Noon had long passed when the pair reached a small clearing in the forest.

In this small open space, someone had already set up a camp, because in the open space there was an oak log lying on the tall grass. The once tall tree's branches and roots were cut off, and only a portion of its trunk remained on the ground, which already begun to rot. Next to the log, there was a small area where a campfire used to be as the ground was burned, and some charcoal could be found.

This was an ideal place for them to spend the next few days, and they immediately began to set up their camp. Zan chose to erect their tent while his mother was searching for firewood. Since he had set up this canvas shelter more than a dozen times in their backyard, he quickly finished his task and sat down on the log while waiting for his mother.

However, even after a long time, Arilia didn't show up, and Zan soon realized how scary it was to be alone in the forest. It was only now that the silence, which was sometimes disturbed by the wind, really started to worry him. He was alone in the woods, with no fire and without even a weapon to protect himself.

Suddenly his stomach grumbled, which made him forget about his fear for a moment, and since he couldn't really do anything about the latter, he decided to eat a little of the jam that he put into his sack. However, no matter where he searched for the jars, he couldn't find them anywhere in his bag.

'I know I put it here somewhere,' Zan thought to himself. He even looked at the bottom of his sack, searching for a hole where the jam could have fallen out. Yet there was no cut on his bag.

Then, after some pondering, he recalled his mother's words, which she said this morning: 'Eat now because you will not have this sort of meal for a while.' At that moment, he understood that his mom was the one who took the jars out of his sack.

"But why?" Zan gave voice to his thoughts.

"What why?"

When Zan heard the question, he got so frightened that his heart almost jumped out of his chest. He didn't realize that his mother was already standing behind him. After taking a few deep breaths, he managed to calm himself down, then he asked, "Why did you take the jams out of my sack?"

"Why did we come here?" Arilia asked while she put down the firewoods that were in her left arm.

"To become stronger," he said, but he couldn't understand the connection between his training and the jars.

"The fastest way for you to grow stronger is to expose yourself to danger. If you are hungry and you want to live, you have to hunt. However, to catch a beast, you have to be fast, strong, and smart. But for now, this lesson can wait. Today I have already brought a windy with me," she said and raised her right hand, which held a little beast by its long ears. "Well, at least that is what the villagers call it."

The wildling, as it was hanging, was about two feet long, and its long ears took one-third of its body length. Its two big eyes were almost on the side of its skull, and its two incisors, in the upper and lower jaw, were twice as big as the rest of its teeth. It had four limbs, out of which its hind legs were much larger and more muscular than its forelegs. The beast's entire body was covered with grayish-brown fur, except for the bottom of its belly and its tiny tail, which were colored black. It looked kind of cute with its soft fur, but since the light had long disappeared from its eyes, no one would want to hug it anymore.

"In the cities, this beast is called a rabbit," she said. "Come follow me. There is a small stream not far from here. There I will show you how to gut and skin this beast."

"What about the fire?"

"Do not worry about that. I will make it later," Arilia said as if it was their easiest task to do.

After arriving at the stream shore, she pulled out a black dagger from her pouch and began to skin the windy.

First, she chopped off its four paws, then cut the skin on its back and pulled its fur off its body. Following that, she freed the carcass from its tiny head and cut the beast at its stomach. She gutted the wildling out carefully, making sure not to pierce its insides. Out of its organs, she only kept the little beast's heart and dropped the rest of them to the ground.

"This is how you skin and gut a rabbit. I only show it to you this one time. Next time, you are doing it alone," she said, then looked at her son, whose face twisted with disgust. "Are you perhaps sick?"

"No," Zan replied, but his face showed the opposite.

"If you cannot even watch me gut a windy, how will you become a hunter?"

"I didn't know it would be so disgusting."

"If this disgusts you, then you do not have to eat it."

"But I'm hungry," he said with a slightly sad voice.

"Then get used to it. Because from now on, you will have to do these kinds of tasks on your own. What kind of a hunter will you become if you cannot even skin a beast? You cannot take my little daughter-in-law with you everywhere you go to disassemble the beasts for you." Arilia teased her son a little. But after seeing that she stabbed him at a sore point, she chose to divert his thoughts from the little girl and put a tiny reddish crystal in his hand. "This is the heart crystal of the rabbit. When the beasts are about to die, their mana flows into their hearts as some kind of final defense, and after the wildling no longer breaths, the heart shrinks and becomes a transparent red crystal."

Zan examined the oval-shaped crystal in his hands.

"Some people believe that the beast's spirit is trapped in this reddish glassy stone, and if it is used as a weapon's crystal, the tool will have the power of the beast," Arilia explained as she washed the carcass in the stream. "But this is only hearsay. What is certain is that after the light disappears from the eyes of a wildling, its heart crystallizes and becomes a transparent red stone, which contains mana in it."

Zan turned the red crystal to the right and left, then lifted it toward the sun. He was enchanted by the glassy stone as the light went through it and created a weak red dot on the ground. He was having fun playing with the transparent recently still-beating heart, moving it up and down. But when his mother ordered him to finish playing around, he immediately became ashamed of himself and put the heart crystal in his pocket. Then they went back to the camp.