After several months of living in the forest, returning to people didn't feel like a triumph—more like a forced change of location. Zeno led me along old paths toward a settlement he called the "Hunter's Nest." Essentially, it was a fortified village for those who specialized in clearing anomalies and catching "wild" mages.
"Listen here," Zeno stopped at the edge of the forest, where the palisade was already visible. "They don't like fuss. Magic here isn't an art; it's a job. Teamwork. They will test you. Don't try to seem stronger than you are—they'll see right through you in a second."
I nodded, checking the straps on my troll hide armor. The bone plates pressed against my chest in a familiar way. The village looked grim: nothing but stone, wood, and clear defensive lines. Mana didn't flow chaotically here like it did in the forest—it was... "combed."
Three people were waiting for us at the entrance. They wore gray leather armor reinforced with metal inserts.
"Halt," a broad-faced man with a short sword raised his hand. "Zeno, brought another 'wild' one, have you?"
"He's stable," the old man replied shortly. "He wants to look at your methods and do some trading."
The hunters exchanged glances. The younger one, with a thin scar running across his cheek, took a step toward me.
"Stable, you say? Well, we'll see about that. He radiates kind of strangely, as if he's under constant suppression."
We were led to a training ground behind the palisade. The three hunters fanned out, forming a triangle. I found myself in the center.
"The task is simple," the leader said. "Last a minute. We won't kill you, just test your 'structure.'"
I activated "Will to Live" at fifteen percent. The world took on a slight sharpness. "Analysis mode activation," I commanded myself mentally.
The younger one moved first. He simply lunged forward, infusing his legs with mana for acceleration. I shifted my center of gravity and, using his own momentum, redirected the trajectory of his shoulder with my forearm. The bone plate on my bracer creaked but held. The hunter flew past, barely missing the ground, and quickly regained his balance.
"Not bad," he tossed out.
The second mage struck without delay. He released a wave of pressure. A sharp compression of air. I nearly lost my footing. I felt "Will to Live" instantly redistribute the tension in my legs, maintaining my grip on the ground. I stepped forward to break his rhythm and even managed to jab his shoulder with my fist, but then the third one—the leader—intervened.
He simply snapped his fingers.
In that exact instant, my entire body became... not mine. It was a suppression technique—they created a zone of "heavy mana" around me. My skill screamed about an overload. I tried to bolt toward the nearest opponent to close the distance, but my legs refused to obey. I staggered, took a clumsy swing which the second mage easily parried, and dropped to one knee.
The pressure vanished a second later. I sat on the dusty ground, breathing heavily.
"Enough," the leader said. "You lost, kid. You have speed, excellent reaction time, but against coordinated pressure, you're a zero."
I wiped my face with my sleeve.
"Conclusions need to be drawn," I rasped.
"But he didn't panic," the younger one noted, putting away his sword. "Most self-taught types start giving up or throwing magic in all directions under pressure. But this one... well, he didn't run and went all the way, knowing it wouldn't work. His pulse barely even spiked."
We were left alone. The next few days turned into a course of intensive observation. The hunters worked like a single mechanism: if one put up a shield, the second prepared a breakthrough, and the third covered the rear.
I tried to copy them. In the evenings, tucked away in a corner of the common barracks, I attempted to replicate their mana suppression techniques through the contours of my armor. I thought: if I add their suppression method to my acceleration, I'll become twice as efficient.
One evening, I decided to test the "combined mode" on the outskirts of the village. I tried to twist the mana flow the way the hunters did to form shields, while simultaneously cranking up "Will to Live" for control.
Instead of flowing through the channels, the mana began battering my internal organs. My breath caught. My vision went dark. I didn't even have time to get scared—the system went into an emergency shutdown. Darkness.
I woke up to the sharp smell of burnt grass and something sour. Zeno was standing over me. He looked annoyed.
I sat up, every rib echoing with a throbbing ache.
"I wanted to optimize the process..."
"Optimize what's already there," the old man cut me off. "Your 'Will' is your foundation. Train it."
Okay. Fine. Lesson learned. I will simplify and train my own techniques. Initially, I wanted to master space distortion, but quickly realized it drains tons of energy, so I focused on micro-adjustments: accelerating not the whole body, but a specific muscle at the moment of impact; venting mana pressure not through the entire skin, but through a single point on the sole of my foot. Harder to control, but far more reliable.
Before we left, the head hunter approached me. He handed me a cloudy crystal that looked like a piece of faceted glass.
"This is a background analyzer. It shows the mana density within a ten-meter radius. We get issued these to search for hidden anomalies. It'll be useful to you."
"Thank you," I said, accepting the item.
The crystal was small, but too cold and heavy. "Well, alright, I'll find a use for it," I said.
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