That was one of the best night's sleep he had ever experienced. That was strange because his bed was a rough rock floor and he was soaking wet. Be that as it may, Alan woke up in the morning, early as usual, but he felt fully recovered and more rested than he had since leaving Okinawa. Thinking back to his time there, he decided to warm up this morning with something he hadn’t done in a while.

  His ex was into all kinds of natural and spiritual exercises and one she picked up in Japan was Tai Chi. In addition to couples yoga she would make him come to classes with her. At the time he found it a very calming and centering activity. He had dropped it as a morning routine after the break-up but for some reason felt like resuming it today.

  Unfortunately the sleeping cave did not have room to reach above his head without scraping his knuckles, so he cautiously made his way down the cliff. The sun had not yet risen and the moon was barely peeking above the mountains, but he found that he could still see where to place his hands and feet. He didn’t think he could see in true darkness, but he found that he could still see well enough with the limited light. It was more of a bright gray scale rather than full of shadows. Perhaps his higher perception was showing? Once safely down at the bottom he made his way back to the clearing in front of the lake.

  With a slightly elevated heart rate from the climb and the walk over, he first tried to slow his breathing. He began by focusing on inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Long slow breaths, filling his lungs completely before releasing. As his heart rate settled and his breathing calmed he then started moving through several forms. The slow steady movement of his body felt good after the recent life or death fights.

  As he transferred weight from one leg to the other he could feel a new sense of potential power in his limbs. Since having his body rebuilt, his brain quickly skipped past that horrendous concept, he had gained points in both strength and dexterity. He had not really felt the difference before, but this morning he was very aware of the change. While performing White Crane Spreads Wings there was a power in his arms aching to be unleashed. It was a heady feeling hinting at what new force he could bring to a fight.

  On a whim he decided to draw his daggers and hold them in his hands as he did some of the movements. It greatly limited which moves could be performed, but he also needed to get comfortable with the weapons. It seemed like his new reality was going to be much more violence oriented than the previous one. And considering his old job, that was saying something compared to the average person.

  Many people think of special forces operators as killers who move silently through the enemy, eliminating all opposition. While that is something they have been trained to be, much of the mission in the 1st SFG instead involves training and supporting local groups. There had been times of extreme violence in his life, but he expected this new existence to far exceed that.

  After spending about an hour performing various movements and exercises he decided it was time for some food. Setting out a ring of stones for cooking, all that was missing was fuel for the fire. The first stop was the nearby bushes. This would hopefully offer up some good kindling, and he wanted to check out one bush in particular. Yesterday when he had looked at the blueberries he had thought they still had a few days to ripen, but this morning he found the bush to be sagging under the weight of hundreds of fat dark blueberries. The idea of trying to choke down another batch of poorly cooked meat strips held little appeal in the face of this juicy alternative, so he picked a good third of the berries off the bush. Most went into his mouth, but some were also stored in his special pouch.

  The sky was starting to lighten, there was a rosy yellow color beginning to replace the previously dark firmament. True sunrise would soon be happening and it was time to get going. As this was day three he was expecting harder encounters than what he saw yesterday. Tamee had mentioned in the intro that the monsters would get more difficult as the days progressed. He had initially been wary of the beasts yesterday, but felt more comfortable by the end. Thinking back to the octospatium he hoped the challenge wouldn’t increase too much.

  After only having completed one dungeon yesterday he felt the need to get two done today despite the higher risk from attacks. There were still four more classes to gain and now that he was starting to feel the improvements in his body he wanted to see what other changes would occur. That sense of potential power in his movements was almost like a drug. Taking out his tutorial stone he followed its sense of warmth to the east, looking for his next fix.

  There was no quest message today. He had been hoping for one since they had been his only source of gear so far. Better clothing or armor, or maybe even a real sword would have been nice. Images of chopping heads off with a katana had occasionally passed through his mind since this whole competition began. There can be only one! Oh well, no use whining he guessed. Hoping to put his travel time to good use he chose to focus on improving his relationship with Tamee.

  “Good morning Tamee, how was your evening?”

  “Boring, with up to 10,000 recruits in these zones I am supposed to have lots to do and there is always something to watch. While I wouldn’t say you are uninteresting, as a matter of fact you seem suspiciously competent and super active, there is only one of you. A girl needs some excitement.”

