[Sig – 13 years]

Getting to sleep in a little despite this being a hunting trip was nice. Mr. Fuller mentioned to someone at his church about me having a decent amount of mana and practicing hard at the spells Seph taught me. Also that I complained a lot about having to wake so early for the other hunt, but that I caught three lightstep hares.

That friend then offered to take me hunting for some magic beasts. Aunt Rachel was reluctant to let me go since she didn't know him, but agreed to it as long as she got to meet him while dropping me off and Mr. Fuller was on the trip as well.

Mr. Fuller doesn't have his gun, even if he'll be walking with us. Magical beasts seem to have an instinct for regular guns, which makes it harder to catch them if someone has one with them. Shooting them still works unless their bodies are resilient enough or they have a way to avoid the bullets, but seeing one with a regular gun makes it more difficult.

So magic guns are more common, but Mr. Fuller doesn't have one and has no training with one. Apparently, learning to handle them is different from learning to handle a regular gun.

Because of that, he's only accompanying us so that Aunt Rachel feels more comfortable with me being here. Especially since she's aware that magic beasts won't hesitate to fight back.

In addition to Mr. Fuller, there's Mr. Peterson, who is the man who Mr. Fuller talked with about me. There's also Thomas, who's my age, but he and his dad live in Crater Creekand we haven't met before. I've gone through their town or near it when going into the forests in the area, but my friends and I don't really stop in there.

Joining us is Thomas's girlfriend, Amelia, so there are three of us kids. We're the ones who will be doing the hunting; Mr. Peterson is just here in case something happens. The beasts we're hunting are around as strong as we are – so they have around 20 or so mana – and it's apparently better to hunt magic beasts in group when they're like that.

I wouldn't be surprised if Xander's an exception to the rule and can hunt monsters with as much mana as he does without issue. He has the blood of a dragon in him, there's probably not much which could actually faze him in a fight.

Honestly, the fact that he can straight-up see magic and mana themselves means he probably has the power to just neutralize any magic thrown his way.

I stretch a bit before getting changed. My sleeping outfit included a long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants because it's starting to chill down now and nights are cold. With us being a bit further north than the Dragon Falls area as well, it's colder here than down there, and that's before factoring in that we camped in a forest.

It's also a little before dawn right now, but that's still way better than waking up a few hours ago, like I would've if we were hunting regular deer. It's regular deer season now as well and Mr. Fuller mentioned on our way here that he's going next weekend.

Thomas is waking right now as well, and we both get ready for the hunting trip. He's in all-camouflage apart from a blaze orange beanie, while I pull on an outfit with blaze orange sleeves. Wearing blaze orange isn't a requirement here and with magic beast hunting, but it's still good practice, anyway. A bright color won't bother animals but it will let other hunters who might be out here know that we're here.

There shouldn't be anyone else here aside from us, but one never knows with trespassers.

The reason we left yesterday instead of early this morning was because of the distance to this site. It's a large private property which is mostly wooded and has an abundance of low-strength magical beasts. Mr. Peterson's friends with the owner and gained permission to use it for the weekend.

"We've still got 'bout five or ten minutes 'till our pre-hunt breakfast," Thomas tells me as I stifle a small yawn. "It'll be something light, our proper breakfast will come later. So if there's anything you wanna do before we eat, you've got a little time."

"Just text my boyfriend," I take a picture and send it to Xander. "Maybe see if he wants to talk for a bit."

"Will he be up?"

This hour isn't bad for me as I do sometimes wake at this time, but I know a lot of our peers would sleep in if they could. One person I know is definitely going to be awake right now unless something happened last night, however, is Xander.

"Xander wakes at five every day," I tell him. "I got his 'good morning' picture just a few minutes after that."

And he was still in his wolfkin form, too! All of his "going to bed" and "waking up" pictures have had him in it for the past week or so. It makes me happy he's that comfortable now, though he's not in his sleepwear as evidenced by the fact that he's wearing a pajama shirt in them and I know he sleeps without now.

Hard not to when he sleeps in shorts at sleepovers. There's no way he's comfortable enough doing that if he's wearing more than that when he's by himself.

