Reme and Rume hung high in the sky, their shared lights glistening off the shallow river that Isil had set up her tent next to. Her horse slept under the shade of a nearby arbor tree, the riding gear tossed haphazardly into the branches of the tree. Isil herself sat at the entrance of the tent, facing the slow-moving river. She played with a lumpy stone as she blankly stared across the river. There was a brief glint of silver light, and the rock in her hand cracked and began to split. The pieces fell out of her hands, leaving an unnaturally flat stone that Isil retrieved and tossed over the water. It skipped all the way over to the other side, then disappeared into the grass.

Since she left, Isil had began to explore her limits as much as she could. Her first test, was horse riding, which came very easily. Then, came marksmanship and survival skills. Those, too, came easily, her arrows hitting the mark almost every time, with the exceptions of a few agile birds. She put her survival skills to the test by skinning and preparing her game for her next test, cooking. The result was as expected, and she quite enjoyed her meal. After finishing lunch, she began to practice magic on the back of the horse.

Despite having answered many questions before, the mysterious answers in her mind did not appear as much as she had wanted. However, it still provided a lot of answers, some of which led her off on a tangent into “stamina”. Stamina had been renamed to “visea”, a shorthand for its full name, “vitality sea”. Visea was an energy produced by every living organism, and was also called “life force”. Visea determined a person’s natural lifespan, physical potential, and mana. Isil’s visea was very powerful, both in quality and quantity, meaning her mana and lifespan were both extraordinarily above average.

Isil’s physical strength, however, was completely average, if not slightly weaker. This was much out of line with her visea. This is uncommon, but not unheard of. Certain aspects of visea govern different aspects of the physical body. While both the mana and lifespan aspects of Isil’s visea were extraordinarily strong, her physical potential aspect was sacrificed for the growth of the other two. This meant that Isil could only gain more physical strength through visea training or by using enchanted items, which used either their own mana or the user’s mana to work an enchantment.

Isil had attempted to get more answers out of her own head, but reached a roadblock once she tried to reach out beyond a slight understanding of visea, despite the fact that she felt she knew more. However, getting the answers she got was already an unexpected boon, so she wasn’t feeling upset over it. Having exhausted her answerable questions on visea, she turned to mana. Mana did not interact with the body as much as visea did, but in exchange, was a much better tool to influence the outside world. Once one develops their mana into something they can sense and control, it is no longer bound by visea. While an increase in visea could increase mana, a decrease in visea would not decrease mana.

Before awakening mana, it is stored in the body, moving throughout the body along with visea. Once mana is awakened, it leaves the body and becomes stored in the soul. While Isil had no explanation as to why her mana was the same despite the fact that her soul had likely been changed, she could sense mana seemingly tunneling into reality from her soul whenever she used spells. Of course, she didn’t know if it was her soul or his soul, but she could feel it whenever it dropped or rose.

Spells were complex machinations that Isil only understood how to form. There was little understanding as to why certain actions made spells do different things. Once she started actually analyzing the spells she was using, suspending it in different places and studying the inner workings. One time, she deliberately slowed down the process of her mana turning into a spell to observe it. It only lasted for a short few seconds before the mana in her body caused damage to her organs. It was both a painful and enlightening experience.

From repeated study, Isil understood that every spell was built in layers. The first layer was the element, or lack thereof. The second layer was whether the spell was confined to the user, or expelled outside the body. She didn’t get a full read of the third layer, but it seemed to control how big the spell was. She wasn’t able to get any read on the layers after that. The extreme methods she put herself through had allowed her to achieve a better control of mana and magic.

Isil yawned, and picked up another stone. Once again, a silver flash of light was seen within the stone, and excess portions fell away, revealing a smooth skipping stone. Isil once again tossed it, and it skipped over the water and into the tall grass beyond it. With the disappearance of the stone, Isil rose to her feet and walked into the tent. She rolled down the tent’s entrance flap, and secured it by stabbing a stake through two sets of holes on both the flap and the floor of the tent. Having secured the tent, she wormed her way into her bedroll and fell asleep.

