Chapter 14 The Way Of Fire

My steps were quite heavy as I locked the door and walked towards my bed. It was already dark outside, but the moon was out, so there was at least a little bit of light. There was no need to light any candles for the few minutes I would be able to stay awake.

My body was totally exhausted, yet for some reason, I was feeling better than I had for days. With the energy I had left, I decided to think about what I needed to improve or fix. First of all, it was obvious that I needed a lot more experience and training. The best way to get it was just to complete more maps.

I hadn’t gotten a level from clearing the goblin map, but I was close. A few more levels and I would be getting into green map territory. While I was doing quite well, even excellently, in the grey maps, they were just grey maps—basically the beginning of the journey.

There was also the problem of my equipment and the fact that I basically had none. Today, if I didn’t have Greg and the resistance he gave me, when I retreated from those goblins and took those two hits to the back, they might've been fatal. I had designed this situation to get this type of experience, and I feel like it was an invaluable decision.

There must be ways to train more and be in more of those kinds of situations. Yes, they would be somewhat fake, but it would still help me make correct decisions in a situation where overthinking things could be even more fatal than perhaps choosing a not-so-optimal path.

My eyes finally started to drift closed, but during those last moments, I didn’t think about what to do in the future, how to solve problems, or even the fights I had. I thought about the conversations I had today, just talking about nothing, and then of my family and how I missed them.

The morning light came faster than I wanted it to, but I had four days until I could use the Trent map. Sometimes the waits were a bit longer than normal. It would easily give me enough time to recover. That made me think that perhaps the wait times were a bit artificial, to make sure that new adventurers didn’t push themselves too hard.

So I just relaxed and slept a bit more before I got up and headed out. I had some things to prepare and also finally purchased a health potion just in case something went wrong. After that, it was time for the library to spend more time learning, mostly about passive trees and how to build something that could bring you past level 50.

The days went by fast, and the more I learned, the more I felt like I didn’t know enough. Also, there seemed to be a pressure at the back of my mind that was getting harder to deal with. I pushed it back as it was interfering with my concentration, and before long it was time to enter another map.

The landscape was a little bit different from the last trent map I did, but overall it seemed quite the same. Summoning Greg was as easy as ever. "So we're hunting trents again, so remember: run towards them, hug, and squeeze them in the middle as hard as you can."

He still had quite a simple mind that didn't seem to remember much, so I didn’t want to overburden him by explaining what to do when the boss came. What followed was me practicing my moves while Greg did all the work. He truly was quite excellent for this sort of opponent.

When the boss finally came, after having killed about two-thirds of the trents, it was a bit shorter but a bit faster than the last one. But after I told Greg what to do, he was able to slam it exactly the same way as last time, finally breaking the boss in half. This one died immediately, unlike the last one.

I think its loot was also of a lesser quality than the one before, but the amount of money I would get wouldn’t be much different—except, of course, 50% of the drops would go to Felwan. I should be careful when I go back to them. Can’t be too unfriendly, and although I would like to get to know them better, I think it’s still too dangerous.

"Hi there, Felwan, I got your goods," I said to him when the wagon full of the loot I had gotten from clearing the map backed up into the offloading area.

"Good man, Mark," he said, looking over the loot. "Not even a smell of smoke; they’re so pristine. It would be a shame, but I can’t put these up for sale—need to keep them for Tivet. Anyways, still, thanks. Let me just go through them all to get you your cut."

A little later, my bank balance jumped up by quite a decent amount. I needed to finish the map a few more times to complete our current deal. They said they would probably need a load like this every month. I think I could manage it while also running the more standard maps like the goblin one.

Time blurred by, and before long, I finished running the maps four times before it crumbled. The last two times, there was no boss, and the profits fell quite a bit, but they were still good enough. I took a bit of a longer break before I activated my original goblin map once again.

The plan was the same as before, but this time I would purposely let too many goblins surround me. It was a scary thought to purposely let an enemy get the upper hand, but it would be necessary. It was better to experience this here and train how to deal with such situations than have it happen in an environment I couldn’t control at all.

