Chapter 10

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

From the map, the foxtail grass and the fluorescent stone were too far apart. The foxtail grass was in the southernmost part of the Dark Forest, while the fluorescent stone was in the cave in the north of the Dark Forest. With Michael’s current abilities, it would be very difficult for them to return before nightfall if they wanted to collect two items at the same time.

After all, the Dark Forest was simply too vast.

In the beginning, it was actually just a small forest, but as the number of black mages increased, the Dark Forest was gradually eroded by black magic. It slowly became a huge forest that occupied one-fifth of the land area of Tyre.

Although the Dark Forest was called a forest, it wasn’t actually one. There were also infected caves, grasslands, and flower areas.

Before these places were contaminated by black magic, they were once the most beautiful places in the Tyre Continent. There were inexhaustible alchemy materials inside, and all kinds of gentle and cute spirit beasts lived here. Many mages would come here to relax or look for alchemy materials.

But it was also because of the abundance of magic power here that the black mages quickly targeted it. At first, they were only here to choose alchemy materials. Although the mages had some complaints about this, there was nothing they could do. Because the Dark Forest was the public property of the entire Tyre Continent, there was no rule that said that black mages could not come here to choose alchemy materials.

Moreover, those black mages were simply annoying. They were like flies that could not be chased away. One batch could be driven away today, and another would simply appear tomorrow. As time passed, the mages saw that they were only looking for alchemy materials and did not cause any damage to the forest. Hence, they were allowed to choose all kinds of alchemy materials in the forest.

Compared to the freedom of dark mages, mages had to constantly take on missions and attend various academies’ annual examinations. He did not have much time to waste with the black mages.

However, it was this carelessness that led to bitter consequences.

The black mages began to use black magic in the forest. In the beginning, only a few low-level creatures were demonized and did not attract the attention of the mages.

By the time the mages realized the severity of the problem, everything was already beyond redemption. Traces of black magic contamination quickly spread from one place to the other. In just a day, it had already infected one-sixth of the Tyre continent. The magical beasts that originally lived in the forest also had a drastic change in temperament. They became irritable and violent and were extremely hostile to humans.

All the high-level mages on the continent of Tyre attacked together, but they could only barely limit the Dark Forest’s infection rate to one-fifth of the continent. At the same time, they drew a line so that the magical beasts could not leave the Dark Forest to harm ordinary people without magic.

However, the restrictions needed to be fixed from time to time, so there were often cases of magical beasts escaping. This required a mage to go out and expel the magic beasts. The trouble was that other than the escaping magic beasts, there were also many black mages who used their own black magic to deliberately infect the spirit beasts. These infected magic beasts could turn ordinary people into raw materials for black mages to increase their magic power.

But what was worse was that everyone found that the Dark Forest actually had its own consciousness. It blamed everyone who had magic for being hurt by black magic and began to target the mages.

The two sides fought for a long time over this matter. In the end, the mages set up a barrier in the depths of the Dark Forest to completely seal the consciousness of the Dark Forest. However, the seal could not completely restrict the consciousness of the Dark Forest. It could only weaken it.

In order to prevent the consciousness of the Dark Forest from escaping, the academy agreed to its request. Every year, a group of mages would be sent to eliminate its resentment. However, the Dark Forest could no longer attack mages for no reason. This was also why the academy would send mages who failed the annual assessment into the Dark Forest.

“How about this?” Michael thought for a moment. “It’s still too dangerous to spend the night in the Dark Forest. We are doing our best to ensure our safety.”

Now that his team hadn’t yet developed, hiding and developing slowly was better. ‘I’ll make plans when I meet the main character in the original book in the future,’ Michael thought.

“Yes, yes, yes. What do you call this?” Little Bat thought for a while and complained, “After careful consideration, you will win every battle!”

“Aren’t you talking too much?” Michael continued to organize the route map for a while, planning the route into the Dark Forest. In the end, he decided to look for foxtail grass first.

On the one hand, the cave was more dangerous, and on the other, Karl was more familiar with foxtail grass, so it was easier to find it.

Pa!

Cups and other furniture were smashed to the ground.

Miller was standing in his cabin, fuming, venting his anger on all sorts of things in the room.

As a beginner mage, he had his own small house and did not need to live in a dormitory.

The small room felt like it was experiencing a typhoon. Everything was smashed to the ground. Miller stood in the middle, struggling to vent his anger. He let his magic power, which was out of control due to anger, tear everything within a few square meters.

The injuries of the two underlings were almost healed. They stood in the distance trembling, not daring to approach their political lunatic boss.

“Who is he? How dare he snatch my mission book?!” Miller glanced at his underlings.

This time, not only was the thing that caught his eye stolen, but he and his underling were also beaten up like this.

He had spent a lot of gold coins to heal his two underlings, but the Healing Mage ridiculed and extorted him.

But this was not the most infuriating thing. Miller slammed a college report on the ground. The headlines and videos in the newspaper deeply hurt his eyes.

This newspaper sold well today, which meant that almost everyone in the academy knew that Miller was beaten up like a dead dog. How was he going to stand in this world in the future?

Even while walking in the academy, he could hear others whispering and laughing at him behind his back!

“Boss, they must be going to the Dark Forest for a mission.” The one-eyed man carefully approached his boss and smiled obsequiously. “We can’t beat them on the surface, but can’t we secretly plot against them?”

“There are no recordings in the Dark Forest. He could only blame himself for being unlucky. When the time comes, we’ll follow behind them and find an opportunity.” The one-eyed man drew a hand across his neck. “We’re in the dark, and they’re in the light. Isn’t it very easy to cause trouble?”

In the academy dormitory.

Michael packed up the alchemy potions he needed and put them into his vault space. He then checked his teammates’ luggage. “Then let’s set off tomorrow!”

“Team Z, first operation.” Mr. Royce said excitedly, “I have to clean up properly.”