My name is Ben Parker, and I’m your average high school student. I just began my senior year at a new school, and don’t know anyone here, not that I would want to. I was a freelance programmer, and a indie game maker in my free time, so I didn’t usually have a ton of time. In my free time however, I didn’t really want to hang out with friends of classmates, which usually led me to being in a social middle ground.

I may end up friends with a popular kid, an unpopular kid, or someone who doesn’t matter, but people didn’t really assign that popularity to me. If I entered a room, people would recognize me, but they wouldn’t interact with me first.

I exited my acceptably sized apartment room, and went down the street to my school. As I walked, I saw four people beating up another kid.

“Are you gonna say it again?!” A rather large boy shouted at someone on the ground, as several others stood by him.

They yelled as they kicked him around for a bit, and I passed them without paying much attention. I knew that getting involved with bullies who were okay with being physically violent wasn’t a good idea. I had been trained in martial arts, thinking it would let me beat everyone that messed with me up. Thinking this led me to getting beat by five bullies, and after that I kept to myself.

I checked a notification from my phone as I walked, and saw it was a video about mutants. They were people born with superpowers, and although uncommon some people were scared of them. After about twenty minutes, I arrived at school. It was a large building, and had a few trees symmetrically set up, forming a path alongside the sides of the sidewalk. There were several other branching sidewalks, and people were streaming into the school from the sidewalk and a car lot.

I entered the school, and went to class. My first class for the day would be pre-calc. It was boring, but I find math easy as it follows obvious rules, and you can often figure out the rules you don’t know through other rules.

After that was US history, which was also easy. I made sure to take notes, respond to questions, and I was out of there. When history was finished, I took my CS class which was a bit harder. Computer Science required a lot of logic development, and minor bugs could stop progression entirely, but it was still pretty easy.

When those were finished, I took an advanced science genetics class. This class was pretty hard, and took a lot of focus, but I was able to handle it. Lunch came after that, and I decided to get what I usually get, a hamburger and fries.

As I was sitting at lunch, a girl came over to my table and began talking to me.

“Hey, you said you do commissions right?” She asked me.

“Uh, yeah. Do you want one?” I responded, having gotten a message the previous day.

“Yes please, if possible. How much would it cost for a big colored drawing, I guess?” She asked me as she tried to repress her excitement.

“An illustration? How big? Digital and printed, Digital, or hand drawn?”

“Like, a wall poster 5*3 feet I guess. Digital and printed would be nice.”

“Hmm. That’s doable, what would it be of? How much shading and detail would you want?”

“I wanted to get a poster of two cool dragons fighting!”

We talked about that for a while, and after that I accepted. Her commission would come out to $45, which she thought was pretty cheap. She had seen some of my work before online, and was confident in the quality.

‘Although, it was a bit weird to have someone hunt you down for your art...’

Lunch ended, and I went to my next two classes of the day. I had to take speech and debate, and then physics before the day was done.

“This is my last year of this at least...”

This was my senior year of high school, and I was relatively ready for it to end. I lived by myself already, and had saved up a bit of money for myself if I wanted to go to college in the future. I was confident I could get a job at some video game company, as I could illustrate, do concept art, and design 3d models.

As I was walking away from the school, I noticed three people following me. They weren’t being covert about it, and were clearly following my path exactly.

‘Is it the three from before? Do they think I saw something?’

As they approached, I decided to figure out what they were after in the first place, before reacting. When I looked at them, I realized it was a different trio than before.

“What do you guys want?”

“Hey, you messin’ Hannah?” A boy in the front with spiky grey hair asked me, his voice clearly tinted with aggression.

“No.” I told him, already annoyed at having to deal with m=him.

“Lying punk, I watched you talking with her earlier. You think you can steal my girl?” He shouted at me, and tried to look intimidating.

“Judging by your attitude, I don’t think she’s ‘your girl’, and no.”

“B****\, get him!”

The three ran after me, and I ran away from them in the opposite direction of my house. I had no intentions of leading them back to where I lived. I ran for a while, and when they would start to get close, I would push or punch at them and continue on.

Eventually I ended up at a dead end, and they cornered me into it.

“Huh.. huh.. Where ya gonna run now?”

They walked up to me, and I fought back with them, but eventually they grabbed me and punched me in the gut. The pain made me fall down, and they began kicking and beating me as I was down.

After a bit of their beating, I felt something inside of me crack, but I didn’t feel any pain from it. Actually, after that I didn’t feel anything from their attacks.

