The last sloth-monkey died to a combination of Philip’s Warp Earth and Lily and Epona pelting it with rocks and magic. Anika had been… less useful with her arm still suffering the lingering effects of the softball sized rock to the bicep she’d taken during the battle. As she prepared to approach the area where the monsters died to have a closer look, Leka’s voice rang out from the other side of the clearing.

  ”Well, that was exciting! I was curious to see how you would handle them!”

  Anika turned to face Leka, who was walking briskly across the clearing.

  “Seriously? It was exciting watching us get pelted with rocks from a bunch of red-aura monsters?!”

  ”Of course! And they aren’t that dangerous, though they sure can take a beating themselves. And some of them were yellow to you!”

  ”Only TWO had yellow auras and Lily turned both of them into capybaras!” Anika gestured to the three capybaras still sitting behind the rock that had been Lily’s hiding spot. Lily had moved from her rock to be next to Anika as they walked to the creatures, and Philip and Epona were also moving over to the corpses where Leka was headed.

  Leka arrived at the first monster corpse and shoved it into her satchel. Anika was impressed that such a large corpse would fit in her satchel, though she assumed that one of the features of the spatial magic on the bag allowed items larger than the aperture of the bag to be sucked inside. That was a good thing to know.

  ”If you’d been smarter, you would have had Lily polymorph two of the ones with red auras.” Leka stated matter of factly, shoving a second sloth-monkey into her bag.

  Anika opened her mouth to retort, but couldn’t come up with an adequate way to express her response to Leka’s flippant stance towards their lives and potential for injury. True, they should have had Lily polymorph the stronger, red aura sloth-monkey, but they hadn’t exactly strategized using her capybara polymorph in battle. Lily just transformed the ones closest to them. They should be more strategic in the future. But that still didn’t excuse Leka foisting higher level opponents on them so casually.

  ”I thought you were supposed to be training us! Throwing us at some giant sloth-monkeys with no information on how to handle them, especially when we have so few abilities to use against them.”

  ”Lidoks.” Leka paused, examining one of the monsters that had taken quite a few of Anika’s arrows and been pelted with several rocks. “Hmm… this one is likely too damaged.” She tossed it to the side.

  Philip picked up the corpse that Leka had tossed aside, “What’s a lidok? One of these guys?”

  ”Yes,” Leka found the next lidok more to her liking, and shoved it into the satchel. “They are common creatures, even at higher level dungeons. They are known for their tough hide, which is some of the best material for making leather armor. Of course, it’s better if we can kill them without too much outward damage, but they are common enough that a few can be used for target practice.” She gestured to the one Philip was now holding.

  ”There weren’t any better monsters for ‘target practice’ than ones that would throw rocks at us?” Anika jumped in, still irritated.

  ”They aren’t technically rocks.” Leka paused her corpse collection to pick up one of the rock-like objects. “See how perfectly round they are? And color, it’s not really what we usually see from rocks.”

  ”Then what are they?” Philip asked.

  “It’s an excrement from natural biological and magical processes.”

  ”A magical excre…” Anika paused to finish processing the whole sentence “Wait, you mean it’s poop?!”

  ”Ewww they were flinging poop at us? I’m glad none of them hit me.” Lily looked at one of the piles of ‘rocks’ that hadn’t been thrown at them, then looked at Anika, who was now looking at her arm in horror, “Oh, sorry Anika.”

  ”There’s nothing to worry about. These critters have a unique system that converts all waste products into a large, sterile crystal. They store them for defense, but after being outside their body for too long the droppings begin to break down. They are able to hold some inside their body so they always have a weapon.” Leka explained.

  As weird and slightly disgusting as this was, it made sense. Anika remembered when the group of sloth-monkeys, or lidoks, had arrived in the clearing. Initially, they had not had any rocks. Then, once they were free of Philip’s spell that pulled them into a group, they had just suddenly had rocks. And they had appeared behind them. Now it made sense where they had ‘magically’ appeared from.

  ”Well that is….interesting.” Anika was still a bit upset, but now was distracted by all the other things she had on her mind. Like what Philip’s spell was. And why the poop-rocks weren’t useful as a crafting material if they were so painful… wait, that must be because they break down. That made sense. And then there was that blinking in the corner of her interface.

