14. First Howl

As night was falling, after encountering a few more goblins, Rakna’s group had reached the section of the forest bordering the mountains and found a small cave in the cliff to settle in for the night.

When they were sure that the cave wasn’t a sort of nest, Rakna spoke up. “There’s something I want to do outside. You two stay here until I come back,” he told his two companions who looked at him in confusion.

Flavia scowled. “Where are you going? It’s not safe to go out alone… it’s getting dark too. We can come with you if it’s important.”

“You sounded like housewife saying tha-!” Allan was cut off by an elbow to the sides. He groaned and kneeled on the group pathetically. Flavia cleared her throat with a faint blush and Rakna blinked at his friend wriggling on the ground.

“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself,” he declared and turned around to leave the cave. “It’s better for you to stay here. Don’t think that I didn’t notice how taxing your power was. Be sure to protect her, Allan.”

“Sure thing…” Allan raised his hand shakily from the ground and Rakna nodded before rushing back inside the forest.

Flavia sighed. “He’s too reckless…”

“Nah, more like, he just doesn’t care,” Allan straightened his back and sat up. “For as long as I have known him, he has never feared anything. You probably never saw him scared ever since you met him, did you?”

Flavia could only smile helplessly. That was true. The only times she could see Rakna express anything similar to fear intensity-wise is when…

“When he switches, huh?” Allan complemented her line of thought when he recognized her sour expression. “Don’t worry too much. I know the old master told us his dual personality could be dangerous for his psyche but I’m sure he can deal with it.”

Flavia nodded slowly. “You’re right…”

* * *

Meanwhile, Rakna was running through the dense forest with Pronos casually lying down on his head and feeling the wind. What he wanted to do was simply cut a tree or two to, one, gather firewood for the night and two, evaluate his current strength in a bit more detail.

Once he deemed it to be far enough from the cave to not attract anyone with the noise, he chose a regular-sized tree among the many and stood in front of it.

The first thing he did was cast Appraisal. Until now, he had never used this ability on something other than humans, monsters, or items. His small experiment was to see if it produced any result on purely inanimate objects. And, as he expected, a prompt appeared in front of him. Followed by a surprising but pleasing notification.

❮ ◈ ❯

A 100-year-old oak tree. It shows signs of healthy development but is slightly leaning to its north side. The trunk has been infused with very minute amounts of magical energy and is relatively stronger than normal trees.

Blunt Resistance Value: 50

Slashing Resistance Value: 20

❮ ◈ ❯

Ding!

❮ ◈ ❯

Appraisal’s level increased to 4. Depending on the difference between the user and the target’s level, a personal description of the person will now appear on the status.

❮ ◈ ❯

Although Rakna was happy about his skill getting stronger, he had already run out of ideas to level it up. If he understood correctly, Appraisal required a different condition to be upgraded every time.

‘I’ll think about it later,’ he said inwardly before pointing two of his fingers at the trunk. His claws instantly came out and pierced the tree albeit by only a few centimeters. Rakna retracted them afterward and mused. ‘Well, I guess this is a reasonable piercing power. It’s enough to go easily through flesh anyway.’

Rakna mused about it for a bit more before going to his next test. “Pronos, take some distance,” he warned and the little snake nodded before slithering away.

This time, Rakna deactivated Ulvia’s Illusion and his ears and tail came back. He sighed deeply and tapped into the throbbing sensation in his chest. His heart started beating quicker and louder every second.

His eyes glowed and his canines grew. His bones made cracking sounds and suddenly every bird and animal in the vicinity started running away in fear.

When the sun completely disappeared from the sky, the howl of a wolf resounded throughout the entire forest. The sound was low and booming; like a mix between a howl and a growl. Almost every Host heard it and shuddered. When it faded away, there was a brief moment of silence before countless other howls echoed.

From the depths of the forest, apparent wolf packs were responding to the call. The beasts’ singing finally stopped after several minutes and everyone was on edge.

Meanwhile, Rakna exhaled as his body had returned to normal. He looked at himself and frowned at the fact that he was entirely naked. The only thing he was wearing was his scarf. What had happened was that during his transformation, he had hastily put his clothes inside his spatial ring before they could be ripped apart.

“This might be annoying… I wonder if,” he muttered to himself and his ring shined for a second and his clothes returned exactly to how they were. He checked if they were actually placed correctly and not upturned or anything before nodding in satisfaction. ‘This ring is more useful than I thought.’

Ssssh!

As he was getting lost in thoughts, Pronos’ hiss jolted him awake. His small partner was staring at the obscurities of the forest. It was then that he could hear noises getting closer and closer to them.

Rakna squinted and picked up a large chunk of wood as his feet. He put it on his shoulder and picked up Pronos before letting him get inside his scarf. “Let’s leave,” he mumbled and kicked the ground.

Behind him, what was once a robust tree was nothing more than a lump of leaves and wood pieces with claw marks on them.

* * *

When Rakna returned to the cave with the illusion over his wolf features, he immediately used the glaive form of Sonata to cut apart the wood. He then used Obsidian’s Smoke to light up a fire.

As the trio was sitting around the fire, Allan spoke, “So? What now?”

“We share information,” Rakna replied and looked at him, silently using Appraisal.

