Lucy woke up and i explained her what happened.
I called Yarin and asked her to tell Lucy to her new powers.
After that we set off to our destination.
While we walked i took Yarin to my arms and asked:
"Yarin we came to this forest for treasures and artifacts. Do you happen to know any of their location or do you have on you?"
"I dont have any artifact on me because we, darklings and spirits are use elemental energy instead of mana, so we can't use it."
With that i conversation ended and in silence we continued to walk.
On our way, we encountered a strong beast.
I wanted to fight strong opponent by my own to gain experience for a while. So i requested Yarin to don't interfere if my life isn't in danger and protect me if my life is in danger.
Lucy concerned about me, but i gestured beast and said 'i won't die to mere beast.' it was cool moment to be honest.
Anyway this beast was 2 meters tall [C] rank panther.
It was strong and quick. When i attacked with ice spear, it dodged swiftly and rushed at me, in return i created ice wall between us and dashed back to make distance between us.
Mages would usually die in the close range fights because of their low physical strength.
Even though I trained my body, it's not enough to harm the [C] rank beast's tough hide. So i did everything to make distance between us larger.
My spears couldn't even penetrate its tough hide, just scratched it and caused bleeding.
When i saw it's blood, i remembered the fact that i have blood magic too. I am newbie in fighting. So when i am in a hard fight, i would usually forgot my other elements and focus firing on ice spears because of my inexperience in fights.
I chanted the blood magic [Blood spikes] and attacked.
It's blood that bled from scratches became spikes and shot through to it's bleeding spots. It only caused small injures to the beast but it made the beast mad.
Beast growled loudly and did a mad rush to me.
I casted ice wall quickly but beast was faster than before and rushed through to ice wall, successfully breaking apart and came front of me.
I quickly casted my most sturdy ice armor to protect myself which shattered immediately after beast's swung it's claw.
I thrown back for few meters and quickly analyzed my body, fortunately i didn't have broken bones just some internal bleeding, i was fine. So i quickly recovered my stance and casted illusion magic to hide my scent, noise and myself after that i casted illusion magic to made copy of me to somewhere away from me, afterwards i casted illusion magic on the copy of mine, which created my scent on my copy.
Beast are usually rely on their eyes and noses to find or stalk their prey. I tried to take advantage of it. Well, it was half successful.
The beast ran to illusion but in the halfway to illusion it stopped and turned towards me.
But i wasn't just simply watching it, i gathered large amounts of mana and made ice spear. Though it is still ice spear, i made this ice spear with huge amount of mana, about 50 ice spear equivalent of mana.
Ice spear flew through in the air and hit the beast's left side. Ice spear was more sturdy and more sharp than it's normal, so it made a hole on the beast about 40cm.
Beast was bleeding profusely, it would surely die from blood loss in few minutes. It was mad, if it was going to die, it would bring me with it to hell.
I injured beast severely but i had too little mana from my full state. I was almost out of mana because of the massive ice spear that i casted.
I took out my dagger and took a stance.
Although [Swift dagger art] is made to kill humans, it can be used against beasts too, just less effective than human.
My dagger can't scratch this beast normally. Therefore i tried to attack its eyes.
I rushed to beast faster than before because of the dagger art and slashed towards its left eye. I thought the beast can't protect it's left eye properly because of the hole on its left.
Beast blocked the attack with its tail and bit my arm.
Beast couldn't tear my arm because of my transformed skin, bones and muscles.
Beast who noticed this tried to crush my arm, which was half successful. Beast crushed it slightly but when i noticed this i strengthen my arm with my last a bit of mana.
Normally mages can't strengthen their body with mana, but i wasn't normal mage. I can strengthen my body with ease because of my immunity against my mana.
Anyway i strengthen my other arm and punched beast's head.
Bam!
My punch didn't do much damage to its head but made the beast wobbly.
I punched the beast again because my reason was simple. If my punch made the beast wobbly, it can kill it too.
Bam!
I punched the beast repeatedly. Beasts skull bend into to its brain. Blood pouring from its eyes, nose, ears and mouth. Beast was clearly dying, so i casted blood magic to heal myself properly before beast death.
[Bloody Healing] is bizarre but effective healing magic. With this magic you can absorb opponent's life energy to heal yourself via their blood.
I felt warm, lively energy entered my body and started to heal my crushed arm and internal injuries. My organs didn't transformed, so it was expected to have internal bleeding.
While i was healing, Lucy ran to me and hugged me while crying.
'Lucy is too soft, She is crying for every little thing. It is too bothersome thing to do calm her down every time.'
"Calm down Lucy, i am not even injured look. Why are you even crying" i said and turned her head to my completely healed arm.
"But you was thrown back and bitten?" Lucy perplexed because of my uninjured state.
"Lucy listen to me carefully. We are mages and this means we will usually fight in long distance. But this doesn't mean that we won't be in close range fight. So toughen your mind and body. Understood?"
"Understood." Lucy said with determination and nodded.
I didn't know if what i said to Lucy would make her less crybaby, but i tried it anyway.
After my speech, i walked towards to beasts and harvested its mana core.
