23 Black Hollow Fores

Seeing that Lucius agreed with him, Greyson brought his spell books in a sack and brought them with him. Black Hollow Forest was a humongous forest that stretched hundreds of thousands of miles and was filled to the brim with magic beasts. Other students say that the closer to the center of the forest you get, the stronger the beasts. There were many legends about how powerful the beasts in the forest were. On the other side of the forest was the Idris Kingdom that the principal had mentioned before so they also come and train. However, their starting point was far away and they had to go through the center of the forest to reach Dalia Kingdom's side of the forest, thus the two kingdom's people rarely ever meet. The edge of the forest was only a couple miles east of the Academy so it took Greyson around an hour to reach it.

He walked up to where the trees began and stopped to look at the looming trees and rather threatening atmosphere. He glanced over at Lucius who looked extremely excited to get out into the wild again, Greyson assumed it was his animal instinct. He started traveling further in to the forest before he found a relatively open area. He looked around and asked Lucius if he could sense anything. Lucius took a circle around in a small radius and came back shaking his head indicating the coast was clear. Greyson relaxed then sat down and started to take out his books.

Greyson thought through the process of picking his spells carefully. He knew that with seven elements he could be the ultimate all-rounder. He could attack, defend, escape, and heal. All these would help increase his chances of living. All the elements could potentially be offensive or defensive, however, they would obviously have their own specialties. The spells he chose were: Shadow Escape, Heal, Earth Wall, Air Steps, Paralyze, Water Cage, and Fire Arrow. Shadow Escape was a Dark spell that allows you to escape through any shadow on the ground. The stronger your magic the further you can transport yourself. He was only a novice level stage four so he could transport himself around five meters. Pretty much he would disappear into a shadow then pop up again from another shadow five meter away in a random direction. The downside of this spell is that he can't escape a very far distance at this point and that the direction he escapes in is very random. Heal was very self-explanatory. It was a rather weak beginner light spell. Although the name sounded very encompassing, the spell could only heal cuts and bruises. The stronger light spells were more amazing and could potentially save a person on the brink of death or regrow cut off limbs. He would need to be much stronger for those kinds of spells though. Earth Wall was what the third prince back in Edysa kingdom had used. Although the wall at his level was still weak, it could eventually be his best form of defense. Air Steps was a great escape skill as well. It was a wind spell that propels your legs while running. He could also step on the air while escaping. It increases his agility and lightens his body. Paralyze was a lightning spells that does exactly what the name suggests. He could paralyze his enemies with the spell. The downside was that he had to make body contact with them and the amount of time they are paralyzed depends on their level of strength. If the enemy is much stronger then they will only be paralyzed for a couple seconds. Water Cage was a trapping spell. He could trap his opponent inside a ball of water and could potentially drown them, however, with his magic power could not keep the ball for very long. Lastly, Fire Arrow was his offensive fire spell. It generates a fire bow and arrow and he can continue shooting fire arrows until he runs out of mana. It works like a normal arrow except it would set whatever it comes in contact with on fire and he just need to look at his target and draw the arrow and it would hit.

Looking through all his spells, Greyson knew that it would take him many days to get used to all of them. He didn't know, however, that copying his new spells would be so difficult. He realized that the more potential for growth the spell had, the more advanced it was and the harder it was to learn. All of his spells could evolve with his power except for Heal. He did this on purpose because he didn't want to waste his time learning spells that would become obsolete quickly as that felt like a waste of time. Normally, people are not treated as well as he is and they do not have as much choice in the spells that they end up learning because spells are expensive for outsiders and for students they are hard to earn. He had the ability to learn as many spell as he wanted, so of course he would try to become as powerful as he could.

He stayed in the forest for 7 days without coming back. During this time of practice, he became Lucius's personal joke that kept him laughing all seven days. Most of his spells wouldn't make him look too silly if he messed up, but Shadow Escape and Air Steps were the worst. He first began with Shadow Escape but he realized that it took a lot of concentration to get his entire body to transfer. It was quite frightening as well, half his leg would sink in but then he could not control it so he was stuck with half his leg in the ground with the other half sticking out of some random shadow. He had scared the living daylights out of many other students and adventurers in the forest. They would be walking through and spot a random calf and foot sticking out from the ground. Later on it would be half his body, or his whole body without his head. It took him three days to finally have his whole body be transported five meters away. Lucius just sat around and incessantly giggled while looking at Greyson trapped in the ground and when he heard the screams of fright when someone had obviously discovered the other half of his body.

This was the first episode. Next came the Air Steps spell. The reason he became proficient with Heal was all because of practicing this wind spell. First, he practiced on the ground which seemed easy enough. However, the boost in speed and strength to his legs while he was running was really difficult to get used to and he would constantly slam into tree trunks and branches because he would burst out harder than he expected. He would end up bruising all over his body. Lucius almost fell over laughing and he even ended up crying because he couldn't stop. He would constantly replay the scenes of Greyson slamming into the trees. After he used around a day getting used to the spell on the ground, he tried using it to hop around from tree to tree and step on the air like the spell said he could. However, it was easy to imagine how the spell would work, but another to actually apply it. He used a lot of concentration to look around from tree to tree and make sure to maneuver his body correctly, therefore it was hard for him to concentrate enough on using the air to cushion his foot and allow him to use the air as a step. For almost half the day, Greyson would fall from the air and crash into the ground or he would concentrate too much on the air and not enough to his surrounding and would run into things again. The two days he spent on this spell left his scratched and bruised all the time, so he became very proficient with his Heal spell.

