“I’m surprised there is such a thriving forest so close to the Ashbourne Mountains.” Kai trekked across the fallen leaves and grass with the group, heading deeper into the unknown forest.

“There is no reason why this forest wouldn’t be thriving,” Hector answered.

“Even though it’s so cloudy near the Mountains? I doubt this forest sees much sunlight.”

“Shouldn’t you know this already? The environment has adapted with magic to live and “thrive” under conditions with limited sun. The tree themselves are a special variant that doesn’t require much water or light. They are actually one of the main exports besides ashstone.”

“Shouldn’t we discuss what everyone’s class and magic element are so we can work on a strategy?” Asked a short, freckled girl looking around for confirmation.

Her friend walking next to her also nodded.

“Why? What can you even do? Your only level 14,” Jason sneered. “You’ll be more a liability than helpful out there. Just stay in the back and out of my way.”

What a classic asshole in the making. He’s not entirely wrong though. Call him callous, but he had no inclination of sharing experience with other students except perhaps Hector.

With Jason setting the tone of how the groups would work, people began splitting into smaller groups, the freckled girl joining two others near her level. Jason and his two goons were obviously a party.

Seeing as how both Kai and Hector had not yet picked a group, the friend of the freckled girl approached them.

“Would you guys like to join our group?” He asked.

[Human – Foundation Level 21]

“Sorry, not interested right now,” Kai turned him down.

Undeterred the students gazed turned to Hector.

“Same.”

Looking a little crestfallen, the student turned away, before shaking his head no. The others seeing it looked a little dejected too.

Hector stood at his side, seemingly unbothered. He was at the highest level of all the students present.

Right now, the others were a liability to Kai. Without knowing what they would be facing in the forest, he didn’t want to commit to anything with the less experienced students. Since this was their first trip, he didn’t think there would be anything too outrageous that required a ten-person team to survive. Most of the students were somewhat new to fighting monsters and using magic. He hoped the instructors planned accordingly.

“Hector, how about we team up together until we see what we are working with?” Kai whispered to Hector.

“Sounds good, you will be the frontlines and I’ll shoot them from the back. Won’t take much to coordinate,” Hector replied.

Kai nodded. “You’re a fire mage, right?”

“Yep.”

“Just try not to set me on fire. It doesn’t feel good,” Kai said recalling the day he died. Although fire magic had been only one of his worries, he did end up getting burned during the fight. Fire magic was actually the first magic to ambush him in his house when he was with his parents.

Hector seemed concerned at his last statement but dismissed it, seeing Kai lost in thought.

“Everyone, take caution, the monsters in this area range between the foundation realm and the adept realm. The stronger monsters live deeper in the forest, closer to the mountainside, but that isn’t always the case. They do tend to wander,” the instructor informed everyone.

Kai crept behind the instructor, his hand resting on his sword’s handle, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by the man in front of him. Kai had no qualms about using the instructor as a shield until he figured out what he was fighting. The man could take care of himself after all.

Feeling uneasy about not having a perception or detection power, Kai strained his ears and eyes to find monsters. So far, they had seen nothing during the past five-minute walk. But there was plenty of ambient noise around them. But with all the trees, the sound was bouncing all around making it impossible to determine the locations.

Everyone except Hector already had their weapons out. To immediate Kai’s right, Hector appeared unbothered. His eyes swept back and forth through the forest but walked relaxed with his hand grabbing his wrist behind his back in a very sagely pose.

Surprisingly, Jason looked on edge, his ornate sword was out in his hand. He kept flinching every time there was a sound.

Somewhere in the distance battle had already begun, small explosions and sounds of fighting echoing through the trees.

“Sir, what kind of monsters are we going to fight?” One of the students asked.

“You will see soon enough, we are approaching a few now.”

Within seconds, two beings came into sight.

[Great Deer – Foundation Level 90]

[Great Deer – Foundation Level 86]

The deer looked docile enough, grazing on grass as the group approached the clearing. Their large bodies were covered with reddish-brown fur. Despite the deer standing on all four legs, their backs were taller than Kai’s head.

