Using her hand to lift herself off the hard stone floor, Jayde climbed to her feet. Looking down at herself she noticed that she was in a very sorry state. Her clothing was shredded, but luckily due to the blue flame that had surrounded her while reshaping her body, the oily black substance that has leaked from her pores, as well as the blood from her split skin, had been burnt away.

Removing a clean set of clothing from her storage ring, Jayde peeled off her shredded clothes. Standing naked in the warm cave Jayde used a damp cloth to wipe the fine layer sweat, that covered her. Pulling on a new pair of rust-colored leather pants, she then picked up a similar colored shirt. Putting the shirt on, she then laced it closed. Even her leather boots where damaged, retrieving a new pair that she made, Jayde pulled off her old, then tugging on the new pair of leather boots she tied the laces.

Finger combing her hair she scratched around her spatial ring for a piece of leather thong, finally finding a discarded leather string she tied her hair into a ponytail. Clean and neatly dressed Jayde felt human again, picking up the torn clothing, Jayde strolled over lava lake and threw the discard clothes in.

With her drastic increase in ranks, Jayde barely felt the heat in the cavern, eyeing the precious firestones embedded cavern walls, Jayde decided to take the time to remove them. With her increased strength the previously nearly impossible task was simple.

While busy removing the fire stones, she chatted with Isha.

"Isha, thank you for help, I wouldn't have made it without your intervention," Jayde said with sincere gratitude.

"You are welcome. Now Jayde, we need to talk about the repercussions of what just happened."

"Repercussions?" Jayde's stomach clenched, shit what the fuck was wrong now, she thought.

"Uh-huh. You increased too fast, which has destabilized the foundation to your magic."

"Oh," Jayde didn't really understand what Isha was talking about.

Isha explained to Jayde how mages need time after each increase to consolidate their magic, and this was usually done by practicing and using their magic for some time between each in rank, it was also one of the reasons why a mage increased in sub-ranks before leveling up to the next class.

"Sub-rank?" Jayde asked curiously.

"Hmm, each class has four sub-ranks," Isha said. "Beginner, Mid-level, Advanced, and Peak."

"But Isha, I didn't increase in sub-ranks before I absorbed the fire spirit."

"Jayde, you actually did, it was just that you were so weak that you didn't notice it."

"Ah okay," Jayde said thoughtfully, so then according to Isha she had not just jumped eight classes, but thirty-two. No wonder her foundation was so unstable.

"So what must I do now to stabilize my magic?" Jayde asked.

"For now, just practice your magic, when I return later you will need to undergo intense training, to stabilize your foundation," Isha advised her.

"Return?" Jyde asked confused. Where the hell was Isha going to? Jayde thought. I didn't know that he could leave the artifact.

"Yes, I have something that I have to do. Also, you won't be able to access the Proteus Pavillion while I not here."

"Umm, okay. How long will you be gone?" Jayde asked. She had been counting on being able to teleport to the Pavilion should she run into any life-threatening danger.

"Not too long, a couple of days at most."

Jayde didn't ask any more question she knew that Isha had secrets. What Jayde didn't know was during this period Isha and the trainers would be receiving their "punishment" and would be in no condition to see her. Isha hid the fact that he and the rest of the trainers had to pay a hefty penalty to save her life.

"Isha, how long will I need to train to stabilize my foundation?"

"I'm not sure, Green will be able to tell you once she has accessed you."

Green? Jayde was happy to hear that her trainer would someone else, but she was curious about how many trainers there were in the Proteus artifact. When she asked Isha, he informed her that there were nine of them, but she would only meet the other trainers when she reached the requirements.

When Jayde tried to find out more about the training requirements, Isha informed Jayde that this was something she would need to figure out on her own. The Proteus artifact was created to help contractors on their chosen path, it was not allowed to influence a contractors destiny, and even something as insignificant as telling a contractor which training was available could influence their decisions.

"While I am away, I think you should explore the second ring of the Dark Forest, it will help you with your foundation," Isha advised.

"Hmm, Isha when you get back can you make the potion to upgrade my qi pool?"

"Jayde now is not the time — once your foundation is stable then we can go ahead, right now you have to concentrate on stabilizing your foundation."

"Okay, then I will follow your advice," Jayde agreed quickly.

"Also you need to be careful, I won't be here to help you if something goes wrong," Isha said, his voice betraying his concern.

"Isha, I will be fine, stopping nagging, I have been on my own for over sixty years, I do have some common sense, you know," Jayde responded, smiling slightly at Isha worried tone.

"Okay, okay, but still if you run into a spirit beast you can't handle you will run away, promise me?" Isha went on, really worried about Jayde stubbornness.

