"Have you heard from Paige?" Levi asked Grace that evening.

She was cooking squirrel again. Fried this time. But there was rice and gravy again. The menu was still very limited.

"I did, actually." Grace stepped away from her pan of squirrel and reached for something. She tossed it to Levi. "Crows dropped this off this morning."

Levi reached out and caught an article of clothing. Or part of one, at least. What looked like the yellow tank top Paige was wearing when he'd first met her. With red smears all over it. Levi's chest tightened as he snatched the fabric from the air.

Looking at it, he realized the red smears were words, not blood, and he relaxed.

'Fine. Training. Bobcat teaching me to hunt. Don't worry.'

After a moment of staring, perplexed, Levi spoke. "Huh. You think she meant 'a' bobcat or someone named Bobcat?"

Grace gave him a long, pointed look.

"Right, definitely an actual bobcat. Fucking crazy." Levi stood, bundled the cloth back up, and set it on Grace's stool so she didn't have to step away from the pan again.

Joe walked up and dropped his gear. He eyed the pan but didn't say a word this time. Levi had noticed he'd actually enjoyed the squirrel the night before.

Sitting down on the stool next to Levi, Joe let out a sigh. "Man, I'm aching."

"Yeah, I saw you getting your ass kicked by rapier dude and Kendo girl all day," Levi commented.

"Well, they're the only two who know anything about using a sword. By the way, I was going to te..." Before Joe could continue, a voice interrupted.

"Hey everyone... Grace invited me to eat tonight, hope I'm not interrupting. I'm David. This is Maddy."

Grace gave him a small greeting but kept cooking.

A tall boy, at least by Levi's standards, and a much smaller girl sat down. The boy wore what looked to be pretty basic leather armor, and the girl wore a pale blue robe that at least had a leather corset. It wasn't the cute kind of corset, but one that looked like it would take blows and actually covered vitals.

"You're the Hunter kid, huh?" Joe asked.

"Yeah, that's me," David said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

"And what's your class?" Joe asked, shifting his attention to Maddy. "You don't have to say if you don't want."

"No, it's fine. Support Mage," Maddy answered quietly.

Joe raised a hand. "Redemption Paladin."

"And I'm a Sage," Levi offered.

They talked about their classes for a bit, everyone explaining the basics and what they could do. David's was pretty much straight forward Hunter stuff. Tracking and bow skills. Basic Sneaking. Maddy had a small heal and spell that made a small area of ground turn to mud for 10 seconds.

"Hey, crowd control is nice. Especially if you're working in groups," Levi chipped in.

"Yeah, the problem is I haven't been getting levels. Me and a few other girls have been going out every day. But we haven't seen anything but normal animals. We've been taking it slow and trying to be safe, though, only wandering a little farther every day. Still, it kind of sucks, when you see people like David who's already gotten five levels."

"Wow. Five levels already?" Joe said.

Levi felt Maddy's frustration about not getting levels. He was close, though, and felt that one more skill learned outside the safezone would put him over to the next level.

David shrugged. "I've been hunting every day. People need food, too, so it works out. I trade for things. Traded for Grace's toothpaste stuff. There's a fletcher already. His arrows aren't as good as the system arrows I got, but they work on rabbits and squirrels. It lets me save the system arrows for when I need them. I've gotten some cooked meals out of it."

Joe nodded. "Well, you guys are also welcome to come spar with us over at the training area. I've gotten to level three with just that. It kind of plateaued after the first couple of days, but I'm still getting decent experience." Joe turned to Levi. "Oh yeah, that reminds me. I talked to Tony and Craig--he's the rapier guy--about the sparring pit thing. They're all for it. Apparently, there's a Survivalist who has the same issue as you, and they were going to talk to him."

"That's awesome," Levi said.

"Yeah, but not only that, they want to expand on it. We've all been talking about it, and we think the reason we've hit a plateau with training is because we're playing it so safe. None of us have been using our stronger skills or abilities, because we're always worried about seriously hurting or even potentially killing someone."

"Yeah, but isn't not seriously hurting anyone kind of the most important rule?"

"Yeah...but some of us are willing to take the risk. Plus, if and when we do adventure out, we need to be prepared. Also, it would open up our training so more people, spell casters and stuff, could actually get some use out of it. We just need to set up some official rules and safeguards so we don't end up killing each other.

We talked about it a lot, and we're all excited. Even tossed around the idea of doing team based training against each other at some point."

"Now that would be cool," Levi agreed.

"Actually, the people I've been teaming up with would be interested in that, especially the team based training. We haven't even got to do anything yet. It would at least give us some practice and levels. And maybe when we do run into something out there, it won't be as dangerous. At least I'd feel better about it..." Maddy's voice got quieter, "...they're expecting me to be the healer, and I'm terrified I'm going to mess up..."

Joe nodded, face stone serious. "I'll definitely bring it up. If the training isn't actually preparing people for... that... what's the point?"

"Alright, enough serious talk. The food's ready." Grace interrupted.

