"Let's go," I say indifferently coming down from the slick bloody mountain.
We head east, down the slope, and double back to get to the bottom of the waterfall.
I instruct Isla to keep guard as I drink water and dress my wounds before washing and meditating.
This was the closest I have been to death my body was a mess and my mana core is depleted, so I do something I have not done in a long time. I bring my mana core outside of my body.
It was a weak hazy thumb-size mana core; it hasn't been this size since I was a baby.
It begins to expand and contract wider and wider as it rapidly absorbs the energy from the air and even the earth and water.
My meditation this time was different, after a day of meditation my wounds were almost healed but I felt something different about my body.
Looking inwardly, I noticed that a black substance was being squeezed out of my bones. The mana is absorbed at an unnaturally fast rate and as it does it expels a black goo.
There is not much and shortly after it comes to the surface of my body squeezing out of my pores and producing a fowl stench.
Opening my eyes, I see and feel my mana core is at its limit but oddly it was still absorbing more and more my inner mana core expanding more than it ever has, the energy purer.
Another hour of meditating and I feel the exhaustion and hunger clawing at the edge of my psyche.
I scarf down all our rations about four pounds of meat. But instead of resting, I tell Isla to get up.
"You should sleep," She says to me as I stumble on my feet.
"My mana core absorbs energy from everything within almost a mile we need to move before we get more unwanted attention".
She nods, I am assaulted by her scent as she ducks underneath my arm to support me, I do not fight it, pressed against her soft curves we trudge on.
We walk for the night and for a good portion of the day, I am awake with willpower and mana only.
When we reach a huge rock eleven miles north of the waterfall, I tell Isla to keep watch even though she is tired.
I cannot keep conscious falling asleep in the shade of the rock.
I awake a whole day later stretching feeling better than I ever have, this was the first time I fully went to sleep without dividing my attention to keep aware of my surroundings, luckily, we were not attacked.
All that was left of my wounds was heavy scarring.
Seeing me awake Isla turns to me and lays down to sleep.
"Those wolves probably came after us because we kept hunting in their territory, make sure not to do too much damage to this forest I don't want to deal with any more predators".
She nods and goes to sleep.
We quickly fall into a pattern, we hunt and resupply, leaving the area immediately afterward we stop and train until our rations run out. Then we hunt and resupply again before leaving.
During this time Isla started fighting back when we sparred, Seeing me go against all those wolves made her want to be by my side.
"I want to be helpful" is what she said to me when I asked her about her change.
It showed she was growing; she was also being more critical taking chances to ask me about different plants and about the capital growing curious about our oppressors.
One day she asked me "Why would they kill us if they found us? Don't they want us to work for them" I thought for a moment before thinking of Fredrick Douglass a slave abolitionist on earth before replying.
"Men do not love those who remind them of their sins" At this she remained quiet pondering those words.
Being able to use mana more freely my mana control has reached a new height of perfection.
I can create over sixteen strands of mana and manipulate them very well.
My body was hard and lean with flexible muscles.
At this point I am a little over ten years old my reflection on a surface of a watering hole reflects a young man with thick brown eyebrows with dark brown and black hair.
My lips are full and my nose is almost heroic along with my light olive skin I would be considered handsome in any human civilization.
Isla has also grown; she is much more confident in the jungle and her mana manipulation is growing as well.
One night after healing her wounds from training a pungent smell wafted over our camp.
She was expelling her impurities, but she had much, much more than I did. It was so much it could have filled a bucket.
After using mana to draw it to the fire we leave immediately even though she is tired we cannot risk attracting predators.
As we walk, I ponder why she had so many impurities and I quickly build a reliable hypothesis, since I have been absorbing mana since birth, I have little impurities to begin with.
The following days I would float high above the trees looking for any visible signs of life because we were going to be exiting the forest soon.
That is when I spot a road almost twenty miles away, I would have missed it if I were not almost one hundred feet in the air.
The road ran south to north, as we exit the forest seeing the road and the planes a sense of elation and accomplishment filled the atmosphere between my partner and I "We made it!" She exclaimed while smiling at the prairie before us.
The sun was high and although it was beautiful, I didn't like the feeling of being exposed.
"Let's head north, we are past the border of the Terra Kingdom and should find some small villages we can plan our next move there."
Following the road while within the tree line, we start our trek. At night when we rest, I take a ball filled with smoke and air and try and filter the smoke out of it.
It is extremely difficult because I must also fill the ball with my mana allowing me to manipulate the elements. I found it impossible at first but as time went by, I could filter about five percent of the carbon.
