LXIV

My eyes immediately go to check my level, and, sure enough, it has hit level 75. The next thing I notice is my new job: spellsword. I am unsure of its effects, but I think that this means that I can officially say that I am no longer a slave. Furthermore, there is no way that its effects could be any worse than the reduced xp gain that came with the slave class.

Unfortunately, there is nothing else to be excited about. I am unsure of exactly what my skills were before, but I don't recognize any new ones. It seems that only melee magic conduction and hearing enhancement have reached the 'greater' increment in the last few days, with melee magic conduction shooting right past it into the upper region of the greater skill. That makes sense, I suppose, what with all my practice recently with incorporating magic better into my swordsmanship. As for the significant boost to hearing, I am not too sure of its cause.

The only reasonable solution I can come up with is that it is some kind of bonus from killing the snail, as I rarely use my hearing enhancement ability for much.

Much to my disappointment, no new skills have reached 'master' in level, despite many having been on the threshold for some time. Considering that I have been practicing consistently, especially with my elemental manipulation and swordsmanship, and that I no longer have the xp penalties of being a slave, I can only assume that there is a pretty tough barrier between 'greater' and 'master' attainments.

[Bah! Of course my madness skill would jump right past this boundary without any difficulty whatsoever! Sitting on the boundary of master and grandmaster for seemingly months now, perhaps, but it still passed into master with ease! At least that upgrade seemed to reduce its effect, or at least make it more subtle, but I would still much rather have better swordsmanship than slightly less debilitating madness!

[Ah well. At least my skills are still leveling and I've hit the next 25-level increment, my fighting ability and physical state are sure to have just received a huge boost, no use complaining about what skills are stagnant. Without that crippling xp intake limiter from my slave class, I'm sure they'll break that bounadry soon, and I shall have more power with which to bring about my goals!]

I shake my head to bring myself back to reality. [Well, I'd better go inform Lector about this monster, I'm sure he sensed fighting of some form in this area.]

I re-enter the water, and make use of earth and water sense to quickly locate the troops. Making my way through the muck with ten feet of visibility is drastically different that with only a single foot, something that may sound obvious but after a couple days of only sensing the world through magic is quite pleasant. Sure, I still have to use my sensory magics to make sure that something doesn't catch me off guard by leaping out from the fog, as well as to properly perform my scouting duties, but the point remains that drastically limited vision is far better than having essentially none.

I quickly come across my master, and before I can say anything he asks me "Have you found a way to better see through the fog, my apprentice?"

"Oh? How did you know?"

He gives a small smile, replying "You no longer carry yourself as a blind man, that is all."

"Ah, I see. As for your question, 'perhaps' is my answer. Hardly a fancy new method of looking through the fog, I just reached level 75 and my sight enhancement skill was aided by that, allowing my vision range to increase. Actually, that relates to my reason for coming here. Commander, I am here to report that I just killed a large snail-like thing, with fisted arms on its side and ears atop its eye stalks." My tone of voice changes slightly, as I go from addressing Lector as my master to as my commander.

"Ah, I see. I remember encountering one of those on my last journey through this forest, or swamp, I suppose, strange looking creatures aren't they? The one I encountered wasn't particularly aggressive, so I left it be. However, in your case, you did well to kill it, as you should continue to remove any unknown threats. Well done, keep up the good work."

"Yes commander," I respond, before employing my newly strengthened body to wade through the mud with a new level of ease, returning to my duties as a scout.

The hours continue to pass as we slowly-but-surely make our way around this lake of mud. After the snail, I have no further encounters, and with my stronger body and improved vision, this part of the journey is far more enjoyable.

Once, I return to the group after heading particularly far away, finding them stopped. Almost immediately, I notice my master's absence. Reinhart explains that he had something he had to do and will be back shortly. Sure enough, within fifteen minutes I feel his approach with my earth sense. "I had to orient myself," he explains, an explanation of which I think little.

About sixteen hours after passing from the trees to the lake, we again enter the trees, having never encountered any creature that posed a significant threat to us. While this may seem to make my scouting efforts seem rather pointless, I am quite relieved that they were never truly needed. Besides, my scouting efforts still cleared out monsters that could have posed a big threat to our weaker swordsmen, and I was rewarded plenty through my level up as well.

That Lector is able to find the intended gap through the forest on the other side of the lake is quite impressive to me. If we had just tried to leave the lake by pushing through trees on the side opposite of where we entered, we would have quickly been stopped by walls of trees that could have let only at most one pass at a time. Considering our group's lack of visibility, that some troops would have ended up separated and lost would have been nearly inevitable. Thus, that Lector was able to find the cleared out trail is of utmost importance.

When I ask him how he managed to find a foot wide trail along an entire side of forest to one edge of a lake, he responds with a laugh "The wizard who maintains this route left a marker at the entrances to each trail, while they are quite strong, they are made with a method that only those with magical sensory at a grandmaster level would be able to feel. Still, they aren't [that] strong, I lost it once earlier, I had to move around to find it again."

"Ah, that explains it." [Both how he found this trailhead and why he left our group for a moment earlier. More importantly, I now know that his magic sensory level is at least at grandmaster. Has he told me the level of his magical sensory before? Well, I guess that it would be at least grandmaster level is unsurprising; the skill levels up passively so long as it is active, which should be at all times for most mages, and considering that mine is already almost at master level after only a few months, even if his levels up much slower than mine, as an old wizard it makes sense to be so highly leveled.

[Well, that wizard must be pretty powerful, would it really have killed him to make a good trail?! Grr… Well, if I ever meet him, I'll be sure to give him a piece of my mind for making such an unpleasant pathway.]

Our group passes into the forest without stopping, maintaining their single-file, hand-on-shoulder approach to travel that they have utilized all the way around the mud lake. The forest quickly grows dense around us, the trees again forming walls to our sides, and the bugs again appearing from all around, the path taking on a look greatly similar to that of the trail leading in.

The greatest difference is the now upward sloping trail. Wading through thigh-high mud while going uphill and being pestered by massive bugs, not to mention being unable to see due to fog and a deep darkness, is a thoroughly unpleasant experience, surprisingly bad even when compared with the same journey downhill.

At least when our group entered into this valley, it felt as though the valley was welcoming us into its uninviting hellscape; now, it is as though it doesn't want us to leave, pulling us back in towards its gaping maw.

Still, our group persists on. Lector continues to be generous with his endurance potions, forever fueling our forward motion.

Well, theirs, anyway. I move both forwards and backwards as I run wide laps around the group much as I did on the way down. For me, the experience is not really made much different by the fact we are generally headed uphill instead of down, as much of that difference is absorbed by the fact that I am forced to go up and down regularly in my laps around the group.

Despite all my efforts, I encounter no animals larger than a bug while scouting, at least not until the forest finally begins to thin out about three days after our initial entry into this entire nasty place.