“Like what?” Dora asked, “The forest is a big place.”
“Yes, obviously. Just tell me what you would anyone entering for the first time. A quick run through of the important stuff: where to go, where to avoid, what to look out for, etcetera.”
She raised an eyebrow at his statement, which Alex wholly ignored. After playing up his importance in her plans to such a degree, he reasoned he could get away with exposing a bit more of his ignorance.
“Someone entering the forest for the first time at your level would have a guard, if not a team of them, but sure why not. I guess we can start with where we are now. This and pockets of land like it are known as camping grounds. They’re areas beasts don’t normally enter, that tend to be located either in places with structures made by people, or areas frequented by them. If you come across one without a construct, and you’re unsure if your surroundings are safe or not, don’t risk it unless you absolutely have too, and even then, climb a tree or something.
What else?” she muttered; her eyes distant as she considered. “Oh, just because the average beast won’t run in to attack you, doesn’t make them magical fortresses. Don’t expect a full pack of Stonecane to just end pursuit because you enter an area that smells like people might have been there. I’ve heard of more than a few groups who thought they could get free kills by sitting on the edge of safe zones and playing bait, it didn’t end well for the bait, or the rest of the squad depending on what they attracted.”
Alex kept his face neutral as Dora continued, though inwardly he felt a bit stupid. Safe zone camping had been one of his first thoughts when she’d started describing the camping grounds.
“There are two main places you’ll want to avoid, so let’s cover those next. First, stay away from the settlements. They’re large concentrations of beasts; some homogenous, others not. Most will look like a town or a village, but if you’re close enough to get a good look, you should have already started moving in the other direction.”
A large concentration of beasts did sound like the type of place he’d want to stay away from, but the way she’d phrased made the creatures sound organized, potentially civilized. “Are they hostile against humans or people in general?” he asked, though it was more a guess to her reasoning, than a question.
“Not, really” she said, shaking her head, “it’s more of a cultural issue than a combat one. Most of the beasts in the settlements have much higher intelligence levels than the average one in the forest, with their leadership at the peak of that. Like any civilization, they have their own customs, culture, and ways of communication, imagine trying to navigate that with how ignorant you are now.”
Alex could tell she was making a jab at him but he saw no point in engaging, still, he felt it was nice to see the bloodline holder returning to the version of herself he was more familiar with.
“You’re better off just walking the opposite direction instead of causing an accidental incident due to negligence.” She hesitated for a moment before continuing. “Look, I wasn’t going to mention it but most of the larger villages report directly to the beast king. If you do go then do something stupid and tip him off, we could both be fucked, so seriously just stay away.”
Alex didn’t necessarily agree with her entire claim, but he could accept the wisdom behind her words. It wasn’t like he had time to mess about in some beast filled town anyway. He had a self-imposed maximum of three weeks in the forest, not counting the potential trips he’d need to make to the wall if another mandatory quest was issued. Mentally exhausted just thinking about it, Alex refocused on Dora’s words at the perfect time to hear something interesting.
“-second is dungeons. The term is a bit all-encompassing so I’m going to clarify. Above ground dungeons are fine, those are really just beast dens anyway. I don’t really recommend them at your level, especially for any pack animals, but you’ve made it obvious you’re not useless in a fight. Just make sure to stay away from subterranean dungeons. If you took one on alone at your level it would pretty much be assisted suicide, and even if you somehow made it out of your first encounter, it would take too long for you to clear it. I did one with a full squad of royal knights a year ago, the average monster level was only around fifty, and it still took us a week and a half to clear.
Alex nodded, taking her warning seriously. He was curious, but his main goal was still survival, plus as Dora explained it, he’d have plenty to explore without ignoring her advice. She continued on, mentioning parts of the forest that would be best for him to explore and why, before wrapping it up with a few pointers on navigation, and exploration.
