Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 9 | Day 10

Well… I guess I had already assumed that the water would be contaminated, but this…

I grimace while staring at the dark colored water releasing a black miasma. A miasma that’s clearly seeping into the surrounding trees and fauna.

Okay, now the question is whether it’s more comfortable to drink this slop or to go without water.

With just a single second of hesitation, I kneel down in front of the water and cup it with my hands. Only to immediately yank my hands out again as my hands themselves begin to blacken from the miasma.

Yeah, I guess that’s to be expected.

I wince for a second at the numbing chill spreading through my hands before watching it slowly fade away and turn back to normal.

Yep. Guess I’m going to be going without water for a while. And probably food too, considering how everything I’ve seen so far is undead.

I climb back up to my feet and turn to look through the forest at the sound of another groaning zombie. My hand instinctively reaches for my sword’s handle before I draw it out and begin walking over towards it.

These undead are getting annoying.

With a sigh of self-pity, I swing my sword and decapitate the zombie, sending its head flying into the miasma-infested pond next to me. It lands in it with a loud splash before sinking beneath the surface as the rest of the zombie’s body falls to the ground.

“This better not be my life for the foreseeable years…” I mutter to myself while sheathing my sword and bringing out the terminal in my hand to continue my work on my anti-light spell. The one I’ve been working on for a while to counter light magic.

Although it might be better to just leave that on the backburner for later since I doubt there will be any light magic users anywhere near here. But at the same time, I feel as if I’m about to finish it. So I’ll be able to move on to a more offensive spell after it.

I frown at the script running through my terminal as I walk through the forest.

The spell itself works by trapping a large flame in a barrier and constantly feeding it oxygen at an incredibly fast pace, to the point that a small vortex of space manifests around the barrier where the oxygen is being dragged in. The flame will continue to burn at an incredibly fast pace – much faster than should be naturally possible – to create as much soot as possible, which is then compressed further to make a bomb that can be used to smother light magic. And right now, the only part of the spell that still needs some work is the part that boosts the spell over to the target.

I continue typing away at it before glancing up at the sound of another groan and drawing my sword.

It would be nice if these zombies would leave me alone though.

Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 9 | Day 12

A couple of days pass with little to no change in this seemingly endless forest. Over this time, I end up settling into a pattern of spending sixteen hours walking and scripting for my spell, another six hours focusing purely on training my mana arcs, and the last two hours sleeping. And while this isn’t exactly a comfortable life, what with almost always being awake for days, my immortality makes it doable without any real issues. Outside of feeling mentally exhausted while not being mentally exhausted. Which feels weird.

From what I understand though, mental stress and exhaustion is built up from chemicals released in your brain. So all I’m feeling is extreme boredom and irritation with only a small amount of stress that clears away just as quickly as it comes.

Now though, I find myself staring at something rather bizarre.

I blink twice to make sure I’m not seeing things.

Is there really an enormous dead tree standing here? With a door at its base?

Because that’s not normal.

The tree must be at least a hundred meters in height, but somehow I never saw it until it was right in front of me. Which probably equates to some sort of magical hocus pocus.

I look around the tree for a few moments, just circling it before eventually stopping in front of the door made of equally dead wood.

Hmm. So this is not normal, but it seems interesting.

I grab the doorknob and open the door, revealing a large, open room similar to that of the entry hall of the dormitory back at the academy. Except made out of dead wood with miasma filling the hall. And with a lot more floors.

Looking around the building which really does not look like the inside of a dead tree, I realize that the miasma seems to be coming from one particular hallway in the tree. And before I can go to investigate it, I hear a tiny voice whispering along with the miasma that’s currently stinging me with a sharp and cold pain practically everywhere on my body as I walk.

“Come….” “Come to me…” “Follow the flow…”

My eyes narrow at the voice, but I shrug and follow it anyways.

This might be interesting. Certainly more interesting than wandering around in a dead forest for days on end.

With that thought in my mind justifying my probably stupid actions, I walk down the dead hall, following the miasma towards its source. Which ends up leading me to another door made of dead wood.

I open the door to reveal what looks like a large glass cage in the center of an even larger room. And inside of the cage is some sort of skeleton with black and purple flames burning in its eye sockets as it stands in the middle of ashes without any clothes on.

“Huh,” I mutter out loud as I meet the skeleton’s eyes. “Hello there.”

The flames in the skeleton’s eye sockets grow slightly, as if it were surprised by my greeting.

This’ll definitely be interesting.