Athelstan rose off the ground as soon as he woke up. Silently cursing the Accords, its ability to manipulate emotions to be precise, he looked around for any danger.

  The first thing he noticed was the brightness, coming from a sun in the sky. A very sad fact, considering his newly found night affinity. A place like the underworld would be much more desirable. His nose caught the scent of forest and rain, though the smell of grass was much heavier than you'd expect. Not surprising considering he stood in a small open space amid, what appeared to be a jungle.

  Which sucked, because the only thing worse than a sun-cursed land was a sun-cursed jungle. This magnificent abortion of nature featured a terrifying amount of insects and reptiles, varied between annoying or plain deadly. That, combined with sunlight, irritating drow`s eyes, rough terrain, great many animals and rains made it unappealing to travel through them, less so to survive inside one without any prepared provision.

  And since magic is now much more frequent all of that became ten times more dangerous.

  The good part was that his resource pools were full. His burns lessened to mere scars as well as pain they caused.

  After a few minutes, seeing no danger was in sight, Athelstan decided to move out. This was when he had to come to terms with a highly deplorable reality.

  He had a spear. In the jungle. In the fucking jungle. He tried to cut his way through and found out the spear was as poor of a machete as he thought. After further observation of his surroundings, he saw a rock half his size in length and height. It had a crack to the side that, if widened enough, could give him a machete, once he sharpened it. Poorly made one but it was better than nothing.

  Well I didn't think my first use of this spell would happen for such a purpose but fine.

  He cut his hand, apparently still in need of a bleeding wound to use a favoured branch of magic and, according to the knowledge received from the new spell, mysteries and past experience reached for blood. Draining, shaping, ordering it.

  There were a few differences in spellcasting, compared to pre-Accords time

  The first change he felt was increased sensitivity to both mana and blood. Before using them had more of an instinctive feeling with very little details, now however he could somehow conceive their source and movement. The blood had a vague, but obvious connection with the heart, while mana came somewhere from within.

  Though, the second change was less pleasant, marked by his muffled scream. He always used HP for Kieran magic, but it was physically draining and controllably painful at worst. However, now it was as if he damaged his very soul, like a thousand needles jabbed into every part of his body, even his bones felt slightly trembling.

  Due to years on the battlefield, as well as training before them and being a slave for the past two years Athelstan was not a stranger to suffering, yet this experience he considered rather inestimable. The good part was that he didn`t lose stamina upon spellcasting anymore, and the experience felt a bit more tolerable with every second. His theory was that, with increased activity of the respective resource pools, draining directly from them reinforced the perceptivity, both for good and for bad.

  Once the pain lessened enough he turned his focus to the spell casting process. He currently used about 0,3 health points from 9, as well as about 3 mana points. The spell could take up to 1 HP and 20 MP, when using HP as a main source of power. Forming the blood, using mana, as well as health required attention. If he lost it for any of them the spell could either crumble or eat resources without forming. Hence why he lost more than half of all the things he put into this one.

  With renewed enthusiasm and a good bit of cursing, he concentrated again. The drow noticed a few interesting details abouts the arrow. It was, in fact, a one-piece construction, unlike normal arrows that consisted of separate details. Athelstan also had a lot of control over the projectile`s form. As long as he didn`t drastically change the length or width he could change it in a lot of ways. So he made it into an arrow with a knife-like, two bladed tip. He also took some time to close the wound on his palm. Luckily enough, it cost him only a bit of mana to manipulate blood, without changing its state, so the process wasn't too taxing.

  As he finalized the spell casting, he ended up spending about 30 seconds and about 1/9th of his resources. The arrow floated in front of him, moved by his will. The floating consumed very little mana, however, once he came closer to the rock and sent it in the middle of it he immediately lost 1 MP. The arrow couldn`t boast some supernatural sharpness, though due to its durability it didn't lose its structure in any way and thus the edge did not become blunt with time. It also went inside the rock, though it bounced off quickly after. Still, the crack widened a bit and he got to work.

  While he was at it, the drow felt a weird feeling, like forgetting to take a dagger with him, while going into the battle. Tracing this line of thought brought him to the system. He had some sort of a… notification? Still being uneasy about all the mindfuckery this “Aspect” could do he decided to check in.

  Accords, he thought and sure enough, the skin scroll appeared in front of him.

  …

  Tutorial quests

  …

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  1) Reach level 10 in your class or profession and evolve it before the end of the tutorial.

  Punishment for failure - death.

  2) Survive until the end of the tutorial.

  Punishment for failure - death.

  3) Successfully finish any profession dungeon or acquire a profession using other means.

  No punishment for failure.

  4) Successfully finish any battle dungeon.

  No punishment for failure.

  4) Kill the areal boss.

  No punishment for failure.

  5) Kill your sworn enemy (lieutenant Alaric) - Unique quest.

  No punishment for failure.

  …

  You get points for every successful quest. During the final event of the tutorial they can be used to purchase crafting materials, armour, clothes, weapons, skills and books of mysteries. Further quests may appear later.

