Johan spent about 35 minutes cooking the rabbits, checking to see if the juices ran clear to check if they were done. It was about 10 minutes before he finished cooking that he noticed the girls coming out of the woods towards him and Markus, who was sitting near him talking about some things related to the town they were heading to currently.

"You should really see how many smithies they have it's like a warriors wet dream! The majority of them are contracted to the country, though I don't know how well that is currently going based on how the state of the country is right now." Markus said.

"Sounds cool. Also, the girls are back. The rabbit isn't quite ready yet though." Johan said as he moved the rabbit for even cooking.

"Oh? Wonder what's going on for them to go off into the woods on their own in this area."

"Could be anything truth be told." Johan replied, "Though I wish they wouldn't wander off, since we know for a fact that bandits are out here. Not to mention possible monsters."

"My thoughts exactly. I trust Anne and Jen to be able to handle themselves, but Pat is... Well, she was never one to train in martial arts." Markus chuckled lightly as he seemed to remember something.

"Hey you guys. Anything interesting happen while we were gone?" Anne asked as she approached.

"Not particularly. I've just been cooking, and Markus was just telling me a few stories of his time as an adventurer." Johan replied.

"Ah... Well, the rabbits smell great. I'm glad it's you who is cooking, the rest of us kinda suck at it. Also what kind of stories are you telling Markus? Any cool battles?" Anne complimented Johan's cooking, before swiftly turning to ask Markus to retell a few stories for her to hear.

Johan snorted a small laugh at this behavior. It almost felt like when Johan, his father, and Anne all camped in one of the smaller parks back in Ambevelance. It was a nice peaceful moment.

-

It was a few hours after dinner, and Johan was currently focusing on his first cast for Wind Blade. After he felt everything click into place he kept that feeling in his thoughts as he reworked the spell form to ensure it was properly constructed.

It was good to do so, as it helped him identify what specific components in an array did, as well as allowed Johan to correct anything that he felt off about, be it a stray line, or even just an angle correction. These things wouldn't cause a failure, but it would make it less effective, efficient, and make it take longer to cast.

Johan focused on the cool breeze of the night as it traced along his arms and around the back of his neck, causing a slight gooseflesh to form. It had no form, but he would be changing that. Slowly he felt the direction of the breeze change as he funneled wind mana into the array. It was an agonizingly slow procedure, but after a long period of time, he finally had enough mana to cast it. Letting it go, he heard a sound that reminded him of an airsoft gun, or a paintball gun. a slight *wop* and then the sound of bark bursting off a nearby tree.

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Seeing it in action, Johan realized that this was the same thing his father did all that time ago. He had thought that his father might have been a mage as he got further along in his studies of it, but now he felt sure of it.

The tree had a line carved into it, about 3 inches in width and stretching the width of the tree in length. It went only a half an inch into the tree, but Johan knew that a humans flesh would be much less durable than the tree was. He considered this to be a success. Now he would start to modify it to how he was wanting it before.

Johan came out of the state that he was in and found, after checking his watch, that it had been around an hour. It was far less than it had taken for Conjure Water, which Johan had expected as he was now a full stage stronger, and since wind wasn't something that one conjured, but rather called, almost manipulated, but according to his book, they weren't the same.

Johan decided to cast the spell a few more times to get a better hang of it. They weren't going to be traveling too far tomorrow anyways, they would go up another 500 or so feet vertically, but would only be traveling around a mile horizontally. That was, if Adv was still up to date on the current map.

Johan cast Wind Blade a total of ten times, being exhausted by the end of it. He wasn't out of mana, but he just couldn't muster up the mental strength to hold another spell like Wind Blade. He felt that he could still use Conjure Water, but he wasn't sure about why this was. This was a thing he would need to research a bit before he carried on with his idea to augment Wind Blade.

Once Johan found himself done, another 2 hours had gone by, he made a few major improvements, yes, but not enough for combative use. Johan was still needing to work on familiarizing himself with using magic while in melee combat, but as it was hard to use magic on his companions, and anyone else he were to get into combat with would be trying to kill him, it was a slow going training.

Johan stretched his body, feeling several cracks and pops as he shifted around for the first time in around 3 hours. He then saw Pat who was looking at him in shock.

"What?" Johan asked.

"Are you alright? I could hear all of that from over here." Pat looked him up and down.

"Oh, yeah. I'm good, my body just needed to move a bit after so long. I also have an imbued ring that helps with small sore spots anyways, so even if I do hurt something by popping it it should heal up pretty quickly." Johan shuffled over to his blanket as he talked.

"That sounds convenient. Think you could make me one?" Pat asked.

"I mean... Probably. I don't have another ring though. If you make one, it'd be best to make it out of wood. It conducts water and light pretty well, and is easily available. Though... I do wonder what using different types of wood might do."

"Ah, so it's just a wooden ring? I think I could probably make one if I work on it. It'll give me more to do anyways. Hehe." Pat laughed a bit but Johan knew she had been feeling useless as of late. She was great with working on mechanical things, and could even figure out basic electrical circuits, but none of these skills really translated well into the journey that everyone now found themselves on.

"Well, if you get it done, I'd like to also ask if you can make one for everyone. I can imbue them anytime they need recharged, and if it takes care of minor cuts and bruises it'll help me save on mana in the long run."

"Oh! Alright. I'll do my best." Pat replied, "And... Thanks."

"Of course. I'm going to sleep now, Good night, Pat." Johan let out a yawn.

"Same to you."