Chương 33

I was headed to the longhouse so I could go under concealed presence and head towards the buffaloes, when Omar came in front of me. I could see he was trying, and failing, to suppress a grin from forming, and looked about ready to burst with wanting to say something to me. It looked like only the solemn atmosphere around us was keeping him in check. He looks… different… somehow. I gestured towards the longhouse, and he nodded then started walking beside me. I observed him, and it felt like he was more.

Like perhaps the Omar before was an inferior version to the one walking beside me. I went a bit on guard, and checked to ensure my stamina and mana levels were topped up. Wild theories of shapeshifters and parasites were running through my mind, while Omar, now supporting a full-on grin, walked obliviously beside me. I allowed him to enter the longhouse first, and then took out my dagger and clenched it tightly behind my back.

I stepped just past the entrance, not willing to go into confined quarters just yet, and said in a casual manner, "So, what's up?" He turned around and immediately blurted out "I reached level 10! I got to E Grade and got an ability too!" Oh… Feeling a bit foolish, I sneakily stashed my dagger away and congratulated the big guy, who was over the moon with excitement. I gave him a huge high five, and asked him to tell me all about it while we headed toward the room I had now been frequently occupying.

It must have been a difference in Grades that I felt…

"It was incredible! Why didn't you tell us how otherworldly it would be?" asked Omar as soon as the door shut behind me. Well… I had other more important things in mind…

"I wanted you to experience it yourself" I instead replied.

"Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise."

"Right, right! Good thinking!" he agreed.

"Want to know about my ability?" he said like a child impatiently wanting to show off their latest 'creation'. Playing into his enthusiasm, I replied, "More than anything!"

"It's called Resonance!" he immediately blurted, then stopped. Once again, acquiescing to what he clearly wanted from me, I spoke.

"Wow, sounds amazing! What does it do?"

"I'm not entirely sure yet, but I think it allows me to somehow get more in tune with something the more I actively try it out. Like my mana bolt spell, the more I used it with the ability active, the deeper I understood it!"

"That's actually really interesting!" I said, this time without faking the enthusiasm.

"I know right! Let me tell you all about how it happened! There we were, surrounded by wolves and absolutely getting beaten back! I thought, not on my watch! So, I started smashing them up like no tomorrow. You should've seen me! I was…" Omar started a whole heroic account of what I was sure was a far simpler fight with the others more involved. I tuned out his voice as I thought about his ability.

It really was interesting, and I could see that it would allow Omar to gain knowledge that could be invaluable for us all. If the ability allowed him to understand abstract concepts like spells and mana, he could then share it with all of us. I then thought about my own ability, and something came to my mind. Should I…? I looked at Omar's widely gesticulating hands as he narrated his life-or-death struggles against an alpha wolf. I nodded along with his story, and kept giving distracted reactions.

Unnoticed, I activated my ability and tried to make Omar look just slightly to the left for the briefest of moments. Immediately, a small pang of pain was felt in my head. I winced slightly, but luckily Omar was too distracted by his own story to notice. I guess influencing others is not possible. Omar continued on, as I rubbed my temples a bit, trying to get rid of the headache.

I followed Omar outside, bidding him farewell and thinking about all he had said. Well, all the important stuff he had said. After the action-packed retelling of his heroic tales were finished, we spent some time theory-crafting the different ways his ability could work. I offered him my own insight that I had learned about mana, and told him that he should start with improving his base knowledge of mana.

It was encouraging that he had figured out how to imbue different aspects like heat, homing, and rotating into his spell, and continuing down this path would yield immense benefits I thought. I also gleaned a few ideas that I could try on my own with my latest spell. Once we exited, we were faced with the still present crowd moving about in the dimming evening light.

Lucas, helped by Sara, had successfully managed to calm everyone down by shifting the focus towards burying the dead and giving them the respect they deserved. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Mason and a few others had begun clearing an area off to the side to make into a makeshift cemetery of sorts. The avid reader of fantasy fiction within me was stirring at having a cemetery so close to our base, but I dismissed the concerns...

there were far more pressing things to be worried about at the moment. As Omar went off into the crowd, I turned back and did the whole going into concealed presence away from goblin eyes routine. Then, I headed off into the forest. I had a lot of things to test, and the sooner I understood the things I had gained today, the better. I paused as a realization hit me – it had not even been a day since I came back here, injured after the fight with the kobold elite.

In a span of a day, I had gained Tactical Insight, Subtle Influence, Mana Sense, and now Internal Mana Manipulation. It seemed bizarre, but today had been incredibly productive. But onwards we must continue. I had asked Omar about the buffaloes, and he had known where they were, so that's where I was headed right now. I wasn't suicidal enough to think about facing them head-on and alone, but I did want to know if my idea had any legs to stand on. I moved at a good pace, and soon I had reached the river.

