Chronicles of the True Wizard

The next morning Felix arrived fifteen minutes earlier than he had last time for the hunt, to be sure he made it on time. Lucky too as the rest of the guard all arrived early this time.

The same procedure followed as last time, though they were less skeptical of Felix and actually walked with him between the fights. He still wasn't allowed to participate during the first couple of fights, something about Drakene law for this village and whatnot.

Once they had collected the necessary Parroukan though, Felix was allowed in.

"Ok, same thing as last time, except I am only going to use a single spell in the fight. I might use it multiple times, but all my jumping and dodging will be using energy. No wind or fire spells, only Mana Dart."

"You should be fine, worst case you should be able to kill it before it kills you."

"Well I fucking hope so."

The guards chuckled as they spread out to find the next prey. Felix walked to try and stay in the middle of where everyone else was searching so he could be the first to respond to any of them. Just a few minutes passed before a familiar call pierced the ambience of the forest and hit Felix's ears. He dashed and vaulted through the forest at the full speed his Traveler's set would allow to reach the Parroukan before anyone else.

[E - Common] Caregarr Parroukan (Lvl 44)

Felix shot a mana dart next to the Parroukan's head to grab it's ire and take over for the Drakene guard that had found it. He quickly cycled his energy and infused his brain, spine, nervous system and eyes to buff his intelligence, dexterity, agility and perception respectively. All his practice yesterday had manifested itself in his pushing his stats by about fifty percent when infusing his cells. He had managed to push it further in testing, but it required a lot more energy and damaged his body.

The Parroukan did exactly as expected and charged Felix. With his experience from last time, Felix had positioned himself directly in front of a tree just in case he missed. As the Parroukan closed the distance Felix leapt upwards towards the tree and jumped off of it back towards the Parroukan with a trajectory aiming above its head.

Even with his buffed agility, Felix jumped too early. If he hadn't used the tree, he might have timed it properly. As it was, the Parroukan saw Felix jumping upwards and mid charge it jumped into the air flapping it's wings to try and catch him in it's beak.

Felix panicked and buffed all of the muscles and bones in his body then started constructing the biggest Mana Bolt he ever had. The beak grew dangerously close and Felix reacted on instinct, slapping the beak as hard as he could. With his energy buffed body, he managed to rocket himself to the side and right into a tree.

The Parroukan's head was knocked to the opposite side right before catching a massive Mana Dart through it's ear.

Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Caregarr Parroukan (Lvl 44)

Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster

Felix fell to the foot of the tree he had struck and barely managed to catch himself with a instant Gust. Rushing it, he made it too big causing his body to jump a few centimeters in the air just before collapsing in a pile on the ground. It was only later that he remembered he now had a dedicated Feather Fall spell.

Well that was rough. I think I might have dislocated or sprained my shoulder and I definitely exhausted, well, everything.

Felix righted himself against the tree and looked up to the see the guard that had found the Parroukan talking to Alrik who was failing to suppress a chuckle.

After a handful of minutes waiting, it appeared as though no more Parroukan were coming to aid this one and Alrik walked over to Felix.

"I heard you tried to do some fancy shit and paid the price for it."

"I thought it would be more efficient to make two jumps with less force rather than blow a ton of energy and strain my muscles in one great leap. So yeah, fancy shit, I guess."

"Yeah it may be more efficient, but timing, predictability and giving your opponents time to react are usually much more important. It's probably most efficient to cast tiny spells thousands of times right? At least that's how it is with our spears, but that's not what we do because that gives the opponent way too much time to either defend themselves or kill you. You probably already know this though, with all that intelligence."

"I appreciate the advice anyways, you never know what you don't know and there is always a chance anyone could miss something. Except maybe The System, who knows with that."

"Fair enough, I mean, that is why I keep explaining this shit, but most of the guards groan and complain and aren't wise enough to realize that."

"That tracks. I think I might have to sit out on the rest of the hunt though, if that's alright."

"Of course, we are gonna go find a few more before heading back, I hear we need to humble Brask, again. You good to make it back or do you want an escort?"

"I should be fine, just a little banged up but it's mostly superficial."

Alrik nodded before spreading out into the jungle with the other guards to continue their hunt.

Felix closed his eyes and meditated, without bothering to fix his posture or sit in anything close to a proper form.

Having reflexively buffed all of his muscles and bones as much as he could, Felix was sore. He didn't think he had injured himself anywhere, but he was dangerously low on energy, just under seven percent, and his entire body ached.

He meditated for almost thirty minutes before deciding to head back to the village. He wasn't worried about being in danger, as he was almost certain at this point that the monsters spawned on demand when the Drakene looked for them, rather he needed to sleep.

Felix rose to his feet and retrieved his kill before limping and waddling, with the speed of a sprinter, back to the village, stumbling only a handful of times. He was used to his Traveler's set movement speed at this point, but not while limping.

He laid down in the bed he was borrowing and forced himself to stay awake long enough to eat before passing out.

When he awoke, Felix filled the ravenous hole in his stomach before handing over the fresh Parroukan corpse to Borrugra, with the same deal as before. After stowing the freshly cooked meat and plucked feathers, Felix entered the jungle.

Felix was still slightly sore, but had mostly recovered with the most notable exception being his energy sitting at just seventy percent. He tested the mobility of his shoulder, then continued to practice the timing for infusing his cells.

Yesterday, he realized his approach to using energy had a big weakness. In the forest, running and jumping around, he has time to react to roots and trees, to prepare ahead of time. In combat, he has to react to the enemy and when reacting, he doesn't have time to prepare and direct energy to where he needed it. Trying to perfectly predict his enemies would be too prone to error. If someone surprised him once, that mistake could kill him. Instead, he needed to be prepared for anything.

