The month quickly passed and Ariel lived a common school life like any other person, going to classes or hanging out with his friends. On the other hand his training speed was far from normal. In this month, thanks to the ice pearl, Ariel managed to reach the mid level of Elite rank, once more increasing his strength.

If you compare him to others, you would probably find little people on his level, since reaching the Master rank was the requirements for graduating The Academy, Elite rank students were the top of the school.

However what is more monstrous is that he is close to reaching the late level. This was a frightening speed of cultivation that is unheard of in the entire human continent. A lot of it though is thanks to his new Nine Winter Shade Meditation technique.

Due to following and refining his core through nine different ways mentioned in the book, his Mana became increasingly pure and more powerful, also resulting in speeding up of his cultivation.

Another way he was increasing his strength was by researching new spells, although there was much less results in it, Ariel still managed to construct several usable spells for the future.

Apart from learning and increasing his strength, most of Ariel’s rest time was taken up by either hanging out with Brendon, or spending time girls, who were seemingly becoming closer and closer to him. Even he didn’t understand how it was happening, but it seemed like his heart was slowly getting accustomed to them being there, making his and the girl’s relationship much closer.

But today was finally the day he would be going on the trip to the purple wilds where, according to teacher’s Albert’s words, they will be spending a whole month at. Apparently the reason for this is because the students who didn’t take familiar classes will also go to have forest survival training, at the same time we will.

Thankfully his mother gave him a storage ring and when he had returned to his home on a holiday, she instantly prepared everything he needed for staying at a forest, as soon as he told her about it.

Having everything taken care of he was currently ready to set out, but before that he had to wake up his best friend so he wouldn’t be late, since today they had to be there early and Brendon was horrible when it came to waking up.

Creating some ice in his hands he slowly crept up to him and when he was close enough, Ariel put the ice down his shirt. Immediately Brendon woke from his sleep and shrieked from the cold.

After some difficulty he finally got the ice out. He turned his teary eyes towards Ariel and complained. “What was that for, I don’t think I did anything to deserve being waken up like this.” Inwardly snickering at Brendon’s appearance, Ariel responded with his usual poker face. “It would be difficult to wake you up by other means, you should remember that today is the day we are going to the purple wilds and you definitely don’t want to be late.”

Looking up to Ariel, Brendon understood that he was correct and he himself would have trouble waking up. However due to the years of being together Brendon unexpectedly began to notice Ariel’s subtle changes of expression and knew that he actually enjoyed waking him up like that and bringing him this suffering.

Although he understood that besides grumbling he could do nothing since his sister and even Erna would definitely take Ariel’s side over his so he could only unhappily get up and prepare for the “tour of purple wilds”.

When he finally got ready they directly started going towards the field, where the supposed teleportation array was readied for them.

Reaching the place they instantly notice two beautiful girls, one being blue haired while the other being golden haired, standing together and making a stunning picture that made all the surrounding boys fall into a daze.

These two were the most beautiful girls in The Academy. They were in the dreams of all the noblemen and only rarely would the boys be allowed to see a sight like this. Unfortunately what always pained them was that the goddesses were always waiting for the same people every day, and thus they could never get the chance to become closer.

As the two got closer, Brendon greeted them with his usual carefree smile. “Hi, it seems I'm not the only person here early.” Besides him Ariel nodded, indicating that he was greeting them.

Erna instantly let out a bright smile and returned the greeting. “Good morning, did you sleep well? We won’t have such a luxury for quite some time.” At the same time Sarah let out a snicker as she responded towards Brendon’s second remark and also on Erna’s words. “Brendon probably slept quite well, if Ariel didn’t wake him though, he would have most likely been too late to get teleported.”

Brendon gaped at his sister words and tried to speak up for himself. “Why do you all think I am such a lazy person, I’m a responsible young man and I wouldn’t be late.” Unexpectedly, to his words Erna let out a laugh as she spoke. “It is hard to believe your words when you are late to almost every single class.”

Seeing that even the usually passive Erna was pointing out his wrongs, Brendon felt himself slightly wronged, but his close friend Ariel also decided to chip in at it. “Your view of the world is quite obvious when you said that it was early, while it's already time for class, and teacher has just come up onto the platform."

When he heard Ariel’s words, Brendon looked in front of him and was dumbstruck when he saw that his friend was right and the teacher was already there, he didn’t say another word. He quietly accepted his defeat. At the same time the other three also settled down and politely waited for teacher Albert to speak.

They didn’t have to wait long until they heard the well-built teacher speak while scanning the students with his piercing green eyes. “I am glad that there seems to be no one missing.” As he said his words his gaze lingered on the cowering Brendon, but all the other students just ignored it.

After retracting his gaze, teacher Albert continued speaking in a slightly more serious voice. “As you already know you will be going to the small plane called purple wilds where you will have to stay for a month and in the mean time try to make a contract with a magic beast, but remember that your life is more important so you shouldn’t push yourselves too hard.”

