Stamina: 69/90

Mana: 67/195

Nido locked at his [Status] and found himself surprised at the increase of his resources. Stamina had doubled, and his mana almost did so.

“How can an entity increase my mana?” He was shocked, this shouldn’t be possible. “A tiny increase I could understand, but double it? Is this Arcane Records some kind of enchantment? Hmm, it goes beyond the ether so I don’t know if it should be possible, this is too weird.”

The enchanter walked across the forest using his newly crafted staff as a walking stick. It wasn’t truly need as he was not an old man anymore, but it did help with his long trek.

“Oh, I almost forgot to use the staff. That level up thing has really thrown me off.” He stopped and rose the staff in the air.

Nido began circling mana on the staff, the tangerine runes glowed lightly with the power of the Light. He felt his mana being consumed rapidly, a side-effect of not being familiarized with the school of magic. It crossed the thought of using blood magic as he lacked mana currently and he had a lot of health, but soon discarded it because he lacked a catalyst to transform his lifeforce into mana.

Anyways, nearing his mana pool depletion, the enchanter casted the spell. A blinding mantle of light covered him as the spell took place. He was suddenly wearing travelling clothes, with sturdy boots and a big satchel. Everything was an illusion, of course.

“Much better.” He commented. “Now if someone sees me, at least I won’t look like an exhibitionist. But I should get clothes as soon as possible.”

Nido began sprinting, trying to get out of the forest before he was forced to rest under some tree to spend the night. He kept looking on the stamina counter, and with some basic maths, he noticed he was in a net negative.

“It was rather obvious, but Record-stamina correlates to actual stamina.” Being able to measure his body’s limits on real-time was a new experience to him. “I wonder how this monstrous temporal construct is able to modify both my soul and body with ease.”

The notion scarred the enchanter a bit, though he wasn’t unbeknownst to such worrisome concepts. He had dealt with divinities from every single element before, and this was more or less the expected treatment.

“Are the Arcane Records a new-born Time divinity?” He pondered while running at vertiginous speeds. One misstep and he would crack his neck. “It’s not impossible… but, hmm… I need more information.”

He knew the dangers of jumping onto conclusions to early, it was better to get more data on the whole ordeal before piecing together a solid thesis.

The sun had abandoned its zenith, high noon was already over. Nido stopped to catch his breath as his stamina neared zero. His current stamina regeneration was ten per minute, so it would take him nine to fully recover. He decided that the first thing he was going to do when he neared civilization was to enchant some basic trinket to boost his nefarious stamina.

That wasn’t really the case, the enchanter knew he first had to look for a place to sleep in and information on his current location. But the prospect of gearing himself with a myriad of trinkets felt mandatory.

Nido always had been weaker than the rest, whether mortals or divinities, the only way he had survived this long was because of his endless stash of powerful enchanted items. A stash that he had lost access because of the Records nefarious plots. Who thought it was a good idea to limit soulbound items! He kept his indignation on his mind as he was currently out of breath.

Not only is extremely difficult to synthesize your soul to a second item, but cut- His train of thought stopped, realization suddenly struck him like a massive tidal wave.

“The Arcane Records are soulbound… It’s entirely possible, doable in fact. This would explain the cap in soulbound items and why it can affect my soul. I don’t know how it does it. But it isn’t impossible.”

His conjectures were dubious at best, but if his suspicion was true, then… nothing would really change. He would know how the Records worked and how it influenced people, but not how it came into fruition.

“You are drowning yourself in questions, Nido.” He told himself. “You started with one question this morning and now you have tens! Firstly, find civilization, then ask the philosophical questions.”

The enchanter lost count of the hours whilst he wandered across the woods. It could have been relatively easy to keep track whether by manually counting them or following his stamina regeneration, but he decided to disconnect for a moment. Since his time in the Void, his mind had been working overtime. A rest was needed, even if it was minimal.

The skies gradually become more orange, and the sun began to set. He no longer felt the overwhelming presence of Death from the spectral birch, so at least he had moved some kilometers away. The smell of salt suddenly hit his nose, he didn’t know if he was delirious or…

“The sea?” Nido exclaimed in confusion. “How weird… If I was really close to the sea I would have noticed earlier. Well, nothing I can do but find a coastal city. Though I would be more than satisfied with a fishing hamlet at the moment.”

He sniffed like a dog trying to sense the general direction of smell, only to remember than he could literally read the ether for that. Unlike the black spot that was the spectral birch, a sea of blue awaited him at the east. He also sensed a myriad of colors coming from that same direction, meaning there was some considerable degree of people.