Felix's theory was that he could circulate his energy within his body constantly or spread his energy throughout his body so it was always where it needed to be. The latter option was significantly better when he didn't need a lot of energy. If he ever needed to use more energy in his legs than he had stored there, he was screwed. With the former option, he had all of his energy at the ready when he needed it, but he needed to wait for it to cycle. If he could cycle it fast enough it wouldn't matter, but then he had to maintain that speed.

At some point in the future, he wanted to have it treated just like he planned to with his mana, with a core and channels to funnel energy wherever he needed it to be. That endeavor would take a lot of planning and required a much deeper understanding of mana and energy though, so he implemented one of the other options in the meantime.

First, he suffused his entire energy pool throughout his body as he vaulted through the forest. He purposefully searched for more acrobatic feats, with taller roots to jump over and more trees to dash between. Felix quickly realized he would never have enough energy for a large jump though, like jumping over a Parroukan. His energy was spread too thin.

Next he tried cycling the energy around his body in a loop. The energy traveled around and around until he used some of it. Unfortunately that meant that his reaction time was dependent on the speed he could cycle the energy. When he needed to jump, his muscles also took time to saturate with energy, which he knew. Not having energy at the ready meant he couldn't prepare them ahead of time before the actual push.

Ultimately, Felix decided to implement a combination of the two. He split his energy and spread about a quarter of it through his body. Another quarter of it, he cycled around in a loop. When he needed to jump or react to something he started infusing his muscles with what was there and waited for cycling energy to come around. The other half of it went to permanently buffing his perception, intelligence, dexterity and agility. He didn't need to buff his dexterity at all times, but it was a side effect of buffing intelligence and agility, which he did want active at all times.

Felix spent the rest of that day and the next practicing using energy to buff various actions. He sparred with guards, practiced dodging their spears and ran through the forest, testing his reflexes and acrobatics respectively.

After having sparred with the guards Felix was roped into drinking with them again at the tavern. They promptly drank multiple rounds as Felix ate the equivalent of multiple meals.

"So what's up with Arzime, she's only level 53. I would have thought one of the elders would be a higher level."

"She's an elder because she's old, like really old."

"Reeeeeeeeaaaaaallyyyyy old." Brask insightfully added

"No one really knows much about it, but our tribe moved into this wood, and specifically here, something like a few hundred thousand years ago. She was there when they moved."

"There is no way she's that old, you slithering baffoon."

The guard punched the other across the face then went right back to speaking as if nothing happened. Something which, Felix had learned, was not an uncommon occurrence among the Drakene. Apparently it was a cultural thing but luckily, none of them had tried to hit him in conversation, just yet.

"Anyways, maybe it was only tens of thousands, but she was the apprentice of the elder way back then."

"Some say they had a torrid affair, which was controversial to say the least, considering she would have been just a few decades old and the elder a few thousand, minimum."

"That's just a stupid rumor you shouldn't be spreading around, lest you get taken by the monster."

"Ah shut up, it's a rumor sure, it also makes for a great story."

"Anyways, whether or not that happened, the tribe eventually split up, for whatever reason, with Arzime and a small faction splitting off into the forest to start their own tribe."

"So she's been the leader of the tribe since the beginning."

"She's sneaky and conniving and one of the nicest people I've ever met. Like a mother to the whole village."

"She's done some wild things, like creating a massive conspiracy to throw a birthday party for Alrik when he didn't want one a few decades back."

"That was wild. None of us had any idea what was happening, no one suspected a thing until suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of a party."

"I mean, I knew what was happening." Brask grumbled into his mug, just loud enough for the rest of them to hear.

"You were like, 5 at the time. What do you mean you knew?"

"Why isn't she a higher level then? If she's that old and that skilled, why is she only level 53?" Felix inquired.

"Not sure on that one. Most of us have wondered the same thing. Some people say she hides her true level to seem more approachable and so she doesn't intimidate people when she walks down the street. Some say she is too busy taking care of all of us."

Or The System limited it because it needs to keep the dungeon at a specific level.

"Interesting. Ok off topic, why are all of your clothes so bare and plain? You hunt Parroukan every few days and their feathers are beautiful, why doesn't anyone wear anything colorful or interesting? Or just more than underwear? Is that just Drakene culture?"

"Why would I wear something bright and colorful or any bigger than this? It would take away from and cover up the brilliance of my scales, which are very popular with the ladies, if you know what I mean."

"Hah, you think the ladies care about your dull green scales? They love the luster of my brilliant blue."

"Hey woah woah now, when was the last time you even talked to a lady, huh? They are magnetized to my frosty whites and you know it."

"Oh really, wanna bet?"

"The standard? Actually, let's make it two wages this time."

"Deal."

I think that's my cue for the night.

Felix quietly got up and left without any of the guard being the wiser.

Just over two days left until the monster usually strikes. I think I can swing one more hunt tomorrow morning, then I'll start looking for it tomorrow night. I have a sneaking suspicion the monster might decide to strike a couple nights early. Agh, I never got the chance to ask, what the hell do they do with the feathers then?

The next morning, Felix was the first to show for the hunt once again. There were late comers in the form of both the blue and white scaled guards from last night, the ones who initiated the bets.

Alrik led the pack into the jungle and the two late comers dragged behind near where Felix was and started whispering to each other.

"I guess it's a tie, once again?"

"Not so fast. She invited me back to her place, where things started to heat up, when her roommate walked in… and well, one thing led to another."

"What? That did not happen, I do not believe it. Bullshit. What was her name?"

"I don't kiss and tell, I am a gentleman don't you know."

"Hah, uh huh. How about this, double the bet, whoever can find more Parroukans wins."

"You know I can't afford to give you 4 wages."

"Oh I see, I get it you are just-"

Felix promptly dashed off to the side to avoid listening in on the rest of their conversation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .