Chapter 33 - Within a Dream 3

(Ren's POV)

A fair bit away outside the Forest of Nightmares, we set up a campsite the moment the sun started to set. Alicia and Atsuka were resting up in their shared tent after the full day trekking through the forest.

Sitting by a normal campfire this time, I was roasting some meat over the fire and cooking some diced garlic and onions in a pot. Beside me was Hiro, who was focused on reading the thicc ass book I gave him after thrashing him in our first swordsmanship lesson.

After the garlic and onions got some good golden char, I created some warm water with water and fire magic and filled the pot halfway before leaving it to boil.

I then chopped up some carrots and potatoes into large chunks, leaving them on the side before moving on to leafy greens. Once the water has boiled, I dumped in the roasted meats, carrots, and potatoes before covering with a lid.

Now all I have to do is wait for the soup to finish cooking, taste, and adjust the flavor before taking it off the fire and dropping in the leafy greens to finish cooking. After that, it's ready to be served alongside some bread for a classic adventurer's meal.

I could just relax until it finishes cooking, but I decided to try making the prototype [Space-Time Accelerator] again. This will be my third time trying; I tried making it when we were taking a break and it went a bit better than the first time but it still exploded nonetheless.

This time, I'm a bit more optimistic about it succeeding though I'm not too sure if it'll turn out like I imagine it to be. After all, this is just a prototype, whether it will have the function I desire will be a tossup; it could be weaker than I thought or it could be stronger than expected, who knows?

This is the thing I like about making new magic items or new spells, you never know if it would go according to your theories or not until the final product comes out.

So, I started spawning in the materials and began prepping everything before assembling them into one. I kept the ball-shaped design with holes on the surface showing the Star Crystal in the middle, but I changed up some of the magic arrays' layout and used Timeless Ink to draw them.

After assembling them, the ball spun around and sucked in mana at a faster rate than the last two previous attempts. Instead of floating upward, this time it just stayed locked in place midair as the spinning picked up speed along with the absorption of mana.

Once it started to grow violet and distort space and time, it vanished and appeared high above the campsite. In mere moments after it teleported up there, it pulsed out with space and time mana, distorting and warping the view around us; like that ripple aftereffect left by the last two failures.

This time, the space-time around the ball is only distorting and warping a little with some big changes here and there, this one is far more stable than the last two and the shell looked to be intact as no cracks could be seen.

Well, I guess this is a success. All that's left is to wait for all the parts to finish syncing with each other, and that'll take like an hour.

While that's happening, the ripple effect will be ongoing until it's done which will be quite annoying to look at so I created an illusion to counter the visual effect.

Once that was done, I turned to the girls' tent; Alicia and Atsuka were standing there staring at me. I also felt a pair of eyes on my back from Hiro too.

"What is it? Are you girls hungry already?" I asked with a neutral face.

"N-no, sir. W-we were just curious...as to what you are doing" Alicia hesitated for a moment before speaking her mind.

"Just doing a test run with making a certain item. Don't worry about it, I'm not doing anything I can't handle" I dismissed as I sat back down on a stone.

"Hiro, stop spacing out. You need to put in much effort to be able to start casting magic since your favored element is a Supreme Element, have you read up to there yet?"

"A-ah, yes, I have read past the chapter pertaining to the basics of the 14 Elements. And, I am currently reading on the Darkness element like you advised" Hiro quickly straightened himself.

"Good, keep at it. Knowledge is the key to everything in magic, without it, you're just a fool scrambling around and messing with something you should not.

Magic is the practice of using knowledge and mana in order to manipulate the world around to however you desire. However, if you want to get far in the path of magic, you must not fixate too much on the knowledge you don't have; always strive to learn more but never be blinded and forget what you have already learned.

Frankly, the start of the path of magic is a tedious phase. You have to make sure you don't forget your basics and always have to revisit it often enough that the basics are a part of you.

And once you've got it down, you can finally move further up to learn even more complex materials. It may be quite repetitive, but you can reach great heights if you keep it up and one day you might be able to reach my level, at which you can do something like this"

*Snap*

After my long lecture, I snapped my finger and the scenes around us turned pitch black with no sounds whatsoever, the only light source being the still lit campfire. A cold chill crept up everyone's back and they felt cold hands gripping their legs, shackling them down.

They felt breathless as this went on for eons before everything went back to normal again as if nothing had happened.

"Oh, the soup is ready" I quickly cast [Magic Hand] and brought the pot off the fire before opening the lid and tasting the hot soup with a ladle.

"W-wait, sir! That's still very hot!" Hiro snapped out the fastest and got to his feet to try to stop me.

*Slurp*

"Hmm, needs a bit more salt" I add some more salt and dump the leafy greens in before turning to Hiro, who had a look of surprise on his face.

