Danek stood with his arms crossed in front of Elder Piraka’s hut. Four other kids were glaring at him, but for the first time in his life, he enjoyed the feeling.

“Well?” he asked. “Are you coming in or not?” 

“He cheated,” Jobok said and scowled. “It shouldn’t count.”

“I think fatty here knew Luka would cheat,” Terik said and spat. “I saw them playing together.”

“You all agreed to a bet,” Danek said. “Now let’s go finish it.”

“No,” Jobok said. “You go tell the Elder the bet is off.”

Danek narrowed his eyes. “Or what?”

“Or we beat you every day until you do,” Terik said. “Or we get Vorok to do it. He will. He is angry these days.”

Danek flinched, but hid it. The new skill Negotiation really helped with that. It also gave him ideas. Like bluffing.

“Yeah?” Danek said. “And what do you think happens when I tell Little God you guys attacked me and didn’t respect our bet?”

Danek himself didn’t know what would happen. He thought Luka was his friend. Hoped so at least. But Luka was a bit aloof. He mostly cared about magic. 

The four bullies standing off with him didn’t know that. All they knew was how powerful Luka was. Their faces went completely white. One of them had said Danek and Luka were friends. And now Danek used that as leverage. Negotiation was such a good skill. Danek was really happy with it. It gave him really good ideas.

“You—,” Jobok spluttered. “Please, don’t. Don’t tell him.”

Danek wanted to grin, but he kept his face still. “Then are you going to honor the debt?”

“It’s too much, Danek, please,” Terik said. That was the first time he had called Danek by his name instead of calling him fatty. Danek filed that in his memory. 

“Too much?” Danek asked. “But it was a fair bet. In fact all of you insisted on doubling down.”

“That’s—” Jobok said. “It’s just that the terms are too harsh!”

Danek shook his head. “If I had lost, I would have been indentured to you guys for years. Maybe even more. I would never have enough time to even get a Class.”

“But we can never pay you back! It’s not fair!”

Danek gave them an understanding smile. “Okay. I hear you. How about we cut down the debts by 40%, but you compensate with other means.”

“How much is 40 percent?” Terik asked.

Danek showed five fingers and then showed three. “This much.”

“O-okay… that’s a lot. What other arrangements you want?”

“I will tell you inside, in front of the Elder, so he can draw the agreement,” Danek said. “But only if you come inside now and sign the deal.

“Yes, Danek. Thank you!” All of the boys said.

Danek smiled to himself. 

Don’t thank me yet.

He wasn’t about to let these boys off easily. They would secure him passage to the Silver Sea Tournament in Aligapa, and become his little helpers during that time. He would need to gather a lot of information and secure trading partners and make sure everyone knew he had good potions to sell. 

Luka was going to leave towards the capital. Danek knew he wanted to follow. So it was time to place more bets.

*

“Mom, dad, can we go already?” I wanted to leave for the Silver Sea Tournament for a singular reason. If the larger islands closer to inland had stronger people, it was likely there was more mana on those islands. The sooner I got to mana richer areas, the better, as it would improve my training significantly.

As it was, it wasn’t really worth it to train Arcane Body Art. The mana required to be condensed and cultivated into a purified frequency. The whole process required a lot of mana. I didn’t have enough skill with Mana Absorption to draw mana from the atmosphere with the required radius in such a scarce environment. 

One thing was for sure. Next time I found one of Mez’s temples, I would set up camp there and train for as long as possible. The temple had been a very mana rich area. We had visited it with my mother after the Moon Festival to see if it still was rich in mana, but most of it had already dissipated. This was likely a result of Mez being sealed.

Mother and father were standing by our house silently and holding hands. I figured they were saying goodbye to our home. After they were done and the villagers sent us off, we were finally ready to go. It seemed like I had gathered quite the entourage.

There was me and my family of course. But then there was also Danek and four boys. Danek had a cart with potions and herbs and the like packed into crates. To my surprise his former bullies were pushing and pulling the cart like packmules. I inquired about this, but Danek only laughed and said he had me to thank for that. And then he reminded me that he would appreciate it if I infused some potions. I naturally wouldn’t mind doing that later, because it was a decent opportunity to practice my Mana Manipulation.

