12.Forest of the Night

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After I said my good byes to the ol’ man, I wrapped him with my threads and put his corpse into my [Dimensional Storage].

I looked at the attic before my eyes for one last time and entered the portal.

As I entered it, my view drastically changed. From an attic to a field of green.

I looked around and saw trees, grass, but most importantly when I looked up, the sky that I was looking at wasn’t red anymore.

A blue sky and clouds.

“I missed this”

I let out a soft breath as I felt nostalgic.

The air felt much nicer than the barren lands. Not only is the air more clear, The mana surrounding this place is much more denser.

After I spent e few minutes enjoying the new change in scenery, I wanted to look at my changes, after that ‘premature evolution’ I seem a bit more taller than before and felt weird in a way.

“Status” I mumbled.

[ Status ]

[ Name - Leonidas ]

[ Race - Crowic Ice Demon ]

Subspecies - [ Crionic Devil ] - Lv. 19

[ Strength - 70 ]

[ Agility - 70 ]

[ Stamina - 70 ]

[ Intelligence - 85 ]

[ Vitality - 75 ]

[ Stat Points available - 18 ]

[ Racial Skills ]

Language Comprehension - Lv. 3

Ice Crow Magic Lv. 1

Crow Contract Lv. 1

Crow Transformation Lv. 1

Feather Materialization Lv. 1

[ Universal Skills ]

Food Resistance - Lv. 4

Identify - Lv. 2

Mana Manipulation - Lv .2

Mana Shot - Lv. 7

Magic Missile - Lv. 6

Mana Claw - Lv. 5

Mana Coat - Lv. 8

Magic Intent - Lv. 2

[Skills]

Night Vision

Enhance Lv. 3

Thread Creation - Lv. 3

Meditate - Lv. 6

Instant Ice Mana Lv. 1

[ Skill points available - 13 ]

[ Title - The Chosen Crow ]

After my premature evolution, my body got considerably stronger.

I would also have to test my new skills. They seem fairly interesting. Although I don’t know at what level was the ol’ man at his peak. But if he was telling the truth, these skills have a lot of potential and can be can be game changing.

Talking about change, I also noticed that my race has changed.

It might be tricky to compare myself with other demons in the future but that doesn’t really matter now. I will always be more far ahead than others of my level.

If I didn’t have < The Devouring Snake Ring > my stats would have been nowhere near the same as now. According to my calculations my stats would have been around these numbers.

[ Strength - 30 ]

[ Agility - 30 ]

[ Stamina - 30 ]

[ Intelligence - 35 ]

[ Vitality - 30 ]

But with the help of the ring, now, I have double the stats than I was supposed to have. Also, If I didn’t have the ring it would have been much harder to inherit the legacy of the [Ice Crow] than without it

I explored my status and surprisingly as I was looking through it, It seems that a new title had appeared.

[ Title - The Chosen Crow ]

- Gives you favorability with crows.

- Your Racial Skills will be more potent by 100%.

- Able to slightly communicate with Crows.

- Hidden

- Hidden

- Hidden

I didn’t care about the hidden effects right now and focused on what I have right now.

Raising the potency of my Racial skills will be very good on the long run. So it’s not a bad title at all, unlike my previous one [ Spider Killer ] which only served the purpose of scaring spiders lower level than me which was pretty much the least of what I would want.

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EXP is EXP.

…

After I finished looking at my status. I stood up from the rock I was sitting and started to wander around the forest.

So far I haven’t found any wild animal anywhere. The whole place felt empty. With not even a single ant in sight. I wondered if I was alone in the forest. The forest was pretty big, so I still haven’t explored the majority of the place.

As I wandered around, I found something I haven’t seen in a while and that is..

Food.

But I didn’t find it in the forest, I found it while I looked through the ol’ man’s ring.

The ring was silver in color and wasn’t really wide. It also had a gold crystal as its design and looked very good on my hand.

