I wiped away the dried tears on my cheek. The bright morning light made the hut glow in its brightness. I got out of the hammock and went over to the table where Olivere had placed a to-do list. I yawned, stretching my arms to the sky, and got to work. Olivere had already gotten up, he not that that was unusual, he seemed to always be doing something. I climbed down the tree. I peered at the paper. I walked over to the back of the tree at the isopod insects on the tree's back. At first, I tried prying them off, but of course, that didn’t work. I thought that with all the training I had been doing I would be strong enough to brute force it. I remember once when Olivere was complaining about how long it took me to bring the bugs up he had done it himself. He plucked them off as easily as one would picking up a leaf. I think there was something other than brute strength to it. I had a feeling it was something different but I couldn’t put it into words. An Idea popped into my mind. What was it that Olivere had said that one time? Something like this is a magical jungle, it responds to mana. I placed my hand on one of the bugs. I let mana flow through my fingers and into the bug. It detached itself easily. I didn’t even have to pull at all. So that’s what Olivere had meant. It took me less than a minute to collect five of them. I held the last one letting some of my mana flow into it. The same green liquid that Olivere made come out of it started to come out of its glands. It all made sense now.

 

“Sebastian,” called Olivere from the other side of the tree. I slung the bugs over my shoulder and quickly walked to the other side but there was no one there.

 

“What is it?” I called out.

 

“Watch out below!” said Olivere.

 

I looked up to see a grey rectangle falling down from above me. I barely managed to scramble away and avoid having been crushed under it. I looked back at it. It was a square with metal bars lining its outside. Inside a vicious wolf-like creature as dark as the night. It snarled ferociously looking me right in the eyes. Its fang-filled mouth gnawed on one of the bars covering it in drool.

 

I scrambled back even further. Olivere landed ontop of it.

 

“What the hell is that!” I shouted at Olivere.

 

“Don’t worry about this for now,” said Olivere cheerfully. “You’ll be fighting me for now,”

 

“For now!!” I burst out, “Are you insinuating that I’ll be fighting that thing,” I said pointing furiously at the creature.

 

“Where do you even get metal? We live in a jungle,”

 

“You’ll find out soon enough,” said Olivere.

Olivere covered the cage with a tarp he was carrying on his back. Unfortunately, it did little to hide the moving bumps that were visible through the tarp that did little to make one forget the fact that an aggressive killer was in fact right there.

 

“Are you ready,” said Olivere.

 

I dropped the insects at the base of the tree and walked further out.

 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said lowering myself into a stance. Olivere in contrast stood there casually without a worry in the world.

 

I charged at him, sprinting towards him. I threw the first punch. Olivere sidestepped and took out his leg to trip me but I stepped over it turning around. Olivere nodded approvingly. I swivelled around adding onto my own momentum to try and swipe his legs out from under him. My foot landed solidly against him but he still didn’t budge. I threw a flurry of punches at him but he seemingly fazed through the punches. I couldn’t land a single one of them. I began to lose feeling in my arms. I wouldn’t let him rest just yet. I withdrew a couple of paces. I felt along the ground for stones and sticks. I threw a handful of stones and sticks at him. He plucked them out of the air. He drew his arms back. My eyes widened. There’s no way he’s gonna ... He threw the rocks forward at me. They shot through the air so fast they hissed. I narrowly avoided them, they continued on and embedded themselves in a couple of trees behind me.

 

Olivere began approaching me taking casual steps. With his next step, he disappeared only to reappear in front of me.

 

“You get points for creativity but against someone like me you’re only shooting yourself in the foot”

He punched at me. It hissed through the air. I instinctively jerked to the side and awkwardly dodged it. Hadn’t been able to dodge his attacks before, Olivere must be pulling his punches. Olivere threw some more punches and kicks. I dodged some of them, the ones I didn’t dodge felt like sledgehammers.

 

“Time out, you need to sense the mana,” said Olivere stopping. “By sensing mana one can see precursors to attacks additionally there are downsides to just using your eyes to see enemy attacks, using your other senses including touch and hearing but more importantly mana sensing is much faster at detecting movement. You can also sense things that behind you and even through solid objects,”

 

He felt around on the ground and ripped out a massive tree root from the ground.

He tied the smaller, softer roots around one of the ends and chopped off uneven and bent pieces. The end result was a long stick with a softenened ball on one end.

 

“You have to feel the mana around me, both the mana flowing out of you and the mana in the air. I’ll start off slow,” said Olivere readying his stick.

 

He jabbed it at me. I was too distracted by trying to sense the mana that I didn’t block it. It knocked the wind out of me.

 

“You need to loosen up,” said Olivere.

 

I took a deep breath through my nose, filling up my lungs and exhaled. I closed my eyes. I could feel Olivere’s breathing, the birdsong, the wind rustling through the leaves and branches of the trees but no mana. I produced a few sparks of mana in my body. Maybe I just wasn’t attuned to sensing mana? I focused on the feeling of mana. The mana in the trees, birds and insects. The mana welling in the ground and flowing through the air. If I expanded my “body” to beyond my physical body then maybe then I could sense them. I stretched my consciousness imagining the ground, trees, air and all creatures that dwelled in it as part of my body. I felt a trickle of mana from those things. Something clicked within me. I was able to sense the same mana that was within me in all those things. I gulped, I could unfortunately sense even the ominous mana of the caged beast.