When he spoke the next words, his voice became slightly softer, but soon it once again became serious. “There shouldn’t be any monsters too powerful, but always be careful, you will each be transported alone to a place without any immediate danger. I hope all of you prepared and are ready to go, since we will begin immediately because I don’t want to make you all worked up.” He finished his speech and started talking to the mages that were by his side.

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Getting a breather the students started talking with their friends and saying their good byes. Looking slightly emotional Erna spoke with worry in her eyes. “Be careful, even if you are strong, if they overwhelm you with numbers and you don’t have any Mana, you might get in trouble.” As she spoke she tightened her hand around her rapier, making it obvious that she was worried that something wrong would happen.

Sarah also sounded troubled as she spoke. “When you get teleported try finding us, together it will definitely be safer, although it might be difficult for it to happen quickly.” Listening to the soft words spoken by the girls Brendon felt slightly hurt that they completely ignored him and started sulking.

Ariel on the other hand tried to softly dispel their worries. “I will make sure to be extra careful and try to search for you as soon as possible.” His words made the girls slightly more calm completing their objective perfectly.

Soon the teacher’s loud warning rang out through the field. “Get ready. You will soon be teleported. When the month ends you will be automatically transported out.” The four looked at each other with concern clearly visible on their face, but soon powerlessly closed their eyes and felt their minds going blank.

When Ariel came to, he slowly opened his eyes and saw nature all around him and at the same time instantly understood why this small world was called the purple wilds.

All the trees, leaves, shrubbery and even grass were of different shades of purple. Thankfully the sun was still the same and he would be safe from having a seizure.

However he still stood there stunned for quite a while until his wits came back to him. As soon as he calmed himself down he quickly checked around with his Mana sight for any close sources of Mana.

Finding that there wasn’t anything close, around him he finally let out a sigh of relief and started thinking about what to do. His main objective is to make a contract with a magic beast, but he has an entire month to do that, so first he should find a good place to settle down.

He recalled that there should be quite an amount of rivers in this place, since he will need a lot of water for everything, It would be a good place to start searching, water also attracts all kinds of beast that he could look through for a possible candidate to be his familiar.

Since he didn’t have a map he focused on trying to hear water instead, and just walked towards the depths of the forest hoping to find a river.

As he walked through the forest he felt the rough ground beneath him, thanks to reaching quite a high rank his body got slightly better and he could do a bit more physical activity than before so it didn’t trouble him too much. Because of this he didn’t have to take long breaks and was able to keep his concentration on looking out for monsters.

Walking through such a forest reminded him of the times back home when he would walk around his backyard forest. Looking around he could see that the trees gave of dazzling lights and if you listened closer you could hear beautiful sounds of nature like the birds singing or the bugs playing their instruments.

Ariel had to agree that this was actually a very beautiful and mystical place he wouldn’t mind spending his free time at, but it was also dangerous. When he had already walked for some time he notice two small Mana signals coming closer towards him.

Soon he saw two magical beasts jumped out of the greenery. The two looked similar to badgers only, they had red eyes, small horns on their heads and two tails.

A frown appeared on Ariel’s face as he recognized what they were. These creatures called “Forest fangs” just like you could guess from their name lived in forest and were quite common. By themselves they were only early level Acolyte strength, but they were extremely frightening because they moved in extremely large packs and even powerful creatures would fall victim to their hunts.

What Ariel found strange was that there were only two of them, but when they turned around and were about to run away, Ariel’s face froze before turning serious. He only now comprehended that they were scouts of the pack and if he let them go it would cause endless trouble.

Ariel’s eyes turned cold and he sent out his ice to engulf the things. It wouldn’t kill them, but it would buy him time. Just like he though the forest eaters slowed down and he managed to quickly manifest two ice spears.

Calculating the trajectory of where they were running, he let the spears fly, perfectly hitting their targets. Only when he saw the two creatures fall did he let out a relief, he just got here but already barely dodged a bullet making him not optimistic about what was coming next.

Deciding that he shouldn't stick around, he set out once more, being even more vigilant than before. Thankfully it seems like the unique creatures of this world have been hunted to extinction before and the senior mages brought the monster from the outer world so he should know most of them and know how to counter them.

After travelling for an entire hour he at last heard what he was searching for. Seeing that there was nothing nearby, he rushed looking around.

The river wasn’t narrow, but also not wide and the water was the same as back home, feeling happy it wasn’t purple he came up to have a drink before setting out along the river to search for a place to settle.

Having a good drink he was about to continue. Unfortunately when he turned around, he noticed a powerful Mana source coming towards him. Noticing how powerful it was, Ariel couldn’t afford to be careless and got ready for the dreadful encounter that was soon to come.

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