Chapter 363: Nobody Likes Goblins

He made sure to go back to the guild after he ate. He still had to make sure he submitted the materials he gathered. He also had some really good news on that front. Because of the added danger of the Flowering Ginkons, he was awarded extra points and almost already ranked up to D-Rank.

It wasn’t exactly the most glorious accomplishment. Typically, it would take a normal person a few days of work, but it meant he would be able to take even a larger selection of missions in the future. He was not even hoping for missions that pertained to Tier 3 rifts. He was hoping that he would eventually be allowed to go along on missions that involved Tier 4s, much like the Blumand mission he went on. He would also gain more access to information about Tier 4 rifts or dangerous areas he could sneak off to.

It wasn’t like there was much oversight on people going to delve in more powerful rifts than their tier. Usually, the possibility of death ensured people didn’t do that sort of thing. Luckily for Julius, he didn’t care.

Which was how he found himself already strolling toward the Endless Forest once again. However, this time he had a better direction about where to go. The first day was more to get an idea of the forest and what made it special.

Today, he was planning to find at least one rift he could delve into. He found out from Terus that they had come from an area that was saturated with Tier 3 rifts. There were even very strong ones that the guild has placed a mission for adventurers to complete.

Since he wasn’t high ranked enough, this meant he only had a general idea where these rifts were. But he was hoping that his perception skill would allow him to sense these rifts more easily than someone else would be able to.

He had met up with the others last night and he had explained to him what he was planning to do. They weren’t that happy about it, but they quickly understood that there was nothing they could do to stop him unless they physically restrained him.

He let them know beforehand that he might not even be back for dinner tonight. If he found a good rift to explore, he might take a couple of days to delve into it.

They had already gotten their own missions from the Stormcaller’s Guild. Apparently, there were a good number of rifts the guild had found and were perfect for Tier 3s trying to advance to Tier 4. That was what they would be doing today.

So after a nice but brief breakfast with the others, he went off on his own. Ready to explore the forest with an excited smile on his face.

***

He entered through a different spot in the forest this time around and spent the next hour or so walking through the forest. It was quite peaceful if he wasn’t being honest.

He had only been attacked three times by monsters. They had only been around Tier 2, so he barely had to focus any of his attention on them. He had simply created a small bolt of mana and pierced their head without much issue.

Unlike the catlike monster that had tried to attack them the day before, these monsters didn’t seem to be hungry. He suspected that they had tried to attack him because of his aura, or rather his lack of aura. To their senses, he probably seemed weak and an easy target.

This forced him to make a decision. Did he shroud his aura and hope the monsters wouldn’t notice him? Or perhaps it was better to reveal his aura and scare off any monsters from attacking him?

In the end, he decided that he would rather deal with the occasional nuisance of a monster rather than someone accidentally coming across him and sensing his revealed aura. So he manipulated his aura to display his usual subdued Tier 3 aura.

He did begin to notice the change within the forest as he got deeper, though. The concentration of the ambient mana was rapidly increasing. He was beginning to understand why the edge of the forest was considered a relatively safe place compared to the rest of the forest.

It was also why he wasn’t surprised when he came across a Tier 3 monster quite early. His aura was still shrouded to look like a weaker Tier 3, which was probably why this large insect-looking monster stared at him like he was a tasty meal.

He looked around to make sure it didn’t have any friends, but didn’t sense anything else around other than some weaker monsters who were avoiding both of them. He didn’t find anything and placed his full attention on this monster. It was bipedal and had multiple arms that looked more like blades than actual arms. It was also not a weak monster if its aura was anything to go by. It was toward the middle to upper level of Tier 3.

Julius grinned to himself. This was a perfect time to test his skill. When the insect finally made its move, Julius was already prepared and used [Void Step], letting space warp him a few feet away from the monster’s bladed arms.

He still wasn’t familiar with the skill which meant he misshot a little, but it wasn’t anything a little practice would fix. On the bright side, this insect seemed to have some decent speed, which would help him perfect his skill.

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He didn’t use any other skill except [Void Step] to avoid the insect. Each teleport used a good amount of mana, but he did his best to limit the distance which drastically lowered the cost of the skill. He messed up a couple of times and resulted in him getting cut up. He almost lost his arm from the most recent attack, the blades of the insect were covered in sharpness aspected mana and practically sheared right through his bone.

He didn’t pay any heed to this, though. He was much too focused on honing his skill. [Sage of Savagery] was on full power as he put everything he had into his movement skill. At first, using the skill was disorientating. But after almost a dozen activations, he was getting used to it.

He didn’t know if the insect had much going on upstairs, but he could have sworn that it began to look frustrated at its lack of ability to hit him. He said this because it started to swing more frantically and with more ferocity than before.

He would have kept using it as a practice buddy, but unfortunately, he didn’t think wasting all of his mana on his first fight would be a good idea. So with a heavy sigh, he activated his body enhancement skill and covered his arm in a thin layer of mana. The next time the monster swung at him, he didn’t dodge and instead slammed his arm directly into it.