Even though the skeleton has its weapons, the fight wasn't that difficult as I was easily able to read its movements.

Hmm.

It looks like there is no use in wasting any more time on a single skeleton. After deciding that, I focused on disarming it. After that's done I Blink away from it and move towards the other skeleton and similarly disarm it. Now, I don't have to worry about life-threatening injuries when I face both of them at once.

After disarming them both, I lured one skeleton towards the other one and then began my second combat session with the skeletons on the wall.

As one would expect, trying to keep them both in my sight and then perceiving and subsequently dodging their attacks becomes a lot more difficult when compared to fighting against a single one.

I was quite overwhelmed at first, I had to Blink away at least once every two minutes during the fight to recharge my health pool. It's a good idea that I disarmed them first.

Whenever I blinked away from them, I start chewing on Atulica leaves so that they can help with my health regeneration. It's times like these that I feel lucky that I know a lot about fantasy and once again think about my family.

After regaining my health, I charge back into the fight. I fought with both of them until the day starts to darken and then go back to Temple for practicing other skills but mostly Space Mana Manipulation.

This continued on for three more weeks and by the end of it, I can comfortably fight them both. The hardest thing was to keep both in my sight while trying to dodge them.

During the first week, I was able to improve from - 'blinking around every few minutes to regain my health' to 'repeatedly lunging to the sides to dodge their attacks and wasting precious stamina'.

I spent the next two weeks fine-tuning my dodges from lunges to moving a step out of the attacking direction at the right time and also using them against each other, all the while keeping them both in my sight.

I did have few other improvements.

Appraisal reaches level 2

Longsword Mastery reaches level 3

Longsword Mastery reaches level 4

Corruption Resistance reaches level 2

During these last three weeks, I was able to clear an assumption I had about my storage skill.

After I unlocked a storage skill, I stored all my belongings in it. Not just my books but also the torches and the water canteens I made. Obviously, the canteens were filled with water. I even removed my t-shirt and stored it along with my jacket for safekeeping.

I also wanted to store a large quantity of the five useful plants. But those leaves are more effective when they are fresh. So, before storing them in storage, I wanted to know if and whether time flows in it. The things I place in my storage are fixed to their spots, so I thought maybe time is also fixed.

In order to check my assumption, I tracked and killed another critter and stored it in my storage. I've been checking its condition daily for the last three weeks and I can confidently say that time doesn't flow in my storage. I could have stored the leaves and check their freshness to check the flow of time but I felt like this way would be easier.

Now that the doubt has been clarified, I plan on actively tracking and hunting whatever critter I can find. Same for the leaves.

And today, I'm going to kill both the skeletons and continue with my investigation of the surrounding area that keeps on being interrupted.

After reaching the second Sentry Tower from the Temple, I directly move towards the skeletons without wasting the time.

As soon as they sense me, they charge towards me. Without waiting for them to come towards me, I charge towards the nearest one and use Spatial Slash against its leg.

As soon as the attack connects, that skeleton's leg is sliced clean. Leaving the crawling skeleton alone, I focus on the other skeleton. As I don't have enough mana to use Spatial Slash again, I use normal attacks to slowly whittle it down and then focus on the cripple skeleton.

I kill both of them under five minutes.

You have defeated a Corrupted Imperial Archer x2

Your class has gained a level

I invest all five Attribute Points into my Intelligence, I need the extra mana.

Now that the combat part is done, I move on to the looting ahem exploring part. I move towards the Sentry Tower and check the corridor and the other room. It's similar to the last one, a weapons storage room. Then the rest of the building must be similar. But the stairs of this building are intact compared to the last one.

I went through the whole building top to bottom and it's an exact replica of the last one. As for loot except for those two longswords and daggers in the storage room, I found some kind of heating plate in the kitchen on the ground floor, that's about it.

I appraise them, the weapons are similar to the ones I found before, and as for the heating plate.

Heating Plate

Grade : Uncommon

Type : Tool

A simple plate made to heat anything. Made of Deep Iron and Fire Crystal.

Hmm.

The item description has two sentences instead of the one I normally found in Uncommon grade items. The only ones I found with more than one sentence are the Common grade ones.

Is this the effect of Appraisal skill gaining a level?

Must be.

As for the new terms, Deep Iron and Fire Crystal, they are the material used for making this item. Well, I can guess that Fire Crystal was required for making the plate heat part.

