Tilin and the rest of his unit had been hounded since they’d left the edge of the gnoll’s territory early this morning. They had assumed that once they’d moved far enough away, the mutts wouldn’t hound them any further. An assumption that had already cost the lives of five more of their unit. Now their fourteen man unit was all that remained of what had been fifty.

After making their way into a relatively open space they had formed an encirclement to protect their injured and their two remaining mages. Swearing under his breath, “Damn, if we hadn’t let Royce get pegged by that arrow we could blast our way out of here.”, referencing their now dead fire mage.

He had noticed that the gnolls had stopped charging headfirst into their encirclement, content to draw out this fight and wait until Kira ran out of mana. Not a bad move considering the wind mage was the only reason he didn’t have half a dozen arrows stuck in his skull at the moment. Also considering that their front liners had been running low since stopping, they were royally screwed.

“What the hell?” he heard Maya eclaim, abruptly shaking him out of his thoughts. Following the muscular woman’s eyes, he saw a rather tiny man running in their direction. He was weaving and dodging between the gnolls attempting to make it to their encirclement, regardless of the reason behind the man’s insanity his objective was clear as day.

Suddenly one of the gnolls near the back let out a loud bark. Obviously Tilin didn’t speak stupid mutt, but the fact that the front line of their fighters turned around to look told him all he needed to know. In the split second before the little guy ran straight into the gnoll standing five feet away from him, Tilin step forward and put his spear right through the thing’s heart. Sliding a bit to the side he watched as the man dove past his left hip and rolled to a stop in their formation.

Dumping aside the now dead monster impaled on his spear, he expressed his anger. “Think you can turn your back on me your fucking dog?!” He spit on its corpse before looking over his shoulder, “I don’t know who you are, but you’re either the stupidest man I’ve ever seen, or you’ve got a plan to get us out of here. So, which is it?”

The strange fellow simple smiled and responded, “How about both?”

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Not wanting to spend any unnecessary time asking questions that already had answers, Simon took the larger man’s words to mean that they were open to any new ideas at this point in time. Guess I wasn’t wrong about them not having a plan.

Standing and walking closer to the outer ring, near the spear wielding giant, “How long can you guys hold out without taking any more casualties? I need to speak with your wind mage to find out if this plan of mine will work.” Simon definitely had a plan, but there were several variable that he just didn’t have enough information about.

“Not long, but so long as we are in a primarily defensive formation none of us should take any lethal damage. Kira is just about out of mana as far as I know though.” Tilin was obviously skeptical, but he doubted someone would rush headlong into danger without some idea of how to get back out.

Giving an acknowledging nod, Simon turned and jogged toward the center of their encirclement. There were three wounded men being treated by the hooded healing mage, and he would have to take that into account as well. This really might be impossible, Simon laughed to himself while thinking he’d probably just killed himself.

As he approached the wind mage, Kira, she looked up and made eye contact with him. She was a rather plain looking girl despite her clearly large frame. In reality she was actually on the smaller side for the people of this world, but Simon didn’t have a frame of reference for that yet. Simon could see however, that the poor girl was terrified. Her eyes completely betrayed her in that regard. The eyes of a prey animal as a wolf approaches to finish it off.

Approach this gently or this poor girl may snap, Simon thought to himself as he reached the two mages and three injured men in the center of the circle.

Even standing he was barely above the eye level of the girl as she kneeled in exhaustion. Simon was actually pretty impressed by her tenacity in maintaining whatever spell she was casting. “It’s Kira, correct?” He asked in a tone that conveyed suggested urgency while maintaining a softness to it.

“Yes...I’m Kira, and you are?”, she said in a clearly pained voice. “I don’t remember us having any halflings in our expedition group?”

While mildly annoyed, Simon expected that mentioning he was a human at this point would invite far too many questions. “My name is Simon, do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your magic? Or should I ask her?” Simon said while nodding in the direction of the healing mage.

“Questions are fine, just make it quick, I need to focus and I’m very nearly out of mana.” The young girl said curtly.

