"Hey, Evan!" Nick answers the phone. "What's up? Wanting to hang out?"

I've already topped up my mana, so it's time for me to find out if there's anything I should know before attempting to advance to the next Level. There are quite a few people I could call to ask about this, but Nick was the first one to pop into my head and his profile image had him available.

This probably isn't the kind of available he was intending.

"A little," I respond. "But that's not why I'm calling. Is there anything important to know for Awakening Quests after the first?"

"Hm…" he thinks for a few minutes. "Well, it's a bit early for you to worry about that unless you're bum-rushing Dungeons and you don't seem like that type of person, but yeah, there are a few things. First, the zone's ambient mana level is based on your current Level. As a Level 1 Rank 5 Awakened, that means you'll need Tier 7 clothes. Your Level 3 Awakening Quest will require Tier 13 clothes."

The equivalent is based on ranges of 500 MP, so all I'd need to do is take my MP and divide by that, then round up. It's the same factor which affects the Tier of a mana potion. Taking on my Level 2 Awakening Quest won't require me to acquire new clothes or gear, so I'm set for that part.

"Alright," I say.

"They're meant to be tasks for you to complete," Nick says. "To prove you're 'worthy' of continuing as an Awakened. You won't lose your Status if you fail it, but you won't progress to the next Level until you complete it. That means it's doable with your abilities, you just need to actually put in real effort rather than half-ass it."

"I figured that part," I chuckle.

"Yeah," he says. "But what it also means is that you can't use items that do the work for you. No buffs, no restorations, no wand that casts a spell. None of them work. With potions you won't even be able to get the liquid out – there's a straight-up magical block on that. If you enter with a buff active, it's canceled at the start."

So bringing in health and mana potion won't assist me in any way for this.

"And you can't bring items out without the [Dimensional Storage] Skill," he adds. "Storage bracelets won't work and if you're holding something or swallowed an item, it'll be gone when you exit. Only items placed into [Dimensional Storage] will work."

If I swallowed an item? Something tells me that he's attempted to do that to bring something out before.

"Okay," I say.

"That's about it," Nick says. "Hey, wanna meet up? I wanna hear about that worm you came across!"

We're able to set up alerts to get notified if someone adds another picture to their gallery, and I know Nick has that set up for all of my galleries. He was probably looking at the image when I called him.

"Maybe later," I tell him. "I've got some stuff to do right now."

"Alright!" He says. "Let me know! See ya, man!"

"See ya," I respond, then hang up and pocket my phone before calling up the Awakening Quest to check out its information.

Since it seems I don't really need to do anything to prepare, there's no reason to delay taking it on. The moment I confirm I want to take on the Awakening Quest, I find myself standing in a field of dirt, but not the same one from my first Awakening Quest. This one is more noticeably a hill, with a slope roughly thirty degrees on the side I'm closest to rather than being only a slight incline.

I'm at the peak of the hill, which is around two hundred feet in height and maybe four hundred in width, and the entire zone is maybe two thousand feet across. The top of hill itself isn't the center of the zone – about fifty feet from the western base of the hill, a short cliff rises up, maybe twenty feet in height. Right at the top of that is the fog wall for that section, stretching right along the slightly-curving cliff.

There aren't any goblins within view from here, but there are other creatures.

Nine feet in height, with lean yet muscular builds and grey-tinted skin, trolls roam the area. They have brown hair and eyes, and they're all dressed in loincloths, much like the goblins I've dealt with so far have been.

While these trolls are probably low-rank ones seeing as they don't have weapons, they're not to be underestimated. They're slow, but they have a strong regenerative factor and they're both physically resilient and strong.

As I check them out, I realize something. There's nothing for the monsters here to eat. How are they surviving around here? The same goes for the other areas of the Mythic Forest, as the goblins in those two areas shouldn't have been able to source food, either.

Also, this might be a part of the Mythic Forest considering the common terrain feature.

Well, those are things to wonder about at another time as I have an Awakening Quest to do.

Your Level 2 Awakening Quest will begin in 5 minutes. Fail to complete the task, and you will not progress to the next Level. Slay all trolls: 0/30 Time Limit: 2 hours

There are only thirty trolls here, but they'll probably take more [Magic Missile]s to kill than the goblins did. They'll be at least as tough as the goblins, maybe even a little bit tougher, and they'll have more HP on top of having an active regeneration that means they'll probably heal up before I can get a second attack to connect.

Rather than waiting for the timer to finish, I step through the barrier temporarily shielding me and draw near to one of the trolls. Their eyesight is rather bad so I have to get pretty close, but I'm not in too much danger from doing that as once it has my scent, it starts to follow me. Lacking in intelligence, it doesn't attempt to run to catch up.

My normal walking pace is enough to outdo the trolls so I ignore the one I collect first and keep walking around. After gathering up eight trolls, I begin casting [Fireball] while continuing to walk to ensure they don't reach me.

A single [Fireball] will hold as much power as a [Magic Missile] and costs twenty times as much MP, but it will hit more parts of their bodies than just one and can hit several at once. The radius for it is fourteen feet as well, so I can hit all eight of the ones I gathered up with a single cast.