"What are you worrying about? Have you forgotten what I am?" I questioned.

"Y-you are a True Mage, sir"

"Yes, and as a True Mage, I am a Master of all the elements, Fire included. Something merely as hot as boiling water would never be about to hurt me, not even touching this pot or the fire will do anything" I put my bare hand on the pot and I only felt a bit warm.

"This is a benefit of mastering your control of an element, you gain a certain level of resistance to anything that element encompass, remember that"

Hiro nodded, completely forgetting what I did before this and making a mental note.

I went back to stirring the soup with the ladle before giving it a final taste test and setting it aside.

"By the way, sir. If I'm not wrong, the soup barely took 15 minutes to finish. How is that possible?" Hiro crouched down next to the pot and inspected to see if there was anything special about it.

"Time Magic" I casually remarked while pulling out some bowls and spoons along with wheat bread to go with the soup.

"Ah, understood" Hiro just nodded before standing up.

"You girls can sit down and wait; Hiro, help me out here" I called, levitating two bowls with bread in them each towards him.

"Yes, sir" Hiro grabbed them and made two bowls of soup before bringing them to Alicia and Atsuka. The girls received their food and thanked Hiro.

"Here" I floated one serving towards him while holding my own portion.

You may be wondering if I can actually taste the food since I'm in the Dream World, and I would say, why the heck not?

Of course, you can experience all the five human senses here, if you can't, this Dream World would honestly be worthless for something you can only get after learning Dream Magic up to Saint-tier.

"By the way, we're continuing your swordsmanship training after we finish eating" I announced, taking a sip of the soup.

*Shivers*

"Y-yes, sir" Hiro trembled slightly at my words. Maybe I'm going too hard on him with the training, but I'm sure he'll get used to it.

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(Third person POV)

After finishing their dinner, Ren and Hiro went off to train, leaving the two girls alone sitting by the campfire.

Alicia stared blankly in their direction; she had barely touched her dinner, only absentmindedly taking a few bites.

Atsuka, of course, noticed this.

"Is there something on your mind Alicia?" Atsuka asked, showing concern; her friend has been quite out of it since what happened yesterday.

"Don't you feel...quite useless sometimes, Atsuka?" Alicia spoke in a low voice; Atsuka was barely able to catch her words.

"Is this because of what happened with Leo?" Atsuka set her bowl aside and faced her friend.

"….No, not entirely. What happened with Leo, I have already accepted the reality of it and I won't dwell on it…" Alicia's words trailed off, her eyes never moving from the distant figure of Ren training Hiro.

"Then…"

"…It is about Hiro, I can't help but feel worthless, while he is trying his best to become stronger here I am just sitting still and watching. He's going through pain for the sake of protecting me while still smiling brightly.....I'm scared, Atsuka...." Alicia looked down while trembling.

"What if…history repeats itself and Hiro-"

"Don't say that" Atsuka grabbed her shoulder and made Alicia look at her.

"Hiro will be fine, I'm sure of it. And about being useless, don't feel that way, what would happen if he were to hear about this, it would break his heart if he found out you think of his efforts as painful to you" Atsuka had a stern expression on, she wanted to show that her way of thinking was wrong.

"Besides, I'm equally as useless here; I'm also not doing anything either. But, I also want to get stronger too, to be able to protect myself and not burden those around me" Her tone softened as sadness crept up her face.

"Then why are you not joining them?" Alicia looked away in shame, turns out she was the only one stuck in place.

"I don't want to bother them; I don't want to intrude on this opportunity for Hiro. So, I will wait. When I get back home, I'm going to ask Father to teach us magic so you can discard that feeling of being useless since you're joining me, whether you like it or not" Atsuka smiled beautifully with grace, looking at the stunned Alicia.

"Let's become stronger together so that we won't burden Hiro in the future" She held Alicia's hands with a slight blush.

The two girls stared into each other's eyes for what seemed like an eternity, one stunned speechless and the other one smiling.

"…Yes, thank you, Tsuka" Alicia returned a smile that exuded grace and elegance.

"You're welcome! Also, that nickname sounds so cute, I'll call you Alice from now on then in exchange" Atsuka beamed at getting a nickname so she gave Alicia one too.

"Alright, I like it"

The two then went back to eating their dinner, this time with more vigor and enthusiasm than before.

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(Ren's POV)

After an hour of constant training, I made my way back to the campfire with an exhausted Hiro stumbling behind me with some minor bruises on him.

It should be about time for the syncing to finish so I took down the illusion around us to reveal a white ball of light with several blue lines moving around it; the ripple effect was nowhere to be seen as the ball just floated calmly up there.

