Village

After another week of traveling Ray made it out of the forest. He encountered one more beast along the way, but it was no issue for him. The bear and the lion were both higher tier beasts in this region of the forest, most beasts had significantly less battle power. The beast he encountered looked like a feline, but he wasn't sure exactly what it was. All he had to do was unleash 2 light rays onto the beast's neck until he pierced through it. Any vital part of the beast should work, but the neck worked for the bear so he wasn't going to change his strategy. It's also an easy place to hit since they run forward fully exposed. 

If the beast was smarter it would have run away after one interaction with Ray, after all the battle consisted of Ray using a light ray on its neck, and the beast being reflected by the shield. Unfortunately for the beast, its mind was completely swallowed by its innate rage towards Ray. A couple of light rays later and it could no longer breathe. 

The town he was looking for was quite a distance away. According to his map, Mythri was located near the border of the Adwykith Kingdom and the third kingdom in this plane, the Dragon kingdom. The positioning was likely used as a deterrent, or to make travel easier for mages to fight both kingdoms. (The plane is like an upside down triangle, Adwykith at top left, Valier at top right, Dragon kingdom at bottom) Harlington town is north to Mythri, approximately 1 month away on horseback. If he was a regular human who tried to make the journey, he would be hesitant to do so. The rampant bandits would rob a regular human dry before they could reach any town. But for Ray, the bandits were no issue at all. Unless he ran into a mage, he wasn't worried one bit. And what were the chances of running upon a mage outside of places like Mythri? Close to none! Even if he did, the chances it was a bandit who wanted to attack and rob him was even lower.

Before he started his trip outside the forest, he took off his fancy clothes and replaced them with ordinary looking clothes. He also retracted his aura completely so as to not alert anyone of his presence. As far as any passing mage was concerned, he was your normal human traveler. He learnt from when he first entered a town before he entered Mythri that it's important to not be exposed as a mage. Otherwise any potential enemy would have the advantage over him, being able to ambush him if they wanted. With all his preparations done he left for Harlington.

After walking for a week, a small village came into sight. It wasn't as big as a town, but it was still recorded on the map he got. He decided to take a slight detour to this town to get himself a horse, he didn't have one since he couldn't use it in the forest.

Unlike the town, this village didn't even have guards to guard the perimeter. It could only hope powerful people would leave them alone. Even though Ray could destroy the entire village if he wanted to, he wouldn't do it as there was no benefit in doing so. Worst case scenario, some righteous mage pinpoints it to him and labels him as unlawful. Ray didn't care about these labels, he could be righteous if it gave him the most benefits, or evil if it gave him the most benefits, but at the moment he had no problem leaching off Mythri. If there came a time when there was no longer any worth staying in Mythri, he would leave without hesitation. 

As Ray walked to the village the villagers noticed him and sent two farmers to approach him. Two villagers, one holding a pitchfork and the other holding a rusty sword walked up to Ray. They came slowly, fearing for the worst, as there were numerous times when bandits came by and they couldn't do anything about it. However, when they saw Ray walking by himself in ordinary peasant clothing, they dropped their suspicion a bit.

"Who are you?" One of them asked.

"Oh I'm just a traveler trying to head North. My horse was stolen by bandits, and here I am looking for somewhere to rest a bit."

The two villager's faces warmed up as they heard Ray speak about his past misfortunes. "It's sad to hear that. Why don't you come to rest for a while in our village, we have plenty of extra space." The villager said.

"Thank you so much. What are your names? I will remember them and make sure to repay you someday." Ray said with a happy expression.

"Oh that's really not necessary." One of the villagers replied with an embarrassed look. "My name is Robert, and this is my buddy here, Grawn."

"It's nice to meet you, Robert and Gawn. Do you have any horses by any chance?" 

"Ah that… yes but it is important for us." Robert replied.

"Of course it's important for you, but I still have my money with me. Since you guys are so nice and I happen to need a horse, I'll give you this gold coin in exchange for the horse." Ray said while taking out a shiny yellow coin.

To him these were completely useless. He picked them up somewhere along his journey, but disregarded them. To these regular humans however, they were incomparably precious! The entire village probably had less than 5 gold coins total.

"I-is that real gold?" Gawn asked as if he couldn't believe his eyes. 

"I come from a large town where these are common. This should be enough right?"

"Yes - yes, this is enough" Robert stammered after staring at the gold for a few seconds. "Follow me through the village, I'll give you my best horse!"

As Ray followed Robert, he noticed everyone was staring at him. Not in a hostile way, but rather in a curious way. They probably rarely saw outsiders coming into the village. The adults were all out working while the kids were playing in the streets. The environment was very positive, a stark contrast to Ray's experience in this world. 'Ignorance is bliss' Ray thought. He pushed the villagers to the back of his mind and started focusing again on strengthening his body with the light energy around him. 

Indeed, the entire time he was traveling he hadn't slacked off for a minute. He was using the technique he learnt back at Mythri to absorb the energy in the air and strengthen his body. The only downside to it being a light based technique is the difficulty in training during the night when there is no sunlight shining upon him. But the plus side is he can train it efficiently wherever he goes as long as there is light.

Progress for training the body was not going quickly to say the least. In these conditions, if he wanted to get his body up to the highest level before the official magus level, Ray estimated it would take 6 decades. It is important for him to bring it up to par with his mage body before he becomes a mage since he guessed the body before the official magus level would quickly self-destruct under the power of the official magus level spells. But that was a problem to solve later, worst case scenario he spends 60 years training his body to the official magus level, after all he does have 200 years of lifespan as an apprentice.

After receiving the horse he left the village, now straight to Harlington. He will come up with a plan once he reaches the town as for how he will deal with the knight, but for now all he has to do is keep training his body. 

After another few days of traveling he encountered his first bandit group yet. Although his luck with monsters in the forest was bad, he hadn't encountered any bandits until now which is surprising. 

"Hey, you! Stop right there." A burly man on a horse yelled at him. 4 other bandits on horses followed closely behind him.

Ray turned to look at the bandits and quickly realized they were all regular humans. They all were outfitted with shiny swords and decent looking clothes, it seemed they were quite well off as bandits.

He didn't even bother to say any words to them, as it had no point. He took out his artifact and thought, 'This is a perfect opportunity to test the power of this artifact'.

He rushed towards the bandit that told him to stop and swung his sword towards him.

'Is he crazy?' the bandit was thinking in his head. 'We outnumber him. Well - it doesn't matter to me if he's robbed dead or alive. The bandit raised his sword to block Ray's strike, but when the swords connected, he was surprised that it felt like a boulder was being pushed onto him!

Even though Ray didn't put much effort into the strike, the sword left the bandit flying off his horse until he hit the ground tens of meters away. Even though the sword has such devastating power, Ray only thought, 'It's alright. I thought it would kill him in one shot though'.

If he didn't hit the bandit's sword and instead directly hit the bandit's body, it would have easily cut him in half. 'Looks like this sword can only be used as a backup or to not waste energy on low level creatures'. With that test out of the way, he turned to the other 4 bandits who were trembling on their horses. They wanted to run away, but before they could do so Ray already charged at them, forcing them to fight back.

Fighting back really was a useless hope. Even if they somehow managed to get past his sword, all they would hit is his shield which took almost no damage from a regular human. Less than a minute later 4 headless bodies decorated the ground. Two had their chests completely caved in, as if a beast hit them head on. Ray didn't even bother cleaning up after himself, after all who would care about these little bandits?