Reconaissance

Desolation.

Being in a place once filled with people was eerie. As Kai and Brewan crept away from the brick school building and up toward the hilltop further in the academy campus, the silence of their surroundings became progressively more stifling.

"This feels… off."

Kai's hand stayed near the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it at a moment's notice. A creeping feeling- almost like he was being watched, but a bit different, pricked at the back of his mind.

"Have you been to any of the cities before?"

Kai glanced over at Brewan's unexpected question, and the other young man continued speaking.

"They are way… worse? Eerier, but also more normal?"

Brewan could see the confusion only deepening on Kai's face.

"I'm too young to remember anything during the beast wave, but I've heard from others what it was like back then. When the wave hit, aside from some of the academies, every big settlement was wiped out."

Every mortal city was wiped out? It sounds pretty similar to the beast tide that hit our sect back home.

"I've only been to empty cities with groups of other apprentice mages, but that doesn't do that much for the atmosphere. Even when I was with my group, the whole city felt lonely. This place isn't as bad. There isn't as much… emptiness."

A shiver ran down Kai's spine.

"You said that it's been a while since the beast wave, right? Why have the sects- academies not taken back the cities?"

Brewan looked down at the dirt path beneath them as he answered.

"The beasts are still there. Most of them scattered after the wave, but the higher-tier beasts are still out there. Some are just as smart as mages, and they've shown back up every time humanity tries to retake anything. It's already nearly impossible to hunt down every beast hiding within a city, and it's even worse when the stronger ones can kill you without you even having a chance to react."

The duo had walked a fair distance away from the brick building, and had yet to see any potentially dangerous beasts. Halia was still on high alert as well, and she also hadn't detected anything nearby.

Kai paused for a moment to look over the landscape. They were high enough to see over most of the academy grounds and down to the small town below. There were three brick buildings within the academy grounds, and all of them were connected by an overgrown dirt path.

The first of those three was the building they had sheltered in for the night, and the other two looked fairly similar. All three of them were three stories high, and had dirty glass panes arranged at even intervals at each story.

A bit further away, the temple sat in a central position on the academy grounds. It was only roughly the size of a single one of the classrooms, and whatever grandeur it once had was lost to the weathering of time. Vines and other plants crawled up the cracked stone pillars, and Kai could see a few spots where the roof was caving in. When he squinted his eyes, he was pretty sure he could see a few newly-knocked down pillars that had been displaced by the terror bird that chased them the previous day.

The layout is the same as ours back home, though. And I definitely saw a crescent-shaped emblem falling from the doorway when that nasty bird was attacking.

[Just a heads-up, there was just a bit of movement in the woods left of the classroom building.]

The brush a short distance from where they'd emerged from the building shook, and two small furry ears poked out from beneath the bush. A moment later, a small rabbit hopped out into the open.

[That's definitely not the beast I sensed before. I think it's too far away, but I can't detect any mana from it.]

Kai got Brewan's attention, then pointed down at the rabbit.

"Just a normal hare. If we're lucky, we might be able to catch it, then we won't have to risk our lives trying to hunt down a beast!"

Kai skeptically looked down at the rabbit as it hopped down the path toward the temple. It didn't look nearly big enough to feed three men, even if they could somehow catch it. Brewan's only offensive ability was his fireball- which they'd both agreed he wouldn't use unless it was an absolute emergency- and Kai's main method of attack was with his sword.

He knew hand-to-hand martial arts as well, but he doubted that would come in handy against a rabbit the size of his foot.

"What are the differences between a normal animal like that rabbit, and a beast like the boar?"

"Mana. Just like humans, some animals are better at absorbing and using mana than others. Once it absorbs enough mana, an animal will form a mana core and become a beast."

Kai nodded along with Brewan's explanation. It was pretty much the same as it had been with Qi back at the sect. By cultivating, pretty much anything could grow stronger and eventually become powerful.

"You mentioned tiers before, right?"

"Yep. Tier 1 is at the bottom, but they're still really strong. That boar we fought back in the town was a weak one…"

Brewan paused for a moment, glancing down at his book.

"And I'm tier 1 too, just barely. Mages and knights go by the same rating system, but we develop a bit differently from beasts. After the beast wave, random skirmishes became common whenever you're outside of the academies. It's normal now for mages to pump some of their mana through their muscles like knights do, and for knights to learn the dispersion spell."

