Another year has passed. The one thing holding me back from doing some of the more advanced-intermediate spells is my mana pool. While I can cast a bunch of the spells I initially learned repeatedly, the aspect of using a strong intermediate spell was beyond me, for now. Elias told me that if I could cast just one of the spells, that would be enough for me to master them, as the more I used them, the less mana they would take.

  I had thought my mana pool was large, given how many beginner spells I could cast, but I guessed not. It made me wonder how much the average mage had.

  Otherwise, my progress with magic was going well. I felt like I should be able to do more, and it was frustrating to realize I was being held back simply because of mana. Elias could tell it was frustrating me and told me that I was so far beyond any magic user my age, that I shouldn’t let this hiccup bother me.

  On the other hand, my sword training hasn’t improved much. No matter how much effort I put into using a sword, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t improve. Damon was teaching me the techniques and of course, still beating me to a pulp. If there were one word to describe a large part of this past year, it would be frustrating.

  The good news was that I was able to use an intermediate healing spell and could now heal broken bones. That made healing myself during my battles with Damon easier and a way to practice magic in combat, though Damon got mad at me when I healed myself during our duels. I didn’t see the big deal. If I was fighting someone and he hurt me, I would heal myself.

  The one thing about healing was that it did take time. To get away with it against Damon, I would remain on the ground while healing myself. Unfortunately, he was starting to catch on and interrupt my healing.

  My relationship with Damon was at its lowest point. We barely talked and he would tell me that I would appreciate these beatings when I was older. If he only knew how wrong he was. No matter how many times he repeated those words, I would never accept his ways of training me.

  My sister was now learning the basics of magic. I’m not sure how, but Talia was able to convince Zena to begin training at the age of four instead of five. She asked me for help, and I was happy to oblige. Not surprisingly, her mana pool was far smaller than mine when I was her age, and she was a bit slower in learning. Saying the incantations could be hard for her sometimes, as she couldn’t pronounce some of the words perfectly. It took her a couple of weeks before she could create water without saying the words.

  There was one thing I had been working on this past year that I couldn’t wait to test. I got the idea from Elias when he showed me his Drill Attack. My idea was to create a bullet with earth and use it to attack. I was able to morph the earth into a 5.56×45 mm NATO bullet, which is the standard ammo for the M16 assault rifle. I called it the stone bullet. Summoning the bullet was easy. The problem I had for a long time was figuring out how to give it a lot of velocity.

  When I launched the first stone bullet, it was slower than me picking up a rock and throwing it as hard as I could. After a lot of tinkering, I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out how to use the stone bullet to fire at least as fast as an M16 in my world. That should be able to pierce any armor that I may run into.

  With that out of the way, today was a free day. I had no training plans. It was something I’d asked to have a day where I didn’t have to train with a sword or magic. Of course, I only added the magic part so Damon wouldn’t get mad. To my surprise, he had agreed without any complaints. I was planning on using this day to explore the village a bit.

  “Mother, Father, can I explore the village?” I asked.

  Damon and Zena looked at one another before returning their attention to me. “Go for it. Make sure to stay within the village and not to go to the forest,” Damon said.

  With permission granted, I walked out the front door and didn’t look back. This was my first time leaving the house, or I should say, leaving alone. I should have done this last year, but I was busy with magic and sword training that I had been too exhausted to want to explore. This free day was the perfect opportunity.

  One downside of having a free day was how little there was to do. There was no TV or sporting events. It was training and exploring. It wouldn’t be long before I had Alcion all mapped out in my head. I needed to find a hobby outside of training.

  For the next couple of hours, I walked around. Alcion wasn’t a large village. If I were to compare Alcion to something on Earth, I would say this place resembled a rural area. I would bet there were no more than a thousand people living here.

  I heard kids playing and climbed a rock to see kids playing. They were my age, and it looked like they were playing war or something like that. Each kid had a finely tuned stick and shield in hand, and they were taking turns fighting. A part of me wanted to ask to join. Nah, I didn’t feel like trying to play with kids who looked like they’d never held a wooden sword in their lives. Their moves were very sloppy, even compared to me.

  With that, I turned and left. Now I was bored. There wasn’t anything exciting to do here. There were lots of open fields and some trees. My gaze shifted toward the hill where the forest was. Elias had told me the monsters in there were weak. I was pretty sure I would be able to handle myself in there. If my parents found out, they’d be pissed and who knows whether I would be able to leave my house anytime soon.

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  On the other hand, if I were to go and kill monsters, that should help me increase my mana pool faster. It was an enticing idea. Before I knew it, I was walking toward the forest. The odds of my parents finding out were low, and if I was able to increase my mana to move on with my lessons that would be even better.

  The forest wasn’t far from Alcion. It took me about twenty minutes to climb the hill and then I was at the entrance. There was an eerie feeling about this place, which confirmed to me that there were monsters in here. If I didn’t know about the monsters and felt this way, I would likely have turned back and asked Elias about it.

  With a shrug, I walked into the forest. My heart began to pump. Elias had told me about the kind of monsters here. There were goblins, which moved in groups, and shadow wolves. There were others but those two were the most common.

