The Journey Begins

Druak's journey toward the academy had finally begun, but it wouldn't be straight toward the academy as he still had some preparations to make first.

The first thing Druak did was circulate mana throughout his body, checking the condition of his mana core and mana veins. After scanning his body Druak had learned that his mana core was only a grey mana core, which was the lowest grade, and his mana veins which decided the capacity of mana you could hold were also of an incredibly low grade.

Depending on your mana capacity and mana core it would affect how you performed in the academy and as a result would greatly affect which classroom you were placed in. Lucky for Druak he had come from the past and already learned of an in which he could improve both his mana veins and mana core at the same time.

After observing himself and seeing his reaction time when avoiding that fireball that was launched at him, Druak knew that he also had to improve his physique on this journey, even if he planned to be a mage, as there would be many occasions where a good physique would help a mage.

Druak also planned to join a few other classes other than magic classes in the academy. This meant that having a better physique had even more benefits for Druak.

The main area Druak needed to improve on was his mana capacity but he especially needed to improve his mana core as it was probably the most important part of being a mage, or any class that used mana core, as it was the foundation of those classes.

The biggest effect improvement you gained from getting a higher grade mana core was that your magic became exponentially stronger as well as passively increasing your mana regeneration. There were even some classes that required specific mana cores as it was the foundation in which your class was placed and if you didn't have a stronger enough mana core, your entire body could shatter from the pressure the class put on your body.

You also gained your mana type once you broke through the Grey coloured mana core grade, which is vital for finding out what type of mage you'll be best suited for and the class route you should take, this could be altered but wasn't done often as it normally had many drawbacks.

The main problem for Druak at the moment was that Mana cores couldn't be increased easily and often took years or even decades for the later grades of Mana Cores to become dense enough in mana to change colour, some people hit a wall in their growth could never even increase their mana core.

Druak was lucky however as he already knew of a place where he could find a Necrotic crystal that would allow him to increase his mana core almost instantly.

There were three problems with this, however first was that you could only use this crystal once, the second was it increased your affinity with dark magic that was often frowned upon and the third was that the cave it was in was guarded by a Frostbite Spider.

These spiders were 2nd stage monsters that were over 7ft tall and could easily defeat 3 or 4 ordinary 2nd stage class humans. They also often came with hatchlings that would be quite easy to face if not for their parents and large numbers.

But Druak needed this in order to get stronger, enough to protect his father and friends from the disaster that the future would bring.

Before Druak went to the cave he'd first have to head to the volcanic Isles just east of the cave so that he could get a volcanic Dura crystal.

Dura rocks are the most common materials that get infused with different types of elemental mana depending on the location they are found.

These stones were often used to make lesser elemental weapons, armour, and accessories.

Druak needed this type of stone as he was planning to infuse some of it onto the edge of his blade. The type of stone Druak was planning on using was called the volcanic Dura rock.

Druak hoped to find a better weapon before he infused the Dura stone onto it, but he didn't have high hopes.

The process that Druak planned to use was different from what was done currently and was called Andra attunement after the creator of this process 10 years from now. He needed to use this method as the normal method took far longer and didn't have as strong of an effect, although the normal effect would last much longer and wouldn't damage the weapon, unlike this method.

Druak had learned this in his past life and was going to use it as a way to allow him to fight the spiders on a more equal footing, as the spider was far higher staged than Druak.

Isacc was lucky as he was taught by a fire mage at a young age, allowing him to get into stage one before Druak, the coma also didn't help as it prevented Druak from doing any training.

Isacc had also managed to learn some fire spells, which complemented his class. This meant that Isacc was an official fire mage, even if the spells and class he used were rather common for fire magic.

"So why are we going to the Volcanic Isles instead of the academy, I thought you were looking forward to learning magic." Isacc asked curiously, as he had never explored such a place before.

Druak was rather good at deceiving as he had to learn it rather quickly after the loss of his family and friends in his previous life, so deceiving someone like Isacc would be easy.