------

Levi practiced infusing his stamina even harder that night. Instead of running through the slow sets once, he practiced three times. He was exhausted, but determined. He would have practiced the slow sets far more than three times if it had been necessary. But, fortunately, he was rewarded with not just one but two skills after the third pass.

Ding. Skill acquired: Empowering Flow

Empowering Flow not only increases the power of your strikes, but can empower all of your body's movements when activated. You may control the amount of stamina expended as desired. Warning, as your stamina expenditure increases, you may risk self injury and death.

The description was a little scary at the end, but it was definitely something Levi had expected.

Ding. Skill acquired: Efficiency Flow

Through training, you have trained your body to use stamina with precision. -25% stamina consumption while not using empowering skills.

Ding. You have reached level 2.

Levi pulled up his new status page to check what stat had gone up. And also, just becauae he was stoked about the skills and the level up.

-

Name: Levi Jimmer O'Hare

Age: 31

Class: The Insatiable Sage

Level: 2

Experience to next level: 270/300

Base stats:

Physical Strength = 5

Physical Proficiency = 6

Mental Strength = 6

Mental Proficiency = 5

Spiritual Strength = 5

Spiritual Proficiency = 4

Skills:

Martial Technique Tai Chi Chuan

Skill Subset - Perfect Form

Empowering Flow

Efficiency Flow

Basic Grappler

Basic Pugalist

-

Levi's Spiritual Proficiency had went up from 3 to 4. He wasn't mad about that, but he was confused why Spiritual Proficiency had went up, rather than his Physical Proficiency.

Maybe the stat increases from level ups were random or maybe they always went to one of the lower stat values. There was also the chance that it was a result of the meditation he'd practiced to gain the skills in the first place.

He'd have to gain more levels before he'd really be able to tell one way or the other.

Levi also noticed he was only 30 points from level 3. He hoped he'd be sparring outside the safezone, soon.

While he was tempted to push more training out right then, he knew it would be fruitless. He was still a ways off from a breakthrough with his core, and hadn't really worked on any other skills.

So, he decided to call it a night and wake up ready for the next day's training. He sipped a small amount of healing potion before laying down, hoping that might help with the consequences of his lack of sleep.

-------

Paige was pleased to discover she could share traits with the bobcat. In fact, her ability could do even more with the bobcat than it could with the crows, for whatever reason. She felt like she'd bonded more with the crows than the bobcat, by a lot.

She wasn't sure if it was because the crows counted as a group, and due to that, she'd actually not really befriended them that much, or if it was something to the bobcat's disposition toward her.

Still, her Share Trait ability had more uses with the bobcat. She could grow cat claws, gain the cat's sense of smell, or even use cat eyes.

She'd primarily been using the cat's hearing since the bobcat had started teaching her. She wasn't hearing through the cat's ears, but actually borrowing the bobcat's ability to hear. In return, the cat simply took her ability to see color.

That had turned out to be a problem, considering the cat just stared at everything for a few hours. Even when she'd started moving, the bobcat would suddenly stop and stare at a brightly colored object for a few minutes before continuing on.

For Paige, the hearing made her realize how loud she actually was.

The bobcat's instructions had been simple. Paige was to follow and watch.

The problem was that the bobcat didn't explain anything and seemingly wasn't doing anything except prowling the woods. She moved quietly and deliberately, sure. Sometimes, she'd stop and sniff, or raise her head and twitch an ear, but she wasn't really doing what Paige thought was worth paying too much attention to.

After a while, though, Paige noticed when she raised her head to listen there was often some sound in this distance. Sometimes, it was the faint rustling of leaves. Other times, a bird took flight. Once Paige was sure she'd heard a squirrel gnawing on an acorn.

Soon, Paige decided to switch her senses around. She kept the hearing for most of the time, but when the bobcat sniffed, Paige would shift Share Trait to sense of smell. When the cat stopped to listen, she'd try to pick up on what she heard. When the cat's gaze shifted, Paige would try to follow it and find what had caught the cat's attention.

After hours of this aimless wandering, the bobcat turned to Paige and sat down. "Are you hungry?" The bobcat asked.

Paige was. The rabbit had not done much for her, truthfully. She had forced down some bread too, having to wash it down with water just to swallow, but that felt like it had been ages ago, and she'd actually found her stomach wouldn't hold that much.

"Yes," Paige answered simply.

"At first, I will hunt, and you will watch. After I have found your food, I will hunt my own. I will make you work for your food. To eat, you must take it from me. I will go easy on you at first, but I will make it harder over time. When I think you are ready, you will hunt for yourself again."

"Okay... I understand." Paige did not understand at all, but she was not about to question the bobcat.

"Good. But first, you need to clean yourself. You smell like smoke. And no more making fires while you are with me."

Paige almost argued that that she needed to cook her food. Then, she thought better of it. Worst case scenario, she had healing potions. Grace could probably figure out how to craft a dewormer when she got back, if it was necessary. It would definitely be necessary Paige concluded after some quick deliberation.

But she could tolerate raw meat for a while. She ate sushi and liked her steaks rare, after all.