A year had passed and I am now eight years of age. Last year, I started my training in swordsmanship and magic with my elder sister, Louise. With my training in swordsmanship and magic, I also improved my overall strength and practiced my magic.
I continued pretending to compose music and submit it to teacher via Mary to popularize it. I used my real name as the composer instead of a pseudonym. Teacher said it was fine because they cannot hired a heir of a foreign territory to work for themselves.
The pieces that I composed were Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel for both piano and string quartet, and Bach’s Prelude in C. I postponed the emo song because there was a forbidden Dark Magic spell called Black Parade.
Even though we are still at Level 1, we already had the strength to lift a weight twice of our own. In my previous world, it is almost impossible to do these kind of things with our age.
Between the two worlds, there were a thing or two that made it possible. The essence of magic, mana, skills, techniques and more. With these, you can defy the laws of science and made impossible possible.
Right now, in the middle of Gemini, me, my sister, and our parents were in front of the forest outside the city walls. We are currently at the entrance of the world’s most largest and most dangerous forest, The Great Forest of Darkness.
The forest was named The Great Forest of Darkness for several reason. One is that it was getting darker when you go further due to the shades of the absurdly large trees.
The deeper you dive, the thicker the vegetation of flora will manifested. Even if you cut down the trees to create a pathway, the soil in the forest were so rich and fertile that it only takes a few years to a tree to become a hundred meters high.
The fertility of the soil increases the nourishment of the plants it grows. The monsters who eat those plants becomes stronger and more powerful. The monsters who predates those strengthened monsters also becomes stronger.
Other reason was due to the black thick miasma that surrounds the center of the forest. The mana released by the powerful monsters in the forest condenses and form a miasma.
That is the reason why these was almost no information about the forest. The thick concentration of miasma intercepted the transmission of information from the espionage related skills or magic.
Reconnaissance skills like Hawk Eyes was not effective to investigate the forest from distance. Using this skill in the forest depths intercept your vision like a television losing its reception or a phone with no signal. Telepathy also not effective. The transmission of messages will be interrupted by the contaminated mana in the air. But first, you’ll need to go inside the forest beforehand. But you can go further and deeper due to the powerful creatures you encounter.
Flight Magic is not advisable to survey the forest. The miasma in the forest made the flight magic unstable because flight magic uses mana. There are also flying monsters that will hunt you like griffon if they spotted you flying carelessly.
Teleportation Magic is, like the Flight Magic, also unstable in the forest. The thick concentration of mana intercept your destination.
It made the user unable to transfer or randomly change the coordinates of the destination. Being teleported at the lion’s den was the worst case scenario.
Clairvoyance was effective but also insufficient because the area covered by the skill was limited to the user’s mana. Even the mana reserve of mom, who was a Sage,was not enough to reach the center of the forest by Clairvoyance.
My God’s eye abilities were also effective to survey the forest. My Telescopic Eye can survey the forest clearly amidst the thick miasma.
Right now, I can only survey more or less a kilometer of distance. I also need to elevate myself above the forest because the gigantic tress were obstructing my vision.
The other reason why it is called The Great Forest of Darkness was because of the speculated apex predator dominating the entire forest. A type of legendary creator that can be often hear in fairytale, a Dragon.
Dragons are creatures that had four limbs, majestic pair/s of wings and tough scales. They had massive body and superior amount of mana.
But the dragon in this forest was not just a normal dragon. The dragon in the forest was a superior specie of the dragon race, An Ancient Dragon.
This type of dragon had a massive size of at least 50 meters in length. Larger than my previous world’s largest creature, the Blue Whale, that can grew up to 30 meters in length.
The older the dragon, the more experience they gained. The more experience gained, the more stronger and powerful the dragons are. Their size also increase as they grew older.
Due to its enormous size and monstrous strength, even the whole kingdom’s army cannot slew or even captivate it. That’s why the country’s did their very best not to provoke an Ancient Dragon or even the Archdragons, which was a rank lower than the Ancient Dragon.
An Ancient Dragon had the power to destroy multiple countries in one night. Its breath can annihilate an entire city in one blow. Its think concentration of mana can instantly kill any low levelled creatures and intimate creatures that are weaker than it.
The only saving grace is that Ancient Dragons are intellectual beings. They can understand human language and have a conversation with them.
There were only seven Ancient Dragons in the whole world. Each of them represents the seven attributes of elemental magic. There were three living in this continent. One of those was living in this forest.
The Ancient Dragon that was living in the Great Forest of Darkness was the ancestor of all dark type dragons, the Darkness Ancient Dragon. As the name implies, this dragon was the sovereign of all dark attributed dragons.
