**Survive 159 / 180 days left in the tutorial**

  **Find and free the remainder of the dragons. 1/10**

  **Learn what it is to be a Gravity Lord, 1 /10 skills unlocked.**

  The next day, the group wasted no time breaking camp. Everyone, including Atlar, headed back to the wagon. Bones’ eyes were barely visible beneath the snow as they approached the now hidden, snow-covered wagon he was guarding.

  “Good morning, guys,” Scott said with a growl.

  Four heads popped up from the snow-covered wagon. Three of them plowed through the snow like gazelles fleeing a lion, jumping up to tackle Scott and lick him all over. Geist, looking a bit bigger—nearly two-thirds the size of Atlar now—stopped for a moment and took a defensive stance behind Scott, growling at Atlar “Back away you beast! I will protect you father.” Geist growled.

  Both of the smaller pups joined in, baring their teeth at Atlar. But Atlar simply sat down, waiting for Scott to address them.

  Scott began to growl, “Back down, pups. This is Atlar, formerly known as Diesel, and he is family.”

  Geist gave Scott a puzzled look and watched as he walked up to Atlar. Atlar bowed his head in submission, waiting for a pet. Scott, of course, stroked his head and underneath his chin as Atlar licked his face all over. “Good boy, Atlar,” Scott said sincerely.

  Geist, Terran, and Onyxiah all stood there, watching as Scott petted Atlar. “I don't understand father, Is Atlar to be a part of our pack?” Geist growled.

  “He has always been a part of our pack even before you were all born. He is also the reason you are alive, Geist since he is your birth father.” Scott growled.

  Finally, the smallest of the three, Onyxiah, walked forward and began smelling Atlar. “He smells like he has no ill intentions, but he also reeks of urine,”

  Terran soon joined, but Geist just stood there, dumbfounded. A small, unsure growl came from Geist, “Are you my Father?” he asked, looking up at the massive direwolf acting like a pup while being rubbed down.

  Atlar, with a goofy growl, responded, “Why... yesssss.” with his leg shaking wildly.

  Scott stopped and let them walk off down the mountain for a few minutes of privacy to talk while the rest of the group packed up to head out. Both soon returned in great spirits, and all of them headed down the mountain together. Scott stayed at the back of the convoy, watching everyone, while Atlar led at the front.

  "Sc....cott I think this is wh... wh... where I say goodbye." Bod said.

  "Ah getting cold feet with the crew?" Scott asked.

  "N..nn...no I believe I need t.....to find my own way in this n....new world." Bob replied.

  "Well I bid you well and hope to see you again someday." Scott said.

  "Th.....thank you." Bob replied.

  Scott handed Bob some rations and watched as he walked off down the mountain side heading into one of the mountains blizzards.

  "Gone so soon?" David asked.

  "Yeah, he would of been a great comrade to have around." Scott replied.

  "S....sure." David said staring at him with a grin on his face.

  "Hey just because the guy had a stutter didn't mean he wouldn't be a cool guy to have around." Scott said.

  "Ok buddy." David laughed.

  "Hey how about you go and scout the area before we leave. maybe check the way back down a little bit." Scott said annoyed.

  "Ha ha, don't mind if I do." David laughed. David naturally took to the skies, gaining a view from above while collecting small plants, when he spotted them peeking out of the dense snow. Making their way down the mountain was uneventful. Not a single elemental was seen, nor any beast for that matter. Until they felt a familiar, dreadful feeling, and the ground began to shake beneath them.

  “I'm curious to see what's at the top of this mountain,” Christy said with an excited look on her face while petting her large Murder Cat.

  Hunter sighed, “Eh… probably more Ice Elementals.”

  Cat flew in the back with Ann walking on top of the snow close behind. Both of the boys walked in front of them, complaining about the cold and the snow. “Can we go back yet? This mountain sucks,” Victor complained, trudging through the snow.

