Frostbound

Dinner was just as good as the previous day's and went by quickly. We used the hours until sundown to make sure that everything was ready for the wave the coming morning. There would still be a few hours between sunrise and noon that we could use to finalize everything in the morning but it didn't hurt to be thorough.

We had more spikes than last time and added traps up the hill, we also made more javelins for if we needed them, all the while keeping up with the daily training. We usually did an hour of group combat and another hour for stat training. We also used this time to ask others for help with various topics. Some were unnaturally good with some of the weapons we were given although I knew for a fact that they had never used them before. Others were naturally gifted in the magic side of things, and that's where I spent the majority of my time.

The person who was the best with training mana skills was our only fire mage, Rachel. Brayden's wife was a natural when it came to the magical side of things, she claimed that she'd increased all three of her magical stats by at least three each. I hadn't even gotten a point in intelligence and she's already gotten three. I felt miffed.

I wasn't the only one struggling with the mana skills luckily and she would try to walk all of us through the way that she handled mana to help us improve. It wasn't the best mentorship, but it was better than nothing. Whenever I wouldn't get something she would just say, 'You just need to feel it, it feels like this...' she would then describe what it felt like to her, which wasn't helpful.

She kept saying that you had to guide the mana, you couldn't force it. I had no idea what she was talking about because I didn't feel like I was guiding my mana when I activated my skills. Others were equally as unhelpful, they would say that you asked the mana to do something and it would then do it.

I thought they were joking with me at first, but when they were straight-faced and didn't laugh I realized they were serious. I gave it a shot, because why not, and it worked even worse than trying to guide it. Everyone had their own way of going about it and I just hadn't found mine yet. I was holding out hope that I was just missing something and once I found it, it would come instinctively like with Rachel. If not, I was in for a long road of training. I was average with my axe and could use the shield pretty well at this point so at least I had that going for me.

When night fell and everyone was getting ready for bed, there was a nervousness in the air. Everyone knew what was in store for tomorrow, we've been through three of them so far. No matter how many times we faced a coming wave I didn't think I would ever not be nervous. It was worse for me because my mind kept coming back to the memory of the boss charging me before I went flying. I wasn't having nightmares about it or anything but there was no way I was going to forget that anytime soon.

I didn't get to join the rest of my family going off to blissful sleep for it was my turn for night watch. It wasn't the first time that I had done it but it was the first time before a wave. We had a rotating watch so you were on watch every other night and with the waves coming every three days, I got away with not being on watch the night before one.

I had my cousin Derek to keep me company so I wasn't by myself but he wasn't a very talkative person. He was younger than me by a few years and he was my Uncle Scott's only child. Being an only child made Derek have some ... quirks that you had to get used to. He was a nice enough guy but sometimes the way he acted made me want to throttle him.

He wasn't taking this whole tutorial very well. He had never been the most talkative before this whole thing, and after, you were lucky to get a few sentences. He was one of the foolish who picked rogue as their starting class but he at least had the wherewithal to pick dual short swords instead of daggers. They wouldn't give him a ton of extra reach but at that range, every little bit helps.

I didn't wish to sit here in awkward silence for the entire two hours so I decided to start up a conversation with him.

"How are you doing Derek?" I said.