  They then spent about ten minutes chatting. Alan told her more about his background, explaining why he was so at ease with the challenges he had faced. Tamee seemed interested and told him she was going to read up on the special forces more. He hadn’t thought about this before, but was she sitting in a fancy control room somewhere with screens and computers? She had said that the Network wasn’t technological, but that it was also by choice and not a limitation. Maybe there were magical portals and touchstones instead of keyboards and monitors?

  While chatting he was also looking around the forest, not only scanning for danger but taking in the small changes to the environment. The grass was slightly longer and less uniform in appearance. An uptight HOA might have complained about getting it mowed. The trees were still spaced widely apart but you could start to see some variations between them. So far the differences he had noticed were mostly in the shading of the bark. Some were very darkly colored now while others had a lighter bark like a birch tree. It was while looking at the trees that he saw his first animal of the day sitting on one of the branches.

  Beast: Fox Squirrel (common) level 1, threat: minimal.

  He had never heard of a fox squirrel, only gray and red squirrels. It was a little larger than a gray squirrel, maybe sixty centimeters long including its tail. That tail did not look fluffy, though. It looked thick and tough. He could also see long sharp claws on its feet. Its small size would make it hard to hit, but one blow should be enough to kill it. He drew his seax since he figured it would be easier to hit it with fast slashing attacks rather than stabbing at it. He debated drawing the pugio as well, but wasn’t sure he was coordinated enough yet to move two sharp objects around at the same time without cutting himself. His workout this morning had given him a little confidence, but those controlled movements were a far cry from active combat.

  The squirrel was still just sitting there. It wasn’t like a regular squirrel who pauses every now and then as it scampers around or eats a nut, it was just staring at him. It was unnerving. He had heard once that animals couldn’t match gazes with people, but its eyes were burning into his as if trying to read his soul.

  He thought of trying to work on his hunter class by taming it with his new stash of blueberries, but then his improved perception picked out something in his peripherals. There were two squirrels moving through the branches on his left and right. The first squirrel was just a distraction while these other two were supposed to ambush him.

  “Clever girl,” Alan whispered.

  Not wanting to be caught between the two newcomers he backed up so that he could see all three in front of him. Somehow they knew that the game was up and started to move closer to each other. He didn’t want them jumping down on him from above like some kind of furry bombs so he moved as far away from the tree trunks as possible. There were still branches above him but they were small and hopefully wouldn’t provide as stable a platform as the branches closer in.

  Two of the squirrels ran down the trunk of a tree while the original one tried to get above him. He started making his way around the tree forcing the squirrel up there to hop from branch to branch. The thinner branches out this far were indeed causing it some difficulties. With its progress slowed he took the chance to advance on the two squirrels on the ground.

  They were fast, there was no doubt about that. While they were down on the ground it was too hard to try and engage with the seax. While it was longer than his pugio, it was still not long enough to effectively target something only a few centimeters off of the ground. It didn’t stop him from trying, though. He soon felt foolish, more like he was fanning them with his blade than attacking them, so he switched it up and tried to kick them instead.

  Whack! He actually managed to connect solidly with one of them, sending it flying through the forest a good ten meters. Unfortunately the other one used that distraction to jump onto his plant leg. He grimaced in pain as its claws dug into his left one again. Why was it always the left one, did it smell better than the right leg or something? Its claws dug in and he let out a groan as the leg turned light yellow on his display.

  Reaching down he grabbed it with his left hand, and while holding it in place brought his seax into play. He didn’t try to hack at it since it would most likely cut through the squirrel and continue right into his own leg. Instead he sliced it across the back. There was a slight resistance but then it cut through its spine. He was then easily able to tear it off and toss it away.

  This had taken up too much of his time and the squirrel in the trees had managed to get above him. It leaped down, all of its sharp points reaching for his tender flesh, but it landed on his left shoulder instead of his head like he would have expected. It dug its claws in and then slapped his head with its tail.

