City beneath the forest

I woke up the next day after a good night sleep and got out of the tree house. I didn't know who to talk to so I just waited for Ace to show me around.

After waiting for about half an hour, Ace showed up with a mischievous smile plastered on his face. I was not feeling good about it.

"Hey, can you cook the village elders some meals from your world? No animal products so no milk, meat, butter and such." He said and I sighed. A vegan meal? I wonder what I can cook.

I was taken to the kitchen in the town hall like building. I looked around at the ingredients and wondered what to cook since I can't use any animal product. Maybe burrito? Well I can knead a dough and add in rice and vegetables instead of meat. I think it'd taste okay if I use right spices. They had most of the ingredients I needed and ended up making a hot sauce too so that they burrito wouldn't be too dry. I also seasoned the rice with pepper and lemon.

It passed my standard of taste and someone took the burritos to other room. I followed them and entered a small room with 9 people sitting down. I assumed they were the elders. I could've easily made something better but I had neither time nor resources in middle of a forest. A pie would've required an oven even if I didn't use egg wash on it. Maybe I could make dumplings next time with vegetables. Tofu and kimchi could be a good filling for dumplings. If this went on, I could potentially open up a restaurant or something.

The elders picked up their burritos and took a bite out of it and started whispering to each other something while continuing eating. I wondered what they were talking about while Ace kept smiling. He must've pulled some stunt... I sighed.

"This is worth it. We will allow you to search the entire forest, including the caves, and the crystals for the what you want for this recipe." One sitting on the other side of the table said.

Ace clasped his hands.

"Great! I'll write down the recipe for you and we have a deal."

"Hey- What was the plan?" I asked.

"Oh right! You needed crystals to level up, right? Since you've already gotten four crystals so I made a deal for a recipe for 3 crystals. Since elves use magic a lot, they have abundance of crystals laying around. Getting three wouldn't make a difference. Also no one has ever adventured through the forest in its entirety, not even elves, so there must be some undiscovered monsters here. Or maybe treasures. Who knows."

"Thanks for crystals. What about that girl? Apus."

"She can stay here for a while and take her time with the incident and murder of her father. The elves will take care of her." He said and walked out of the room. I followed him and was taken outside the village.

"Now it would be just the two of us so no need to hold back any of your magic." He said and I nodded.

We started running in a random direction but all we could see were trees and more trees. It took us 15 minutes to run into first horde of goblins. I think the elves cleared up the forest in 1 mile radius of the village. Ace took out the crystals and gave them to me.

"Use them, so fighting them would give you experience."

I took out my crystals and grasped them tightly. The crystals shined bright in their respective color before disintegrating into dust.

<Level 21 reached!>

I saw the message being displayed in front of my eyes.

Since Ace and I were not a team, him defeating enemies wouldn't give me any shared experience. I got my weapon of choice which was offering blade. I would use electro magic so it would react with Ace's water magic and electrocute the goblins.

I charged towards the horde and swung my sword when I saw a screen appear.

<New Skill: Electro blade>

And suddenly bolts of lighting from my sword struck the enemies. I quickly used water lotus and electrocuted them. Ace was not fighting so I assumed he wanted me to take all the experience. I defeated maybe a dozen goblins but didn't reach level 22... I checked the status window and seems like gaining levels would become harder and harder from here on. Just as I let my guard down a massive goblin ambushed me with an axe but before it could touch me, the goblin was shot by Ace's bow. It fell onto the ground and Ace laughed at me.

"Don't let your guard down... Stupid."

"Sorry about that." I responded and checked the loot. "So... what exactly are you looking for?" I asked.

"Y'know about the war that happened a few years back?" He asked and I nodded.

"The one where head hunters made their names?"

"Yes. During the war, entire continent was fighting for dominance but there was one nation in particular that fell the hardest. Kingdom of Dewmaki. It was the only nation that faced internal conflict but one thing special about that conflict is that noble had come across some forbidden knowledge and that drove him to start conflict. According to stories and rumors, the forbidden knowledge should be in this forest. The knowledge gave him so much power that according to legends, Kilmari had to come down to slay him personally."

"Are you sure you're strong enough to handle such knowledge?" I asked.

"We won't know till we find out."

"I don't think it's safe but sure..." I wanted to know the information about this world too. I wanted to know the true nature of this world as Ace puts it.

Ace and I walked for what felt like another 15 minutes before we ran into... mothmen? They resembled the myths about mothmen from our world but they seemed... different.

"Want to fight them?" He asked and jumped into battle.

I followed and used my sword to cut their wings using lighting blade. They were somewhat fast so I wonder if a bow would be better. I got Polaris and shot at the enemies as quickly as I could and it worked a bit better. I need to practice my aim later but it works for now.

One of the monster got past all the bows and latched onto me. I looked at its grotesque face in fear. Those massive black eyes stared right into my soul. Ace chopped its head off and it fell down.

