“I will give you 25 copper Gulden per hide”[Merchant Hans]

The round merchant was looking at Davron with greedy eyes. He was dressed in expensive furs, which couldn’t contain his big belly. A goatee was on his face.

“What? But it was 27 copper Gulden!”[Davron]

“Listen boy. No one will buy this hide off you. I’m not making the prices, the traveling merchants are! Boy, I’m already cutting my profits and even paying on top!”[Hans]

Davron hated Hans. He knew that Hans was talking shit.

Hans was the only merchant in the village. Years ago, he came back to his home village to settle down. In his time as a traveling merchant, he had learned many skills and broadened his horizons. It was fairly easy for him to scam the ordinary villager.

The fat merchant was the second most influential individual in the village, the first one was - of course - the village head. Hans owned a lot of farm land and debt of the villagers. The villagers didn’t even understand that they were scammed.

“Tzz okay. Here”[Davron]

Davron had no other choice, but to sell his hides to the greedy merchant. He needed money for his future plans. Something like a start-up capital for his adventuring.

“Hehe. Good choice, dear customer.”[Hans]

Hans gave Davron 34 copper coins.

“I look forward to our future businesses!”[Hans]

Davron took the hard-earned money and went out, without replying to Hans.

‘Bah. Disgusting pig’. Davron was cursing in his mind.

Three boy were looking at Davron walking through the village centre.

One of the boys, the fattest one, smirked to his friends and called out to Davron.

“Oh look at that. The pig got out of his stall! Oink Oink Oink”[Fetter]

Davron looked at Fetter and his lackeys. He knew them well.

Fetter was the villager head’s only son, and like his father, he inherited a noble-complex. He, a commoner, was thoroughly convinced he was a noble. Already in the cradle, he had been taught he was special and different from all those pesky villagers, as he was the future village head!

This was also the reason why most of the village kids treated Davron and his siblings like trash. Those kids were already crawling by Fetter’s feet, as their parents did to the village head.

“Oh, did the piggy lose its speech?”[Fetter]

It was laughable, the fat Fetter, who looked exactly like a pig, was calling Davron pig.

“Hahaha exactly! This disgusting thing! He even stinks like horse shit!”[Lackeys]

After giving them a mean gaze, Davron turned his head and went on. Inwardly, he wanted to shred them into pieces and throw them down the tallest mountain.

‘Someday, I’m gonna roast you like a pig. Just wait!’. Davron could only keep his hate bottled up.

He had no other choice. Fetter was protected by his father, who loved him dearly. Davron knew, if he ever retaliates against the bullying, the father-and-son pair would do anything to ruin him and his family. In fact, there have been incidents already!

A few years ago, Fetter had supposedly accidentally pushed a young boy from the bridge into the river under it. Unfortunately, the boy had died, because he couldn’t swim.

Of course, the young boy’s parents had been angry and had wanted justice for their dead son. After they complained to the village head, the village head accused them of being followers of an evil god and burned them alive in the village center.

–

“What a shitty day”[Davron]

Davron sat down on a grass field. Everything was empty. Green grass extended into the horizon.

While doing his regular meditation, a slight pain overcame his chest. This was the typical indication that Davron was ready to form his mana core.

That was foreseeable, as he had spent his last weeks training his mana paths. In fact, most mages take similar amount of time as Davron.

Filling his chest with air, he was mentally preparing himself for his next move. The book had already told him that it will be very painful.

To form the mana core, the mage needs to compress all their mana from the mana paths into the right side of the mage’s chest.

Davron started to compress his mana. Inside himself, he observed how slowly the mana was moving into the right spot.

[WARNING! WARNING!]
[Suspicious particle are mixed into the host’s mana!]
[Should AIS halter the particles?]

As Davron was compressing his mana, he heard AIS warning. Then he noticed strange black particles in his mana paths. He frowned. They were also flowing into the direction of his soon-to-be formed mana core.

Davron didn’t have much time thinking about it, as the pain was unbearable and he didn’t want to feel it longer than necessary.

He nodded mentally to AIS proposal.

The inner mana kept flowing into Davron’s right chest, as the weird black particles were stopped by a small amount of inner mana.

Slow and steady, a tiny mana core was formed by the pure inner mana.

After the formation of the mana core, it did something Davron didn’t expect. The newly formed mana core started to pump inner mana from the core into his mana paths. It was an even crueler process. The mana slowly pressed the black particles out of his flesh, and Davron noticed that he was secreting black goo out of his pores, which stank horrible.

After the whole process stopped, Davron’s mana paths were bigger and his absorption had also increased drastically. Now, most of the world mana he absorbed didn’t flow into his mana paths, but to his new mana core.

“Bah, I stink like a pig, which swam in shit for a thousand years!”[Davron]

After sniffing himself, the stinky mage decided to go wash himself. Davron went to his usual creek, where he always washes off the blood from his body after a hunt.

With a smile on his face, Davron arrived to the small creek. However, on his way here, he destroyed countless animal habitats with his horrendous smell!

His cloths were thrown to the side. Davron went into the water. The water turned black around him, but quickly reverted itself to a clean look.

Now being clean, Davron gazed at the treetop thoughtfully.

He liked this mall creek, it helped him slow down the thoughts in his mind. Although he seemed carefree most of the time, Davron was still anxious.. anxious about his life and his family. He knew his commoner life was worthless and he was far too weak to do anything about real power. Hell, even the village head could easily destroy his life.

Davron hated being powerless. Might and power was what he strifed for. Power to scare off people, and might in order to punish those who still tried to harm him.

His eyes went from the treetops down to the water.

He clenched his fist.

“Enough relaxed”[Davron]

Davron went out of the water. Still naked, he sat down on the grass.

“I guess now is the time to connect to that Magic Network”[Davron]

To connect to the Magic Network you needed to chant a specific pseudo-spell.

“Oh, mighty Goddess Aurelia, you are the magic and magic moves along your wishes. Help this poor mortal to understand your grace, your might and your benevolence. This poor mortal begs you to show him a breath of your might!”[Davron]

[Attention! An unknown force took a small percentage of host’s inner mana!]
[Bing! An unknown force tries to connect to host]
[Accept or refuse connection?]

“Accept”[Davron]

Right after Davron accepted, he felt connected to a massive network. Davrons brain was flooded with strange information. Thanks to AIS, he didn’t get too much of a headache.

“Ahh, I understand now”[Davron]