-_-_-

Isil jolted awake, her spine tingling as she felt something lurking outside the tent. By instinct, her sense spread out, searching for the smallest of clues. The night insects continued their songs, and the gurgling of the river continued as normal, but the silence around her tent seemed fractured. It was quiet, but something else made noise around the tent. A rotten and dirty smell reached her nose, causing her to almost gag. She could deduce the smell was likely from some sort of terribly infected injury, or a swamp monster had come to prowl around her tent.

Once her sleepiness had been shrugged off, Isil reached out with her newfound mana sense. Every being had a certain base kind of mana. Humans had human mana, demons had demon mana, elves had elven mana, and so on. Her mana detected the presence of three different quantities of human mana, and a single beast mana, latched on to one of the human mana. They lingered in a close group directly outside the entrance.

Isil rolled her eyes. She knew that bandits existed, and were most definitely inevitable, but she couldn’t believe that she would encounter some so soon. Despite how laughable she saw the situation as, she knew it was an opportunity to test her increase mana skills in battle. It wasn’t a perfect opportunity, considering how much more powerful she was bound to be, but it would be a good exercise in restraint.

The skill Telekinesis was instantly put into action, quietly removing the stakes that held down the entrance flap. Isil removed herself from the bedroll and approached the flap. Hearing her unconcealed movements, her ambushers seemed to panic, making enough noise to be heard normally. Two of the three went to the right of the tent, where the light of the moons cast enough light to allow her to see their shadows. The third, the one with the beast mana went straight, putting the entrance flap to his back and bolting.

Isil’s gaze turned blank as she slowly lifted the entrance flap, purposefully giving the third bandit time to hide. Upon stepping out of the tent, she faked a yawn and stretched. She wiped her eyes like she was still tired and walked out to the river. She knelt down at the bank and splashed water in her face, keeping up her facade. With her mana sense, she could tell that the beast mana bandit had laid down in the tall grass opposite the riverbank. The other two had began to move, hiding behind trees and moving quietly.

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Isil craned her neck to the left, looking to see if her horse was still there. Thankfully, the bandits had left him untouched. Everything seemed untouched, as far as she could tell. She sat at the riverbank for a bit longer, then fell over on her side, pretending to have fallen asleep there. It took a moment for the bandits to start moving again. Continuing to observe the scene with her mana sense, she observed the two bandits in the trees coming out and splitting apart. One went inside her tent and began digging through her bag, while the other approached her.

Worried that the bandit approaching her might be trying to kill her, she sent out her mana in a weak wave like echolocation. The bandit was unarmed, and even walked right past her. He waded across the river and stood up the beast mana bandit. Isil heard some conversation between the two, but didn’t bother listening closely. The two waded across the river and came to stand next to her.

“Damn, she a beauty, ain’t she boss?” The beast mana one spoke in a loud whisper.

“Shut it, Pip!” The one called “boss” shushed him violently.

“Sorry boss, but she’s past right out, ain’t she. She ain’t gonna wake up and get us. Even if she did, she just one woman. What could she do to us?”

“Pip, you’re a goddamn idiot. What would you do if she’s a mage?”

“Well, I’d stick my hand down ‘er throat so she can’t speak no incan… inconta...” The one called “Pip” struggled to find the word.

“Incantation. And you’d do well to gag her, not shove your hand down a lady’s throat.” The one that had been rummaging through Isil’s belongings stated as he left the tent.

“Would you both shut up?!” The boss loudly shushed them.

“Boss, you’re the one making the most noise. I’m surprised she hasn’t woken up because of your bellowing.” The second one said.

“Oh shit.” At that, the three went quiet for some time.

Isil remained where she was, pretending to sleep. The only reason she hadn’t already woken and beat them up was because she wanted to know how they found her and how much the things she brought with her were. There was also the fact that she was lost, but she ignored that. She remained huddled in her sleeping position, breathing as lightly as possible.

“Well, the lady’s a good sleeper.” The second bandit said.

“We’re damn lucky,” The boss added. “What did you find?”

“Pretty good stuff. She’s most definitely a mage, or someone important. All her changes of clothes are enchanted, she’s got some sort of glowing crystal, her pots and pans are all made out of some metal I haven’t seen before, and she’s got an enchanted knife that shocked me when I touched it. Not to mention she’s got a motherload of coins. Whoever she is, she’s bound to be worth a king’s ransom.” The second bandit supplied.

