Upon waking, the other Fire Wolves were surprised to see the damaged surroundings so close to their sleeping place. Since Aaron and Alys offered no explanation, they concluded that the environmental damage had been caused by powerful beasts battling each other.

That made them tense. How could they have slept through such danger?! Unwilling to stay there any longer, they only had a brief breakfast of dried fruits before mounting the ligurus and continuing with their journey.

"Hey, Aaron," said Tia just before they entered the Red Forest. "About yesterday... Sorry for doubting you when you said Alys was safe."

He nodded and looked at Logan and Lana, expecting the same from them.

Lana blushed, lowered her head, and whispered a "Sorry." Logan just stared straight ahead, as if Aaron wasn't there.

"I forgive you and Lana," replied Aaron, and also ignored Logan.

Logan was the second person in this world who raised a weapon against Aaron, didn't apologize, and lived to tell the story. The first had been the king when he used the mind-controlling scepter.

'Not that he'll keep living for long,' thought Aaron.

Cultivators found it very difficult to change their personality. The same energy that gave them power and immortality also hardened their convictions. That was of utmost necessity for them to spend countless years focused on cultivating without their hearts wavering.

And yet, Aaron himself had only become merciless after starting cultivating. It had taken the spilled blood of someone dear to him for him to understand that letting an enemy live was tantamount to putting himself and those he cared about at risk. A lesson he never forgot.

That said, a characteristic of Aaron that time and disappointments had not changed was that he always paid his debts, including those of gratitude. Not killing the king after the mind attack had been his repayment for the king having ordered the opening of the portal that had brought him into the world. To Aaron, that had made them even.

After that, the king had ordered the guards to attack Aaron. The consequence was that the king was on Aaron's kill list. Aaron would collect as soon as he was confident that he could do the deed and live to tell the tale.

Logan hadn't attacked, so his death wasn't warranted, but he also hadn't apologized for his threat of violence or his verbal abuse. That was a way of saying he didn't care for Aaron. Aaron's ruthless response would be to also not care about Logan. At all.

From that moment on, Aaron would be completely indifferent to Logan. Even if the Paladin found himself in a life or death situation, Aaron wouldn't move a muscle to help him on his own accord.

It didn't matter whether Logan's negative attitude resulted from pride, lack of emotional control, or misunderstanding. Aaron had no obligation to try to understand the Paladin and his circumstances. Logan was an adult and his words and actions had consequences, whether he had noble motives, such as suspecting a "Rogue," or not.

While thinking about it, Aaron checked his surroundings.

The Red Forest's environment was beautiful. The predominance of the red color, broken by the small plants of green foliage, gave a unique air to the place. The trees were spaced at times and close at others. Small animals and insects were all over the place and Aaron saw several common to Earth, like squirrels, mice, ants, and birds, among others. Another strange coincidence for him to investigate later, just like humans being here.

Anyway, that was a thriving forest, where the cycle of life and death was in perfect balance. The Laws of Life and Death were abundant in the place.

"I spent some time as a Ranger before," Tia told Aaron. "I'll patrol ahead and leave marks when you need to make a detour. I'll come back every hour, so the unit knows nothing bad happened to me."

Aaron understood from the context that Ranger was a class, about which he knew nothing. He must have let confusion appear on his face because Alys explained it even without his prompt.

"Ranger is a support class. They get a bonus level in the speed, stamina, and perception sub-attributes. Their penalty is in the energy attribute, one level taken from all its sub-attributes. Their class skills are related to forests."

"Thanks," replied Aaron. "What about the rest of you? I'm not used to dealing with such illustrious classes in my... line of work," he said, taking advantage of Rogue's disguise so the unit wouldn't find his questioning weird.

Logan intervened. "Why do you want to know about this, Rogue?" he said with poison in his voice. "Wondering about how to best get rid of us?"

Aaron was almost grateful. It was unlikely that an experienced Rogue, as Aaron was pretending to be, wouldn't know the characteristics of other classes. Such knowledge was essential to go unnoticed or avoid danger. However, Logan's words caused the distraction he needed so no one would think about it.

"Oh, the Paladin is scared," he said with a provocative tone, maintaining his character and increasing the distraction. "Looks like someone here doesn't trust their own skills."

Logan snorted. "I can take care of you with my eyes closed!"

Aaron showed a goading smile and told Alys, without taking his eyes off Logan, "It'd be wonderful if you could start by describing Paladins when talking about the classes of the Fire Wolves."

Alys swallowed hard. She looked from Logan to Aaron a few times before speaking in a shaky voice, "Paladins get a bonus level in the strength and stamina sub-attributes, and access to Holy Energy. They lose a level in their mind attribute. Their class skills are related to physical and spiritual protection."

Aaron's smile widened, and he turned to Alys, "His debilitated mind explains a lot."

