Alex’s POV

I stare at the beast just on the other side of the HLZ. Fifty meters between me and the Wolfkin with nary an obstacle between us.

All at my disposal was my trusty spear and the best armor we had available. My spear is supposedly inferior to the cutting edge stuff the smithy is cranking out after Nash's mana control improved again, but I won’t trade it this weapon lightly. It was molded with me in mind and it’s plenty sharp enough to skewer any beast foolish enough to stand still before my blows, especially with my main skill active.

I need to do this. To prove…

I can say I’m a Wielder, but that doesn’t really encompass it all. Nash had his trials, but I had yet to prove I’m a true Wielder and while I didn’t take this last leap, I will be forever stuck in the precipice.

Stuck at Level 50.

My current skills, the focus I can draw to a single task and so much more is so beyond the world before the system. The closest I could ever get to this would be Larping and for as fun as that may sound, it didn’t involve actual combat skill, only …. Imagination and maybe acting skills.

I’m stronger, faster and more flexible than the best athletes back on Earth. I dance around my opponents like the greatest of ballerinas and nobody with similar stats as me can even hold a candle to my battle prowess, but I’m still stuck.

Stuck with a skill at 100, I would not pick any upgrade. I already took the easier half of the step to surpass level 100. Two other people managed the same, but no one has gone beyond it. Some even say that it is impossible, but I don’t believe that nonsense.

I could give up and accept a lesser reward by progressing in my class early, but when Nash said that I shouldn’t rush to acquire more power by crippling my potential, he had no idea how much that resonated with what I had been taught by my dad.

My mom loved and worried about me, but my dad saw things farther than I ever dreamed and his wisdom was timeless. I just wish I had more time with him.

A sliver of my sadness leaks out to my spear as it occasionally does, but this is different. I realize the change that just took place. If I had brushed the spear against a beast a moment ago, it would be a goner.

That knowledge is as real and vivid in my mind as the grass around me and the opponent just a few paces in front of me. With power, Aether and emotion I KNOW that this is the path forward.

Many auxiliary things made a difference: equipment, stats and even proper opponents, but all that was secondary to the real path forward: skill. A properly leveled skill couldn't be compared to anything else.

Fellings, the intentional leaking of fellings into action is the path.

Steeling my heart, I walk forward until I reach a precisely calculated distance. Close enough that the beast will take the initiative in trying to end my life. Far enough to give me the beast chance n combat.

Seventeen meters and change. I hold, not moving a single inch but managing to build momentum. Not in actual kinetic energy, though that should come soon enough, but building it in my heart and turning over my emotions purposefully.

I blink once, twice… 16 times. The crunching sound of someone launching itself through the air reaches my ears. With a wide grin, I rush in all alone. Dogging to the side in the very last instant I position my spear and leave the beast with a skin deep scratch, but that is the last easy mark I will make.

With power and mana, the level 142 beast, the lowest level I found in the HLZ rushes straight at me. This time with way less distance for me to react and prepare I need to choose: either dodging or doing damage. Normally I would choose damage, but this is not a level 70 mammoth or tiger that can only bruise me through the armor, a single blow well placed blow would cost my life.

We dance around each other for minutes in dozens of exchanges. I keep my mana circulating through my body pulsing it along with each of my moves and Aether spinning around me while I try to impart my emotions into each of my actions but it all feels… artificial.

I can’t just summon feelings at will. I’m no robot where a certain input will always have the same output.

Each time I do something it will be different, it will have its own emotion intrinsically attached to the action and it will resonate with me for different reasons.

Or it won’t.

That is the point.

I don’t hate or love this beast. I’m not sad or happy for its possible demise. I don’t even have a particular interest in ending its life, except that managing it is the first step I’m taking to protecting my friends, myself and in a roundabout way: all of humanity.

Billions of humans is a mindboggling number to think about, and even after I proved to myself I’m one of the best fighters in the instance, I also know that my situation is likely not unique across the instances, regardless of what my high tier title may imply.