 

The first jab came without warning. I felt its presence as it moved through the air. From this distance I could dodge it by simply sidestepping. I did so and it moved harmlessly past me. I dodged the next ones as well. They seemed much slower this time. It seemed that the extra time gained by sensing mana was enough to produce a significant increase in the speed I could react to.

 

“Let’s take this up a notch,” said Olivere. I could tell by his voice that he was smiling. Olivere let the stick fall to the ground. He lifted his arms into a boxers stance.I didn’t open my eyes, but I didn’t feel that I needed to. I could sense the ground, air and everything else around me. Wafts of mana flowing from Olivere’s body flickered and condensed. Shortly thereafter his fist moved. I slipped his punch and punched myself aiming at his exposed ribs. He dodged it and unloaded a flurry of punches on me. Don’t think, don’t think I thought back to myself at the approaching maelstrom. My body moved seemingly of its own accord and dodged the blows. It just knew how to configure itself, what steps to take and when it should move.

 

My sweat ran cold. Wafts of mana was flickering and condensing around Olivere. The intensity far surpassed anything else in the vicinity.

 

The only movement I was able to capture in the next moment was Olivere drawing back his arm. In my next moment of consciousness, his fist was hovering a hairsbreadth from my face.

 

“That’s enough sparring for now,” said Olivere.

 

I was outclassed in every way, I hadn’t even seen his punch. I wouldn’t have believed that level of speed was possible if I hadn’t experienced it firsthand. How far does the path of strength go? I wondered.

 

“Prepare for your next opponent,” said Olivere suspiciously gleefully. I shivered at the thought of what was ahead of me.

 

He jumped onto the cage with his hand by the bars not that there was any lock on it.

 

“Are you ready?” asked Olivere.

 

I fixated my eyes on my opponent. It was still as if it knew that if it waited a little it would get what it wanted.

 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I growled back.

 

WIth the flick of his powerful wrist Olivere tore through the cage foundation. The monster burst through the cage throwing metal and splintering in the air. It leaped straight at me, mouth agape revealing all its deadly teeth. Sense the mana. Its snarls distracted me from my thoughts. I dodged it using my eyes instead, lunging to the side. It kept on attacking not even stopping. No creature I had ever fought had been this angry, this ferocious. It was so eager to kill.

 

“focus! “ shouted Olivere.”Don’t be intimidated, you need to be able to focus even in the heat of battle if you want to win. ”

I gained some distance from the Monster. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath filing my lungs.

 

“Sebastian!” shouted Olivere.

 

I opened my eyes to see one of its paws centimeters from my face. Claws as long as my fingers glinted in the light. I ducked the blow, the talons grazed my face raking loosely through my hair, while taking a few hair strands with it.

 

I have to act faster, I don’t have time to prepare myself. I thought. I called mana to my core. Sense the flow, just feel it. I needed to get my mana sense to overlap with the real world. I couldn’t just close my eyes and prepare myself I didn’t have time for that. I saw steam flowing from my arms and all around me, except it wasn’t steam it was mana. Through my intense need and desire I had done it! I could now sense mana with my eyes open. I seneed the beasts next attack. It roared and swiped at me. I read the mana trails and dodged it. I took steps backwards easily avoiding its attacks. It may have been vicious but compared to Olviere’s attacks it wasn’t quite as fast. That didn’t mean I could take this lightly. One misstep, one slipup would be all that was needed for me to die.

 

I felt leaves brush against my back. I was against the tree perimeter! I had just taken steps back like an idiot and gotten cornered.The surprise of reaching the perimeter broke slowed my movements. In that moment it lunged at me tackling me to the ground. It’s weight was crushing and knocked the wind out of me. I screamed and used my arms as best I could to keep its mouth away from my head. I focused all my mana into my legs. I kicked it with all my might kicking it into the forest over my head. It shot away into into the dense foliage. I was covered in scratches and bruised but I couldn’t end it here. If I couldn’t do this then how was I supposed to progress? I took a step into the forest and hesitated. Was I ready to go in there?

 

“Go get him!” Shouted Olivere, making a big thumbs up on an outstretched arm.

 

I walked into the jungle before me. The atmosphere seemed to change. The soil was darker almost pitch-black under the leaves. I wasn’t safe here. I was in its territory now. The leaves moved to my right. It could have been the monster or maybe just the wind. Bushes rustled to my left. It could have been the wind or the monster as well. Don’t use only your eyes use all your senses. I focused on the mana in my surroundings. The ominous mana of the beast was clearly there to my left. It jumped with a roar at me. I ducked underneath it. Time to land some hits of my own. I punched it in the stomach. It howled in pain. I threw punches striking at its forelegs, face, nose and anywhere else I could hit. The force of the blows rolled it over. When it got back up its eyes were different. It saw me as a threat now, not like food anymore. I sensed mana building up inside it. The mana trails condensing around it. It opened its mouth. What was it doing? I yellow beam of concentrated heat shot from its mouth. I turned to get out of the way.

 

“Don’t get out of the way!” Shouted Olivere. “You can take it!”

 

I roared and stopped myself from fleeing. I reached out with my arms concentrating mana on my arms. More I need more mana! I squeezed every ounce of mana from within me pooling it into my arms. The beam tore into me pressing me back. My arms went numb but I didn’t fold and resisted the push. The beam died down.

 

The monster was smoking and lying lifelessly on the ground.

 

“What happened,” I managed to get out in between gasps for air.

 

“With this particular species, if their heat blast doesn’t kill their opponent they burn through their life force after exhausting their mana, congratulations!” He said. “You did good,”