The last two days were spent getting used to the rest of the spells. Earth Wall and Fire Arrow were rather easy to imagine and he quickly got used to them. Water Cage was not too bad, but the amount of mana it used was too much for Greyson. He would try to prank Lucius when he kept laughing, however, he could not keep Lucius in the cage for long at all. He barely passed 10 seconds, especially because Lucius was more powerful. Paralyze was not yet perfected either because he could only radiate the spell from his hands. It was hard for him to transfer the spell to other parts of his body. Since his mana was low, he could not yet radiate the spell from his entire body which meant he had to perfect the timing if he wanted to use it flexibly during a fight.

The seven days passed extremely quickly and he would hunt a magic beast every now and then to eat, but he was worried if he didn't head back that Lyle would worry. He had forgotten to let anyone know of his departure other than Teacher Elendil. Greyson decided it was around time to head back for a little just to let Lyle know of the circumstances then leave again to continue practicing. He had not mastered the spells yet and he could only use them one and a time slowly while using all his concentration. He wanted to continue practicing so that he could use them the minute he thought of them.

Using Air Steps, Greyson tried his best to weave through the trees. He fell every now and then, but he was definitely much better then before. The biggest issue is that he only brought two pairs of clothes which were both cut up all around. They were his only clothes other than his school uniform, so he decided to use the magic beast cores to buy new clothes in the city market. It took him half a day to make it back to the edge of the forest then to the entrance of Academy City. He was able to quickly walk in after showing his student ID necklace. It was a common metal necklace with his name and the insignia of the Academy, but it was enchanted so that it was almost impossible to break under normal circumstances. He received it at the beginning and had been wearing it on him ever since. Walking through the entrance, he saw the familiar market from when he first arrived. Searching around a while, he finally found a store that trades money for magic beast cores. He knew most students traded directly with the Academy, but Greyson only needed regular clothes so he thought that money was the best exchange. He didn't have higher level cores, only novice level beasts, so he only received 20 silver coins. But as someone who only own a couple tens of copper coins in his 5 years of living, he felt that he was suddenly rich. He walked to the nearest clothing store which did not look too expensive. He picked a normal cotton shirt and pants. Greyson loved the color white, but for efficiency's sake he picked out a bunch of black and brown clothes. In that way they would not be stained as easily, plus his robe was white. He used 5 silver coins to purchase the clothes leaving him with leftover for later. He decided to start saving his money and storing it in his extra bag in his room.

...

After his little shopping excursion, he made it back to his room by evening and saw Lyle sitting on the couch in the living room. When Lyle saw Greyson, he sat up in relief. Greyson didn't know, but Lyle had been worried after the second day so he requested an audience with Head Teacher Elendil to ask about Greyson's situation and was told that he was training in the forest. He relaxed when he at least knew Greyson was not in trouble, but after seven days passed with no word he began to feel anxious. Bad thoughts ran through his head all day and he could hardly concentrate. Once Greyson walked in, he felt much better.

"You were in the forest this whole time?"

"Oh, how did you know?"

"Of course I went and asked. What? Did you think I wouldn't get worried if you disappeared for SEVEN days?" Greyson heard the worry in his voice and saw the dark circles under his stern eyes. He suddenly realized that, although Lyle looked rather cold and apathetic, he was soft and caring on the inside.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you. I didn't know if you would even notice, since you tend to get really absorbed in class and meditation."

Lyle rolled his eyes and huffed in frustration, "I forget the little things, I obviously wouldn't forget about a whole person. I get absorbed and distracted, I'm not stupid and blind."

"Well, I am sorry. You're the reason I came back. I totally forgot about the time when I was practicing. I'll be heading out again tomorrow morning, I just wanted to tell you this time. You shouldn't worry too much, the forest is really not that dangerous on the outskirts. I hadn't run into a single intermediate beast and even if I had Lucius here would beat them." He raised his shoulder at these words and Lyle finally realized there was an extra body in the room.

"Lucius?" He looked over at the cute silver kitten in disbelief.

"You might not be able to see it, but Lucius is at the intermediate level stage 5!" That's right. Lucius had broken through to the fourth stage around the same time that Greyson arrived at Sirius and, in the time that Greyson forgot about him, he had broken through again to the fifth stage.

"This kitten is that powerful?" Hearing Lyle's words full of doubt, Lucius glared at him and hissed.

"Okay, okay. My bad. I didn't mean to underestimate you." He was not surprised that Lucius understood him as many of the more intelligent magic beasts could understand the human language, they just could not speak it back normally.

"Well, seeing that you have backup makes me relieved. I'm going to go to bed now. I haven't been sleeping well lately. I'll say bye again in the morning." Feeling too exhausted to be angry, once the source of his anxiety was gone, Lyle felt a wave of sleepiness crash onto him. He dragged his feet to the bedroom and quickly fell asleep. Greyson grinned watching him, knowing he felt too embarrassed to mention that he was not getting sleep because he was too worried. He walked into his own bedroom and decided to go to the bathroom and shower. Lucius followed him and they both took a warm bath for the first time in a week and were extremely glad to rub the stink off of themselves. Lucius jumped into the bath quickly and let out a relaxed sigh.

"I though cats hated getting wet?" Greyson glanced at the cat in wonder.

"Hmph, how can you compare me, a intelligent and majestic magic beast, to normal dumb animals? Of course any civilized being enjoys staying clean. Did you think I would just wallow in dirtiness? That's absolutely revolting."

"Well, okay then. I didn't mean to offend you." Greyson rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. They finished their bath quickly and dried off. Greyson quickly got changed and passed out on his bed without saying a word.

Lucius glanced over at the little boy sleeping away and sighed. He used his teeth to grab at the edge of the blanket and pull it over him.

"I guess you're still a child after all."