Nico held a short sword steadily in his hand right hand as he paced around, keeping his eyes on the manasnake.

Nico and the manasnake had been at a standstill for 5 minutes.

The manasnake was wary of its prey. By its natural instinct, it was telling itself to be careful of the little human boy. 40 years of its hunting experience was telling itself to run.

Suddenly, it had made its decision to strike.

Nico reacted quickly to the lunging snake, who was aiming its fangs directly toward Nico's head. Nico flipped forward on top of the manasnake, reversed his sword grip, and plunged his short sword backward toward the back of the snake's head.

The snake quickly lowered its head down to dodge and coiled itself inside its scaly body to protect the head. The rotational movement of the coil deflected Nico away. Nico landed on both feet, and bent down to gather momentum. Without wasting any time, Nico sprang to the side and rammed the short sword towards the snake's left eye and into its brain.

Thud!

The ground shook, and then there was silence.

The series of attacks lasted no more than 10 seconds, but the manasnake was already dead.

The dark blue blood seeped out onto the frozen white covered ground. Strange occurrences like this was becoming familiar to Nico. He would never imagine a snake appearing during the wintertime, but apparently the manasnake didn't brumate during the winter.

He would also never imagine himself capable to killing a manabeast himself. It was quite anti-climatic when he encountered his first manabeast, the yellow bobcat.

His legs were shaking at the sight of the manabobcat. He reminded himself that he was close to the farm and could run safely back to the farm anytime. He had also learned light heal from harvesting the manaherbs, so he could heal himself if he gets injured. Who would have thought that a simply whack to the head with a spear could destroy the manabobcat. It wasn't even a proper thrust.

Nico gained more and more confidence as he killed more manabeasts.

Nico sliced open the back of the manasnake head to retrieve a s.h.i.+ny blue orb. Nico stuffed the manacore inside his s.h.i.+rt and checked on his status.

Status:

Manaroot: None

Mananode: None

Manaspirit: Midnight Koi 28

Strength: 26

FP: 7/7

Defense: 20

Speed: 24

Magic: 28

MP: 52/52

Resistance: 24

Casting: 18

Recipes:

First-Aid Ointment > Healing Balm

Red Flame Talisman > Tri-color Flame Talisman

Accessory Enhancement Inscription

Plus-One Pill

Technique:

Whirlwind Spear

Spell:

Light Heal

Tasks:

Tame 1 Manabeast. Reward: System Reward.

Kill 25 Manabeast. 24/25. Reward: Roulette Coupon.

"One more to go," he said to himself.

A wolf appeared in the area, and dragged the snake carca.s.s away.

"Good to see you again too Ollie," he said to the wolf as it was leaving. "Such a rude a.s.s wolf. Steal my prey and run away without even a proper thank you. You're welcome!"

It was better that way, he thought. He already had more than enough materials in storage and there were no more s.p.a.ces available to store anymore carca.s.ses.

Nico looked around for any unusual plants. It was usually best to gather herbs at night using Minko's vision. However, during the winter, the only thing that would survive were manaherbs, so naturally they were easier to identify.

Nico spotted a yellow blooming plant off in the distance.

He loaded a large and heavy leather bag onto his back. There were herbs and mushrooms he had picked up. Most of the weight came from the rocks. It was rare to find manarocks.

Everything had mana, but when an object becomes capable of storing cl.u.s.ter of manas, they were manafied, a term Nico made up and popularized. A regular lavender regularly inhaled and exhaled manas from nature. After cultivating the ma.n.a.lavender from lifeless water, the ma.n.a.lavender formed a seed-sized manacore.

Creating manafied dirt or rocks from lifeless water were useless. Nico could see that it was ineffective. Lifeless water were quite useless on a number of inorganic substance.

So when Nico found manafied rocks, he was surprised.

Nico headed toward the yellow plant. The yellow plants, like many wild manaplants, naturally had better manacore because they were likely sprouted with a manacore.

The location of the plant was separated by a small chasm and elevated cliffs. Nico jumped easily from one boulder to the next. It almost felt supernatural, but Nico had gotten use to his strength and high jumps.

He reached the plant and re-examined it. It was a plant he had never seen before. He took out a spade and uprooted the plant from its rocky home.

As he was wrapping the plant, a loud howl was heard in the distance.

The howl caused the entire peak to go on alert.

Nico quickly stored the plant and headed toward the direction of the howl.

If this was a month ago, he would have run off in the opposite direction and back to the farm. Now that he was aware of his strength, he wasn't as afraid as he was before. Also, the howl sounded familiar.