  Riley walked beside him with not one but two torches to warm his small, shivering body. One of the torches went out as Riley fell forward into the snow. Once Riley stood up and dusted himself off, he turned around to talk to Vic. “Vic… I’m c-c-c-cold… Can you light it again?”

  “Ugh… I know, Riley, you don't have to ask every time it goes out. Why don't you learn magic so I don't have to do literally everything for you? And why do we have to go up this stupid mountain?” Vic asked with an irritated tone in his voice.

  “Just be quiet. We're nearly halfway up the mountain. You know we need your help fighting those Ice Elementals. Why complain about it? It's just a waste of energy,” Ann said.

  “Why? Because I have to do most of the work and I hate this stuuuuupid mountain!” Vic yelled at the top of his lungs.

  Not soon after, the mountain began to tremble. Hunter, Christy, and Christy's Murder Cat, ran up the mountain as fast as they could and jumped behind a rock. Riley, Victor, and Ann ran for another rock while Catherine flew up into the sky to get a good look at where the danger was coming from.

  "Mom, I'm scared," Victor cried.

  "Well, you caused this; now we have to deal with the consequences of your actions. Hold on tight!" Ann ordered, while the four of them braced each other. Victor's cat, Fluffy, squirmed, trying to get out of his grasp, but Victor's death grip was too strong.

  "Brace yourselves, here it comes!" Ann yelled frantically. Catherine zoomed down towards Hunter, Christy, and Murder Cat to help them brace up against their rock from the upcoming avalanche.

  The avalanche hit with so much force, pushing Ann's rock behind them. She had to plant both feet into the ground and both hands on the boulder, holding the rock with all her might to prevent them from being crushed. Snow flowed all around as Ann's arms and legs began to buckle. Ann's muscles began to burst one by one until she could no longer hold on, and she fell to the ground unconscious.

  "Grab Mom!" Riley yelled as he took her place. His rage grew, and so did his little muscles. Riley grew six feet tall at that moment. His muscles quadrupled in size, and his dirty blonde hair grew longer as he roared into a rage until finally, the snow settled. Once Riley turned around, with fire in his eyes, he found his big brother holding Fluffy tight, lying on top of their unconscious mother.

  "You did this, Victor, and I'm tired of you always messing things up!" Riley roared as he turned and began punching his not-so-big brother into the ground. "She's dead because of you!" Riley lifted his half-bloodied brother into the air and went to finish him off until he heard,

  "Stop it, you two!" Ann said with a groan. For a moment, she came to, just in time to stop Riley before passing back out.

  Riley stopped, tears in his eyes and blood on his fists. He bent over, lifted Ann onto his shoulder, and tucked Victor underneath his other arm. Riley began running up the mountain with great speed, moving at paces his normal body had never achieved before. He reached Cat, Hunter, and Christy in record time. All the wrestling and football training he had done before the tutorial had paid off, allowing his body to transform when needed. Before any of them could react, he spoke, "Help my mom!" he cried as he set her down in front of Cat and dropped his brother off to the side like a sack of potatoes.

  "Riley? What happened?" Cat asked with a worried tone.

  Riley, in tears, explained everything to the group with as much detail as an eight-year-old could manage. He then sat beside them, his face in his hands, curled up into a big ball, and continued to weep.

  "Christy, go heal Victor, and I'll heal Ann," Cat instructed.

  "Ugh... Mom? Do I have to? I don't use my healing much, and Victor doesn't deserve the healing," Christy whined.

  Cat gave Christy that mother-stare-down look and said, "Excuse me, missy, we always help someone in need."

  Cat didn't say another word and got to work healing Ann's broken body, all while keeping a wary eye on Riley. After a few minutes, Riley calmed down, and his body transformed back into his normal kid self. Christy's healing wasn't on par with her mother's, but she healed Victor as best she could. A few hours later, Ann came to, while Victor sat in silence, staring into the sky.

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  "What happened?" Ann groaned in pain. "Feels like I've been hit by a truck."