‘God, they’re beating me so hard I can’t even feel it?’

After a while, they got tired of it and backed off.

“Don’t mess with my girl again!”

They walked off, and I stood up.

‘Idiotic jerks. I wish I could beat them back...’

I limped home, and took a shower to get rid of the dirt. I didn’t have any homework, and so I just went to sleep. After laying down for a while, I went to sleep and in my mind was a dark space, and inside floated a blue sphere with a crack covering it.

‘What’s this? A dream?’

I touched the sphere, and it felt cool to the touch. I pinched myself and could feel it, so I decided this wasn’t a dream.

‘What does it do?’

I touched the sphere again, tried to move it, and even tasted it.

‘Nothing.’

I hit the sphere out of anger, and then it cracked more.

‘Oh god, what did I just do! No, wait… It was cracked when I got in here.’

I decided to fully open the sphere, and I hit it several more times causing it to finally shatter, then it exploded in a flash of light.

When I finally recovered from my blindness, I looked around and saw an empty space, with nebulous glowing gas like stuff flowing around.

‘What’s that?’

I watched for a while, and when it did nothing I decided to sit down. I watched the gaseous lights for a while, before they flowed together and exploded again. Stuff was launched everywhere, and it looked like the big bang was happening.

‘Is this like, the beginning of time?’

I watched it, and saw that a massive amount of material wasn’t emitted, but instead just enough for a planet the size of Jupiter. The planet had glowing spots, a barren earth, and looked violent, but I still flew down to it.

‘Cool, I have dream powers! Can I make a chair?’

I imagined a chair, and energy flew over to make a chair for me, which I sat down in.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t do that...’

It seemed like there was a finite amount of energy, and I didn’t know what it was for exactly, so I decided not to waste it on stupid stuff.

‘Can I speed this up or something?’

As I thought that, the world began to move faster, energy dispersing and moving, weather and natural phenomenon began to form, and it looked like a movie edited version of how the world formed.

‘Cool beans.. But, what is this?’

I watched for a while longer, and walked around after destroying the chair from earlier. As I walked through the world, I could feel weird energy flowing into my body, but it didn’t feel strange or dangerous so I didn’t reject it.

After what felt like hours, and seemed like millions of years. I saw dust flow over the planet, ash clouds rise and fall, toxic gasses moving about, plates shifting and forming, oceans forming and settling, and the world changed around me. At some point, the world formed a sun and two moons, causing me to notice that before nothing had seen light. I saw small animals and plants begin to form, and considered this for a moment.

‘That must mean this place was forming bacteria before...’

I waited for a while longer, and as bigger animals developed I eventually woke up.

‘That was a weird dream...’

I prepared to go to school again, and as I was getting ready I realized all of my bruises and damage from yesterday were gone. I actually felt better than the days previous to the beating.

‘Weird’

I returned to school, and carried through my day normally. Upon returning home, I got to working on my homework, which only took an hour to do. After that, I worked on the commission for four hours, had an hour of free time, and went back to sleep.

These dreams continued for the next couple of weeks, and I finished the project and had it printed to a canvas. At lunch the next day, I told Hannah about it, and that I could deliver it to her, or she could come to pick it up.

“I’ll pick it up, thank you!”

 I also warned Hannah about the guy talking about her, and she took note of it. I returned home, and while I was walking I noticed that the three guys appeared again.

“I really thought you had the lesson figured out kid. Guess it’ll have to be stronger this time”

“I really don’t have time for this, so can you get a life?”, I said to him, tired of his existence.

“What did you just say?”

“You heard me.”

At this point I was really just annoyed at them bothering my income, which I worked my butt off for. The three guys charged at me again, and I ran like before but I didn’t feel tired at all. My muscles felt like they were barely used, and I felt a warm energy sitting in them.

 After a while of running, I still wasn’t tired, and the trio of jerks seemed to be running out of gas.

“You’re sure good at running punk!”

“And you aren’t.”

The three guys stopped, and I saw one of them get on their phones as I ran. I left their sight, and returned to a path leading me home at full speed.

Even after running long distances at full speed, I didn’t feel more than one might after walking a lap around a big building. I waited at my house for Hannah, who pulled up in her truck and paid for the commission.

“Thank you, it’s awesome!” She said as she looked at it, holding it somewhat happily.

“Glad you like it! Thank you for your patronage.” I was glad that someone liked my work that much, and happy that I was making some money.

“Yup!”

