Chapter 9 - An Encounter In The Forest

Note: Due to being reincarnated as human, he has developed some humane emotions.

It has been almost 5 to 6 months i guess before, i posted this chapter. My reason was that i went abroad and my GCSE exams screwed me over.

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Snowflakes gently caressed Lucifer’s cheeks, waking him from his sleep. The air was heavy, chilled and a raging blizzard was spewing snow onto everything in sight; everything felt so dead, the sky a dark grey. Occasionally, you would see flashes of light in the clouds.

A storm was brewing up. Lying under the blanket of snow, he slowly returned from his dazed senses, brushing the reddish snow from atop his body, he noticed his sweater was torn to shreds while also soaked in dry blood. Tearing it off he shoved it to his sides, it seems his internal organs were completely destroyed after Tetra had overloaded mana in his body.

*Ding*

100 points awarded to all stats

His body had quickly repaired while he was asleep with the combined prowess of Metasis and hyper regeneration. A flood of memories invaded him soon after, the conversation he had with Tetra, reminiscing his weakness, he curled up his fists, but he knew Tetra was right.

“I am very weak, I just rely too much on mana and let my emotions sure” he muttered in a meek tone.

Lucifer understood that he relied too much on his never ending supply of mana and not on physical improvement, it would mean death, in the future if he didn`t correct this mistake. His life till now was only saved by his, Regeneration and Metasis and without them he would have been dead long back. His body was strong but he didn`t know how to use it efficiently, most of his movements were a waste of stamina.

He slowly looked around; scanning his surroundings, snow coated trees encircled him, mountains arose behind, piercing the sky and large craters filled with chunks of snow were piled up in front of him. He reached for his bag pack, but it was not there, it was destroyed during the devastation.

“How will return home now, if I can`t contact Aunt Hilda?” he muttered

He was half naked, had no way back home and no food supplies.

He threw himself onto the snow, facing the dark cloudy sky, the serene state was appeasing to him, everything thing seemed to filter out of him, leaving him empty yet peaceful.

The clouds started flashing, followed by thunder; it started raining heavily, raindrops mixed with falling hail.

The trickles of condensed rain water splashed continuously on his face, gliding steadily down, he waited for about an hour, for Aunt Hilda, lying patiently onto the snow. Most people would have died within 21 minutes, if they lay bare naked on top of snow during an icy gale. He was intentionally regulating his body temperature with Pyrokinesis.

A roar sounded from nearby, following the direction of the echo. He tilted his head to face the forest, in it he saw a bear with light golden fur, and it stared at him for some time before fading back into the darkness of the forest. The bear had caught his interest. Thinking to himself that Aunt Hilda was not coming any time soon, he dashed towards the forest.

Standing in front of the forest, it gave off an eerie feeling, he pondered whether it was safe to go inside; he then suppressed his blood thirst to avoid drawing the attention of any dangerous life forms, slowly venturing towards the heart of the forest.

Due to his perception being active constantly, he noticed several life forms nearby; worms, a bunch of ant eaters, rabbits and wolves. He continued his brisk walking pace.

All of a sudden he felt that someone’s gaze was focused at his back. However nothing showed up, when he used perception, but his gut kept on urging someone was there, you would call it survival instincts. He turned around, peaking at the branches of the trees.

Noticing there was no one present on the trees, his caution rose. It just meant the adversary was extremely good at hiding his presence. He was worried, if it sliced of his neck, he would die instantly as hyper regeneration couldn`t repair parts not connected to his brain stem.

Instantly, Flames erupted from his body surrounding him; he slowly compressed them into a thin layer, which coated his body. As a result, his defense rose, his layered flame armor, which was transparent, could stop the slash of a sharp bastard sword.

Suddenly, a black tendril swiftly shot out from the nearby bushes, followed by many more directed to every part of his body. They instantly hit him from all sides; two went for his eye sockets. Reacting quickly, he raised up his hands to his face. The force caused by the impact pushed him to rebound backwards, falling on his back.

He gasped out the air in his lungs, he nearly faced death, if he was a breath too late at that moment he would have been dead by now. The layered flame armor was the most important aspect without it protection the tendrils would have easily impaled his hands.

He covered his head and neck with twice the layered flames, the tendrils continued their assault as he lay on the ground. Though, not penetrating his layered armor, the pressure invoked on his body caused some of his internal organs to rupture, as they were very weak. However, Metasis and hyper regeneration constantly worked together to mend and strengthen them.

During the constant one-sided assault by the tendrils, he gained insight on how to overcome this ordeal; his years of torture and some change within him helped create this new skill.

Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:Ataraxia--Effects:

Suppresses all emotions other than calm

All brain processes are in overdrive

All signs of panic and any other emotion dissipated, endowing a state of enlightenment, with his mind in overdrive and with the combination of his photographic memory he reached an unbelievable mental state, how to dodge, where to apply the right amount of pressure and various other things where mapped into his mind.

Leaping of his back, he dodged under the incoming tendrils, sidestepping each of them with the least amount of movements. Due to the heightened brain processing speed, he quickly came up with a plan to completely halt the barrage of tendrils. Activating Elemental Annex, he changed the attribute of his flames to ice.

*Ding*

Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:CyrokinesisBeginner336.7%Effects:

Able to shape and manipulate ice at will [200 MP/s]

Brandishing an ice version of the blaze sword, he deftly dodged the tendrils while striking them. The moment his sword got in contact with them, the tendrils froze, it had stopped their attack, he quickly repeated it with rest of the tendrils and with a final swipe of his sword he splintered the frozen tendrils.

He waited warily for any incoming attacks, after a few moments, he dashed towards the spot where the attack originated from.

There stood the light-Golden bear, it was the same size as Lucifer, and it had big black eyes, which gave it a sense of adorableness.

Lucifer quickly browsed through the series of books stored in his mind, he had his own mind palace where everything he read could be stored, going through the books which only contained animals, soon he came upon the same looking picture as the bear in front of him.

However, the picture had a fur shade of brown instead of gold, and the bears were called ‘Murk Bears’; he came upon the decision that it was a variant of its kind. He also found out they were rare and were especially used to find ingredients for alchemy. He also learned how to contract them as his personal pet as he read further down below after doing so; he went out of his mind palace.

Slitting his wrist with mana, blood flowed out from it, falling to the muddy forest floor. Bringing forth his wrist in front of the bear he urged it to feed. The bear slowly moved towards him, and after a few moments it licked the blood of his hands. It paws started glowing, the bear slowly, stood up with its two hind legs and looked at it paws. A pattern was inscribed on them.

*Ding*

Your pet has gained the ability to communicate

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As always please comment your thoughts and thank you for reading.