I was in my bed a day after I entered the map. There were a lot fewer goblins this time, and there wasn’t a boss. Still, the memory of being pinned down by goblins, their blows raining on me, made me tighten my fists. I didn’t tighten them consciously—it was perhaps a nervous tick I was developing.

Holding my staff helped, but that had been a bit too close for my liking. I also still felt the many hits I took, but thanks to Greg and his physical resistance, only a couple of bruises were going to form. What I needed was another summon to help me with close combat, but whenever I thought about that, something felt off—like I was missing something.

Also, I was getting headaches more often, so something was actually wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. Hopefully, whatever it was would pass, but perhaps I was sick, although I had basically never been sick before. Because of this, I scheduled the next run to be a week from now.

A couple of days off seemed to have helped, but on the fifth day, I felt worse again. On the sixth day, I was in the library, reading the same paragraph for the fifth time, unable to concentrate and constantly losing track. I had to admit to myself that I was fraying at the edges, and what was even worse was that I didn’t understand why.

“Hi there,” a librarian working in this section, someone I often ran into, greeted me in a soft voice. She looked quite nice, and I smiled at her.

“Hi there.” That was usually all we said to each other, but this time, I felt like introducing myself. “My name is Mark. What’s yours?”

She stopped for a moment, pausing halfway through putting one of the books back she was carrying. She looked at me, her shocked face quickly turning into a beaming smile.

“My name’s Vila.”

We talked a bit more about nothing in particular, which was nice. Apparently, she had been a librarian for a few years now, finally making her childhood dream a reality and actually enjoying doing what she had dreamed about all her youth.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have much time to talk, and after that, I continued to read. After finishing the books I had in front of me, I realized I didn’t have trouble concentrating anymore. It didn’t take me long to connect the pieces, but I needed to be sure.

The next day, I didn’t go to the library, as it was time to run another map. The goblin map was already quite damaged, but it didn’t break as the portal was activated, which meant it would probably break when I got out and the portal closed.

This time, there weren’t really that many goblins, and I was finished in 12 hours. As I expected, when the portal closed, the map crumbled into pieces. It was time to go buy a new one. After I sold the loot I got from this one, I calculated everything and realized I made not even twice as much as I paid for the map itself. While it was still profitable, it was barely so if you took into account living expenses.

These maps weren’t really meant for you to get rich fast, but they were steady progress, and that’s what the Guild recommended. I basically bought the same map and scheduled another delve, this time aiming for the shortest times in between runs as I could.

I had also leveled two times, but I didn’t activate another passive skill node as I didn’t really need it right now, and I was still a bit unsure as to how to proceed. The problem with concentrating soon came back, and even getting out of bed was a bit troublesome. The problem was alleviated a bit when I talked to Vila.

Like this, I finished running this map until it broke. After that, I got another trent map. This time I spoke with Felwan a bit more, just talking about nothing. The map was once again quite similar but with more differences than the goblin maps had. Still, Tivet seemed to be really good at making maps.

Now, every time I brought them loot, I stayed for quite a long time—a few hours—just talking and even helping them offload the loot and learning a bit more about how they did things and about them.

I was once again in bed in the dark. This time I had only gotten three attempts at the trent map before it crumbled when I tried to activate the fourth portal. Usually, people have backup maps just in case so they wouldn’t lose a time slot, but I had other things on my mind and didn’t think to bring one or even purchase one.

I was feeling a lot better. My mind was clearer, and the reasoning was simple. For the past months, ever since I left home, I had been pushing myself hard and, worst of all, isolating myself from others. While I did like my alone time, ever since I could remember, I had always talked with my many family members every day, and I missed that.

The answer was simple—I needed company. And while I still think joining a party is a bad idea, having friends, even if I don’t tell them everything, or at least people I like to hang out with, was important. Really important. Otherwise, I just couldn’t function properly.

Perhaps I should also do some things to entertain myself. I think I have just been pushing myself way too hard, and even though I would like to keep at it, I can’t take it. So it was time to change the way I did things.