But what about Deep Iron?

And how is this item still in good condition while the weapons have a damaged tag added to them?

I guess I wouldn't be able to find that answer right now, maybe later when Appraisal skill gains more levels.

As for the plate, it's twice as large of my palms, square-shaped, and a mixture of dark blue and red, and as I infuse my mana, it glows red and then the plate becomes hot.

At first, I didn't know how to use it. Then I thought about how all the magic items need mana and infused some into it, which did the trick.

Now that I have something that can be used a stove, I'm going to have meat for today's dinner.

I store the loot in my storage for now.

After thoroughly checking the building for anything useful, I move back onto the wall. I can see that the wall I'm traveling on until now ends here and it is connected to another wall horizontal to it. This sentry tower is located at the intersection of these two walls.

I move to the horizontal wall and follow it for a while and come upon what seems like a big metal gate that is closed and small square-shaped ground floor buildings that look like guard posts on both sides of it.

If I look at the ruin with respect to the front gate, the wall I'm standing on is the front wall and the one attached to it is the right wall. I plan on traveling through the right wall to the back wall and from there to the left wall and complete one round around this ruin.

I can't reach the guard post from here, its height is small compared to the wall and there is nothing here on the wall to climb down from, I can jump down and risk some small injuries to explore it but climbing back up becomes a problem.

There is another way and that's to go back to the sentry tower that's at the intersection of both walls, move downstairs and from there go towards these posts.

Rather than doing that, I go back to the wall I came from and follow it back to the first Sentry Tower I entered from and move towards the Summoning Temple as I plan on eating something cokked first before doing anything.

I reach the safety of the temple within an hour, settle down and take some rest. I can go back to the wall and continue checking other sentry towers tomorrow. For now, food takes priority.

Normally I would have Eogus fruit daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner but as I found a Heating Plate, I'm going to have some meat for today.

Before eating, comes the hard part, butchering the carcass.

Although I haven't seen any predators, the idea of leaving fresh blood outside of where I sleep feels like a big problem to me. I walk a short distance off from the Temple, dig a hole using a longsword and a dagger, I have spares so I can use them however I want.

After digging a big enough hole for the sake of containing the blood from the body, I retrieve the squirrel I've stored in my storage to confirm the doubts about time flow and drain it in the hole and just for the sake of an experiment drop a Hedge Ivy leaf in it and bury tye hole.

The description of Hedge Ivy leaf did say it grows from absorbing poisonous corpses, it may not be poisonous but it's still fresh blood from a monster and I would like to know how it affects the properties of the plant if it does grow from it.

Come to think of it, what happened to those monster carcasses stuffed with Hegde Ivy leaves in them?

I didn't get any notification regarding them, does that mean the experiment was a failure?

I could check on them, but there's no rush. I'm going to leave them as-is for now.

As I've said before, these critters aren't the normal sized ones from back home. The height of the Wild Squirrel I have in my hand would reach above my ankle and it looks plump and healthy due to the presence of mana and no predators.

Now that the draining part is done, I try to skin it using a dagger for its hides. I did have survival training in the military but they don't put much emphasis on how to butcher an animal in that training.

Most of the butchering process is guesswork on my part, I tried to skin it carefully but the obtained hide wasn't in as good a condition as I've hoped.

It took a bit more to take apart the meat and bones and cut the meat into pieces the size of my palm.

After all that's done, I appraised them.

Wild Squirrel Hide

Grade : Common

Quality : Poor

Type : Ingredient

Damaged hide of a Wild Squirrel. Saturated with illusion mana. Can be used in making clothing and armor with illusion properties.

Ohh, three sentences in the description for Common grade items. So, as the Appraisal skill level increases, the description it gives increases accordingly. That would be useful.

But what's this about saturated with illusion mana?

Illusion properties, does that mean something like illusion resistance?

Then the value of these items will increase by a large margin.

Wild Squirrel Bones x8

Grade : Common

Quality : Average

Type : Ingredient

Bones of a Wild Squirrel. Saturated with illusion mana. Can be used in alchemy to make potions with illusion properties.

It looks like the bones seem to be useful in making potions of illusion properties.

So, the potion made by using these bones has illusion properties like disguise and invisible?

