After a few tense seconds a little monkey walked onto the clearing. It noticed a bunch of people staring at it and quickly scuttered away again.

They all laughed at their overreaction. But they also realized their foolishness in staying this close to the Nodefox outpost longer than they needed to. It was Bixby who first spoke up,

“I know you have more questions and I would love to tell you more. But right now we should go, we’re still close enough to be found.”

So off they went. Unsure as to which direction to go, they decided to just move away from the Nodefox tree for now.

It was getting hot in the forest. Insects buzzed around them filling the evergreen landscape with sound. Dave’s leg hurt as they walked, not unbearably but enough to force him to use his spear as a crutch.

The feeling of being in the reaches of dangers they all got after being startled by a simple monkey lasted only for a few minutes. Then they started asking Bixby questions and talking about their powers again.

As Dave found out Sarah got a Skill on the path of the Arcane. A rare one Bixby told them. She was able to create little Magic Projectiles from Mana. As her demonstration showed, these purple glowing darts scorched the bark of trees badly.

Mira’s skill was less interesting. Although arguably more useful. She was able to rapidly grow a small plant from a fruit or seed. The limitations of that weren’t clear to them yet, but she was able to grow a tiny banana tree from a normal banana, yielding around half a dozen bananas.

They hadn’t had much time to use her ability though, because Mira needed to sit and concentrate for around half an hour. Luckily she had been smart and had apparently grown a few the night before.

So their breakfast on the road consisted mostly of bananas.

Ryland’s and Sam’s skills were pretty straight forward. Dave was curious to find out how strong Ryland was now. He was already jacked before, probably benching twice Dave’s weight, if his Skill worked like a multiplier, that could get ridiculous pretty quick.

Max still hadn’t shared his skill though, which surprised Dave a little. So after a bit of probing around he got uncomfortable and started talking.

“Well I don’t really know.” Max said “It’s actually a bit of a downer, since I was hoping for a real cool skill like you guys got, but mine just seems boring.”

“What does it do?” Dave asked “I swear if you underplay this thing and then tell us you can throw around fireballs D&D style I will kick your balls.” Smiling Max answered.

“I don’t understand what it means. It says something like about harnessing the Mana Nodes or something… It has a really weird name too” he couldn’t get further as Bixby immediately interrupted him.

“What does it say exactly? Word for word?” his voice shook in excitement and stopped. So they all stopped too, turning towards him as he walked over to Max and almost grabbed his collar.

Max was shocked at the sudden outburst from the Nodefox. His look went soft for a second as if he was looking at something in front of him nobody could see. His screen probably.

“Well it says: “You’re able to see and use the inner Mana flow of the world. You can harness Mana Nodes and use them.” I don’t know what that means though. I can’t see anything node like and I doubt Mana Node means fireball.”

Bixby's eyes grew even wider. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally got out words.“What is the name? What is the Domain called Max?”

“Uhm the Domain is called… NodeMaster. And the name of the Skill is Novice?”

“No. No, that can’t be.” Bixby had to take a few deep breaths before he continued.

“I don’t know where to start,” he said, “since you don’t yet know the fundamentals of the Greater Whole, let me try to explain the basics. By now you are familiar with Mana, Mana is running through the whole universe. At some points there are deeper flows of Mana, where Mana collects itself. These points are called Mana Nodes and they are the only things one can use to directly interact with the inherent Mana in the world. Other than Skills. Through such a Mana Node you can create and shape the world around you to some extent. They are like the control units for reality. Understood so far?”

“Uhh I guess,” Max said.

“Good. What your Skill allows you to do, is to create a Node Town. You don’t know what a Node Town is yet, so just know that there’s a big difference between a simple settlement and a proper Node Town. A Node allows you to use defensive magic structures to protect your people. A Node Town will allow people to live a much better and more peaceful life.”

They all listened attentively but it all sounded rather vague to Dave, apparently Max had the same idea because he spoke up immediately after Bixby finished his sentence.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Defensive structures to protect the town? So it’s like Clash of Clans?” Max joked.

“Really? You’re bringing up Clash of Clans as an example?” Dave felt almost betrayed. “All those hours we spent playing Civ 5 and other great strategy games and you come up with this clunky mobile game as a reference? I expected more from you Max.”

“Ha sorry you’re right. It was just the first that came to mind somehow,” he snorted.

“First that came to mind, my ass,” Dave mumbled.

The others laughed, but Bixby was too thrown off to follow the conversation “Sorry I don’t know what that is? Are you talking about clan warfare?”

“No no it’s a game. Or it was a game. Where you could build a town and you would buy walls and defensive weapons and such to protect your town from attacks. As you can see Dave was never a fan of it,” Max tried lifting his confusion, then laughing and looking at Dave he continued “Though I remember a certain someone had put quite a bit of money into it.”