  That got Anika’s attention fully away from Leka and her ‘training’ methods. She immediately pulled up the blinking interface window.

  Level 7 Achieved

  Potency: 13

  Anima: 17

  Vitality: 14

  You have [1] stat point to assign

  Anika quickly put another point into Vitality, bringing the total up to 15.

  “It looks like I leveled up!”

  Lily immediately cheered, making sounds like a purr and a chirp combined. “Yay Anika!”

  ”That’s good Anika!” Philip added

  “Excellent, you will need to kill more lidoks so that Lily and Epona join you.” Leka had only a few more corpses to pick up at this point.

  Once Anika affirmed the assignment of her stat point and cleared out the confirmation window, another message appeared.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Soothing Waters is now available.

  Soothing Waters: Cures minor cuts and bruises. Increase in power and effectiveness every level.

  ”Oh nice,” Anika focused on her spell, rather than Leka deciding they needed to kill even more of the annoying lidoks. “It looks like I have Soothing Waters now! I can heal myself!”

  Especially if Leka wanted her to keep shooting her bow, she would need to heal her arm. If she hadn’t unlocked the ability, she would have asked Leka to do it. Though, based on her comments earlier, Leka may have expected her to just tough it out. Anika was willing to tough it out later, but if she wanted to keep practicing with the bow and actually be useful to the party, she needed to have her arm fully functional and shake off the lingering tingling that accompanied the bruise that was now starting to spread on her bicep.

  “Your party will be much more effective with you able to render immediate aid during battle. To use the spell, focus your will on it the same way you do your attack spell, but this time you are focused on soothing and healing, rather than damage. You must be touching your target as well. The spell is more effective if you touch the injured area, but you are able to impose some healing benefit by any contact with their body that will allow the magical energies to channel from you to them.” Leka gestured to Anika’s bruise. “Go ahead and practice on yourself. Then you’ll be ready to fight more lidoks!”

  ”Do I need to touch the injured area on myself?” Anika inquired, tentatively touching the bruise with her right hand.

  ”Initially, it will help you to focus your will on the spell and will lead to more effective healing, but later, no, anything you cast on yourself does not need any additional physical components.”

  Anika nodded, and placed her right hand lightly on the bruised area as Lily and Philip verbalized encouragement and excitement for practice of a new spell. She recalled the almost liquid feeling of cool moving across her back and shoulders from when Leka had healed her and used that to help her focus her energy on the new magic. After a moment, she felt a cooling force trickle into her bruised arm. The feeling was not as intense as Leka’s healing, and traveled much more slowly as Anika attempted to visualize the magic expanding throughout the bicep and down the nerves into her arm.

  Anika figured it took about half a minute, at least, half an earth minute, for the arm to feel fully healed. That seemed incredibly slow for healing magic. She was used to video games where HP was restored instantly after a one or two second cast. For such a small injury, she would have expected it to heal faster. She supposed this was more like tabletop games, where you could cast one heal in a six second round and if you were lucky it would restore 10% of your hit points. Of course, when Leka had done it to her back it had only taken a second or two. Like everything with magic, it seemed that practice was required to really facilitate success.

  “Am I always going to be bad at spells when I first get them?” Anika was a bit frustrated that magic was like trying to run a program on a computer that was way too old for it. She wanted new spells to be instantly successful like in games!

  ”You are still new to magic. As you become more adept at manipulation of your element, and as you cast your spells more, they all become faster. You become able to use them more often. And you benefit from the experience gained from other spells and manipulations. At higher levels, new spells will seem second nature because you have already mastered the baseline elemental processes. Until you gain that facility, each new spell will require some degree of practice to acquaint yourself with the magical pathways necessary for the casting. Spells are easier and faster to master than ability based magic, as even those with the lowest aptitudes can eventually cast their spells in a timely and successful manner.”

  Anika was relieved that - eventually - spells would be faster. But until then, she wasn’t going to be much of a healer. If someone got injured in combat, it would take time out of the battle to heal, and would likely be impossible. How could she heal Philip, for example, if he was actively defending them against an attack if it took her 30 seconds to cure a minor bruise. She wondered what was the best way to practice her healing spell, as she figured she should prioritize that for their own safety. She did not want to go intentionally get hit or clawed by monsters just to practice her power.