Nido found himself reinvigorated after getting a confirmation that he wasn’t trapped in an evergreen. The endless green mazes weren’t a problem to him, just that he needed to communicate with a higher authority to get out of him. And he wanted to stay as far from divinities as possible for the time being. Even if the whole Arcane Record thing made him fail at that.

In less than an hour filled with non-stop sprinting in a straight line, the enchanter finally heard the sound of the waves. The sunset welcomed him as he made his way out of the forest. The yellow sun collided with the blue sea, the skies turned yellow, and the horizon gained a tinge of pink. He saw a city from the corner of the eye at his left.

“Oh fuck, I think I’m going to cry.” He said between sniffs. “Fuck… how much time have I spent on the null plane? It feels like an eternity since I saw other civilized life.”

He groaned in satisfaction and the accumulated stress that he was finally rid of. “Damn, everything looks more beautiful when you got nothing.” Nido never got pride from his previous title, but it was a shock to lose everything he had worked for in a blink of an eye. “Freedom feels… nice. I had forgot about it.”

The enchanter didn’t even notice he had sat in the sands of the beach. He took joy in the simple yet beautiful landscape. The sun approached ever so slightly into the horizon.

“I should get going or I’ll get sleepy.” Nido got up with the help of his staff and stretched his sore legs.

Some lights began to sprinkle in the city, meaning night was even closer that he thought. At least is way more comfortable than walking on rocks.

Nido found his way next to the city walls, which blocked his way in. “Hmm, there are two ways in.” He pondered while examining the surroundings. “The wall isn’t that big, and it only seems to cover the inner city, which means I could totally enter the other side of the city without even passing by a checkpoint.”

He was currently devoid of any possessions, and he doubted any guard would leave him enter the city when he looked like a beggar. I could sell the staff, but I just got it. It would be disrespectful to the tree. Let’s save it as a final resource.

There seemed to be a tent town at the gates of the city, and the port was uncovered by the walls. “Two choices. Both equally suitable. What should I do?” He didn’t have time to wonder of in his thoughts, so he left it to luck itself.

The enchanter put his staff before him and held it by the top with one finger. “Left, tents. Right, port.” He let the enchanted stick fall. It pointed to the right. “Alright, ports it is.” Nido bent and grabbed the staff back.

It was easy to walk into the coastal district of the city as it was complete unprotected. Nido could find some people guarding over the vessels and storerooms, but they weren’t guards, just sailors on guard duty.

The enchanter sulk along the sealine trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Walk with a destination in mind. He told himself. It was a little trick to show he was just passing by and not actually lost. One trick he had learn during his young days, many centuries ago. He hadn’t thought it would be useful again.

His tour around the docks hadn’t apported any new information, unfortunately. Everything looked in place. Not any signs of progress of time, not any major technological advancements, no changes in costumes, it felt common.

He only collected information of the city itself. A layout of the coastal city formed in his mind. At the east, the docks and the less fortunate districts. At the west, the tent town, which he had to see what all that was about. At the center was the well-standing city. Or at least, the most favorable part of the city.

The docks smell awful, but the odor didn’t seem to come from a lack of hygiene from the people, but the nature of the district. Raw fish didn’t smell that good, specially if no one bought it.

Far at the north, there seemed to be a more well-maintained dock. Which induced the enchanter to assume that the south coastal district was a fishing one, while the north was a commercial port.

Once he was finally ready to leave this part of the city and try luck at the tent town, his gaze was redirected to a nearby house. Some pieces of clothes were stretched out on a string, the leftover of laundry.

“I’m really going to steal some poor man’s clothes?” Nido looked at himself. Whilst the magically crafted clothes were fancy and somewhat realist, or to the degree that none had stopped to look at him, he really needed real clothes. “I’m sorry unnamed person, I’m more in necessity than you need that clean laundry.”

With the same agility that he used to climb the birch. Nido jumped in the alley from wall to wall in order to get the laundry rack that was placed between two buildings at five meters in the air.

There wasn’t any footwear, which was expected, but not even underwear. He could only get his hands on some parched yellow shirt that seemed to be originally white, and a corduroy that was a bit too big for him.

“It is what it is, I guess.” He sighed and jumped to the ground.

Once again, the fall dealt some damage to him, but it wasn’t anything that the coiled ring couldn’t heal. In one quick swoop, he put on the rugged shirt and the loose pants. He dismissed the illusion, and now he looked exactly like a beggar. Covered in dust, clothed with clean yet old robes, and barefooted, the enchanter disposed himself to look at the other section of the city.