On the tenth day of our journey, we started running into carriages being carried by horse/salamander hybrids, they had shiny scaly skin but stood over five feet tall.
Not wanting to make trouble with anyone we stay in the Woodline. Unfortunately, trouble had found us.
A group of men not clad in armor entered my sense while I was sitting next to a sleeping Isla.
My mana sense is masked but it can now encompass a whole football field.
There were seven of them short and tall they moved through the thicket coming straight for our location. Instead of running away I curl into a ball and pretend to sleep.
If a mage was with them then they might have already sensed me, leaving now would just give away my use of mana.
I wake Isla with a mana prod and quietly whisper to her what I sensed, she nodded and followed my lead.
When the men were twenty yards away they drew their weapons all sorts of swords and daggers.
"I saw a fire over this way Mel saw it too." A voice came through the trees. I heard a grunt in response, and everyone fanned out.
"Over here," a deep voice said as he came across our campsite. I get up and took a look at him. "Some Olim children?" the same voice I heard first came out.
They surrounded us looking at us curiously, I stayed standing up looking around at the figures in the dark, Isla curled in her fur blanket with her short sword ready to be unsheathed.
"What are you two doing here" shouted the man I presumed was the leader with the gruff voice. "Sleeping" I replied unhurriedly.
They erupt in laughter "Hey boss I think he's lame, no point talkin to em" Knocking a bow the man aimed it at me.
"Hold on" the gruff man replied. "Are you from the Olim and Terra border back east?" he asked me directly, seeing no point in lying I say "Yes".
"Good, excellent! They have a fair bounty on you kids but there is supposed to be another adult with you, where are they?
They must have not believed that a child could slay two soldiers and leave like that I chuckled happy to be underestimated. "No one else is here," I said slowly.
"Alright take them alive" At this Isla jumped out of her cover sword drawn instantly met with raucous laughter and some whistles.
"Well look what we got here," the man who knocked the arrow said as he licked his lips. "Change of plans boys were having some fun" Even the leader was distracted by her.
I sigh a wave of emotional exhaustion rolls over me. Staring at the night sky I wonder just how many more people needed to die, how many more lives do I need to live.
"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave," I said out loud but more to myself. This made them quiet for a moment.
I draw myself out of my self-pity with a thought 'Then I need to get more knowledge' Looking back down I see the men but not as men but as test subjects, a flood of mana pins them all in place.
"Tell me about the village up ahead and all you know of the area," I said.
"A..a…a mage" the leader stammered. "I am not going to ask you again".
A shrill cry was heard in the night as a figure was crumpled into a meatball. "No Vynum"! one of the men shouted out. "You killed my brother you fuc-"his voice was cut off because he was being crumpled into meat paste from the head down.
"Hurry now I don't have all night" my voice the same as when he first started talking to me.
"The village is a mix of westerners and Olim slaves who escaped from the Terra territory, the Terra pay a high price for runaway slaves, so we wait around this road, but business has been bad recently".
The man rambles forth his answer. "And why don't you just catch them at the village"? he answered quickly "The westerners don't want slavery in their territory, also the western mage association tests candidates to be mages from the runaway slaves".
"Why do they do that"? I asked intrigued with this new tidbit of information. "They say the Western mage association is the weakest out of the four, so they are mass recruiting looking to find a talent among the masses".
"How long are they recruiting for"? I asked, "They have been recruiting for almost three years now with no stop".
I nod and release the leader knocking the rest out, as their bodies drop to the floor the leader shudders. "I can kill you now, I can kill you later, I can kill you here and I can even kill you miles away".
The leader urinates himself and starts to sob. "You have a chance to live though" I point to Isla "If you can kill her, I will let you go".
He immediately got to his feet staring at Isla with his bloodshot eyes. "This is also training; you can use mana, but not outside your body," I tell her, after all, she is only a fourteen-year-old girl.
I sit back down and start to eat some smoked meat.
Isla didn't wait for him to make the first move she darted right at him.
The man had a regular one-handed sword he didn't even bother trying to parry her attack he just swung down relying on his height advantage.
Not stopping she rolled right grabbed some dirt and flung it at his eyes as she rolled. She then grabbed a stone and threw it at his knee with accurate precision, from such a close distance the man's leg almost came off.
As he fell towards her direction, she raised her sword and it impaled the man's ribs piercing his lungs and heart. He died instantly.
"Good job, remember next time that you could end it faster if you impair his initial movement maybe even tilting his sword to the side with your own and cutting his wrist" She nods and takes it in.
"Keep cover for me, I have some experiments to conduct" Dragging all the unconscious bodies together I begin.
That night screams could be heard in the forest a different voice every hour or so.