Good, at least she appreciates the gravity of her situation. “Alright, then first question, is what you’re using to deflect the arrows a spell? Or are you manipulating the wind freely?”

At this point Kira was more than confused about who this man was and why he was asking such specific questions, but considering that she’d seen Tilin send him this way she decided to play along for the time being. “It’s a spell called wind barrier. However it’s normal cast radius is just enough to protect me or one other person within three meters of my location. I’m pushing it out further by compressing more mana into the spell.”

Stopping to give Simon a moment since he appeared to be thinking, she continued, “As for wind manipulation, that’s definitely possible, but it’s far less mana efficient than simply casting wind barrier.”

Oho! I feel like I’ve just learned some pretty important things here...wait not important right now! Simon smirked and then shook his head.

+1 Int

Ignoring his status up, Simon responded, “Ok one more question before we put this plan of mine into motion. Is it possible for you to take mana from me? Or for me to give it to you? Either one would work.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Cocking her head to the side slightly, “Yes...it’s possible. However mana channeling isn’t done at a one to one ratio unless the skill is leveled up. So you would only be giving me one mana for every five you spend. That’s if we can even walk you through it. Not to mention that you’re only level one and don’t have a class, so your mana pool is bound to be pretty pathetic.”

At this Simon cut her off, “I have 340 mana, so don’t worry about that.” Smiling at the shocked looked on the young woman’s face, he also said, “Seems like they’ve finally run out of arrows, so without making it too noticeable go ahead and turn off wind barrier.”

Kira hadn’t even seen Simon look around and was still recovering from the shock that he had more mana than she did, but she did see that the arrows had apparently stopped. Stopping her channeling, she kept her staff raised as a ruse. After all, wind barrier is an invisible skill, so unless they tried shooting again the gnolls might never notice it had disappeared.

It hadn’t gone over Simon’s head that someone how she knew his class and level, but he decided to shelf that information for later. He did see her face subtly relax though, indicating that she had stopped channeling. “Ok so how do I go about giving you some of my mana. I can afford to give you all sixty eight since i can’t use any of it myself.”

Despite the dozens of questions she had for the strange man, Kira had already committed to following his lead until they were at least safe. “Mana flows like a river through our bodies. It also accumulates in several places in our bodies that temper and slow it so it doesn’t rage out of control. Those nodes can be opened with practice to allow the flow of mana to be used in spells and skills. You just need to focus on your hands and imagine the mana pouring out in a small trickle. Imagine I am the cup you’re pouring into and put your hands on my forehead. Once you feel your mana flowing, just maintain your concentration.”

While it certainly seemed easy enough in Simon’s head, he knew that there was some reason that he couldn’t cast spells. He could only hope that he wouldn’t be affected by whatever that was while learning mana channeling.

Turning his mind inwards, he focused on his blood. He reached out for it and tried to feel it flowing through his body, all the while reminding himself that this world was different and he wasn’t going crazy. Just as he thought he might not be doing it right he began to notice it. A slight movement of something intangible inside his body. It was different than she had described it. He couldn’t feel anything like the natural pools she had explained to him, rather it felt as though he mana was turbulent. It flowed in a rough and untamed manner without stopping.

Shaking off his uneasiness, he pressed on. Focusing on his hands could still feel that the mana was reaching his hand and curling back into his arm at a very rapid rate. Kira had told him to imagine a small hole opening in the pool, allowing some of his mana to leak out, but without the pool he felt a hole would only lead to his mana spilling out in droves.

Expecting that his mana wouldn’t come out slowly, and not wanting to waste any, he pressed his right hand into her forward and focused creating a small rupture in the lining in his palm.

Active Skill gained - Pure Mana Channeling - Lvl N/A

Kira was caught off guard as Simon suddenly placed his hand on her forehead. After a few seconds of waiting expectantly and not feeling the telltale sign of his mana flowing into her reserves, she began to ask, “Are you sure you know what you’re do…?”. She stopped as a burst of mana entered through his hand and rushed to fill her empty mana pools. She had never felt anything quite like it before. Her mana was filling rapidly and unlike her other experiences with mana channeling, this didn’t feel diluted at all.

