“Master, how many more days do we have to go?” The small boy pulled his feet out of the snowdrift, his face clouded with worry, and asked the old man who was walking ahead of him.

“Richter, this is all part of the training.”

The old man, who was called Master, looked very relaxed. He used a strange gait, practically walking on top of the snow. His steps left only tiny tracks.

In comparison, the boy called Richter didn’t have it so easy. Every step he took left him sinking deep into the snow. Lacking experience in walking on snow, he wasted a lot of unnecessary energy with each step. After walking in the snow for a long time, sweat had stained his clothes.

“Then why can’t we use magic? There’s no rule that says you can’t use magic during training!” Richter said to his master, his tone despondent.

The master only replied, “This is the Forest of Divine Punishment.”

Richter fell silent.

Legend has it that in the past, a decaying and depraved old church caused a disaster in the Divine Construct. Many countries in the Divine Construct joined forces to punish the old church’s holy seat, Neville Merce. But the decaying old church, though it had lost the blessings of the Lord of Glory, had received terrifying bloody power from a Evil god. The war that followed lasted for seven years before reaching a stalemate. When the allied forces were at a loss, divine punishment struck.

One day, the entire Divine Construct was engulfed in crimson flames. The burning flames illuminated the night like day. Ordinary people prayed in fear. Every country was in chaos. To find the truth, the Mittal's Astrological Society gathered more than ten superhuman mages. They used the immense magical power of the Mittal capital to perform astrology, but the attempt to divine the gods’ intentions backfired. All the mages were severely injured and lost their ability to use magic. After the Imperial Guard rescued them, they obtained a vague divination from them.

“The holy flames will cleanse the darkness.”

While everyone was puzzled by the results, the flames engulfing the Divine Construct continued to spread. That night, the flames reached their peak. An unsettling rumble came from the sky. Amidst everyone’s deep anxiety, a blinding light appeared in the sky, accompanied by a deafening sound and a tremor that shook the Divine Construct. Only the next day did people understand what had happened—a meteor from the sky had destroyed the old church’s holy seat and its main knights.

The allied forces then wiped out the remnants of the church. Those who survived the disaster called the day the meteor fell the beginning of the Fifth Era. From that day, the Divine Construct entered a new era.

That was a story from more than 1400 years ago, a familiar myth for everyone in the Divine Construct.

And they were now in the place where the meteor initially fell, the Forest of Divine Punishment, which had been restored after a thousand years.

“That’s true, Master. You’ve lived since the Fourth Era. You must have some trauma related to the Lord of Glory’s punishment.” Richter whispered. “But the priests from the Divine Glory Church never said that you couldn’t use magic in the Forest of Divine Punishment. I’ve heard many stories about adventurers who fought and killed powerful magical beasts in the forest. None of them gave up on using magic…”

The master turned around, whacked Richter on the head, and said angrily, “Your master is a peak superhuman mage. I’m not that afraid.”

Richter hesitated to speak. “But…”

“It’s because the magical environment here is very unstable,” the master interrupted him before he could speak. “After the Divine Punishment, the magical environment of the entire Divine Construct changed. The area where the meteor landed was affected the most. The Divine Glory Church’s holy seat recovered quickly, but other uninhabited areas haven’t been cleared. The magical currents are not stable.

“The Forest of Divine Punishment is one of those places. The weather here is strange all year round. There will also be random explosions and spatial collapses. The only things that can survive here are powerful magical beasts, and those wooden figures said to be the sinners of the old church.

“If you use magic here, you’re very likely to disrupt the already unstable magical flow of the Forest of Divine Punishment. Then there might be an explosion, or celestial fire might fall. I could teleport away, but you would be stuck here.”

The master patted Richter’s head. “So, did you read through the history of magic I gave you?”

“I… skimmed through it…” Richter protected his head, whispering cautiously.

The master shook his head helplessly, saying nothing more. He knew that the training he’d assigned to Richter was difficult, but it was to help the boy adapt to the changing times. He didn’t want his students to end up like those from the Mittal Special Forest Magic Society, impoverished and degenerate because they couldn’t adapt to the new magical technology, resorting to alcohol to numb themselves.

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Empress Mittal and the new order she created wouldn’t wait for anyone.

The two fell silent again. A few minutes later, Richter called out,

“Master, look! There’s a spectral wolf! How did it freeze here?”

The master stopped and looked carefully before saying, “It’s been dead for about six days. It might have been injured in a fight with its pack and came here to recover. But the weather in the Forest of Divine Punishment changes rapidly. It was warm a few days ago, but it suddenly got very cold six days ago… It was probably unlucky and ran into some extremely cold water element. This is the Forest of Divine Punishment. Anything can happen.”

Richter said, “Ah.” The two continued walking.