Isil frowned internally. From what the bandit said, just any one of her items are worth a fortune, but she got no solid coin value from them. While hearing “motherload of coins” gave her a good indication that she was wealthy, it still gave her no sense of economy. What’s more, she might even be kidnapped and taken even further off course. She had no intention of allowing that, of course, but she needed more information from these bandits, and she didn’t feel like raiding their minds.

“But ain’t we gon’ need to feed ‘er? When we do, she gon’ be able to open ‘er mouth and chant ‘er incantathings.” Pip spoke up, making a surprisingly good point.

“You’re right,” The boss agreed. “Just strip her of valuables and let’s get going.”

“Roger boss.” Pip chimed and knelt down next to Isil.

Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Isil could smell Pip’s nasty breath just inches away from her face. Isil groaned and turned over, still pretending to be asleep. Collectively, the three bandits gasped.

“B-boss…!” Pip’s voice rose emotionally.

“E-elf...” The second bandit spoke emotionally.

The boss remained quiet, but Isil could tell that the three were reacting very emotionally. She was very confused by their reactions. She knew that elves were rare on Tyverra, but was it really something to freak out over? How did they find out? Was it because her ear poked through her hair?

“An elf, and not only that, but a mage elf. We’re gonna be rich!” The boss shouted with glee.

“Woohoo!” Pip cheered, laughing and pumping his fists in the air. “I can’t wait to have my way with her!”

“I-I don’t think I’d be able to count just how much gold we’re gonna make of this wench! I can’t think of what to do with it all!” The second one ranted.

Isil could feel disgust rising in her heart. Not only had these people lost themselves to their greed, one of them – no, probably all of them – were planning on using her sexually and then selling her into slavery or trying to get a ransom. She had shown remarkable patience up until this point, and she was finally tired of playing the helpless maiden.

“Enough, enough,” Isil said, opening her eyes and sitting up. “You’re making my ears bleed.”

“Boss, she’s awake!” Pip shouted out.

“I can see that! Get her!” The boss ordered.

Now that she had her eyes open, Isil felt any trace of pity removed from her heart. The bandits were not gaunt and emancipated like she had expected, instead, they were quite healthy, and the boss even had a potbelly. Clearly, these three were not in the business for their own sake. She noticed that Pip, the one with the beast mana stuck to him, had a terrible face burn, and his left eye was terribly infected. Added to the fact that he sounded mentally slow, Isil held a small amount of pity for him.

However, she cast aside her pity and resolved herself to kill them. They were bandits, criminals, and even if they had families, they had committed crimes and were subject to justice. Isil rolled out of the way as the second bandit dove in to grab her. She grasped the group with her right hand and swept with her left leg, knocking Pip off his feet. She sprung off the ground and onto her feet, just in time to deliver a strong jab directly to the face of the boss, who was sent tumbling to the ground.

“Wow, you guys are pathetic.” She delivered a swift kick to the stomach of the second bandit, who had just gotten to his feet, and sent him back down.

Isil slammed her foot into Pip’s chest, preventing him from getting up. She grabbed his sword, which none of them had unsheathed, and removed it. Seeing this Pip began to pound his fist into her ankle to no effect. However, she removed her foot anyways, only to deliver a kick that sent him rolling. She turned her gaze towards the other two bandits, who seemed unsteady on their feet.

“Come,” Isil said, brandishing her stolen sword. “I’ll give you a chance.”

Saying such, she immediately began to speed up her perceptions with magic, making it seem as though the world around her had slowed down. This was an Expert Alteration spell called Perception Shift. It was able to enhance or degrade a target’s sense, making them see the world as if it was sped up or slowed down. With this, Isil would be able to predict and defend against the two bandits attacks as if she had actually practiced with a sword.

“Little bitch, when I’m done with you, I’ll make you wish you used that sword to kill yourself.” The boss said in a low voice.

“If you could actually back that up, that wouldn’t be a half-bad threat. I’ll use it. If I actually remember your insignificant lives.” Isil laughed

The boss growled angrily.

“You… you ain’t gon’ be leaving in one piece girlie!” Pip growled.

The beast mana inside of Pip began to shift and change, coming into focus. Isil turned her attention to him, and noticed a dark aura rolling off of him. Vaguely, a sense of worry crept into her heart.