"A few more battles and you'd reach level 22. There would be an exponential increase in your stats but it would become progressively more difficult to gain levels too."

I caught my breath and nodded to whatever Ace said.

We soon found a cave and entered. We were immediately greeted by a massive hole. Neither of us had expected that and we fell... and fell for what felt like forever before gravity became less...? We somehow landed safely.

Now we were in a room with a massive door on the other side, we walked over to the door and there was a massive city in front of our eyes.

What the actual fuck... Both of us stared at the city with shocked expression. A city of such scale can't possibly exist in such perfect condition underground.

We decided to enter the city and the location was inhabited by monsters that resembled lizards... more like Kamado dragons. They didn't attack us though but the city had no human like lifeform.

"This is gold. We've found the golden empire of sovereign dragon! It makes sense that forbidden knowledge is in city once ruled by a being who could rival Gods."

"Cool but where would we find the knowledge... also in what form?"

"It should be a book. Lets go to the castle and see what we find there. We might find some new information about past and the rule of dragons. And also about Gods." He said before walking in the direction of castle. The castle was on a hill so it was visible from any part of the city. The barren city posed no thread so we got to the castle rather quick. We entered the castle but were greeted by seven dragons.

"You dare enter the castle of the great sovereign dragon?!" One of the dragons shouted at us. I noticed how all dragons represented different elements based on their skin color but I was too scared by their presence. They were almost normal looking western dragons.

"Chill... We aren't looking for a fight but for forbidden knowledge. Hand it over or else... I would have to resort to violence." Ace was not threatened by the dragons in the slightest.

"Know your place, human." Another dragon said before charging at Ace. But suddenly he disappeared. Where?! Before I could even begin looking for him the room, the dragon fell to the ground... Only fainted.

I checked the stats of the dragons and all of them were at level 89... They must be capped. But... But Ace is only level 55... He can't be strong enough to one shot a dragon. Exactly what is he...?

"I'm the 13th member of the regulators. The weakest. Imagine what the strongest member would be like. Hand over the forbidden knowledge... You can't possibly stop me. I'm not here for a fight."

"Impossible... A mere human...We must protect the forbidden knowledge!!"

And then all six dragons attacked him. Ace smiled and then sighed.

He charged against them and created the same shark attack he used against the boss enemy but this time it was even bigger.

All six of them charged up some beam in their mouth but Ace connected the ends of his swords again to form a bow. He kneeled on one knee aiming upwards and shot six arrows and all six of them landed right in the mouth of the dragons causing elemental reaction and all six of them fell onto ground with almost no health remaining.

He used their own elemental attacks against them. No wonder he was so confident in his abilities.

"Kenji. Kill them." He said and smiled at me.

"Huh?" I couldn't wrap my head around what he just said.

"These seven dragons are all level 89. If you kill them you'd get enough experience to reach level 35 at least."

Right... I took out my Polaris and shot all seven of them with my charged shot and killed them.

<Level up! Level 33 reached.>

We started searching the castle and came across the library where a single woman was sitting reading a book.

"Hey miss. Can you show us the way to forbidden knowledge?" Ace asked casually.

"A human? Considering you did cross the room of seven apprentices, I think you're worthy of such knowledge." She stood up and turned around to face us.

She wore a beautiful purple gown and had flower like accessories all over herself, be it necklace or headpieces. She looked like someone out of fairytale to be honest. Her grey hair perfectly complemented her dress.

"I'm the primordial one. The knowledge you are looking for is a book titled: Before the heavens and sovereign dragons. You can find the book in this library but the book contains knowledge so beyond human comprehension that it might drive you insane or even... kill you." She said.

This unassuming girl called herself the primordial one? That's suspicious. I checked her stats but it showed just one sentence.

<Stats are immeasurable.>

So if we act up... she can kill us.

"I'll keep that in mind, miss." Ace walked over to the book selves and started searching for wish.

There is something about this woman and I don't want to be in the same continent as her let alone be in the same room.

After searching for about 20 minutes we finally found the book. It was not that thick... We opened the book and glanced through it.

"This book might take me a couple days to read." Ace said before taking a seat. "You can have the book once I'm done. Till then make acquaintance with that lady."

"No." I whispered to him before sitting next to him. "I know you know she is a scary individual."

"That's why. It's good to have such beings on our side."

I sighed and searched through my bag and took out two burritos and walked over to her.

"Hey. If you're hungry, have this." I placed a leaf on the table and then burrito on top of it.

"Hm?" She looked at me and then at the burrito. She picked it up and took a bite out of it and she didn't show any reaction but she did eat the entire thing rather quickly.

"You made this?" She asked and I nodded.

"Can you make this whenever you want?"

"I mean if I have the ingredients then yes."

"We should form a pact then." She said and I didn't know how to react. I wanted burritos to be a conversation starter but I'm not exactly complaining.