Logan snorted again, crossed his arms, and looked away.

"Next?" said Aaron.

Alys continued. "Tia is a Markswoman. Bonus in strength, reasoning, and perception; penalty in energy. Her skills are related to long-range weapons such as bows, crossbows, and darts. It is a hard class to unlock, but a powerful one.

"Priests, like Lana, get a bonus level in energy quantity and control, and access to Holy Energy. They pay for it with one level less in the physical attribute. Their class skills are related to healing and spiritual attacks.

"And we Sorcerers get a level to the energy attribute, including access to Arcane Energy, and pay for it with minus one level in the physical attribute. Our class skills are related to energy manipulation," she concluded.

Aaron had heard in the Royal Market that classes normally gave one bonus level to one attribute and took one level from another, but things were clearly a little more fluid than that. Both the Ranger and Markswoman classes got a bonus to three sub-attributes from different attributes. Moreover, access to Holy or Arcane Energy was also considered a bonus level in a sub-attribute.

"Sorcerers sound like the most powerful of the bunch," said Aaron. Arcane Energy was the most malleable and useful of all nine energy types, and a bonus to learning skills related to energy manipulation sounded great.

"It's not as good as it sounds," Alys countered. "We have a hard time learning spiritual and healing skills." She looked at Aaron meaningfully. The technique he had taught her to keep cultivating affected the spirit, but thanks to his superior explanations, she had learned it easily. "It's also almost impossible for us to control Vital or Holy Energy. Several classes receive almost unfair advantages in specific types of energy, or in certain ways to use them, while our energy manipulation skills, while it touches multiple energies, are not so great. All classes are relatively balanced and needed for the advancement of society."

"Got it," he replied. He disagreed with Alys but saw no reason to argue the point. Instead, he widened his smile even more and said out loud, "How about talking about Rogues too, so we can be sure everyone here knows everything about everyone, and that no one claims unfair advantages in a theoretical future battle, which obviously just could not happen under any circumstances?"

Logan let out an irritated growl, but did nothing but tighten his grip on his sword. Since he had accused Aaron of attacking his own unit in the episode with Alys, he now had his hands tied. If he struck Aaron, even if provoked verbally, it would prove him a hypocrite.

Alys was even more uncomfortable with the situation, but in the end, she did as told.

"Rogues get a bonus level in speed, reasoning, and perception, but a penalty in the energy attribute. Their skills are related to traps, opening locks, stealth, and a bit of poisoning."

"I hope everyone heard that," he said out loud again, then lowered his voice. "Thank you," he told Alys.

Those classes followed the stereotype of most games on Earth, which was great. He even expected it to a point, since those names had been chosen for a reason. The next time he heard the name of a class, he could make some assumptions about it without being too far off.

The rest of the day went by with no major hurdles, with Logan observing the marks left by Tia on the trees and guiding the group. Aaron quickly learned to identify what the marks meant. They had symbols for danger, silence, change direction, and so on.

He also observed the territorial marks of various animals, beasts, and carnifexes in the forest.

Animals were beings like those on Earth, beasts were animals at the level of One Star or higher who could use any energy to some extent, and carnifexes were beasts with cruel characteristics. They attacked not only for food or territory, but also because they took pleasure in the suffering of others.

Although there were different species in this universe when compared to his home universe, there were patterns common to the vast majority of living beings, even sapient ones like humans. So, it wasn't difficult for Aaron to determine the type of animal, beast, or carnifex that lived around, nor their relative strength.

Once, for instance, despite Aaron's soothing aura, the ligurus stirred when they approached a territory with a strong smell of urine. Then, they almost refused to leave that territory to enter another one full of bird droppings.

The manure and scratches on the plants in the first territory were of a medium-sized beast. The location of the tree scratches indicated terrestrial beasts that could easily climb trees. Together with the potent smell of urine and the footprints that Aaron saw, the possibility of being felines was high.

Moreover, the territory was larger than the second one. That, together with the abundant waste and the scratches in almost all trees, indicated felines with a high capacity for reproduction and movement.

In the second, much smaller territory, the bird droppings and the high height of the scratches on the trees made it obvious birds lived there. The existence of some animal carcasses on the tops of the trees showed they were birds of prey.

The smaller size of the territory suggested the birds were weaker than felines. And yet, the ligurus had shown more fear towards the birds. Therefore, the most obvious conclusions were that either the ligurus were common prey for those birds and their fear was instinctive, or the birds were carnifexes.

Another factor that Aaron took into account in his analysis was the energy concentration in the territories.

The feline territory had a higher Qi concentration than usual. Since Qi couldn't be used outside the body, the beasts were likely strong close-range fighters. The Laws of Fire and Earth were also more abundant there, which indicated explosive power and great physical endurance.