"Alright," Thomas heads for the tent's entrance. "I'll see if Amelia's up yet."

Thanks for the privacy for the call. There won't be anything inappropriate, of course, but it's still nice to have privacy when talking with Xander like this.

"Alright."

Xander accepts my request for a short call, so I call him and do a video call. He's in his pajamas and wolfkin form, but is wearing his magitech glasses. I don't have a notification saying he went live for streaming, so he's probably working on something.

"Working this early?" I ask.

"Just something small," he answers. "Greyson's birthday is next weekend, so I'm trying to build him something. Could just accelerate my time for it, but I've got plenty of time before it's time for Mom and me to make breakfast to do a little bit. Am working on a smaller part I don't need the machines at the workshop for, so I can do it here. Well, and Greyson might be there right now. He sometimes sneaks out early in the morning. Or he might be doing his meditation bath. He still does them at the academy, he just doesn't like it because it's not the tub at home."

Meditation bath?

"Ah," I say. "How're you doing right now?"

"I'm doing good," he answers. "What about you? Have you caught anything yet?"

"We're going in a little bit," I tell him. "They wanna wait until dawn to start the hunt."

"Oh," he looks a little down at that.

"You were thinking I was gonna hunt something in the middle of the night?"

"Carter and Tate said they sometimes do," he tells me. "Nocturnal magic beasts are easier to catch at night than at day since they ain't in bed then."

His tone and the slight frown he has… he wants to try doing a nocturnal hunt but his dad won't agree to it. Knowing him, he probably only asked once and then gave up.

Stay strong and ask again! Your dad let you get a fitness center and a greenhouse built, he'll definitely say "yes" if you give good arguments for why it should be allowed!

"Oh," I say. "I guess that makes sense. Hey! Speaking of Tate and Carter, have they mentioned why there's not really big restrictions on hunting magic beasts? I asked the folks here and they weren't sure."

Mr. Peterson said he's never really looked into it, but it's probably due to their population. No matter how many he and others hunt of something, there seem to always be a lot more. Magic beasts apparently procreate… a lot.

"No," Xander says, then looks away from the phone and his project for a few moments before looking at his phone again. "Trenton says it's because of Microrifts."

"Never heard of 'em," I say. "What are those?"

"You know what Rifts are, right?" He asks.

"Yeah," I nod.

"Microrifts are smaller versions of them," he answers. "They ain't able to be detected by the old sensors, though mine can probably do so. Most of what they let out are just magical creatures," he looks at Trenton again. "Huh," he looks back at me. "They're a lot more frequent than regular Rifts, but don't occur too close to where people gather. That's why they're relatively unknown. And they also apparently release monsters similar to the ones in that area. That's about all Trenton knows about them, but that's really odd. Are they the reason that the magics in an area are the way they are, or is it the magics and creatures of that area which draw in Microrifts which release creatures of those types? Hm… I'll have to see if there's anything known about this. Since you don't have long before you're hunting, what're you hoping to hunt? I forgot to ask that."

So magical creatures replenish quickly enough that over-hunting is basically impossible? Huh. That's something I think only magic could do. How is the world not overrun with game? Predators would make sense, but then those would need culling as well.

There's got to be more to this, but Xander doesn't know more than that so I guess it's not something I'll know for now. But if magic is involved… there's probably some sort of self-regulation within it to keep the populations stable.

"I would've said 'moose' yesterday," I tell him. "But apparently, even the weaker magic ones are at least twice as strong as me, and I'm the strongest between the three of us kids here."

Mr. Peterson is stronger than me, but not by much. Maybe a few points. And I'm actually stronger than Thomas and Amelia by a few points, too.

"So taking on a magical moose would be a bad idea," I tell him. "As much as I'd like to find out what they taste like. We're mostly going for hares, snakes, and maybe fowl. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to use my earnings from this to buy some proper hunting clothes of my own, and even my own bow."

"Good luck," Xander tells me. "And get that blue buck, it's all yours."

