Chapter 123: Crossing the Red Forest 2

They then gathered what might be useful.

Meat.

A few tusks.

Monster cores.

Exploitable materials.

The rest was left to the forest.

Once finished, Adam climbed back onto his Windsteed.

"Shall we continue?"

Lyriana nodded.

"We’ll continue."

The journey resumed.

But after the first encounter...

The forest seemed to have decided that Adam truly needed to gain his travel experience.

A few hours later, the spirits signaled a second group.

Red Wolves.

Faster.

More coordinated.

And above all, much stronger.

When Adam used World Eyes, he immediately frowned.

Levels thirty to thirty-five.

"These ones are already much more serious."

Lyriana nodded.

"Do you want us to intervene?"

Adam thought for a moment.

His current stats were far superior to what his level three level would suggest.

And he needed to understand just how far this difference could truly take him.

"Not yet."

He dismounted.

The fight was significantly more complicated than against the Red Boars.

The wolves never charged blindly in a straight line.

They spread out.

They circled around.

They tested his reactions.

Two tried to hold his attention while a third sought his blind spot.

Adam was forced to rely much more heavily on his mobility.

Short sword.

Spear.

Bow.

Mace.

Even his Limit Break and World Eyes were used more extensively to control the space around him.

He managed to defeat several of them.

But as soon as the wolves realized their hunt was costing them too much...

They broke off the fight.

Adam didn’t pursue them.

Again.

A few hours later, the third incident was much stranger.

Adam looked at the creatures before him.

Then at Lyriana.

Then at Elaria.

"Are they really rabbits?"

Lyriana nodded.

"Red Horned Rabbits."

Adam looked at their long ears.

Then at the horn growing in the center of their foreheads.

"Of course."

Their levels ranged from fifteen to twenty.

They were less powerful than the wolves.

But their small size and their ability to change direction abruptly made them surprisingly annoying.

Adam defeated several of them before the rest of the colony disappeared into the undergrowth.

When he remounted his steed after the third encounter...

His eyes fell upon the numerous notifications that had accumulated.

"I’ll look at them later."

Lyriana looked at him.

"A lot?"

"Far too many to read while riding."

They continued on.

At noon...

No one suggested a proper stop.

They wanted to leave the Red Forest before nightfall.

So Adam took several prepared portions from his inventory.

Bread.

Cold meat.

Fruit.

A few small cakes.

They ate at a leisurely pace, walking the steeds for part of the journey.

It wasn’t a fancy meal.

But it was efficient.

The afternoon was much calmer.

The spirits signaled several creatures.

None were close enough to warrant a fight.

So they continued straight ahead.

Still on the path.

Still not needlessly searching for monsters.

When the light finally began to fade...

Adam glimpsed something ahead.

Blue.

True blue.

Not the red filtered through the leaves.

"The exit?"

Lyriana smiled.

"Yes."

Adam straightened slightly.

The three Steeds accelerated.

The trees began to separate.

The light grew stronger.

Then suddenly...

They emerged from the Red Forest.

Adam took a deep breath.

He hadn’t even realized how much the dark, red atmosphere of the forest had altered his perception.

Before them stretched new plains.

Much less cultivated than those near Valoria.

But open.

Free.

The sun was already low.

Lyriana slowed down.

"We’ll stop here."

No one protested.

They found a relatively flat area a good distance from the edge.

This time, setting up camp was much quicker.

Adam was already pitching the tent almost mechanically.

Lyriana took care of the Destriers.

She unwound them.

She led them to the water.

Then she distributed their food.

Elaria, for her part, began processing the recovered loot.

She separated the pits.

The valuable materials.

The usable meat.

And what wasn’t worth keeping.

Adam lit the fire.

Then he took out a deep pan.

He decided to prepare something simple with some of the recovered meat.

Pieces of Red Boar.

Potatoes.

Mushrooms.

Onions.

Garlic.

A few herbs.

A simple sauce made with tomato and meat juices.

While the first pieces were starting to cook...

Adam looked at the notifications that had been waiting for hours.

"Let’s finally see what I’ve earned."

He opened the first window.

And remained silent.

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Level Progression

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Experience Accumulated.

Starting Level:

3

Current Level:

19

Levels Gained:

+16

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Adam blinked several times.

"Nineteen?"

Elaria briefly looked up from the materials she was sorting.

"Anything interesting?"

"Very."

He continued.

A new window appeared.

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Statistic Progression — Levels

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Progression per level:

*Strength: +1

*Agility: +1

*Stamina: +2

Levels Gained:

16

Cumulative Progression:

*Strength: +16

*Agility: +16

*Stamina: +32

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Adam remained motionless.

He still remembered his first real level gain.

Moving from level two to level three had given him the exact same increases.

This time...

The system had simply applied the same pattern sixteen times.

