When Jacob woke up with the first peaceful sleep he had in the week, no kobold horde rushing in droves to search for him, no stone hands covering the walkways along with the walls and finally an actual bed to sleep on. While there was no mattress or anything similar, the group were able to find houses within the kobold outpost with very soft and fluffy pelts. There were even rolled up pelts acting as pillows, everything combined gave Jacob the most comfortable sleep he had in awhile.

He got up and out of the house he slept in bringing Flowing Water along with him, Jacob looked around the kobold outpost and up at the shimmering crystal. Enjoying and soaking in the peace that the group achieved for the last, while anticipation was bubbling within him for the end of the tutorial.

Jacob stood there for a few minutes before a dulcet feminine voice disrupted the calm he felt.

“Heya there Jacob, how’s your sleep?” Jacob opened his eyes and his brows furrowed at the interruption disappearing as soon as it appeared before turned to smile at the originator of the voice Riley and replied.

“Hey there Riley, It was the best I had in awhile no more hiding in the trees and sleeping under an open sky. It felt like home for just a moment, but the surroundings gave me a somber reminder of our circumstances. How was yours?”

“It was nice, having a proper roof over my head was comforting. I’m heading out to look at the local fauna, do you wanna join me?”

“If you are okay with keeping a few animals for cooking later in your new ring.” Jacob gave Riley a smirk as he nodded at the black ring that Aurelius held just a few hours ago, on Riley’s right index finger. Hearing the words from Jacob made Riley blush as she looked at her feet shyly before saying.

“I know you guys deliberately lost to me, so that I would get the storage ring.”

“ I don’t know about that, I’m pretty sure we all groaned in disappointment when you beat all 3 of us. It’s a game of luck anyways, come on lets go kill some of those pesky boars and silver clawed bears”

“I was looking forward to seeing those blue multi horned deer instead and maybe the rare pink rabbit I saw awhile ago. I wasn’t able to find the time to interact with animals for my skill, so don’t go killing all of them on sight. Okay?” The last word Riley put more emphasis on it as she kept her stare at Jacob. While Riley was lighting up a torch, Jacob slightly threatened by the look and worrying for the jars of golden honey he left in Riley’s care decided to take the road of easy living.

“I’ll be at your command for the trip, if you tell me to stop I’ll stop, run and I’ll run.”

“That’s better.” Riley walked off with a lit torch in tow and so the duo of Riley and Jacob left for the forest.

Underneath the shades of the rustling of rich green leaves, Riley was nuzzling a rabbit to her cheeks sitting upon a big rock covered in moss with a large piece of leather under her butt. The rabbit surprisingly did not bare its razor sharp teethes at her, Jacob saw a bunch of them gnawing on a 4 tusked boar still thrashing about 2 days ago. Surprised by the sight, Jacob climbed up on a nearby and watched the rabbits reduce the boar to its bones in a matter of minutes and now one of those blood thirsty rabbit was letting Riley stroke its brown fur without a single protest, it even looked like it was enjoying the nuzzling by Riley since it had its eyes closed leaving it as vulnerable as it could be.

Jacob tempted by how easily Riley was able to get close to the rabbit, reached his hand out to the rabbit trying to ruffle its fur a little. Riley saw what Jacob was doing and held the rabbit towards him with one hand with the other still stroking the underside of its head keeping it calm.

Jacob’s slightly shaky hand successfully made it to the soft velvety fur of the brown rabbit, he stroked it left and right feeling the fur. A wide smile slowly appeared on his face showing the innocence of a 20 year old who was unfairly thrust into a world of carnage. Jacob felt soothed by the simple act of interacting with an animal that looked like similar to Earth rabbits, bringing him back to easier times.

Riley held a simple smile as she looked at the brown rabbit and back to Jacob. Just as Jacob started to withdraw his hand, a nest of 8 rabbits shot out from the bushes and rushed towards Riley and Jacob. Jacob wanted to reach for Flowing Water before Riley put a hand on his and did a small shake of her head once she got Jacob’s attention. The rabbits facing no obstacles reached the vicinity of Riley and Jacob before leaping as a group into the two of them.

Jacob tensed as he started cycling his essence throughout his body even if Riley did not think the rabbits were gonna be hostile, Jacob did not want to take the chance. So he braced himself for the coming rabbits, ready to punch them with enough essence to splatter them in mid-air.

Maybe the rabbits sensed Jacob’s hostility, the 2 rabbits heading for Jacob adjusted themselves in mid-air and as they reached Jacob immediately kicked off of his face and sent themselves towards Riley. Even the brown rabbit that was being petted by Jacob shy away from his hand. Jacob’s face distorted slightly from the kick to his skull and left cheek but he held himself back as they did not bite him.

