Chapter 9 No Escape

"As everyone here knows while his Eminence the court mage and the Great mages hold the capital we have been tasked to reinforce fort Kuzdin which is responsible for sending rations along this route."

Senior Ron continued, "but due to the constant attacks we received since we stepped foot in this unsightly forest our pace had slowed down considerably. So you will be sent ahead to clear the way for us. Any questions?"

Esdras could see than many people had questions and even protests to this order but they all swallowed down their words. He himself was one of them.

Being sent to clear the way was obviously a very dangerous task but it was also a good one to separate himself from the suspicious Robert. In that time he could claim that his injury healed.

"If I may?" Robert raised his head and Ron nodded, "I wonder how we should clear the monsters? The forest will play to their advantage, there is a small chance of us finding them if they decided to hide."

"A reasonable doubt," Ron nodded, naturally this kind of treatment was only reserved for level 4 apprentices.

"We have already sent our familiars to scout and managed to get a rough estimate to their hideouts and nests. As long as you look carefully it won't be a problem. Anything else?"

Seeing that no one had anything else to say he continued, "you will be divided into groups of four, also four soldiers will assist you. You must keep quelling the monsters for four days and then group up in the blue spot on the map and join us in the fort."

Esdras didn't like the sound of this, he had to find some way to weasel his way out of this.

"Senior," Esdras raised his hand, "I am suffering from an injury, I will only slow the others down and might even cause an accident…"

Senior Ron frowned, "you seem to have the ability to talk and walk about just fine."

Esdras sat down, he knew not to argue, it was a long shot anyway. With his status his words meant very little a fact that he was slowly coming to realize.

"Senior!"

Celine stood up, "please let Esdras rest for a while, he was injured badly." She pleaded.

Senior Ron looked at her for a moment before nodding, "fine, but only for one day, by tomorrow morning you will join the others. Is that clear?"

Esdras quickly nodded, "thank you senior." And then glanced at the proud looking Celine, she helped him out in a pinch.

Celine was not only a level 4 apprentice, she was extremely talented and there were rumors that several Great mages were ready to accept her as a disciple the moment she becomes a True mage.

"The red spots are numbered, this here is how you are divided. It's not negotiable so don't make yourselves look bad."

Saying that senior Ron and the others turned to leave but before they could do that Esdras used his Third eye on Ron, he wanted to see exactly what made a True mage different.

Name: Ron Salask

Class: True wind mage Lv.2

Physique: 1

Agility: 2

Intelligence: 7

Spirituality: 8

Mana: 14

Skills: ???

His mana was too mach, his agility was unexpectedly higher than 1 and his intelligence and spirituality were also impressive.

Unfortunately he couldn't see any of his skills or spells, it was a shame. And he already knew that Ron was a wind mage.

He needed to find a way to upgrade his Third eye skill.

After they big shots left Esdras stayed behind to know which team he was on, if he was unlucky he might get put together with Robert.

He breathed a sigh of relief, it looks like all the level 4s were divided to be something akin to team leaders. He was put with someone else a guy called Bran, the others two were level 3 apprentices.

This wasn't the best of situations that he could have ended up with so it was actually a good thing.

Back in his tent Esdras thought of something important, today he leveled up four times by practicing the Vigor breathing technique but he didn't get any stat points or skill points.

How was he supposed to get them then?

Hmm, but there was another possibility, what if only using EXP to level up granted him stats points and skill points?

And he didn't get any EXP for practicing, he also didn't get any quests nor did the system communicate with him on its own.

So, it was that type of system, huh.

Probably, he could only get EXP by killing things. Soon he will find out if his guess was right or not.

Within his sea of consciousness he resumed cleaning the pollution and split his attention to practice the Vigor breathing technique.

For the whole day he didn't bother going out, he wanted to breakthrough to become a Vigor knight and started constructing an elemental sigil by next day.

He could feel the warm Vigor inside of him growing at an alarming rate and his body becoming much stronger.

By late at night he was forced to stop, he did not advance to become a Vigor knight despite training for so long.

At least his sea of consciousness was now sparkling and the pollutions have been cleared.

Esdras could be reckless and force himself to train for the rest of the night but he was too tired and exhausted. Splitting his focus on two different tasks was not without cost.

However he was not a True mage he still had to sleep for four hours at least. If not, he could end up putting his life in danger on tomorrow's hunt.

The next day, the sun rose, he washed up and noticed that his tent was alone in the wilderness.

'Oh, right, they're going ahead.'

While they were holding the monsters back they would move on and cross the forest safely.

Esdras picked up his sword and swung in the air. There was only three moves that any beginner could perform, stab, slash, thrust.