  Slapped was the wrong word. That tail felt like it was a damn wooden bat being swung by a tiny home run champion. Alan staggered from the impact as it twisted to strike again. With blurry vision he dropped his seax and reached up to grab it. The evil, wretched, and not at all cute little squirrel bit one of his fingers with its tiny mouth. Luckily the small creature also had smallish teeth so it was unable to bite his finger off, but he could feel them tearing through his flesh.

  He refused to let this thing hit him again, possibly knocking him unconscious, so Alan used his superior strength and willpower to push forward until he could grab its body with the rest of his hand. He could feel the teeth pressing down on his bone and scraping along it as his finger ended up getting pushed down the squirrel's gullet. Finally he felt fur with the rest of his fingers and clamped down.

  Yanking it off of his shoulder he drew his pugio with his left hand. Holding it up he drove his dagger into its body. The blow was instantly fatal. A quick glance showed the other squirrel that was cut was still alive on the ground, but it was clearly out of the fight. Using his off hand he pried the original squirrel’s mouth open and pulled his bloody finger free. Then, bending down, he grabbed the dropped seax. He didn’t sheath the pugio since it was covered in blood and he didn’t want it getting stuck in the scabbard. Walking over he stabbed the crippled animal in its head. That still left the one that had been kicked. It was a solid blow, but it was hard to tell how hurt it was or even where it had ended up.

  Scanning the branches above he didn’t see anything. Crouching down to make himself a smaller target, Alan looked around on the ground. While crouched he cast minor healing and felt a little dizziness that he hadn’t realized he had disappear. He must have had a concussion. Also his finger, which was why he cast the spell, stopped sending agonizing jolts through his nervous system.

  He finally spotted the squirrel crawling along the ground. It was trying to sneak up on him but it also was not moving well. His kick must have done some serious damage. He had to give this thing credit, it was obviously in agony but it was committed to at least doing some damage before it died. With its movements impaired, and no other threats, he made quick work of it attacking it alternately with his two daggers. Using the now longer grass Alan wiped the worst of the gore off the blades and then used his shredded pants to finish cleaning them off and put them away. Then he called up his status sheet to see what he had gained.

  Alan Taylor

  Race: Human [W]

  Class:

  Fighter (19%) Quartz

  Healer (18%) Quartz

  Hunter (10%) Quartz

  Rogue (20%) Quartz

  Health: 126 (13/hour)

  Stamina: 108 (22/minute)

  Mana: 88 (9/minute)

  Stats:

  Strength: 10

  Dexterity: 11

  Perception: 9

  Focus: 6

  Intelligence: 7

  Wisdom: 11

  Constitution: 7

  Spirit: 3

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Skills:

  Cooking: 1

  Daggers: 11

  Dodging: 4

  First Aid: 12

  Harvesting: 5

  Herbology: 6

  Identify: 5

  Running: 7

  Sneak: 2

  Tracking: 5

  Two Weapon Fighting: 1

  Unarmed Combat: 9

  Titles: [Top Recruit]

  Talents:

  Fighter: Parry

  Healer: Mend

  Hunter: Charm Animal

  Rogue: Quick Hands, Stealth

  Spells: Minor Healing (common)

  It seemed like he was going to gain a stat point for every ten percent gained in his classes since his dexterity went up again with his rogue class at 20%. He had also somehow increased his hunter class. It was perception based, so maybe searching for his enemies counted? He had also made good improvements to several skills but almost laughed when he saw two weapon fighting. Apparently it took pity on his inept flailing at the end and gave him a reward. Maybe he should work on this more because being able to use two weapons at once would be of great benefit if there were going to be more groups he would have to fight by himself.

  Thinking back to his initial goals, he still needed some more gear and a real shelter. Between the blueberry bush and the thankfully preserved pile of corpses in his pouch he had food covered. Sorta. The meat strips he cooked probably counted as food. He had four classes so far, possibly as many as any other person in the tutorial would get, and was definitely kicking ass, even if they had been cute furry animals so far. His cave last night would probably be a good place to set up for now, but he already had some ideas to make it a real shelter. Sleeping in a puddle while being misted on all night was not doctor recommended, and he should know.

