It was the fifteenth day of the second summer month, and I was polishing a set of armour that I had made for my journey.

To someone unaware it may have seemed that I was polishing the air itself, but I had infact made my helmet invisible due to a few advantages it provided:

I had only enough high quality mana iron to make a blue steel shield and helmet that were both capable of taking several attacks from monsters without breaking, making my helmet invisible allowed me to cover my head entirely, I only needed to filter in the air and my hair to make it look like my face was unprotected, enemies would try attacking my head which was the most protected part of my body

It was in my best interest to prepare, adventuring was something mostly noble children did for a reason: It required time and resources that no commoner could muster up.

I had learned alchemy for this reason, to prepare my own expensive elixirs and to use the transmutation technique to maintain my weapons and armour so that I would have less of a need to prepare materialsand less of a resource drain from the potion front.

My bag was filled only with ingredients for foods and potions as well as a single water stone, I was content to get everything else as I travelled.

I had developed a strange habit through micromanaging every aspect of my life to train, I subconciously counted the time in my head in increments I called "ticks". There were 86,400 ticks in any given day and I used a special magical tool my enchanting teacher had helped me make to count the ticks as a slept.

As the day reached 40,000 ticks I decided to begin my first adventure: Delving into a dungeon and claiming treasure and riches for myself, mainly treasure since my sword lacked any notablee prestige which left me with a bitter taste in my mouth as a loot hungry adventurer.

I took one last stroll through the town as I prepared to start life as an adventurer, walking through the streets before leaving through the village gates and heading toward the nearest and newest recorded dungeon.

The road away from town was quiet and tranquil, the second I left the gate I realised I was an adventurer. Much easier than passing the guulds exam just to be the emporers treasure hunter.

The day ticked on as I walked and walked.

My body didn't seem to tire at all even as the evening came and went, even the dark embrace of the night slipping by like a pleasant childhood memory lost in a sea of green grass that shimmered in the early morning sun.

My march towards the so called "Black Beasts Dungeon" was not impeded as I spotted my first roaming monster, a slime.

It slid awkwardly along the grass towards me, a large colourless marble esque core within a soft interior protected by a basically useless membrane.

Slimes were not weak however, weapons could not beat them due to their uniquely strong ability to shift their cores location within their body.

It was unfortunate for the slime that approached me that it had met someone fairly skilled in magic, one lightning bolt later and its marble-like core was simply obliterated. Shattering its core into thousands of tiny fragments caused the slime to fall into a mere puddle.

My years of study as well as combat with monsters of various kinds had left me both with an encyclopedic knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of types of monsters as well as practical ability to apply that knowledge in live combat, a simple slime was no task for me to defeat.

Marching further and further led me to eventually find a much larger, much more imposing slime with a glossy shine to its surface and a turquoise interior.

Appendages formed from water whipped towards me savagely as I barely dodged between hits with my body intact, no time window to cast the two second lightning bolt spell.

It kept up this savage assault for at least a minute, myself tiring from constantly operating at the maximum of my ability.

The slimes recovery left me a window and so I chose to cast the more powerful spell "greater lightning", it's effect was demonstrated as it tore through the larger slime and struck its core directly.

The slime lost its shape and simply spread along the floor as its life came to an end, no chance for it to dodge with its virtually immobile mass of liquid.

"That's how it goes, if you're here then the other slimes probably fled. I'll make sure not to actively hunt them down for your sake."

My words meant nothing to the dead slime but it helped calm my conscience, monsters were after all the souls of the damned who had lost their way and materialized as horrific beasts.