  Both Victor and Riley rushed to her side and held her tight. "I'm so sorry, Mom," Victor cried.

  "I thought I lost you," Riley cried.

  Once the emotional reunion was over, Cat chimed in, "Now you know this is serious stuff, okay? So you need to hold yourselves together if we are to get through this alive."

  Victor nodded his head, and Cat turned to look at Ann. "Are you okay? You had us worried for a moment there."

  "I think so," Ann groaned as she finally stood up and stretched, looking over her body to ensure everything was back in working order. "Yeah, I'm good, but we need to make some headway up this mountain before the sun sets."

  For the next few hours, the group moved as a unified team, with no more complaining or arguing. Each of them took their respective roles: Hunter and Christy scouted ahead to find the safest route while keeping an eye out for potential foes while the rest of them took their time climbing and dodging Ice elementals. They continued until they could see what looked like a white castle on the mountain top. The sun was beginning to set, and Christy spoke up, "Uh, Mom." she said in a worried tone.

  "Yes, dear?" Cat asked.

  "I can smell Dad's scent in the air, along with lots of blood," Christy explained.

  "Yeah, I can smell him too," Hunter added, his nose held high in the air.

  The group rushed up into the castle with haste. Once inside, the group searched high and low only to find dead giants with all their heads chopped off, piled inside a room. "I knew it, the guys are still alive. At least for now," Cat exclaimed, a gleeful smile now spreading across her face. "We camp here tonight and head down the other side of the mountain in the morning."

  "Agreed. Do you smell Scott at all?" Ann asked with a worried tone while looking at Christy.

  "I'm not sure, there are many smells in this castle—one familiar scent and a few others that I don't recognize. The scents are fading slowly. We could head down now and hopefully find them sooner," Christy explained, now in the form of a bloodhound.

  "No, we should wait and rest. My mana is low, and the rest of us are growing weary from the climb up," Cat explained, her voice firm.

  The group set up camp and pulled out any rations they had while Hunter started a fire using the giant's broken wooden furniture. They ate, and not soon after, went to sleep, leaving Hunter and Christy to hold the first watch.

  "I wonder how he is doing?" asked Christy, curled up with Murder Cat near the fire.

  "I'm sure he is doing well. Eh, like Dad always says, he's the main character of this story. So don't forget he has plot armor," Hunter explained, patting his little sister on her head.

  "Yeah," Christy sighed, but didn't speak another word.

  A few hours before that, the crew and Scott ran for any cover they could find. The sound of an avalanche is such a horrible feeling. Osia led the wagon back up under a ledge this time and activated her bubble just in time for the avalanche. This time, they all helped strengthen her bubble by adding layers of mana to the shield, which worked pretty well. The avalanche came and went, and the snow covered the bubble just enough that they couldn't see out, and the light faded away.

  George lit his fist on fire to give them light. Luckily, they all knew that the fire was a magical light rather than actual fire, which made things a lot easier to see and didn't take up all the oxygen in their bubble. Once the avalanche was over, they had to dig themselves out, which ended up taking a lot longer than expected due to not having shovels. Something they soon thought of making once they got a chance, so they didn't have to take that much time digging themselves out again. After a few hours of digging, they actually decided to set up camp and rest for the night, because moving a ton of snow was exhausting. Plus, there was a lot of deep snow blocking their way.

  That night was cold and windy, as it seemed like every night a storm would hit them. Scott wasn't sure if that was a normal thing that happened naturally on a mountain, or maybe some system trickery. Either way, it was definitely a pain to deal with.

  **Survive 158 / 180 days left in the tutorial**

  The next morning, they all decided it would be easier to turn the wagon into a sleigh instead of trying to combat the thick snow with wheels. All of them ventured out to find a pine tree to make the skis and cut it down. Finding the tree wasn't difficult, nor cutting it down. The problem they had with this whole situation was lifting the wagon to attach the runners, and how to attach them since they didn't have tools from the old world. So, using their knives and axes, all of them took turns working on the runners. Scott got the idea to shape the runners almost like a wheel well to attach over the ironwood axles, and then wedge them on to keep it sturdy and attached, so they did that. It took them the better part of the morning working on the runners until they finally finished and attached them.

