Leaving the Mirage Forest

While the sun was rising at the horizon, the Messenger was quietly brewing some potions in an ancient red cauldron. As the last ingredient was added, she chanted an incantation, causing the boiling mixture to suddenly turn black. She waited for a moment as the mixture became still before pouring it in different bottles.

Seeing that the messenger was now free, the mage, Gogius stepped forward. "Messenger, I don't understand why we are giving shelter to that man! We should be dissecting him to learn the secret of revival!"

"This is none of your concern! I am acting as per the orders of the supreme one!" expressionlessly answered the Messenger. Without looking at him, she continued her task and quickly emptied the cauldron.

"Gogius! I know what you are thinking! But let me remind you. As a high demon, I don't need to sleep. So you better not try anything funny on that human. I represent Lord Erebus. Don't disappoint me!"

The mage grinded his teeth in silence. He could only swallow back his words and quickly back away. He was naturally hoping to play with Li Wei but since the Messenger was protecting him, there was no way he would be able to make Li Wei payback for the Pyro Bomb.

Although it looked like he completely countered the bomb by absorbing the flames, this act came with a great cost only known to him. Gogius was a demonized human. The marks he used represented his demonic part. He could activate them to increase his strength and gain some additional powers like the one to absorb flames but by doing so, he would slowly lose part of his sanity and that was something he was not willing to lose.

...

When Li Wei woke up, he found himself in the middle of the tent, lying on a few pillows. When he went to sleep, he did not want to push away the young girl and so, he simply picked a few pillows at the edge of the bed of pillows and built his own bed. It was barely large enough to allow him to sleep but he was grateful for them; he spent the last few days sleeping on the floor, even though he put some foliage under him, the pillows were thousands of times better.

Li Wei saw that a table had been set up, on it was a hot meal waiting for him. When he looked up, he saw the young girl standing shyly in a corner of the tent.

"Good morning!" said Li Wei.

"I apologize for last night!" hurriedly exclaimed the young girl.

"Never mind that, sit down and eat!" said Li Wei as he himself started eating. He was surprised to see that his meal was more like a lunch than a breakfast but when he looked at his interface, he realized that it was already 13:00.

When he came to the tent, it was already 5:00 and the sky was still dark. He ended up sleeping about 6 hours and was now completely refreshed.

The young girl quietly nodded and sat down in front of him. She did not seem as nervous as yesterday, but she was not at ease either.

Li Wei quickly finished his meal before deciding to spend the day training. It was already way too late to leave this place. Although he wanted to stay far away from the evil cult, he was not stupid to the point of going to camp in a forest full of powerful beasts that could easily kill him.

He was confident last time as he saw that the NPC adventurers were around level 22 which was much stronger than the red foxes of the Mirage Forest. Even considering the buff of the night cycle, the red foxes were no threats to these NPCs.

Now, the situation was different, he could not carelessly travel. As a result, he decided to train today and leave the next day at dawn.

The young girl quickly took the table away to give Li Wei space. However, she did not leave, she simply sat in a corner of the tent in case Li Wei would need anything.

Li Wei was already used to her behaviour. He started by sitting down and taking out the stats increasing potions. The 5 bottles were placed in front of him, each one was of a different color.

'Is it a trap?' thought Li Wei. 'No... She should not have done anything bad to these potions since she wants me to help that guy. I am not bound by any contract, so it should be fine, but it is better to be safe than sorry. I'll just keep them until I reach a town and then have them identified. At worst, I can just wait for Moody writer to make the potions. '

Having taken a decision, Li Wei quickly placed all the bottles back in his inventory and took out the [Dark Runic Swords]. The two blades were identical. They were long, dark and had a flat part on both sides on which weird symbols were drawn.

Li Wei tested the swords. He tried a few swings to get used to the new weight of the weapons. Compared to his previous swords, these ones were lighter and sharper, they did not seem to be affected at all by air resistance.

Finally, he started to train his techniques. The [Clarity of the Mind] and [Gliding Steps] were still on cooldown and so, Li Wei started with [Ghost Blade]. It was the technique he neglected the most, but it was time to acquire the skill. His mastery points were already at 82; 18 more and he would get the skill.

Li Wei focused and started swinging the sword as indicated by the manual. He needed to make sudden accurate changes in the direction of the blade and this would put a lot of strain on his wrist.

After 30 minutes, he finally let go of his swords as he heard the system prompt:

[System prompt: Congratulations player Seven. Mastery of Ghost Blade has reached 100/100. You have obtained the skill: Ghost Blade]

Li Wei smiled as he looked at the new skill on his interface. 'This will definitely be useful to take people by surprise,' thought Li Wei.

With this renewed motivation, Li Wei started his usual training of the [Myriad Sword Dance] but this time his session would clearly be much longer than normal.

In the corner of the room, the young girl let out a sigh of surprise as she saw Li Wei start to move around with his blade. She was really tired the last time and did not observe closely but now, she was mesmerized by Li Wei's fluid movements. His sword was like the extension of his arm, moving in complete harmony with the rest of his body. It was literally a dance.

It was a beautiful scene especially since Li Wei was using the dark runic swords which were completely black and easily stood out. Additionally, the wind was blowing in the tent, swirling around the sword like snakes.

Li Wei completely immersed himself in his training, he ignored his surroundings and focused on the movements. His body already knew what to do; it was as if the movements were ingrained in him. If he just followed the flow, he could easily achieve an almost perfect % completion rate. But that was not his goal!

What he wanted was to use the dual sword style! And so, while he trusted his instincts and let his body move as it wanted, part of him forced himself to combine the two versions of the technique. Usually, he would only use one sword and use the other hand for balance and to help control the air around him. The hand was like soft cushion that could easily gather the wind while the sword was the sharp blade that would release all the accumulated wind.