Wild Squirrel Meat x14

Grade : Common

Quality : Average

Type : Ingredient

Meat of a Wild Squirrel. Saturated with illusion mana. Inedible due to mana saturation.

Inedible?

Does that mean all the work I've done until now is a waste of time?

And I won't be able to eat meat today?

Also, what 's this mana saturation that caused the meat to become inedible?

I should check my books to see if they say anything about this saturation and if there is a way to purify the meat. For now, I store the bones, meat in the storage.

I leave the skinned hides on the trees so that they can be dried, I don't know the actual procedure. I'll leave them here for a day or two and depending on what condition they are in after that, I'll decide whether I'll take them with me or not.

I walk back to the temple and check the magic book about mana saturation.

Mana saturation means exactly that, a lot of mana saturated at any one place.

According to it, if a single type of mana dominates any place for a long time, then every being in that place slowly mutate from their elements to that type of mana in order to survive or die trying.

Even after mutating, as there is an abundance of that single element of mana in that area, slowly every part of their body gets saturated with it such that they won't be able to live without that type of mana.

After reading the part about mana saturation and the description of the meat that says it is saturated by illusion mana, I can confidently say this place is saturated with illusion mana. That must be the reason this place is called Forest of Illusions.

Now is there any possible way to make this inedible meat edible?

I don't find anything about that in the magic book so I check the monster encyclopedia for anything related to monster meat.

Found it.

According to it, all monsters have some type of elemental affinity and their meat does contain that elemental mana in them but the amount is minuscule and wouldn't cause any problems if it is consumed.

But in the case of saturated ones, their meat is fully saturated with a single type of mana which may cause problems when those of different elemental affinity eat the meat without purifying it.

For example, if I eat the meat of a saturated monster that isn't purified, like this Wild Squirrel I've just butchered which is saturated with illusion mana, the saturated mana from this unpurified meat becomes a kind of poison to me as I don't have any affinity to illusion mana.

In normal cases, this may just cause a case of diarrhea or some other small problems due to differences in the elemental mana but if this process of eating unpurified meat is continued long term there may be many harmful permanent side effects.

One has to remember that saturated meat is only harmful if you don't have an affinity for the type of mana present in the meat.

As I have an affinity for the space element, If I find any beast saturated with space mana then I can directly eat its meat without purifying it and I won't have any adverse effects as I already have an affinity for space and the saturated mana from the meat doesn't harm me but rather helps me regenerate my mana faster like a mana potion.

That's the reason although saturated meat causes problems to those who don't have an affinity for it, it is popular among people who do have an affinity for that particular element as it helps to recover mana faster.

In conclusion, I can eat normal monster meat without any problems. And this meat saturated with illusion mana is poison to me but for those with illusion mana affinity, it's a potion. Also, saturated monster meat is more valuable compared to normal monster meat.

Good to know.

Now let me see what it says about how to purify it.

Hmm.

To purify the meat, I have to flood the meat with neutral mana i.e. non-elemental mana. This process has to be done until all the saturated mana is gone and this can be easily checked by the description of the meat after appraising it or by using simple skills like Mana Perception .

It took nearly two hours to purify a single piece of palm-sized meat. I purified three pieces of it and started roasting it with the help of a heating plate. I stored the rest of the saturated meat in my storage.

Skills Unlocked : Dismantle, Cooking

I unlocked two more skills but they'll have to wait until I get my class.

I eat some of the roasted meat to sate my appetite. Although it was good, it can be better if I can add some spices to it. I should explore the forest tomorrow to try and find some spices in the forest to enhance the meat's taste.

Name : Janus Arthridge

Race : Human

Level : 1

Bloodline : N / A

Class : N / A

Level : 3

Health : 100 / 100

Stamina : 150 / 150

Mana : 200 / 200

Attributes

Strength : 10

Dexterity : 15

Vitality : 10

Endurance : 15

Resilience : 10

Perception : 10

Intelligence : 20

Wisdom : 10

Willpower : 10

Attribute Points : 0

Skills

Appraisal Lv.2

Stealth Lv.2

Meditation Lv.5

Space Mana Manipulation Lv.6

Blink Lv.1

Spatial Slash Lv.1

Longsword Mastery Lv.4

Corruption Resistance Lv.2

Spatial Storage Lv. 1

Skill Slots : 1

Perks

Otherworlder

Summoned Being

Polyglot