His Strength had gone from twenty-three to thirty-nine.

His Agility as well.

And his Stamina...

Adam stared at the number.

Sixty-four.

"Ah."

Lyriana approached.

"Ah, what?"

Adam looked up.

"I have sixty-four in Stamina now."

She stopped.

Then she looked at Adam.

"Your level?"

"Nineteen."

Even Elaria temporarily stopped working.

"In one day?"

"Apparently."

Adam thought about it.

This explained why the last few battles had seemed progressively different to him.

His body had grown stronger with each fight.

But as with his previous training...

Adaptation, Vigorous Body, and its constant compression had probably made the transitions much less brutal than they should have been.

Another series of notifications appeared.

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Satisfaction Rewards

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Hostile Encounter:

Red Boars

Service Completed:

*Elimination of hostile monsters

Reward:

+8 Satisfaction Points Satisfaction

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Then:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Hostile Encounter:

Red Wolves

Service Completed:

*Elimination of hostile monsters

Reward:

+8 Points Satisfaction

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

And finally:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Hostile Encounter:

Red Horned Rabbits

Service Completed:

*Elimination of hostile monsters

Reward:

+8 Points Satisfaction

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One last window summed it all up.

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Update

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Satisfaction Points Earned:

+24

Previous Total:

7,600

New Total:

7 624

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Adam looked at the number.

"Not huge compared to what the girls are bringing me now."

But it confirmed one thing above all.

The system continued to consider the elimination of hostile threats as a valid service.

He closed the window.

Then he realized he still hadn’t checked his full status.

"Status."

The window popped up.

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Status Panel — Adam

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Level: 19

Stat Value

Strength 39

Agility 39

Endurance 64

Intelligence 26

Spirit 24

Luck 13

Available Stat Points: 12

Talent:

*Satisfaction Feedback System

Satisfaction Points: 7,624

Blessings

*Mana Body — Orange Rank · Unique Grade — Lv. 3

*Eyes of the World — Gold Rank · Legendary Grade — Lv. 3

Skills

*Boundary — Rank - · Grade - — Lv. 3

*Adaptation — Blue Rank · Rare Grade — Lv. 2

*Vigorous Body — Blue Rank · Rare Grade — Lv. 5

*Healing — White Rank · Common Grade — Lv. 2

*Massage — Green Rank · Uncommon Grade — Lv. 4

*Fertility Control — Blue Rank · Rare Grade — Lv. 5

*Weapon Mastery — Orange Rank · Unique Grade — Lv. 1

*Kamasutra — Orange Rank · Unique Grade — Lv. 2

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Adam checked his stats.

Level nineteen.

Strength thirty-nine.

Agility thirty-nine.

Endurance sixty-four.

But Intelligence and Spirit hadn’t changed.

Which made sense.

His combat levels primarily increased his physical abilities, following the pattern already observed.

His mental stats, however, continued to depend on learning, training, skills, and other forms of progression.

As for Luck...

Still thirteen.

Adam smiled slightly.

"And still twelve free points."

He could now use them.

But then again...

He didn’t feel the immediate need.

His stats had already skyrocketed.

He wanted to see how his body would adapt to this newfound power first.

Lyriana leaned slightly toward him.

"Well?"

Adam closed the window.

"I went from level three to level nineteen."

She was silent for a second.

"That’s fast."

"That’s one way to put it."

Elaria thought for a moment.

"The Red Wolves were way above your starting level."

Adam nodded.

"Thirty to thirty-five."

"That probably accelerated your progress tremendously."

"And the Boars and Rabbits added the rest."

Elaria nodded.

"Probably."

Adam looked at his hands.

He didn’t feel a dramatic transformation.

But now that he was paying attention...

His body felt much lighter.

The fatigue from the journey was minimal.

His breathing was calm.

Even after the battles and almost a full day on horseback...

He probably could have continued for several more hours.

"Sixty-four in Endurance..."

Lyriana smiled slightly.

"Selene will be thrilled."

Adam froze.

Then he slowly turned his head toward her.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because it’s true."

Adam immediately pictured Selene looking at her new status.

Then increasing the power of her bracelets.

Then doubling her training.

His expression darkened.

"I’m not going to tell her."

Elaria replied calmly:

"She’ll notice."

Adam sighed.

"I know."

The smell of meat finally brought him back to reality.

He quickly turned back to the pan.

"Ah!"

He stirred.

Luckily, nothing had burned.

A few minutes later, Lyriana finished tending to the Steeds.

Elaria put away the last of the supplies.

And Adam finished their dinner.

The second day of their journey had just ended.

They had crossed the Red Forest.

Faced three groups of monsters.

And Adam had gained sixteen levels.

But most importantly...

As he traveled toward Sylvaris, he was finally beginning to discover what traveling in this world truly meant.

And he still had a long way to go.