That night when we finally stopped at the mouth of a rocky valley, I collapsed in exhaustion. I was so tired. I hadn’t had to run like that in my entire life. Their pace was breakneck, and they slowed down for no reason. Not even to drink water. Whenever they needed it, they drank as they ran. And they relied on Phos to provide the water since nobody had packs or any food on them or any food on them other than me. However, even I didn’t bring any water.

Yagami kicked my foot as I heaved breaths of air and said, “Hey, you alive, kid?”

I nodded and tried to stand, only to fall back to the ground and rollover. I raised a finger to have him give me a minute.

Yagami nodded and said, “Fine. Once you’ve caught your breath, get a fire going and make us some dinner.”

I looked up at him and shrugged.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

I gulped in another breath of air and pushed myself up. Finding a soft patch of dirt with no rocks, I wrote, “I don’t know how to make a fire or cook. I do have smoked meats and bread, though.”

Yagami sighed, “Fuun, teach the kid how to make a fire. Phos, teach her how to cook. And kid, you’re the first watch.”

“Captain,” Phos moaned, “You know I don’t know how to cook either, right?”

Yagami hesitated for a moment and said, “New plan. Fuun, teach the kid how to make a fire and cook. And kid, you’re still on the first watch.”

“I’m not a kid! I have a name!” I wrote angrily in the dirt. Yagami ignored it and sat down on a rock a few steps away.

Fuun approached me and said, “Let’s get some firewood and find something to eat.” I nodded and took off my pack before standing and following Fuun. We walked a dozen meters away, where some small dry trees grew with spikey leaves. He cut a couple down with a dagger he drew from his belt and cut off the branches. Once he did that, he pointed to the branches, “Carry those. I’ll carry the logs.”

I pushed the branches into a pile and rolled my right wrist in a circular motion using my using air mana to levitate the large pile with a small tornado. Fuun looked surprised by my actions but didn’t question them. We brought them back to where we set up camp and dropped off the payload.

Turning to me, Fuun asked, “Do you know where to find animals in this environment?”

I blinked at the question and shrugged while shaking my head. I didn’t even know what environment we were in.

Sighing, Fuun said, “Look under rocks or in the air. Not enough grass here to feed herbivores or anywhere for them to hide. So, we look under rocks for rodents or go high and get birds. I’ll show you what I mean.”

He walked off toward the valley, and I quickly followed him. We climbed high up the rocks to the point I couldn’t see the camp anymore. Then we climbed higher. Fuun stopped eventually and pointed to a pile of boulders, “See those over there?”

I nodded.

“That is a good place for birds to nest. Or for some rodents to hide under. Let’s go over there and see.” Before he took a step toward the rocks, I made a sharp whistle and saw the area clearly. The boulders had no eggs or birds on or near them, and no holes were under them either.

I whistled again as I looked over a different area and found three fat rodents in a hole five meters up. I pointed up the cliff and began walking to the hole. Fuun looked perplexed briefly before asking, “Where are you going?”

I turned to him, signed, “Food,” and pointed up the hill again.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

I rolled my eyes and continued walking up the cliff. Fuun began to protest again but decided against it and began following me. I stopped at the entrance of the hole and pointed at it.

Fuun frowned and looked around the hole, touching some of the rocks and smelling his fingers. He nodded, “There just might be something in there. See these rocks here and here. The white stains are from years of rodents peeing on them and marking their territory. And judging from the smell and warmth, some just went in this hole recently.”

I pointed to all the rocks around the hole and signed, “Look, same.”

Fuun sighed, “I still don’t know what you’re saying. Anyways I’ll show you how to get these things out of there. Now—”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

I got annoyed by not being able to communicate, so I interrupted him by rolling my wrist again and pulling the rodents out of the hole with my air mana. The three rodents levitated and squealed in fear. Their long ears perked straight up, and their fur stood on end. I formed an air sphere around them and began to pull the air within the spheres out, slowly suffocating the rodents until they finally died.

Grabbing the rodent’s by their ears, I turned and began the slow descent down the cliff. Fuun just watched as I descended and gaped at me before shaking himself out of his reverie and following me. Once we were back at camp, he showed me how to gut and skin the Pikas, as they’re called, and skewered them on his arrows. He then buried the intestines and began cutting the wood.

Taking the logs, he split them into four equal sections before cutting them with air magic into four more sections. Stacking the wood into a pyramid shape, he took the branches and got one that was long and round. He took another one of the log sections and cut a small groove into it. He then began rolling the bottom of his round stick on the groove with his hands together and pushing down.

