Capítulo 19: Jasmine's Fight

After exiting the city gates under the watchful eyes of the Imperial guards, they headed towards the west side of the city.

After walking for an hour they reached the outer perimeter of the forest. This forest was home to many magical beasts and demonic beasts.

In this world all living creatures had a magical core inside them, it was not possible to live without a core, it was just as important as the heart and brain. Raymond was the only anomaly who was still alive with a broken core.

Magical beasts of lower levels could be caught and easily tamed to act as pets and load bearers. Magical beasts followed a hierarchical system, and their standings were decided at birth. They were classified into levels ranging from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest level known to the world. An adult dragon was said to be level 10.

Dragons were only mentioned in myths and legends, no one today alive has seen a dragon. But there were some lesser variants of mighty dragons called wyverns roaming around the world.

As for demonic beasts, they were magical beasts at birth but corrupted by one of the seven sins thus tainting their magical core, and turning themselves into demonic beings.

Demonic beasts were far superior to their magical counterparts thus making them almost impossible to tame. They could become stronger the more they gave way to their sin.

Only lower level magical beasts could be found at the outer perimeter of the forest and most of the higher level ones and demonic beasts lived inside the depth of the forest.

Raymond's mission required him to bring about 10 magical cores of the lower level beasts. Magical cores could be used as a replacement for mana stones– which were not available in abundance– in powering the magical runes and pieces of machinery.

Raymond walked into the forest with Jasmine and Sasha following behind him. He was thinking of getting Jasmine some hands-on experience in fighting so that she could improve the comprehension of her element and advance to the next level.

Experienced cultivators often advised the younger generation to go out into the wild and fight for the sake of gaining experience. According to them, a serious battle with a worthy opponent was equal to years of isolated cultivation. There were often stories about people reaching the next level of cultivation while in life and death situations.

"Hmmm, let's see…" Raymond paused deep in thought. "Jasmine, I will handle the situation if any higher level beasts come our way, you need experience in fighting so you will handle the beasts below level 4, okay?"

Jasmine nodded solemnly, after trying the spirit convergence technique with her master many times, she had enough energy to break into the next level. She just needed enough mastery over her element to break through now.

Seeing as she had her mysteriously powerful master and a B-rank mercenary with her, she decided to fight alone and gain some experience, if things went wrong she had a backup in the form of these two.

She walked further into the forest while Raymond and Sasha hid from the view and started following her. Soon she found a wolf munching on a deer corpse near one of the trees.

Wolf's ears perked up when it heard the footsteps behind it. It was a level 2 magical beast that had no special magic to its name. It could only use its magically strengthened body to attack its prey and tear them apart.

Considering Jasmine was a Martial Master, she could easily handle this level 2 wolf. But she had to be careful dealing with a lone wolf that was disturbed during its mealtime.

She circulated her mana and started forming a layer of it on her skin. It was a basic skill that Martial Majors could perform.

The wolf pounced on Jasmine as soon as it saw her forming the mana layer hoping to catch her before she could completely form it. Jasmine stopped the layer formation and instantly turned it into a shield.

-Mana Shield-

The wolf crashed into the shield and was thrown away by Jasmine. She quickly took a few steps back before the wolf could attack again and formed a layer of mana on her skin.

The wolf rebounded from where it was thrown off and again pounced on Jasmine. This time she didn't use the shield instead she swivelled her body to avoid the claws of the wolf.

-Mana Burst-

She unleashed a burst of mana when the wolf was in her proximity directly sending it towards a tree and crashing into it.

The wolf whined in pain and turned even more aggressive as it doubled its speed and pounced on Jasmine. She quickly ducked under the wolf with her hands glowing golden brown and turned around to touch the wolf.

Her hand made a purchase with the wolf's tail and she willed the golden brown light to envelope the wolf completely. Instantly the wolf found its body lifting up into the air and howled in panic.

Jasmine willed the wolf to float higher and higher into the air before she felt like she could not control the wolf anymore and let go of her control on the wolf.

The wolf fell head first onto the ground from enough height to break its neck and die on the spot.

Jasmine huffed due to the exertion, lifting something like an adult wolf was straining for her. She had almost emptied half of her reserves within minutes. She needed to practise more and have firm control over her mana if she had to fight efficiently.

Raymond quickly arrived beside her and went to the wolf's body. He dug out the wolf's stomach with a knife until he found a brownish red core the size of a cherry. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to skin the wolf or else he could have sold its pelt for some coins.

Sasha quietly followed them as they made their way into the forest and kept on watching with her curiosity towards Jasmine increasing by the minute.

Jasmine never panicked even when she was facing the wolf for the first time which was strange in and of itself. What baffled her, even more, was the fact that Jasmine took fighting as a fish to water.

'Come to think of it, her skin complexion doesn't seem like someone from the empire would have or… maybe she worked in the sunny region from a young age?'

Sasha rubbed her chin in contemplation. This duo of newbies was becoming more and more mysterious to her. One was clearly a Martial Minor but he could defeat a Martial Greatsage like her as if swatting a fly and another one was proving herself quite adept at fighting even though she was wearing clothes that were not suitable for a melee fight.

Jasmine managed to kill ten lower level beasts without any help. Sometimes she used her Gravity manipulation to make the larger beasts float high into the air before dropping them on a hard surface. For smaller ones, she used her magic to increase the gravitational force on their body to burst their blood vessels in the process.

She found that it was easier to kill smaller ones by increasing their gravity rather than making them float. But using her element in such a raw fashion made her mana reserves diminish quickly. She had to take a breather from time to time to recover her mana.

"Good job, Jasmine. You are improving quickly, if you keep going like this you can break through by the end of this week."

Raymond tried to cheer her up seeing as she was feeling down because of not breaking through to the next level.

"Yeah, it isn't easy to break through in a day or so of fighting. You need to keep going until you push past your limit."

Sasha chimed in trying to encourage her. Jasmine smiled at her and nodded.

Even though Raymond sounded cheerful he was getting bored out of his mind. He wanted to fight some higher level beasts to test his strength. It would be even better if he could fight a demonic beast.

"Alright, let's go further inside the forest. I want to see what's in the depth of the forest."

Raymond said, beckoning them to follow him.

Jasmine was quick to react when she heard him.

"Ah! Ray, it's dangerous inside the forest, you know, no one who has gone deep into the forest has returned alive."

Sasha nodded to Jasmine's suggestion as well.

"Yeah, even a Martial Emperor is said to have lost his life inside the forest."

She added, although she too was curious about what was inside the forest. She didn't want to satiate her curiosity at the cost of her life. Even her father had warned about venturing deep into the forest.

"Don't worry, I will bring you out of the forest if we come across something dangerous."

Raymond reassured them. He believed he could outrun whatever it was inside the forest. He really wanted to find out how much stronger he had become, it was as if his body was urging him to fight. To let loose his power and destroy everything that stands in his way.

Luckily, Raymond had the willpower to keep his urges in check.

Jasmine nodded and held onto his arm as they walked into the forest. Sasha walked behind them still feeling uneasy about going inside. She didn't want to leave behind these two and go back. She did have a way to escape if things turned for the worst. So clenching her jaw harder she entered the inner perimeter of the forest with them.

Strangely no beasts attacked them along the way as if they were afraid of something and avoided making contact with the trio.

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