After three months of forest life, returning to humans didn’t feel like a “triumphant homecoming” but more like a forced change of location. My body had finally stopped feeling like a collapsing wagon. Muscles had adapted, blood vessels had thickened, and [Will to Live] had fully shifted into “background mode.” It no longer scorched my mind with sudden bursts of pain; it worked like a quiet system monitor—tracking my pulse, stabilizing pressure, and damping micro-fluctuations of mana in my muscles.

  Zeno led me along old trails toward the settlement he called the “Hunters’ Nest.” It was basically a fortified village for those who specialized in clearing anomalies and capturing “wild” mages.

  — Listen, — Zeno stopped at the edge of a clearing, where the palisades came into view. — They don’t like fuss. Here, magic isn’t art, it’s work. Teamwork. They’ll test you. Don’t try to act stronger than you are—they’ll see right through it. Just show that you won’t blow up in the middle of the street.

  I nodded, checking the straps on my troll-hide armor. The bone plates pressed against my chest as usual. The village looked harsh: no decorations, just stone, wood, and clean defensive lines. Mana didn’t flow chaotically here, like in the forest—it was “tidied up.” The protective contours vibrated at a single frequency.

  At the entrance, three people waited. They wore gray leather armor reinforced with metal inserts. They didn’t pose theatrically—they simply blocked the sectors of approach.

  — Halt, — one broad-shouldered man with a short sword raised his hand. — Zeno, you brought another “wild one”?

  — He’s stable, — the old man answered shortly. — Wants to observe your methods and trade.

  The hunters exchanged glances. The younger one, with a narrow scar across his cheek, stepped toward me. His mana was sharp and dry, like sand.

  — Stable, you say? Let’s see. He’s got some odd baseline, like he’s under constant suppression.

  I wasn’t asked. They took us to a training clearing behind the palisade. The three hunters spread out, forming a triangle. I ended up in the center.

  — The task is simple, — said the elder. — Last a minute. We won’t kill you, just test your “structure.”

  I activated [Will to Live] at 15%. The world sharpened slightly, my heartbeat slowed. “Activating analysis mode,” I commanded myself mentally.

  The youngest moved first. He didn’t throw fire or lightning—he simply lunged, fueling his legs with mana for acceleration. For an ordinary person, it would’ve been a blurred flash, but I saw the vector of his movement. I didn’t block—just shifted my center of gravity and, using his momentum, nudged his shoulder trajectory with my forearm. The bone plate on my vambrace creaked but held. The hunter flew past, barely scraping the ground, and quickly regained balance.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  — Not bad, — he called out.

  The second mage struck immediately. He unleashed a wave of pressure. It wasn’t a pure magical attack, just a sharp air compression. I nearly lost my footing. I felt [Will to Live] instantly redistribute tension in my legs, keeping me grounded. I stepped forward to disrupt his rhythm, even managed to jab his shoulder with my fist, but the third—the elder—intervened.

  He simply snapped his fingers.

  In that instant, my entire body felt like lead. It was a suppression technique—they created a zone of “heavy mana” around me. My skill screamed about overload. I tried to lunge at the nearest opponent to escape, but my legs refused to obey. I staggered, made an awkward swing, which the second mage easily deflected, and collapsed to one knee.

  The pressure vanished in a second. I sat on the dusty ground, breathing heavily, sweat stinging my eyes.

  — Enough, — said the elder. — You lost, boy. Speed’s there, reaction’s excellent, but against coordinated pressure, you’re zero.

  I wiped my face with my sleeve. The defeat was expected. My “processor” calculated individual threats but couldn’t handle group logic.

  — But he didn’t “panic,” — the younger one noted, putting away his sword. — Most self-taught types start screaming or flinging mana everywhere when pressured. This one… he just calculated. Even his pulse barely jumped.

  We were let go. The next few days became an intensive observation course. The hunters worked as a single mechanism: if one created a shield, the second prepared a breach, the third covered the rear. It was a real networked combat architecture.

  I tried to copy them. In the evenings, curled in a corner of the common barracks, I attempted to reproduce their mana suppression techniques through my armor’s circuits. I thought: If I add their suppression method to my acceleration, I’ll be twice as effective.

  It was a classic programmer mistake—trying to merge someone else’s incompatible code into a working core without testing first.

  One evening, I decided to test the “combined mode” at the village outskirts. I tried to twist my mana flow like the hunters did to form shields while accelerating [Will to Live] for control.

  The result was catastrophic. A conflict of algorithms.

  Inside me, it felt like a gas tank exploded. Mana, instead of flowing through the channels, began striking my internal organs. Breath caught. Vision blurred. I didn’t even have time to fear—my system emergency-shut down. Darkness.

  I woke to the sharp smell of burning grass and something acidic. Zeno stood over me. He didn’t look scared, just annoyed.

  — Try to shove what isn’t yours into yourself again, — he said calmly, — and I won’t even carry you back to the hut. You’re not a hunter. Your strength is in your isolation. Don’t try to join their chain—you’ll burn and take them with you.

  I sat up, each rib protesting with aching pain.

  — I just wanted to optimize the process…

  — Optimize what you already have, — the old man cut in. — Your [Will] is your foundation. Build floors on it, don’t bolt on someone else’s shack.

  I learned the lesson. Until the end of my stay in the village, I no longer tried to “copy-paste.” Instead, I simplified my own techniques. I abandoned complex spatial distortions that consumed too many resources and focused on micro-adjustments: accelerate a single muscle at the moment of a strike, not the whole body; release mana pressure through one point on the sole, not the whole skin. Harder to control, but far more reliable.

  Before leaving, the elder hunter approached. He handed me a cloudy crystal, like a piece of processed glass.

  — This is a background analyzer. Shows mana density within ten meters. We get these for finding hidden anomalies. It’ll come in handy, since you love calculating everything.

  I took the gift. The crystal was cold and heavy. No magic in it—I could feel none. Just a solid, practical tool.