  ”I suppose I just need a lot more practice then. I feel so behind.” It was a little overwhelming to feel that there was this much she needed to learn and practice to be successful.

  ”Of course you are behind! You come from a world without magic! Our own trainees practice their abilities extensively before they spend much time on spells, and they practice over years before they go into the field.”

  “Then why do you keep throwing us into monsters?!” Anika exclaimed with exasperation, reminded of her earlier concern with Leka’s lack of concern for their well being.

  ”Yeah, shouldn’t we be practicing alone before coming to fight monsters?” Lily asked, backing Anika up.

  ”You were summoned to be a hero of Etalen, and Etalen does not have time for you to take 3 years to slowly master your abilities. We know that dangerous magics may be released at any time. We must be prepared! You must be prepared! If I coddle you now, how will you handle yourself when the monsters are hurling magic that will burn you in seconds or monsters that will poison you so your flesh melts from your bones! You will learn adaptability, strategic thinking, and most importantly, how to react and keep yourself safe NOW while the monsters are unable to truly injure you in the hope that when you encounter something dangerous you have never seen before, you will be prepared.”

  Leka’s tone was more serious than it had ever been, and Anika could hear in it the weight, and possibly the pain, of experience as a trainer. She did not know how long Leka had been a trainer - she hadn’t seen enough people on this planet to have a clue how people aged here - and she realized she didn’t even know Leka’s level. How long did people even live on this planet? Decades? Or centuries? Something about how Leka spoke, the layers conveyed by her tone, jolted Anika, not just to the reality of her situation as a Hero, but also to Leka’s reality - being responsible for countless numbers of young people who may be going off to dungeons to face their death.

  Philiip also looked shocked by the sudden change in their previously cheerful and energetic trainer. He pushed against Epona’s side for comfort, looking between Leka and Anika.

  Lily was the first to speak, “Sorry Leka… you are right. I know you are right. The knowledge the gods gave me and Epona told us about the dangerous magic. They don’t know what to expect. It could be new. We have to be prepared to be safe.”

  Anika nodded, showing her agreement with Lily. She was, logically, terrified of the thought of battling unknown monsters that could melt her skin and burn her alive. She had never thought of herself as a fighter. But she also never wanted to let people down. She couldn’t just run away and hide to protect herself, as much as she might want to, because then what would happen to the people of this world? She hadn’t really seen much of the people yet, hadn’t set foot in a village or seen anyone outside the temple, but everyone at the temple had treated her well and wanted to help and see her succeed.

  Maybe Leka did have the right of it - challenging herself now would help her learn and make mistakes when things were easy. And the more she saw now, the more prepared she would be. Like in any video game, the encounters you faced often had similarities, so when you saw a new boss, you could recognize elements from other fights and have an idea of how to react. It allowed for better strategy development. She wasn’t the most powerful hero, but she did have a long history of strategizing in video games and analyzing new fights to try to be more successful. If she applied that here, she could gain the kind of obsessive and encyclopedic knowledge she had of her favorite games and that would allow her to take advantage of any new situation. And she didn’t learn how those worlds worked by sitting in lessons or doing the same easy things over and over - she learned by constantly trying new things, exploring, and taking on more challenging encounters. She challenged herself to become better, and that is what she would have to do here.

  ”I think we should get back to fighting. Where can we find more lidoks? We could improve how we handled them. Philip, I need to know more about that spell you used. Leka is there a list or book or something that tells me about different types of magic? I want to learn more about our magic so that I can more effectively strategize. And if there is anything about monster magic, that would help too.”

  Leka nodded, “I’ll show you the library tonight. Follow me, there is another lidok nest nearby.”

  Anika flexed her newly healed arm, tightening her grip on her bow, and adjusted her quiver before looking at Lily, Philip, and Epona in turn, “Let’s go kill more lidoks.”

  on my YouTube). I will be premiering a new song at the convention, as my friend and I co-wrote it. It's based on He Who Fights With Monsters and called "It's Kinda My Thing". We will be premiering it for Patreon users next week (once we get a recording this weekend).

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