I snort a little. The hope is for at least a few hundred dollars, not just one. Though I also hope I manage to earn enough after buying some better hunting clothes and a bow that I have several hundred leftover. Enough for a few weeks' worth of lessons with Mr. Roger. I haven't checked my income from Xanson TV yet, though it was paid yesterday. It might be enough to cover the magic lessons, letting me spend the earnings from this on more hunting stuff, like a bow.

"Oh!" I say. "Speaking of blue bucks, do you know why they're blue when all of the other denominations are green?"

Xander looks confused for a second, then looks away (probably at Trenton) before looking back at me.

"I saw a documentary about money," Xander tells me. "Apparently, Kenzibri always makes its highest denomination blue, because it was originally something only the chiefs could afford. They would give blue tokens out to people as a reward, and having it would be a symbol of honor and worth. That they held wealth in their tribe.

"As people moved away from that system and the tribes began to turn into a nation," he continues. "They used blue for their highest denomination to differentiate it from lesser ones. It was rarer, so having it was considered to be a sign of being wealthy, similar to the tribal tokens. As higher denominations came to be, which one was blue was changed to the new highest one."

"Huh," I say. "So it's rooted in that, huh? Wait. Don't you watch animal documentaries?"

A documentary about money really doesn't seem like something he'd be interested in.

"Dad picked that one."

"Ah," I look at the entrance to the tent, where Thomas is peeking in. "Hey, I think it's time to go. Have a good day, Xander! And good luck with the project!"

"Thanks," he says. "Good luck with the hunt. Um. Lemme know what you get, please?"

"Will do!" I say. "Bye!"

"Bye."

I end the call and pocket my phone, then join Thomas, Amelia, and the adults for a quick breakfast. It's just coffee or hot cocoa (I go with cocoa) along with breakfast bars Mr. Peterson prepared in advance. They're a type of granola-looking bar he made, and are packed with enough nutrients and calories to keep us going for awhile.

Once we eat, Mr. Peterson goes over the rules and strategy with us.

We'll be walking through the forest, keeping an eye out for game while being quiet. The reason we're walking rather than laying in wait is because as long as we're quiet and not smelly, a lot of magic beasts will ignore us if they spot us unless they already know we're a threat. This means that we can honestly just keep walking and looking for stuff instead of waiting for it to come to us.

Rather than walking in a tight group, we'll also be spaced out a little, more than arm's length apart. This reduces the odds of multiple of us getting hurt if something attacks. All phones have to be put on silent, and don't talk unless we're certain nothing is around.

If we do talk when we aren't certain something is around, it should be quietly, and it's also preferred that we huddle up. An exception to the huddling is to let others know we saw something.

"Finally," Mr. Peterson says after reminding us of all of the rules, not just those. "Remember – if you see something you're certain you can catch on your own, you can go for it. But use caution and don't get in over your head. Make sure it's something we can actually handle as a group, if things go south.

"This is especially true with us hunting with people we're not familiar with," he looks at me. "We aren't familiar with your style yet," he looks at Thomas and Amelia. "And he's not familiar with ours," he addresses all three of us. "We shouldn't be facing off against anything dangerous to us unless someone provokes them. Don't. Let's all adjust to each other's styles, okay?"

"Yes, sir," we respond.

"And remember," he adds. "We only have so much we can carry. It is deer season, but if we catch one, we won't be able to carry very much else, and we're here for both meat and money, not just meat. Got it?"

The adults have twine so we can tie things to their belts, or hang it from a broken-off branch to carry. Thomas was clear that we'll probably end up doing the latter to carry more things, with the two adults carrying it between them.

"Got it!" We say.

"Alright," Mr. Peterson says. "Get anything you still need to get, then we'll be heading out."

Mr. Fuller gives me the bow he's letting me use again, along with the arrows. He said it's technically mine, but Aunt Rachel doesn't want it in the house all the time so it's still his.

The last part was something Aunt Rachel told me, not Mr. Fuller. She's only sort-of accepted me going hunting, but she doesn't want weapons in the house.

Amelia has a walking stick with a grip made of a leather cord for her to hold onto, and leather cords with bone and crystal beads at the top. Some feathers dangle from there and the grip, attached with more leather cords and beads. The beads for the feathers are made of some sort of polished, pale grey crystal-like stone.

