Jetai (Adventurer's) Forest

(Author Note: All beasts --> demon beasts from now on, apart from the animals without any threat level.)

"You bastard! You really tried to steal from us! You're going straight to prison! Hands behind your back, scoundrel!"

The fatty exclaimed, throwing his apple to the ground as he neared Sol.

"Heh! I knew I recognized that face from somewhere. Empty out your pockets too!" The other guard said with a malicious smirk on his face.

At that moment, Sol pulled out his Bronze Mercenary plate and flashed it in the guard's face.

Many in the crowd gasped in surprise as he pulled it out.

He smirked, "Not so fast, fat fuck. Get your grubby little hands away from me."

The fat guard stopped, "Ergh..." He grunted, "Mercenary or not, you're still getting arrested for threatening to kill a guard!" He exclaimed out of nowhere.

Facing the crowd, the fat guard yelled, "You are all witness to it, isn't that right?!"

Sol looked around, and after a few seconds of silence, a resounding yes sounded clearly from the crowd.

They obviously wanted to side with the guards, as that was the only way they could enter and exit the inner city peacefully for the most part.

"Mercenaries can't beat the law." The fatty smirked as he looked at Sol with an evil look in his eyes. "With all these witnesses, who would believe you?"

'Stupid little brat. He almost got us too... hahaha!' The guard celebrated inwardly.

At that moment, Sol also smirked, throwing the guard off slightly.

"Fine then... have it your way." He remarked, clenching his fist.

"What?" 

"I may not be able to beat your law, but I'll just beat the shit out of you instead," Sol said before clocking the fatty right in the nose.

The guard's eyes immediately rolled back into his head. His hands flailed forward like a ragdoll as his back thumped onto the ground.

After he was laid flat out, his nose gushing with blood, Sol quickly ran over to the other guard.

The man was caught off guard, but still threw a punch at the young boy.

As the crowd gasped in astonishment, Sol took the guard's hand and twisted it, dislocating it from the elbow joint.

"Huh?" The guard's eyes widened in horror, "Aaargh!!" He screamed in agony, realizing what just happened.

*Bang*

He caught a fist to the face as well, but before his body fell, he caught a couple more to his chest and jaw.

*Bang*

*Bang*

With that, Sol had swiftly knocked out both of the guards.

"The streets are open," He turned his head past his shoulder to face the crowd, "Folks!"

As he said this, a hush fell over the crowd for a few seconds.

Then, a roar of cheer erupted outwards. 

"...Whohoo! The streets are free!"

"A savior! Who the hell is this kid!?"

"Haha! I can get back the money they've stolen from the past! What a lucky day!"

Before Sol could get approached by anyone, he quickly retrieved the spirit stones from the table and dipped out of there before anyone could even notice what was going on.

They were distracted by the chaos of celebration.

After half a minute they arrived at the table to get their spirit stones, only to see that there wasn't a single one left in sight.

"H-H-HUH!?!?"

"Where are they!? Where the hell are the spirit stones!?"

***

"This is probably close to 1500 stones! What a lucky day today, I've received two instances of spirit stone donations. The goddess of luck must be looking over me."

Sol celebrated as he tied the three large bags of spirit stones together using a robe and threw them over his shoulder.

Right outside of the inner city walls was the start of the outer city village.

It was similar to the inside but was less crowded and felt more open.

The buildings were a lot smaller, made of less stone and more wood.

There were small farms in the backyard of every resident, and after a mile or so, there stretched miles of farmland for hundreds of miles on end.

Sol began to run, using that as his main form of transportation as he had nothing else at the moment.

He soon made it to where the farmlands were, running on the narrow 6-foot-wide dirt path in the midst of the endlessly stretching farms to the side.

Grain such as rice and corn were grown there, along with many other plants like potatoes and more.

Most of Hllscani's food came from these lands. Farmers used a mix of Ether tools and machines to do most of their farmwork.

Even now, Sol witnessed many farmers using Ether to sow and plow their lands.

After running for about an hour more, he made it to the verdant prairie. The grasslands, where trees were scarce and wild demon beasts began to pop up as well.

Most of them were weaker creatures, like the Long Horned Gazzle that grazed the grass in packs of up to 15.

There was also the Water Buffalo and Iron Fang Hyenas that Sol spotted every once in a while as well.

These demon beasts were categorized to be in the threat level of 1-10, making them go into the Basic Demon Beast Rank.

The demon beasts that Sol had defeated in the exit exams were also of the Basic Rank since they were all under a threat level of 11.

All creatures that were above a threat level of 0 were categorized as demon beasts. The beasts that had absolutely no Ether floating inside their system were called normal animals.

From 1-10, 10-50, and onwards from there, different threat level rankings gauged their rank and power.

Finally, after another hour, Sol arrived at the base of the Jetai Forest treeline.

He was a bit exhausted from the run, but he quickly caught his breath and entered the forest.

'This will be my main training grounds for the following months to come.' He thought to himself as he trudged through the land. He could feel a bit of excitement.

He was currently walking through the first and easiest part of the Adventurer's forest, another name for the Jetai forest.

The farther he went, the stronger the forest would grow. In the exit exams, he was put into the second weakest part.

However, Sol didn't need to go that far for what he wanted to do right now.

After finding a decently open area underneath the fairly spacious forest canopy, he went to a large, flat rock.

After this, he got almost full butt naked, placing his clothes on the blouder below him with only his underwear covering his body.

Then, he quickly got to work.

'To get good armor and check off my next checkpoint, I'll Enchant these pieces, or in my terms, curse them...'