20 Patrol

Stanis stood behind a colossal tree, performing hand gestures inside of its shadow. After a bit of practice, he realised that it was easier to control the darkness by motioning at it with his hands. He began plastering the shadow of the tree onto his face and feet, as well as any other open skin.

A few minutes later, he was finished and a message popped up.

[Maximum mana capacity is now reduced from 14 to 12. Release your creations to reinstate 18 as the maximum capacity.]

Now his whole body was covered, most of it by clothing but the rest by the darkness. He stepped out of the darkness and into the light of the rising sun, only to notice that his feet became partially visible again.

It seemed the darkness from the shadow was indeed of a lower quality than the bits he had taken from the tunnel, which was completely opaque even in the sunlight. This was fine though, Stanis had only been practising with the tree shadow to make himself more intimidating and not for any directly practical reasons.

He threw his backpack, which he had taken from the Camp, across his back before treading deeper into the Forest. Within the backpack were the supplies that he had recently taken, alongside the Goblin's Storage stone from the Goblin he had just killed. In truth, he had never actually opened a Storage stone; the ones that he had collected last time when he came to the Forest were gone when he had woken up…

The stones themselves were grey in colour and looked exactly like a real stone. The main difference being that there was a ridge in the centre of the stone and a shiny, partially-visible cross symbol across the body. To open them to get the loot, all you had to do was crush the stone within your fist, which would magically give you the reward.

Stanis was planning to kill a few more Goblins, perhaps scout a bit deeper into the Forest in order to see the stronger enemies, before backtracking to his cave by the sea.

Due to the fact that he was already fairly deep in the Forest, he didn't have to walk for long until he heard signs of another Goblin. Unlike the one he had killed today, this one seemed to be humming an upbeat tune as it patrolled the area. The behaviour was strangely human-like and would have been something that would have perturbed old Stanis, especially him from the tutorial.

But Stanis was past all of that now, in fact it was more accurate to say that the Goblin's actions were sentient, rather than Human-like. The only reason why it was described like that in that in the first place was because Humans had been the only sentient race on Earth, and thus the strongest. That was far from the truth now…

Stanis stuck to the shadows as he moved from tree to tree, gradually getting closer to the Goblin without it noticing. It walked at a leisurely pace, and was equipped similarly to the other one he had just fought, with light leather clothing and a simple short-sword.

Stanis stayed still at his position for a few seconds, waiting for the Goblin to walk past. He then began sneaking behind it: crouching and lightly stepping. The Goblin had long, fat, pointed ears that drooped backwards and a few strands on its head.

Hearing something behind it break its tune, the Goblin looked back in surprise, only to see the glint of a blade centimetres away from its face. The blade swept past the Goblin's face, creating a trench that ran through the middle. Its body fell to the ground, before being stabbed once more in the head. This time, his performance was even more flawless!

After cutting open the Goblin's chest, Stanis clawed out the Storage stone before walking away. He didn't care if another Goblin found the corpse, rather he now wanted more enemies. His confidence and fluidity in battle had upped his fighting strength massively, and now he wanted someone to test that on!

What Stanis had encountered so far were just small, regular patrols. There was another type of patrol that was currently active, a larger and far more dangerous patrol. By coincidence, it was scouting the exact region that Stanis was walking towards…

Moments later, Stanis caught a strong scent of something that unsettled him: wolf urine. There were scribbly, yellow lines across the base of a tree-trunk, and it was still obviously wet. He could feel his heart lurch as he remembered the chase he had been through, the terror he had felt during, and the hopelessness he had felt afterwards.

Within seconds of his find, he began hearing a conversation in guttural voices.

"Ug find some hooman yesterday. Ug kill it good, I be like Ug."

The response was just as simple.

"You naver be like Ug. Ug highest…"

The argument continued until a third party entered the conversation.

"Quiet fols. Wolfy smell hooman. Get wapons outs!"

Stanis had been lucky last time as the Wolf he had fought had only been recently brought to Earth and thus didn't know the scent of Humans. That was not the same for the Wolves of today, as all of them knew the scent of Humans quite well. The patrol had detected him and were coming for him.

Knowing that they would be here soon, he had the choice of getting a lead ahead of them if he decided to run, or he could throw away that lead by staying here and facing them off. Sounds of multiple legs running across the ground soon reached his ears, and he could feel his heart beat harder every second. He felt like prey as he stood there, waiting for his predators to reach him.

Deciding he didn't want that, he chose the third choice and began sprinting towards the Goblin company himself.

Moments later, he saw the trio in question, alongside their Wolf. Two of the Goblins looked exactly like the one had just killed, wearing the same leather armour and wielding the same short-sword.

However the third one was seated on a normal Wolf, and thus reached Stanis's chest height instead of hip-height. It had higher-quality leather armour equipped and a simple spear. The first image that came into Stanis's mind was that of medieval knights: charging at one another on horses while wielding lances. This was like a lower quality version of that.