And they make almost no noise when they tap against the walking stick. Is the magic in the beads or an enchantment? The beaded cords at the top are wrapped around tightly to avoid clacking, but it could be a cost-saving measure rather than going for enchantments for so many beads. There are brown and light blue lines running from the top to the bottom of the staff, no doubt some sort of enchantment already.

Her outfit is almost entirely camouflage, though she's also wearing a blaze orange vest over her jacket.

"A walking stick?" I ask.

"My staff," she explains. "A magic item. I'm new to hunting and am not that great at casting spells quickly, so I use the staff to help me. A wand might be better, but they're a lot more expensive. And I sourced some of the beads used."

"Oh," I say. "So the staff casts the spells?"

"With my mana," she nods. "I have to at least already know the spell and send my mana into the staff into the right pattern, but as long as I'm close enough, the staff corrects the pattern and fires it off from the beads. But it has to be one of the spells embedded into it. No fireballs for me."

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"Or me," I chuckle. "That's a bit out of my league. So what can you do?"

"Barriers, magic missiles, and stone shrapnel bursts," she answers. "Since I'm using the staff, I can cast the spells faster than I normally would, since it'll correct the errors."

"Oh," I look at my bow.

"I know what you're thinking," Thomas tells me. "It's tougher to do that with bows and arrows. You'd need to set the enchantments into arrows, but that affects the makeup of them, and if they get damaged? You have to replace it and have essentially lost the money used for it. It's why a lot of magic archers learn how to conjure the arrows on their own, though I've heard that some high-end magic bows have the spells for creating the arrows directly. But there's a limit to how many aspects can be added to them, so conjuring the arrows directly or enhancing them with spells is still more versatile."

"Bummer."

It would probably be a fair bit expensive, too. But maybe not too expensive? Amelia's new to hunting monsters and has a little bit less mana than I do, so her family probably doesn't have a mage's income.

I'll look into it… once I've got more money saved up. I hadn't meant to spend that much on Xander's birthday present as I did, but I knew it was what I wanted to buy him the moment I saw it. So now I need to build back up my funds so that I can continue to afford my lessons and food and snacks and stuff.

"Everyone ready to go?" Mr. Peterson asks, and we all confirm we are. "Alright, then. S.G.? Here's."

He hands me a hunting knife.

"I've already got a knife."

"Among magic beast hunters," Mr. Peterson tells me. "It's tradition to give someone a hunting knife either before their first magic beast hunt, or after their first magic beast kill if it wasn't during a hunt for them. That knife is made from a basic magic metal, so it's more effective at cutting their hides than a regular knife would be. At least, for the weaker ones. Still won't go cutting the hides of wyverns or anything like that."

"If we encountered a wyvern," I say. "The protocol is probably to just die on the spot to save it the trouble. Though they would probably avoid us out of instinctual fear for their lives. I'm fairly certain Xander's as protective of his friends as his great-grandfather is of his family and they can probably just sense that in their primitive minds. Even without him here."

I believe in Xander's protectiveness due to several factors, including remark about the lightstep hares after hearing one hurt me. And the fact that he snuck more healing salve into my pockets after the fitness session yesterday.

I look down at the knife. A part of a tradition involving those who hunt magic beasts.

That wasn't something I set out for, I just wanted to try the meat and maybe earn some extra money. Then there's also that it helps acquire materials for others. Apparently, the parts of monsters are far more versatile than I realized.

Xander had even mentioned that ground-up pocket hare bones can be used to expand the space of a building. It's how the storage room for his rec center is so large inside despite its smaller inside. Lightstep hare bones can be ground up and used as part of a material to make magic lamps. Bones from beasts with earth magics can potentially be ground up and used to make a sturdier concrete.

I fix the knife onto my belt, then look at Mr. Peterson.

He announces it's time for us to set off, so we begin walking through the forest. The first twenty minutes of the walk is quiet, though the three used to this style of hunting are keeping an eye out for signs of a magic beast in the area.

Thomas spots some first and gestures to get our attention, then indicates another direction to go so we follow it. I'm not sure what trail he's following, but Amelia and Mr. Peterson seem to have figured it out as well.