The birds' territory had a large amount of Elemental Energy and Wind Laws. The birds were probably agile, and it would not be surprising if they used Elemental Energy for long-ranged attacks.

Since Aaron could observe all this, he didn't always agree with Tia's decisions. Twice she made the group take a more dangerous path than he thought necessary, but he followed in silence. This was a different dimension. Although unlikely, he might be wrong for a lack of information.

When night fell, they set up camp in a clearing, and Aaron finally got another chance to speak to Alys in an isolated sound environment.

"Can Your Excellency control nature?" she asked right after erecting the sound barrier around them.

Aaron raised an eyebrow. "Your Excellency?"

"All the knowledge Your Excellency shared with me... The way I became a Four Star Sorceress just by listening to Your Excellency's teachings for a few hours... The Qi technique that affects even the spirit... Your Excellency is certainly a supreme being that, in my ignorance, I was unable to recognize before."

Aaron smiled. "You're right and wrong at the same time. I was a supreme being before I came to this world, but now I am just a Two Star Qi Manipulator with the experiences and knowledge of a supreme being." He put his hand on his chin in a thinking position. "Perhaps now I am a half-supreme being? Almost supreme? Just a little bit supreme?"

Alys did not respond to his half-assed joke, and he crossed his arms. "It's good that you have eyes to recognize my value, but do not let the others notice it. The kind of knowledge I have attracts all kinds of greed-"

"I swear by the gods!" she shouted, interrupting him.

‎

‎

[Holy Vow made!]

Alys Tyren promised not to reveal anything about your superior knowledge without your permission.

If she breaks her promise, Holy Judgment will befall her.

‎

‎

"Girl, stop it!" exclaimed Aaron, slightly irritated. "If I wanted a Holy Vow of yours, I'd ask it from you! Trust is much more important than anything! Trust! If you are not trustworthy, you'll try to circumvent any ability, Heavenly or not. I doubt that Holy Vows are absolute."

She paled and bowed. "I'm sorry, master!"

Aaron sighed. Talking to her was tiring. He missed the rigid hierarchical culture of the cultivators from his home universe, where everyone knew their place and how to act towards the strong.

"I've not reached level seven, so I'm not a Master Qi Manipulator, nor am I personally your master. I'm a half-teacher at best."

For him, being a master was much more than what he had done for her. It was doing his best for the disciple's development, actively seeking their wellbeing, taking their pains for himself. He had done neither for her nor was he interested in starting.

He changed the subject. "As for what you asked about me controlling nature, no, I can't do it. What you saw was nothing more than a natural phenomenon caused by the harmonization of my movements with the secrets of the universe. In this world, with Qi alone, even I can't control something outside my body."

"Pardon my ignorance," she bowed.

He sighed. "First fear, then shame, and now submission. You're a person controlled by your emotions and they are excessively fluid... Abandoning Arcane Energy as your third energy and training in Psychic Energy up to the Three Star level would do you much good, both as a cultivator and as a person."

"I'll obey your orders, master! As soon as I get a book containing Psychic cultivation techniques, I'll abandon Arcane Energy!"

Alys wasn't stupid. Even if he refused to recognize her as a disciple, calling him a master and submitting to him completely was the only thing she could do in exchange for what he had done for her. She would keep doing so even when it went against the Fire Wolves, as in the episode with Logan. Besides, pleasing him could bring other benefits to herself.

Aaron shook his head, too tired to contradict her.

"Tell me about this," he said, concentrating on the red leaves inside his spatial ring. They instantly appeared in his hands.

Alys looked carefully before frowning. "Red leaves? From the lared trees around us?"

So they were called lared trees. "Yes. What are the alchemical characteristics of these leaves?"

"I'm not an expert in alchemy, but... I think none? I've never heard of anyone selling lared leaves before."

"Sleep medicine and sketch ink for formations; how are these things created in this realm?"

"As I said, I'm not an alchemist, so I'm not sure. I vaguely remember hearing that sleeping potions use fulcrum powder, taken from a docile One Star beast. What is a sketch ink?"

Aaron was surprised by the second part of her answer. "Don't you use sketch ink when someone starts learning how to set up formations? How do you minimize casualties when the formation is activated with a faulty pattern? It's common for formations to explode when that happens and it is not uncommon for it to be fatal."

"I'm not sure. You'd have to ask a Patterner."

By context and by name, Patterner should be the class with skills and advantages related to magical formations.

"So the formation on the floor of the summoning room...?"

"Long ago, a powerful Patterner from outside the empire came and inscribed it. Even the Imperial Celestial Patterner can't create something like it. It's beyond the empire's capabilities."

Aaron was astonished. The technological level of that kingdom and even that empire was ridiculously low!

Then he smiled.

That gave him an idea.