After Dawn left Silk, she found Ryan and Jared at the designated training spot.

  “Show me your progress.”

  Ryan and Jared simultaneously began to manifest their weapons, taking nearly an entire minute for the two of them to succeed.

  “Good work so far. Keep it up,” Dawn told them, before leaving the town, heading towards the farm.

  As Dawn walked throughout the field, she occasionally kneeled down and closely examined the plants, making sure all of them were healthy and checking how long it would be until harvest. Several days still at this pace of growth.

  With the field inspected, Dawn left into the woods. On the outside, she looked like she was taking a casual stroll through the woods. But, in reality, she was channeling her mana and enhancing her sense to such an extent that every leaf swaying in the wind within a hundred meters was entirely audible, and subtly shifting her path to encounter her prey.

  Within an half hour, Dawn had acquired the food for today, making a small pile of the corpses, and began to inspect the nearby leaves for what to bring back for Silk. What length should I grab? How much?... I’ll go for a variety of sizes, to have long leaves as the base and shorter leaves to fill the gaps. I’ll grab enough to cloak my entire body, that should be enough for Silk.

  She began to pluck the leaves from the trees, bundling them gently in her arms. When she collected them all, she bound the pile of leaves with mana strings, placed it upon the pile of corpses, and lifted them all as she headed back to town.

  After Dawn dropped off the food, she returned to her house and set the bundle of leaves on the floor infront of the waiting Silk.

  “Silk.”

  “Yes M Mother?”

  “Are you capable of producing any thread that persists?”

  “I I Don’t know what y you mean.”

  Dawn manifested a string between her fingers. “Like this, but it won’t disappear like this,” Dawn said, reabsorbing the mana into herself.

  “I I don’t think so.”

  “Hrm.” Dawn grabbed two leaves, and infused her mana into their entire bodies. She began to break the leaves somewhat, jam them together, and [Heal] them. She released her mana, and lightly tugged on the leaves, trying to pull them apart. They didn’t budge though, staying fused together. [Heal] can have some dangerous properties. When I get the time, I should investigate further.

  “Silk. This may feel odd, but focus on the feeling you’re about to experience,” Dawn reached out, and put her mana into silks body. In an instant, on par with Rosalia’s time, Silk grew uncomfortable. Dawn pulled back and asked, “try moving that energy around your body.” She focused, noticing the shift in mana throughout Silk’s body.

  “Good. Now, try pooling some mana ontop of your hand, and make it physical, like this,” Dawn made a small cube on her hand, before shifting it into a puddle. Silk just tilted part of its body, a clear attempt at an inquisitive head tilt. “I’ve forgotten you don’t have a hand. No matter, simply move some of your worms into a flat platform and try there.”

  Silk immediately gave the challenge it’s best shot, and was successful on it’s first try. Granted, it was only a small drop of mana, but it was successful.

  “Good. Keep up the practice. When you can make a solid cube like mine, get my attention.” Noticing Silk’s attempted nod, Dawn grabbed the leaves and began to merge them together. As she continued, she slowly began to refine the process, spreading her mana quicker in the leaves, and speeding up the healing process itself. Soon enough, a basic scaffold of the leaf cloak was complete, leaving just the addendum of leaves to finish.

  Just in time, Silk crawled over to Dawn and thrust the cube of mana in front of her face.

  “Good job. Next…” Dawn hesitated, notice silk was moving slower than earlier. “No. Let’s call this good for today. Keep practicing if you feel like you have energy. Otherwise, you may stop.”

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  Dawn went over to the side of the room and set down the scaffold. “Are you hungry?”

  “Y yes.”

  “What do you eat?”

  “Plants.”

  “Got it. I’ll get you a pile of leaves. Tell me if it’s enough.”

  Dawn left, hurried over to the forest and collected another mass of leaves, finishing the entire trip in a little over 10 minutes. Dumping them infront of the surprised Silk, Dawn turned around immediately and left the village.

