expect that the defense of the village warriors would be weaker than paper. However, Elijah didn’t have the luxury to dwell on what already happened.

Supreme Will. Supreme Speech. Supreme Shout.

Stop!

Within a few seconds, Elijah refocused, activated his abilities and carried out his counterattack. It was extremely effective. All the hyenas stopped moving. More than a few fell to the ground and skidded a few feet as their bodies and minds instantly froze. In an instant Elijah changed the flow of the battle, but his effect didn’t occur without a cost.

Skill: Supreme Shout

Tier: 0

Stage: Late

Effect: Release a powerful shout capable of stunning your opponent. Stun: 4 seconds + Will/10

Cost: 30 mental energy

You have attempted to stun an enemy. Will check. Your enemy is stunned for 18 (20) seconds.

You have attempted to stun…

You have used a large amount of mental energy in a short period of time. Will check. You are stunned for 8.7(10) seconds.

Rapidly, Elijah drained a great deal of his mental energy. He wasn’t sure the exact amount of energy he used, but the aftereffects gave him a good estimate. Elijah felt a sharp pain in his mind, followed by a brief feeling of dizziness and then his vision went dark.

For the next eight seconds, Elijah was defenseless and didn’t know what was going on around him. He couldn’t even use his Supreme Astral Sense talent. However, while he wasn’t able to interact with the world for the next eight seconds, he was able to use the system. The majority of the initial mental pain and dizziness had dispersed, and Elijah began to look at the battle notifications.

More than fifty battle notifications appeared in front of Elijah, showing the effect of his talent and two skills. The longest a hyena was stunned was for eighteen seconds and the shortest period of time was thirteen seconds. When Elijah realized this, he calmed down and patiently waited for the remaining time on his eight second stun to elapse. Although things didn’t go perfectly in the beginning, Elijah was confident that his warriors would be able to recover and easily deal with the stunned hyenas.

Opening his eyes, Elijah saw several blurry figures moving on the battlefield. His senses were still damaged, and he couldn’t use them to observe the battle. Realizing his mistake, Elijah quickly reactivated his Supreme Astral Sense and focused on his men.

All of them were standing and fighting so that was a good sign. There were less than two dozen hyenas still standing, and his warriors were ganging up on them. Elijah let out a sigh of relief when he saw they had everything under control and sat down on the ground.

Right now, Elijah had less than fifty points of mental energy left. Moving around with such a small amount of mental energy was possible, but it would be very annoying. Also, Elijah needed mental energy to use his healing skill and at the moment he didn’t even have enough energy to use his skill once.

Skill: Supreme Recovery

Tier: 0

Stage: Middle

Effect: Improves recovery of health, stamina, and mental energy by 30%. Once per day you can sacrifice 10% of your astral energy to fully recover from all injuries. This sacrifice will cause your cultivation level and stats to decrease.

Cost: None

Skill: Supreme Meditation

Tier: 0

Stage: Middle

Effect: Enter a meditative state that prevents you from being disturbed by outside forces. Increases the recovery of health, stamina, and mana by 4.5/min.

Cost: None

Crossing his legs, Elijah activated his Supreme Meditation skill and entered a meditative state. Elijah’s connection with the world around him was severed, but at the moment this wasn’t a bad thing. Entering meditation allowed Elijah to enter a dark world that was quiet and serene.

Once Elijah entered a meditative state, the effects of Supreme Meditation and Supreme Recovery worked together to speed up his recovery process. The increase from his Supreme Meditation skill was applied first and effects of Supreme Recovery was applied after. Elijah was grateful for multiple great skills that worked well together, and he remembered to say a silent thank you to his future self.

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Naturally, Elijah thought about sacrificing the astral energy he gathered through cultivation to fully recover. However, he quickly ignored the idea as soon as it appeared in his mind. This was his Hail Marry skill, and he wasn’t going to use it unless he absolutely needed to.

Using his Supreme Meditation skill allowed Elijah to ignore the minor pain and dizziness that he still felt. With his mind at ease Elijah was able to think more clearly. The first clear thought Elijah had was that he was an idiot.

Justin couldn’t be blamed for the fuck up that recently happened. He was lacking both knowledge and experience. However, Elijah felt like there was no excuse that would be able to absolve him from blame.

From the videos he watched on the internet, Elijah already knew that a stampeding pack of animals were a powerful force. Heck, even one animal could trample over a human. Since Elijah had knowledge about stampedes, there was no excuse for him being caught off guard.

In addition to knowledge of stampedes, Elijah obtained information about the characteristics of the hyenas through his astral sense. He sensed the power, weight and force of their charge, but in the moment, he failed to put two and two together. Elijah was disappointed in his inability to notice the danger in the heat of battle and react properly. He resolved to do better and continued to reflect on the battle.

