Chapter 67: Forbidden Territory
Among the thick and dark undergrowth that appeared as if desiring to swallow all who tread on its path was Korin. She alone traveled towards the oasis and secretly arrived at the forbidden territory. Those of the oasis knew little of the forbidden territory and those nations outside the oasis knew even less. The gods simply did not hold the same level of fear that those that dwelled within the oasis did.
Korin calmly began to draw magic circles, creating magical runes. Using some mana crystals to power the structure and built a large dark stone structure known as a gate. After finishing the preliminary work the next few steps would take a little over a month to complete and by then, Mern calculated that he would be able to convince Soen to attack Scitus.
Ordinarily, Soen wouldn't be able to mobilize his army without alerting the other gods, who would most certainly have spies in the kingdom, of his armies movement. However, Mern was laying all the groundwork and he was already at war with Scitus so it wasn't anything too suspicious, once the teleportation gate was complete, Soen could mobilize a smaller military force and claim it was training drill when in reality it would set out to conquer The Kingdom Of Monsters.
A week went by without incident.
BUMP!!! BUMP!!! The earth trembled as if some mighty beast was attempting to escape. Korin could hardly stabilize herself and felt a dark chill fill her heart. It was as if the depths of her soul screamed at her to flee as fast she could. Korin quickly set the obsidian rune in her hand down and carefully laid it on a thick area of grass.
"what's that?" she thought aloud. "RAHH!!!!" a sudden earth-shaking roar tore down trees as if they were made of wet paper, the dust rose several feet into the air as if some mighty force stomped upon the earth. Korin could feel her blood vessels explode from the flesh rendering sound. She dropped to her knees and quickly cast healing spells and then a sonic shield to prevent further damage.
Korin by that point was on her knees and her face and body were covered by the thick undergrowth, the plant life squirmed as if desiring to consume her began to wrap their soft leaves around her arms and legs.
Startled by this, Korin quickly cast an offensive spell.
"ROT!!!" the plants that dared touch her soon blackened and then turned to ash and finally into dust. Everything in a fifteen-foot radius around her, even the thirty-foot-tall trees, turned to dust and soil. As Korin fruitlessly attempted to calm her rapidly beating heart, she heard a loud cry behind her.
"RIGH!!!!!!" A demented creature with twisted black limbs and powerful sharp horns, that proudly pierced the sky, charged forward on all fours towards Korin. Before she could even react, the ferocious creature impaled her body. The creature tackled a tree as it violently shook its head and Korin's flesh began to tear from the terrible thrashing. "how!!!" she shouted between her bloody clenched teeth. It had to be noted that she was now a [lesser champion] a trained lesser champion was capable of resisting impalement from even a thousand pounds of force per square inch of sudden impact and yet her flesh and bones were impaled as if she were made of gelatin.
it was her misfortune that the aberrant creature was so horribly strong. Hope shatteringly strong. With a flick of its neck, Korin was sent half a mile through thick trees. Loud snaps echoed through the usually dead silent forbidden zone.
After a loud collision with a hill, her painful voyage ended. She could feel her every bone shatter, her heart nearly ruptured from the impact and her mind was in a deep mist of confusion and shock. In her broken state, Korin moved the mana inside her and began to meld her broken bones back together. that ability was known as regeneration, it was an incredibly advanced magic ability. Ordinarily only absolute magic masters could do such a thing. Normal spellcasters could not cast spells without some way of focusing the energy, most spellcasters used words and a mental image but when the body is broken it is near impossible to cast a spell, however, some mages can still use mana and can cast simple spells.
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After a few minutes, korin regained feeling in her limbs and cast a great healing spell which near instantly healed her entire body. her hands trembled in fear of what she had just experienced, with one quick look of the direction in which she had only minutes ago been she then turned around and fled out of the forbidden zone and out of the oasis.
“I have to tell Mern.” She said to herself as she attempted to calm her rapidly beating heart.