"We are heading there to see if we can find anything which can help us train and increase our mana capacity before arriving at the academy."

Isacc believed what Druak had said since it made a lot of sense to him and Druak was a close friend of his so he had no reason not to trust him.

Druak had to use some form of the truth to deceive Isacc otherwise it wouldn't be believable, and he was planning on gaining strength from this adventure, just not through training alone.

Items that increase your mana core were so rare that entire kingdoms would go to war just to gain something like this, even if it was a crystal that would instil a dark nature into your mana.

This was an incredibly lucky chance for Druak that he needed to take advantage of as soon as possible, this was also why he couldn't just wait till later to get the item as it would already have been snatched.

"So how long will it take to get to the Volcanic Isles." Isacc asked.

"Probably only two days, we have a month to get to the academy so we should be fine."

After talking for a bit about their journey plans they finally set off to the Volcanic Isles, both not realising that it would be much more difficult than they originally thought.

They had been travelling for quite some time as the sun had already set, revealing the two moons that were once hidden.

Druak began to scout out the surroundings and after some time found a cluster of boulders that would be perfect for them to camp in.

"Let's set up camp here. We can use the rocks as cover from any bandits and wild creatures that could come past here."

"Good idea. I can use my fire magic to light us a fire to cook food and stay warm." Isacc responded with his head held high.

His class may have been a common fire class but it was still a fire class which was something to be proud of as they didn't come around too often.

After the tent was set up both Druak and Isacc began to sit around the campfire which was hidden by the nearby rocks.

"So you have any idea what types of mana you'll gain at your first stage. Probably not gonna be as good as my fire spark class but you never know." Isaac said with a smug expression.

"Pretty confident for someone that has only learned some skills from one of the weaker fire classes." Druak responded will laughing.

After Druaks comment, Isaac's grumbled away as he stumbled to his tent.

This left Druak to stay watch as they weren't in the safest of locations, he was fine with this however as he didn't really want to answer Isaacs's question, he didn't even know what his answer would be.

In his past life, his situation was completely different and he had already given up on being a mage and ended up becoming a Knight due to him not being able to learn enough about magic, despite reading all about it. Going to an academy was just too valuable for a mage's growth.

He had managed to get his mana core and mana capacity up relatively high but never had the knowledge to use it.

As Druak was thinking about his situation and what he planned to do, a sudden clunking noise could be heard in the distance.

Slowly Druak began to peek in between the rocks to see what was making the noise and how far away it was from his current location. As he peeked his head around the corner he quickly hid, his expression showing how surprised he was after seeing what had caused all the ruckus.

He instinctively wanted to yell to get Isaacs's attention but knew if these creatures noticed them it would be the end of both Isacc and him.

For some reason he could instantly tell the stage of some of the skeletal creatures, even though he had never done any kind of research on them, it was a very similar situation to how he learned about the orcs.

Most of them seemed to be 0th stage skeletal warriors, but after looking around some more Druak noticed that they seemed to be following the commands of the other Skeletal creature in front of them.

The skeletal creature at the front didn't seem as weak as the others as Druak couldn't make out what stage it was at.

Druak concluded that whatever helped him previously seemed to have given him some kind of ability to distinguish the stage of the skeletal creatures as long as they weren't over a certain threshold.

Druak had guessed the main skeleton was probably some kind of magic user as it had a magical staff and wore a black cloak that seemed to be imbued with magic.

Druak didn't take any risks against them and decided to stay quiet. This was due to skeletal beings having Necrotic poisoning abilities if at a high enough stage and since Druak didn't know the main skeletal beings stage he didn't want to take any risks.

Necrotic poisons could be extremely dangerous, especially to certain beings.

This caused Druak to be very careful of them especially since he didn't have any way to cure Nectoic poisoning at the moment.

After a few more hours of staying guard, the skeletal creatures finally left and Isacc eventually took Druak's place on guard.

'Finally, I can relax and get some sleep.'

Druak started to head towards his tent, glad he could get his first night's rest since coming back in time, and eventually drifted off to sleep.