Kai noticed the instructor had stopped walking, while Jason’s group continued forward. A moment of consideration flashed between some of the members before Jason held his hand out. Two blades of air ripped through the calm atmosphere, traveling quickly until one impacted one closest deer’s side, the other going wide. Blood gathered at the wound of the shallow cut. With a bleat of pain and fear, both deer took off into the thickets, vanishing from sight immediately.

Everyone stared after the vanishing deer in silence, only the laughing of the instructor could be heard.

“What the hell was that?” Kai couldn’t help but ask. Jason had scared away the beasts before they could even get in position.

“What?” Jason gave everyone a seething look. “I’m not going to wait for you lot to fuck it up.”

“No, you did that yourself dumbass,” Kai unconsciously retorted.

There were a few gasps that could be heard among the students.

Feeling the usual glare trained on him, Kai shifted to face Jason so he could look right back at him. “Would you stop glaring at me all the damn time? It’s getting annoying. I’m going to start getting the wrong ideas if you keep staring at me like that.” He was fed up with Jason and his arrogant spoiled nature. The guy already hated him. All he had to do was survive one year at the academy and win the tournament and he would never have to see the pompous asshole ever again.

True to his nature, Jason gave Kai a death glare of all death glares. The man was nothing but unoriginal. Thinking on it a little more, he had probably made a mortal enemy when he accepted the boots. Not the smartest thing to do, but it was too late to take back his impulsive actions and comments.

“If you children are done playing around, we have more monsters 40 meters out to your left,” the instructor informed.

He could hear the sound of a strange barking amongst the trees, the foliage masking the origin of the sound. It was infrequent enough that it took a few seconds to locate the source. Hiding among the leaves was a green lizard no bigger than his forearm. Every time the lizard opened its mouth, a sound akin to a dog would bark out. As if answering the call, multiple barks responded all around Kai, all hidden away.

Tiny bright red eyes flickered onto the unwelcome intruders, another bark echoing out in the unknown of the forest, many barks echoing its call.

[Barking Lizard – Foundation Level 41]

Kai was beginning to feel strange. He was beginning to have mild ringing in his ears. Hector and some of the others had even covered their ears. Every bark seemed to be infused with magic, attacking anyone in the vicinity to hear it.

The barking began harmonizing, one by one, the lizards would bark at the same moment, their magical barks turning louder. With every bark pulse of sound reverberated outwards, hitting those nearby. Kai’s ears were beginning to ring softly. More and more lizards started joining the chorus, all harmonizing their magic in waves.

“Bark... Bark... Bark...”

“Kai, go now,” pleaded Hector, his voice muffled through the ringing in Kai’s ears. The noticeable sound of pain was evident in his voice. His eyes were closed as he grimaced in distress with his hands on his ears as he tried to block out the sound magic.

Kai sprinted to the tree where the lizard he had identified had attached itself. Seeing the incoming predator, it tried crawling away up the tree only for Kai’s blade to flash down, slicing through its back leg. The shocked lizard fell to the ground, thrashing and rolling around. Kai tugged at the handle, but his sword had managed to become stuck firmly in the tree. A small flash of orange light flared over the lizard, causing it to bark in agony for a second before it ceased its sound.

Your group has slain [Barking Lizard – Foundation Level 41]

‘Vanguard has reached Foundation Level 29’

One level.

With the lizard dead, Kai placed his foot against the tree, and pushed against it, while pulling at his sword. The sword slowly inched out until it popped free.

“You good?” Questioned Hector, having watched Kai struggle to pull his sword out of the tree. His hands were already back on his ears covering them. He still looked in pain, just less so than before.

“Yea, let’s get more before they are all gone.” Already several groups were fanning out searching for the source of the noise.

The lower leveled students seemed to be in the most distress. It was also funny seeing students try to fight the lizards. They would have their ears covered until the moment they attacked, then immediately go back to covering them.

All kinds of magic and yells flared up around the area. After a few minutes, the barking ceased entirely. Kai had slain three by himself, and an additional two with Hector’s help. The more Barking Lizards that died, the lessen the effects their magic had on the people around making it easier to fight as time went on for the others. The creature’s defenses were pitiful, a single sword swipe without magic was enough to slay them.

