When Dave awoke again, he found himself in a dark room. The only light came from what looked like a small slit in a wall. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed it was in fact a small slit in a door, the light barely enough to illuminate the rough outline of said door and give him a sense of the space around him.

It looked like it was some sort of cave, the walls were definitely not man made. All in all the room was probably less than 10 feet times 10 feest. As Dave went over to touch one of the walls he stopped. It felt like wood. Rough bark, as if he was touching a tree. Where was he?

That’s when it all came back to him again.The bus. The ambush. And the squirrels attacking their group.

It seemed like they didn’t kill him and his friends but rather moved them to their nest and imprisoned them. But why would they do something like that? Those clearly weren’t the normal squirrels from Earth before anymore.

Then he remembered the black out and the accompanying vision. The reason they were even captured in the first place was that they all fell unconscious again after receiving the second vision. Who were these Council people? Somehow Dave didn’t trust them, although he trusted Reginald. He saw some genuine worry and honesty in his words and he seemed to have a problem with the Council as well.

Reginald clearly went against the rules to give him some extra tips. And he did something to Dave towards the end, something Dave wasn’t supposed to tell others. The memory of that weird power rushing into Dave made him shiver.

“Hopefully he doesn’t get into trouble for helping me.” Dave muttered to himself. After another second of thought he added, “Hopefully I won’t get in trouble for what he did to me.”

Another question surfaced in Dave’s mind. The Council had clearly told him he would get skills like the people in the visions. He remembered the man with the hood and his inhuman archery skills. The visions about the other displays of Mana filled his mind as well and Dave grinned.

How could he access his skills? What would they be? Curiosity rose up in Dave. He was aware how ridiculous it was, he was imprisoned in a small cell but his most pressing thought was what his superpowers would look like. He chuckled but couldn’t quieten his curiosity.

Dave sat down against the wall and calmed his breath. Looking inwards a window suddenly popped up in front of him. It looked like the notification window from a video game. A soft blue hue illuminated the box and Dave read through the multiple messages,

*Congratulations you’ve become Mana attuned*

*Congratulations you’ve reached Level 1*

*Congratulations you received access to the Domain of Soul Weapon*

*One new Skill in Domain of Soul Weapon available*

*You’ve received Gift of the Prodigy from Reginald ???*

*Congratulations you received access to the Domain of the Arcane”

*One new Skill in Domain of Arcane available*

Dave read those messages and was confused cause it wasn’t helping him in any way. Then he focused on the latest message and something new appeared in front of him. It looked like the night sky with a bright blue background. Just one star was lit up though. Somehow Dave knew instinctively that what he was looking at was the so-called Domain of Arcane.

A little menu popped up, shoving the star constellations into the background.

*Domain of Arcane, Path of Lightning*.

*Unlocked Skills 1.*

Path of Lightning sounded intriguing to Dave, but he wanted to know more. Focusing on the Skill he apparently had unlocked, the one lit up star in the background began brightening and a new window appeared in front of Dave.

Spark

Stolen novel; please report.

Rarity: Common

Level: 1

Effect: Create electrical charge in your palm. You can release and direct it at targets. The charge deals minor damage. Damage and controllability lessen the further said target is away.

Dave read the whole skill description twice before he really dared to believe his eyes. Not wanting to immediately geek out he decided to try it. Somehow after just reading the text he had gotten an innate feeling of how it would work.

He held his hand out and concentrated on his the skill. Dave felt energies surging through him and concentrating in his palm. Electricity build up in his hand and small sparks started skipping over his palm. With a mental command he willed these sparks to shoot out at the wall in front of him and a streak of electricity appeared connecting his hand to the wall crackling in the air.

For a blink second his room was flooded in bright light but it was over as quick as it came. The smell of scorched wood filled the air.

Dave had to blink a few times to clear his vision, not having been prepared for the bright light. He felt a slight tingle in his palm, nothing uncomfortable though, more like an absence of the power he just wielded. A big grin spread across his mouth and he let out a silent cheer.