I raised my hand and it teleported right into my hand on its own the next instant, as if recognizing me as its creator. I sat down and started appraising the ball while Hiro also sat down and started reading his book.

"Hmm…."

After taking a look through the thing, I can safely say that one is a failed product. Not because it was useless or anything, in fact, this ball could be classified as an Epic Grade magic item that's somewhere in the middle range in terms of power, just that it's not fully what I was going for.

What I wanted to make was a prototype that can create its own sub-space that is habitable along with the ability to lock down and isolate a certain area in space, as well as the power to make the flow of time within that sub-space/space up to 10 times faster than the outside.

If this prototype was successfully made with all the correct functions, it would be a peak Epic Grade Magic Item nearing the level of Legendary Grade.

Unfortunately, this one only has the first two functions, that being habitable sub-space creation and spatial lock; the time within these spaces are only equal to the world they are used in, far from the 10 times time acceleration I was going for.

Though this is not wasted effort, there is no such thing as wasted effort in the world of magic. With this failed product as an example, I can improve further on the design until I reach my final desired prototype.

Now, I just need to figure out what went wrong from start to finish, I cannot let even a single detail escape from my appraising eyes.

Before I could start immersing myself in studying this ball, I felt a familiar foreign disturbance coming from the Forest of Nightmares.

"Everyone on alert, monsters are approaching us from the forest" I put the item away before grabbing my staff.

Hiro quickly stood up and approached me while the girls stayed by the fire. The sun had long set so visibility is quite low; someone without an affinity to Darkness or have the Basic Skill [Night Vision] or [Dark Vision] would have a hard time seeing in this condition without light.

"Hiro, here, take this. It's still a bit early for you to fight against monsters alone with the little experience you have, but since we're in this situation anyway, might as well make the most out of this" I handed him a mass-produced iron sword before casting a [Regeneration] and [Recovery] spell on him to heal his bruises and also restore his energy and stamina.

"This is, surprisingly not as heavy as I thought it would be" Hiro was easily able to wield the sword with relative ease, which confused him a lot.

"Let's just say, the black wooden sword I gave wasn't exactly a normal one" I smirked at his reaction before turning towards the forest. Although Hiro might not be able to see it, I can see clear movements in the shrubs near the outskirts of the forest.

I can sense 12 presences lurking within the tall grass, however, only two were slowly and stealthily approaching us.

I would like to mention that I did not set this up, and it's very unnatural for 12 Field Wolves, which are Lesser Monsters to be lurking around the outskirts of the Forest of Nightmares where the weakest creature living in there is at least a Common Monster.

Plus, these wolves are showing way too much intellect for Lesser Monsters, even if they are part of the more intelligent wolves species.

'You really need to read up on Monster behaviors before using them, Sasha'

『Hey! All the weak wolf-type monsters act the same to me! You can't blame me for such a minor thing』 A childish cutesy voice rang directly in my head with retorts.

'Why didn't you just copy the Field Wolves that spawned in the surround then?' I shot back.

『…I didn't bother checking』 Sasha spoke in a small voice.

'Of course, you didn't' I inwardly sigh before focusing back on what was in front of me.

'We're having a talk after this'

『'Kay~』

"Hiro, two Field Wolves are approaching us, you handle them by yourself and I'll support you from behind" I took a few steps back to observe.

Hiro nodded before taking small steps forward and taking a stance while also observing his surrounding for any movements. His feet were planted firmly on the ground with his center of gravity lowered for easier burst maneuverability.

Hiro currently doesn't know how to use magic since I haven't taught him yet; he's still at the stage where he needs to learn more about the natural elements before going onto Spell Casting.

Even so, he's not a helpless boy anymore. His physical ability is above average and he has been training swordsmanship with me; even though it's only been like a day, with his favored weapon being a sword, he's absorbing everything I've thrown at him pretty decently.

His movement does look a bit stiff, but it's something to be expected from someone who knew next to nothing about fighting and swordsmanship a day ago. Plus, this is his first real fight and it's against enemies that want to kill him, he'll slowly get accustomed it this over time.

Also, I didn't only just train him in the sword, I also taught him how to perceive, sense, and control mana to a limited capacity; along with some ways to use said mana as well.

Hiro slowly channeled a bit of mana from inside him into his eyes to enhance his sight, his dark purplish eyes glowed with a dim purple hue as his eyes could now see better in the dark.

He put in his full concentration to finding his opponents; although he is a bit too focused on one thing and neglecting his backside, I can let this slide for now due to him being inexperienced.

I'll teach him the right thing to do in fights out in the field in a later training session.

After concentrating for a few seconds, Hiro noticed a bit of rustling in the tall grass from both his left and right-hand side. He tightened his grip on the sword handle as he calmed his breathing, readying for the fight.