“Yumi, this is not really cooked all the way through. I can't eat it like this….” Sora frowned as he looked at the hunk of meat in front of him.

“Open your hot bar. I put a new skill in it. It’s a basic campfire spell. You will be staying here for a while to clear out the monsters around the area. The more souls you are able to collect, the stronger you will become. I will teach you how to make the campfire spell later.” Yumi replied.  She would normally not make spells for Sora without him actually being there to learn it first hand, but this time around, it was different. Sora had not eaten for a long time, so it was not good to make him wait any longer.

Sora opened his hot bar and saw the new icon which he used his mind to press. A strange semi-transparent circle appeared in front of him, highlighting part of the ground. “Yumi, this?”

“The circle will be where you want the campfire to appear. Just find a location and then press the campfire button once more to create it.” Yumi explained.

Sora lined the circle to a level area before hitting the button again. As he did, the area around him lit up as a small fire appeared. It was nothing more than a small flame floating above the ground, but it was big enough to cook with. Sora quickly went to work and got some stones from the side, where he began stacking them around the flame until it was high enough to put a flat stone on top. Only then did he put the leg on top of that. A few minutes later, the sounds of sizzling could be heard as the meat began to heat up.

The smell of the meat floated through the air causing loud roars to come from outside the area Sora was hiding in. Sora completely ignored them as the saliva began to run down his chin. He had not eaten for days and was very, very hungry. 

Thirty minutes later, Sora finally sunk his teeth into the monster leg and tore off the first juicy bit of meat. His taste buds began to hurt as the sensation of hot meaty flesh awakened all his taste buds at once. 

Yumi, who was watching this all happen from within Sora’s mind, had tears rolling down her cheeks. She blamed herself for making Sora wait so long to eat, but there was no other option. He had to first become a magas to even fire off a single spell. But now, because he had to suffer, he could easily become strong. But even so, she still felt bad.

Sora wiped his mouth. His belly feeling full.  The sounds of monsters could still be heard outside the area he was in. “So Yumi, what now?”

“Let your food digest a little, then you can start farming.” Yumi said farming which confused Sora, prompting him to ask: “Farming?”

“With the smell of meat and the smell of blood, more and more monsters will come towards this crevice. They will not only fight and kill each other over the food there, but these battles will turn into multiple battles, causing lots of bloodshed. You can take advantage of your current situation to farm many souls even if you did not kill any of the monsters. This should at least allow your stats to get higher, allowing you to be much stronger than before. You can think of souls as a means of raising your stats the same way a novice mage must use magicules to strengthen the body from the inside out. You will only be at a stronger stat than a novice mage and will be continuing to strengthen yourself even in the future as you rise through the ranks.” Yumi explained.

“Then I will not waste any time.” Sora stood up and stretched his arms before rubbing his belly. He took a deep breath and readied himself for what was to come. He wanted to grow stronger, so his only option was to fight. 

Sora walked over to the crevice to see monsters battling it out on the other side. He went to raise his hand but slowly put it down as he asked: “I do not think I will be able to kill many monsters….”

“You do not need to. You just need to let them fight and kill each other. For now, your objective is to just get the souls you can while the monsters are fighting. They will ignore you and fight amongst themselves first. This should give you time to grab a few souls. If you can get five souls, it will up your stats a little, allowing you to become stronger in many ways. Just be careful and quick. Save your last fireball for an emergency.” Yumi knew it was dangerous to exit the crevice with so many monsters roaming about now, but the rewards outweighed the risks, and she also needed to teach Sora that sometimes to gain, you will need to risk it all. 

Sora was actually already prepared to risk a lot in order to become powerful. Right now, his state of mind was to follow Yumi’s orders and work hard, and hopefully, he will grow much stronger than those around him. “Whatever you want me to do, I will do as long as I can grow stronger.”

Yumi smiled and lowered her head. She bit her bottom lip before deciding to be stricter. She could feel Sora’s determination to be as strong as possible. “Then let's up the count from five to ten souls. Don't waste any more time and get going. Go out and begin smashing heads.”

Sora did not hesitate as he slid through the crevice and looked around. He saw a few fights going on to his left and right and a few other monsters roaming the outer side of the battlefield, waiting for a chance to get some of the previous meat. Sora quickly found a decent-sized rock and went over to the nearest monster corpse and, with all his strength, smashed it down. Blood splattered on Sora’s face, but he just wiped it off with the back of his hand before reaching down and grabbing the bluish order inside the cracked skull. Once he got the first soul, he moved on to the next monster corpse. 

In a way, what Sora was doing was cheating, or maybe you could even call it luck to be in the right place at the right time. Each soul was worth some random stat points, which would make him grow stronger and stronger with each one he fused into his body.