❮ ◈ ❯

Name: Allan River

Age: 18 | Level: 6

Race: Male Human | Title: Nil

Potential: S-

Attributes:

Strength: 10 | Endurance: 7

Speed: 3 | Dexterity: 3.4

Intelligence: 2.4 | Luck: 2

Available points: 1

Equipped Items:

- Shock Gloves: A pair of enchanted gloves that are capable of generating momentum with each strike. When the momentum is strong enough, a shock wave is released. Perks: Attack +10 and Defense +10 (Limited to the hands)

Statistics:

Stamina: 30.4 | MP: 24/24

Swiftness: 10.8 | Agility: 9.8

Senses: 15.8 | Atr Cap: 27.8

Attack: 59.9 (49.9 + 10) | Defense: 41 (31 + 10)

Magic Attack: 7.2 | MP Regen: 0.10/min

Proficiencies:

- Mixed Martial Arts (Lv.7)

- Drawing (Lv.6)

…

Magic Skills:

- Unawakened.

Cognitive Skills (Passive):

- Pain Resistance (Lv.5)

- Fear Resistance (Lv.4)

- Fatigue Resistance (Lv.3)

Spontaneous Skills (Active):

- None

Unique or Racial Traits:

- Eion Auto-Sustainable Nanomachines: Automatically kills foreign organisms and allows rapid improvement in body strength as well as the use of more muscle cells.

- Photographic Memory: A rare aptitude to instantly memorize something one has seen.

Note: Allan River is an orphan from a young age. He considers Rakna Xiorra his irreplaceable best friend. His relationship with the latter allowed him to train under his uncle and acquire military-grade nanomachines from him. He’s usually a man with a bright personality; his past experiences have made him stronger mentally.

❮ ◈ ❯

What Rakna saw in his friends’ status didn’t surprise him. He knew what Allan was capable of for the most part. His S- potential was well-deserved. On the other hand, the recent addition to his Appraisal was quite interesting. This ‘note’ could become a very useful ability in the future if it worked on strangers as well.

“First of all, there’s something I want to verify,” Rakna began and they both listened to him. “Allan already told me, but did you two complete the Initiation, and if yes, did you leave the school grounds?”

Flavia answered by shaking her head. “I didn’t finish. Although I’m quite sure I could have defeated the Rider, the awakening of my telekinesis tired me too much.”

Rakna nodded then turned toward Allan and he shrugged. “As I said, I did finish the Initiation and I did explore the forest around for an hour or so. Why?”

“Did you find anything out of the ordinary there?”

“Huh? What kind?”

“A special enemy.”

“Hmm, no… There were only kobolds no matter where I went.”

“I see…” Rakna closed his eyes after confirming his suspicions. “All right, next is to identify our personal capabilities. Summarized, I would say Allan is a robust damage dealer, Flavia is both a support and a rear-line mage, Pronos here is a swift and tanky assassin, and as for me, I am a fast damage dealer.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s pretty accurate,” Allan said with a hand on his chin. “Only you and I can fight up close. I guess we should maintain a 2:1 formation in most cases with your little pet as the wild card,” he said then looked at Flavia and his eyes lit up. “Now that I think about it, teach, how is it to use magic?”

“It’s not magic… I think,” she retorted and looked at her hands. “And I don’t know to be honest. It just feels natural. All I need to do is control my thoughts and I can snap the neck of my target…”

Allan chuckled wryly at her choice of word. “You said that you didn’t use mana too…”

“It uses psyche instead,” Rakna answered for her. “It’s not really explained on her skill description but I think you can imagine it to be like cerebral waves. That would mean that she will get tired mentally instead of using mana.”

“Eeh, that’s still awesome. I really want to awaken my magic now!” Allan exclaimed with palpable excitement.

Flavia giggled at his childish behavior and Rakna shook his head with a sigh. “Apparently, you will have to wait to finish this tutorial first to do that.”

Allan snorted. “True. In any case, what about you, Rak? We’re not like you, you know? We can’t see your status. How did you even get that skill?”

“It just appeared,” Rakna shrugged. “I believe an analytical behavior is required to unlock it. If you inspect a foe’s particularities to the very last detail perceivable, you might get it. Well, I’m not sure about you, Allan, but I’m pretty sure Flavia is capable of doing it.”

“…hey, are you insinuating I’m too dumb for it?” Allan grumbled.

“Yes.”

“…”

“Other than that, I have the proficiencies that you would expect with spear mastery at the top. My little personal condition that you know of has also become a trait somehow and then… I too have a Nirvana Skill.”

“Damn, really?” Allan exclaimed dejectedly. “Am I the only one without one?”

“Don’t be too disappointed,” Flavia tried to cheer him up. “My shopkeeper said that it was extremely rare to have one.”

“Indeed. Additionally, you’re also an S class potential like us,” Rakna added.

“You guys… are not helping. It’s like I’m being told I’m doing good in life while you both are millionaires.”

“That’s… an interesting analogy,” Rakna deadpanned and Flavia chuckled. “Anyway, let’s rest. There’s no point in going over everything today. As for my Nirvana Skill… I’ll keep it a secret for now.”

“Of course, you will…” Allan groused. Flavia smiled and stood up to sit against the wall of the cave next to Rakna.

She closed her eyes and whispered, “You don’t mind?”

Rakna glanced at her and shook his head before also closing his eyes. Allan watched the two of them and snorted before doing the same thing.

Then, a few minutes later, Rakna had one regretful thought.

‘I should have bought a blanket.’