It had been a week since they had entered what Markus had described as a 'more dangerous area', and yet they hadn't even once encountered a single goblin, under goblin, hobgoblin, or troll, not even an orc.
"Hey, Markus?" Johan decided to go and ask.
"What is it, Johan?" Markus replied, his voice more stern than normal.
"Where are all the goblins at? You said that there were supposed to be goblins in this area, right?" Johan asked it, despite knowing that Markus likely had just as much information as he himself did.
"That... Is a good question." Markus let out a slight sigh, but then carried on, "I have no clue. Maybe they packed up and moved? It's unlikely though. Surely we didn't get so unlucky that not 1, but 2 powerful entities have shown up in previously safe areas, right?" Markus joked a bit, but his face remained just as serious about the matter.
"I hope we didn't. That'll be pretty inconvenient. Either way, we'll cross that road when we get to it. Who knows, they may have just slowly moved in the last decade or so." Johan reasoned, though mostly to himself.
"Perhaps. I'm hoping that if it's the former, that the creature will at least be sentient. It's often the case when a creature gets strong enough, but about, oh I'd say 40% of the time... Well, those are the ones we don't want to meet." Markus frowned at the idea.
"Oh? Is there any reason for that? It sounds interesting." Johan asked, now genuinely curious about it.
"Well... If I remember right, some say its from physiological changes from mana exposure. Usually creatures that are stronger live in more mana rich environments. It does the same thing as that body strengthening spell of yours, but because they live in it for so long, it becomes more permanent. That's also why it's considered extremely rare that such creatures leave their homes." Markus explained, "But keep in mind, these are just what I've been told. I'm not the mages that conducted this research, but it went around the mercenary fields as well as the various fighting type guilds, like the adventurers and thieves guild."
"I see... I wonder how that would affect a human... Either way, that is good information to know. Also how long is it supposed to take to get all the way through this forest anyways?" Johan decided to change the subject now that his curiosity was sated.
"Well... Normally, with all the fighting, it would take about 2 weeks, but with out all of that, I think we may get out of here by the end of tomorrow, if not, then, early the day after that." Markus replied.
Johan nodded at this. It was only a bit further through the woods then. At least this place had a road, or what remained of one anyways. This place seemed to have once had a decent road through it, but after long enough of very little travel and no maintenance of the road it eventually became almost undistinguishable from the forest itself. The only reason it could be followed at all was the smaller trees that stood out a bit more, as well as trees that had been marked by merchants in the past and various mercenaries.
According to Markus, the merchants and mercenaries had seen the usage of the road slow down and since it was one that they would take fairly often made sure to put markers to help people find their way, even though at this point most of the markings were almost too faint to be distinguished from the rest of the tree. It was likely, that after a few years of no maintenance, the merchants had given up on the road, making it a simple out of the way path for mercenaries who knew their way around, like Markus, though the man was retired.
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Johan had also been busy. Aside from The rings that everyone now wore, curtesy of Pat and him working together, he had managed to engrave Wind Blade into the necklace that he made from a single piece of wood log that was sawed then sanded to make it flat enough for Johan to engrave. He now had two charges stored into the necklace, though he had yet to be able to test it in combat.
Aside from that, he had made some strides towards getting Earthen Armor functioning. So far as he could tell, it wasn't too complex, the only issues he had thus far was that he needed to use both Earthen Armor as well as Earth Manipulation for it to be able to be properly used. Otherwise it was just too heavy to use feasibly, meaning it took almost all of his concentration to maintain it. He also needed to figure out what section controlled the shape of the armor.
He needed to be able to control the shape so that he could use his spear in combat when needed. As it was, the spell limited his mobility as well as restricted him by putting all that weight on him. If it wasn't for the fact that there were several protection type circuits imbued as well, he would have just scrapped it entirely as an idea.
He had also figured out how to use Blinding Light, which he had mistakenly looked at originally. Luckily it was not permanent blindness, but it was rather startling when he first did it. As for the final spell on his list, Coat of light was just not something he could wrap his head around.
It was telling him to make *light* into a *solid object*. And unfortunately, magic was not just a 'trace the spell form and be done' he had to properly understand the mechanics behind it, even if the mechanics made no real sense it would still work. That was the power of magic, was to make things that should not work simply function. It was likely why so many of his own ideas worked in the first place, though he still couldn't figure out how to modify Wind Blade to try and make it stronger.
Due to all this Johan had felt extremely tired for the last few days as he had worked nonstop on magic when they sat to rest. Even when they were walking, he was still, in some way, working on magic, whether it was tracing spell forms, or simply making random mana constructs to increase his maximum concentration, and occasionally he would talk to Pat about various magical theories or what materials would be useful for some off the cuff ideas he had, though Pat usually told him that they wouldn't work and why.
That was another thing. For some reason, magic engineering did not function quite the same. From what Johan had managed to piece together, which wasn't much, it functions off of things that had been approved by some force. Perhaps it was some sort of god? He knew that they did exist, since they apparently did not just sit back and watch things, and Knuth supposedly spoke to everyone who would become an Archmagi. That was the currently leading theory of it, at least that he and Pat decided on.
Pat had also been getting better at fighting recently. Her training was slowly starting to pay off from what Johan could tell. He knew that she had gotten good enough that Anne actively used her shield when sparring now, as compared to before where she would only use her sword. Aside from that Johan was unsure of how much better she had gotten.
As Johan was lot in a drift of various thoughts, he felt someone tap him on the arm. Jen was looking at him, her hair was a bit disheveled, as was everyone elses.
"Hey. I have a question." She said. She had seemingly gotten completely rid of her awkwardness, or what little remained of it, after the past week or so.
"Yeah? What is it?" Johan asked her.
"Do you think you could make me a cloak with illusion magic on it?" she looked slightly embarrassed, but that likely stemmed from her asking him a favor than anything else. Jen was rather proud, and it wasn't easy for her to ask for things.
"I suppose, but I would need the cloak, and if you want it enchanted I'll need to get ahold of some rather valuable things, most likely that is, depends on the magic you want on it." Johan said.
"Well... I want to become harder to notice. Like, the opposite of that spell the troll shaman used to attract prey."
"Oh... I might be able to help with that. Though I'll need to spend some time looking into illusions. Mind magic would also be good for it, but that... is illegal." Johan trailed off.
"Thanks! I'll do what I can to get you what you'll need." Jen flashed a bright smile at him.
"Yep. No problem." Johan said, as he added another thing to his mental check list. For now he would give up on Coat of Light. It was just something that he struggled too much with that it wasn't worth it while traveling. He would instead look into learning either Nature magic, or Illusion magic, though he also still needed to get a better hang of fire magic as well...