Michelle sees the bags Alistair has packed by the door.

"Are you going somewhere?"

Realizing that it would be best to come clean with his friend sooner rather than later, Alistair replies as truthfully as he can be.

"Yeah... I am taking some time out of studying to go train myself outside of the wall."

"Outside of the wall? By yourself? I know that you went on a mission outside recently, but you shouldn't let it get to your head that you came back alive from that. You had experienced veterans with you on the front lines.

Not only that, but you all went after one of the most peaceful creatures outside of the walls. I know that we are training to be ascended Alistair, but we are still kids! If you are worried about Ahmed or other students, don't worry I will ask Wato to look out for you."

She wanted to continue with her plea to dissuade Alistair, but he put his hand up asking her to stop.

"Michelle, we can be considered friends right? I understand that the smart choice would be to ask for help while I train myself up, but I don't want to live that way.

We are told everyday that we are supposed to be the best and brightest humanity has to offer. If I keep having to get bailed out of these types of situations, then I will never truly grow. Besides, don't think that I am going outside to die, I have been outside the walls on my own before multiple times and came back just fine."

Michelle had plenty of points to counter Alistair but saw in his face, his seriousness.

"Fine, if you won't let me talk you out of it, then at least promise me that you will come back if things get to dangerous."

Alistair nods and Michelle gives a content smile. Breathing a sigh of relief, Michelle then asks

"When are you leaving?"

"No time like the present, right?"

"You are leaving now? Did you inform anyone?"

"I didn't know I was supposed to. Who am I supposed to talk to?"

"Geez, you don't even know this? Fine, I'll talk to the faculty for you. There shouldn't be to much fuss since you don't have a family behind you tracking your movements...." She gives a hollow look as if her mind were elsewhere while she mentions a family.

"Don't worry to much though, you helped me when I needed to leave the school and didn't ask too many questions. Just remember to not travel too far out. We don't know what's outside of the perimeter zone of the wilds."

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Michelle hands Alistair a map of everything they know about the wilds. It stretches as far as fifty miles out.

(My poor attempt at map drawing skills here https://imgur.com/a/1XsDf76 )

Alistair thanks her and they say a few more words before saying their goodbyes. Michelle leaves and Alistair is left in his room alone with his bags packed. He picks up his bags and begins heading towards the wilds.

Due to Michelle's help, no one stops Alistair from leaving the campus. He makes his way back towards the edge of the town limits and rushes off into the explored wilds. The people in power in Utopia have deemed it unnecessary to heavily fortify the opening of the city to the explored wilds as companies usually take care of securing safety.

The real defenses are on the perimeter between the explored and unexplored wilds. Thick walls and military armed to the teeth. Alistairs plan is to conquer every creature in the explored wilds as much as possible.

"I need to get as strong as I can within the next month before the ranking tournament starts. If I can get a higher ranking and more points, then I can get information a lot easier by just purchasing it."

Although he took to heart the words of his inner self when he was being consumed by hunger, that did not mean he wanted to go on a full brutal slaughter to find out everything.

"I'm not really angry or even that upset with what happened to me because I don't really know what I forgot. I will get stronger and smarter, but I will do it without hurting any of the people who helped me."

The people watching him run off into the forest become shocked that a child would have such a death wish. Some of them ran and reported it to the nearby guards, but the guards are always vigilant, they have seen Alistair's clothing and informed everyone that it was probably a mission from his school.

"There are not that many dangerous creatures left in the explored wilds due to constant hunting missions for lower ranking companies." the guard explains, " He will most likely be fine as long as he doesn't go looking for any pointless battles."

This calmed the concerned citizens and caused them to dismiss it as just another occurrence for gifted children.

Alistair is running and jumping over obstacles in his way. The explored wilds is filled with clusters of dead plants and trees, causing a maze of roots, vines, and twigs to form naturally. Alistair loses his focus while he is running momentarily and then sees he is about to hit a small branch when he refocuses.

Thinking that he can just smash through it though, he pays it no thought. He then sees the world spinning and he slams on his back. He ran headfirst into the branch and instead of it breaking like he thought, it did not budge an inch.

He gets up with a dent on his forehead healing visibly but slowly. He looks up at the small branch and tries to break it out of frustration for needing to use up energy on something so trivial. It still does not budge though.

At this point, Alistair realizes something weird and looks at the other roots and branches around him. He tries to break multiple different ones before realizing that everything is too hard and solid to even move.

He keeps going after finding this out for almost an hour, until he reaches an area where he thinks would be suitable to set up his base.

"Wow, the roots here are so freaking tall! I can't break away any of them because they are as hard as metal!"

The roots and branches act as a canopy for Alistair as he sits down and pulls out his map to find out where he might be.

"It really is not that detailed of a map... I guess it makes sense that she would just have a generic map. It's not like she knew I would be heading out." Sighing, Alistair puts the map back inside his backpack.

He then starts to hear a sound that is very similar to someone kicking their foot against metal.

*Clang! Clang! Clang*

It was getting closer to him for a while, before it starts to fade away.

"Someone or something, just passed me by... No time like the present! I hope its strong enough that I get a decent power boost from it!"