After about fifteen minutes of that, we encounter a small group of hares with pelts a mix of brown and grey. They're a little larger than I'd have expected, about the same size as the lightstep hares were.

"They have earth magics," Amelia whispers to me. "Their pelts are used for making coin pouches and linings for gloves."

"How can you tell?" I ask, making sure to keep my voice low while still loud enough for her to hear. "They just look like big hares to me."

"A few reasons," she answers. "Hunt enough of them and you'll get used to the way their pelts differ in color and pattern from other, nonmagical ones. I actually can't tell them yet, I only started hunting recently. But Thomas can tell easily enough, he's been hunting them for a few years now.

"Other than that," she says. "They're large. Magic hares are larger than regular hares. These one also tend to be found in groups of four or five, and there are four there. And see that bush there? The one with the brownish berries?" She indicates a bush not far away from the hares. "They like its leaves."

"So because they're big, are in a group of four, and are near that bush," I respond. "It's likely they're that hare, even without being able to tell their fur patterns?"

"Yeah," Thomas responds. "And the fact that they aren't bothered by our presence, even if they're watching us. We're close enough that regular hares would've run off.

"You go over there," he points. "And ready your bow. When you see me charge in, wait a few moments. The hares will probably try to flee. Aim at one that's away from me. It doesn't matter if your first shot hits or not, but try to do a killing hit. Amelia will switch between aiming at the rabbits and trying to cut off their paths."

"And you?" I ask.

"Challenging them to a one-on-one," he answers. "I'll be enhancing my physical resistance to make me a little more resilient to harm, and my physical strength to make it easier to hold them down.

"Alright."

I go to the designated location, which allows me a little bit of a view of the other two. He could identify this as a good spot for me just by seeing it? That's impressive.

Mr. Fuller and Mr. Peterson are further away, so that it's the three of us handling the hares.

After I nock an arrow, I imbue it with spells. Enhanced sharpness and durability on the tip, and enhanced speed for the arrow itself. I've been practicing these spells a lot since learning them a month ago and can cast all three in about a second and a half.

Once I finish, I nod to Thomas and Amelia, then some of the beads on Amelia's staff glows before a bolt of magical force soars toward the hares. The missile is shimmering blue, something caused by mana leakage resulting from imperfections in the cast. My arrows actually have the same effect, it's just a lot less noticeable because the spells I cast aren't pure magical force like hers are.

That's something which practice reduces as well, as long as one works on smoothing out the imperfections in their cast.

The magic missile soars over the hares, which turn and look at it before it's past. It slams into the ground behind them and they take off towards me, the direction furthest from where the missile came from and where it flew to.

So that's why Thomas sent me over here.

I fire off the arrow as the hares draw near and it soars straight into the left eye of one of them, penetrating deep. The hare falls and crashes into the ground right in front of another, blocking the path of one of the others. That one doesn't have enough time to stop and ends up running into the now-dead one.

As that happens, the other two hares switch directions, only for another magic missile to cut them off. I really want to cheer at my kill as I hadn't expected to aim and time the shot right to do that, but I need to stay focused to draw another arrow, nock it, and enchant it.

Thomas has reached the hares by the time I've finished, Amelia's magic missiles guiding them toward him. He grabs one of them as the other two try to ram him, and he wrestles it to the ground, quickly getting it into a headlock.

Aiming at the one he's got isn't a great idea, and the other two are a little too close to him for me to aim at them. Even Amelia holds off, mostly. She aims nearer to him than I'd dare, but still far enough away to not risk hitting Thomas.

This is something we went over, and it basically means I have to wait unless I want to join the tangle. I have been learning a little grappling, and physically-speaking, I'm stronger than Thomas. The hares shouldn't be stronger than me if they're something they actually wanted to handle.

So I start to relax my bow, the enhancements on the arrow already starting to wear off. As I do, something in the distance catches my attention.

A blue deer. A blue buck.

Xander wasn't referring to money. He was referring to a blue deer, he just didn't know it. He probably knows his psychic powers were the reason he said that, but not what they actually meant.

"Need help?" I ask Thomas.