“Now, what I’m doing here is creating friction to make a spark,” he explained with some effort as he continued to rub the stick, “Once I get the spark, I can make the fire … it is important to use the driest wood possible … otherwise you’re wasting your time.”

I nodded along with his explanation and pondered how it all worked. I just need enough friction to make heat, to make fire. Sounds simple enough.

After a few minutes of effort, Fuun grunted and handed me the stick, “Here, take over, and you try.”

I took the stick and set it down. All I needed was enough heat to set the wood on fire. I can do that. I rolled my wrist again and made a small sphere of air above the log Fuun had been working on. I moved the air faster and faster as I compressed it. I soon felt the air around the sphere grow slightly warmer and redoubled my efforts. As the sphere grew hotter and hotter, I moved it closer and closer to the log Fuun had been working on. I smelled smoke coming from the log a few seconds later, and Fuun released an exclamation as he stepped away.

Then he quickly grabbed the smoking log and put it on the wood pyramid, and smoke soon filled the camp, and Fuun stuck the skewered rodents in the ground next to the fire, which I could now feel the warmth of as it grew. Fuun sat down and asked, “How did you do that?”

“Yeah, kid, that was impressive,” Yagami admitted from his rock with Phos sitting beside him.

“It looked like fire magic. Do you know how to use that?” Phos asked.

I shook my head and wrote in a soft patch of dirt that Fuun read aloud for everyone, “Lightning struck my home one day. I learned how the lighting was made the next day. And that’s what I did here.” Then I erased my writing and wrote, “First time doing it, though.”

“Well, at least we have food cooking now,” Yagami said as he sniffed the roasting Pikas.

Our food took half an hour to cook, and I could smell them burning by the time they were done. I had to split mine with Phos since there wasn’t enough for everyone to have one, and I nibbled on a piece of my smoked meat to supplement my hunger. Then everyone laid down to sleep a little. I was the first watch, with Phos being the second and Fuun the third. My job was to stay awake most of the night and ensure nothing attacked us. If something did happen, I would have to wake everyone up.

And I was bored. Oh so very board. Nothing was within my sphere of sight, and nothing was happening. I couldn’t do anything to entertain myself since I couldn’t wake anyone either. I sat beside Phos as I felt the fire warming my legs, and something changed. I could see a distance of six meters away in all directions, eight to nine if the proper noise was made. From my location, I could see a small tree at the farthest point of my vision. Or I was able to see a small tree. The tree was gone from my sight. The fire snapped, and I could see the tree again in my sphere for a brief second, but it quickly disappeared.

I scowled. What was going on? Why couldn’t I see anything past five and a half meters now? A few minutes later, my sphere shrank another half meter. A couple more minutes passed, and I lost another meter. Panic began to set in as I could now actively see my sphere shrinking around me. My breathing increased as I tried to calm myself, but I soon only saw one meter around me. As my vision slowly decreased, I hurriedly reached over and grabbed Phos’s leg, and shook her.

“Hmm, what?” Phos mumbled and reached over to write something in the dirt but couldn’t see where I could write anything. I couldn’t see. I shook her more and more as my panic grew, and tears filled my eyes as my slime clothes began to melt off my body.

“What do you want?” Phos asked again, and I could feel her slowly sit up.

Then she gasped as she must have saw me, and I felt the ground until I felt the soft patch of dirt I could write in and wrote, “I can’t see.”

Phos wrapped some cloth around my now naked body and asked, “What do you mean? You’re blind. What do you mean you can’t see?”

I hit the ground repeatedly in the spot where I wrote, “I can’t see. I can’t see.”

Phos didn’t say anything for a moment as tears welled up in my eyes, and then she snapped her fingers, “Do you use mana to see?”

I nod, wiping the tears from my face as more flowed down my cheeks. I didn’t want to be blind again. What was happening?

“And where you using mana to keep up with us as we ran?”

I nod again, the panic still filling my chest as I cry.

Phos snapped her fingers and said, “I bet you are experiencing mana depletion.”

I looked up at her voice, confused.

“I bet you’ve never experienced it, so you’re panicking now. Am I right?”

I nodded again and took a deep shakey breath.

Phos sighed with relief, “Well, let me explain a little. When you use your mana a lot, you eventually run out. Once you run out, you can’t use magic until you take some time to rest. Eat some food, drink some water, and sleep,” Phos stood and walked away, and I heard her grab something from my pack before returning and putting stale bread and some smoked meat in my hands. “Eat and get some rest. I’ll take the watch from here,” Phos said, and I heard her sit beside me. I nodded and began nibbling on the food. Once I finished eating, I curled up in a ball, wrapped the cloak around my naked form, and quickly fell asleep.

***