After the distasteful message and forced quest, 7 weeks went by in which I spared no moment of time. Hunting and having deathmatches with monsters are the best way to improve combat skills now since I need to take the kids gloves off. Back in the glade, I had been working on crafting my armor.

  Initially, when I first started training, I wore leather or monster hide armor from tanned monster leathers. However, the leather armor would be ripped to shreds after each hunting session. Tired of wasting good materials, I started putting all that gamer knowledge to use and began crafting iron, steel, and other metallic armor. All of which were hot flaming shit to look at. Worse, they couldn’t handle a single strike from a glutton boar already near death with no limbs.

  The armor I made at the time despite all of my effort just simply could meet my lowest requirements. My main issue was smelting the right ratio for sturdy ingots. Smelting ingots using the metal I have was easier said than done. My guess, it might have something to do with the use of magic and the fact the smelter required fire magoi burning at extremely hot temperatures or smelting simple metal would take forever.

  Now that I have a better body and can use magic properly, I spent the first 2 weeks smithing day and night. Eventually, I was able to get the needed ratios right. I then started crafting decent enough iron armor in another 2 weeks, but steel will need to wait until I return home. I won’t even mention magic metals as I didn’t even dare to so much as peek at all the magic metal I had collected. If it wasn’t for that forced quest, I don’t think I’d push myself this hard. But now what choice do I have? Failing this mission may lead to my death while undoing all I have worked for.

  At this moment, it’s the day of our departure from the dark elf settlement and the Ancestral Glade. Elder Alamdarra has called for a day of rest and feasting for everyone. Andy, my sisters and I packed our belongings up and readied everything for the trip that night. Before leaving though, we enjoyed the festive time spent within the Ancestral Glade’s little homestead.

  There’s a chance I may never return here with how things seem to be going. After spending so much time here, I considered this place to be my “home”. Everything reminded me of uncle’s farm on Earth as I spent all of my childhood there. Nonetheless, I am ready to go home. Especially since I will get to fight who or whatever comes our way. To be exact, I and 1 other golem will be fighting while the other 3 golems will only protect the carriage.

  When the time for departure came, I was ready to spill some blood and vent some of my anger. Waving goodbye to everyone, we began traveling a slightly different pathway through the forest. Since we were not going back to the settlement but around it, an additional hour was added to the trip. With the extra time, I was able to kill 30 monsters before we left the forest entirely and our pace picked up. The main purpose of me guarding the carriage is to have deathmatches with people and not monsters. People will use their intelligence to fight enemies, making the fight trickier.

  To be honest, I am somewhat hesitant to kill people. Don’t get me wrong despite my life on Earth as an old gamer, I still had a case where someone tried to rob me in my own home. Well, let’s just say Salem police couldn’t come in time to rescue the perp from me.

  When they pulled up and entered my home, lying before them was the corpse of the invader. A big hole in the center of his chest; his blood, guts, and shattered organs splattered all over the doorway where they stood. Even though I was Ukrainian, people would forget I am Afro-Ukrainian as all they saw was a black man in America. At first, the cops thought I was trying to rob myself until I started speaking, my thick Ukrainian accent spelled “foreigner” to them.

  Don’t be fooled, I didn’t actually talk that way normally. Only when dealing with law enforcement do I put on the “foreigner” display like I haven’t been living in the state for 30+ years. Anyway, I kept the dispatcher on the phone the entire time while speaking in a mix of English and Ukrainian.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Meanwhile, the cops in my house were so confused they left the apartment and waited. Eventually, someone came by and clean up the mess for me at my behest as an (elderly) American citizen (hehehe, suckers! Clean that crime scene!). The pure white locs and beard made people think I was a 70/80 year old. Naturally, I didn’t mind since I got all the senior discounts at 43 (if you ask, children! Children caused my hair to be this way with tons of wrinkles on my face).

