Even after an hour. Nothing was seen, heard, or even sensed. Everything was eerily quiet. Wind blew, even sounds in the distance could be heard.

From the trees, she found that the tree line was a natural boundary that formed with no known cause, that came to mind. There was just a strange, almost man made, small patch of trees.

One side to the other. A clear line, telling anyone and everything, what was what. One side was the outside world. Other was inside.

Even while staying in the in between. She couldn’t identify where the feeling came from, however, there was an uncomfortable feeling to how unnatural it felt.

Without any evidence to support this feeling. Jessica decided to be more careful. Falling silently, using mana to ensure that nothing made her presence known. Pausing for but a moment, having to force the old man’s image from her mind.

The elven mana rotation technique she was taught continued to add more functionality. It was clearly not absolute. Using mana at Grade F didn’t have any other effects outside quick transition, allowing the mana to move through the body at a very fast pace. Having broken through to Grade E, Jessica noticed mana naturally concealed itself. This level didn’t completely hide her mana use, just making it harder to detect.

If at Grade F her mana moved fast, it could cause people in the surroundings to possibly mistaken it for their imagination. This was under the condition she didn’t do anything drastic and just moved her mana very briefly. Now at Grade E, Jessica could use mana in a useful manner. While continuing to make it appear as if nothing had happened. At the very least, make it harder to discover her using mana.

By now it was clearly no simple technique, if she had to guess it had already been highly configured to herself. Even more complicated, she wasn’t doing anything different. As if, the thing she was doing had its own requirements. Grade F mana didn’t have the ability to do this. Only once she broke through, the difference in the quality of the mana showcased itself.

Quick paced, short distance. Moving from cover to cover, she would sit and wait each stop. With no tree line, her movements became a bit erratic. From a distance of ten feet to twenty, possible forty at the most. A tree here, a large bush, even a few rocks.

Moving in this strange way, she was circling around. One, objects that could hide her presence were fairly spread out. Not giving her a clean path in. Secondary, and most important. There was no map. At least not one she was given access to.

The only information she had was the article 3F. Knowing its approximate location required her to search around herself. Even more, she had its hunting ground, only minotaur’s hunger would easily cause it to move around.

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Adventurer’s Guild was an extremely reliable source. If they said it was the hunting ground, that would indicate, if one found that location. One minotaur would make itself known sooner or later.

Finally, after moving for over a few hours. Stopping, she lowered herself quickly and quietly. Between two trees, she was lucky in finding a large patch of grass or weeds. Doing her best not to make skin contact with an unknown plant.

To her right was a noise. Sounding like a breeze brushing the land. There was just something off about the sound. In her ears, she registered a forceful version of the natural sound of the wind.

Very little was different. To the point, she was fairly certain she was just hearing things. The question became, was she willing to risk getting ambushed. Risk her life for a fairly certain?

Without turning her head, she moved her eyes as she watched the direction without making any movements. As the wind tickled her ears, she could hear that sound time and time again. It was just soft enough to hear, without being able to pinpoint its location. No evidence showing this sound was moving or was unnatural.

After ten minutes, her patience finally got the better of her. Standing up, she moved around the noise. Not knowing its location, she could barely hear a general location. After a good thirty minutes, no longer hearing the sound, she started to question if she was hearing things. Regardless, she felt a load off her shoulders.

As the tension of too good of a journey started to play on her nerves, the sky decided it was the perfect time to cloud up. The already depleting sunlight continued to fade at a faster pace.

Thinking back, she had yet to find a good rest stop. Now she needed to figure out if she was going to be forced to sleep in a tree.

This would limit her movements. Both while sleeping, and if anything happened. Giving her a better view, if the clouds continued to spread. Her vision would be drastically lowered. Using mana in the open could cause night prowler to sense her.

One reason or another, nights were the most dangerous for being outside. A forbidden zone, she didn’t have to worry about being attacked by a person. Only animals with superior senses moved in the dark. Looking around, the best would be a crack off the ground, possibly just a bit out of reach.

In the end, what she found was not as good. The area had a few high zones, these were only hills. Finally, giving up as the sun was about to set. She had found a decent tree, if it could be called that. With no solid evidence, the tree just felt like a good one.

Not immediately resting, she decided to move a few minutes away. Taking out a set of special biscuits. They were severely lacking in any flavor. Like eating clumps of sand as she chewed on them. They were specialties of the forbidden zone. Specifically cooked to be scentless. After having her fill, she downed some water before returning to the tree after washing her hands clean.

Maybe being alone again, after the time she always had someone to watch her back. It left her desperately over compensating. Her paranoia had skyrocketed to another level. Not putting her complete trust in the biscuits, she used this to make sure they weren’t tracked back to her.

Setting up a couple of sticks, using string, she tied a string around them. Generally used with a bell. Here, there was no way to use a device to make sound. Instead, she tied both ends to a finger on each hand. In this way, if something caused the taut string to snag, she would be alerted.

Even theoretically allowing her to know from which direction.