  …

  Quests are more than appealing, as well as the final event, Athelstan thought as he finally tore the needed piece of rock off. Alaric being in this exact tutorial was even more desirable. He kept in mind all the other information and decided to look for anything that could be an entrance to a dungeon.

  After about 5 hours he made himself a machete, about half a meter in length.

  The edge bent a bit to the left, instead of being a straight line and the handle felt like it aimed to be as uncomfortable as possible. It was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, a deplorably bad tool from the stone age. A level of quality, his elven taste despised. Yet he was quite thankful for anything but a spear.

  He looked up and, fortunately, the cursed ball of light had gone, the elf figured it should be around six o`clock. Surprisingly, the blood arrow continued its existence and did not consume any resources. Instinctively, likely because of his mystery, the man knew that it could exist for another 2 hours or so.

  Athelstan put the machete and an arrow under his belt, took the spear and was about to move out as he heard wood cracking in the bushes. He spun around watching for danger, his eyes widened to a sight of a black Jaguar merely 6 meters away from him.

  The creature jumped, cutting the distance with unnatural speed, even for his kin, and Athelstan rolled left, before standing up and poking the beast with a spear. A failed attack since the hunter quickly jumped off the way and started to circle around his supposed prey. A second later, Athelstan cursed himself for losing an easy opportunity. He could send an arrow into the beast, while it was in the air but, being unused to the fact he could make something bigger than a dagger with his magic, and even less so to levitate it he, instead, did a reflexive move to evade the beast`s attack.

  Calming down he decided to wait for another opening. He took an arrow into one of the hands that held the spear, still wielding it with a two handed grip. Better not make the arrow floating just yet, since it could make the beast more cautious about it.

  They circled around each other the beast tried to poke him, but every time he fended the creature off with a spear. Which made him happy that he was given this instead of a sword. With shorter reach he would already be injured or worse.

  As they continued their deadly dance, he saw that the cat started to lose interest, attacking less often with every second. It likely didn't want to risk another jump since it was a suicide for both of them, in case Athelstan would decide to strike back instead of rolling. The elf had to fake a weakness or Jaguar would hunt him later and he had no confidence to survive the second stealth attack, especially with the cat`s enhanced jump length and speed.

  Athelstan made it look like he stumbled over the rock, theatrically waving his hands, making sure to put the tapering end of the spear away from the attacker. The cat, certainly having less than four wisdom, ate the bait and jumped.

  The drow took control of the arrow with his will and sent it into the creature`s belly. Performing a feast of acrobatics and body control, Jaguar changed his position in the air ducking his lower feet up, making himself a smaller target, and turning his body to the right side. Instead of hitting the cat fatally in the upper middle, where his lungs and heart were situated, the arrow struck his lower part. Firstly, it went through his right pawn and then deep into the body, pinning his leg and making him growl.

  While the creature showed off its agility, Athelstan put one of his feet back stabilising himself, and, using a spear, struck his still mid air prey in the neck. The wounded cat tried to move but all he could do was to slightly change his head position which didn't help him much. The incredible speed and power of the jump probably helped the Jaguar to hunt countless animals, however its momentum worked against him this time. The spear thrusted deep into the neck and for the third time this glade witnessed the blood spilling.

  At the same time the clash aftermath dropped Athelstan to the ground and he lost the grip on the spear. Before the elf managed to jump away, the Jaguar struck his left leg, scratching it with claws. The drow cursed as he rolled away from the cornered prey. He was going to cast another arrow, but a further observation proved the cat couldn't move anymore. After another 30 seconds the cat`s black skin dappled with green spots stopped heaving, its eyes glazed.

  Athelstan used blood control to close his leg wound, though he did lose 2 HP while it was opened, he also lost half of his stamina and overall, felt tired both in mind and body.

  As the elf took the spear out of the beast he checked his status.

  You have killed [Jungle Jaguar - lvl 3], bonus experience granted for killing an enemy stronger than you.

  Class [Blood mage - lvl 0] has reached lvl 2, stats allocated.

  New skill unlocked.

  Syphon life (Common) - Syphon HP from the dead enemy, can be used to heal yourself or to spellcast. The longer the enemy stays dead the less HP can be syphoned until it becomes impossible.

  The assigned stats made him feel much better. The new spell looked confusing considering the HP should be the force of living, not dead. But he decided to use it on a Jaguar to find out.

  As approached the corpse he extended his arm and, according to the newfound knowledge, ordered the Life force he now felt inside it to become his own. The dark green energy rushed from the body to its new master. At the same time the body started to decay, aged with every second, like its a year, until it turned into nothing but dust. At the same time Athesltan felt like he just took the most comfortable warm bath possible. Apparently the health points in status just showed the amount needed to stay alive. The points beyond that were used to make your bones sturdy and your internal organs more structured than a jelly.

  Overall he got 3 HP from the dead cat, which allowed him to heal himself and with new stats reach almost peak condition.

  He also noticed that he couldn`t levitate the arrow using his will. Apparently, the description of the skill was right, once the blood weapon left him for more than a meter, he lost the ability to connect with it. With a sigh he created another arrow, buckled it under the belt and set forth. Into the night jungle.