We also had a cart with a lot of our supplies and possessions. It was much larger than Danek’s, because we had no intention of returning to the village. We had had a little party to celebrate our adventure, but it had been bittersweet. The nice thing about that party was that father and Marek managed some kind of a truce. Marek acknowledged me and my father. But I think he was mostly happy that we would leave so he could be the biggest and baddest person around again. 

Us leaving would be a blow, because father was such a skilled Fisher, but me having defeated the Silverback would make the jungle more accessible, and other villages would apparently pay tithes, or some kind of reward for a while after taking down the fierce monster.

Danek had inquired about my hundred quotas and had promised that if I give them to him, he will make me money in the capital where he wanted to learn to trade. That sounded fantastic! I had no interest in dealing with money and making those kinds of decisions. That was valuable time and energy I could use in the pursuit of magic!

My father started pulling the full cart towards the shore where boatsmen waited. However, he didn’t have to pull the cart for long, before another person joined our convoy.

Lithe and graceful like a gazelle, Alik ran towards us soon after we left our village. He bowed to me and quickly took the harness from my father, so he could pull the carriage. I sat on the carriage with a bunch of Danek’s potions and started working as we travelled towards the shore with a small boat harbor to get to the next island.

“What is this about?” father asked me and pointed at Alik.

“I told him, I’d teach him a few things if he takes care of the inconvenient things,” I said with a shrug.

My parents looked at each other and just shook their heads.

“Like what?” mother asked.

“Like having to talk to people when I don’t have to,” I said pondering. “Or going somewhere just to learn something that could have been a letter.”

“Basically, I agreed to be the Little God’s servant,” Alik said from the front.

“Don’t call me that,” I said.

“Yes, master,” Alik said, and there was a bit of a grin to his face.

I splashed him with a small water bullet. “Just Luka.”

Alik laughed. “You will need less humility, or all of the competition will look to challenge you.”

“Let them,” I said as I infused another potion.

One of the reasons I also wanted to befriend and create a mutually beneficial relationship with Alik was so that I would have a sparring partner. And I wanted a sparring partner that was as strong as possible, so I was looking forward to him learning Mana Absorption and Mana Manipulation, so that he could augment his fighting style with spear and shield. 

This way I could perfect a lot of new spells, like the Water Trap spell, which I had failed to use properly during the gauntlet. Either way I would need to get a feel for fighting one on one against opponents with high Skills and Class Abilities.

The trip to the next island was done by boat. It was a bit of a hassle to get all of our stuff on the boat, but with some careful use of my kinetic magic, we could stack the carts. I couldn’t use full-blast telekinesis on anything large, but fortunately I was able to float fairly large objects and hold them steady in the air. This allowed father and Alik to push the smaller cart on top of the bigger one, and we could all fit in the boat.

The boat trip lasted for most of the day. During that time father caught us some fish, which we grilled on an open fire on the beach with the boatsmen once we arrived on shore. This was apparently tradition. The boatsmen offered a ride and they were offered fish. Father caught a big one, so they were extra happy. 

During the trip, I helped mother practice Mana Absorption and started teaching Alik the Skill. Mother would hit level 10 in the Skill soon, and I was interested to see what kind of perk she would get. Alik did not yet learn the Skill, but he said he could feel something happening during my instruction. Mother had a whispered conversation with me about just freely teaching someone an epic skill like Mana Absorption, but I didn’t see the problem. But I wasn’t yet sure whether I trusted the boy enough to teach him directly from the Skill scroll, so he would obtain its Perk.

After the meal, the boatsmen returned and we waved them off. On the shore there were cabins where we slept that night. I was fairly happy about the first day of the trip, because it allowed me to spend most of my time infusing Danek’s potions. I wasn’t sure what I would do with the money Danek promised me. The whole concept of having to deal with money and resources kind of annoyed me. I wondered if I should maybe cultivate Danek into some kind of a trade prince to handle those affairs for me. I could probably make a lot of raw cash just by getting a bit stronger and killing powerful monsters. He could then take that money and put it to work. 

I fell asleep and dreamed of Danek feeding me gold coins with a massive spoon which increased the magic particles dancing happily around me.