Anton followed his father to the woods behind their house. The woods were beyond the farm, and they needed to walk for at least thirty minutes before they arrived at the outskirts of the forest.
“It’s a good thing were at the start of spring, there will be a lot of game in the forest,” Anders told him.
Anton nodded and kept following. He tried to emulate the man especially the way he walked and the way he avoided stepping on branches or anything really, but he was failing, although it looked like his father didn’t mind. Anders was carrying a big knife and a bow and arrow that was located beside the door.
“Stop!” Anders whispered to Anton.
“We’re lucky. Do you see that hare in the bushes to the left?”
“Yes, I see it. Let me try something first.”
Anton could feel the huge rabbit was in the range of his Telekinesis. On experimentation, his Telekinesis spell range was about six to seven meters, but the power decreased sharply the farther away an object was.
“Can I get nearer to that rabbit?”
“Just a couple more feet. We’re downwind of it so it shouldn’t notice us.”
Anton walked slowly nearer to the hare and when he was about four feet, he used Telekinesis to hold the huge hare in place. The rabbit tried to run but was unable to because of his spell but Anton could actually feel that after a couple of minutes of struggling, the hare would be able to free itself from his hold. It was like he was holding the actual animal on its feet with his hands and the animal kept buckling.
He cast Ice Bolt and hit the hare on the head killing it since the sharp bolt of ice entered the head without any issue. Anton was surprised by the power and sharpness of the Ice Bolt. He thought that the spell would only knock the hare unconscious, but the bolt actually slid inside its head like a knife in butter.
“That was something to behold son. I could see ice swirling in your body before that sharp ice arrow formed in your hands and flew toward the hare,” Anders smiled at his son admiringly.
“Thanks. I also have a Fire Bolt and a bigger Ice Bolt called Ice Blast.”
“You should avoid using fire spells to keep us from burning down the forest. The hare looked like it was stuck. Did you do something before you hit it with your ice spell?”
“Remember one of my spells was to hold things using my mind? I use it to hold the rabbit in place, but its struggle would have freed it in a couple of minutes. I assume that a bigger prey like a bear would only be held by my spell for a few seconds before it could free itself.”
Anton put the corpse of the hare in his inventory to avoid the game decaying. His father would handle the butchering later which he was not looking forward to. As a city boy, the only butchering that he had seen was on the internet.
“You have a spell that could stop an animal. That would help us a lot,” Anders commented when he saw his son put the corpse away.
“Yes. We need to kill a lot more. From what I gather it would take us a few weeks before we reached our destination, and the meat will serve us well. For eating or selling.” Anton told his father.
Anders continued walking deep into the forest while Anton followed him. His father suddenly signaled him to stop and stay low which he assumed to crouch down so he did.
“We got lucky. There’s a small herd of whitetail deer in front of us and from what the signs in the foliage say, there could be as many as five.”
The father and son walked slowly until they saw the herd of deer that his father indicated.
“Let me try something.” He whispered to his father.
Anton walked slowly and when he felt that the herd was within the range of his Telekinesis, he immediately cast his Telekinesis spell to hold three of the deer by their feet. The other two immediately tried to run away but he cast his Ice Bolt and hit the two deer. He noticed that even though he wasn’t focused on aiming the spell, it felt almost like it had a homing capability. The Ice Bolt hit the two fleeing deer and were killed immediately. He disposed of the other three who were still struggling by casting Ice Bolt to their heads as well.
Anton’s mana was low, so he immediately maximized the game and drank a minor mana potion. Hunting the animals using his spells felt good to him. He felt powerful and he wondered how the more powerful spells would feel.
“Good Anton. You were able to kill all of them. It would have been fine for us to bag a couple but you killing all of them was a bonus for us. Normally I wouldn’t condone killing everything but we’re in a dire situation and the fact that they wouldn’t spoil in your magic space will help us a lot. We can also keep the skin for selling. Even though we don’t have the time to treat the skins now, they will not spoil in your space.”
Anton put the corpses of the deer inside his private stash and since they only spent a little time, Anders decided to continue.
They stumbled on bushes filled with blackberries and blueberries.
“Ooh, berries! I love them. I forgot to bring a sack!” Anton said.
“I have a two here. I usually bring a couple when I’m hunting and it has become a habit that even though you told me that we can keep the game in your magical space I automatically still brought those,’ his father offered him the sacks.
The sacks were fairly large, so they filled them with the berries leaving none on the bushes.
“Again, normally we would leave some, but we will need the berries in our travel.”
“I hope we find some more fruits.”
“I don’t have any more sacks. We will need to return anyway by lunchtime, and we’ll get back here to hunt some more and then later I will begin butchering the animals.”
While they were filling the sacks with berries, Anders and Anton heard deep growling and they saw a large brown bear. The bear was running towards them but instead of panicking, Anton cast Ice Blast to stop the bear and it froze the bear stopping it in its tracks. Several more Ice Blast finally killed it. He felt grateful that he immediately drank a mana potion when the battle ended earlier so he did it again to make sure that he would be prepared if an emergency happened again. Entering the game virtually prepared him to face enemies so facing the huge bear didn’t cause any emotional fluctuations on him.
Anton tried to lift the bear, but he was unable to.
“Father you will need to cut the bear somehow so I can lift it to be able to put it in my inventory.”
While Anders was cutting the bear, Anton completed filling up the sacks with berries and put them in his private stash in the Rogue Encampment. He was thankful that the private stash was fairly big, and he knew that once the corpses were dealt with and put inside sacks or boxes, it would decrease the space they would take in his inventory.