「 2 」Wait! I’m Not A Demon Lord!

- Since I finally decided on my name, Im gonna go search through the forest for hidden treasures… because what kind of adventurer stays in one place when adventuring? -

- Plus, its a forest full of trees— and what better place for testing spirit magic than a forest? -

I placed my hand on one of the trees.

"Hmmm, he said it would be like an extension of my limbs… So lets try making this tree grow…"

I tried to imagine the tree growing taller in my mind, while also watching it to see any changes… but nothing happened.

- Hmmmm, maybe I should try to think of it energy wise, since its the elemental energy I'm connected to and not the tree… -

(To clear up any misunderstanding of how he knows these things or where his logic comes from, refer to Osseur's 2nd gift.)

I imagined the tree outlined in a green aura, I then stretched the green aura about 20 feet to see if that would make any difference…

This time there was a slight change, the tree gently shook and it grew taller by a millimeter…

"Well, at least I made it grow…"

A sudden bout of exhaustion came over me, but I quickly shook it off. A second later, a golden notification appeared in front of me.

[ Your mana has been completely exhausted! Please wait for it to naturally recover or actively draw in and absorb more mana! ]

- Ah, well that's to be expected, I haven't even started actually cultivating yet… Besides that's not even the worst part… -

- I was only able to grow this tree by a single millimeter with 200 points of mana… Adding onto the fact that I only had to pay a tenth of the price means that… -

- A single millimeter of tree growth is at least 2,000 points of mana when used normally… and an entire foot is 305 millimeters… -

- Which means that to even make this tree a foot taller I would need 601,000 points of mana… and even with the cost at a tenth it's still at 60,100 points… -

"*sigh* I still have a long way to go…"

- For now, the priority will be to get stronger. Using the knowledge that I have from Osseur's 2nd gift, plus the common sense of the Xianxia novels I binged… I should be able to cultivate rather easily! -

I sat down cross legged and started to try sensing the energy like the MC's in novels I read described doing…

…

"I've been at this for an entire day and nothing happened…"

< Well duh, skeletons can't normally sense nature's energy since they're more attuned to death energy and are usually made in place abundant with it. >

"So I guess I'm the strange one."

< Strange? No, more like an idiot >

"Fuck you!"

After arguing with the system for a while longer, I started to think…

"If mana itself is a neutral energy then it should appear as white when I imagine it, life energy would be green and earth would be brown… Fire would be red and water would be blue, wind is probably a baby blue type color…"

The more I thought of it and tried to envision it, the clearer the image became in my mind… lines of the same colors I thought of started to slowly appear around me…

It took about a month for all the lines to completely become visible and condense. I guess my talent is average in novel terms since most MC's take mere seconds to sense energy…

< Can you stop pitying yourself? You have it better than any of them, I mean who else has guaranteed immortality and practically infinite knowledge? And most of them have to pass up ancient treasures because they don't know what it is, but guess what? You basically have an index to all of them in your mind! Plus you know every language and can read them! Thats guaranteed fortune! >

- Well if you put it that way… I guess my powers aren't even that bad, I just need to be able to utilize them properly… -

Anyway, let's try absorbing life energy since that one seems to be the most abundant…. Most probably because I'm in a forest.

< No shit sherlock >

I ignored the annoying system and touched one of the 1,000+ green threads with my mental force and dragged them into myself.

WOOSH!

I felt a strong wind around me and I started to feel a warm sensation, it was extremely comfortable and soothing.

"It's working…"

- Hahahaha! My rise will be swift and smooth! -

…

Eventually, there were no more green threads for me to absorb and when I opened my eyes, I saw a scene of utter devastation…

"Holy shit…"

The beautiful forest I saw had completely withered to nothingness, the ground was barren with me at the center, a stark contrast from the earlier scene.

It was then that I heard footsteps and a trembling female voice behind me.

"D-d-d-DEMON LORD!"

I turned around only to see a party of adventurers standing behind me, all of the men wore shocked and alert expressions while the women meekly holding a staff had a face purely full of fear.