But now, Li Wei grabbed his second sword and started to dance. He was not using his second hand softly anymore. Instead, he used his sword aggressively to force the wind to gather; as the wind would try to escape in the other direction, the other blade would be here to force it back!

Li Wei was basically using force to gather the wind instead of the hard and soft method of the initial technique where the blade represented the hard part and the hand represented the soft part. Li Wei succeeded in maintaining the wind for a moment but eventually, the wind started to leak out and soon, he lost most of it.

At that moment, Li Wei stopped as he recalled the feeling he just experienced.

[System prompt: You have obtained some enlightenment about the Myriad Sword Dance. Mastery Point + 20]

[System prompt: You have completed a training cycle of [Myriad Sword Dance]. Completion rate: 92%]

Two system prompts quickly came to which Li Wei calmly smiled. He did not know how he did it but now, he was certain that it was possible to use two swords for the [Myriad Sword Dance].

He quickly checked his fatigue and found that it was already back to 60% while only two hours went by since he started training. "Sigh... Training techniques really generate too much fatigue!" thought Li Wei.

But instead of complaining, Li Wei went back to training. Slowly he adjusted himself and was once again able to replicate the previous state he was in. The wind was once again dancing around his blades. Every time it would try to escape, a sword was there to block the way. But this time, Li Wei did not limit himself to just his swords, he also used his own body! His arms, legs and even chest, he used all of them to absorb part of the force of the wind and slowly get it under control.

He smiled as he felt that he would be able to maintain this state forever but at that moment:

[System prompt: Warning! You have acquired a critical amount of fatigue. We advise you to take a rest,]

With the warning, Li Wei could only stop his movements and immediately, the wind dispersed as if it had never been there.

"Sigh! I had such a good start!"

[System prompt: You have trained into the Myriad Sword Dance for 56 minutes. Average completion rate: 92%]

Since his fatigue level was already incredibly high, Li Wei could only stop but it was still only 17:00

It was very early, but Li Wei was not really feeling like leaving his tent especially with those evil cult followers outside. He turned his attention towards the young girl who was still diligently sitting in her corner.

Li Wei felt some pity for her, it was indirectly because of him that she had to spend the whole day sitting there with nothing to do.

"Can I get some food? I am hungry!" said Li Wei.

"Naturally! Give me a few minutes," quickly answered the girl as she jumped on her feet and rushed to the kitchen.

Left alone, Li Wei wasted some time on the forum. He was curious at what happened to his previous travel companions and decided to check Maestra's forum page. To his surprise, he found a video of Maestra narrating her adventure. In the end, thanks to Galaxy, she managed to escape safe and sound. As a result, the young streamer decided to join the Stone Defenders. Her story was very touching resulting in many people commenting and sympathizing with her.

"Looks like some people managed to escape!" thought Li Wei.

...

The next day, Li Wei got up when it was still dark. His interface only indicated 4:30. But as he got up, he heard something move; it was the young girl.

She again spent the night in Li Wei's tent but this time, she made a small bed of pillows for herself, giving Li Wei most of the pillows.

"You are awake? I will immediately prepare your things!" said the young girl with a sleepy voice. She immediately tried to get up as she removed the quilt on her.

"There's no need! I would like to leave immediately!" answered Li Wei.

"Sir, I..."

"No! It would be fine! I will take my leave! If I see you leave your bed, you will be in trouble," said Li Wei as he hurriedly left the tent. He was grateful that the game took away most of the annoying part of life. He could immediately start doing his things as he woke up; there was no need to go to the toilet and such.

Li Wei quietly walked in a straight line. He already knew which direction he needed to take to reach Verdan Town. As he walked through the silent camp, Li Wei could see a few sentinels scattered around the camp; they all curiously looked at Li Wei but did not stop him.

The latter was relieved and quickly walked outside the camp but as he was about to leave, he heard a voice behind him.

"You are leaving already? You should be careful on your way!"

Li Wei turned only to see the messenger standing behind him. "Thank you for your hospitality!"

"Since this is farewell, let me tell you two more things! You can safely sleep in the Mirage Forest. All the red foxes there were tamed by our druids and I already ordered them to not attack you! And the second thing is my advice to not go further east."

"Why is that?" asked Li Wei.

"This is something I can't tell you! Just don't go there unless you want to die. Well, you'll just revive but I suppose that it still comes with a cost!"

Li Wei nodded, "Thank you!"

"No need to thank me. Just remember your words and help the heir of darkness when it will be time!" declared the messenger as she suddenly vanished. She was there a second ago and suddenly disappeared from Li Wei's sight.

The latter dumbly stared at the spot where the messenger was before recovering and finally starting his journey to Verdan Town.

...

The journey was long, but Li Wei finally reached the edge of the Mirage Forest. It took him the entire day to reach that point and he decided to camp there. As the messenger told him, the red foxes effectively did not attack him and so, Li Wei decided to camp there before stepping out of the forest.

In fact, bordering the Mirage Forest, was another forest called the Verdan Woods. It was easily distinguishable when one would cross the border between the two forests. As soon as someone would leave the Mirage Forest, he would feel like a heavy weight had been taken off his shoulder and the surroundings would naturally change.

Li Wei spent a quiet night at the border of the Mirage Forest before getting on his way again. He was just one day away from Verdan Town. As long as he did not slack off, he should be able to spend the night at an inn.

Li Wei quickly packed his things before stepping out of the Mirage Forest. But as he finally entered the Verdan Woods, he heard two whistling sounds and immediately threw himself on the ground.

"Tak Tak"

As he raised his head, Li Wei saw two arrows embedded on the tree next to him. They were still vibrating from the impact.