  He didn’t feel like cleaning and skinning the squirrels at the moment, plus he had just cleaned the knives, so their corpses were tossed into the pouch and he kept going. He had noticed that he could store things in the special pouch that were actually bigger than the opening. There was some kind of fuzzing when things got close and they just seemed to fit themselves inside. One of the rocks he stored in there was at least 80 centimeters across and yet it slid right in. Maybe it was the same kind of magic that let Santa Claus fit down chimneys.

  “How was that Tamee, you think I’m getting better at this?”

  “Well, you did drop your knife again.”

  “Okay, that was on purpose this time, I needed my hand,” he defended himself.

  “Still counts.” Dammit.

  “I was wondering, shouldn’t there be more animals? If there were 10,000 people here it seems like there would need to be a lot more beasts than I have been seeing.”

  “Well, this is a potential advantage for you. Most recruits would not have finished that thinning the herd quest unit day three or four, or even later. This is supposed to be a tutorial, recruits need a chance to rest, recover, and cultivate between fights. Because of this we don’t flood the area with monsters. You have been abnormally active and without others to keep the numbers down, you are seeing more than your share of action. That being said, the spawn rate is affected by the population somewhat, so it is lower than it would be otherwise.”

  “I know what rest and recovery are, what do you mean by cultivate?” he asked her.

  “I didn’t say cultivate, I said consolidate.” He was positive that is not what she said, but once again had to let it go. The list of things he had hints to but no answers for was growing depressingly long. What he hadn’t figured out yet was if these were deliberate slip-ups to help him or if she needed a better filter. Well, no use trying to figure it out now when there was work to be done. Alan had finally reached his destination. Above was a carving in the shape of a hand that seemed to be on fire, it kinda looked like an album cover.

  New Quest: The Cave of Mages

  [Before you lie two paths. The first is the Path of Growth and the second is the Path of Decay. Choose a path or exit now.]

  While he didn’t necessarily know that growth was good and decay was evil, that was certainly what 21st century movies had primed him to believe.

  Quest Update: The Path of Growth

  [This magical circle is stimulating the growth of the plants in the cavern. It is not being as efficient as possible. Modify the circle to improve the growth.]

  Magic circles, this was definitely outside of his experience. He tried to keep in mind that these dungeons were not only a test but also an opportunity for growth. If he paid attention there should be clues to help him. Please let there be clues.

  This dungeon was in the largest cave so far. It was over 150 meters across and in the center was a large tree. It looked like one of those oaks you find at a college that has been growing for 400 years. The trunk must have been more than two meters in diameter. There were some small strange fruits growing from some of the branches.

  Surrounding the tree was what he assumed was a magical diagram. It was drawn with a white powder and was fifteen meters in diameter. There were several concentric circles with the innermost circle empty of the powder, but from the edge of the inner circle to the outer circle it was a dizzying array of lines and curves connecting and passing through the circumference of all three. There were symbols spread throughout that spaghetti mess. This was not going to be easy.

  To orient himself in here he decided to call the entrance of the cave south. There was a small skylight in the western zone and to the east there was a small pond, maybe ten meters across at its widest. There was also a large yellow crystal in the north quadrant. It was just under two meters tall and had several crystal spires extending from its base. The only thing he could compare it to were those weird crystal lamps that get advertised on the internet for your girlfriend.

  All around the southern section were small white stones. It almost looked like a large zen garden. Upon closer inspection they looked to be quartz stones. He spent some more time looking around the outer zones before heading closer to the circle. There didn’t seem to be anything else to find other than the large features he had already observed.

  The magical circle was still a mystery. There were three concentric circles with the largest having a radius of eight meters and the smallest a radius of maybe six meters. Between the outer two circles there were five different symbols. If someone had to describe them they would call them glyphs, but Alan had no means of identifying their meaning. They seemed to act like anchor points around the diagram for all the other lines, but were only located between the outer two circles.

  Coming from around these glyphs and crossing over the center circle to the edge of the inner circle was a confusing array of lines and curves drawn with that white powder. In this inner region the lines and curves would sometimes intersect with those drawn from the other symbols. Something about it felt familiar but for the life of him he couldn’t figure it out. It kinda looked like a crazy spirograph drawing.

  Stepping carefully through the circle he made his way to the large tree. This close he could almost feel the vitality of it. The entire cavern had a buzz of energy in the air, but this pillar of nature was making the air vibrate with it.