  Dawn sat down, hidden in the edge of the forest, staring at the entrance to the cannibals town. Using mana to enhance her sight, she focused deeply on what they were doing.

  Chatting, prepping food, training with their weapons. Are there more people inside? Is anyone practicing magic?

  Dawn looked towards the sky, finding the sun nearing the horizon.

  I’ll continue tomorrow.

  After catching food and checking up on Ryan and Jared, Dawn returned to Silk. They’d acquired more worms, and was now the size of Dawn’s entire torso.

  “You grow quickly. Where are your worms coming from?”

  “I I create them. The leaves you brought works m much better than the dirt.”

  “I see. So, you have the basics of mana control down, so next we’ll move to [Heal]. When you can do that, you can finish your cloak.”

  “Is that why you stopped working on it?”

  “Partially. I will not always be with you, so you need to be able to repair and create one. In addition, it’s good practice.”

  “Ah.”

  “Now, memorize this,” Dawn manifested the [Heal] rune. After a few minutes, she asked, “Did you memorize it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now, try creating it yourself.”

  Silk did its best, drawing the rune after a few minutes of effort.

  “Good. For the rest of today, study it. Understand what [Healing] is. Do you need more food?”

  “If you could please. T The same amount as yesterday and I should be finished growing.”

  “Got it.”

  Having given Silk their food, Dawn continued her stake out. She didn’t notice much different from the day before, only that different people were in different spots.

  She did this same set of actions for 3 days, noting but not commenting on Silks growth into a humanoid mass of worms, before Jared and Ryan made a breakthrough. They now could manifest their weapons in under a second.

  “Good. Now, we move to physical conditioning. Every day, run 10 laps around the town. You will keep manifesting and demanifesting your weapons during your runs. You may not use magic to assist in your running in any way. Am I understood?”

  Seeing Ryan and Jared’s nods, she joined them in their first run. After a brisk hour, she had finished her laps, and was only mildly tired. Strange. Has my body been improved somehow? Right, the rank up. This is quite powerful.

  Without even glancing at where Ryan or Jared were, she jogged into the woods to hunt.

  With food gathered, Dawn checking in on Silks progress with [Heal].

  “I feel like I understand it better, but also like I’m missing something important.”

  “Rune understanding is also tied to knowledge. Hrm… so, living organisms are made of cells. To repair wounds, cells create more of themselves and filled those gaps. This explanation isn’t full, but it should work to help. When [Healing] someone, you’re restoring the missing cells. When restoring a lost limb, it’s simply a matter of scale.”

  Silk took a moment to process that, slow began to nod, and soon nodded quickly. “I get it!”

  “Now, let’s move onto how I made this. I used mana to disrupt and break up the cells of the leaves, pushed the two leaves together, and [Healed] them incorrectly. I made the cells repair into one big leaf. Here, try.”

  Silk took the two leaves Dawn handed to them and focused deeply. Dawn watched, noting how uneven and shaky Silks mana was when breaking up the cells, but kept silent. After a few minutes, Silk managed to merge the two leaves, although they were clearly originally different as they had a large growth in the middle ontop of where they were healed.

  “Good job for a first try. Two things. One, controlling your mana. It was uneven and shaky. Two, healing. You overhealed in someplaces, leading to a large growth, and underhealed in others, leaving the leaves unattached. Both of those will be easy to fix though. I’ll get you a lot more leaves, and you can keep practicing.”

  Dawn, true to her word, returned and dumped a pile of leaves in the corner. When she was done with that, she left to continue scouting.

  After another week passed, Dawn returned to her two soldiers with new orders.

  “Good job. Now, we move into weapons training. Ryan, after running your laps, start manifesting arrows,” Dawn made one to show Ryan all the key aspects of them, the head, fletching, and notch, “and practice shooting them. I want you to be able to hit the forest from the farm without the arrow dissipating. Jared, you and I will spar. You need to be able to keep your weapon stable while I attack. Am I understood you two?”

  “Yes Commander!” they said in unison.

  “Good.”