While the spell takes ten seconds to cast, I made sure to walk towards an area where I'd already pulled the troll from to ensure I won't bump into another.

I throw the [Fireball] at the trolls the moment it finishes casting and begin casting a second one. The [Fireball] hits the lead troll and flames erupt in all directions. Deep roars of pain fill the air from the trolls as my flames wrap around their bodies.

Now that they're distracted by the pain and their burning flesh, I stop walking and focus solely on casting the [Fireball].

Then a third. Then a fourth. Then a fifth.

The acrid scent of burning flesh fills the air as the monsters burn and I can see their flesh mending before my eyes. However, my [Fireball]s do enough damage with each blast that the monsters' regeneration rate is overwhelmed and unable to fully heal them between impacts.

Five [Fireball]s is all it takes to take out the eight trolls, and I'm sure I could spend all 3,100 MP I can hold on [Magic Missile]s and not take one out due to their recovery and toughness. Using the area-based spell was definitely the right choice.

I repeat this process until all thirty trolls are slain, which takes roughly an hour. Between each batch, I also cut out the essence stones from their chests for later use or sale. These stones are roughly the size of the fists of the trolls, their green just as faded as the others I've been acquiring in my Dungeon runs.

Since I'm evicted from the zone immediately after killing the last of the trolls, I'm not able to acquire their crystals. Nineteen of them was still a pretty good haul, though, and I didn't need to collect them.

To my surprise, there's more than just the completion notice in my vision when I reappear in my workshop.

Congratulations on completing your Level 2 Awakening Quest! Your stats have been increased and your HP and MP have been refreshed!

A new area within the Mythic Forest is available to access via your gate: the Happy Butterfly Hill!

That's as much confirmation as any that the zone I took the trial in was within the Mythic Forest I can access. I'm not sure what's up with its name, but the fact that a new zone is available makes me want to put off doing my Daily Dungeon to check it out again.

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I grab my hunter's pack and make sure to restock my potion a bit since I didn't do that after my work in the Mythic Forest earlier. Just as I finish that, I realize I haven't checked out my new Status yet. My interest in the Mythic Forest nearly outweighed my interest in seeing how much stronger I've become. Knowing the differences will help me out a little during Dungeon runs.

Name: Evan Rethe Rank: 5 Species: Human Sex: Male Level: 2 EXP: 0/41,647 HP: 6,200/6,200 MP: 6,200/6,200 Strength: 13 Constitution: 17 Agility: 13 Dexterity: 18 Magic: 21 Mind: 20 HP Regen: 5% MP Regen: 5%

That's a decent bit of growth and it acts as confirmation that Magic and Mind have the best growth for me, with Dexterity a little bit behind them. At least one stat always has the highest possible growth, so I'm going to assume that Magic does and Mind is a little bit behind it rather than matching with it.

The increase to my Magic stat should allow me to grow a little bit more per cast of [Grow Plant] and to boost the growth a little bit more per [Boost Plant Growth] as well. That should help me out some more with growing things in the Mythic Forest.

After closing my Status, I try to access my Gate and find more than just a "Do you wish to enter the Mythic Forest" message.

Which zone within the Mythic Forest do you wish to enter? Great Napping Spot Whispering Life Springs Happy Butterfly Hill

I'm going to assume that the "Great Napping Spot" is the smaller hill where I did my first Awakening Quest in. With that name and the one for the newest zone I can access, there's an implication that something or someone named the areas and these might not just be descriptors for the zones. The creatures which once roamed the Mythic Forest, perhaps?

Accessing the Happy Butterfly Hill, I find myself right back to where I left. The trolls are all gone by this point, and the fertile soil left in their place has already started to dull. It's been quite a bit since I left here but not quite as long as between my first Awakening Quest and my return.

"Mrow?" I ask, then wait a few moments.

The lifeseed worm doesn't make an appearance, so I access the gate to the Whispering Life Springs. Upon arriving, I find the area a fair bit different from before.

First of the changes is that there's no more light levels of fog, with absolute clarity extending to the dense fog wall that's about ninety feet from the water's edges. There are plenty more plants here as well, especially around the pond itself.

The three tree saplings I sprouted with [Grow Plant] are now more clearly trees, with the shortest of the three, about ten feet from the southwestern edge of the pond, at three feet in height. About three feet from the northern edge of the pond is the tallest of them, at nearly six feet in height.

All eight of the bushes that sprouted earlier have grown to between two and three feet in height, and one of them even has berries on it. They're ordinary blackberries, but they're quite sweet so I harvest some from the bush, putting them into a couple of jars in my bracelet. I don't harvest all of them, however, just in case there are other critters around.

While I don't know too much about gardening, I do know that they really need insects to thrive. Unless the magic in the soil here is enabling additional aspects apart from providing necessary nutrients, there are probably some insects around now that weren't before. That means there might be other creatures as well, ones similar to Mrow in that they can move through the fog wall.

Some of those might like the berries.