[C] rank mana core was different than it's juniors. It was big as fist and its mana was vibrant and good quality.
With that we continued our journey to the spatial rune.
******
Our journey to rune lasted 20 days.
In these 20 days Lucy and me got closer to Yarin.
We talked a lot because there were nothing to do other than killing beast or training.
According to Yarin, she wasn't that old and was more powerfull.
But when asked about her age, she didn't answered. So i concluded her age minumum 500 years.
Anyway she said, she was more powerful in the past than now. But she couldn't resist her madness anymore, so she made lots of power contracts. She gave the her contractors raw power, nothing more and dumped to them her portion of madness.
With this method Yarin reduced her madness to tiny amount but her powers too reduced to [B+], which in Yarin's words is 'measly amount of power'.
It made me thought that i made a mistake. Because according to her words she must had been a powerhouse and every powerhouses have their own personal enemies.
Well it can't be helped, Lucy already formed contract with her, so i threw this thoughts to back of my mind.
Apart from talking we killed beasts that we encountered.
I wanted to train Lucy, so i made Lucy fight herself. Though she was scared she did it anyways.
I didn't even allowed beasts to scratch her. I thought that if she experienced pain with her child brain, it could broke her trust in me. Which i didn't want that, i worked really hard to gain her trust.
Though i didn't know why, but Lucy became more obedient to me. Well it's good thing because it was more easy to handle her, so i was okay with it. It made me little bit suspicious but i let the suspicion go.
*****
We arrived front of a black, dull mansion. It was kind of interesting because who would build a mansion in the [Lost Forest].
"Yarin, is this some sort of darkling gathering place? Because i don't think that this is a place that made by human or elf."
"*sigh No. This place probably made by half mad skeleton." for some reason Yarin was annoyed.
"It is possible, because i took this map from skeleton."
"Why did you even believe that skeleton?"
"My intuition." i answered with 'isn't it obvious' face.
Yarin sighed and i opened the door of the mansion.
Creak!
Before i stepped in the house. A figure appeared in the middle of the house.
It was a skeleton. The skeleton was wearing a dark cape, black cowboy hat and holding lusterles black smooth cane.
"You dare to enter Lord Grandpa's residence without manners, you brats are courting dead!" skeleton shouted in threatening tone.
After skeleton's shout, Yarin showed herself.
"How many times i said that dont play these games Ivnir! You are embarassing me to my new contractors." Yarin scolded skele- Ivnir.
Ivnir stayed still for a while, clearly shocked. Ivnir awakened from his shock and quickly came front of the Yarin and bowed deeply.
"I am happy to see you Lady Yarin. Please excuse my little game, i found these children quite amusing and wanted to give them gift. But how could i give them my precious gift freely, as my lady knows too, this is boring place, i need to play from time to time."
"Just shut up, gave the spatial rune and the cane you are holding to this white haired child." ordered Yarin.
"As you command my lady."
"Just shut up and don't call me lady, you idiot skeleton! Do you have natural treasure too?"
"Yes my lady, i will bring them to you in instant."
The bizarre skeleton that we encountered in the beginning of the forest was Yarin's servant.
'What a lucky coincidence that we will get the treasure without playing with this mad skeleton.'
'it is little suspicion to be honest but meh i don't care if i get high rank darkling and treasures.'
"Yarin, was that skeleton your servant back then when you were powerful?" I inquired.
Yarin nodded her cat head but didn't tell anything about it. I think she was in melancholic mood.
I took Yarin to my arms and kissed her cat head.
"My Yarin isn't in good mood it seems. Well it can't be helped that i have to cheer up my Yarin, right?" i slowly scratched her head and kissed her neck.
Kissing a cat's neck was weird experience, but it did the work.
Yarin throw her paw to my face to stop me.
"Enough! What are you doing?" Yarin turned her face away from me.
"I am just cheering up my cat who is in bad mood." I said as if i didn't do anything, which earned a paw strike.
After that we chatted for a while and Ivnir came back.
He gave me his cane, an [B] rank mana ore, few [B] rank mana core and a paper with rune drawn on it. I stored them to my storage.
We gave our farewells to Ivnir and get out of the house.
"Lucy." i called Lucy.
"Brother?" Lucy tilted her head to me.
"Let's go back to city. I am bored of fighting monsters."
"Yaaay" Lucy jumped to me in the her happiness.
"Hahaha. If you had bored this much, you could said to me."
I knew that she was bored and i didn't cared too much about it. But i didn't thought that she was bored this much. Or maybe i started to develop a resistance to boredom, i didn't know.
"But brother said it was for our benefits. I endured with my heart" Lucy puffed her chest.
Lucy became more thoughtful it seems.
I patted her head and kissed her forehead.
"My Lucy became such a good girl." i emphasized the words 'My' and 'good girl'.
Lucy blushed and looked down.
"Did you ever went to city, Yarin?"
"No. Why are you asking?"
"I was just curious."
With that our [Lost Forest] adventure ended at the moment.
Th𝓮 most uptodate nov𝑒ls are published on freew(e)bnove(l).𝓬𝓸𝓶