  Pardon the old man’s ramblings. The point is I have killed a person. Tonight however, I will kill people. Single and plural make all the difference. Or so I thought as the first group of bandits approached seeing a child (although I no longer looked like one) and a golem out in the dead of night.

  Yeah… I was never more disgusted by people than this bunch. Two of the degenerates were even stroking themselves at the sight of me...(ugh) I guess to them I look like a young woman or a very effeminate man. Whelp let’s just say, my time as a probing alien paid off. That’s how the horny ones met their end; my flaming sword violating them from bottom to top. As for the others, they didn’t stand a chance either as the golem chopped their heads off like harvesting wheat. After looting the bandits, I burned their corpses and kept moving forward.

  While I fought bandit group after bandit group, a thought came to mind. I usually fight with my sword shrouded in fire. What if I condensed the fire and controlled the spread, so the flames surrounding my weapon were as close to the blade as possible? Considering this idea, I pictured a compacted tube of fire enveloping my sword as I modified the evocation.

  After a few battles with enemies, trial and error, I succeeded in having the fire wrap around my sword in a cylindrical manner. The fire nearly hugging the blade, making it glow with a bright orangish red color. With my new spell pyrosaber(?) I was able to cleave through flesh and bone like a hot knife through butter. Even the feeling was oddly satisfying despite the smell of burning flesh.

  Before I knew it, the sun started rising and our homestead was in sight. Finally, home was not too far off in the distance. Feeling somewhat tired I eased up and stayed a little closer to the carriage. With no more creatures or bandits courting death, we reached home in 20 minutes. I helped my sisters unload their belongings then headed towards the house to bathe.

  I stealthily avoided my mom who also just arrived about an hour ago from the Tower, and I entered the detached bath at the back of the house. Heating the water with fire magic was the best application of magic when relaxing. (I refuse to bathe in cold or lukewarm water. Only scolding, volcanically hot water will do!!)

  As I lay in the tub, I studied my appearance. To be honest, I never really cared for my looks, nor did I pay it much thought. Nonetheless, I needed to know what I looked like at least.

  Reflected in the water was a roasted chestnut brown skinned individual whose eyes glowed with an array of mixed colors. The most noticeable colors were black, blue, green, white, and orange. The array of colors in their irises glowed and flashed erratically like the northern lights. Their shoulder length locs was platinum with streaks of white mixed in. Lastly, their ears were pointed enough to label them a member of an elven clan.

  Outside of my appearance, I grew from 3’6” to 5’9”. The first growth spurt occurred when I completed my mana places. At the time, I went from 3’6” to 4’10”. After the Race Restoration ritual, I grew to 5’9” and will continue to grow taller. Even my voice is almost the same as when I was 19 on Earth. Other than that, nothing else was different from my pervious self before Race Restoration.

  Now that I think about it, the Race Restoration ritual was said to change the castor into the physical age. The change will matches the race they are changing into and the best outward representation for their psyche. So according to the ritual, I am mentally an extremely horny, and overly violent 19 year old youth who suffers from greying hair? (Yea…. Youth(?)…)

  Anyway, originally like my brother and sisters, I was slightly darker than Al**a K*y*. My hair was straight but somewhat frizzy with natural blond streaks. My eyes were a light brown almost orange in color, and no pointed ears due to the very thin elven blood. When the bloodline change occurred, I didn’t expect my hair would become crisp, even locs.

  At first when my sisters saw me, they both thought I was some completely different person. Saphire even cried saying I killed her brother and was wearing his skin. At the time, all I could think of was my little sister thinking I’m a body snatcher. After bribing the lass though, she went back to normal especially after getting a sapphire from the lake the size of her head.

  Either way, I officially no longer look like a member of the Engelberg lineage. I guess this might explain why the first son is the only one who inherits the lineage. Whereas, all others are meant to almost fend for themselves. There’s a high chance the eldest son may experience a complete race change.

-End of Chapter