Leith held a spear at his side, stalking a riftfiend and cringing silently as the leaves under his chroma-powered jet boots crunched and the branches he unwittingly walked on snapped. The fiend he hunted, thankfully, was too preoccupied with its food to notice him.

His prey today was a narboar, a massive wild boar with dark fur, four tusks, and two beady red eyes. Leith wasn’t sure how to go about killing the thing, so he had decided to follow it for a while, hoping to ambush it and kill it one fell swoop.

For the past month, Alcide had been training Leith as a hunter, hoping to alleviate some of the difficulties he would face at the Academy. Alcide explained how all of the applicants to the Academy would be heavily trained, given that they hailed exclusively from either nobility or one of the many esteemed warrior sects in Maksar. Alcide’s backing guaranteed admission, but the entrance hunt still remained, and if Leith performed too poorly he may get expelled before ever setting foot in the Academy.

Now, Leith was expected to be able to topple fiends entirely on his own after just one month of training. Alcie had assured him that he felt Leith was capable and that he would be ready to intervene if things went wrong. Unfortunately, his assurances didn’t do much to assuage Leith’s nerves.

It didn’t help that Delhin’s Compendium of Riftbeasts– one of the dozen books Alcide had ended up assigning to Leith for study– labeled narboars as rumor-class fiends, which apparently meant that the beast should not be approached by any less than a party of five hunters. While the odd classification system they used didn’t mean much to Leith, he highly doubted that he could be considered stronger than even a single seasoned hunter, let alone five.

Still, he realized why Alcide was making him do this. Leith needed to prove himself. He needed to show Alcide that he could in fact handle the Academy and that he wouldn’t run away at the first sign of difficulty. If that meant he had to hunt something more than capable of burning him to a crisp with a single breath, so be it. At least, that’s what Leith told himself to alleviate his quivering legs and shaky breath. Alcide had also mentioned that this narboar was ‘just a baby’, though Leith wasn’t sure how true that was, looking at its colossal rump.

The narboar continued to feast, shearing of chunks of charred meat with its massive maw. It had seemingly hunted something much larger than itself, the carcass unidentifiable due its burns.

Leith took a deep breath, quietly stepping forward and getting as close as he could without attracting the fiend’s attention. His only chance to defeat the riftfiend was now while it was distracted.

Delhin’s Compendium had explained that narboars had tough hides that were exceptionally difficult to penetrate. The creature could shrug off half-hearted attacks and it generally ignored anything non-lethal. Instead, the book had suggested that the best way to hunt a narboar was to attack its head to either pierce or crush the skull.

Simple enough, except that Leith was staring at the fiend’s rear and wasn’t quite sure how to get to its head without alerting it. Cautiously, he circled around the narboar, slow and low to the ground. He was perpendicular to the creature’s flank when it turned its head to stare at Leith.

The narboar grunted, wisps of smoke escaping its mouth and Leith charged, thrusting the spear forward with all the strength he could muster. The thrust flew straight enough, but the fiend lowered its head, causing the tip of his spear to glance off the top of the fiend’s head.

Leith stumbled, off-balance from his misplaced thrust, backpedaling to try and put some distance between him and the fiend. The narboar lowered its head and charged forward, its pointed tusks level with Leith’s chest

Admittedly, he might have yelped a little as he stood there, fearing for his life as he realized that he didn’t fully think this through. Panickedly, he dashed to the side at the last moment, causing the narboar to run into a tree.

Unfortunately, Leith also ran headfirst into a tree, bouncing off painfully, the shaft of his own spear stabbing him in his stomach. He swiveled as fast as he could, thrusting his spear out blindly.

The fiend had somehow already turned and was facing him, so Leith’s spear scraped against the narboar's mouth, creating a shallow laceration to match the one on its head. For a fleeting moment, the creature just stood there, staring at Leith. It then opened its maw, crimson flames spewing from it directly at him.

Instinctively, Leith jumped, the riftcores strapped to his calves humming to life as pressurized air flung him high into the sky. The fiend whipped its head around, its breath sputtering out as it turned to look at Leith.

Leith fell upon the fiend, grunting with exertion as he thrust the spear as hard as he could directly into its skull, using his boots to propel him straight down. With a resounding boom his spear pierced through the narboar’s skull, pinning the massive beast to the ground. Leith, propelled by his boots, slammed into the fiend’s body painfully.

Alcide approached from amongst the trees, clapping. “That was… horrific.”

Leith sat up, sighing. “Yeah, I panicked after I missed the first thrust. Besides, I doubt that I could have killed it with just a spear anyway. You set that up to see if I could use my boots, didn’t you?” Leith asked, eyeing Alcide suspiciously.

“You caught me,” Alcide replied, hands up in mock surrender as he crouched next to the narboar’s head, analyzing its wound. “Actually, what I wanted you to do was run away. I didn’t expect you to try and actually kill it.”

