Mythri

After the beast left the scene Ray started laughing inwardly. 'So this is how the outside world is? I thought I was ready for anything, I was overconfident!'

Carl started climbing the branches until he came to a whispering distance with Ray. "How's your condition?"

"My chest hurts a little, and my left forearm might be broken, but it doesn't hurt that much. I'm ready to keep moving forward." Ray said. Right now he was putting up a false pretense. Part of his rib was shattered, and his left forearm was completely broken. He couldn't even move it by itself! The only reason he could keep moving now was because he was cycling energy to keep his bones barely intact. This was an extremely rudimentary method that any mage could do, it was by no means a healing method. However it did act somewhat like a cast. If nothing else happened for the next couple weeks, he would be able to fully recover given the boost in recovery from having a powerful soul.

Although keeping the 'cast' in place took a lot of his focus, and he wouldn't be able to keep it up during battle, it was better than letting Carl know how weak he was. He was still highly on guard to Carl even though he didn't have a good backstabbing skill like he does.

"Great! Let's keep going then." Carl said.

Carl used his vine ability one more time to bring Ray and himself to the ground.The impact was not smooth, and keeping his bones in place with energy didn't heal it so he felt the impact throughout his body. But he kept a still face as if it was a normal fall even though his insides were screaming.

"We should only have a week of walking left, so hopefully we don't encounter anything else. Climbing a tree worked to escape this beast since it was blind and couldn't climb, but if we encounter a beast that can climb… we can only blame our misfortune."

Ray nodded in agreement. "Let's go."

Days passed by as the boys walked through the jungle. Ray hadn't let down his guard once, while simultaneously keeping intense focus on the forest for signs of beasts. It was a very stressful experience. If he was a normal human it would have started to affect him already, but his soul was already much stronger than regular human's. It could take a lot more stress.

After 8 days of treading through the forest they finally saw the school in the distance. Before they could even approach the wall an old man teleported in front of them. He only had to send out a wisp of his aura to make Ray and Carl surrender.

"You two have identity verifiers right?" He said in a bored tone. He probably did this many times in the past few weeks.

Ray took out his purple token that his father gave him, while Carl took out a similar but slightly different looking purple token too. The mage took one look at the two tokens, and said, "mm, you're good."

Before Ray could take another look at the old man he realized he had been teleported inside the walls of the school. It looked like a makeshift camp, with tents propped up in a large field, and many young teens walking about. They were all young, looking from ages 10-20.

A guard walked over to them and gave them a rundown. "Welcome to Mythri. You will stay here until one of the head administrators comes to tell you about the next part. He should be here within the next couple weeks but… he's not very reliable. We'll see. The only rule is no fighting on camp grounds, and if you want to leave the exit is that way." The guard said while pointing towards a door at the wall.

The other guard chimed in, "If we see anyone fighting you will be killed on site, no warnings."

"Is there a-"

Before Ray could ask his question the guard waved his hand in Ray's direction. "I don't have the time to answer all your questions, go ask a student around here. Now go."

"What should we do now?" Carl asked Ray.

"Oh I'm going to be by myself for now. I have to spend some alone time after that trip through the forest." Ray lied. He didn't want to stay with Carl any longer unless he had to, it was better not to have someone watching everything you do.

"Alright, hopefully I'll see you around then." Carl said with a disappointed expression. He was hoping he could use Ray further, as being in a group of two is always better than by yourself. But there was nothing he could do if Ray wanted to be by himself.

Right now the first priority for Ray was to heal his injuries. He should be able to do so before the administrator came by, since there was nothing else going on. The guards had already warned everyone of the consequences of violating their rules, which nobody seemed to have any intent on disobeying. The guards were not hiding their aura around the new recruits, so everyone could tell the guard were much stronger than them. Not even including the many more skills the guards prebobly know over them. They weren't official mages, but they weren't weak apprentices either! Atleast at the third or fourth level.

After finding a spot with few people in the area Ray sat down to meditate and continue his progress on transforming his soul. He can't quicken the rate his bones repair at since he doesn't have a healing skill. But he can continue on the path to a official mage. Once he started absorbing the planar energy he quickly realized it was much more dense than outside the forest. Before, when he was riding the horse to the town he estimated it would take half a year to reach level 2, but this deep inside the forest he could easily reach it in within a month. Maybe less if he was lucky. He greadily took in the rich energy around him, losing himself within the feeling of becoming stronger.