She left, and I finished up my homework for the day. After finishing all of that up, I thought about what I should do for now.

‘What Game could I make...’ I thought to myself, as I drifted off to sleep.

I went to sleep and saw my dream world again. The world had developed monsters, and creatures which looked like aliens, demons, and ancient monsters, which was a little bit intimidating. It also seemed like it was close to developing humans, which was partially due to some of my assistance.

I awoke the next day, and got ready for school like normal. I went out, and took my classes with focus. I hadn’t felt sleepy at all recently, even when I stayed up really late. I also hadn't forgotten things, even when I only saw them once.

‘It’s awesome, but a little weird… Does it have to do with these dreams?’

I left the school again, and when I left the trio wasn't there so I assumed they gave on bothering me. After a few minutes of walking though, I saw that I was wrong.

A few people came out in front of me, and a few behind me circling up.

"Can't run now can ya?"

The boy from before talked aloud to me, sneering as he spoke.

"Let's kick his a**!"

The people charged at me, but I felt calm. As they approached, I punched out and felt energy pass through my body.

"Agh!"

The people before me were blasted back, and I ended up easily fighting and beating several of them.

'This power…'

I easily beat everyone present, before another boy stepped out.

"I didn't think you would create trouble like this for me, Derrick."

He walked up to me, and dashed forward. I blocked and git pushed back, and we exchanged blows for a few seconds before he backed off.

"All of you, leave now!"

The boy yelled, and everyone around us obeyed. Once they were gone, he spoke to me.

“What’s your name?”

“Ben, you?”

“Calvin.”

"I'm sorry that they were making problems for you, I didn't realize you were also a cultivator." The boy said to me, seeming genuinely sorry.

"A cultivator?"

"Yeah, you don't know? That makes sense, your qi is more raw than what's in the air.  I suggest you stop whatever you're doing, and learn the right way…" He looked concerned, and slightly confused as he informed me of this.

"Cultivating? You mean, like in tv shows?" I asked him, surprised at the revelation. I had thought I might be a mutant of some type, or that I was just feeling awesome lately.

"Yes. It kinda bothers me that you don't even know. You might have a lot of talent…"

"How does one cultivate?"

He facepalmed before speaking again.

"You don't ask another cultivator for their techniques, unless you have something pretty valuable."

"Why?"

"They are the methods cultivators use to gain power. We refine the worlds qi, absorb it, and build ourselves up. You can still change cultivation techniques, as you haven't finalized your meridians. If you want, you can join our martial group."

"Hmm, no thanks. Thank you for the info, I owe you one."

"Consider it compensation for the trouble from earlier."

"Okay. Would you be willing to teach me more about cultivation and techniques?"

"Sure, but you owe me some coffee."

I laughed, and we went to buy drinks. As we left the coffee shop, he began to explain.

"Basically, cultivators are people who learn to control the world's energy to gain powers."

"Like mutants?"

Mutants were people born with powers, and they weren't too common. They had been accepted by many governments and communities at this point, and some even treated them like gods among men.

"Yeah, but we can constantly increase and change our power, while mutants are born with theirs."

He continued to explain.

"Cultivation used to be really common, with religious wars and orders, as well as cultivator orders passing around the world. This all changed due to the great war, however."

"Great war?"

"A war between cultivators, mages, religious orders, really anyone with powers. The war destroyed most of the techniques, clans, and control of those with power. This led to us not having them today, and those with powers decided to step away from societies view"

"Okay"

"Basically, you will need to acquire a cultivation technique, and it needs to have levels up to where you want to cultivate. If you get a technique with two realms, you can only ever make it to realm two. Good techniques will likely only be given by sects, clans, or governments."

"I see, so they can keep their power… earlier you mentioned mages? What do they do?"

"Mages cultivate as well, but it's in nine realms, and shorter but harder. They mostly use techniques and spells, instead of raw energy. They are still extremely powerful though. Basic cultivation can get you to the top, but it's not reasonably possible without advanced techniques."

"I see, and where could I buy all of this?"

"Haha, well you see that's the thing. To get into this market, you need to be someone with special powers, and a lot of money."

We continued to talk, and I thanked him for his information, before returning home.

'Is it that world inside of me that gave me power? Can I learn from it?'

I went inside of my world as fast as possible, and tried to feel the world energy he talked about. It was easy to move, and strengthened my body while it felt like having refreshing water flow through me.