He was pushed back a few steps due to the sudden push, he kept his eyes on the rabbits incase they started to bite Riley. But nothing of the sort happened, instead Riley seems to be smothered in a blanket of fluff. Her laughter rang out like a clear bell, entrancing and soothing all at once. Jacob just stood there as the nest of rabbits snuggled around Riley causing her laughter to come out in bursts.

Realising that Riley was increasing her skill progress by doing this, he did not want to interrupt the process. So he decided to progress in his own skills too, namely Blessing. So while Riley was having the time of her life with the rabbits, Jacob did not know how much time had passed when Riley walked towards him as he experimented with shaping the essence outside of his body.

“Sorry about the kick in the faces by the two rabbits, up for some hunting now?” Jacob gave a wounded look as he pretended to rub his left cheek and replied.

“I don’t know about that my cheek still hurts.”

“You’re exaggerating, now come on and lets go.” Riley punched Jacob’s shoulder playfully and offered a hand to him. Jacob took the hand and got up with the help of Riley. He also channeled his essence using his new skill through the contact, a smirk was evident on his face.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

[Blessing (Elemental)]

[Confers a blessing onto a person, blessing grants +10 Strength and +10 Vitality and +5 Dexterity and +5 Endurance.]

Riley immediately withdrew her hand as she felt a tingle running up her arm and before she had time to ask Jacob what he did, the tingle reached her chest and started spreading from her chest to the rest of her body causing her concentration to lapse as she stood there stunned by the sensation. Jacob decided to explain what happened while her eyes were slightly glazed over.

“It’s my newly unlocked skill, its called blessing. Take a look at your status screen you should be able to see a boost from the skill affecting you.” The words broke Riley out of her temporary trance and her eyes locked on as if she was seeing something that Jacob could not. Jacob gave her the time to look through the stat improvement. Riley’s eyes returned to normal as she looked at Jacob once again before she pounced on him, crushing Jacob in a bear hug as he felt his bones creaking.

“Congrats Jacob! It’s a wonderful skill, I can definitely feel the effect. How long does it last?”

“I don’t know either actually, the description did not tell me anything but its different from my other skill too as it’s not a channeled effect.”

“You have another skill too? What does it do?” Jacob did not reply instead, he channeled his essence to activate Squire’s Determination. Feeling the strengthening effect once again, Jacob vibrated with excitement to see how difficult the silver claw bears would be now.

“Waaaah another boost to my stats? That's great, too bad that we only have today left. We would have much more fun with these boosts.”

“Yea...alright lets go get some food back to the guys.” Jacob did not want to continue the negative train of thoughts, bringing the conversation back to food hunting. With both of them up, Jacob grabbed Flowing Water and walked towards a random direction. Riley slightly stunned but did not want to pry followed after Jacob.

It did not take long before Riley and Jacob found themselves hiding behind a bush looking at a small group of bears lounging around the clearing, one bear was scratching the bark of a tree tearing off the bark piece by piece. In total there were 5 bears, only one looked larger than normal. Jacob did not feel like a plan was necessary. He looked towards Riley and saw restlessness, shaking legs and tapping fingers.

“Wanna just charge in?” Jacob suggested to Riley in response he got vehement nods from Riley.

Without further communication, the duo charged in with a roar from Jacob. The bears immediately turned to look towards where the roar came from and seeing two humans rushing at them, returned with roars of their own before they barreled towards Jacob and Riley.

The two separated and ran diagonally to prevent the bears from having a clean charge through the clearing and them. Jacob leveled Flowing Water at one of the bears that ran after him along with another one. He cast Blessing on himself and channeled Squire’s Determination, feeling the buffs powering him. Jacob shortened the distance between himself and the closest bear with a few steps while its maw was wide open. He thrust forward with Flowing Water aiming for the maw, the bear unable to respond to Jacob’s action had its mouth and brain penetrated by Flowing Water collapsing in its charge as Jacob swiftly removed Flowing Water from its temporary sheath.

Riley punched out with a green essence clad fist towards the bear towering over her right at its gut, she sent the bear reeling with just a hit. Riley quickly followed up with more punches, with the bear in the midst of crumpling Riley was able to dole out those punches at its head. Quickly finishing the bear off with the immense force from the multiple punches dropping it to the ground. Riley quickly waved her ringed hand over the bear and the dead body was brought into the ring in the blink of an eye.

The two bears that followed after the bear Riley just took care of swung two large claws towards her at the same time. Forcing Riley to jump back to avoid the two bears, her eyebrows furrowed at the two bears. She stood there for a moment as if she was recalling something she had learned. As the bears advanced again towards her, Riley circled around the bear towards her left so that only one bear was facing her.

As she got closer the bear did a quick swipe at Riley which she avoided deftly and countered with a punch of her own causing the bear to bite at her fist with its glistening yellow and black teeth with saliva dripping off in large amounts. Riley retracted her fist that was in danger of being chewed by the bear and took advantage of the outstretched neck and open mouth to deliver a devastating green essence clad uppercut to its jaw.

