Bev had a far easier time with her inscription than Kennon did. It took twice as long. But it seemed not having the system force its will on her made it less painful. The process was almost identical to soul weaving. But the system helped a lot more. With it guiding her actions the final result was perfect.

  When she was done it was time for dinner.

  She would be smoking the pelthorn tomorrow. But today she had one more task to do before bed.

  While Kennon went to gather more wood she grabbed a rather large stone from the river, and pulled her enchanting tool from her pack. It was time to make a ward.

  She had been taught the basics of enchanting. With a primary focus on security wards. Pulling out her notebook she double checked the design.

  With newfound ease she filled the inscription pen with mana. It was a basic tool. Only capable of working on relatively weak materials. But river stone qualified. Placing the pen to the center of the stone she began drawing the mana gathering array.

  This would fuel the enchantment with ambient mana. Seeing as it was on a common stone it would likely burn itself out in a few days. But that would be a few days of sound sleep.

  She filled the bottom of the stone with the runic symbol for gather. A pretty thing with lots of concentric circles and spirals. It would have been a shame to her training if she couldn’t do this much. There was no rune more foundational to wards than this one. Despite being finished it remained completely inert. And would remain so until charged.

  Then on the top of the stone she carved in a modified version of the spell array for identify. Slight tweaks that allowed it to connect to the rest of the working. Frankly, it might have taken days to inscribe it from memory. But with the system displaying the identify spell for her it didn’t take long.

  A few additions to the spell array and it would identify anything that moved. And if it was over T0 it would trigger the next part of the ward.

  And that was where the hard part came. She wanted it to make a loud noise. But her memory of the shriek spell array was spotty. Her notes were enough to help her pull through though.

  After inscribing that spell array she just had to connect the whole thing up and charge it. As she sent her mana flowing through it the inscriptions lit a pale blue. It was done. She hoped it would work.

  Kennon woke to the sound of bird song. He could smell meat smoking over an open fire. It reminded him of his camping trips. It was almost pleasant enough to forget how they got here.

  He knew he would have to face what he lost eventually. But today was not that day. Today he needed to work.

  A quick wash in the river, followed by another ration bar, and he was ready to hunt. There were few words exchanged with his sister. They rarely needed them. He could sense her intentions. And her his. She would be doing things close to camp. Tanning the hide, practicing rune work. He would be stockpiling food. And probably finding sources of other materials. The rations would only last so long. And they tasted like cardboard.

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  It felt weird to have the system but to still be using a rifle. No one used guns once they had real magic. But he didn’t exactly have real magic yet so a gun would have to suffice.

  He started traveling upstream. Portal realms liked to deposit things by water. Animals needed to drink. And rivers almost always started at the realm wall. It would be nice to know how deep into the realm they were.

  Barely half a mile upstream and Kennon found something interesting. A plant that was suffused in mana. With a flick of intent he called on the inscribed identify spell. Surrounded by his mana as it was from being in his core it fired immediately

  Golden aloe - herb - T1

  He recognized the name. This spiky little thing could be turned into a wonderful salve. It would be a great addition to their stock. He pulled it up by the roots, and deposited it in his pack. There was plenty of room since he took most of its contents out before leaving. Only a few emergency supplies. Everything else was hanging from his belt, or from various straps.

  Most of its contents was food and water anyways.

  While he walked he admired the beauty of the mana around him. He had been able to sense mana for years. But it always took effort before. And it was never this clear. The skill may have only been at 20% effectiveness. But the difference was impressive. He figured that this was actually equal to what he had heard from level 1 mana sight. So he wasn’t too far behind.

  Where once he could only see wisps of mana within arms reach he could now see the currents in the air for as far as he could see. It flowed with the wind. Leaving trails that were meaningless to him. He knew that it should be possible to track things based on mana trails. But he couldn’t understand what he was seeing well enough to do that yet. At the very least he would need to be able to distinguish the mana types. For now it all blended into a blur that told him little more than the direction the realm pushed the wind.

  When the view started to lose its appeal he began practicing his new spells.

  First came splash. Forming the spell above his palm he watched as a small sphere of water the size of his fist appeared. Letting it go it exploded away from him as if it had been impacted from behind.

  It was almost entirely worthless. Gust was little better. He could accomplish the same feat with a deep breath.

  Rock toss was more interesting. Casting it with a bit of rock or soil as the target sent it flying about as hard as he could throw. But when cast without a target a perfect sphere of brittle clay formed above his palm before being shot out.

  Still useless. But not for long.

  Margie had taught him the basic principles of spell casting. As well as spell modification. Even when creating a rock from nothing rock toss only took about a quarter of his mana. Gust was almost free. That left room for it to be empowered.

  He wanted to start with rock toss. Or torch. But he knew gust would be the easiest to empower.

  He mentally informed the system of his intent and the pattern for gust appeared in front of him. It was hard to have a simpler spell. It targeted the air in a specific area. And propelled it forward. Easy. Kennon dissected the spell array in front of him and identified which parts did which tasks. A targeting formation paired with a force formation. That was it.

  He began to draw the array with his mana. But after it was formed instead of letting it fly he added more mana to the force formation. He poured in so much that the spell started to lose its form. It shuddered, on the verge of destabilizing. That was his cue to fire.

  A blast of wind fired with such force that the back draft nearly made him stumble. A sharp crack echoed from his position. Birds once hidden in the tree branches took flight in fear.

  While using identify he aimed his rifle at the nearest bird. At least he would get some meat from this.