Elevation of Mana Chapter 14 Deep Caves and Wildcats

The small cave widened behind the rock, but not by terribly much. I could now comfortably stand and walk, but it wasn't anything that could be described as roomy. It went back, and with a small light produced from my hand I could see a good ways.

I wouldn't stay long, only a few minutes, only long enough to see just how far things went. Yeah, that was a good plan. I began to walk, making my way forward with great care. This place had been blocked off for some reason, and caves in my world were famous for being a good way to get yourself killed.

Within only a few moments I began to find some odd things. First was the moss, some kind of luminous lichen or something was covering the walls, subtle at first, but soon I didn't need my light to see by. I didn't know what could have made this, as there weren't any signs of monsters or anything else, just bare rock.

Further and further I went, making my way across the stone deeper and deeper into the earth. Soon enough I came to a ledge, a small one to be sure, but one that was clearly too steep. The land went down quickly, and light or not I couldn't see the bottom for the slight twist it induced into the stone.

I could have probably floated down, but I didn't know how deep this would go, nor did I honestly have much time left on my little tour. So I slowly backed away, moving to leave.

Something floated up from below as I did so, a bubble. I'd seen enough auras at this point to know the look of one, and this clearly was. An aura of what though? It was small and faint, like it was far from its home.

It looked like mine, just like mine, how curious. I reached out to poke the little bubble, but as my finger closed in it popped. I gasped as a wave of mana washed over me, the little plants covering the cave brightening into an instant light-show.

Then I turned and bolted. Something was up there and I wasn't ready. I'd come back, come back when I was strong and prepared, with gear and flight and combat magic. For now though I needed to retreat, if something was alive in that hole it would eat me for breakfast.

Luckily it hadn't been too long, so as I exited the back of the cave I saw that my teacher hadn't returned. I'd suggest more fiber in her diet, but half the stuff we ate was raw fruit and veg already, so there really wasn't any point. Perhaps she'd gotten into something that just disagreed with her.

I kept waiting, and kept waiting. Eventually I got to the point that I was getting worried. I could probably make it back to the village on my own if something terrible happened, but where was she? Elaya had never been gone for anywhere near this long before, it was just odd.

I prepped a little bit of magic in case I needed to protect myself, readying one of my water spells as best I could, and moved towards the entrance. When I got there I found everything quiet, and no sign of the village elder.

Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a face in the bushes. It was hard to see without alerting the watcher, but after a few moments I managed to sneak a good glance. This led to all kinds of other questions.

Why was my father here? More importantly, why was he hiding from me? Should I call out to him or let him think he was sneaking around on me? I didn't think most children would normally see something like this, so I decided to let him be for the moment, assuming he was just checking up on me.

While I was pretending to look around and contemplating these things a small cat wandered out of the nearby woods with a lot of loud thunking and the like. It didn't look like it wanted to be here, and quite frankly looked like it was on its last legs.

The animal was just a bit bigger than a bobcat, something around that size. It was also visibly ancient, with grey hairs all over and a slight wheeze. That said the thing was still pretty sizable in comparison and even I could tell that it was very unhappy.

Another glance out of the corner of my eye showed dad smiling from his hiding place. I sighed internally. This was clearly some kind of test, but to what end I didn't know, I could easily kill this animal. Was this the stone age version of that Japanese t.v. show where they sent toddlers on errands or something? We could call it 'My First Kill'. Except it wasn't, I'd already fought a magical beast way worse than this poor thing.

"HIZZZSSSS!!!" The animal spat angrily as it bared its teeth and extended the claws all along its feet, which were significantly longer than I'd thought they'd be.

Oh right, I should pay attention.

With an almost easy gesture I sent a ball of water straight at the animal's face, hard enough to hurt it but not enough to injure. The sphere traveled straight and clear, right past the now dodging cat.

"Go," I said to it.

The animal didn't speak my language, or probably any language and instead of heeding me bent down to leap. I caught it midair with a much harsher attack, which threw it back several feet. This didn't seem to improve its mood though, as it quickly rose to face me again, now soaked and hissing like water on a hot stove.

I frowned. Was I supposed to kill this thing? Would we even want to eat it? I mean, there was plenty of food already, and fish or literally anything else would taste better than old, stringy wildcat. I didn't have any issue with hunting, though I'd never really done it. This just seemed like a weird test though.

My opponent however had other thoughts and charged. Another blast, this time of pure force, sent it back again. With a thought I sent up a much smaller and lower version of the emergency signal, perhaps they wanted to make sure that I'd call for help if I needed it?

Nobody moved, and I knew were dad was. Surely Elaya was still here somewhere, ostensibly also watching. Fine then, if they wanted me to deal with it I would.

As the creature rose again and turned to charge me once more I lifted my hand. This time I didn't bother holding back and sent a bolt of force straight into its head. This wasn't like the much lighter attacks, but rather very harsh, and very fast. Poor thing didn't even have time to realize how screwed it was before its head jerked and it fell spasming.

I might have needed to kill the creature, but letting it suffer was right out of the cards. Another spell snapped the spine and it went still instantly. While standing back to observe what I'd been encouraged to do I heard a noise.

Elaya 'suddenly' came out of the brush, acting like she was running.

"What happened? Why did you send up an emergency signal?" She asked.

I needed a good excuse, and had one on hand since I'd never seen any old folk in this world. "Big animal, and it looks sick."

"You killed it," she observed.

"Tried to get it to go away. Can we eat it?"

Elaya looked like she was thinking. "Yes, this animal isn't sick Elian, it's old."

I cocked my head at her explanation. "But you're old too and you don't look sick." There was always time for a bit of a dig at someone who was testing you.

She frowned at my observation. "I am pretty old, but animals get all sickly and like this when they get old, people don't, that's how you can tell the difference. When we get older we only grow in strength, where they get weak and eventually die from the weakness."

"Okay," I said while I began to unpack that.

I'd never seen any humans in this world, but if I did how would we even interact. It sounded like Elaya at least didn't consider anything that got old as a person. How did others feel about that kind of thing.

"Do you know how to clean an animal?" She asked, moving forward.

"No," I shook my head.

"Time to learn then."

She went back to her things and pulled out a knapped knife and began to lead me through the process. The stone blade was put into my hands and each cut was described, with her picking up the skin where I was supposed to and pulling it, pointing to each spot and telling me, and in a few cases even holding my hands in the right place.

It was a mess, there was blood everywhere and the smell was a butcher shop without any fans. Luckily I didn't poke a gut or anything, since even I knew that would be bad, but the whole experience was less than enjoyable.

"So only animals get old?" I asked as I was pulling organs away.

"Yes, only animals. Well, plants too I guess, but they do it differently. Look, you can see how it's grey and all loose skinned, that's a good sign. They also get less muscular." She pointed out the traits on the animal.

"What if a person got old though?" I asked.

"They don't." Her voice made it clear that this was law as far as she was concerned.

After the work was done and the last of the skin scraped clean we washed ourselves in the nearby pool.

"How would you feel about going back to the village tomorrow Elian?" Elaya inquired.

"Aren't we out here to train?"

"We're out here to make sure you're safe. If you can have the forethought to call for help when you see something you think is dangerous, and the care to kill an animal like that you should be safe. I still have a lot to teach you, but we can do that somewhere where your mother won't be mad at me."

I laughed at that one. Soon we pulled the meat back to our little cave, we'd eat well tonight with only the two of us. Then I'd get to go home and back to normal.