Leith frowned. What did he mean he was expected to run away? “I thought this was a test? Wouldn’t running away be considered failing?”

“Well, Leith, given you lacked a proper weapon fitted with a core and was instead limited to a mundane spear, I was hoping that this would act as an experience that teaches you running away is a viable option as well. When you become a full-fledged hunter, you are bound to encounter monsters far beyond what you can handle. I expected this narboar to be beyond you, but it seemed I was wrong.” Alcide abruptly stood up. “At any rate, you did very well and provided me some insight on what to do next for your training. Harvest the riftcore and meet me back at the safehouse– we’ll talk more there,” Alcide told him, waving lazily as he walked away.

Leith couldn’t help but let a sense of pride wash over him as he knelt to do the grisly work of ripping the riftcore out of the narboar’s body. He had just successfully defeated a monster that even hunting teams struggled with singlehandedly. A fairly impressive feat if you ignored his unconventional methods.

The riftcore of a narboar was located somewhere within its throat, since that’s where its flames emanated from. Leith unhooked a short dagger from his side and stabbed the dead fiend’s throat, slicing vertically. A few minutes of sawing and a few liters of blood later, Leith was holding a strange looking wooden object in his hand.

It was an oblong wood whistle about the length of Leith’s fist with two leather loops hanging from the bottom. A rust-colored riftcore lay embedded near the mouthpiece of the whistle. This must be… a relic, Leith realized with budding excitement.

Fiend or not, riftbeasts could eat and digest riftcores, increasing the energy capacity of their own. Sometimes, however, they would end up consuming an entire weapon, trying to get at the riftcore inside. This narboar likely ate the whistle for that very reason, perhaps stealing it from a human victim. Through some process that Leith didn’t understand, the item underwent changes within the beast, somehow becoming a part of its biology. The narboar became a relicbearer and was using the whistle to bolster its own attacks.

This contrasted from man-made weaponry as weapons fit with cores were crafted from monster parts. It was necessary, since chroma refused to flow through mundane materials such as steel or wood. For that reason, most weapons and devices would be crafted with bone sourced from riftbeasts or wood from riftplants.

Relics, however, were different. Even mundane items such as a whistle could be transformed into weapons that broke the rules humans had to follow when crafting their own. Where a weaponsmith might have to engrave certain symbols and use specific structures to achieve a special effect, relics simply came with that effect built in.

To have encountered a relicbearer on his first solo hunt was great fortune. Maybe God was telling him that he had made the right decision.

Or Leith was deluding himself but he couldn’t help but be excited. It was well known that it was best to have a relic appraised before using it, but… that would take too long. Besides, he had a good feeling that it wasn’t the type of relic to randomly blow up in his face. Probably.

Leith wiped down the whistle as best as he could and poured water over it, trying to clear away any grime. Then, looping the leather rings around his fingers, he lifted it up and placed it on his lips, aiming the end of the whistle at the carcass the narboar was eating earlier.

He took a deep breath and blew, causing a deep bleating sound to emanate from the whistle. Flame undulated from the end of the whistle, slow at first and then all at once, streaking towards the carcass.

The flames split the carcass into two as if it were struck by a giant axe. The stone behind the carcass cracked too, and the fire burned brilliantly before disappearing almost as quickly as it had come.

Stunned, Leith stared at the weapon in his hand. That much destructive power at range… it was almost like he was cheating! He touched a finger to the riftcore which seemed to have lost its glow– sure enough it was spent. Leith would have to recharge it later and he mentally noted to try and use a little less force next time so he had more than one shot.

Leith grinned, thinking that he’d have to write to Hani describing his new toy. 

Soon, he was back in town with a spear in one hand and a whistle in the other. While this would have been a strange sight in Karya, here in Tyrrel it was typical for hunters to come back to town hauling their spoils.

Tyrrel was an interesting town. It had nice roads paved with stone and homes that were all weirdly close to each other and lined in orderly rows, quite unlike Karya and the sporadic placement of the buildings there. Tyrrel was also always bustling with activity, the streets always full and the air filled with smells of food and the loud voices of merchants hawking their wares.

Along with combat training, Alcide had also handed Leith dozens of books outlining history and politics that Leith didn’t have much interest in but deigned to read anyway since Alcide told him it was important. According to those books, the general positive atmosphere in Tyrrel could probably be attributed to the leaders of the region of Kazam. Leith’s hometown Karya was located in the outer part of the region of Khasba, which apparently was known for being neglected by the leaders of the region.

The Kazam leaders, however, were much more involved in making sure that all of their cities flourished and did well for themselves, as could be seen in Tyrrel. The regions valued entirely different things too– while Khasba was known for the opulence of its elites, Kazam was concerned with the strength of its hunters first and foremost.

