11 Distant Mountain

A weirdly placed plane in the middle of a jungle was suspicious enough, but after seeing the magic beasts and the near fantasy like powers he had gained, he seemed slightly numb to it. He could, from this distance, see wolves grouped up a short distance away from him. They kept glaring in his direction and growling but seemed to not be able to come any further.

He felt a little comfortable knowing that the wolves weren't coming towards him any longer, but just in case, he walked close to them to check if he was truly safe, almost just a meter away from the almost black wolf in the very front of the group in fact. He made faces and gestures towards the wolf to try and taunt him, but nothing seemed to work, so he just retreated away from them. The wolves too, seemed to lose interest after a while and after a low growl from the 'Alpha' of the pack, slowly retreated back into the forest.

After the wolves completely vanished from his sight, he finally got a chance to look at the plain around himself freely. Till now, he had been on edge about the fact that those wolves, who were clearly feral were nearly on his back at all times, so he dared not turn his back to them either.

Now that he had a clear look, there seemed to be a small stream flowing by the side of the forest, where just like a square, the trees suddenly turned ninety degrees away from him. Where he first woke up was just a few tens of meters away from that edge of the forest.

' Weird. ' He muttered, as he turned to look behind himself. What was behind him wasn't as shocking, as it looked to him like a simple custom background on a computer. A plain of green grass, with flower patches every now and again. A forest that stretched across the horizon and a distant peak, with clouds floating around it, as if to hide the skies.

' Hide the skies? ' He suddenly repeated his own thought as soon as he reached to this point. The clouds really seemed to be hiding something behind them, for as far as he could see, the clouds extended from a little lower than the peak of the mountain to all the way across the sky. The sun that also hung in the sky only seemed to get a small opening to show itself.

He didn't notice at first due to either being excited or scared, but now it was clear as day. The sun wasn't above the clouds, but below them.

' An artificial sun. ' was his first thought but then came the question of why. Why go to the effort of creating an artificial sun for this whatchamacallit land? What is so important here that needs an energy source as big as a star?

' Maybe a bit smaller. No, a lot smaller. ' He corrected himself with a shake of his head. Artificial or miniature stars weren't something of complete fantasy to him. During the recent years, scientists and mages had been trying to get the exact results of the sun above him using the power contained in Element-X and the mana of mages, but had failed multiple attempts.

' Book 126.... ' He kept murmuring incomprehensible words to himself for a while before shaking his head. " No attempts were successful. A scientist even concluded that he may need all the stored Element X just to create a miniature star the size of his fist, considering it stays that way for any more than a few weeks." He said aloud out of habit.

He then looked up at the sun in this place and muttered once more " If the mountain, by an estimate is about a 1000 meters high, the sun would need to be ..." His words trailed off as he felt blood drain out of his face. " Big and hot enough to burn through the planet."

He looked at the mountain in the distance and sighed. He knew that all answers could be found by climbing that mountain but just from the strength displayed by the monsters here in the forest currently behind him, he knew how weak he was. He was barely able to fight of a small hunting party of magic beasts seemingly on the lower end of the food chain here.

He was quite certain that any higher than Danger level D and he won't be able to one shot anymore, and he was new to fighting like this. These beasts were born fighting. If even a second more is given to them when they are attacking him, he will be magic beast poop by the next day.

' Let's go there slowly.' He muttered as he started walking towards the forest, in the direction of the mountain, neither too fast nor too slow but all the while looking around himself attentively for any signs of movement.