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~Hollow Forest, Early Morning~

Jay had not yet opened his eyes even though he was awake, feeling the relaxing warmth of the fire.

He had actually be awake for a few hours already, but was not idle as he lay there motionlessly.

A veil of his mana was cast around him like a net, picking up tiny disturbances in the energy and the slight changes in the air caused by the crackling fire.

He even sensed the water bag placed at his side by Red, who had placed it there sometime last night and had went back to being his personal bodyguard.

The sun had just begun to give the first light of day, and after his diligent practice Jay received a notification as he opened his eyes, staring into the dawn sky with a proud smile.

[Mana Sense – Acquired]

“Hmm, I guess the secret was to be still rauther than to try and walk while practicing it.”

Jay had another notification but first he checked the skill.

[Mana sense – Level 1]

– Uses mana to sense the surroundings

– Three meter radius from mind

– 2 mana per second

“Finally, the mana sense skill. I deserve it after all the practice I put in.” Jay smiled, but it was quickly turned to a frown.

“Wait, why did Viladore want me to learn this again? Hmm… I guess it will help in some way, perhaps to see behind doors or something?”

The mana sense ability was not the simple ability to sense mana, but an active skill which used mana to sense everything else. Almost like echo location, except more personal, as a practitioner of the skill felt every detail.

The next notification he opened was only one for exp, but despite being so small he was quite happy.

[6 Exp]

“Looks like Handy and Lamp caught something. Hope it’s not some shit-eating rat.” Jay thought, rolling over to one side as he was still in bed.

For a moment his eyes didn’t really focus on anything as he relaxed, though as the sun began to creep through the trees, something caught his attention.

Almost right next to him, something glistened in the light.

A large, white and silvery feather lay there on the bone platform.

Jay reached over and grabbed it, then twirling it in his fingers he looked at the glistening sparkling light reflecting off it for a few moments.

“Where did you come from? There’s no birds around here…” he wondered.

Looking into the sky he couldn’t see any birds or hear any of their morning songs, so the feather was a strange anomaly.

Some paranoia tried to grip Jay, but seeing that his skeletons had not reacted he didn’t either.

“Oh well, It’s just a feather. Time to get up.” he nodded, tossing the feather away.

Standing by the fire, he was pleased to see that Heavy had tended to it overnight; Jay didn’t wake up at all since it was neither too hot nor too cold.

As he stood there over the first, he made sure his skeletons were keeping busy, but then his stomach grumbled.

“Ah where are those skeletons…” Jay thought, chewing on some nuts.

He was waiting for Handy and Lamp to return with their hunt; he sensed they were not too far away, so his breakfast should be arriving shortly. It seems that they found something to kill in the early hours of the morning after midnight – otherwise they would have already returned.

Handy and Lamp weren’t the only thing Jay sensed however.

Somewhere below him, he sensed a squirming snake-like skeleton in the cold soil, under the intricate root systems of the trees – his bone helminth had returned.

Raising a brow, he wondered why it was yet to come up to greet him. He willed it come to him, but it remained below the earth.

“Come up here. Now.” Jay said a bit more sternly.

It seemed that the bone parasite received the warning. He sensed the helminth try to travel upwards but it suddenly stopped, turned, and then went back to circling him underground.

Jay understood what was happening as soon as it stopped, and with a sigh, he immediately put his skeletons to work.

Finding a lower part of the root system furthest from the trees, he instructed the skeletons to begin chopping open a triangle-shaped hole through the roots.

The poor bone parasite was blocked by the roots, unable to crawl upwards and meet its master, so the simple solution was to cut a way through.

Of course, Jay would not be doing any chopping himself.

Under his gaze the skeletons began chopping away at the dense wood.

“Everything’s in order. Time to check on Dark” he thought, walking back to sit next to the campfire on his bone platform – he wasn’t going to let himself lie down defencelessly on these forest floor when his body would go limp from the [Host] skill

One of the few things spared from the blood-vine bear’s hunger were the parasites, spiders, bugs, leaflings and elementals hiding throughout the forest, half of them waiting to make Jay into their meal, or new home.

Just as Jay stepped onto the bone platform though, his hunting skeletons returned.

Turning to see what they caught, Jay was… surprised, to say the least.

“…What the fuck Lamp? What the fuck”

The skeletons marched through the barrier of bone spikes carrying their prey: a large black rabbit with claws.

But that wasn’t what made Jay surprised. It was what Lamp had done to it.

The corpse had been completely skinned.

They had carried a skinned red corpse through the forest, all the way back to Jay.

But how did Jay know the rabbit had been black? What about the hide?

The hide was now wrapped around Lamp’s back of course.

Well, not exactly wrapped around. More like clinging to it.

Jay stepped closed and examined the black fur. It seemed to be somehow fused with the bone on Lamp’s back, as if the skeleton had grown it itself.

“What kind of freaky….” Jay had no words.

He imagined Lamp in the future; something about a fur-covered skeleton sent shivers up his spine.

Lamp just stood there, looking at Jay; gut knife in one hand, shepherd’s crook in the other. Both of them bloody.

“I… I guess it saves me some time skinning it.” he shook his head.

After the skeletons dumped the carcass onto the bone platform, he sent them off to continue hunting.

Next, he decided to butcher some of the carcass, adding the fresh meat to his inventory and cooking just enough to sate his hunger. Before cooking the rest of it, he decided to use the remainder of his mana to give a mind to one of his skeletons: Red.