  He thought he understood what he was supposed to do for this quest, but he had no idea how to do it. That circle was somehow helping this tree to grow better. He was supposed to improve the circle to make the tree grow betterer. That wasn’t a real word, but that wasn’t important right now. He had an idea of how he could add to the circle, but had no idea of what that would do. Many of the fantasy stories he read demonstrated the danger of messing up a magical circle you didn’t understand. Summoning a demon or melting into a pile of goo were not high on his bucket list.

  As he inspected the tree Alan made a discovery on the far side. Nestled against the trunk was a mortar and pestle made from some dark stone. He was now positive that the white powder that was used to draw the diagram was crushed quartz. If he was going to add to the circle he would have to crush up the quartz rocks that were scattered by the entrance.

  Returning to the southern quadrant he collected a large pile of the stones, storing them in his special pouch as he went. He could have brought the mortar over here, but he figured it may have been placed where it was for a reason. He sat with his back to the tree in the same spot the mortar had been placed. He found himself facing the strange crystal and noticed that one of the glyphs was directly in line with it. Rule #39, there’s no such thing as a coincidence.

  He placed the first small rock in the mortar and started to grind it up with the pestle. Unlike a certain dinosaur filled survival game, he actually had to do it himself. He couldn’t kick it off and go do other stuff. It was surprisingly easy, the mortar must have some kind of enhancement to make the process go faster. He once again lost himself in a repetitive process as he crushed the pile of rocks. Grind grind grind, place the crushed quartz back into the pouch, put in a new stone, grind again.

  Latching on to his focused mental state he tried to see the energy flowing inside of him. Might as well use this time constructively. After a few minutes he was able to recreate his vision from yesterday. Once again there seemed to be places where the flow was restricted. Focusing his mental energy he willed them to smooth out and soon the energy was flowing freely. The pile of stones was almost finished when something occurred to him.

  Rather than looking inward, he used those same senses to look outward. At first he focused on the mortar and the stone inside, but he didn’t sense anything special. Then he noticed something from the tree behind him. It almost felt like there was energy from the tree flowing into him from their contact. Following that flow back into the tree he could just barely sense a great stream of energy coming in from the roots of the tree and spreading up toward the branches. It was definitely harder to sense this outside of his body, but it was still possible.

  This seemed like it might be useful for the challenge. What would the circle do if not provide energy for the tree to grow. Maybe he could sense the energy coming from the circle and figure out some way of changing it. Perhaps he would need to add more lines or drawings to make it stronger? Figuring he would need more powder no matter what, he collected more stones and sat down to grind again. This also seemed to help him focus on whatever the other sense he had discovered was.

  It wasn’t long before he found a line of energy flowing near him and into the tree. The line seemed to be coming from the inner circle. He was surprised it wasn’t coming directly from the glyph or crystal. Setting down the mortar for the moment, he decided to try and follow the energy to see exactly where it came from.

  Already being locked on to it made it easier to focus on, even without the grinding process to help center him. It led directly to one of the lines that crossed through the middle circle and onto the inner one. The inner circle seemed to have its own low level of energy and he followed that around. Everytime he came to a line that intersected with the inner circle he found an otherwise invisible line of energy extending toward the tree.

  Now that he was getting used to this he found that he was able to extend his senses a little further than before. As he moved around the circle he started to get a sense for what was going on. Each of the glyphs was glowing with energy. They were spaced around the circle and three of them had energy lines that led to the key features in the room. One for the pond, one for the crystal, and one that led up to the skylight. The other two had no energy lines coming into them so he wasn’t sure what was up with that.

  There were lines drawn in the white powder coming out of all the glyphs and each one had a line of energy flowing along it. Where the drawn lines intersected with each other the energy flows seemed to merge. Now that he was looking at one of the merges he could sense a difference between the energies of each line. He didn’t know how to describe it, but he could distinguish between the two incoming flows of energy and he could even tell that the energy flowing out felt different from what went in.

  He still didn’t really understand what was going on, but had a general theory. The glyphs represented some kind of elements, like water or light, and whatever that crystal was for, and these energies were combined by the diagram somehow and sent into the tree boosting its growth. The powder drawn lines enabled the energy to travel along them and even combine when they intersected, but when they hit the inner circle the powder stopped and the energy still somehow continued to the tree. Why they were combined the way they were, or really how this was even possible, was beyond him though.