Within the silent and dark undergrowth roamed a twisted and demented creature, "REIGHAGH!!!" it bellowed, causing the nearby undergrowth to rot black and distort into some kind of twisted abomination and corrupted plants sprouted into their place.
“Esh goi MAK ORIM!!!” in aberrant creature screamed in the old tongue, a language long forgotten, If the cardinal of the oasis was there he would immediately understand what was being said.
“you cannot HOLD ME!!!”
A large black shadow rose from the air, two feet, three feet and then ten feet. Just as the shadow reached sixteen feet a large beam from the center of the forbidden zone pierced the sky. The aberrant creature screamed in agony before melting in dark clumps of darkness and then vanishing into the earth. The shadow was almost instantly destroyed by the blinding light at the center of the forbidden territory.
Then, for a long time after, there was a haunting silence.
………………..
At that time, within the kingdom of monsters, Scitus was learning the secrets of magic with the help of Sia.
"there are two kinds of levels, so to speak, that we mortals rank. Divine levels and skill levels. Divine levels represent the amount of mana a person has, each level represents one level. The higher a person's divine order ranking is, the faster someone can raise their levels but more importantly, the faster they can raise their skill level.
There are three divine orders and each one has three classes. These are known as the mortal-order, or first order by many, which hold the [civilian],"[soldier], and [Knight] rank. As you should know by now, these are further separated into lesser, middling, and greater." Sia quietly looked upon her students, one of which was Scitus whose eyes seemed almost glazed over in contemplation. With every word Sia spoke, Scitus was would take amount to evaluate the word and then reference the words used in the previous sentence and even going so far as to evaluate the way in which Sia inflected her word to create cohesive comprehension of her teachings. Scitus was not the only student in Sia’s class, there was also Seresa, Juliet, Robin, William, Valentine, Cecilia, Thomas, and Arcana. These eight were the leaders of their own cores and therefore required special attention and so they were more directly taught by Sia.
"the second order is known as the celestial-order and the final order is known as the demi-god-order." Sia finished her small review of the last class and finally began to unravel some mysteries for the goblins.
"rank is important because it enhances how quickly we level up skills, in some ways leveling up a skill is more important than having an abundance of mana. There is something known as mana particles, its existence isn't fully understood but it can be felt when casting a spell or special magical ability. Pure mana is comprised of one hundred mana particles. These mana particles affect the result of a spell"
Sia slowly formed a small flame on her pointer finger, "one mana particle, the cost, one pure mana." She slowly grew the fire into the size of a human head, " ten mana particles, the cost, one pure mana". Sia gave her students a small smirk and said, " 100 mana particles" suddenly the small flame grew to the size of a human, the ball of fire was massive and startled the students. " the cost, one pure mana."
"no matter what magic effect someone casts, the cost is always at least one pure mana but if you increase the level of your skill, the greater the effect for the same cost. Instead of spending ten pure mana to create a small ball of fire a skilled spellcaster can spend only a single pure-mana to cast a fireball the size of a small hut. This is why ranks are important, they enhance a person's ability to reach a higher skill level for magical abilities, spells or what have you. Level hundred is not the limit for this, truly skill spellcasters can reach level 1000 in a particular skill, by that point the ability is known as a divine ability."
"the reason for the name change is because all god spells require at least 1000 mana to cast, this is known as god energy. This is why the third order is also known as the demi-god-order, people inside those three ranks have the potential to cast divine spells. However, as mortals, we are only capable of casting the weakest of divine spells, for a mortal a level 1000 spell, is only a level 1 spell for a god."
Scitus ponded her words and nodded, god energy has immense power in he had thought on some occasions of how powerful his spells would be if he used god energy instead but he refrained from doing so because god energy also had societal and infrastructural benefits that Scitus couldn’t afford to waste at that time.
Sia's lecture went on and the day came to an end, Scitus, however, would not sleep, he had important matters to handle with the wyvern queen.