Grasses and ground cover have spread across most of the soil around the pond, where the fertile soil Mrow produced was deposited. More has spread out a little bit outside of that, though it's not as thick and healthy as the stuff right beside the pond. The same goes for the stuff beside the stream, where fertile soil wasn't deposited.

I snack on some of the blackberries as I travel down the stream, which doesn't lose its height in the slightest until it reaches a deeper and much wider channel. There's no other water entering the river, but even without that there's plenty from the stream to flow down a bit. The fog is clear around the water, but a wall of fog starts up again ninety feet away from the water's edges on all sides.

"Hey, Mrow," I greet the lifeseed worm as it comes up out of soil while I examine the wall of fog where the stream's water stops. "Do you know the Happy Butterfly Hill?"

Mrow tilts its head a little, and I get the impression of confusion.

"The last place I took out monsters in," I say, immediately receiving a feeling of satisfaction from the magical worm. "I'm returning there. I want to check something out."

Mrow gives me a small message of confusion, then returns into the ground, no trace of its passage visible. I shrug, then warp to Happy Butterfly Hill.

Walking over to the western decline, I examine the cliff wall bordering it. There's a slight curve to it, and rocks in the bed at the bottom. A lot of rocks, which take up nearly the full fifty feet of width between it and the base of the hill.

That might be another stream. If that's the case, then something's stopped up its waters.

Closing my eyes, I focus on trying to access the area where the stream begins. At the very least, one of the areas it begins. There's a lot of resistance to me doing this, but I manage to push through and enter another zone.

Special Quest Initiated! Eliminate the dark bramble and allow the spring's waters to flow once more. Time Limit: None

I've appeared beside the edge of a spring that is filled with waters, though the fog here is dense enough I can't see the full thing. With the visible distance being about fifteen feet, that means the pond's larger than that.

Covering the pond and even the bit of the stream channel I can see flowing out of it is a dark bramble with an ugly black tint to its green colors. The bramble reaches into the pond as well, and it's completely blocked up the stream.

Not that that's the only problem – there's a reason the Special Quest requires me to eliminate the dark bramble entirely. It's an invasive plant that does more than just grow, it sucks out the water that it absorbs and destroys it. The process is slow and it can take hundreds of years to take over a lake, but even a little bit of it remaining can cause problems later on since it'll continue to spread. In addition to that, it spreads a sort of magical miasma around. Minor amounts that won't bother a person without prolonged exposure, but this has been here quite awhile, which is no doubt why the soil here is dead despite water trying to provide nourishment to it.

How can I complete this Special Quest if I can't see the full pond, though? It seems as if the bramble gets higher the further in it goes, but that could also be wrong since I can't really see too much of it. On top of that, there's definitely dark bramble in the water.

Will [Fireball] be enough? Probably, so I begin to conjure one. The moment it completes, I lob it as far as I can in the hopes that I'm right about the bramble going up the further into the pond it is. Light flashes in the fog and a wave of heat hits me as fire becomes visible for a moment. The surface of the water ripples and the fog grows a little bit more intense, added to by the water evaporated by the spell.

This won't work…

"Mrow?" I ask. "Are you there?"

Something shifts in the soil behind me and I turn around, finding Mrow poking its head up.

"Mind eating all of the bramble there and dumping the fertilized soil outside of the pond here?" I ask. "Or will that make you sick?"

Mrow seems to consider things for a moment, then burrows back under the ground. It didn't really respond to me, so I turn around to face the pond once more. As I try to figure out what to do… the bramble in the water starts moving. Something's pulling it down, and I'm going to guess that that something is Mrow.

After a few minutes, the lifeseed worm resurfaces and starts depositing soil. It's probably a good thing his magics enable him to process things faster, or taking care of the bramble would be a much longer ordeal.

It takes the magical worm around an hour to eat all of the bramble, and the fog grows lighter as he does. By the time he finishes, I can see around fifty feet in all directions and can see that the spring is a pond roughly sixty at its widest and about forty at its narrowest. I can't see the full pond without standing in the right spot, but its waters are nearly crystal clear.

There's a very faint blue tint to them, almost imperceptible. I kneel down and scoop some of the water out with a hand to examine it.

[Mana Spring Water] Tier: 7 Mystical water infused with mana itself.

While it's not too good at restoring a person's mana directly, this water is useful for brewing up mana potions. It doesn't state "essence" in it, but it'll also act the same as essence water does for reagents containing mana.

I let the spring water fall back into the pond and as I do that, notifications appear in my vision.

A new area within the Mythic Forest is available to access via your gate: the Pup Leisure Pond!

Special Quest completed! +5,000 EXP

Okay, that's an odd name for this place. More important, the second notification reminds me that I still have my Daily Quest to do if I want the EXP from it, and there's still the hangout with Nick I said I might do. I do want to meet up with him and chat later, so it's probably best if I get to my Daily Dungeon soon.

I don't have time to use [Grow Plant] enough here to make a difference. The soil might lose its nutrients before then, but here's hoping the pond's water helps it stick around for longer.