'I should learn how humans learned to cultivate'

I decided to watch my world, and after a while humans had finally developed. I had learned a long time ago that I could interact with the world, but it couldn't interact with me. I could also change the relationship between the timeflow of this world and my world, though it had some limits.

I walked into the middle of a primitive group of humans, and sped time up as I watched them. As I watched them, I realized that they needed crops or plants which they could grow, and animals they could tame in order to form non-nomadic societies.

My world was currently filled with monsters and demons, alongside many wild creatures. In order for humans to have easy and stable food,  I made some crops and animals, and placed them around the world in safe areas. I also made several for groups of humans around my world.

After doing that, I waited again and let a basic society form before returning time to normal. But, as I went down to my world, I saw that the humans were still struggling.

They had small settlements, but without special powers they couldn't fight against the monsters, so I placed some qi into the leaders and commoners of several different settlements, and waited another forty years.

I looked at the humans again, and they had now grown up exponentially.

'I think I can start now.'

I had decided I would learn by watching the humans, and I wanted to try being born into an ancient human society first. They didn't cultivate, but merely gathered the energy of the world and forced it around, but it was still more than I did.

I found a young woman in a larger settlement, with around four hundred people, and thought about how I would do this.

'I don't want to take some child's place, but I also don't want to just force myself into a woman. That could get her rejected by the tribe…'

I decided to possess a stillborn child, and waited another year before finding one.

'Perfect! Now my journey shall begin!'

I used my power as a god to speed up the time relation exponentially, gave a blessing to the child who would be stillborn, and possessed it when it was born.

The people of this world spoke a weird and simplistic language, but as the god of this world I was able to understand its intent.

"Is he okay?"

My mother asked with concern at my silence, causing me to realize my mistake.

"Waaaaaa!"

"Yes, he just took a moment. He looks healthy." A woman said as she rocked me.

"Samara! You did it! I have a boy now!"

"Yes, let me hold him please"

My mother, Samara, reached out to me, who was in the hands of my grandmother. In this settlement, it was usual for a mother's mother, or her friends to assist with childbirth.

She held me for some moments, before falling asleep. After that, I was wrapped in animal skin and given to my father.

I looked up to him, as he looked down at me with a smile.

"My son, you will become a powerful warrior. I can see it in your eyes"

He held me with happiness, and I smiled up to him. I fell asleep, and awoke a few hours later, hungry.

'Do I really have to cry again…'

I let out another cry, causing my mother to wake up.

"Are you hungry little one?"

She slid her clothes to the side, and began to feed me, which I accepted pretty easily.

After that, she rocked me for a bit and I fell asleep again. I spent another eleven days doing this, before I awoke in real life.

This cycle continued, I would go to school after waking up, and spend eight days as a baby when I went to sleep. It was a pain to get back into my schoolwork every time, but it would be worth it eventually.

It took almost an entire semester, or 65 school days, but I reached the age of three in my world. I was finally capable of some level of speech and free movement.

"Da da!"

I made noise, and tried to speak out to my father.

"Oh! Yes, this is dada! Yes!"

He started crying as he hugged me, which was amazing to watch.

"Samara, he recognizes me!"

He talked to my mother, who came over expectantly.

"Do you know me Juno?"

Juno was my name here, and I knew what I had to do.

"Ma-ma."

My mother melted at the sight, and hugged me and my father. He took me, and carried me around the settlement with him.

My father was considered a pretty powerful warrior, and was rather proficient with qi.

I decided I would spend more time here per session, as I could actually move around.

After this point in time, I spent twenty days every night here since I could move, and after another thirty school days, I was six years old in my world.

Now that I was six, my dad wanted to teach me warrior techniques.

"Well Juno, will you learn to be as strong as your dad?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, follow me son!"

"'Kay"

I followed after him, and he began to teach me about a basic cultivation method. He showed me to gather some energy into my stomach, and compress it in circles while pulling more in.

I followed after his actions, and noticed it was different from the energy I used in the real world. It was raw, but seemed more impure, and was more refined than the energy I had.

The energy I had in my world was thick and dense, but consistent. The qi of my world was thin and refined, and also consistent. But, the world's raw energy was different.

In the real world, energy was pretty thin and refined, but impure and inconsistent like it had clumps or chunks. The raw energy of this world was relatively thick, but also impure and inconsistent.

I did as told, and once it was held within me, he told me how to refine it. I would compress some energy, remove the impurities, and expand the energy to absorb it.

It flowed into my body easily, and there was a lot of it,but it wasn't very potent.