As Simon’s mana quickly depleted he pulled his hand back and mentally forced his mana to stop. As the hole closed he fell to a knee and tried to catch his breath. Sweat was dripping down his brow and he hadn’t even noticed that he’d been clenching his jaw. Staring at the ground he felt a large hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Kira giving him a worried look. This isn’t the time for anyone to feel sorry for me, we have to take advantage of the break that the gnolls are giving us.

“I’m fine, really. Was that enough to fill you up.?” This may have been what Simon said, but the look on his face clearly indicated that this was a lie.

Kira wasn’t an idiot, but she also didn’t want to press the issue. “I don’t know what you just did, but you somehow ignored the loss ratio. So yeah, I’ve got plenty of mana. What did you want me to do with it?”

Looking at her with a big grin, Simon grabbed a nearby stick and began drawing in the dirt. To pull of his plan, their timing would have to be impeccable.

After fully explaining the plan, Simon asked where exactly they had been trying to run. He needed to determine their destination if they hoped to break free from their pursuers after all.

“There is a small village called Fallos just a few hills to the south of here, we had hoped that we could get in view of the walls. The beasts aren’t brave enough to continue the chase that near to the village.” Kira had been skeptical of Simon up until he’d explained his escape plan. Not only had she never even imaged using her magic that way, she was pretty sure she’d never met another wind mage who had. This realization caused a mental shift in regards to her perception of the diminutive man.

“South it is, I’ll go inform Tilin. Begin the preparations for what we’d talked about. I’ll make sure the big guy has a couple of his front liners to carry the injured.” After saying his piece, Simon turned and trudged towards the large spear wielding soldier.

Tilin currently had his spear lowered and was sipping water from a small water pouch. Despite his apparent lax behavior, in reality he was still in a combat ready position. The Gnolls had backed off after they’d run out of arrows, supposedly content to wait out the humans’ small number of rations. They were still a very real threat though if they decided to once again press their attack.

Hearing the small man walk up behind him, Tilin lowered the water and wiped his mouth. “Are you ready? Faster than I expected, but not unwelcome.”

Simon had vastly underestimated this man. Despite his lack of strategic planning, it was clear that he had a good head on his shoulders. He was in control of this situation to the best of his ability, it’s just that his skillset didn’t include the ability to think outside the box. After his mental reshaping of Tilin’s capabilities, Simon responded, “Yes we are. When I give the signal we will all move to the south. We will need for three of the healthier amongst you to assist the injured, but aside from that just keep as many of your men on rear guard as you can afford to spare.”

Tilin looked over his shoulder, examining Simon. Despite his small stature, the young man oozed authority and discipline. He did not find it difficult to admire him, and reflexively saluted, “Yes Sir!”

Passive Skill gained - Leadership - Lvl 1

Grants a 3% increase to all stats for those under the influence of the skill user.

Simon had to manually close his jaw after Tilin’s ludicrous display, and it had gained him a skill nonetheless. A rather powerful skill at that. Snap out of it old man, finish what you started.

Simon turned and jogged back to Kira and the nameless healer. Upon reaching them, Kira nodded in his direction indicating her readiness as her staff let off a subtle glow. Tilin looked back and saw Tilin give him a slight nod as well. “Do it!”, he said to Kira.

Kira released the spell she’d been holding as a forceful gale shot out in a straight line towards the southernmost part of their formation. It extended outwards towards the set of hills closest to them and through the gap that Tilin had created for them. After reaching out fifty meters or so, the gale suddenly split in two and redirected it’s force towards the east and west. It violently knocked away any gnolls in it’s path creating an avenue wide enough for a half dozen people to fit through. Finally the two forces stopped, creating two seperate wind walls that continued to push outwards.

Simon looked at Kira’s handiwork with admiration, and at the top of his lungs he yelled…”Run!”