Kael did not return to his abandoned wing in the Academy. Instead, his steps led him toward the northern borders, where the shimmering magical barrier faded, giving way to an endless sea of twisted, black trees.
"The Whispering Woods." That was what the disciples called it. It was a strictly forbidden zone for anyone below the "Mana Warrior" realm, a place where even official Academy patrols only dared to enter in groups of ten. The trees here were unnaturally massive, their trunks covered in toxic, pale grey moss, and their dense canopies completely blocked out the sunlight. It created an eternal, suffocating twilight that hid bloodthirsty monsters within its deep shadows.
Kael stood before a shattered wooden sign. Written on it in dried, dark blood were the words: "Crossing Means Death."
He smirked cynically and stepped past the sign.
The air inside the forest was heavy, saturated with the stench of rot, dampness, and iron—the distinct smell of old blood. With every step he took on the carpet of dead leaves, the darkness seemed to swallow him further. Kael wasn't afraid; instead, he felt a cold, calculating anticipation. The black sword, "Nameless," strapped to his back, felt heavy, pressing against his shoulder like a silent companion demanding its very first meal.
I possess overwhelming power, and now I have a weapon capable of withstanding it, Kael thought as he advanced cautiously, his senses heightened to their absolute peak. But I lack something crucial... I lack 'Techniques'. Disciples like Darius have spent years mastering sword arts, footwork, and breathing methods. And me? All I know is how to swing a blacksmith's hammer. If I enter the arena relying solely on brute force, they will read my movements easily. I need to forge my blacksmithing motions into my own unique martial art, and there is no better training ground than a real battlefield, where the price of a mistake is your life.
Suddenly, the wind died down. The incessant chirping of the forest insects abruptly ceased.
Kael stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes. Thanks to the agonizing "glass cup" training Orik had forced upon him, his ability to sense ambient mana had become as sharp as a razor. He felt incredibly faint vibrations coming from the dense thicket to his right. They weren't ordinary footsteps; it sounded more like something massive slithering over the damp earth.
He opened his eyes slowly and reached his right hand over his shoulder. His scarred fingers wrapped around the Earth Dragon leather grip of his sword. As he drew the weapon from its scabbard, there was no metallic ringing sound. The black sword slid out in deadly, absolute silence, seemingly absorbing the faint ambient light around it.
From the dense bushes, three pairs of vertically slit, glowing yellow eyes emerged.
They were "Iron-Hide Shadow Wolves," Tier-3 magical beasts with strength equivalent to a cultivator at the peak of the "Mana Foundation" realm. They were the size of fully grown bears, their bodies covered in coarse, black fur that resembled steel needles. Their protruding fangs dripped with highly acidic saliva that instantly burned through the fallen leaves it touched.
The three wolves slowly began to circle Kael, maintaining equal distances from one another to cut off any possible avenue of escape. They were highly intelligent predators; they hunted in packs and knew exactly how to exhaust their prey before moving in for the kill.
Perfect, Kael smiled coldly. Three test subjects at once.
Kael didn't wait for the wolves to initiate the attack. He took a deep breath, circulating a single, concentrated drop of the blue "Azura" energy from the core in his chest, funneling it down his arm and directly into the blade of the sword. Exactly as he had theorized, the sword did not explode, nor did the energy leak outward to form a blazing aura like Darius's flashy flames. Instead, the "Star Steel" within the blade fully absorbed the mana. The black sword began to vibrate with a very low, almost imperceptible hum, terrifically increasing its weight and destructive potential.
The first wolf lunged from behind, opening its massive jaws wide, aiming to rip Kael's throat out.
Kael didn't even turn his head. Instead, he relied purely on his blacksmithing instincts. Footwork used when pulling heavy metal from the forge. He pivoted on his left heel with blinding speed, using the sheer, immense weight of the sword to generate massive centrifugal force.
He didn't swing the sword gracefully like a noble knight; he gripped it with both hands and swung it like he was bringing his heavy hammer down onto the anvil.
Improvised Blacksmith Art: The Anvil's Strike!
The pitch-black blade met the lunging wolf's skull mid-air. There was no metallic clash; there was only the sickening, muffled sound of a localized explosion. The Azura-infused sword didn't just cut through the wolf's iron-hard skull—it utterly pulverized it. Blood and shattered bone fragments exploded in every direction, and the massive, headless corpse of the beast slammed onto the ground, completely lifeless.
The remaining two wolves immediately stopped circling. The predatory glint in their yellow eyes was instantly replaced by sheer shock. They had never seen prey obliterate a pack member with a single, brutal strike like that.
But Kael wasn't going to give them a chance to retreat.
He dashed toward the second wolf, cracking the solid stone beneath his boots from the sheer explosive force of his launch. The wolf panicked, trying to backpedal, and spat a compressed ball of acidic saliva directly at Kael's face. Kael tilted his head just a fraction of an inch, feeling the searing heat of the acid pass by his cheek, singeing a lock of his raven-black hair. In that exact same motion, he thrust his heavy sword straight forward. The black blade pierced the beast's chest, shattering its ribcage as effortlessly as a hot knife sliding through a block of butter.
Seeing that the battle was an absolute slaughter, the third wolf turned its back and sprinted desperately toward the deeper parts of the forest, trying to save its own life.
Kael yanked his sword free from the second wolf's corpse and locked his eyes on the fleeing beast. He raised the sword above his shoulder and, this time, channeled a burst of Azura energy down into his legs.
BOOOOM!
The ground beneath Kael's feet literally exploded, launching his body forward like a fired cannonball. He closed the massive distance in a fraction of a second, appearing like a ghost directly in front of the fleeing monster. With a rapid, completely merciless horizontal slash, he cleanly severed the wolf's head from its shoulders.
Kael stood alone in the center of the silent forest, surrounded by the corpses of the three terrifying beasts. He breathed slowly and evenly. There wasn't a single scratch on his body, and the black sword in his hand didn't have a single drop of blood clinging to it; the blade was so impossibly smooth that the blood had instantly slid right off.
"Incredible..." Kael whispered, examining the dark weapon. "The Dead Iron prevents the mana from leaking, and the Star Steel withstands the violent pressure of the Azura energy. This sword doesn't just cut... it erases whatever it touches."
But before he could even sheathe his weapon, something entirely unexpected happened.
The earth beneath his feet began to tremble violently. Dead leaves rained down from the canopy above, and a stench of rot a hundred times stronger than before washed over the area. From the impossibly dense shadows deep within the woods, a colossal figure emerged—easily five times the size of the wolves.
It was an Armored Bear, but it was no ordinary magical beast. Its eyes glowed with a pure, sick crimson light, and half of its massive body was covered in strange, jagged black scales that radiated a very familiar, dark energy... an energy identical to the magic used by the "Eclipse Cult" assassins in the courtyard.
A beast mutated by Eclipse magic? Kael's eyes narrowed dangerously. So, the Cult isn't just targeting the Academy from the inside; they are corrupting the surrounding forest as well.
The mutated bear unleashed an ear-splitting roar and slammed its massive claws into the ground. A violent wave of jagged, earth-spikes infused with dark energy shot out of the ground, traveling at lightning speed directly toward Kael.
Kael didn't take a single step back. He raised his "Nameless" sword in front of his chest, a terrifying, bloodthirsty smirk spreading across his lips.
"I was just wondering how much pressure this sword could take in a real fight," Kael said. He began to pump a significantly larger amount of Azura energy into the blade, so much that the blue veins in his right arm began to bulge visibly against his skin. "Let's test our absolute limits together, you ugly bastard."