"Once you get used to it, you can do it by yourself, and without a stance."

After a while of practicing, he took me to our yard, and gave me a sizable stick.

"Practice with this, let me show you a few attacks."

He showed me some simple combat moves, which I replicated. The people of this world didn't have metal weapons, and their combat methods weren't refined yet, but they still had something.

I followed his instructions, and for the next three years, or about forty school days with nine being on a break trained.

I was only nine, but could be considered a talent. I was better in everything compared to the others in the village, which was easy to understand. I gave myself a blessing for good luck, I could remember everything perfectly ever since learning of this place, I could go to the real world to do research, and understood things easier die to my age.

If I couldn't excel with these, I would be rather disappointed in myself.

"Hey, Juno? Why can't I form my attack?"

A boy walked up to me with a question, which made me rather happy. He was a kid I knew, Jasar. He was training like me and many others, and had never acted angry or envious at my success.

"Ah, well you see you aren't forming it properly. It's backwards, you're lucky even. If you had done this too hard, you would have blown up your arm…"

"Oh no! Thank you Juno!"

He thanked me, and took my advice. In this settlement, and likely many others, techniques were made from practicing and playing around. The community shared their ideas, and kids learned from everything they saw.

This was how humans learned in general, through trial and error. Kids didn't have enough qi to damage most things, and were told not to use very much either. There were also very basic healing techniques, which were combined with basic medicinal knowledge.

Jasar was trying to shoot out a blast with qi, from his fist. I wasn't quite sure how successful it would be, but it looked relatively cool once he started it out.

'I should try to improve it.'

I decided I should study the ideas behind it more, and research them in my world. I talked with Jasar, and he explained his ability in more detail, and showed me how to use it.

"I'll see if I can improve it any "

I told him, before we went our separate ways. After going to sleep, I woke up on a weekend in the morning, and researched force and its application.

I could remember things with a glance, and I looked at how missiles and explosives in the government worked. I wasn't looking up ingredients or how tos, just the explanations, like one might find in books.

After a bit of searching, I managed to improve it a lot. Before, the technique just pushed forward qi with a punch, so it extended a punch's range.

After my modification though, it condensed qi into the fist, and fired it like a missile. The range and location for the explosion were determined by the puncher, and it fired like a twisting bullet when used.

After finishing up all of this, I had only used up an hour of my time and went back to sleep, waking the next morning in my world. I awoke, did my chores, ate, and went out to train with the others.

“Jasar, I made a new technique from yours!”

“Really? I don’t know how you do this stuff...”

I taught him how to condense and fire the energy, as well as the basic ideas behind all of it. This would let him use an improved version, while also being able to make his own techniques better in the future.

I tried to help the others as much as possible, but they were often unwilling to accept it. If they were normal people I may be upset, but knowing how stacked I was against them I accepted it.

‘What’s a god if not forgiving? I wonder what others are learning...’

I thought about it for a while, and realized this world didn’t have anywhere for dead people’s minds and memories to go.

‘I might learn something special from it!’

I helped the others with their techniques, and at night I left my body to create a sort of heaven. It was basically a storage for people’s consciousness, in order to look at others' knowledge after they died.

I awoke the next day, and continued my cultivation and training. Things like this went on for another four years, and I used up another 52 school days, with a few being extra breaks. This meant I was finally going to graduate.

I graduated with academic honors, and celebrated alone at home, before going to bed. I would go to college next year, and wanted to get my qi as powerful as possible before entering. I also wanted to use online schooling and studying to prepare, as well as learn. With my newly acquired perfect memory, I decided that was the perfect thing to do with it.

I entered my world again, and at 13 my dad wanted to finally take me out hunting with him and some others.

“Well son, will you come?” My father asked me, somewhat frozen in anticipation.

“Yeah!” I replied easily, as it would only benefit me.

“That’s my boy!” My father seemed both proud and happy, and did a bit of a hoot.

He was excited at my progress and, though he loved me no matter what, was happy he had something to brag about to everyone else.

He and some others prepared weapons and armors they had made, and got a few of the top kids, who were soon to become adults or warriors.

“Juno, this is Marrin, Jer, Lena, and Boddo. You already know Jasar.”

My father explained to me, pointing to all of the kids before me. There was a female, Lena, among them because my settlement didn’t stop women from becoming warriors, if they were strong enough.

“We will be going to hunt monster wolves. You must be careful, pay attention, and stay quiet.”