  Oh right, I needed to use Analyze. I focused magic on my eyes. This was a spell Elias taught me early on. Not only did it make it easier to see in the dark, but it assisted in pinpointing weaknesses in monsters. This spell was only good in places like this, as the stronger monsters were able to disguise their weaknesses with mana, making the spell useless, other than for seeing in the dark.

  Where were the monsters? I whipped my head around, waiting for something to happen. I’d been in here for at least a half hour and hadn’t heard a peep. That was, of course, when I heard a stick snap to my right. I turned and saw a goblin staring at me with a creepy grin on its face. I bet it stepped on that stick on purpose, thinking I would be easy prey. Boy, was it about to learn a lesson.

  I analyzed the goblin, which was wearing leather armor and was holding a wooden shield in its left hand and a mace in its right. The goblin was weak to all elements of magic and the parts of its body without armor were the color red, marking those as spots to hit.

  My main concern was where the other goblins were. It was unlikely this one was alone, yet I couldn’t see them. Oh well, I bet they’d show themselves once I killed this one. Now was the time to test my stone bullet.

  The goblin smacked its shield and began walking toward me. The monster’s eyes widened when my stone bullet formed directly in front of me, forcing the goblin to raise its shield. I launched the stone bullet.

  The stone bullet moved so fast, I barely got to see what happened. The shield splintered into pieces and there was a gaping hole in the goblins’ chest. Blood exploded from the monster’s body, spraying the trees, and the goblin collapsed, dead before it knew what hit it.

  I couldn’t help but be impressed with myself. I’d say that stone bullet flew as fast as a real bullet, maybe even faster. There was more impact than I expected. There was a gaping hole in the goblin’s chest, then again that was likely due to how small the creature was. Either way, this wasn’t the time to let down my guard.

  I turned my head and saw a couple goblins start running at me from my left and three more on my right. While my stone bullet was strong, it took more mana than I would have liked. The other problem was I could only make one at a time. A cold energy coursed through me as I summoned icicles and launched them at the charging goblins.

  Four of the five goblins went down as the icicles tore through them like butter. These five didn’t have shields and their leather armor was no match. The fifth one was able to move to where the icicle hit its shoulder instead of head. Not that I panicked, of course, this was nothing compared to Vietnam. I simply took a couple of steps back and summoned three more icicles. The goblin was able to dodge one, but the other two pierced its chest and throat. The creature collapsed a couple feet away from me.

  There was blue blood all over the ground. I panicked for a moment, because if there was blue blood on me there would be no way to explain this to my parents. Thankfully, none of the blood got on me, so I was in the clear. I hadn’t thought about that issue. From this moment on, it would be better to make sure any monster I killed was at a good distance. Letting them get this close was dumb anyway.

  I needed to optimize the stone bullet to where I could summon it faster. Icicles were much slower. Ah, that was a problem for another time. For now, I needed to remain focused. I walked further into the forest. This was beginning to take too long. Damon had been in here earlier this week, that was likely why it was harder for me to find monsters.

  As I was contemplating turning back, I heard rushing sounds coming toward me. Instinctively, I used earth to create a sphere around me. There was a loud bang as something collided with my protective barrier. A moment later I heard growling. These were likely shadow wolves. I created small holes for my eyes and saw the shadow wolf a few feet from me, looking at my sphere and snarling.

  I’ll be honest, the shadow wolf looked terrifying. It was at least two times larger than a normal wolf, with purple and black fur. Its teeth were gigantic, easily big enough to tear me to shreds! I opened another hole in my sphere to look at the second one, which was just as large, and they were both waiting for me to expose myself.

  Poor shadow wolves, they had no idea what I was capable of. Oddly enough, as I was about to cast a spell, one of the shadow wolves leaped toward me, aiming for the small hole I made so I could see. The creature moved far faster than I expected and as I was about to make a stone bullet, a blur of movement rushed past me. A moment later, both shadow wolves were headless. Their bodies collapsed as blood pooled where they died.

  I couldn’t see what killed them. Was it a stronger monster? I didn’t dare lower my sphere any lower, for I hadn’t even seen what killed the wolves. Then I saw someone standing a few feet away from me.

  Oh shit.

  The blur of movement had been none other than Damon. He looked pissed. How did he find out I was in here? With a gulp, I lowered my sphere. “H-hello Father.” I couldn’t quite hide my stammer as I wasn’t sure what punishment he was going to give me. As an older man, I found it embarrassing that I felt fear at all. I wondered if he would hurt me.

  “What are you doing in here? We told you not to come in here,” Damon said. His eyes looked furious, and they were staring at my waste for some reason. “What the hell were you thinking, coming into a place like this without a sword?”

  Huh? Why would me bringing a sword matter? “I wanted to test my magic. I’ve been told this forest has weak monsters.”

  “You wanted to test your magic? Do you know how-” Damon stopped himself and shook his head. Great. This was going to be fun. “We’ll talk about this more at home, let’s go.”

  Ah man, this was what I wanted to avoid. How did Damon know I was here? Ugh. Now I was going to have to face a lecture about why I shouldn’t have come in here. If only I’d been more careful. With nothing else to do, I sighed and followed Damon out of the forest.