We start to make some team battle strategies while we run deeper into the forest. It’s after all important that we choose our prey carefully and that we also, while battling, don’t hinder each other.

“Almost all of us have fire based affinities with the exclusion of me, I can’t resonate with the mana in the air since my soul shard is fused with my body. I’m a pure physical fighter, which means I will play the role as tank and try to impede the enemies from reaching our long range casters. I use two two-handed swords because my strength is very high. I have also have a personalized strength augmentation skill that I can stack two times making me effectively the strongest of our group. I tested it out with the princess back at our school and we came to the conclusion that I’m 2 times stronger than the princess. Even if we both use our full physical abilities with augmentation spells.”, I say to them.

“What you are stronger than Amina if she goes in fusion mode and uses dragonic strength and height?”, exclaims Lothea in wonder.

“yes, that is because I have perfect magic pathways. it’s however impossible for normal people to have these perfect pathways, even after a correction surgery. These perfect pathways allow me to do perfect augmentation spell infusions, this increases the effectiveness of my spell by a 100 times. It seems that the boundary between perfection and almost perfection is something normal physical beings can’t cross. I don’t know why I was able to cross it, even if I made them artificially, tiny errors should still have occurred. The only explanation I have for this, is that a mythril slime has the highest affinity with magic of all soul beasts out there. This might have influenced and corrected the tiny errors the machine has made. But it’s all still a theory though.”, I say with some pride in my voice. For once actually feeling happy at having a slime as soul shard.

“I will also fight as a tank.”, Says the princess suddenly interrupting my reverie.

“I will go as a caster, my phoenix abilities will also be useful for healing you guys.”, says Lothea with rising excitement in her voice. It seems that she is really looking forward to fight soul beasts.

“I will be a melee damage dealer. I can tank a lot of damage but my agility and overall set of abilities are more focused on burst damage in close range combat, so I will focus on that.”, says Melia with a smile.

“Ugh”, groans the crown prince, still feeling the pain of getting dragged over the ground for a few miles.

“I will be a caster too. My armor is only good for protecting my life because it makes me too slow for melee combat. My sunbeams will also work well for picking of targets from long distances.”

It seems that a part of the fear the prince felt for Lothea has disappeared when she promised him that she wouldn’t, probably, burn him alive. He can now walk with us without fainting.

“so we got two tanks, one support and ranged damage dealer hybrid, one pure ranged damage dealer and one close range damage dealer. We seem to be a fairly balanced team, even though we basically all have the same element.”

“hmm, I suggest we go south. There are less lakes, rivers and soul beasts with water affinity over there. The further we go south, the more plant based and insect life forms, which are weak to fire based magic, we will encounter. This is largely influenced by the proximity of the world tree of the elves. Who knows, we might see the world tree if we arrive at the black mountain range.”, I say to everyone while slowing down.

“From now on though, we should go at a steady but slowerpace. From here on out we can encounter rank 2 and rank 3 soul beast or other minority species of a similar rank. While not all of them will be hostile, we should still be careful.”, I caution everyone while looking ahead through the many trees.

I also now have the time to appreciate the beauty of the forest, since we are going at a slower pace. Trees tower above us. Some of which stand up to 400 feet tall. Vines dangle down from the treetops. Different flowers, plants, mosses and glowing mushrooms take residence at the bottom of this forest. I can see small and non-magical insects crawl over the forest floor. I can see small and colorful birds fly from tree to tree. Green glowing spots, also known as spirits of the forest, can be seen floating around the larger trees. The floor we walk on is littered with greenery and branches that have broken off the trees.

‘This is a truly magical place’, I think while looking at the glowing mushrooms on the ground.

However when I look up, I recoil and yell in shock, “What the fuck! What the hell is that thing?!”

I yell a bunch of profanities while scurrying back at the fastest speed possible. I saw the face of a spider, with the height of a grown man, right in front of me when I looked up. Having such a massive spider pop up in front of me, is not immediately the most appetizing thing to happen to myself. When I look back at my team mates, wondering why they didn’t warn me, I can see them all laughing their asses of.

“Hahaha”, laughs Lothea, “Did you see his face when he finally noticed that spider? Priceless, haha!”

But she is not the only one laughing. Melia and the princess are both laughing too. The prince is also hysterically laughing. He’s probably trying to laugh extra hard, just to spite me. Igomar is probably still angry at me for dragging Lothea in our team.

“Okay, okay enough! I get it!”, I say with a red face, “I should have been paying attention to what was happening in front of me. I should also not freak out about a rank 1 spider beast.”

They seem to not have heard me because they just keep laughing.

The spider seems to get enraged that his supposed prey is not paying any attention to him. Rank 1 soul beast are generally quite stupid and have difficulties distinguishing how strong sentient life forms are. After all, the rule ‘bigger is stronger’ is instinctively seen as the general truth in the wilderness by most non-sentient lifeforms.

I take out my two swords out of my spatial storage bag. They are both as big as me, namely six feet and tree inches. Both swords are massive hulking pieces of black iron. They are dull, but that doesn’t matter, they were after all the cheapest swords that could withstand my full strength. They also have a massive weight of half a ton each. I activate two strength increasing spells in my body and stack them together when I infuse them in my flesh. The strength spells help me balance the weight of both swords. I lift both of them up and feel my feet slightly sinking into the soft ground. I set myself ready in a stance, ready to swing them down with full force. My team still seems too busy with laughing to see what is happening.

The spider seems to activate an innate ability as its mandibles start to glow with an eerie green color. It presses it’s body on the ground and jumps over me, seeming to try to get a better positioning. We both ready ourselves to strike now that there are no trees between us. The spider suddenly accelerates towards me. It approaches at a fast speed for a rank 1 soul beast. I can see his mandibles, overflowing with green glowing poisonous liquid, closing in on me. Then the spider jumps at me to close in the remaining distance between us as fast as possible.

While it’s speed is fast for its rank, it’s still nowhere near mine. I swing both swords from my back to my front with the right timing. I inject some extra mana in my strength increasing spell to get an extra burst of strength, which also passively increases my swing speed. The spider seems to realize at the last moment that he might not be my match, but it’s too late. My swords are both already right in front of its face and leaves it no time to dodge. I viciously slam the spider back into the ground with my full strength. I slam my swords so hard into the ground that a crater forms itself in front of me. The spider itself got slammed down with such a huge force that its entire body liquefies and gets blasted away from me, due to the shockwave originating from my swords. Following this, I hear screams coming from in front of me.

“Eeeeew! What is this gooey mess?”, screams the princess in disgust.

When I look up I see that the entire team, with exception of me, covered in some green-black slime which was probably the spider I killed. They are all screaming in disgust at the gooey feel and revolting stench that comes from the liquid.

When they look at me in anger, I say with the most malicious grin I can foster, “Woops, my bad.”