A short while later, Richter called out again, “A suit of armor!”

“Maybe some crazy adventurer wandered in. The armor is clean. There are no insignias.”

“A wooden boat hanging in a tree!”

“This is the Forest of Divine Punishment.”

“There are fruits on this tree… Whoa! The fruit has a human face!”

“This is the Forest of Divine Punishment.”

...

Richter continued to call out, and the master just casually responded, completely focused on moving through the snow. He sighed inwardly.

Ah… why did I fly over here…?

He recalled their flight a few days ago. He and Richter had been flying, then suddenly encountered a flock of rare wyverns. He’d swerved to study the biology of dragons and wyverns. Unfortunately, the wyverns hadn’t been very cooperative. He’d ended up fighting them, unintentionally flying past their destination, and hadn’t even won the fight.

According to their original plan, they should have been in Alorn right now, waiting for a carriage to Lanstier’s Holy City, the headquarters of the Divine Miracle Church…

“Master…”

Richter’s voice sounded again. The master unconsciously replied, “This is…”

But before he could finish his sentence, a loud boom interrupted him—a powerful torrent of flame suddenly appeared before him. The intense flames consumed everything in their path—rocks, mud, trees—turning them to ash, then reforming them into glittering crystals. But the flames were relentless, equally destroying anything in their path, the crystals and mud no different. They were transformed into pure magical energy in less than a second, joining the flames.

The two watched the scene before them, mouths agape.

The flames started from the east, sweeping across the entire Forest of Divine Punishment. After completely melting the old Rhine Riverbed, it cut through the towering mountains surrounding the Alorn Valley, leaving behind terrifyingly large holes and molten rock and minerals. But the flames didn’t stop there. They kept moving, finally reaching the sky of the Divine Construct and evaporating large swathes of clouds, leaving visible marks in the dark blue sky.

A drop of rain fell on the master’s face. Then came the downpour, instantly drenching the two of them and pulling them out of their shock.

The master first turned to check on Richter, then examined himself. After confirming that they were still alive and hadn’t returned to the embrace of the fourteen deities, he finally had the mental space to observe his surroundings.

The Forest of Divine Punishment was still the Forest of Divine Punishment, except for a new crack that was almost three hundred meters wide, two hundred meters deep, and of an immeasurable length. But the flames weren’t just a large hole in the ground. The immense heat evaporated the snow and clouds, changing the weather from a blizzard to a downpour… Most importantly, as one of the Divine Construct’s most knowledgeable mages, he could tell that this torrent of flame was some kind of “spellcasting,” and this level of magic could affect the mana flow of the entire region!

The experienced master instantly cast several hundred layers of protective magic and high-level fire protection spells over himself and Richter. He then threw down several rare and precious books, summoning several colossal stone golems that lumbered out of the scrolls, forming a thick, heavy stone barrier around the two. Several sturdy treants rooted themselves in the mud, spreading their branches to fill the gaps between the stones. Their roots formed a thick, eggshell-like defense underground.

—Though he claimed he wasn’t afraid, it was clear that this most powerful mage in the Divine Construct cherished his and his student’s lives.

But the anticipated spatial collapse and explosion didn’t happen. The master, frowning, dispelled the space-consuming protective spells. He then cast twenty layers of all-purpose protection spells over them, then himself went to stand behind the summoned creatures.

There were still no unusual occurrences, but his brow didn’t relax. With more than 1400 years of experience, he knew that in this strange place, the absence of anything unusual was the biggest anomaly.

After careful consideration, he looked toward the origin point of the flames and drew a complex symbol in the air.

The golems and treants dissolved with a rumbling sound, returning to their original state, revealing Richter.

He pointed to the lump on his head caused by a falling stone. He blinked at his master. “Master, is this also because this is the Forest of Divine Punishment?”

The master, whose brow had furrowed faster than incense smoke, let out a sigh and added another lump to Richter’s head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Let’s go look over there.”

Richter touched the lumps on his head and sighed. The master cast a complex summoning spell on the summoned creatures. As magical power flowed from his body, the golems and treants abruptly rose from the ground. The several-meter-tall creatures lifted the master and Richter, placing them on their shoulders. Under the master’s control, they headed east, the pale white shield constantly surrounding the two, protecting them from the rain.

The master, sitting atop the golem, didn’t rest, using the highest-level astrology he could cast at this time. Pale purple starlight flickered in his eyes. These swirling lights would be enough to kill a novice astrologer, but they were nothing to the master. He quickly got his results.

It was still vague and unsettling, just as before.

He turned to look at Richter, who was still clutching at his head as if he was afraid the knowledge he had just crammed into his head would turn into mush.

“Starlight rising in the rain…”

He murmured the answer given by the astrology.

But… why was Richter’s image appearing in the starlight?