Another man, Borduk explained. He was one of the hunters of the settlement, and was helping to lead this excursion. They explained some hand signs to us, and got equipped to hunt.

The adults were armed with bone and stone spears and axes, with the bone coming from strong monsters. They also wore shields and armor made from fibrous plants and animal scales and skins. The kids were armed with similar but smaller weapons, alongside armors made to be lighter and more mobile.

“Okay!”

“Yes!”

Everyone accepted with determination, ready to follow orders.

“Okay, let’s set out!”

There were six kids, and eleven warriors going out today, to hunt some wolves down. These wolves were monsters, and were known to be more vicious and less relenting than normal wolves, especially as they enjoyed eating energy rich things. Qi was another type of energy, one that was extremely beneficial to monsters and demons.

We went out of the settlement’s mud brick and wooden walls, and set out into a nearby forest.

The settlement was walled, and had space for about eighty feet from its walls cleared off. It was on a lower part of a mountain, so one could go up the mountain, or down into a valley or forest.

We walked carefully through the forest, using our attention to hold our qi inside of ourselves, and making a thin barrier. This barrier could protect us from damage, and block or lessen our scent to monsters. One warrior was in the middle of the group, channeling his qi out to block noise from us.

We walked for several minutes, with the adult warriors guiding us, and being circled around us. They investigated tracks and claw markings, and used those to find the territory of the wolves.

Borduk and my father raised their hands, and the warriors began waving and signalling to each other. We knew from this that we were getting close to the wolves cave or den, and got tense due to this knowledge.

We all crept forward, slowly making progress deeper into the forest. After a couple of minutes, we saw an open area with a dark area ahead of us.

The four warriors in the front went ahead, and once they were a few feet out everyone else followed. Once we got closer to the den however, the noise from our movement was too great, and the wolves awoke.

The warriors in front prepared, as eight large wolves stepped out from the den.

"Grrrrr"

They growled, and stayed close together. After a bit of standing off, the wolves charged forward,  some jumping from the front and others the side.

The warriors broke their formation, and began to fight the wolves. One kicked a wolf flying, and jammed a spear through another's head as he turned back to it.

Borduk was focusing on three, and slammed one that tried to sneak attack him with a club.

My father used an axe to cut into the side of a wolf larger than the others, and stomped on it.

Two smaller wolves came out, and the warriors let us engage them.

Me and Jasar were at the front, and each decided to take one on.

I had a bone club, while Jasar had decided to use just his fists. A wolf charged at me, and I swung at it with my club, my qi speeding up my strike.

The wolf was hit, but just knocked away a bit, and began to circle me. Seeing this, I struck towards it with the club again, which it dodged before attacking again.

I elbowed it, cracking it down and smashed it with my club, before looking over to Jasar.

Jasar jumped back and punched at the wolf, resulting in an explosion and ripping across its side. The wolf had moved in the last moment, causing it to live. It seemed somewhat confused at what had happened, but it immediately understood that his movements were dangerous.

Jasar punched again harder this time, and the wolf jumped away leaving a blast in its wake. It charged at him, and he punched it in the mouth as it came close to him, knocking it out without blowing himself up.

"Good job young ones."

The lead warrior of the hunt said to us, before looking to the others with slight disappointment.

"Help carry the bodies back." He told us with a wave of his hands, and we all went to get a body. Me and Jasar got our kills, and the others helped to get the rest. There were four more bodies, which two warriors picked up.

We returned to the settlement much faster than we left, and brought the bodies with us. We weren't really afraid of killing all of the monster wolves, because dens of them filled the forest. This meant we could hunt them frequently and easily, without worrying too much about the ecosystem.

Monster wolves also didn't hunt most of the small to medium animals, and preferred to hunt energy rich animals instead. This led to many of their targets being humans.

We left the bodies to the hunters, and went to clean ourselves off. Once we did that, we re-clothed and were given free time. I thought about today, and the weapons and attack everyone used and suffered from.

'I should introduce metal weapons and armor.' I decided after some thought, and even though many metals might be weaker than monster or demon bones or skins, eventually they would be stronger and harder.

I decided to slightly speed up development, by going out to find easy metal somewhere.

"Can I go out dad? Just into the valley?"

"you did well today, but that's still not enough for you to explore alone my son."

"Can Jasar help me?"

"Hmm. That doesn't make it any safer, wait until you're older."

"How old?"

"Hmm. When you are fifteen, you will be able to make your own decisions."

He was referring to becoming an adult, and so I accepted reluctantly.