  After packing up the camp, it was time to test the sleigh. The rest of them piled into the sleigh after they attached Atlar and David's direwolf form to the front.

  "Is everyone ready?" Scott asked, taking the reins.

  Everyone braced themselves and all said in unison, "Ready!"

  "David and Atlar, are you two ready?" Scott asked the two who were going to guide the sleigh down the mountain.

  "Ready," Atlar growled.

  "Hold my beer," David said, a mischievous glint in his eye.

  "Okay, here goes nothing," Scott said as he used his mana to pull out the two logs bracing the sleigh from going down the mountain.

  "And we're off!" Scott exclaimed. At that moment, the momentum of the sleigh started to pick up speed, and the two pulling the sleigh shot off like a rocket. They went down the mountain so fast that Scott felt like they were on a rollercoaster at an amusement park. With the wind in their hair, it was a delight, dodging left then right, passing trees and rocks and even some elementals on the way. Until they saw a cliff ledge coming up fast. “Grab ahold of something.”

  Scott tried to warn the two leading the sleigh, but it was too late. The speed was too great, and the background noise way too loud. They launched off the cliff with so much momentum, Scott got that feeling like when you're about to drop down on a rollercoaster—that shot of nerves up your spine kind of feeling.

  While they were in mid-air, Scott panicked and held on tight. He turned and noticed the fear in the eyes of the crew inside the wagon. David was in the lead, followed by Atlar, and then the sleigh. In that instant, Scott used his gravity on the sleigh to make it lighter, and David transformed into his legendary Owlion form, which looked like the front half of an owl and the back half of a lion.

  Scott had never tried this before, using the gravity on anything else besides himself, but he knew desperate times called for desperate measures. Mana flowed out of his hands, though this time it was a white color, a bit different than what he'd noticed before, and covered the whole sleigh. He could feel the weightlessness working on the sleigh, making it super light, so maybe they had a chance at staying alive. He could handle flying up just fine, but he knew the rest of them would not be able to survive the fall. They soared through the air like some knock-off Santa Claus until they finally hit the ground, nearly missing a few trees, and continued down the mountain. Scott would give the landing an 8/10 because while the impact wasn't graceful, it didn't damage the sleigh, though the fear of losing the crew was there for just a moment.

  **New System Message**

  The system showed up for a brief second and went away flashing System message. That was definitely new. Opening up the system Scott saw an update on his Gravity lord tree.

  **Learn what it is to be a Gravity Lord, 2 /10 skills unlocked.**

  [Gravity Manipulation (Objects)]-

  Upon making physical contact with an object, this skill grants the user the ability to manipulate its gravitational pull. This manipulation can manifest in a variety of ways, including increasing or decreasing the object's effective weight, altering the direction of its gravitational attraction, or even nullifying its gravitational influence entirely. The extent and precision of this manipulation may depend on the user's skill level, the size and mass of the object, and potentially other factors such as the composition of the object or the surrounding environment.

  "Wow, this seems really useful. Though I wonder what will be next on the list," Scott mused, feeling more accomplished in his training and upgrades.

  "You know, your abilities are quite exquisite. The way you saved those dear to you by channeling your own mana was outstanding," Amarwrath said internally, his voice a mental rumble.

  "You know, this is probably not the best time to be distracting me. But thank you, I guess. Also, I kind of accidentally did that when I panicked and used up a lot of mana using that skill. I didn't know that I could apply my skill to other things besides myself. I believe it was worth it in the end. Even though we're not out of the woods yet," Scott replied.

  "Seems like you don't know the difference between woods or a mountain. Take a good look around; we are on a mountain, not the woods, young one," Amarwrath said with a dry, mental chuckle.

