The sound of the System dinging in my ear woke me the next morning. Groaning in complaint, I rolled over and buried deeper in my warm covers.

After getting home last night, I unpacked box after box until two in the morning. Even though Dad went to bed early because he had work in the morning, and Micah ‘mysteriously disappeared’ at midnight, I kept going. If yesterday was any indication, my schedule was going to be very chaotic for now on. I just wanted to unpack as fast as possible to get it over with. Since Dad hated me being a Hunter this much, I didn’t want to give him anything else to hang over my head. Even if it screwed me over for a couple days.

Luckily Regen also worked on a sore waist from bending down a million times to retrieve yet another coffee mug out of a box. Seriously, why did we have so many? Dad and I were the only ones who use them.

Ding! The sound rang again, as obnoxious as a little brother.

Heaving a sigh, I peeked open an eye.

The teal System screen floated in front of me. [Daily Task: Kill two monsters.]

Well, at least it was nice enough to give me enough wiggle room to choose my own adventure.

I wasn’t ready to get up yet, but I pushed the covers off and sat up. I really did need to get going if I didn’t want the System’s daily task to conflict with family stuff. Dad was holding a meet and greet tonight for all the shop’s associates and, for obvious reasons, I needed to go.

But first thing first, I needed to check my armor and weapons. Yesterday was rough, and as shameful as it was, I never had the chance to clean my gear up. At least they were perfectly preserved in my Items Bag, so I didn’t have to worry about the leather deteriorating overnight.

I got the armor cleaning kit out of my closet, laid a blanket in the middle of the room, and took my armor out of my Items Bag … and stared.

It was in perfect condition. There wasn’t a single blot of gunk or blood. Every tiny scratch and scrape was gone, even the old ones that I’d picked up over the years. The brown leather armor looked completely new.

“What the…?” I muttered and picked up the breastplate, moving it around in the sunlight to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.

Ding! A System message popped up. [All equipped items are restored every night. This also includes arrows returned to the Items Bag.]

“No way?” I took out my bow.

The unknown yesterday knocked it out of my hand with enough force that it snapped the string. I knew how to restring it, but it was a pain sometimes. However, the familiar bow on the blanket was just like my armor – in perfect condition, string and all.

“Cool,” I whispered. And very time efficient.

I put my gear away then trekked barefoot down to the kitchen.

The kitchen was fully functional thanks to my hard work in the wee hours of the night. Micah sat at the square island, munching on toast while he poured over a book, leaning so close his nose almost touched the paper.

I tapped his spine. “Don’t slouched.”

He swallowed his bite and looked at me just long enough to roll his eyes. He went back to reading, but his posture was better – kinda.

I grabbed some cereal and slid onto the stool next to him. “What are you reading?”

Micah wasn’t really a reader – that was more my hobby, not his. Micah was the kind of kid that was always hanging out with a group of friends, laughing and being loud. He certainly wasn’t the type to hide in a quiet house with his nose pressed to a fat book.

“Uncle Maveric gave me this to study. It’s his notes about smelting magic items together and stuff. It’s so cool. I mean, look at this.” Micah flipped the book and pushed it across the island to me. He pointed to a brightly colored picture. It showed a pretty plant with two long stalks that were green at the base and bled into pink at the tips of the long leaves. The flower was a collection of four semi-transparent purplish-pink petals that looked like butterfly wings.

“This is called fae lashes,” Micah gushed on without taking his fixated gaze off the page. “I think it should be called ‘fae wings,’ ‘cause you know, it looks like wings. But I think they called it so that it wasn’t mixed up with pixie wings, since they’re used more. Anyway,” he took a deep breath before he rambled on again.

I chewed my cereal and let him go without interrupting.

“Fae lashes are one of the few plants that don’t just burn up in a forge fire. They actually turn the flames lavender – that’s a purple color, right? Even though the plant is burned away, the residual magic is still there. How cool is that? And when silver and pyrefly wings are smelted together in that purple fire, it creates a moldable E ranked metal that gives off light magical resistance. The process is practically idiot proof. Even a new metalsmith can do it.” Micah finally took a breath and pulled the book back under his chin. “And Uncle is the one that figured it out. He knows … so much.” He finished in awe, his voice slowly fading out as his attention was drawn back to the book.

One thing that Uncle Maveric specialized in was embedding magic into his works, which is why his stuff was so sought after. Tens of thousands flocked to buy his products and hundreds begged to be taught by him. A typical armorer could naturally fuse magic into their projects, simply because of the material they were using, but most of the magic would be lost in the process. If the armorer was bad enough, they might even lose all the magic. Uncle’s projects usually retained at least seventy percent of the magic – almost double compared to other armorers.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“He really does,” I muttered and took a bite of cereal. But even he didn’t know everything, I thought as I slowly chewed my sweetened corn flakes.

Uncle still hadn’t figured out what that unknown was by the time he shooed me out the door. He paid me for the unknown monster and the other drop items I got from the horned monkeys, but I had to admit, I was a little disappointed. I didn’t get short changed – if anything, I think he overpaid me. Typical Uncle.

No, it wasn’t about the money. It had everything to do with me not feeling the sense of satisfaction that I was expecting. I thought I’d be like the other Hunters, so proud of my kills, but that unknown monster overshadowed everything. Instead of finding out what it was like I wanted, I got a pat on the head and sent to bed like a child. So … aggravating.

Terre Noble got to stay, but I couldn’t.

Uncle supported me as a Hunter, but did that only apply to within the padded shell that he was making for me?

