Escape Comes First (Part One)

A bloodstained dagger might have gone unnoticed in some places, but it looked out of place in a field. Lamore walked over slowly.

There was no smell of blood. No, the scent was just very faint. The blood on the dagger had already dried.

Lamore picked up the dagger. Beneath the faint smell of blood was a stronger, sickening odor: Goblin.

"Dean, use this time to restore your mana. We're close to our target, and we'll need you at full strength," Lamore told the other three gravely.

He held out the dagger for them to see. Even Kana stopped teasing Dean at once, while Yanxi gripped her shield.

"The Goblins might not be nearby. Dean's Life Detection Magic hasn't found them, at least. Of course, they might also come back the way they went." Lamore brought his long staff up in front of himself.

Dean had already sunk deep into meditation.

Normally, Dean needed around five hours of meditation to restore his mana. If it went particularly well, he could shave a little off that time. Today, though, he had three hours at most. After that, they still had to find and eliminate the Goblins.

Otherwise, fighting the Goblins after dark would be far more dangerous for the team.

Dean knew that too. But the harder he tried to do something well, the worse it seemed to go. His meditation was going terribly. He trusted his three companions to protect him, but right now, he desperately wanted to do his part.

Instead, Dean felt like a burden. He had drained his mana searching for the Goblins, but that did not change the fact that he had become a burden at a critical moment.

Mana. I need more mana. The thought raced through Dean's mind. Usually, he meditated by letting his imagination roam among the elements, drawing in the magical elements he needed from his surroundings. Now all he could think about was mana. He needed mana.

Sunlight fell across the wheat field, turning the vast expanse of grain gold. Which element was strongest around him now?

Fire!

The sun's light!

Invisible fire elements gathered around Dean. Even Kana and Yanxi, an archer and a shield-bearing swordswoman who could not sense elements, noticed the air growing hotter.

Mana swirled around him. Dean's body greedily drew in the surrounding fire elements, refined them into pure mana, and stored it within him.

Less than half an hour later, Dean shuddered. Strength filled his body, and he felt brimming with energy.

"What... just happened?" Kana asked blankly.

Yanxi and Lamore stared at Dean too. What was going on? How long had it been? Had Dean already finished meditating?

"Something unexpected happened, but don't worry. It's a good thing." Dean rubbed the back of his head. "I'll need to ask my mentor about the details when we get back to Blue Town. The good news is that all my mana has recovered."

Restoring more than seventy points of mana in half an hour should have required a meditation technique. Dean was only a Magic Apprentice and could use nothing but free-form meditation. How could he have restored all his mana?

The three exchanged looks. It felt like a joke. Could Dean have been hiding some special item that restored mana? Such items were extraordinarily precious. Forget Blue Town; there were only a few in the entire Empire.

The three silently reached the same decision. They could never tell anyone about Dean's mana-restoring item. Since he had shown it to them, they would take his secret to their graves.

Dean looked at them in confusion. All three seemed to have come to the same firm resolve at once. What was going on? Had they misunderstood something?

"Dean, don't tell anyone how quickly you recovered your mana. Don't let anyone else find out. This is a secret between the four of us—no, your new mentor too." Kana turned to him, her expression utterly serious.

"Oh? All right, I understand!" Dean answered woodenly. What was going on? Why was Kana being so serious?

Kana usually spent all day grinning and joking. She only acted like this when something important happened. Was it because he had recovered his mana so quickly? Come to think of it, that had been rather fast.

After just half an hour of meditation, he had restored eighty-two mana points. Compared with his old self, that was an enormous improvement.

Dean's maximum mana had reached eighty-two points. Perhaps it was because he had used mana so often that morning, or perhaps it was because of Basic Troll Vortex Meditation, but he seemed to be in a period of explosive mana growth.

Before, it had taken him five to seven days to gain a single point of maximum mana. Today, he had gained four points, and the day was only half over.

Dean could feel the faint beginnings of Basic Troll Vortex Meditation in the way his mana circulated. As that pattern grew stronger, his chances of forming a Magic Vortex would increase greatly. He might even form one in a single attempt with the help of the technique.

Dean had some idea what was happening to him. If he was right, it was probably related to the Demon Horn the demon Stavago had given him. The horn had pushed his affinity for the elements to its limit.

That had greatly improved both his ability to learn magic and his mana recovery. Of course, perhaps that was only because he had been so weak to begin with! The Demon Horn's boost might not have been that large, but to someone as weak as Dean, it made a tremendous difference.

"The Goblins should be nearby. Let's find them!" Dean set off first. Kana and the others came to their senses and let the matter drop. They would rather protect his secret.

A faint ripple of mana spread out as Dean cast Life Detection Magic again.

Half an hour later, after they had covered more than four hundred meters, Dean stopped abruptly and looked back at the other three with an odd expression.

"I found the Goblins. It's just... they seem to be taking an afternoon nap. They didn't even notice my spell." Dean could hardly believe it. The four of them had spent most of the day searching. He had worked hard to scan the area, while the other three had stayed on high alert.

And their targets were fast asleep?

Kana's face darkened. She nearly burst out cursing but held it in. Then she gave an ugly grin that made her anger plain and slowly drew a finger across her throat.

The End