"Isha!" Jayde exclaimed

"I mean it Jayde, you need to look after yourself."

"I promise, besides I now have something to live for, so don't stress so much okay?" Jayde promised.

Still anxious about Jayde being on her own, Isha made Jayde swear again to look after herself, to eat well, and always put up her wards during the night. Isha could hear from Jayde voice that she was becoming impatient with his nagging, so he decided to stop before she really lost it.

Knowing that the Punisher would be arriving soon, Isha bid Jayde farewell, and promised to contact her as soon as he 'returned'.

After saying goodbye to Isha, Jayde continued to remove all the fire stones in the cavern wall. Once she had collected them all, she left the large cavern and returned to the small room she had made camp in previously.

After setting up camp for the night, Jayde was too tired to cook, so after eating one of the elven wafer pieces of bread, she fell asleep.

The next day she left the small cave, but instead of returning to her cave, she turned North and headed for the second ring, following Isha advise.

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It took two days for Jayde to reach the barrier to the second ring. The spirit beasts within the perimeter sensed that Jayde was more powerful than them, and steered clear of her, besides stopping to collect some herbs that she needed to trade, or to make camp, Jayde traveled non stop to the second ring of the Dark Forest.

When she finally came across the barrier between the outer perimeter, it was just as the old man had described in his notes. In front of her she could see a slight shimmery barrier, walking cautiously up to the boundary, she lifted her hand and tried to touch it, but her hand passed through the barrier, just as though it didn't exist.

"Hmm, just as the old man said, the ward only works on spirit beasts," she mumbled quietly to herself, and with that, she walked through the shimmery barrier.

As Jayde headed deeper into the Dark Forest, it wasn't long before she ran into a level five fire lizard, these large reptilian creatures were dangerous, besides breathing fire, their skin was hard, and they had a long, agile tail, that was powerful enough to split a person in two. They were very fast, although their eyesight was poor, their sense of smell was highly developed. The only had one weakness which was their underbelly, which the fire lizard was notoriously known for protecting.

Jayde was quite happy to run into this beast, this was the perfect opponent for her to test out her new abilities. Activating her fire shield, Jayde withdrew her sword, then racing forward she meet the fire lizard head on.

The fight was long and brutal, the fire lizard was a strong opponent. Finally, the fire lizard made a mistake, lifting itself on its hind legs, there was a slight opening, Jayde immediately took advantage of, sliding through on her side, she raised her sword and sliced open it's belly, then quickly rolling out of the way of the falling beast, she backed away.

Covered in multiple cuts, bruises, and burns, Jayde rested against a tree to recover her strength, it had taken over three hours of intense fighting to bring the fire lizard down, and while her foundation had stabilized a bit, she had come to realize that her magic skills were really lacking. If it weren't for her swordsmanship, she would have lost this battle.

After collecting the fire lizard's spirit stone and scales, Jayde carried on her journey. For the next six days, she continuously hunted strong opponents to battle against. Each fight was long and arduous, with Jayde ending up with multiple cuts and abrasions, but she could feel herself improving after each battle.

She was becoming more familiar with this new body of hers, but she could feel that her fire spells were lacking, having just two fire spells was really limiting, next time she had access to the Pavilion she would need to buy some more fire spells.

It had been seven days since Jayde entered the second rim and she was feeling icky. Deciding to forgo hunting spirit beasts to battle, she wanted to find a place where she could have a decent bath, looking at the old man's maps, Jayde estimated that she was about half a days walk from a lake shown on the map.

Looking up to gauge the direction of the sun, then rechecking the map, she turned east and headed off to find the lake mentioned and have a well-deserved bath.

Just before noon, Jayde was about an hour away from her destination, when she ran into a scene of devastation. The ground had been upturned, and many trees were uprooted. Scorch marks marred the land. Just by looking at the scene you could see that a significant battle had taken place.

Crouching down, Jayde waited dead-still, she had a feeling that whatever had caused the damage to the surrounding area was something she couldn't handle. Scanning her immediate surroundings she couldn't pick-up anything unusual, but just to be safe, she stayed still for a couple of more minutes.

Seeing and hearing no movement, she cautiously moved out, keeping low she stealthy made her way across the devastated land. Looking around at the tracks on the ground, she could not pick up any human tracks, but by the paw and claw marks on the ground, she deduced that it must have been two beasts fighting.

Unfortunately, Jayde was still quite a novice when it came to the beasts of Doha so she could not discern what sort of creatures had been fighting, but from the amount of damage done, there was no way they were low-level beasts.

This made Jayde very uneasy as according to the old man's journals the barrier between the rings should have kept out stronger beasts, so how could two such powerful creatures end up in the second ring?

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