This allowed any city near the Rift to prosper, clearly evident in Tyrrel. The first day he had arrived, Alcide had told him to feel free to explore. The markets were overflowing with monster parts, and the apothecary part of his brain was tempted to buy everything he saw. His mother would have loved shopping here. Wandering around, Leith couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of envy and awe that this random no-name town had so much whereas his own no-name town was a backwater village with nothing special.

Lokan, a colleague of Alcide’s, owned a quaint home made of brick with two floors which was inconspicuously placed in a street with very little traffic. Alcide often stayed there, whenever he was in Tyrrel. He entered the house, the door creaking loudly and let its inhabitants know of his presence.

“Leith, my boy! C’mere and get something to eat!” Lokan shouted in his characteristically loud voice.

“I think I’d like to take a bath first. I’m dirty from the–”

“Nope! C’mere and eat while the food’s still hot!” Lokan interrupted.

By now Leith knew that disobeying Lokan wouldn’t work and that the large man would drag him out of his bath if he dared to leave without eating.

“Tell me boy, how was your first hunt?” Lokan asked, slapping a massive bowl of stew in front of Leith.

“It was… kinda scary. I think I almost died,” Leith told him, stirring the chunks in his stew.

Lokan barked out a laugh while stroking his unkempt beard. “Well yeah, that's about how most hunts go. What’d you hunt, anyway?”

“A narboar,” Leith replied, sipping his stew.

“A what?” Lokan shouted, seemingly flabbergasted. “Oi, Alcide, ya better get your ass down here right now, and tell me why you’re trying to kill the new kid.”

“Lokan, he’s clearly doing okay. The kid’s stronger than you think,” Alcide’s voice sounded from upstairs.

Lokan grumbled something to himself about Alcide keeping his suicidal tendencies to himself and proceeded to busy himself with something else instead.

Leith quickly finished his stew and went off to bathe. Lokan was a kind man, contrary to his rough appearance and voice. Alcide had opted to use this city as a temporary residence since it bordered a forest with a very active population of fiends and was not too far away from the Rift. He claimed that it would be a good place to train.

For the past month, training is all that Leith ever did. His training consisted of three parts– strength training, weapons training, and mobility training. According to Alcide (who put it rather bluntly) Leith had too little muscle mass and low endurance and what was most important at the moment was to strengthen his body. Because of this, everyday Leith would have to go on runs and do weight training at Alcide’s discretion.

They followed this with weapons training, where Leith was being taught three different weapons at once. Rather ambitious for the few months they had together, sure, but Alcide only wanted him to understand the basics of swords, spears, and guns. Their main focus were spears, which Alcide claimed would be the easiest to learn and would serve him the best in the short-term.

Admittedly, Leith felt that he was making very little progress with weapons. While he knew it would be absurd to think he could master something so difficult in such little time, it was disheartening to see how he really hadn’t progressed all that much.

Mobility training, however, was a completely different story. By now, Leith had come to accept that he was in fact something of a genius when it comes to chroma. The sheer force with which he could expel energy from a riftcore and the finesse with which he could control it was apparently very advanced, especially given his age.

This meant that certain chroma-powered items that require more proficiency than what the average student hunter could manage became readily available for him. Jet boots were one such item and Alcide wanted him to master using them as soon as possible.

Alcide had told Leith that being able to control these boots would serve as a fantastic advantage since it would allow him to run away when necessary. Also, apparently the boots were extremely difficult to use and was something that a majority of his peers wouldn’t be able to do, and so mastering them would help him stand out a bit.

While at first, Leith was a little skeptical, he now had to admit the jet boots had served him well– it had saved him from that damned narboar, after all. Also, the boots were just plain fun. Gaining the ability to more or less fly on command was an amazingly fun ability to have. He wondered to himself if his father had done things like this while he was working as a hunter.

Finishing up his bath, Leith made his way into the room Lokan had granted him and sat down at the desk. The room itself was a massive luxury to Leith, a quiet space to read and spend time alone was nice. The bed was softer than anything he had ever laid on before, though admittedly, sleeping alone without his brother bickering in his ear was rather lonely, not that he’d ever tell Hani that. 

At his desk, Leith began to write a letter to his mother and brother. He made sure to write a letter at least once every week, detailing his adventures and training (though he did make sure to downplay some of the more… dangerous parts). He missed them a lot, but the pangs of sadness that used to constantly emanate from his chest had died down a lot and instead he really only felt it in moments like this where he was actively thinking about them. Leith hoped that he’d be able to visit soon.

Despite his homesickness, Leith had to admit that he was slowly but surely growing to enjoy and appreciate this opportunity he was granted even more. The things he had learned were interesting and the prospect of attending a proper academy was very exciting.

Leith was still writing his letter when his door burst open and Elea barged in, pointing a stick at his head and grinning like a madwoman.