- Clearly there is some sort of misunderstanding going on here… -

"Lady I'm not a demon lord, I think we have a pretty big misunderstanding going on right now…"

All four of their eyes opened so wide, it looked like their eyeballs were about to fall out of their heads.

The woman's face turned pale as she barely mustered the courage to speak.

"T-t-t-t-team leader… Did that skeleton j-just speak….?" She stuttered as her figure began to tremble.

The man at the back of the group gulped loudly and nodded solemnly, they began to slowly step away as they drew their weapons.

"We originally came here to investigate the disturbance with the forest's life energy… Who knew we'd find a fledgling demon lord… We will all attack on three. Miles, since you're a healer and have no attack spells I need you to signal the Mage Guild for backup. They should be here within 30 seconds of your distress signal since we aren't far from the base…"

The team leader whispered as they all turned around as if they were walking away.

"One…"

- I wonder when my hearing got so sharp, I can hear not just their whispers, but also their hearts beating from a few feet away… -

< Why are you focused on that? Did he not just say he'd call for reinforcements? >

"Two…."

-it's not like I'll die, plus I should have enough speed to run away right?-

< Well it depends on who they send, but what keep your guard up since nothing in this world is absolute… >

I'll keep that in mind. -

"THREE!" The team leader yelled as he turned around and sprinted up to me at an astonishing speed.

A great sword appeared out of nowhere in his hands and he slashed down at me with what seemed to be all of his strength.

But once he did so, everything started to slow down and his sword moved in slow motion… I recognized this phenomena and that was when I came to a certain realization.

"System, what are my stats..?"

[ Name: Skel ]

[ Level: 10 ] [ 0/38,000 EXP]

[ HP: 300/300 ]

[ MP: 600/600 ]

[ Race: Skeleton? ]

[ Class: Jack of All Trades ]

[ Strength: 300 ]

[ Speed: 400 ]

[ Stamina: 300 ]

[ Defense: 300 ]

[ Magic: 300 ]

{ A/N: Each level gives 20 points to each stat value. The MP value is x2 of the Magic stat value. And the defense value is the same as the HP value. Each stream no matter the element that he absorbs is 100 EXP (normal people don't even get to absorb elemental energy, they mostly need to absorb neutral energy which although its easier to find, its not as pure as elemental energy. His 100x return value skill wont work here since he's directly absorbing it. Else he'd simply be terminated by heaven and grow too fast which is not what I want. But I promise it will work later, just not yet.), and each level requirement is 2x that of the previous. }

- Ah, so that's why their attacks seem so slow, It's exactly as expected… I'm just too fast. -

< Hey idiot, the sword is about to hit you. >

- What? Oh, that… -

I sidestepped the sword like a badass MC, letting the sword slam into the ground creating a large crater right next to me.

- What to say, what to say… I got it! -

"It looks like you missed, you should aim better next time."

A vein visibly bulged on the team leader's forehead, but before I could tease him again I felt a slight sense of danger.

I looked over and saw a giant fireball rushing towards me.

"Hmmm, it seems that this mage girl has some skill."

I sidestepped the fireball and looked at the girl, and smiled a very evil smile. Even though I was all bones and couldn't smile, I did so in my mind.

"What a pitiful fireball, as weak as a candle flame and as slow as a snail… How did you even pass a single class in your mage academy with skills like that?"

I dodged another attack from the leader's great sword, there was also an archer shooting arrows which I dodged as well.

The last guy was sitting there doing nothing other than trembling, I assume he's already contacted reinforcements.

"Let me show you a real fireball."

I put my hand in front of me and thought of a fireball in my mind, injecting all of the mana I could into it.

At first a small bead of fire appeared, but a second passed and the little bead grew even bigger than my body and it was still growing….

"Shit-!"

I flung the fireball into the air and it exploded violently, the clouds vanished and a dazzling red glow covered a piece of the sky like it was on fire.

Embers were raining down scorching the ground black… And at the same time dozens of people in cloaks arrived on flying beasts, a few even flew themselves…

They assembled into a formation and the one in the lead yelled.

"Kill the demon lord!"

""KILL!""

The rest yelled as they started to charge up spells.

"Wait! I'm not a demon lord!"