“I was young and naive, okay? Upgrading all of those shitty expensive walls just killed all of the joy out of me...”

Max erupted laughing at seeing Dave’s sullen expression. Before the conversation could be derailed further from him, Bixby answered, “Ahh I see, so yes there might be similarities between that and a Node Town. There are many many functions of a Node, but one of the most important ones is defense. A Node gives you access to defensive magic to protect your town, different production and utility magic as well, it’s one of the cornerstones of civilization in the Greater Whole. The Skill to interact with Nodes isn’t very common. For humans it’s usually less than one in ten thousand, so it’s a rare Skill indeed. And by being one of the few humans with a Skill like that, you will be very important not just for your town, but for the whole of humanity eventually.”

It gave Dave pause to hear that. But it also made sense in his mind. Max was one of the best human beings he ever met and it seemed right to him that Max would get such a rare Skill. Weirdly he didn’t even feel jealous, more a bit anxious for Max. He deserved to get such a special gift. But he also knew how Max hated politicians. Not just that but Max was also always weary of being in charge. Responsibility always came so natural to him, yet he was afraid to carry it. It would be hard for him.

Dave looked over at his friend, looking lost in thought, overwhelmed by the whole situation and out of place in this strange scenery. It was up to Max to decide if he wanted to do what this Domain told him. But if he decided to follow it, Dave knew he would be by his side to help him.

Bixby’s words about Max Skill rarity gave all of them a bit to think about. If less than one in ten thousand would have a Node Skill like that, that would mean there would still be thousands of people being able to create Node Towns. Which didn’t make it quite that special, yet it lead to another question. How many humans were even still alive? If the whole world was being run over by monsters like the Nodefoxes and that tiger, Dave held no illusions about eventual casualties. It made him worried about his family. He could see similar thoughts among the group.

They kept walking quietly for a few minutes before Bixby cut into the silence.

“There’s another thing I haven’t told you.” his voice was low and his head held down, still he had everyone's attention now. “We probably won’t find the town you’re looking for. I can’t even guarantee that we find people soon. Yes, the big river you’ve talked about should be easy to find, but I don’t know if it’s still here…

This vision you had, it told you about how parts of the world will change right?. Well they underplayed that a little. The whole world shifted when the Mana Planes suddenly overlapped again. Your whole geography of this planet will be different now. Your land mixed with our land interwoven and reshuffled.”

He paused for a second to let that sink in before he continued.

“We should find some civilization sooner or later, but I can’t say if it’s one of the Manaborn races or yours, and if it’s yours it won’t be the place you left. It could be pretty much any place around your world. It’s even possible that this jungle will continue for weeks.” That put a damper on the overall mood. “I should’ve told you about the fruitlessness of your search before, but we needed to get clear of the Clan Tree and I was afraid you would give up immediately. I’m sorry for not having been honest and open from the beginning with you.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that before we walked a whole day through this godforsaken jungle?” Mira raised her voice. There was an edge to her tone that spoke to her tiredness. She sounded hysteric, close to a mental breakdown. “Who do you think you are?? We could’ve.. we could’ve..”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything.” Max stepped in and said. “He’s right we needed to move and we couldn’t have done anything different.”

“But if we can’t reach Krampipong..” Mira started, she had calmed a little.

“Then there’s no way for us to get home.” Max finished the sentence for her. “If the whole world is shuffled then there would be no way to find our homes anyways. And I seriously doubt airports are still working…”

“So we’re lost.” Sam whispered.

They all went quiet after that. Tears were rolling down Mira’s face and Sarah went over to comfort her. Sam just stared at the floor. Max and Dave shared a look.

“Well it’s not all lost,” Bixby’s voice cut in, “At first I thought so too, but with Max ability to control Mana Nodes and with the capabilities you’ve shown in terms of surviving, I’m confident we will find either a Node or a town of your folk sooner or later. And with Max Skill we can create a safe haven for you and your kind.”

Dave could see Max turning these things over in his head. Bixby and the group were waiting for Max to respond and say something, but Dave knew his friend. The prospect of being responsible for others always scared him, even though he was the most reliable person Dave knew. He saw how uncomfortable Max was, so Dave jumped in.

“Listen Max, I know you asked for none of this, but we have to focus on what’s up to us to control right?” he looked over at Max for confirmation. As did the others. There was a few seconds of silence before Max answered.

“Yeah you’re right. We don’t know where our families are and if the world out there is safe. But all of that doesn’t matter if we can’t even survive. Let’s focus on safety for now, cause we can’t stay in this jungle.”

They all nodded at that. The news they had gotten didn’t change anything. Not even for Max. They now knew that they were farther from being home than they expected. And that was saying something, considering they were on the other side of the world to begin with.

And they knew that Max was their best shot for finding or creating a place where they could stay in relative safety, not having to worry about monster attacks. Hopefully.

So they kept walking.