I stewed over the thought as I finished eating. Micah stayed glued on to his book and didn’t play me another lick of attention. I snorted and took his plate to the sink with me – I doubted he even noticed.

The weather was gorgeous outside. The sun was warm, the breeze smelled like pine trees, and the tall green grass swayed lazily. I walked through the tall tree along the backyard.

Shiva waited for me on the other side of the wooden fence, her navy blue eyes bright with adoration.

“Hey girl,” I cooed and fed her an ice cube from my Items Bag.

She happily munched on it while I jumped the fence and hugged her slender neck.

“Let’s see what’s going on with me, huh?” I patted her shoulder then walked into the middle of the field. Trees lined the entire lot, not because they were planted that way, but because no one had cut down the overgrowth. The exception was a small path cleared just large enough for a truck to drive through. And as far as I knew, the neighboring houses were abandoned. Basically, it meant that I could practice in peace.

First things first, I set a timer for one hour. I couldn’t practice forever, I still had to get my daily task done before going to the work meet and greet.

I lifted my hand up and cast Bubble. My MP bar instantly shrank by ten. Water magic converged and grew in my palm, forming a softball sized orb that floated three centimeters above my skin. Different shades of blue, slightly glowing with magic, swirled together to make the outside shell, leaving a magic filled hollow middle.

Now that I wasn’t in a life or death situation, completely exhausted, or by curious eyes, I finally had time to examine this new ability. I frowned, twisting my hand this way and that. It was like the water sphere was velcroed to my palm. Even when I held my hand horizontal, fingers taunt, the Bubble didn’t budge from its place.

Shiva’s cheek brushed against mine as she leaned over my shoulder to sniff curiously at the Bubble.

I jumped and held the Bubble away from her. What if it hurt her? “Shi – ahk!” I gasped when the top of my head knocked painfully against her piercingly cold antlers. Humming, I rubbed at the ache on my head for a second then patted her nose. “Be a good girl and back up.”

She must have understood something that I said because she took a couple steps back and watched me with wide eyes.

I came here because I didn’t want an audience while I messed with my newfound magic. I got one anyway. Okay, I didn’t think Shiva would judge me if I accidentally exploded the Bubble in my face – she really wouldn’t, right? – but the fact that she was staring didn’t change. It’s not like I could be unreasonable enough to make her turn around. I doubt she’d understand that command, anyway.

I concentrated on the water magic. What could I do with this? What were its limitations?

Curious, I concentrated on it. Slowly, the bubble grew centimeter by centimeter. The larger it grew, the more my MP ticked down one point at a time.

“So I can make it bigger. And the MP cost…” I muttered to myself. “Does that mean that it causes more damage, too?” It didn’t make sense to cost more MP but still do the same amount of damage.

Right now the magic bubble was attached to my right hand, but yesterday it was on my left. Could I…? I turned my hand, willing the Bubble to move, and tossed it to my other hand like a ball.

“Okay, that worked,” I muttered, and tossed the Bubble back and forth, getting used to the feeling of controlling it with my mind. Not gonna lie, I thought it would be harder than this to control the magic. But it felt so … natural. As easy as breathing. Which was weird, because I was a melee Hunter. And I wasn’t going to complain.

I guess tossing around a magic ball wasn’t exciting enough for Shiva. She grunted then laid down, tucking her legs close to her body like a prude. She bit a few straws of tall grass and munched on them as she watched.

I smiled at her then focused on the ball again. “What else could I do with this?” If I could manipulate it with my mind, did I really need to use my hands?

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, the bubble lifted into the air. It rotated around me like a mini blue moon, but never moved more than two feet from my body. Another limitation. Okay, I can work with that. I tried to create another Bubble, but I got a System notice instead.

[Only one Bubble at a time is possible with the host’s current level.]

“Which means that when I get stronger, I can cast multiple Bubbles at the same time,” I pondered, reading between the lines. So, being able to cast water magic wasn’t a fluke ability. Was the System trying to turn me into a water mage? Had to admit, it sounded cooler than being an E ranked melee Hunter.

I reached out and grabbed the magic bubble. For the first time, I felt the cool water. There was something soothing about the way the wet magic brushed against my skin as the shades of blue swirled like a lava lamp. It almost felt … familiar.

Instead of letting myself get distracted, I recalled what the ability description said – Bubble was a short and ranged attack. So controlling it with my mind had a two-foot radius, but what if I attacked with it?

I thrust out my hand towards a tree on the other side of the field. The Bubble launched off my palm and shot at the tree. It hit the tree truck, exactly where I aimed, and exploded. A large chunk of dark bark was blasted right off, revealing the white wood underneath. It was impressive looking … but too slow. The water attack was barely faster than my running speed. And most monsters in the wilds were faster than me.

Considering that my magic stat was my highest stat, it meant this was my strongest attack, compared to my bow and sword. But its limitation – it was slow and cost MP – meant that it couldn’t be used casually. MP burnout, from using up all a person’s MP, could cause debilitating migraines. In a fight, that could have deadly consequences.

It was pure luck that I didn’t die yesterday when I lost my head against the unknown monster and panicked. Pure luck and a surprise gift ability from the System. But I couldn’t rely on that each time. I couldn’t let myself fall apart into the same bumbling fool in the middle of a battle. Nothing was going to stop me from getting to level fifty and finding out how Mom died. Not even myself.

I took a breath to stabilize myself, then turned to Shiva. “I still have time before the alarm goes off. Let’s practice mounted shooting, okay?”

She blinked her big eyes, a long blade of grass hanging out of her chewing mouth, and tilted her head to the side in question.

*****