Odds are that I just got lucky and reached the particular threshold before a dozen other people did the same. That doesn't even count all the other weapons out there. If I had just gone hunting on a ground a little farther away, got injured the day before and skipped it altogether or arrived at another village this opportunity would be simply gone. I would have been late and somebody else would have gotten the spear Wielder title. There is even a change the title may have gone to waste if the person didn't fit the criteria after getting their spear skill to level 50 after a lot of dedication and stamina potions or some such artificial, and didn’t fit into what the system thought of as ‘Wielder material’.

I push extraneous thoughts away and just relax into my routine. Even while fighting for my life, I try to impart into each of my moves the very reason that I’m here.

To protect myself and my friends.

To Learn.

To Grow.

I chuckle as I start sounding like Nash’s descriptions of Pando’s thoughts. Even that Mirth leaks into my posture and emotions, but it is quickly replaced by movement, the desire to do more, to BE more.

Each of my moves, as beautiful as they may seem from the outside, are incomplete and very clearly not what will get me through this self made trial.

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Dodging is an important aspect of any fight, but not the focal point.

I take a breath and advance trying to scratch the Wolkin.

Its hide, with little fur covering it, receives the scratch which surprises it, but I don’t draw a single droplet of blood.

Perhaps a sharper spear wouldn’t hurt after all, but I will not just pick a random one from a pile, especially given the cost.

Each of our steps is powered by mana, though my stores are quite a bit larger considering the battery I’m carrying. The earth gets ever so slightly marred from the sheer strength and mana explosions with each of our steps and turns, though the system protects it from becoming full of fist sized holes. Luckily, this little amount of damage won’t get in the way of our fight.

I advance and retreat trying to go deeper and deeper in my well of emotions, trying to find a good way of mentally picturing it, a good way of describing it, even as my moves turn more and more aggressive.

But in the end, the square can only be populated by four concepts I hold:

Myself.

My friends.

Learning.

Growth.

I impart from the warmest of feelings to the desperation as I try to protect everyone. Each step is a little closer and each of my spear swings is a little more dangerous until finally, it all comes into perspective.

I dive in without hesitation, with no thought of what else is there in the world aiming straight for the Wolkin’s throat, knowing that it will try to dodge as it has each time before, but I'm too close for it to escape entirely, and unless someone interferes I just won the fight.

The dodge never comes. My entire weight drives my spear inward straight in the middle and his clawed hands reach for me with absolutely no care for his survival.

A suicidal move, a decision taken in a single instant, with no preparation or hesitation.

A hit across my head with his right monstrous hand and another across my chest digging under the metal plates and through the leather. I’m dazed but have control over my movements and a little of my wits which I promptly use to abandon my spear. My balance is off, but the beast is no better off with a foot deep wound at the base of its throat. I reach with my arms instinctively feeling the tip of my fingers touching wounds and torn leather on my chest.

This is too deep to ignore, I don’t have a lot of time.

But with a long pole stuck at the base of its throat its movement…

The color drains from my face and I see it simply snap the spear’s wooden pole with a single move. Its nails just drive into it like a wood chipper and the meter long pole poking out simply falls to the ground. An insane smile comes in my direction before it charges. The beast doesn’t have long with his injury, but unless you chop someone’s head off, they can still move for death is not instantaneous. Even back on Earth, even being poked full of holes by a machine gun still see people with the strength of a bull for the next ten seconds as adrenaline let them ignore it all.

It will take time for all its blood to leak out and this is a large beast that has only a single significant injury while I lost my favorite spear.

Desperate, I take another weapon from my mini Inner World. My old +5 hand me spear from Greg. The beast presses forward and I make no pretense of trying to fight it, just doing my best to hold on. I retreat as much as I can or close to it every single time it advances on me. I tap my shoulder and send a few points of mana to activate the emergency beacon.

But even if gravely injured, the beast doesn't care about its life, or even if it will manage to feel its teeth sinking into my flesh, he just maneuvers to extend the fight and stop me from resting and taking care of my wounds. Its chances are slim at best to survive and it continues to trade scratches with me.

But scratches are not all it can do so I keep my toes on watching for another similar gambit.

Deep cuts mar my entire armor, slowly covering me in my own blood as strength starts fading. No technique or power seems to be enough and I curse myself for my overconfidence.

I should have known that the HLZ beasts' strategies had another layer.

I also learned a lot during this outing and I finally cracked the skill cap, but that is not enough to overcome the base stat difference after my injury.

