Leon led the group through the forest for hours. It seemed they had been fortunate enough to spawn in a location that was relatively sparse when it came to those who had come from the outside world.
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"Do you know what we are going after?" Adrian asked.
"I don't know yet, but I have a feeling it will be good." Leon shook his head. He was feeling quite relaxed, unlike how he had felt after eating the golden fruit. All of that excess energy that had left him feeling stuffed had been used up to create his core.
"After walking for half an hour longer, the sound of running water became audible to the group. Leon told them they were almost there. He focused on what his millipede in that direction was seeing, and through its eyes, he could see a cascading waterfall. The concentrated mana was emanating form behind the waterfall, which meant that there was most likely a cave behind it. Whatever was in the cave was Leon's target.
Rustle...
The bushes on one side of the stream rustled, and a group of people walked out from the cover of the trees. From what Leon could see, they were not all humans. Their leader had green skin, and two tusks jutting out from the sides of his large mouth. He stood at roughly three meters in height, and had a ferocious look on his face.
'Is that an Orc?' Leon wondered. "We need to hurry up. We are not the only ones who have eyes on the prize." He told his group members. They were only a couple of minutes away from the waterfall, so he hoped that the Royal Millipede there would be able to keep the Orc and his group at bay for some time.
Just as he thought that, the Orc suddenly turned to look at the cluster of bushes where the Millipede was hiding. His arm shot out and made a grabbing and pulling motion.
Leon's shared vision with the millipede blurred as it shot right into the Orc's waiting grasp. He grunted at it in disgust. "I hate bugs." He said, and in the next moment, Leon's vision was cut off and he felt the presence of his summon return to him.
He did not speak, but as they continued to move, his mind constantly revolved around one thought.
'What kind of magic was that?'
.
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Grokus frowned deeply after killing the black millipede. He had not gotten any experience or kill notification.
"...A summon." He quickly arrived at a conclusion. This was not his first time encountering a summon. Normally, being able to get experience from a killed summoner depended on the type of summon it was. There were elemental summons, undead summons, and dimensional summons.
Elemental summons were simply summons that were created by a mage by giving character to a mass of mana. Things like Fire Golems, Water Golems, and the like, were elemental summons.
Undead summons came in two varieties. There were the plain skeleton undead summons, and the spirit type undead summons. Killing a skeleton type undead summon was mostly a guarantee to gain experience. As for their spirit type cousins, getting experience from killing them depended on how their summoner created them.
Dimensional summons on the other hand, were much more complex. Only those with the high level summoning magic skills could summon them, as they had to do with opening a portal with another dimension in order to contract the creatures on the other side.
After thinking of all the possibilities, Grokus settled on one likely explanation.
"A necromancer." He hummed and turned around to face his followers. "My followers, we have a Necromancer on the way. Prepare the totem." He told them.
Grokus was no ordinary Orc. No, he was a Shaman, a powerful Orc who stood at the peak of Orc society. While he had yet to take up the official role from the current Orc Shaman of his tribe due to his youth and relative inexperience, he was still quite strong. He was already at C rank at the age of twenty without any help from others.
The followers behind him that consisted of the slaves he had subdued over the years quickly did as he said. The mix of humans, elves, and other races quickly brought out some small, wooden pieces that looked as if it belonged to a larger item. The image only became whole when they brought it together to form the miniature image of Grokus.
The proud Orc Shaman had made it himself!
When the totem came together, it began to emit a vibrant, blue color, and the mana in the air around seemed to become denser.
"Bring it to the cave entrance." He led them into the cave, where they put down the totem at the entrance.
"Domo, raise an earth wall." He turned to a young human boy who looked to be around sixteen years of age. The boy nodded his head quickly and stepped forward. He took in a deep breath before raising his arms. Earth mana bubbled around him as a thick, two meter wall of earth rose from the ground and sealed off the entrance to the cave.
"Sigil of Durability!" Grokus placed his palm on the wall, and the tattoos on his chest lit up in a bright green color. The wall flashed with green light as it was infused with not only his mana, but also the unique mana that was being emitted from the totem by the wall.
"Let's go." He turned around and marched into the the cave that was lit up by thousands of little glowing worms.
.
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When Leon emerged from the forest line, he was taken aback by the sight of the waterfall. It was not too large, and only of a modest size, but it was still beautiful in every right.
He quickly pulled his attention away from the waterfall and focused on the space behind it. His sharp eyes peered through the obscuring curtain of water, but failed to find any entrance to the cave behind the waterfall. The Orc and his followers were also gone.
'They must have tampered with something.' He instantly concluded as he turned to his allies.
"A group led by an Orc was here before us. They killed my summon, and probably blocked the entrance to the cave." He explained and led them to the waterfall. It was easy enough to ward off the water with water magic, and soon enough, the seven of them were standing under a ledge created by earth magic to shield them from the water.
Leon placed his hand against the wall, trying to feel for anything odd. After a minute spent patting various parts of the wall, Helen drew Leon's attention.
"I feel something over here!" She called out to Leon. Leon quickly came over to her and tried to get a feel of the wall over there. He poured his focus into that part of the wall, and was gradually able to find that the wall seemed strangely reinforced in that area. Even then, it was difficult for him to feel it.
This was one area where most mages beat him in. They had spent a long time leveling up their skills through feel and practice, so they were more familiar with the flow of mana. In his case, he had only spent just over a month in this world, and he had even less experience with Earth magic than Helen, so she was easily able to spot an area where Earth magic was used compared to him.
"Let's try to bring it down." He told her and focused on his Earth magic skill. Grasping the mana that flowed through his core and the air around him, he tried to impose his will on the wall that was fortified with Earth magic, but was met with firm resistance.
"Huh?" Helen was stunned. Although her Earth magic skill was only at the Apprentice level, she had almost maxed it out. How this wall was able to pose a hindrance to not only her, but also Leon, was quite shocking. Even more shocking was the fact that this could have been left by a C rank mage!
"What's wrong?" Harry noticed they were struggling and came forward.
"This wall... Is too strong!" Helen forced out her words as she put in more effort into crumbling the earthen wall.
"Let me help." Malaki stepped forward. Although his affinity for magic was weak, every hand would be needed in this venture.
The three Earth magic users put in their best efforts to move the earth wall, but it refused to budge. After five whole minutes of trying, they finally stepped back, confused and tired.
Leon stepped back with folded arms when he found that they could not breach the wall.
"There has to be a way..."
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