“Seriously don’t die, that’d just fuck everything up,” Dora said as she rose to leave. It was crude, but Alex appreciated having another person invested in his survival. Instead of leaving it there, however, she turned back, hands idly playing with her mask as she spoke.
“Alex, I told you about my past in the hope it would help you trust me when I asked for your help. I don’t expect you to do the same, but would you be willing to tell me why you and my father share that aura?”
Alex held eye contact as he considered his response. He currently had just about the same amount of information as her on the topic, and with everything else going on, it was far from an immediate concern of his. Knowing that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, Alex added a lightness to his tone he hadn’t actually felt in a week and improvised. “How about this, if we somehow get past this first stage in our plan, I’ll tell you what I know. Just make sure to follow through on your end of the deal to raise our chances.”
While clearly not what she’d been hoping for, she accepted, her expression pensive as she left the room. He watched through Sixth Sense as she affixed the mask to her face and headed for the compound's exit, hopefully he’d actually have something to tell her by the time they next met.
The memory reminding him it was time to do another probe of his surroundings, Alex refocused on the present as he pulsed his sensory skill. It had been about fifteen minutes ago since he’d exited the compound, but he was yet to encounter another creature. His bubble had picked up the occasional scurrying rodent or sleeping bird, but nothing hostile. There was still another hour until sunrise, so the lack of activity wasn’t unsurprising, though Alex still made a point to “ping” Sixth Sense every five minutes or so.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
At his current skill level, the five mana he defaulted to feeding it every second equated to a sphere with a diameter of just over ten-meters. By supplying an additional ten mana for one of those seconds, Alex created the maximum 30-meter bubble that fed him the information of a much larger space. He’d done this a few time back when he was F-Grade, though the bubble had been notably fllimsier the further from the center it was. Trying one this size two hours ago would have resulted in a migraine. Now with the way his brain divided up and distributed the information to him over the course of seconds rather than all at once, absorbing so much was almost easy.
***
Your skill [Sixth Sense] has advanced to Level Twenty-Three.
***
As more of the same uneventful forest was filtered through his skill, Alex had to admit that while improved in its data processing, the skill was still far from perfect. He’d been unable to tell when he was inside the bunker, but now that he was in an active environment, it was clear. His body’s evolution hadn’t only made the skill easier to use, but also less precise. There wasn’t a specific area of the skill he could pinpoint as the problem, but it was present in the way he perceived the leaves swaying in the breeze, or the smells his nose caught from a mile away.
Alex didn’t know if he was actively doing something wrong, or if this was just a passive result of evolution, but he decided to focus on evolving the skill’s grade to match his race for the moment. If that didn’t fix the sudden regression, he’d have no choice but to wait until he got back to the city and could ask someone.
The monotonous forest landscape began to blur as he continued to walk, and Alex found his mind again wandering. The way Dora had explained it, the forest was over five times larger than the city. The sheer amount of distance he could cover made him want to break out in a sprint, but he knew most of that was just the urge to see what his new body could really do. Risking a nighttime run through an unfamiliar forest was just asking for trouble, so he’d decided to play tortoise instead. Though that didn’t mean the time had to be a waste, he still had his newest skill to try out after all.
Excitement building at the prospect of teleporting, Alex took a moment before activating the ability, the process both similar to what he’d expected, and so much more intuitive than he could have imagined. Sure, the description had claimed it would be simultaneous, but reading about it was quite different from actually experiencing the ability. He’d been made invisible, moved five feet away, and was now looking at another version of himself still midstride, all within milliseconds. Alex hadn’t even known he’d picked a destination by the time he’d been teleported.
Tamping down on his excitement was difficult, but with the large mana cost from the skill, he knew better than to waste the time gawking. Shifting his gaze to himself, his real self, Alex could still see his hands. It seemed the invisibility, the skill granted, had no impact on his sight, though there was a new small icon on his HUD that was counting down the seconds. Thinking on what else he wanted to try, he moved towards the echo. It had gotten a bit away as Alex had remained still, but he was able to catch up to it, his hand passing through the illusion as it continued on, before disappearing.