  You might wonder why he hadn’t asked Tamee for help. To be honest, it was because he was still a little annoyed with her from earlier. She kept dropping these hints, either intentional or not, but then denied ever saying anything. It was getting tiring and he needed a break from it. He knew he sounded whiny, but it was still how he felt. Also, it seemed like helping during a quest was strongly forbidden so what would she be able to add anyway? Luckily the quest didn’t really require him to understand what he was doing, as long as he did something.

  As he had moved through the circle he had sensed areas where the flow was off. Similar to how he could sense restrictions in the flow through his own body, he could tell there were areas where the flow was not as strong as it should be. It didn’t feel like the constriction he sometimes felt in his own body, it was instead as if something more was missing or unbalanced. Trusting his instincts he chose to go for it.

  He traced one line of energy headed for the tree that seemed to be weaker than it should be. Following it back from the inner edge, he traced it to where a line from one of the mysterious glyphs merged with it. The energy from this line was off. On his hands and knees, careful not to disrupt the drawing, he followed this new line to an earlier intersection. Something about the way the two streams here combined was off. It seemed like the mystery glyph line needed something else to balance the energy from the other line coming in. He had never been a big believer in his gut, but that was all he had to rely on. Deciding to just go for it, he drew a line that connected another nearby line to the struggling line.

  The energy at the node, that’s what he was going to call where the energy lines met, swirled and then the process continued as before. Except now even less was getting through, he must have made a mistake and now he had to fix it. Figuring out how to undo a line was fun.

  Breaking the line by running his finger across it didn’t work, it just sent a really painful jolt through his body and caused a slight dimming in the energy. Smoothing it out by mixing it with the surrounding dirt did nothing as well. He had to physically remove the white powder, which at this point meant scooping up handfuls of the dirt and carrying it away since they were now intermixed. When he was done he smoothed out the furrow he had created as best as possible and the energy flows returned to normal.

  So, that was definitely how to change the magic, but he had messed up on the specifics. Studying what he had done he realized that the line he had randomly connected to eventually ran all the way back to the crystal glyph. The other side of the broken node had a line that also eventually led back to the crystal glyph. Maybe you needed one of each?

  Alan found a glyph that wasn’t connected to this node yet and traced it to a line that was drawn nearby. He connected this line to the problem line and he noticed a dramatic increase in the energy flowing through the node.

  Having a better understanding of what to look for, he moved around the circle and added in more lines trying to improve every node he could. It had been about four hours since entering this dungeon when he finally got a notification.

  Quest Completed: the Path of Growth

  [You managed to improve the growth of the Tree by 56%. Reward: One epic Mage class stone and one Scroll of Light Bolt.]

  Bonus Reward: the Path of Growth

  [Because of the impressive level of improvement you have been awarded a bonus. Reward: One Scroll of Light.]

  It was nice to receive recognition for a job well done. This was the second time had received a bonus reward and he wondered if this was a thing for all quests, or if they were only available for some. He almost checked with Tamee right then, but decided he wanted to get his new class first.

  One very large spike to the brain and two smaller ones later and he was feeling very pleased with himself. The light bolt spell would add a ranged element to his repertoire that he was sorely lacking, and the other spell would come in handy if darkvision was not a thing. For a class talent he picked up Light Spinner. Combining that with the scrolls he got he would imagine it gave some kind of boost to any light based spells. Was it a coincidence that all three of his rewards had a theme? He also picked up the skill mana drawing. He hadn’t known there was such a thing, but since there was, it made sense he received it after drawing all those lines.

  Before he left he looked at the tree again. It looked the same as before, but some of those small fruits growing on it looked much bigger, grown almost to the size of an apple. As he was staring at one he got a message.

  Consumable: Fruit of Knowledge, ???

  It was a slightly oblong dark orange fruit with what seemed to be a thin skin and small hairs similar to a peach. He climbed into the tree and picked four that looked ripe to put them in his storage pouch. What was the point of magical storage spaces if you didn’t use them?