The wolf became giddy with bloodlust as it caught sight of Stanis, and it began sprinting ahead of the other two Goblins. The Goblin rider only felt the same way as it edged the Wolf on, eager to kill a Human.

Stanis pulled his spear over his head, before launching it towards the Goblin rider. Seeing the incoming spear, the Goblin rider immediately leaned its body to the side before falling off the speeding Wolf. It then had to pick itself and its spear before once again charging Stanis.

Stanis equipped himself with the sword, before stepping forward as the Wolf leapt at him, jaws wide open. He used his left arm, which was still covered in darkness, to catch the Wolf by the throat, before slashing his sword down its neck. He then dropped the Wolf corpse onto the ground, his left arm now bloody despite being covered in darkness.

One would be able to see the fall in speed of the charging Goblins as they noticed how fast Stanis killed the Wolf. However they were already too close to run, and so they trusted their numerical advantage.

Unluckily for them, Stanis bolted forwards before smacking the makeshift spear out of the Goblin-rider's hand using his left arm, before propelling his foot into the surprised Goblin's face.

The other two were now on him, and so he side-stepped one attack before jumping out of the way of another. He quickly recovered as he swept his sword against the closest Goblin. It screamed in pain and fell back as the other one stepped forward, only to receive a fatal stab in its face for all its courage. Stanis then followed up the Goblin-rider, who was now attempting to run away, by leaping onto it, before slicing its neck.

The last remaining Goblin had a gash across its stomach and looked with eyes full of terror as Stanis came to face it. Throwing all of its dignity to the wind, the Goblin prostrated itself across the ground, wincing with pain as it did so.

For a second, Stanis wondered if keeping this Goblin alive for information would be a good move, but in the end decided such a low-down Goblin wouldn't know shit and so just stabbed the Goblin as it continued begging.

Stanis felt a small pain inside of his mind as he killed the begging Goblin. It was by far not his best moment, but nor was it his worst.

In the end, he justified the killing by saying this was what the world was like now, before looting the multiple enemies. He now had five bloody Storage stones within his backpack and decided that was enough as he began walking back to the Camp.

It was on the journey back that Stanis took off the black veil covering his left arm. When he had caught the Wolf in mid-air, he had realised two important things. The first being that his left arm wasn't just a little stronger than his right arm, it was much stronger. The second being that the thick dark-orange skin covering his arm must be tough, despite its smoothness, as the Wolf had bit his arm before it had died, and yet he had only felt an ache now.

He looked at his aching arm, only to see a bit of a scratch on the leathery skin. He doubted his skin would last against a real, forceful bite, but regardless it was still a good defence.

He reapplied the veil of darkness across his left arm, before jogging back to the Camp. Quite a few minutes later, he arrived at the Camp.

Instead of entering the Camp though, he ran around it, before continuing to run towards his cave by the beach. It was weird, but he felt more comfortable living alone than with the people at the Camp. He was sure quite a few of them had seen him run past, but gave no worry to their stares.

What he didn't know was that one of the people staring at him as he had run across was Anatoly, who looked with particular interest at the darkness covering his arms. Anatoly knew vaguely about Stanis, but even he had thought that the kid had committed suicide by drowning himself in the sea, or at least that's what he had heard from snippets of conversation. It piqued his curiosity how the kid was still alive and kicking, but more so how the kid had gotten such a unique skill.

It was dusk when Stanis finally reached his cave. He opened the 5 Storage stones, in which he got 2 cards that allowed him to upgrade one of his attributes by one point and another card that gave him extra experience points.

[Stanis Volkov

Age: 18 years

Mana capacity: 12 (regeneration is capacity/4 per hour) (Mana capacity is actually 18, however 6 points are currently in use)

Level 9 (Progress to the next level is 97%)

Unallocated points: 2

Strength: 18 [18]

Dexterity: 18 [17]

Constitution: 18[16]

Intelligence: 12[12]

Wisdom: 12[10]

Tenacity: 16[15]

Skills: Layman's Rush]

Increase Strength and Dexterity by 1 each.

[Strength increased from 18 to 19. Dexterity increased from 18 to 19. You are well above the average for your species.]

Stanis hadn't even noticed last time but it seemed that Jayesh was right about him being in the temple for multiple days, as the average for all the attributes other than Intelligence and Wisdom had increased.

[Stanis Volkov

Age: 18 years

Mana capacity: 12 (regeneration is capacity/4 per hour) (Mana capacity is actually 18, however 6 points are currently in use)

Level 9 (Progress to the next level is 97%)

Strength: 19 [18]

Dexterity: 19 [17]

Constitution: 18[16]

Intelligence: 12[12]

Wisdom: 12[10]

Tenacity: 16[15]

Skills: Layman's Rush]

Satisfied with the progress he had made today, Stanis proceeded to practise his spear-work for a long time, before having his dinner and going to sleep in his cave. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, especially considering the fact that it was the day of the third battle over supplies…