The ferocious wind whispered secrets past my ears, attempting to forcefully remove my hood. The long and dark blades of grass danced in the everpresent wind. The ground beneath me rustled as I forced a path through the human sized leaves, until a thump echoed all around me.

The wind was gone, as if entering the eye of the storm, everything was silent. The silence made me even more aware of the thumps my feet made. Of the crunches the scorched earth produced. Behind me extended a tall grassy field. Extended into infinity with no obvious end. In front of me towered a misaligned dark spire. Scorched beyond recognition and yet completely intact.

The tall round towers were scattered around an enormous transparent dome. Arranged in a distinctly non-Akkadian way. Like vultures fighting for the right to an especially tasty strip of meat. The pointy roofs, protecting the towers from the elements, looked battered and desolate. The many greenish panels reminded me of the oxidized statues from my previous life. However, the desolation did not retract from their oppressive aura. There were hundreds of perches and unreasonably positioned spikes erected on the towers. Some perches that looked like a welcoming landing spot had small mechanisms placed under them that would deliberately collapse the perch. These mechanisms had degraded through time and many of the "fake perches" turned into real ones. Lighter birds build their nests there, filling the air with the ominous cawing of crows.

Wrapped around the spire, as if somebody accidentally made the wrong brush stroke, was a forest of thorns. Small, big, poisonous, and deadly. There was tremendous variety in how you might end up dying if you entered. Oily purple and deathly flexible, they surrounded the spire in a nest-like manner. Every branch was covered with a putrid iridescent liquid. That's what gave the thorns their shiny, oily and all around alien appearance. They looked like something from another planet, but not in a good sense. It was baffling how they managed to survive on the scorched earth that was ever present around the castle.

Located in the southeastern corner of the Sumerian Dukedom, it took me a few days on horseback to arrive here: Thornburg Castle Ruin. The place exhibited on the brass plate I dug out of the ground a few weeks ago. Its this exact hill where I am standing right now.

I managed to earn quite a lot of money thanks to crossbow sales but they have been heavily declining recently. Probably because crossbows are quite easy to reverse engineer and because Akkadian armorsmiths and weaponsmiths are extremely talented. Not to mention, they have more than a thousand years of tradition to draw on. They have probably already thought of a way to mitigate my design. Especially after the recent surge in popularity when someone imitated my duel strategy to great success.

Well, after the first blueprint stops being profitable I plan to start selling the version of the crossbow I am currently using. This one is as strong as I could make it with the available materials. It can pierce most full plate armors at close range and has a cranequin to lessen the burden of drawing back the string. The limbs are metal and the string is composite.

Projectiles have a limited use in a world where telekinetic barriers are the norm but they still work great on beasts and distracted opponents.

When using magic focus is of utmost importance. Losing focus means death. That's why sages often meditate in noisy environments. It takes around a hundred years to get decently good at telekinesis. Two hundred years is enough to become good at body enhancement. The added time is a consequence of added complexity. Human anatomy is very complicated and enhancing specific bodily functions is key to being an efficient and resilient fighter. For example experienced sages can force their body to produce more of a specific brain chemical, effectively gaining superhuman reflexes. The peak of magic: elemental training. It takes four hundred years to 'master.' However, even then you won't have full control over the output. That's why institutions like Polygon exist.

The reason I am here in the first place is because I hope to find a new language. To get more knowledge points I need more runes and hopefully phonetic rules. Absolute language comprehension allows me to instantly understand any language, code or cipher. It's the fastest way of acquiring knowledge and I plan to take full advantage of it.

Because I have acquired a Sumerian citizenship I was able to mass purchase metals like bronze. I'll make ten times the profit in a few months when the prices reverse. I was also able to get my hands on some special Akkadian materials.

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Technically I was supposed to be in the workshop right now but it turns out Liam, a native of this world, is far better at gunsmithing than me. After a week of him constantly correcting my designs I decided to give up and hand him the reins.

So, that's how I got here. The spot, designated as an entry into the forest of thorns.

There clearly used to be a pathway here but it had since been overgrown by the ever-expanding thorny weeds. An uncomfortably tiny path led deeper into the labyrinth of thorns.

Out of my bag I pulled a small gray mouse that I caught on the nearby grass field. It dared not bite into my leather glove as I aggressively threw it into the forest of thorns.

The mouse hit a particularly thick branch and slid onto the ground, leaving a trail of blood behind. The creature, not at all deterred by the damage it suffered, it immediately darted toward the exit, leaving small drops of blood behind.

It started slowly but when it did there was no stopping it. Wherever a drop of blood was present on the ground, the branches as if smelling it, slowly turned towards it. Then in an explosion of gore the mouse was torn to pieces. The animal's innards painted the entire forest in my vicinity red, mixing with the purplish hue of the wood to create an eerie atmosphere. One might mistake this for a horror movie scene if he saw a picture of it.

The thorny branches kept darting all around the forest entrance as if searching for something.

I unsheathed my new saber and whacked at the thorns. A trial of resilience ensued as my sword clashed with the branch, cutting deep into it but failing to pass through. This was abnormal as such a strike could easily decapitate an adult or cut a bundle of firewood.

The branch didn't respond to my cut at all. It just kept flailing around randomly, bashing the mouse's remains until none were left. Then it stopped and retracted into a stationary position. It seems like the bashing attacks are purely an instinctual response to the blood the plant detected. It acts like a hyper aggressive carnivore. Beating the animal to death and then soaking up its blood and other juices with its roots.

Thankfully, I didn't just walk in there like an idiot. Sure it would have made for a nice cliffhanger to my life's story but it would have probably been the last one as well. In the army I quickly learned that even the most meticulous preparation might not be enough but it will at least give you the space to improvise when faced with an unexpected situation.

The oily liquid on the branches was giving me really bad vibes so I did a few more tests. After about an hourclock's turn it became clear to me that the liquid has the ability to rot living creatures. If it gets into a wound or is ingested it will literally rot your body parts away one after another. It's probably a part of the plant's outer digestive system. The poison would also make sure that the plant is protected from small animals and insects that might seek to exploit its hard work.

I was before the final test that would decide whether I was entering this forest or not: "The fire test." I was curious about this one since I got here. I lowered a flaming torch below a smaller branch at the forest entrance, trying to set it on fire. However, what happened next shocked me.

When the branch came in contact with the fire it suddenly changed color from dark purple to a fleshy pink. Ripples formed on the plant's skin before it suddenly expanded in the flame's direction. A new shoot blasted the torch out of my hand as it absorbed the fire to grow its thorns. I hacked at the perceived attacker with full force. The blade slid through the plant's shoot like a hot knife through butter or like a high caliber bullet through a human skull. In a single motion the original branch and the shoot had both been annihilated and only the normal purply part of the wood remained.

This is insane! I managed to find an anti-dragon fortification from a past epoch!

Walls are completely useless against an airborne army but that's only because you can't drop anything on a dragon that's above you. This plant is a wall that expands when bombarded with fire, effectively neutralizing any use such a bombardment might have. If the enemy army realizes this trick and tries to cut down the forest manually, those who are besieged inside the spire can simply feed the thorns with fire. The plant when exposed to fire becomes soft and pliable so that it can rapidly expand, extinguishing the fire in the process of growth.

I'll grab a few roots on the way back to Sumeria. I could make a fortune from this!

After this revelation my next course of actions became obvious.

I tied a fabric around the end of my saber and drenched it with dragon spit. The spit is highly flammable, creating a stable DIY flaming blade.

I used the saber like a machete, striking left and right to open up a path that led deeper and deeper into the forest of thorns.