We leave the next day fully donned in our armor, and with our rucksacks empty to make room for our potential game.
We could have hunted west towards the glades, but we stick to what we know and go straight to the forest line.
It was an eventful day, about six miles in I hunted a huge black bear who put up a fight with its mana-clad armor, and crippling mana sense, it felt like I was moving in slow motion.
I ran up using its knees as a stepping stool, slitting its throat, and when it tried to staunch the bleeding a mana-imbued dagger was thrown in its eye by Isla, allowing me to cleanly decapitate it.
That was all we needed to hunt as the pelt, and meat took up both of our rucksacks.
I bleed the bear, take out its organs, and smoke the meat.
I also go to the nearest pond and collect a bunch of flints.
We wait until the next day to head back after all the meat is smoked.
I drop the pelt on the counter, making sure my tone of voice is polite.
"How much is this worth malady".
Almas's brown eyes gaze at me, she opens her mouth a couple of times but could not come up with the words.
Finally, after some time and a very deep breath, she speaks.
"I can give you twenty mana stones for the elder Wool's pelt, but if you go to the auction house I am sure they can give you much more".
I shake my head.
"I would like to sell it here".
She nods and goes behind the hallway adjacent to the stairs, coming back with two small cloth pouches.
"Good job boy, I don't expect to see you around for a while".
We pay our taxes at the gate and head back to the inn.
I hand a portion of the bear meat to Undean, and ask her to cook something with it, the rest I save upstairs, for Isla and me to chew on.
The bear meat was delicious as Undean shredded it, and made it extremely spicy.
The following day we make our way back to the "Prayer House" as they like to call it, and pay for Isla's entrance fee.
If the attendant did not believe that I could read, then she was convinced after today because I answered all of Isla's questions, even helping her read out loud some things she didn't understand.
Some of the Terra children see this and laugh.
With no prejudice built in their mind yet they try to come over but were stopped by the older Terra woman.
"The blood is not like yours dear".
Those words don't affect me much but Isla's eyes narrowed.
Weeks go by like this, and we hunt three or four times a week, always the small prey that takes only a day, and stays out of the wilds at night.
Spending our nights with a roof over our heads was the biggest change for us.
Wake up and train mana cores early, study the whole day, or hunt.
After studies, we fight barehanded behind the inn, but after hunting we draw our blades in the wilderness.
We coat our blades with thick mana, like a barrier for the rusting iron.
It serves to dull the edge, we never use mana outside of our bodies, trying our best to better our bodies, hone our instincts, and kill each other effectively.
The blades were dulled, but broken bones and blunt damage is nothing to scoff at.
I let go of my sword which was pinned by Isla's foot, in favor of grabbing her sword arm and flipping her over my shoulder, slamming her childish back to the ground.
"You almost got me… almost, don't get distracted".
I dust myself off.
We release the mana from our blades, and head to the Village.
Although my words seem callous, they seemed to have snapped her out of the funk she was in after hearing the old women's words.
I had finished all the history scrolls of the kingdoms and understood the noble lineage that surrounds them.
I also read through all the Lore of great mages from each religion.
It did not go into detail, but it had achievements written, giving me a guesstimate of where I am on the spectrum of power.
There are 'no core' mages which are mages who have stronger bodies as they absorb mana from the atmosphere, and then there are core mages, people that have built their core.
There are no mentions of a dual-core or more mage, but I am guessing that is privileged information.
Yarlen of House Kiseson was the most powerful mage in history, living over four hundred years ago, and not only that he was an Olim man and a slave abolitionist.
It was even more impressive because he was a man, women were the ones who were said to be blessed by the gods.
He smuggled countless Olim and Terra slaves' westwards, and set up the western mage association.
Most of the greatest figures condensed mana cores at ten years old, while some other notable figures did so much later.
Nowadays though most people condense mana cores after reaching the mage association, begging the question, how are they helping people condense cores?
The information was limited, to say the least.
My mana core is starting to stagnate again, the energy in my outer core becoming purer and purer every day.
The craving I have been dealing with since I was a baby had intensified, there are times in the night when I clutch at the sheets tightly, tossing and turning in the bed.
Isla on the other hand is growing quickly, from her soft skin and full body to her curious mind and her mana core.
She was becoming quick-witted and intelligent; she will make an excellent helper.
Using the flint and the rocks from the river I fashion a glove for my thumb and middle finger, I shaved the stones down and embedded them into the glove.