  "Heh heh, you must be oblivious to the figure of speech. I'll talk to you more about that in a little bit. Because I'm kind of busy at the moment trying not to lose any of my crew," Scott continued, internally.

  The constant turning back and forth and dodging trees, rocks, and elementals at a fast pace was fun, even though a few times Scott had to use his mana to pull some of their pets back into the sleigh since they couldn't really hold on to anything. Though he had another issue that came out of nowhere: motion sickness. Once they finally came to a halt, Scott jumped off the sleigh and threw up all the food he had eaten earlier.

  "I hate getting older!" he muttered, wiping his mouth. "It seems like when I was a child, I could spin around over and over, but as an older adult, it's like one false move and either something hurts or I'm dizzy."

  "You okay there, buddy?" David asked, back in his trollkin form and drinking some ale.

  "Eh, yeah, not gonna lie. That was way worse this time on the mountain rather than last time driving on a guys' trip. Bleeeeeeech, bleeeeeeech. I think I'm good now, wait one more bleeeeeeech. Okay, I need some water or whiskey," Scott replied, leaning against a tree.

  "I just filled this one, though," David said with a pouty face, gesturing to his full stein.

  "So you're telling me that you can't down that stein full of beer and then drink the whiskey when I'm done with it?" Scott asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "Well, when you put it that way, a nice glass of whiskey does sound good right about now," David replied, convinced. “Just don't put your mouth on it.”

  David drank his beer so fast that it seemed like there was nothing left in the stein to begin with. But Scott knew better; David loved to savor that drink, one can at a time. Seconds later, David started singing again, something like "100 bottles of whiskey on the wall," until the stein magically copied him and began to fill up.

  Once David handed him the stein, Scott poured enough into his mouth from up high so he wouldn't get anything on the stein, swished it around, and spit it out. "What the hell was that?" he asked, grimacing.

  A big smile developed across David's face, and he replied, "Yeah, I decided at the end moonshine would work better."

  "Ah, good choice, but next time could you warn me?" Scott asked, still shaking his head.

  "Heh heh, now where's the fun in that?" David asked, slapping the back of Scott's shoulder and taking off to check on everyone else.

  "Looks like you can't handle all that movement, young one?" Amarwrath added internally, a hint of amusement in his mental voice.

  "You too? Ugh, I need a good battle to ease my mind," Scott replied mentally, growing frustrated.

  "Hey guys, I'm headed out for a quick hunt to clear my head," Scott announced to the crew.

  "Everything alright?" Thomas asked, noticing Scott's agitation.

  "Yeah. Just missing my other half," Scott said quietly, looking pointedly at David.

  "I'm right here," David replied, flexing his arm.

  "Ha ha ha, thanks for the laugh," Scott said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly.

  "Anytime, buddy, anytime," David continued, grinning.

  Scott headed off into the forest to clear his head as best as he could, with an old, ancient dragon now residing in his mind.

  "Quick question?" Scott asked mentally.

  "Yes," Amarwrath replied with his customary sparky tone.

  "Why are you so low in level? Especially at your age." Scott continued.

  "Well, the giants played a dirty trick on us dragons. When they trapped us, the giants took our very mana away from us, which in turn took levels away. I'll let you in on another secret. I used to be level 500. The Alpha dragons or the first dragons could all create mana. See, our bodies and our spirits are the very source of this mana. Without it, the mana wouldn't be as strong in this world. I believe this planet stores a lot of our mana somewhere, and I mean to find it and destroy it at its core and restore my race back to its former glory," Amarwrath explained, a deep-seated resolve in his mental voice.

  "Well, that is a lot of information to remember. By the way, who created these giants?" Scott asked.

  "That is still unknown to this day. I believe the system did, but who really knows," Amarwrath said, a rare hint of uncertainty in his tone.

  "Okay, time for some much-needed silence. Time for the hunt," Scott exclaimed, ready to put his thoughts into action. Sneaking into the darkness beyond what the sun could reach, Scott went.