He had really just shot lightning out of his hand. Dave couldn’t believe it and wanted to experiment further but his old gaming habits got the best of him and he decided to first check out his other skill. He felt like a child on christmas eve.

This time a sky with a crimson red background appeared in front of him also only lit up by a single star. The dark red color was a few shades darker as blood but he still got the feeling of death from it. No doubt that was the Domain of Melee. Trying to keep his excitement in check Dave focused on the star and a new skill window appeared in front of his eyes.

*Congratulations you’ve received the Skill “Soul Weapon”, your Starter Soul Weapon will be “Spear”*

Soul Weapon (Spear)

Rarity: Common

Level: 1

Effect: Conjure a weapon. The weapon is bound to your soul. You can desummon the weapon and conjure it again at will any time after the cooldown is over. Soul Weapons are slightly more durable than usual weapons. Number of weapons you can bind as Soul Weapons will increase with advancement of the Skill.

Not even waiting this time Dave immediately followed his instincts for how to use the skill. He held out his hand a little and again focused the energy through his skill. This time there was no feeling of energy running into his palm. Almost instantly a shaft appeared in his hand. It was almost as tall as Dave. The weapon weighed heavy in his hands and felt like wood. He ran his fingers along its tip and immediately cut himself a little. The spear tip was very sharp indeed.

Overall the weapon felt very sturdy and Dave guessed it was cool to conjure up his own spear whenever he wanted, but he couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. Especially because Dave had no idea how to use a spear. Why was it even a Spear?

He never had done weapon training or even martial arts of any kind before. He wasn’t even the type of kid that was out in the woods playing with sticks much. There was however one memory that came to mind now that he felt the spear in his hand.

Once in highschool he was sent to the janitor's room to get a bucket and a mop cause he had spilled his bottle of coke before class.

The problem was that the door to the janitor's office was very old and always stood open a little bit because its lock wasn’t working anymore. Long story short, Dave accidentally locked himself into the janitor's room. Not having any way to contact somebody, since he left his phone in his bag, he had to just wait until someone came looking for him. After a few minutes of boredom he remembered a video about a star wars kid that was playing with a broom like it was the Darth Maul lightsaber. Yeah that was the hot shit during his time. Not having anything better to do Dave grabbed a broom and kind of started swirling it around as well.

He didn’t know how long he was at it, but what started off as him playing with a broom awkwardly ended up with him being really into it and even making sounds to go along with his choreography. He was spinning, thrusting, jumping to the point that he even started to sweat.

He was so into it, that he didn’t even hear anybody enter until he did a 180 turn in one of his moves to imitate a spinning attack and found himself face to face with Tony Dabroskis phone. Tony was to this day one of the biggest assholes Dave ever knew and although he never directly bullied Dave, he made his life a bit harder than it needed to be back in high school. Dave still remembered the shit eating grin Tony wore at that moment.

Things went as you would think. Tony shared the video with most of the school and everybody was making fun of Dave for the better part of a month. Some people even longer. Dave was never a popular guy in school, he was made fun of a lot here and there, but the broom incident led into the pinnacle of mockery. Sure looking back it was just a small thing but back in the day that month was living hell for Dave and the repercussions carried on throughout his high school career.

Now standing in this dark room Dave still hated how he felt back then. He hated the feeling of being made fun of, the helplessness, the anxiety when passing a bigger group of students and just how small and weak he felt after a while.

Back then Max had beat up Tony for sharing the video and making fun of Dave. He had always stood up for Dave and single handedly made his life back then more bearable. It wasn’t like Max was his only friend back in high school but Max was the only one standing up for him to others. Not just for him but for all his friends. Max was a really good guy.

A smile spread across Dave's face thinking back to it, he noticed his hand started hurting and he just now realized how tight he was gripping the spear. Relaxing his grip a little, he felt resolve setting in.

So Dave had no idea where the others were or what he was up against. But he knew he needed to get out. He just had to find a way to.

This was his time to save Max. He needed to find a way out of his cell, rescue the others and kick as many squirrel butts along the way as he needed.