When I snap my finger, a spark is created.
I surround the spark in my mana and coax it with oxygen before wrapping it in another ball of condensed oxygen.
A near-instant grenade.
The small hazy swirls of mana are used to fuel the small flame, the process getting easier every time I try.
I do not teach Isla this, she doesn't have the proper mana control, and I don't want her to get it wrong and destroy herself.
With the mana stones in hand, I noticed that they were all extremely hard, and milky white, filled to the brim with mana.
This source of energy is direct, but it is finite, I knew there is a way to be more efficient.
With all the mana stones from our hunts for the past month I head out.
I go to the blacksmiths, stepping up to the hut-like abode I notice an exceptionally clean porch, I walked through a spacious pathway lined with flower pots.
Knocking on the door I am greeted by a round oval face and small button nose poised on an Olim women's face, like me she was mixed.
Her large brown eyes sitting evenly with arched eyebrows made her look adorable.
"Can I help you"? she asks.
"I am looking for the blacksmith I would like to make some purchases".
Her face lights up into a smile, presumably because I want to make more than one purchase.
"Please come in".
Stepping onto a red carpet I am greeted by a fireplace; the place is small but comfortable.
There is a modest round table to the left, and a little further into the hallway, I see a door presumably to a bedroom.
It is small but welcoming.
She walks across the house after seating us at the table, and goes into the back yard coming back with a Tall middle-aged Terran, shadows under his eyes are mixed with soot.
"How can I help you".
He is polite.
I am surprised at his manners, most people cast me aside because I am of mixed blood and young.
"My wife and I won't discriminate, please be at ease here".
His words are calm, noticing Isla's expression, and ingrained distrust.
"Can I purchase all this from you"?
He stares at the piece of cloth looking back, and forth from me to the cloth I handed him.
"I have to be honest I didn't expect this… it's a lot of material but I am sure I can get it in about two months, it is going to cost a lot of stones".
"How much"?
My voice does not betray my relief.
"The total amount of ores processed exceeds what I have on hand".
"If I count my resupplies from the mine, and the current market price, it should come out to be three hundred mana stones".
Isla is taken aback by this amount.
I nod, and hand over two big cloth pouches.
"Here is a hundred, I will come by in a month with another hundred, and make the final payment when you have all the supplies".
"Do we have terms"?
My words do not match my stature, and my tone leaves no room for further negotiation.
"Yes, ser".
His voice is gruff, uncaring of my age, stones are stones.
"My name is Reem and this is my wife Surma".
"I am Ambrose".
Not introducing Isla, I get up from the table and shake his forearm, as I do I notice a tattoo band around his forearms.
"It's the mark of an Olim slave".
His words come without much emotion in his voice.
I see myself out.
Before stepping out of the door, I stop.
"The reason I do not go directly to the mines is that I don't want to make a fuss, I hope I can count on your discretion".
He nods with a straight face.
"Of course".
To make sure we keep up with the agreement made with the Reem, we hunted almost daily.
I also decided to explore the glades, as I was looking for a place that would serve as a proper lab.
As we are walking, I explain chemistry to Isla.
"The world in of itself is composed of little round balls like your mana ball".
"They are so tiny you would need to see about five hundred thousand times better to be able to view it".
She listens intently while I introduce her to atoms.
I explain it to her as I would a child at first, but she picks up everything quickly.
"What are atoms made of"?
Her question comes after I explained the three basic particles protons, neutrons, and electrons.
"Quarks, but that is going deeper into particle physics, and a lot of theoretical work".
"How do you know this"?
"And whose theoretical work"?
One of the few times she questions me, I begin to write out how energy equaled mass times the speed of light squared and changed the subject to relativity.
'Sorry Albert, if I get the chance, I'll credit you in this world too' I thought to myself.
We stopped at the theory of relativity, and go over what she had learned.
At this point, Isla was desensitized to my knowledge base.
"These balls make up everything but there are different types".
"There are prevalent ones, and rare ones all together they mix, and create over hundreds of different elements".
I think back to earth about the one hundred and eighteen elements that I knew like the back of my hand.
"When a bunch of the groups of the same molecule together into one solid mass, it is called an element, but we'll get to that later".
"I need to find as many of these pure elements as possible, and I need your help".
"Why are you looking for all these different types of elements"?
"Because I want to create a new one".
All of life's problems can be fixed with more energy... let us hope my death can be fixed just as easily.