The result was amazing and gruesome at the same time, Riley winced as the bear bit off its own tongue while the jaw slammed shut. The bear shook for a moment before collapsing on the ground causing a slight tremor. Riley did not store the bear immediately this time instead she climb up onto the bear with speed and locked eyes with the remaining bear staring up at her. The bear looked up at the human who killed two of its herd, the bear gave a violence filled roar at Riley.

Slightly shocked by the force of the roar, Riley took a subconscious step back and her leg found nothing but air causing Riley to fall backwards. The bear seeing its chance quickly clambered on and up the corpse of its comrade, swiping at the airborne and defenseless Riley. Riley brought her arms forward to block the strike from the silver claws. Even though she did add some points to her endurance, it was not enough to take a full on hit from a giant silver clawed bear. She was easily sent flying further away from the bear and a nasty wound could be seen on her forearms used to block while she was screaming in mid-air.

Jacob heard the scream and removed his sword from the skull of the second bear. He ran towards where he saw a bear clambering down from the corpse of its comrade. While the bear was still caught up in it’s rage and only focusing on Riley, Jacob was able to intercept the bear in its charge towards Riley without drawing any attention to himself. With the same ease that Jacob had running up to the bear, he plunged the churning Flowing Water through the eyes of the bear and into the skull before it could strike out at Riley again.

The bear losing it’s driving force collapsed and skid a few inches towards Riley before it came to a full stop. Riley was already standing up from where she was sent flying by the bear ready to fight through the wound left by the bear. However, she was that Jacob was able to kill the bear before she could even get up decided to stay on her butt to rest instead, letting out a sigh while she sat back down.

Jacob looked around for more enemies for a few seconds before he walked up to Riley with Flowing Water in hand.

“Riley how is your wound?” Jacob asked full of concern.

“It stings quite a bit but I can feel it healing, I’ll just stay here for now. Would you mind picking up all the bears?” Riley said with as much pep as she could muster as she slowly slipped the storage ring off her finger and threw it at Jacob, who caught it easily enough with a swipe of his hand.

Jacob got to work and went over each bear that was lying around collecting them into the ring, it was surprisingly intuitive. He just had to will the object he was in close proximity with to enter the ring and the object in question just disappears into the ring, he can sort out the items within the ring too. Even with all the objects Riley had stored inside, Jacob could not sense the end for storage capacity within the ring. Jacob marveled a little at the wondrous object as he went back to check on Riley with all the corpses of the bears safely kept within the ring.

After Jacob waited for Riley to finish recovering from the wound dealt by the silver-clawed bear, the duo went to find some variety in their food in the form of deer and boars. It was less eventful then the bears and with all the enhancement Jacob and Riley went through, the deer and boars did not even bother them one bit.

Jacob and Riley ended up going back to the river they found 2 days ago to clean off the slough accumulated from the previous two days, to their surprise they found Aurelius and Brian already washing by the river. Needless to say, Riley gave a very healthy and loud scream when she saw the two naked men and quickly ran further up river leaving with one of the towel that Jacob found within the discard pile. Brian who did not realise Riley and Jacob was approaching turned around to see a figure with black clothes and apple red hair running upriver.

Jacob left somewhat at a lost, released a small sigh. Before he too stripped off his clothes and put them beside the clothing's of the other two and joined them in the river.

“Young Jacob! How was the date with little Riley?” Brian said with a voice filled with insinuation. Jacob still young, immature and the question made him recall Riley’s beautiful figure and face. Felt his face heated up before he replied while splashing his face with more water to calm himself.

“We were off hunting for food for the group, it was not a date and we have more things to worry about than dating. She actually got injured by a bear just now.” Jacob tried to divert the topic before the teasing got worst. But Brian seeing the chance to tease Jacob more did not relent.

“Did you managed to be the knight in shining armor then?”

“She is more then capable of saving herself, she was already getting up before the bear even got close to her.” Jacob said with as neutral a tone as possible.

“That wasn’t a no. But I’ll see if I could give her one more lesson before the final day ends.” Brian would have liked to continue teasing Jacob, but the young man was unconsciously causing the water around him to start boiling a little so Brian decided to stop. Aurelius raised an eyebrow at the phenomenon caused by Jacob but did not chime in on the conversation.

The three managed to wash themselves off of the accumulated blood and grime from the last 2 days, got dressed and got to chatting about their own experiences during the raid of the kobold cave while they waited for Riley. They did not have to wait long before Riley joined with the trio, looking as if she had just met seen them today. Riley greeted Aurelius and Brian before the group of four went back to the kobold cave to feast on what Jacob and Riley hunted.