Wyvern...

"So, this is the Red Star Forest. It definitely has a high concentration of mana like gramps said." Leo said, as he stood in front of a large wall of trees.

The Red Star Forest got its name from the Red Star trees inside of it. These trees' wood was red in the inside and it was layered in the form of a star. The trees also drew in massive amounts of mana.

The Red Star Forest was located to the East of the Kingsmith's Capital city, Solon. The Kingsmith Clan had many cities under their banner because they were one of the five pillars of the Centis Kingdom. And the Red Star Forest bordered the city of Solon giving the Kingsmith's almost a full monopoly of the resources it provided. The down side of the forest though, was the mana beast which inhabited it.

Mana beasts are beasts who have been infected by mana. The mana provides them with enhanced abilities and sometimes even special skills like breathing fire or causing spikes of earth to come out of the ground. Overall, the mana beast are deadly, this was one of the main reasons that the adventures guild was so popular in Solon.

The Kingsmiths at first were uncomfortable with the Guild coming into their city because adventurers would most likely sell their earnings to the guild who then sell to the highest bidder. But after some time the Kingsmiths realized that the Guild could not only help them control the rising population of mana beast but also bring in more people to their city, in turn making their territory more prosperous.

Now the Red Star Forest was one of the most hunted places for adventurers. As much as it was hunted the mana beast population was still very high, but the edges of the forests weren't so bad.

"I guess I should only go into the edges of the forest just to be safe." Leo spoke to himself.

Deeper in the forest lay stronger mana beasts and high ranking monsters. Monsters are generally more dangerous when compared to mana beast because of their intelligence level.

Taking his first step into the Red Star Forest, Leo was met with a very interesting smell and feeling. The feeling could only be described as 'freedom'.

"Haa…This world is great!" Leo shouted, with a maniacal smile beginning to appear on his face.

"Well then, let's begin."

After he finished speaking, Leo dashed into the forest and came to a rest upon a tree.

'Sensing…' He spoke inside his head as he then began to feel the life force of his surroundings.

Sensing was a technique that Leo had learned in the past week. It was a technique which allowed the user to feel life in his area of observation. The stronger the being the more noticeable they were. Mages have a similar thing, but it works more like echolocation.

Spreading out his area of observation until it was paper thin, it covered about 100 yards in all directions. It couldn't be compared to Alberts who could cover miles on miles, but Leo was satisfied with it.

Taking a second to observe Leo felt many things, "A group of adventurers, an adventuring couple, extremely weak mana beast… Is there anything worth my time here?"

Eventually he stumbled across something that caught his attention, "Whatever that is has a large life force signature, hehe, lets see what it is." He said as he began running through the tree towards the being.

Leo wasn't familiar enough with the beast's life force so he couldn't tell what it was, all he knew was that it was one of the stronger things in the edge of the forest.

Running through the forest Leo made it to the signature he found and caught sight of his prey. It was a large dog with black fur and orange eyes.

"A Blaze Wolf… From what I read about them they can shoot little fire balls from their mouth." He reminded himself as he jumped off the tree.

Leo's goal was to get more experience in fighting beasts, so while he could kill it right now with a sneak attack he decided to jump down and face it head on.

"I should fully understand its moves, it should come in handy in the future." He said as a creepy smile plastered on his.

**

Deeper inside the forest three men were wandering around, seemingly searching for something.

"John! Are you sure this is the right place? We haven't seen anything resembling a cave for a long time now!" Shouted one of the men.

These three have been searching for a cave now for many days, even daring to camp in such a dangerous environment. But it wasn't like they came unprepared, they had many things which hid their scent and allowed them to stay hidden from the high ranking beasts this deep in the forest.

Even then if their employer didn't offer them a stupid amount of money they would have rejected coming this deep in the forest. After all, they couldn't match the might of these beasts.

"Shut the hell up Levi! If the beasts hear your voice we're feeding you to them!" John shouted back, in a hushed voice. It was evident that he was scared of his current situation.

"Our boss said it would be in this area. Surely he didn't lie to use right?" The last man, Ryan said.

The employer had contacted their boss, the head of their mercenary group, and informed him that he had a job for them. If the job succeeded they would receive a large sum of money.

"Boss would never lie to us! Oh!...See, it's right there!" Levi didn't like that Ryan had doubted their boss, so he was going to scold him before he saw the entrance to a cave.

"Hurry up and pull out the poison."

"Okay." John then pulled out a bottle which held the key to this operation and a pill.

"Wait. Let's make sure this is the right cave." Ryan said, as he inched towards the entrance of the cave.

Reaching the opening of the cave, Ryan stuck his head slightly in and saw their target. Inside was an extremely large, far beyond a humans size and was pitch black being.

The pitch black entity also had large wings and a scaled body. It was a wyvern!

But this was not their target, the egg inside of the wyverns embrace was the target for this mission.

After confirming that their target was indeed inside the cave, Ryan gave Levi, and John a nod. Telling them to continue on and begin the plan.

John then pulled the top off of the bottle and dropped the pill in it, then sat the bottle down by the entrance of the cave. The three of them then proceeded to run back out of the way and watched.

The liquid inside the bottle quickly began to boil thanks to the pill, turning it into a green gas. The green gas proceeded into the cave where the sleeping wyvern was.

After waiting for about ten minutes, the group then put on a mask so as to not inhale the gas and proceeded inside the cave to check if their plan had worked.

Peeking inside, the group noticed the wyvern was still sleeping but was no longer holding onto the egg.

Not wanting to take any chances the group too toed over to the wyvern and gently took the egg out of its claws. Then slowly backed up to the opening of the cave, making sure to not make any unnecessary noises in the process.

Reaching the opening, the group then ran as fast as they could towards the exit of the forest.

"Thank god that worked!" Shouted Levi.

"You're telling me. If that thing would have woken up we wouldn't have stood a chance." Said John.

"Let's hurry back to the boss." Said Ryan.

They ran and ran until finally reaching the edge of the forest, then they heard it.

"ROOOAAAARRR!!"

A roar of rage and despair was heard throughout the entire forest. The roar was the representation of the rage of a mother who had just had their child stolen.

**

*Shing* The noise of a blade being pulled out of flesh resounded.

Leo had just finished analyzing the Blaze Wolf's moves and had just killed it with a sword through the neck. It didn't take long for Leo to completely understand the Blaze Wolf as it was a simple beast with not so great intelligence.

Just as he began to wipe his blade of the blood a feeling of dread overcame him followed by a noise which shook the entire forest, "ROOOAAARR!!"

"What the hell was that?" Leo spoke as his eyes widened.

Leo could tell that whatever made that noise was far beyond what he could handle right now. So while he wasn't satisfied with only hunting one Blaze Wolf, he decided to call it quits for the day.

"I guess I could practice using the aura sense without having to focus on it." He said as he began to spread out his senses once again.

Leo then began walking towards the exit of the forest, slowly. He wanted to get used to using aura sense easily but he still had to focus quite a lot on it, hence slowing him down.

After walking for a little over 5 minutes, something was found in his aura observation area. But instead of being happy about it, his expression darkened.

"What is that…" he said as he felt the life signature of the being heading towards him. It was much, much greater than the Blaze Wolf's signature.

Leo didn't have to wait long before his question was answered, as the strong being quickly caught up to him.

"GRAAA!"

"A minotaur…"