I paused to marvel at the magical sight of the river once again, this time the water looking magical in the evening light, as birds flitted about catching the numerous insects. Having to make a conscious effort to tear my gaze from the sight, I then started moving by the river, going downstream this time. According to Omar, if I travelled 15 to 20 minutes downstream, I would see a vast area with very sparse trees. That area was where the buffaloes usually stayed at.

Some time later, I could see the trees getting sparser, and spotted a few animals off in the distance. Retreating a bit, I took a few minutes to rest and recover my mana, before I re-applied concealed presence and continued. As I got closer, more and more of the large, black animals came into view. The closer I got, the larger they became. They tried to fight these things?! The buffaloes were absolutely massive. Easily over 4 meters tall and just pure muscle.

Their hooves were far pointier than any animal referred to as 'cattle' had any right to possess, and the horns felt more designed to smash through any obstacles rather than penetrate anything – being large but dull at the ends instead of pointy. Their skin appeared thick and impenetrable, and I didn't need tactical insight to tell me that fighting them would be a bad idea. Going near them was intimidating. The herd stretched as far as I could see now, spread out over a large area.

I could spot a few younger ones right at the center, being guarded by all the bodies in between. Their numbers were easily over a hundred, perhaps even more, each one looking as daunting as the one next to it. But even within their kind, one of them stood out. It was just a bit larger than the others and looked about the same, but even from so far away I could feel that it was dangerous. It felt much like what I had experienced when seeing Omar just some time ago, just at a much higher intensity.

I wasn't sure, but I could pretty confidently say that it was probably D Grade. Either that, or it was at the higher end of E Grade. I quickly opened my status and was relieved to see the mana ticking down – I was still hidden. How effective it was against that thing remained to be seen. However, there was one reason why I had been open to coming here; these buffaloes ignored you if you didn't disturb them.

That being said, given the fact that we had just pissed them off and they had retaliated by killing a bunch of us, I wasn't willing to test whether that theory held true or not. Instead, I settled in to observe them. Over the next few minutes, I could see they were most interested in a particular kind of bush that was growing all over the place. I had been noticing a lot about my surroundings over the past few days, and I knew for a fact that this particular bush was prevalent all over the forest.

I started to go closer as I had something important to test. I chose to head towards a small group of three buffaloes that were a bit separate from the rest of the herd. They had found a collection of the bushes and were absolutely enjoying themselves. I moved towards a bush that was towards the forest and away from the herd. Once I was in position, I settled in behind a tree and focused on the test.

I knew from Omar that I couldn't use my ability to influence someone else, and I wasn't about to test whether it held true for these buffaloes or not. I would test it against a weaker creature that was alone instead of a herd of murderous buffaloes. Something like an ant would be a far easier test subject. Instead, I had something far simpler in mind right now. I activated my ability, and used it to focus on the bush in front of me. I asked the bush to become more enticing for the buffaloes, nothing more.

My ability activated, and then I felt it do something before switching off. The bush trembled very slightly before going dormant again. For a few seconds, I was unsure of what had happened, but then I smelled something very slight in the air; it smelled very lightly of citrus and something else I couldn't quite place my finger on. Seconds later, one of the buffaloes raised its head and I could see its nostrils flaring as it smelled the air.

Leaving the others, it trotted over to the bush I had targeted with my ability and buried its face in it to start grazing. Soon, the other two buffaloes had also left their bushes in favour of this one. Elated at the ability working as intended, I moved on to the next bush, still moving further away from the herd. This time, instead of using my ability, I used mana. I did the same thing I did in the room earlier, to have the mana gather in my palm and then turn to a wind affinity before shooting out.

However, there was something instantly different this time. It's so easy! This was the first time since I had gotten Internal Mana Manipulation that I had gotten a chance to test it out, and what had taken me days to accomplish was now effortlessly taken care of by the skill within a couple seconds at most. The mana had already shot out, but I didn't have any idea on how much to use, and had ended up using too much.

The wind mana smashed into the bush, rattling it violently and causing the buffaloes to look up in alarm and immediately trot back to the herd. I stood up, heart hammering and preparing to bolt from here at a second's notice, but luckily the sound of the bush had just been loud enough to spook the three buffaloes here; the rest of the herd continuing on grazing obliviously. Relieved, I looked around and found a tree that was far enough away from the herd to be out of sight.

Climbing it, I settled to regenerate my mana and observe the buffaloes a bit more. Once the mana was full again, I switched on Concealed Presence and silently made my way over to two buffaloes who were a bit away from the herd. Once again targeting a nearby bush with mana, but this time controlling the mana a bit more carefully, I sent out a small column of wind. The wind shook the bush beautifully, and a few seconds later I could smell the citrusy scent, though it was at a lower intensity this time.

Still, it worked, and one of the buffaloes trotted over to graze at the bush, while the other remained in place. It seemed like the ability worked more completely, but using mana was also doable. I looked behind me, towards the forest stretching away, a basic plan already forming. It can definitely work!