Ari sat casually in a tree, practicing his knife-throwing skills. Well, not really practicing, he mused, more like getting it back in these hands.

He was currently waiting for another practice target to creep into the clearing that was serving as his shooting range. The haunch of forest stalker on a spit slow roasting over his firepit was almost certainly cooking horribly unevenly without him down there to turn it, but the stalkers must be getting wary, as one hadn’t entered the clearing in search of a free meal in a quarter hour. The scent of roasting meat was normally a fantastic lure for the creatures, but the effectiveness of his bait seemed to be lessening.

The dozen and a half forest lurker corpses scattered around could have something to do with that, he mused. He examined his dagger, held lightly against his knee. It wasn’t a model particularly built for throwing, so he missed far more often than he’d like. Worse, every time he had thrown it from his perch and jumped down to finish off a creature, retrieve the knife, and turn his spit of course, it dulled significantly. He was going to need to find a way to sharpen it at some point, or be left with little more than a hunk of metal.

Usually something pops up to help with that at uncommon rank…

He pulled up the entry for his recently (re)acquired skill.

[Thrown Blades - Basic, Upgradeable. 5/10]

[Ability to effectively use thrown blades as a weapon. Slightly decreases weight of blades in the hand]

Yep, absolutely nowhere close. Using this bulky old thing to get the skill probably influenced the direction of the benefits, damn it. He stewed on that for a moment, before shrugging. The problem could be fixed, eventually.

What’s my skill list look like now?

Skills

[Mana Control - Uncommon, Upgradeable. 4/10]

[Identify - Common, Upgradeable. 6/10]

[Endurance - Common, Upgradable. 1/10]

[Staff Combat - Basic, Upgradeable. 6 /10]

[Thrown Blades - Basic, Upgradeable. 5/10]

5 skills already. If we take that as an indicator of progress, right now I'm where I was during… the third round, I think? It was so long ago I honestly can't remember. Of course, that's discounting stat points, and gear, and titles, and…

A rustle in the clearing below broke his train of thought. It was two stalkers this time, likely a bonded pair, their hunger winning out over their fear as they entered the clearing and made a beeline straight for the firepit. Ari drew back and put all the leverage he could muster into the throw. Then, not stopping to track the daggers flight, he grabbed his staff and dropped to the forest floor in a crouch.

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One of the stalkers was charging at him, the other lagging behind as the dagger in its shoulder fouled up its run. Ari struck the lead monster in the side of the neck with a sharp jab, stunning it, then finished it with a stomp to the base of the skull. The second one he finished off just as handily. He checked the sun, then checked his objectives.

[Secondary Objectives:

-Slay 40 Monsters (27/40)

-Earn a Skill

-Defeat the Area Boss]

The sun was just about to dip below the horizon, and he didn’t particularly want to fight more of the creatures in the dark. That would have to be enough progress for one day. He gathered up some of the cooked meat from the clearing, enough to last him a few days, and left enough behind that hopefully it would continue to act as a lure.

In his explorations earlier, he had settled on the theory that the location for this round operated a bit like an arcade game map, where when you walk off one edge, you end up on the opposite edge, traveling the same direction. Ari suspected he was close to marking off the east/west edge of the map, and that knowledge would be useful in the future, but right now, it just helped him make it back to his base camp a little faster.

*****

After stashing his food deep in the cave, he found himself sitting on top of the hill. He had recovered most of his focus over the course of the day, and had one more thing to do before he slept. He thought about doing it inside, but there would probably be a few more safe days where other predators would steer clear of his little base. It was, for the moment, still the territory of the spider that lay dead in the cave below. Also, he didn’t want to sleep in the stink.

Settling into a meditative state, he found his core again, almost instantly. There had been no reason to use any mana today, but he certainly wasn’t absorbing any from the world with his blocked channels, and any internal regeneration was negligible. The mote of light was still at about a third of what his maximum capacity had been last night.

He focused on it, swirling it like a whirlpool as mana beget more mana, and it slowly grew to fill the container around it. Ari had trained himself over the years to never let his core empty, as creating mana from nothing was a tremendous amount more effort than regenerating it from even a little bit of stored mana. The bit of brackish magic swelled, the detritus significantly diluted from what it had been, and he felt the mana pull, trying to equalize concentrations by drawing in the impurities around it.

He resisted that urge, holding the mana like a too-full breath as he opened his eyes. He reached for his knife, and after a brief hesitation, cut a gash diagonally in the palm of his left hand. He winced at the dullness of the blade.

As he spun up most of the mana in his core and sent it drilling down a channel running the length of his left arm, it felt significantly easier to control. The process still hurt like filling his veins with acid, but the mana wasn’t trying to fight him as much at the same time. At no point was he in danger of losing control, and he managed to carve a reasonably clear path down the channel in his arm and out into the world.

Black liquid bubbled to the surface of his wound, more this time than the last. His relatively clean core mana had managed to clear more from this channel, and his wound visibly healed over as the tar-like liquid sizzled and evaporated into the air.

After taking a moment to recover, he gingerly grabbed hold of a thread of his remaining mana. Guiding it down his arm, he watched with trepidation as it reached the skin of his palm, then passed through without issue and dissipated into the air.

[Performance assessed]

[Skills demonstrated:]

[Endurance - Common, Upgradable. 1→2 /10]

[Ability to push the body past its limits, through pain, fatigue, and damage. Decreases physiological effects of pain, lowers perception of pain, slightly increases bodies resilience]

[Mana Control - Uncommon, Upgradeable. 4→6 /10]

[Ability to influence mana through force of will. Increases responsiveness of personal mana.

[Title acquired (5)! Complete round to claim.]

Great, he thought, wrinkling his nose as the smell finally hit him. This body desperately needs some sleep.