"Nope," he answers as he snaps the neck of the hare in his arms, then looks at the other two, which begin fleeing. "Two is good, right?"

"Good to me," Amelia says.

"Yeah," I say. "There's something I want to do real quick. Hold on."

"What's that?" Thomas asks as I draw the string and reapply my arrows. "S.G.? Wait. That thing's-"

"Don't worry," I say. "I can do it."

I can. Xander wouldn't have sounded so sure of himself if it wasn't within my abilities. His psychic powers told him I can get a blue buck, and that means I can. There's a trick I've been practicing just a little and it takes me a few extra moments to do, but it might be exactly what I need for this.

Applying the enhanced speed spell on the arrow multiple times. Getting a second one to stick is difficult but I can manage if I try and focus. I apply the durability enhancement a second time as well, but that's the limit of what I can do. The sharpness enhancement only needs one cast, so it works out.

"S.G.-" Mr. Fuller begins to reprimand me, but I've released the arrow before he can say more.

Applying a speed enhancement to an item twice amplifies the original one, but from what I've read, most hunters don't do it because of the difficult in getting it to stick. I'm a naturally talented kid who can pick up spells somewhat easily, even if I still have to practice them a lot.

This arrows flies so fast, it's at the buck almost as soon as the twang of the bowstring finishes. It slams into the side of the blue buck and penetrates deeply, dropping the beast in an instant.

"Don't go after something you aren't sure can be handled by us," I look at Mr. Fuller. "I'm confident, not cocky. Though double-casting two different enchantments took me more mana than I realized it would… so I'm definitely not going to do that again today. But it won't affect me being able to help with small game again."

It took almost a fifth of my mana when the enhancements themselves don't even take a twentieth combined. Thankfully, I don't need too much to enhance the arrows with just one of each.

Mr. Fuller just sighs, then helps me field dress the deer. We tie it to a long, sturdy branch he and Mr. Peterson pick out, along with the two hares the three of us youth caught. Then, we begin walking again. The adults carry the catches, while the three of us look for more to catch.

We stay out for about two hours before making our way back to camp. The walk there won't be as long as it took to get to where we are when we turn around. Rather than walking in a straight line, we turned a lot and sometimes zigzagged, so the walk back should only take around thirty to forty minutes.

At this point, we have six hares, my deer, and fourteen plump birds. For the birds, Thomas and Amelia used magic missiles to take them down while I picked off some with my arrows.

The adults wouldn't be able to carry the full weight of all of our catches, so Thomas, Amelia, and I have a long branch of our own with some of our catches. There won't be anymore hunting today, and we'll only put the branches down if we need to, such as if something attacks us.

"They taste pretty good," Thomas tells me about the birds as we walk. "You can use 'em basically any way you'd use chicken. And they have inherent air magics, too. We're lucky they couldn't use it for attacks, stronger birds with air magics can actually use it to fight, and they would've deflected your arrows and our magic missiles using them while sending blades of compressed air at us. They mostly use it for faster flights, so some of their feathers are good for the fletching on arrows. Arrows with them fly even faster."

"Really?" I ask.

"Really," he says. "And the speed enhancement spell you-"

CRACK!

A lot of branches near us suddenly break as a massive beast drops down and we all drop back, dropping the branch with our animals as we go to protect ourselves from… Xander wrestling a wyvern. Or rather, squeezing its neck with his arms while looking very focused and determined.

Also aggravated, so I'm guessing the wyvern interrupted something rather than being something he went after.

He's wearing a hunting outfit – camouflage with a neon orange baseball cap. He's got his pouches on his right hip and a hunting knife sheathed on his left, his necklaces on full display, my birthday gift to him included.

I don't think he's taken it off since putting it on.

Some additional crunches sound out, and the wyvern ceases its struggling, its entire body going slack.

Xander releases the wyvern and stands up, not a speck of dirt on him. That's got to be some sort of magic on his outfit or which he's using subconsciously. There's no way he could have just been slammed into the ground by a squirming wyvern and not gotten dirty.

His face still mostly neutral but also slightly satisfied, Xander grabs the wyvern's head and moves it towards his right hip… where the entire beast gets sucked into the front pouch.

