Just as another wolf was about to flank Licht, Dunkel reached out from his raven feathered bow, which he had conjured prior to Licht"s charge, and flung a large arrow made of dark energy at the wolf.

The arrow crashed into the wolf, severing its head from its body, as it was jumping. The wolf"s carca.s.s fell onto the ground behind Licht, its eyes still open in shock. The two other wolves noticed their slain companion, and decided to retreat for the moment, leaving behind their legless friend to fend for himself. Beasts that lived in these ranges, which were filled to the brim with arcana, had extremely good instincts. The quick thinking of the beasts would usually have secured their safe retreat, however, today wasn"t their lucky day.

Licht charged forward, cutting off their escape route, after which she cast a barrier around herself and her enemies. The barrier was 10 meters in diameter and glowed green. The wolves attempted to jump out of it, yet their bodies were flung back as they impacted against the barrier.

The wolves finally realised that they couldn"t leave without defeating Licht. Snarling, they both charged head-on at her. As this was going on, Dunkel decided to disperse his magical bow. "I think she"s got this on her own, only two of them can"t hurt her," he said nonchalantly.

The fight ended quickly, with Licht overpowering the wolves quickly, having used magic to sap away their agility. Even without this, Licht was just as agile and fast as them, so there was never a situation where she would have lost against 2 healthy wolves and a disabled one.

Favian proceeded to remove the magical cores from the beasts, after killing the collapsed elephant. The magical cores of these beasts were useful for meditation, and could speed up the intake of arcana by many times the level of the atmosphere. Unfortunately, beast cores weren"t the only ones that could be utilized for meditation. There were various underground organizations that supplied human, elf, dwarven, and many other cores to the highest bidders. It seemed that those cores were the most effective, outside of those from legendary beasts.

"Well I did so much work here." Favian joked, feeling slightly left out as he wasn"t able to contribute to the fight. He tried to make up for that by recovering the beast cores in their best conditions, however, he managed to destroy two of the wolf cores by accident. The rest he was able to keep spotless.

"Don"t worry about it buddy. You"re the whole reason we found these easy targets. Keep the elephant core, Licht and I will keep one of the wolf cores each." Dunkel said, patting Favian on the shoulders.

"Yea don"t worry too much, you"ll get to show just how powerful you are soon. In the meantime, wanna help me skin this elephant? The l.u.s.tre coming off its fur tells me that it"ll act as the perfect defence for our tents against the cold of the night." Licht spoke.

Just as Favian was walking towards Licht to help her, he suddenly heard a loud noise. What followed felt like an earthquake, the ground trembled under the force of an even larger, gigantic elephant. The elephant made a deafening trumpet with its trunk, as it charged towards the group. It was enraged, seeing Licht cutting into its child.

"F*ck, RUN!" Favian screamed as he sprinted off towards the woods, only 90 meters away. Favian sprinted with all his might, however, his speed wasn"t as fast as Licht and Dunkel"s, who had already made it to the boundary between the desert and forest, whilst Favian was still 50 meters away.

The adult elephant was getting closer and closer to Favian, at a frightening pace. He realised that he wouldn"t be able to outrun the animal, so he stopped in his tracks, and started chanting.

"I know that there"s some G.o.d of luck somewhere out there, and if you can hear me, please, please, please let me cast this spell before I"m trampled to death." Favian thought to himself. He"d made the choice to stand and cast in a split second, however, his processing of information was already at a level that it only took him that long to recognize the disparity between his speed and the elephants, and know that he wouldn"t make it to the forest in time.

Favian had yet to successfully cast any of his spells, ever since he"d formed his second core. There seemed to be some sort of issue with the way he was forming the energy, and it would always fizzle right at the last moment. To him, it felt like the energy wasn"t integrating properly with his body, whenever he tried to summon the arcane particles from it. This time Favian tried something new, out of desperation.

Instead of trying to project his arcane out of his body via only his first core, this time he let the warm particles flow from his first core, into his second, before letting the energy out of his body. Favian felt ablaze deep within, after which something burst inside him with a PUH, resonating throughout his body and projecting his magic outwards.

"Time Stop," Favian shouted as he thrust out his spell. This time, the spell didn"t fail. Favian"s surroundings turned black and grey, with purple wisps floating around wherever he looked. As the spell was cast, something completely out of his expectations occurred. His second core became agitated, before it flew out of his body, into the surroundings.

"Finally, I did it." he thought to himself, rejoicing that he could cast spells again. Time was frozen around him, and he could see that Dunkel and Licht were looking at him with fear on their faces. The elephant left a trail of dust behind it as it stood motionless, with two feet in the air.

Favian ran towards the woods, which only took a couple of seconds. He heaved and puffed as he finally made it out of danger, and tried to deactivate his spell. He kept trying and trying however he couldn"t make time flow again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something peculiar. He saw a shadowy figure standing by a large oak tree. The closer he walked to it, the more he felt connected to the shadow. Something was calling from within him, asking him to connect with the mysterious figure, which just stood there, unmoving. Giving it a closer look, the figure seemed about his own height and build, and its hair mirrored his own, just instead of a dark purple colour, the hair was completely black. Everything about it was similar to Favian, except for it being made out of what seemed like shadows.

Favian released some energy from himself, trying to connect it with the shadow. It took him a couple tries to successfully grasp onto the shadow, which was weaving away wherever his magic went. The moment he came in contact with the shadow"s arcane core, he felt his head split. His mind was torn in half, but then regenerated itself quickly.

"AHHH, what the h.e.l.l," Favian screamed.

"AHHH, what the h.e.l.l." the shadow screamed.

... (Insert surprised Pikachu face)

"Is that... me?" Favian asked himself, baffled by the outburst the shadow made at the same time he did. He quickly spoke more words and did other actions, and as he expected, the shadow mimicked everything he did.

"Interesting, what happens when I try this?" he thought, as he attempted to replicate what he"d done in the peculiar dream he"d had yesterday.

He found that his second core was within the shadow, so he poured some mana into it. Nothing happened. He continued pouring more mana in, but still, nothing happened. It was only when he had poured exactly half of his total mana in that his theory was proven correct.

"Woah this is insane." Favian felt his mind sync with the shadow. It felt weird being in control of a foreign ent.i.ty, however it didn"t take too long for him to get used to it. At first, it felt like walking in thick mud after it had rained, whilst carrying an aggressive lion on your back. Now, it felt more like walking through mud whilst riding a pet lion, he still wasn"t perfect at it, but it was substantially easier.

His thoughts were present in the shadow, and he could control it. It was more of an extension of himself, rather than a copy. He didn"t need to focus his attention on embodying the shadow, because it was part of him.

The purple wisps of energy left Favian"s vision, and the vibrant colour of the world returned as his time-lock finally ran out of power. Quickly, Favian ran to his friends and pushed them further into the woods with him. Once they had reached their camp, the group finally was able to catch a breather.

"Woah that was close. Wait, what the h.e.l.l, Favian how did you do that?" Dunkel shouted, still not able to believe his eyes. First, he remembered seeing Favian running away from the elephant, about to get crunched underneath it, and the next second Favian is running at them from a completely different direction.

"You idiot. Shouldn"t we be asking about WHAT THE h.e.l.l THAT THING IS?" Licht pointed at the shadowy figure that was chilling behind him.