‘Vanguard has reached Foundation Level 32’

Checking his health and mana; Kai noticed both were doing well. His health hadn’t dropped much, only a few points. His mana was a little lower after using heavy blow a few times. The fight hadn’t lasted too long, making him unable to use his abilities much. There was also the fact he couldn’t use his domain with so many others present. He did try a gravity pillar on one of the lizards, but it didn’t really seem to do much probably because the lizard was so small and light.

Grabbing a large leaf, Kai tried to clean his sword of lizard blood. It wasn’t doing much good besides spreading the blood further down the blade. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Kai turned around seeing it was Hector. Fresh crimson blood was dripping down from his ears.

“You’re bleeding from your ears.” Kai pointed out the obvious.

Hector put his hand on his ear, taking it away he saw fresh blood. Pulling a thin vial of red liquid from his pocket, he knocked it back. Blinking a few times, “Are you good?” You were closer to those lizards than I was.”

Confused, Kai checked his ears, but there was no blood coming from them. He looked around his body and saw nothing out of the ordinary. “I’m good, I only lost a few health points.”

“How is that possible? You were closer to them and I’m almost 50 levels above you,” he observed Kai with curiosity.

“Maybe you should invest more into vitality,” Kai half-joked.

It was very unlikely that his vitality was higher than Hector’s. So why was I less affected by the sound magic than he? I can’t exactly ask him about his stats or abilities. One of the rudest things you could do was ask someone about their personal stats and abilities. It was tantamount to a massive offense, asking someone for their most personal secrets. Such things could only be shared with your most trusted friends or family.

He didn’t have any defensive abilities yet, so that ruled out that option. The only possibility was under his general skills. His physical and magical resistance was at 4. Meaning he would receive a passive increase of 40% to his natural defenses and abilities once he receives a defensive ability. His blood champion class had not given any additional resistance, unlike his vanguard class. It was a bit new to him being a little more robust. Although he lacked the healing blood magic had given him.

Around Kai, multiple people had blood coming from their ears as well. Most of the others looked worse off than Hector, their shoulders stained from the blood as it fell onto their clothing and armor. The girl with freckles who had spoken up earlier was on the ground, unconscious. One of her teammates was pouring a vial into her mouth.

Jason looked unruffled, no blood or injuries could be seen, though one of his eyes was squinting so maybe he wasn’t as unaffected as he looked. Huffing, he walked to the instructor, ignoring the unconscious girl on the floor, not even sparing her a glance.

With the four gained levels, Kai now had 20 unspent stat attributes. What to do... What to do... His dexterity was his lowest stat which could possibly be a problem if he encountered agile or fast enemies. There was no guarantee he could slow or stop the enemy with his gravity magic alone. Right now, it didn’t seem strong enough to do so for most monsters. As it stands all attributes are useful for me for now. So, no min-maxing like my past life’s mother taught me. What I need to do is figure out which stats are the most important for my class and build. I am a warrior, but I also have mage-like abilities. He sighed, Mom, I wish you were still alive to help me figure this crap out.

I guess I can do an even spread until I figure out more. But I have a feeling vitality and strength will be critical for me in the future. Fighting under increased gravity will make me weigh more, making it more difficult to move. I’ll need a body made of steel to succeed under such hellish conditions and fight. But I can’t neglect my intelligence, or my gravity won’t do enough to hinder whoever I am fighting.

Allocating his stats, Kai felt satisfied for now. He ended up putting 10 into dexterity, bringing his lowest attribute to 30. And put 5 each into endurance and wisdom. For a split second, he felt magic flow through him before it vanished as if it hadn’t existed.

“Students let’s proceed to the next area. Only five hours are left,” the instructor called out, beckoning the students over.

Everyone was on their feet within moments, even the formerly unconscious freckled girl. Although she was a little wobbly, requiring assistance to stand and walk. One of her teammates turned out to be a healer and was giving her extra attention. Panting lightly, sweat dripped from the brow of the healer. He looked exhausted already. Kai knew healing took a massive amount of mana, making it so the low leveled guy was probably out of mana already even after healing minor injuries.

“Four levels, not bad,” Hector commented to Kai.

Kai noticed that Hector had not gained any levels, not that he expected him to. The monsters were at a much lower level than him and hardly proved a challenge to kill.

“Let’s get going before the others get there first.”