I knew those were spacious, but seriously? An entire wyvern could fit into one? That thing was at least thirty feet long!

"Don't those have something like a million mana?" Thomas asks, and Xander looks over.

"Oh!" He says. "Si-Seb! This is where you were hunting? Ooooh! So that's what I meant by 'blue buck'!"

Xander starts walking over to us and that's when I realize his streamer orb is floating by him and he's wearing his magitech glasses.

"Good job on getting it!" He tells me. "It's a gemstream buck, right? But a fairly weak one judging by the amount of magic it has in it. Maybe about 40 or so mana, on the standard scale? Or roughly 408 on the Greyson scale. So it should've had a little bit of an attack and defensive ability, but if you caught it off-guard, you might have been able to get it easily. And I can only see the one wound to it, so you got it by surprise, right? Did someone distract it while you got into position and layered enhancement spells? It would've broken defenses easily enough considering how strong y'all are, but if they managed to evade its attacks… it would've been easy for you, right?"

He can analyze even a dead animal's magical strength? Though him knowing about "gemstream deer", if that's what my catch really is, doesn't surprise me. He watches a documentary on some sort of animal nearly every day.

Why is he moving his fingers around in an odd pattern? Nervousness over something usually results in him messing with his bracelets but right now, he's just doing some sort of weird gesturing.

"Got it by surprise!" I puff up my chest a little in pride. "Double-layered speed and durability enhancements on an arrow while it was eating some nuts," I sag my shoulders a little. "Though it took me soooo much mana-wait. What are you doing here?"

"You said you wanted to try moose meat," he answers. "But that you probably wouldn't catch any. So I asked Dad if I could go catch one for you and he said I could after getting permission from Ms. Johnson since it's out of the area. And I got permission to stream it, too. So I looked up magic moose you might like. You don't really have a magical aspect to your mana so specific types won't have an added flavor for you, but that doesn't matter. You want to learn lightning magics, but practice air, water, and snow magics. So I found out where some snowstorm moose live, and there are some nearby."

He's way too kind. Also, a snowstorm moose doesn't sound like something I would want to tangle with for another five years, but I'm betting killing it was as easy as breathing for him.

"You didn't need to do that…"

"Yeah, but I wanted to."

"What about the wyvern?"

"I was talking with chat while floating over the forest after catching the moose and he attacked me," Xander answers. "So I killed him," he looks at Thomas. "And I think he's a younger one? He was only twenty-seven feet long and most adult wyverns are around thirty to thirty-two feet in length. And he only had around 700,000 mana.

"Oh," Xander looks at me again. "And wyverns and dragons are as related as wolves and snow leopards are, so it ain't cannibalism for a dragon or part-dragon to eat a wyvern."

Food is definitely on his mind right now.

"You're planning on wyvern steaks for dinner, aren't you?" I ask.

"You were gonna be back by dinner," Xander says. "So I was gonna do moose burgers at your place. Dad and your aunt already gave permission. But we can do wyvern steaks instead, if you want."

"Hey, Xander?" Mr. Fuller says. "Isn't it rude to stream other people without asking first? Your orb became aimed at us and you're looking in our direction. Unless you've paused your stream to talk with us, you just started recording six people without asking first."

"It's on the orb's feed for the stream," Xander says. "And it's filtering out your voices so that you're not heard, since I didn't ask you if you were okay with that."

"The orb's aimed at us."

"No, he ain't," Xander says. "He's streaming me."

"The eye is on this side."

"The eye has several purposes," Xander says. "First, to let users know that the orb is actively streaming or recording. Second, to add decoration to the orb so that it's not just a giant, unmarked sphere. That just looks weird and I figured I wouldn't be the only person bothered by it. Third, to give it something people can look at while talking to the orb. I figured that might help people with focusing on the orb for streams. Grandpa Adrian said that was a smart move and went on a big long talk about psychology that just confused me."

So there's an actual psychological reason that the streamer orbs are designed with eyes? Neat!

"And fourth," Mr. Fuller says. "The camera."