In combination with Sixth Sense the skill could be a very powerful tool against ambushes, but the illusion would be rendered useless almost immediately in the wrong environment, even if it could last for five seconds. Doing a check to his mana, Alex activated the ability once more, this time focusing on not teleporting anywhere. He’d been still when he activated the skill, which made it seem like nothing had happened, barring the new timer in his vision. His vision wasn’t obscured by his own clone, making it seem as if no echo had spawned, however as he took a step away it came into vision. Using the seconds to keep track of the timer, Alex began backing up, and when the invisibility only had one second left, he teleported.
This didn’t work exactly how he’d planned, rather than five feet from where he’d been Alex was moved, about one and a half feet to his right, with was actually closer to his body, than he’d been after walking away. It seemed the movement part of the skill, was entirely based on the location he’d been when activating the skill. It was a bit disappointing that he couldn’t stack the movement like that, but he was still too excited about teleporting to really care.
Debating whether he could spare the mana to test more, Alex pulsed Sixth Sense, this time at thirty mana to be more conservative. When it came back as quiet as the others had, he rationalized that as long as he kept over 1500 mana in his pool, escaping a wayward beast shouldn’t be an issue. At that moment he was still sitting at over three thousand mana, and only wanted to test one more thing, though it would take him two activations to do so.
Breaking out into a sprint, Alex teleported himself up to a low-hanging branch that looked sturdy enough to hold his weight. His dexterity worked to keep him on his feet as he continued to run, his body maintaining its momentum. This bit had worked as he’d hoped, though now would come the real test. Jumping off the branch, Alex held for a moment before reactivating Echo Relocation just above the ground. This did not work as well.
Rather than halt the momentum as he’d hoped, the force he’d gathered from his fall stayed with him, throwing him off balance as he reached the ground, resulting in a fall, and sore shoulder. The conservation of momentum meant he couldn’t jump off a skyscraper and live, though it did offer up other uses of the skill. Wincing as he got to his feet, Alex turned to find his echo in an interesting position. Jumping hadn’t broken the skill exactly, it had fallen the rest of the way, but now remained in the awkward position he’d held in the air. That only confirmed his earlier assumption of the illusion’s usefulness, and on a whim, he inspected the clone with Sixth Sense more directly before it vanished.
The clone had an exact mimic of his aura signature, that made him wonder if his invisibility removed his aura signature, which he’d need to activate the skill to find out. Combining his current mana pool with the ring, he was still sitting at just under three thousand mana, which would still leave him a thousand mana over his limit, but in the end he decided against it. Alex wasn’t so impatient he needed to know everything immediately, it would just be something to keep in mind until he got the chance to test it later. Instead, he switched to a skill he’d neglected during his time in the prison cell. Well it wasn’t really neglecting when he couldn’t access it due to mana restricting cuffs and constant torture, but same difference. Resuming his walk with another ping from Sixth Sense, Alex got to work on Aura control.
***
Your skill [Aura Control] has advanced to Level Seven.
…
Your skill [Aura Control] has advanced to Level Eleven.
***
It only took about fifteen minutes of work to earn the new five levels, but they had been a hard fifteen minutes. He’d gone into it with the goal of completely concealing his presence, such a skill was bound to be invaluable in an environment such as this, though Alex found himself lowering expectation by the minute as he worked. The difference between grades had shown itself again and this one was much more dramatic. Even back when he’d been level seventeen, using Aura Control to make himself appear as a level one had been trivial, now going down by even ten levels was nearly impossible. He could only hold it at fifteen for around five minutes before the strain became too much, so he instead opted to appear as a level twenty, if only to keep gaining experience with the skill.
The multiple distractions had allowed enough time to pass that the sun had started peeking over the horizon, hints of light beginning to illuminate the area> A couple of minutes later, Alex spotted his first two active beasts.