Alongside treasures and a lot of other stuff. He had tons of food inside and they seemed to be very well protected, the fruits were in the best shape and the raw meat inside hadn’t gone bad.

It’s probably a mechanism of the ring, which I still haven’t used [Identify] on.

So I used [Identify] on the ring and read its information.

[ Name - Ring Of Samael ]

[ Grade - Divine ]

[ Type - Accessory ]

[ Effects - First Effect [ Storage ]

- Second Effect [ Fallen’s Ensconce ]

[ Storage ]

~ Sub-Effect [ Delay ] • Time Delay | 1:15

(The more the level, the higher the ratio!)

I was very surprised at the grade of the ring. The old man really outdid himself with this.

Although the effects of the ring didn’t have many sub-effects, It had something I really needed to have.

[ Time Delay ]

As the name implies, this effect slows down time inside the storage. The higher my level the higher the ratio.

And of course the other effect.

[ The Fallen’s Ensconce ]

~Allows one to hide their status and information of their equipment from any level of Identification or observing skills. Unless you are targeted by the skill of someone 35 levels higher than you.

Now that I think about it. The old man could have easily seen through me, but chose not to. Instead he chose to believe in my words. And that’s something I will always be grateful for.. For him to see my status it would have been as easy as cutting an apple, he could have used [ identify ] on me whenever he looked at me..

[ Identify ] is indeed a skill that everyone can have.

All one has to do to be able to gain it, is look. Because of its usefulness. Most would probably accept it and use one of their skill slots for it.

After I finished observing the ring.

I took out some meat from the ring and started a fire with wood.

My cooking skills aren’t really good, but how hard can it be to roast meat?

I put the meat in the fire and started roasting it.

It turns out it’s hard….

Sooner or later, the meat was roasted. It didn’t taste really good until I found sauce which was something the ol’ man kept inside the ring. I put sauce on top of the meat and started roasting it again.

“Is this what they call barbecue?”

I couldn’t exactly remember.

After I was done re-roasting, I bit the meat with my sharp teeth and was enlightened by the taste.

I looked once again at the sauce and remembered its name in my mind, for future needs.

Burp

A loud burp could be heard in the middle of the forest. If the old man saw me do this, he would say something like ‘No successor of mine will have no proper etiquette’

After half an hour I had already ate until my stomach was full.

I had to roast several chunks of meat until I was able to eat until I was full.

Well..

Not eating for months will do it. If I didn’t have [ Food Resistance ], I might have died because of hunger.

It would have been pretty funny.

After I was done eating I stood up. I patted my stomach and stretched my back.

Crack

“I really need a massage right now.”

Maybe I will find a massager somewhere.

Right now, I have no Idea where I am, I figured it out I could pass the time to kill monsters, but if there are no monsters there is also no time to kill.

I suppose I should be somewhere inside the Mayr Kingdom. That’s where the ol’ man’s home is anyway.

Unless he pranked me by ‘accidentally’ changing coordinates it should be fine.

After I finished eating and my muscle cracking, I left the area.

Who knows?, I might get lucky and find some monsters or maybe humans to guide me if I am extra lucky..

I walked calmly around the forest until I found water. A pond to be precise.

“Hmmm”

It’s been more than three weeks since I last had a bath.

So I took off my clothes and entered the pond slowly as to not splash the water.

I also use Ice mana to cool the pond a bit.

[ Instant Ice Mana ] is practically a cheat.

Now there is no need for me to convert my mana into ice mana. The skill immediately turns it into ice mana. This is probably a skill that even the old man had.

As someone who has only advanced in Ice Magic he needed this more than anyone.

I cooled of the pond and felt a sensation enter upon my body as I relaxed. I closed my eyes for a brief second and used [ Meditate ]. This skill could help me nap, but that’s not the main function of the skill. When created it, I created it for the sole purpose of recovering faster, being able to sleep is just something that came along with the package.

Right now I needed this.

Because my body has changed too abruptly and is slightly sore. My control over it isn’t really good at the moment, but as the minutes pass. I could tell that I was slowly getting my control back and even felt like I surpassed my previous level.