"That ain't a fourth," Xander says. "The orb is an omnidirectional sensor. It's capable of streaming and recording all directions. I told it to look at Seb so that y'all would see the iris rather than a plain back, but it's only streaming me."

He didn't say it's not recording in all directions, though. Do the orbs normally record all directions even when only displaying one?

"It can do that?" Thomas asks. "Seriously?"

"The coloration is just colored metal used for the shell," Xander says. "The sensors used for streaming and recording are inside of it. They're magitech which just… registers what's outside of the orb. It's easier to make them omnidirectional than to not. The reason the iris turns from blue to green is just a simple enchantment activated through its magitech to let people know it's on. And I gave it a black pupil so that it's not the grey of the orb and actually resembles an eye more."

Realization dawns on Xander's face.

"I never mentioned this when explaining the orb in that stream, did I?"

"No," I do my best not to snicker, though there's still a smile wide on my face. "And since it hasn't been mentioned online at all, that feature might not be in the final product. I'm sure it would've been mentioned by someone if it was in the manuals."

"It's in them," Xander tells me. "Grandpa Adrian gives me a few free copies of each product so that I can see the differences between my final result and what goes onto market. There are usually some small differences, nothing major. And the copies I got definitely have that feature."

I guess it makes sense that there would be some differences from his developed products and what actually sits on the shelf. That's probably done to pretty them up or ease the mass-production process. And it makes sense that he'd receive free copies, too.

Though I know he made the training orbs he gave me himself. He said he did, and he doesn't lie.

"Oh," I say.

"I don't know why it's not in the directions," Xander says. "But yeah, the orbs are omnidirectional. The magi-artificial intelligence in them will mainly use the eye's direction as the camera direction, but it's not an absolute thing."

"Oh," I say. "Were those weird finger movements you were doing when you walked over you telling it to change the feed?"

"No," Xander says. "It did that on its own because it knew it didn't know if y'all were fine with being on the stream."

"I am!" I tell him. "You can stream me at any time! As long as I'm not like, naked or on the toilet or something like that."

"Of course not," Xander says. "That'd be inappropriate."

"Of course," I say. "So what were those finger movements, then?"

"Shaping a medical scanning spell Greyson taught me after breakfast so that I could use it to tell if you'd gotten hurt on the hunt and were just hiding it," he answers. "I'm not very good at it, though, so I was using my fingers to help guide the shaping," that causes me to burst out laughing. "And you ain't hurt, which is good. I'm gonna get back to my stream so y'all can get back to your hunt."

"Alright!" I say. "Well, we're done, but have fun with your stream! Can I hug you before you go?"

"Sure," Xander answers.

I give him a hug, then he soars off into the sky again, his streamer orb following after him.

Since when is he okay with heights?

"Well…" Mr. Peterson trails off. "I think we should get going, too. Especially if we're to get back to Crater Creek, get everything to the shop, and be done in time for dinner."

We pick up our game branches and finish the return to the camp, then do the basic processing before packing it all up into coolers. We pack up the camp as well, then Mr. Peterson leads us to the shop we'll be selling our catches at.

The animals won't all be sold, though.

As Mr. Fuller follows behind Mr. Peterson's truck in his own, he explains a little about the next step to me.

Mr. Peterson worked on what our shares would be each, and we can pick what we want from them to be ours. With the blue buck, that one's entirely mine since I did the killing, though it's considered good practice to let the two who carried it have at least a little money for doing so. I can do that either through selling some of the buck, or giving up some of my shares from the other catches for it.

For the buck, I think I'll just want its hide, antlers, skull, and a little bit of its meat. That means the rest of its meat and bones will be sold. Thomas and Emilia can also "buy" some of my stuff using their own shares from today's catches.

Basically, everything is being divided up between us, but it's not strictly by who caught what or contributed to the catch. If someone wants some of another's catch and the other is fine with it, they can exchange the relevant shares of the catches.

Which is a neat system.

"You know," Mr. Fuller says after a couple of minutes of quiet. "I think the protocol for what to do if a wyvern shows up is to just watch it die by a neck-crushing choke hold from a neutral-faced thirteen-year-old."

"That was not on my Bingo card for today."

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