Strenght fading and the stuff of life comes out we both go to the ground. In the last heaving effort, the beast's entire weight falls on top of me, but it doesn’t even have the strength to close its maw around my head. Letting its own momentum drive my spear inside its guts, I feel as it goes fully limp.

Even without Nash’s incredible perception field, I KNOW, it is dead.

I won. I finally won, but even as I try to push it off, weakness overcomes me and darkness consumes me.

----------------

Nash’s POV

Something comes from the network. Something is wrong. A waling child, desperate for help. An all encompassing desire and fear mixed into one from someone powerless to affect change.

I reach out with my entire willpower, spreading my awareness miles around in bare moments. There is a slight pull to one side. I hesitate, unsure about what I meant and if there is danger involved. I never felt a pull like this in the network.

But as another wave gets to me, and like it was the cries of a human baby left in the cold and dark my attention hones in the direction of the HLZ and movement is not an option, it is a biological imperative.

I push through ignoring the claustrophobic feelings from being compressed in a thin long ‘tube’ and move out faster than ever through the network. The ‘sound’, the ‘feeling’ only get stronger until it is all around compressing me. But even then I can tell its direction as I struggle to retain my sanity.

I arrive in the eye of the storm, there is no calm, so the epicenter, and at its middle, a tiny seed pouring its heart out. It takes me a moment to overcome the pure waves of grief and agony. Feelings even stronger than what Aspen puts out, but a single pulse of my perception field is enough to get an idea of what happened.

My heart aches at the young seed’s plight, but I purposefully ignore the noise and ruckus to focus on the root of the problem dousing the fire at the base of the tree, not the leaves and branches.

A bleeding Aether wielding warrior is holding together only by his unconscious will and the little seed crying in his chest.

Reaching for my very Life, I drag it out with only the barest of pauses to blunt the blow and drive it forward the right into his wounds, not knowing how effective it will be or even if it will have any effect.

It worked on plants, but nature Mana also worked on plants.

I had a lot of conjectures, but I hadn’t gotten to testing this particular application just yet.

Even as the golden hued scarlet light drives into his body, he gasps. The worst holes in his torso cauterize staunching the worst of the blood flow.

Even in the very spot of his main injuries and the place I focused the mass of Life, the whole thing is a bloody mess, but at least most of the improper leaking points for the blood are plugged.

He wakes and gasps clothing up droplets of blood, but I move to continue the seeds work and finish pushing off the beast's body off him. He manages to roll back into a more comfortable position.

With a little more breathing room to work and no longer the extreme urgency, I send a pinprick of Life in a constant stream, focusing on precise spots that are injured. Each of his cells supercharged in a very similar way to filling them with Vigor, but Life but it has more tangible effects.

As the thought crosses my mind I use the opportunity to send over half of my Vigor as well, as its particular characteristics let it be absorbed easily by anybody unlike my Qi.

My efforts don’t exactly heal with this impromptu dumping of Life, but his body accelerates the natural healing process and blood instantly coagulates stopping him from bleeding out. After I plug every single hole, I stop the outflow.

Just this effort drained a good quarter of my Health pool, but I don’t regret it for a moment. With proper meditation, the time to refill it should be lessened a lot. Coming back to full force in a couple of days is entirely possible.

Letting my attention be dragged away, I finally push Qi at the runic comm formation and answer:

“Nash here.”

“We were calling about Alex, but I assume the healing we saw was your work.”

“Yep… Is that it?”

“Could you go pick him up? No, wait… I think there is a pair of scouts closer.”

“Do they have flying vehicles?” I ask.

“Nope, but one of them has a space bag. Does that help?”

“Umm, yea. I think so.”

I let the connection drop and send a little of my Qi, paying attention to the proper flow so I neither pull too fast from my pool and get a headache induced by emptying the Qi in my pool, nor too slow which will cause me to start accumulating the returning Qi given how much cycles back to me every second. I haven’t even built enormous stores of it just yet.

Leaving the bulk of the work to Aspen who has a lot more mana to work, I concentrate on the rune work and we set out on growing a three seat runabout with cargo space for the wolfkin’s body under it. I can fit the space bag with a battery grown on the spot and that will reduce their stops a lot.

“Don’t worry Alex, you will be home in no time.”