Nico raced through the woods and followed the tracks from the dragged snake.

In the distance, he saw Ollie attacking two giant grizzly bears twice its size.

The golden maned manabears were bulky and thick, but unusually fast. They charged at Ollie in quick succession. When one finished charging, the other would follow. Their movement were short ranged, but powerful and strong.

Although they were fast, Ollie was faster. He evaded one manabear and then the other. The bear large size had a disadvantage; it took them extra movement to turn back around. Ollie clamped the hind leg of the manabear before it could turn to attack again.

The manabear retaliated by back slamming Ollie. Ollie released quickly just before it could sandwich him to the ground.

Nico noticed another wolf already dead on the ground, and sped up his pace.

The manabear roared a deadly attack. Nico felt the roar, and momentarily froze.

"What the!?" Nico felt its mythical effect.

Ollie was also momentarily frozen, and the other manabear took the opportunity to snap its jaw onto Ollie's neck. Ollie howled in pain, and two baby cubs whimpered tearily from behind its dead mother.

Ollie shook wildly and crawled the manabear away.

The manabear backed away, but Ollie limped to the ground.

Nico shook out of the spell and continued his mad dash toward the manabears. When he was within attacking range, Nico shot out two talismans. A blue centered flame shot out toward the manabears.

The Manabears flared up in flames by the sneak attack.

Angered by their sudden hair loss, the manabears charged toward the interloper.

Nico gripped his spear on his left and short sword on his right. He didn't like to dual wield because he was naturally weaker on his left hand, and it was impractical most of the time. However, he was facing two beasts and it was a good time to test it out.

When they were within range, Nico continued his charge.

Nico briefly collided with the bears and appeared on the opposite side. He quickly approached Ollie to cast Light Heal.

The two manabears were already dead on the ground. Both laid pitifully lifeless with weapons sticking out of their mouths.

Nico had judged that the right one would attack first and then the second would pause and wait for its turn. Nico continued charging knowing that their attacks were limited to straight linear charge. He side stepped to the left after embedding the short sword into the manabear on the right. Continuing his charge, he used Whirlwind Spear and quickly dismantled the manabear on the left before it could launch its attack. Normally his left-handed thrust without any body momentum and support was weak, but Whirlwind Spear was a technique with wind support, which added force and compensated for his lack of proper positioning.

Light Heal was slowly activating and a white light appeared and sealed up Ollie's wound.

Spells were not too different from recipes. He did not automatically learn how to use the spell, but had to read through the instructions of how to cast a spell. Receiving a spell was like receiving a skill book. In the spell box, there were information on the best time to use the spell, the best type of supporting equipment, and many different types and variations of Light Heal depending who it was casted on.

For example, the type of Light Heal cast on Ollie would be different from a Light Heal cast on a human.

For a magic spell, Nico needed Minko to collect 6 different symbols from the environment. They were mostly symbols Nico a.s.sociated with the sun, so he never saw a lot of it. On a full moon, there were slightly more than usual.

There were different binding and combinations from those symbols. Imagine the molecules of atoms and the variations of the structures. Light Heal required for canine based manabeasts needed different 21 combinations.

Once all the combinations were completed, a target was selected and the spell was released.

Nico slowly wiped away the blood from Ollie's silver gray fur. It had stopped bleeding after Nico performed heal, but it was still weak from the fight.

Ollie stared forlornly and painfully at its dead partner. When he had returned with Nico's dead manasnake, he saw his beloved fighting heroically to protect their cubs. As an alpha, he should have done better to protect the family.

Ollie slowly pulled himself up and headed over to his partner. The other cubs continued to whimpered, but peered up from underneath their mother to look at their father.

Nico slowly approached the mother. Ollie didn't seem to react, so Nico inspected the condition of the mother. Unfortunately, there was no sign of life remaining.

"Sorry…"

It was the only thing Nico could say.

There wasn't much else he could do. Nico slowly got up and prepared to head back home. He had completed his tasks, and it had already been three days since he had been away from home.

Later that night, Nico set up camp and fire-pit in a little clearing. It would take him another day to reach the farm. Most of the manabeasts in the area were wise to avoid him, so his path was mostly clear.

Nico covered himself with a blanket. The blanket wasn't needed to keep him warm, but it was comforting to have.

Nico sulked into his knees.

He was a grown a.s.s man, he shouldn't be crying over a dead wolf, he scolded himself.

A chilling breeze blew through and rustled the trees.