Thirty minutes passed before Elijah left his meditative state. He was worried about the condition of his warriors, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to help them if he didn’t have enough energy. Plus, if something was really wrong, they would have woken him up.

Reactivating his Supreme Astral Sense, Elijah was assaulted by several scents. Grass, blood, piss, sweat, and many more. Elijah quickly made some adjustments with his talents and continued to observe his surroundings.

Hyena carcasses littered the battlefield. In one area, Elijah saw his warriors dissecting the hyena carcasses. They gutted them, harvested the useful parts, and threw away the unusable parts into a pile.

Stretching his senses, Elijah saw goblins and humans walking around the area, keeping watch for any threats. The remaining warriors were too injured to move and were either sitting or lying on the ground. Elijah was glad to see that Justin was managing everything well and began to stand. Nobody had died or looked like they were about to die.

“Chief!” Justin called out when he saw Elijah stand. He looked very sullen and spoke to with a voice full of guilt. “I’m sorry Chief. I failed to lead our people properly and many of our men were injured. I, I understand if you wish to choose another leader.”

Elijah reached out his hand and gave Justin a pat on his arm. “Don’t worry, you actually did pretty well.”

“But I-”

“No buts.” Elijah said with a stern expression. “If I said you did well, then you did well. It’s bad to disagree with the Chief.”

Justin kept silent after that, and Elijah gave him a smile before he continued speaking. “Did you make mistakes? Yes. Did things go wrong? Of course. However, when things went wrong you handled yourself well. You didn’t panic and you kept everyone alive. I consider that a good result for your first battle.” Elijah didn’t actually see Justin fight, but hey, it cost zero dollars to be kind. Plus, he could estimate Justin’s performance by examining the results.

Justin was moved by Elijah’s words, but he quickly became ashamed. “I, I don’t deserve your praise. If you hadn’t taken action, then I probably would have been stomped to death with the other warriors.”

“You’re right, but there was no way you could have known the hyenas’ charge would be so powerful. Even I was caught off guard, so I probably would have done as poorly as you did.”

“Thank you for your kind words, Chief but I know your only trying to make me feel better.”

For the next minute or so, Elijah and Justin went back and forth. One person was apologizing and full of self-blame. The other person was trying to reassure the first person and was starting to get a little annoyed.

“Alright that’s enough of the pity party. As the leaders we are men at the top. It’s our job to reassure others. We don’t have the luxury to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. We have to be mindful of our goals and responsibilities and focus on how to do them better. You messed up, so take some time to reflect on what you could have done better. After I’ve finished checking on the warriors and healing some of them, I’ll come back to talk to you on what both of us can do better.”

Justin agreed and walked away with slumped shoulders. Looking at his appearance, Elijah couldn’t help but shake his head. The current Justin didn’t have the mentality of a military leader.

Military leaders should at the very least have hard and rigid mindsets. Hard as in their minds were tough enough to endure the difficulties and hardships of war. Rigid in that they would remain focused on accomplishing military goals and not be swayed by external or internal influences.

Truthfully, Elijah didn’t know if leading men into battle was the right position for Justin. Justin was a strong and capable warrior, but that didn’t mean he was suitable for a leadership position. However, there were very few people he could choose to replace him.

Elijah didn’t want to force anybody into positions they didn’t want to be in. In most cases, Elijah didn’t think that forcing people into positions was beneficial for their growth. Letting people choose what responsibilities they were willing to take was better for individuals and for his territory.

Letting out a short sigh, Elijah decided to temporarily stop worrying about the issue and went to check on the rest of the warriors. He recovered less than half of his mental energy, so Elijah wasn’t able to help everyone. However, the people he did help had all of their wounds closed and were almost back to one hundred percent health.

Once Elijah finished his healing, he began making his rounds and checked on how everyone was doing. He spoke to both humans and goblins alike. Interacting with the goblins was strange. After all, they were another a species.

Yes, goblins were an intelligent race, but the behaviors and thoughts of all intelligent races wouldn’t be similar to humans. However, Elijah was human, and humans had a habit of saying fuck you to the rules. He was sure he could figure out a way to connect with the goblins and integrate them into his territory in a reasonable way.

When Elijah finished making his rounds, he went to look for Justin. What he found was a man that was calmer and a lot more confident. When Elijah looked at Justin, he saw that the pity and self-blame were gone. What was left was tenacity. Elijah saw the early formation of a Will that would continue to move forward no matter what.

“Perhaps, I judged him too harshly,” Elijah thought to himself.