No one had ever seen the dragon and it’s appearance. It is because no one had reached the heart of the forest where the Darkness Ancient Dragon lives. It is known to be living in the forest because the another Ancient Dragon said so.
Some Ancient Dragons had been living with humans in peace. One example was the Lightness Ancient Dragon of the Primaria Theocracy. It is said to be resting at the tallest mountain in the continent inside the domain of the the theocracy purifying the land.
The another Ancient Dragon in the continent was the Earth Ancient Dragon. According to the Lightness Ancient Dragon, it is still slumbering at the Dragons’ Valley west of the Dwarf Kingdom.
If you want to see the Darkness Ancient Dragon, you must have to deal with the monsters in the forest first. The dragon was located at the center, so the monsters around the area must be powerful enough to withstand the dragon’s deadly aura.
The monsters in the forest were more powerful than the other areas. Because of this, the raw materials and resources from the forest were in top quality. .𝙘𝙤𝙢
The medical herbs were more effective due to the forest’ rich soil. The materials and meat from the monsters were in high quality and quantity.
Other materials like lumber were also had high quality and toughness. These woods were in high demand especially in nobility and royalty.
The thick concentration of mana does not always had bad results. The mana also absorbed by the magic crystals dropped by dead monsters and become another materials.
If the magic crystal absorbed enough mana, it will transform to a data crystal, a magic stone or even a dungeon core.
Some metal ores in the caves also absorb mana from the air. In rare cases, some silver and gold ores strengthen their toughness by absorbing mana and evolve into Mithrill and Orichalcum respectively.
We are in the entrance of the forest right now to level up our levels and to gain combat experience. Our parents only supports us and only come to aid if things goes wrong.
The area we will explore today was only the shallow parts of the forest. Weak monsters like slimes and goblins were lurking in the area. Sometimes, stronger monsters come to the entrance only to be subdued by nearby adventurers and sell their materials.
With our parents at our side, we can go all-out and slay whatever weaker monsters we encourage without worrying us surroundings. Mothers also give us advice and tips while we train.
Mom were the one that will guide and support me while mother for my sister. I became more proficient with magic that my sister. On the contrary, sister is more skillful I swordsmanship than mine.
For my arsenal, I have the shortsword that my parents got from a 30-floor dungeon, also same for my sister.. It was a Unique grade weapon made out of mithrill for better magic output.
We equipped with a customized light armour crafted from a hide of a B-ranked monster called Tyrant Lizard. It was lightweight and durable enough to withstand a Level 3 Sword technique of an iron sword.
My sister had a magic bag hanging on her slender waist while me had none. It is also a Unique grade item looted from a 40-floor dungeon.
It had a space that can hold 27 cubic meters of materials in volume. The flow of time inside the bag was reduced by half so it can prevent the spoilage of materials in a short period of time.
There’s no need for me to bring a magic bag because I have the extra skill Inventory. It can hold materials without limitation and adjust its temperature and time flow.
When I showed this skill to my parents, they widened their eyes as if seeing something unusual. And yelled in disbelief when I said it was an extra skill called Inventory.
Inventory has unlimited volume capacity unlike mom’s Level 6 Space Magic: Item Box. Item Box had no flow of time and the capacity were proportional to the user’s total mana reserve.
One mana is equal to one cubic meter capacity in volume. So mom’s Item Box has more than ten thousand cubic meters capacity but it is almost full of monsters’ carcasses like dragons.
“Looks like the preparations are ready. Are yourselves also ready?”
“”Yes, mother.””
We replied in unison to the question of mother. Mother was in her purple armor and equipped her Legendary grade weapon Demonic Sword of Mammon.
Her armor was at Relic grade and made of Lavandine, an inferior material of her sword. The armor was consists of a chestplate that covered her upper body, a pair of gauntlet, a mantle, and a pair of boots. The armor set was durable and had a auto-fitting function.
Her inner garments are also at high quality. The garments were all in white color and made from the silk thread of a monster. The monster was an A-ranked arachnid monster called Queen Evil Tarantula. The silk was durable and had high resistance to magic.
“Alright, then let’s proceed to our designated areas. Let’s go, Raphael.”
“I understand, mom. See you later, mother and sister.”
“Yeah, see you later.”
“Let’s see who’ll level up higher, little brother of mine.”
I waved my arm as we walked to our designated area. My sister challenged me if who will levelled up the most. Too bad, my older sister of mine, but I was blessed by the Goddess to have a body that gained experience faster.
With my mom, I dove the world’s dangerous forest, The Great Forest of Darkness, and began my first monster kill and combat experience in the another world.