The cold used to bother him, but when he thought about Minko, he naturally felt warm. Nico thought about the movement of Minko circulating around his body, and although it may be in his head, he felt warmer.

Nico opened the new recipe he had just received. It was an actual food recipe this time.

Recipes:

First-Aid Ointment > Healing Balm

Red Flame Talisman > Tri-color Flame Talisman

Accessory Enhancement Inscription

Plus-One Pill

Firehouse Steak

It sounded delicious, but he didn't have all the ingredients. The main ingredient was manabeasts and there were several fire requirement like the Plus-One Pill.

Nico stared intently at the firepit for a long time.

Nico held out his right hand toward the firepit and rested it on his knee for stability. He wanted to attempt a fire spell.

He was well versed with the different fire symbols and combinations. Regular flames had 3 symbols, Red Flame had 4 symbols, and Tri-color Flame had 6 symbols. Nico repeated the different combinations in his head. There was one symbol it shared with the Light Heal Spell.

What was different? What was the same? He pondered.

Talisman didn't have structure requirement, but when the spell was emitted, the structure was very similar to the fire from the pit. Talisman had an order requirement. If the order of the symbols was incorrect, it would not work.

Spells have stringent structure, order and combination requirement.

Nico instructed Mink to gather the fire symbols nearby and followed the order of the fire symbols that were formed the moment it was released by the talisman. He then replicated the structure and combination of the fireball. As the symbols gathered in his right hand, he felt a flare of energy.

Find a target and release.

Nico stared into the fire-pit and suddenly a large fireball shot out from Nico's hand.

"b.l.o.o.d.y! ******* h.e.l.l!"

Nico screamed as he charred his right hand. He jumped quickly to find the ointment and smeared it on his hand. He cast light heal on himself, and his hand slowly recovered.

"Reminder to self, don't be stupid!"

Nico sat on the log. "Maybe a wind spell is safer to test," he thought.

Whirlwind Spear was a cultivation technique and was slightly different from spells. The technique was specifically made for spear, and could be used with other weapons, but with less efficiency.

The first half of the instructions were detailed footwork, guards, and attacking guidelines. Rooster was a competent teacher, but his knowledge was limited to techniques for military formations and attacks. There were many movements and skills in the cultivation technique that were considered extraneous on a typical spearman, but work well for cultivators.

The second half of the instructions were detailed description of how to release gale force into the spear. Creating the force required him to exert all his energy into the spear. When the force was aimed at the target, the power of the wind was unleashed. Nico spent a lot of time trying to create the gale force. One particular line he had trouble with was, "focus the ji, hu, yu, te, and min symbols into the spear." At first, he had instructed Minko to help out like the talisman, but it was ineffective.

Nico continued to focus the symbol to his palm out of habit. Although it wasn't gale force, the technique was strong.

Accidentally, he succeeded in unleas.h.i.+ng the whirlwind spear.

Creating the gale force was quicker than creating spells, but it was physically and mentally draining. It was his first time using the FP, and it drained down to zero. After using the technique, Nico wasn't able to use it again until the next day.

Before Nico could test out a wind spell, he noticed Ollie approaching him from the left.

Ollie was carrying the two cubs with his mouth. He approached Nico and dropped off the cubs at Nico's foot.

Ollie's eyes penetrated into Nico's.

Ollie wasn't sure if he was communicating anything and Nico wasn't sure what Ollie was trying to do.

A moment pa.s.sed, and Ollie leapt away toward the north.

The two white cubs climbed onto Nico's lap and watched their father disappeared into the distance.

"What an odd thank you gift," Nico commented.

Congratulation, Tame 1 Manabeast Task Complete.

Receive System Reward.

Nico was too busy to cuddle the cubs. One was a male and the other was a female cub.

"Your name will be Ollie Jr. and your name will be Snowy," Nico anointed their names. "Any objections?"

The cubs didn't understand, and chewed on his coat. They were already hungry.

"We can hunt tomorrow and you can eat the carca.s.s," said Nico. "I believe you have already eaten, and it's not good to eat late at night, you don't want to get fat."

Placing Snowy on his shoulder, Nico opened the new icon that had appeared as a system reward.

What appeared in the Avatar box was a 3d replica of his own body with x-ray features and anatomical maps that would make any doctor jealous. The box allowed him to zoom in and out of his body. He could see his nerves, circulation system, lymphatic system and even nodes. He wasn't familiar with nodes, but he a.s.sumed it had to do with acupuncture points and meridians.

Nico fell asleep studying his anatomy.