[Ah, so that's why this skinny-looking fellow was able to keep up with you so well. Probably also explains why his fireball was so uncool.]

"Tier 2 beasts are way stronger, and smarter. A tier 1 human will almost always win in a duel against a tier 1 beast, but the reverse happens at tier 2. A strong tier 2 beast might even be able to threaten a small settlement, if they don't have any strong mages defending."

"You said that the bear was tier 2 before, right? What about the terror bird?"

A visible shiver ran down Brewan's spine.

"It's way too strong. Stronger than any tier 2 I saw when I was at my academy, or when I was on group trips with my class. It can't be tier 3, though. Many of those can use magic themselves, and will lead small beast tides of their own to wipe out settlements. We would've died in an instant."

[It looks like my guess was about right on. That injured fellow Sydney should be tier 2, then, by their rating. Mine is a lot better, I can sense how much mana they have. From what Brewan is saying, it doesn't sound like there is anything over tier 2 here, so Sydney was probably injured by something in the same tier.]

[Brewan- Level 5]

So it seems like there are big gaps within their tier rating system. Their tier 1 is from levels 1 to 19, and tier 2 is from 20 to 29. Even among enemies at the same tier, there might be huge differences in strength.

Kai looked back down toward the temple, noticing that the small rabbit had hopped out into the grassy undergrowth near where the terror bird had chased him the previous day. His gaze started sweeping over toward the wooden buildings, but caught more movement.

It wasn't an animal. It was water.

"Hey, is that a stream down there, on this side of the temple?"

Brewan took a few steps down the hill, trying to get a better angle to see where the water was coming from.

"I think it is, and it looks like it runs behind those wooden buildings. That's probably how we didn't see it before."

Kai didn't immediately follow Brewan, instead taking a few more moments to look around from the top of the hill.

This place… this academy, somehow reminds me of home. It's definitely a different place entirely, but it somehow feels familiar.

Kai shook his head, then started heading down the hill.

We'll build the sect again, somewhere good. Even if that phoenix hadn't destroyed the sect in one swoop, our position would've been terrible to defend against a regular beast wave. Rolling hills and plains are useless for that. It isn't without reason that most top sects chose to settle on mountaintops.

Kai's hand brushed against his sword as he and Brewan arrived at the stream.

Building up the sect… it sounds like it'll be even harder to do that here than it was back home. If I want to succeed, I'll need to get stronger.

"K-Kai! Look!"

Brewan pointed at something in the direction of the temple, his eyes wide. The small flask of water that he'd just filled up in the stream next to them sloshed a few drops of water onto the ground as he backed up nervously.

"I don't see anything."

It all looked the same as it had from the top of the hill. The brick buildings stood dully, and the rundown temple hadn't changed a bit.

"The rabbit! I swear I saw it in the center of the grassy area a second ago!"

"There's tons of undergrowth and weeds, are you sure it didn't just hop away?"

"Aaaaa!"

A shrill shriek escaped Brewan's mouth as he stumbled backward again, nearly falling into the stream behind him.

The rabbit had reappeared, as well as a deer.

What the…

The buck stepped out from within the temple, its impressive rack scraping against one of the stone pillars. Kai and Brewan completely ignored the antlers.

Their eyes were locked on the deer's mouth, where the twisted and mangled corpse of the rabbit was hanging.

The deer's beady eyes fixed on the two young men, and its mouth moved. Chewing.

What looked like old, dried blood stained the buck's snout, with droplets flung off the fresh rabbit's corpse staining its face even more every time it chewed.

[I… I thought deer were herbivores.]

"As did I. How strong is this thing?"

Kai drew his sword, pointing it toward the beast. The deer's eyes followed his every movement, but it just kept chewing on the rabbit while standing still. Halia stifled a retching noise before responding.

[Flesh-eating Deer- Level 6]

This could turn out to be a lot of trouble. It's stronger than the boar from before.

The deer suddenly threw its head back, a disgusting gurgling noise echoing through the temple yard as the still largely whole rabbit slid down the buck's throat.

When it looked back down at Kai, its beady eyes were the same. Soulless. Possessed. Hungry.

The deer leapt forward, straight toward Kai.