My body now can be considered to be that of a crow ..yet I don’t feel any different, my body is the same …probably. Not that I have checked..

Is my body like that of a crow? A humanoid crow?

My thoughts ran wild.

Crows are indeed fascinating creatures.

Mostly known for Misfortune and Death. But I like to think otherwise.

Crows are not the ones who cause misfortune and death.

They predict it, and just happen to be there when misfortune and death follows. They are feared for predicting something and unknowingly people started to turn them into something they don’t know.

Intelligent creatures tend to fear the unknown.

They know it too.

Yet.. They still fear it.

As I was meditating and sorting out my ‘wild’ thoughts.

I heard noises from a certain direction. But I couldn’t tell what kind of noise was it.

Although I continued to stay in the pond, I had my guard up and was ready to fight at any moment.

As the noise got closer, I could tell it was voices.

tak tak

I could also hear their steps slowly coming toward me until they were really close.

I could feel they were just behind those huge bushes in front of the pond.

A hand appeared in my sight as it removed the bushes away.

The bushes ware fully removed and a middle-aged man appeared. Following closely after him there was a teenage boy and a similar-aged girl.

The middle-aged man in front of me had a chest plate on his body and a sword in his waist looking ready to be unsheathed. He had his guard up when he saw me.

While the boy had leathered gear, the girl had a robe.

The boy also had a bow on his back which he had his right hand on when he saw me.

As for the girl, she had a mace?, nope, that’s probably what you call a staff.

That confirmed me that they were not after me and were probably looking for a water source nearby.

As I was still relaxed in the pond with my knees crossed, I asked with a smile.

“How may I help you?”

Other than the ol’ man, these people were the only other humans I have seen since coming to this world, I shouldn’t be rude right?.

The middle-aged man looked at me with narrowed eyes and instead of answering my question he made one himself.

“Who are you?”

I really don’t like these kinds of people, but I can’t just kill them because of that.

From the pond I grabbed my clothes nearby and turned around as I left the pond.

I wore the clothes slowly.

After I wore them, I turned around and introduced myself.

“My name is Leonidas, I came here from Hellzarr, may I know your names?”

The three of them looked at me and it seems their guard was not as high as before.

So the middle-aged man also introduced himself.

“I am sorry for the rudeness, my name is Brandon, the boy and girl behind me are Claus and Tina.”

“It’s fine” I said as I nodded.

The boy called Claus took a step forward and asked me, “Emm, mister, can you tell us what are you doing here in the middle of the day?”

Brandon looked at Clause and yelled.

“Claus! How many times do I have to tell you not to put your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

I look at them a bit confused, “You can call me Leonidas and what do you mean in the middle of the day?”

This time it was their turn to get confused and it was Brandon that spoke, “You don’t know about this forest ?”

“What’s there to know about? I arrived here two hours ago and I haven’t even seen a single creature until.. you arrived now.”

Brandon looked at the girl behind him and she nodded at him as if giving him permission.

Bodyguards?

I don’t know about the boy Claus but it seems this Brandon is following the girl named Tina’s orders.

After receiving a nod from Tina, Brandon looked at me and said.

“Um.. You see in this forrest, monsters won’t appear until it’s night, and even the name of the forrest is the < Night Forrest > that’s probably why you haven’t seen any creature. People like us, adventurers come early so we can prepare in advance so we can fight monsters.”

“Well that explains it, thank you for you information.”

I thanked him and nodded.

He also nodded and continued, “It’s fine, after all, this is common knowledge here.”

A certain thought came to my mind and asked him something.

“Now that you mention it, where would here be ?”

“In Silesia, of course.” He responded.

“I mean, What Kingdom?

He was very confused at the moment but still answered anyways.

“The Sun Kingdom”

….

..

Why can’t you just entered the damn coordinates right, once..for fuck’s sakeeeee!

End of volume 1 [ The Crow’s First Step ]