The Swamp Forest

As the sun's first rays broke the darkness of the night, Victor, already ready with a black-colored bag strapped to his back. He came out of his dorm room and closed the door.

He looked towards the dimly lit sky and moved toward Elarion City's main market.

As he walked through the streets, most of the shops were closed as it was early morning.

At the corner of the street, a shop with yellow dim light coming through its glass window appeared to be open.

Victor moved toward it. As he opened the door soft 'ringing' sounded from the doorbell.

Victor's eyes darted around the shop. The shop was dimly lit by the yellow lights hanging on the smooth walls of the shop. Every kind of weapon was hanging on the wall. On one side were swords, spears, daggers, and axes. On the other side of the shop, guns were also placed on the wall; there were revolvers, rifles, snipers, shotguns, and Pistols.

 As he moved toward the counter made of glass, his eyes drifted inside the counter. There was a long-barreled revolver with white steel shine and a sleek black pistol alongside it.

An old man came up to the counter and looked at Victor, asking in his trembling old voice, "What'd you want!"

Victor's eyes peeled off from the guns placed under the glass and looked at the old man, asking as he pointed toward the long-barreled revolver, its handle decorated with a light blue strip. "How much is this?"

The old man narrowed his eyes and scanned Victor from head to toe. After a pause.

" 150,000CP!" he replied.

Victor's eyes widened, hearing the price.

The old man continued, "It's a reasonable price, it is made of Neo metal after all".

Victor nodded with a stiff neck.

Neo-metal was the only metal in the whole Neero world that could conduct the Origin Magic.

That is the one reason it is expensive, another reason is; only the dwarves can forge it, no one else.

The Celestial Points are the only way to buy and sell in the Neero world. There's no other currency, and CP is facilitated by the system that everyone possesses.

A little while later, Victor came out of the shop holding a short sword in his hands. He put it inside his backpack and moved toward the Swamp Forest.

" CP is everything! And I never would have imagined that guns are much more expensive than any other weapons." Victor grumbled as he moved outside of Elarion City.

Swamp Forest stood at the outskirts of Elarion City.

The Fog covers the dense trees. The sunlight wasn't able to pierce through the dense foliage of trees.

Right before the Forest's border, there was a military checkpoint. A wall-like barricade surrounded the all of the swamp forest, with watchtowers standing tall, separated by a few meters from each other.

Army officers wearing the camouflage outfit stood at the watchtowers and looked toward the forest in an alert position.

The Army uses the Neo metal guns. And the bullets made of Neo metal, infused with the Origin Magic of humans, are lethal for corrupted monsters.

Victor walked toward the huge metal gate surrounded by two check posts and several soldiers, leading toward the Swamp Forest.

One soldier came forward, stopping Victor with his hand gesture.

He was wearing a black hat with a symbol ')8(' like two circles and surrounded by the crescent on the side in gold.

It's the symbol of Holy Goddess Gaia, and it's also the symbol of the Holy Empire flag.

"Young Man! Stop right there." The officer said in his thick and loud voice.

Victor stopped and looked at the officer with a confused face.

The officer continued as he saw that he had the complete attention of the young man before him.

"Do you know where this gate leads to?" He said, pointing toward the gate leading to the Swamp Forest.

"Yes, I'm going to the Swamp Forest!" Victor replied in his hoarse voice without delay.

Officer's eyes narrowed, he replied in a grim tone, "Do you?... the Swamp Forest is not a playground….You can lose your life."

Victor just nodded at the officer, he replied in his mind 'I think I'll lose my life more early in the city than in the Swamp Forest.'

He didn't say that out loud; he just stared at the officer.

He knew there were many people who went into the Swamp Forest daily to earn their living by hunting the corrupted monsters.

The officer sighed as he looked at the stubborn eyes of the young man before him.

He moved away, shaking his head and muttering, "Young lads these days are quite stubborn."

Rumble!

Gate opened.

Victor stepped forward, his heart raced, pupils dilating. But he didn't stop. He stepped inside, crossing the gate, and entered the Swamp Forest.

Squelch!

His feet sank into the soft and wet ground as he trod the ground of the forest.

He scrunched his nose as the decaying and muddy smell hit his nose.

The air here was humid, much colder than the city. And the fog surrounding the trees was like sentient smoke, wrapping itself around everything and creating little space between the ground and itself.

Rumble!

The gate closed behind Victor, snapping him from the daze.

He looked back at the gate as it slowly vanished in the fog.

He looked towards the forest and muttered, "System!"

[Status]

[ Name ]: Victor Hans 

[ Race ]: Human???

[ Level ]: 2

[ XP ]: 00 / 500

[ Blessing ]: Moon Goddess???

[ Core ]: Liver ( New Moon-Beginner)

[ HP ]: 120/ 120 

[ MP ]: 60 / 60

[ Str ]: 7

[ Agi ]: 6

[ Vit]: 6

[ Int]: 15 

[CP]: 990

[ Perception]: 7

[Attribute Points]: 1

Victor looked at his stats and muttered with neutral expressions, "Daily quest made me reach the second level pretty quickly, but to reach the third level, only relying on daily quests will take me around 10 days. And reaching to 5th level with that speed will be impossible before the Military exam."

Victor's eyes scanned around cautiously first, then he moved through the muddy ground. With every step, his shoes became heavy, with mud sticking to them.

After a while, Victor leaned against a tree, panting, sweat beads falling from his brow. His hair's wet from the sweat.

He took out the metal bottle of water from his backpack.

After taking a sip, he muttered, "This is taking too much effort. I have to think of a way, or I won't be able to put up a fight against any monster."

He took his shoes off and started cleaning the mud sticking to them like slime.

After he was done, his shoes felt much lighter than before.

He looked around, trying to think of a way to avoid moving through the mud.

His eyes fell on the tree branches, and the dense foliage covering the forest like a roof.

The tree's leaves were dark green, with their veins running through the leaves completely dark from absorbing the chaos energy from the water.

Victor smiled and started climbing the thick tree he was leaning against. He reached the sturdy branch. He stood up on it, and the tree's branch creaked a little, bending a little downward.

Victor looked at the nearby tree; a similar branch stood one foot away, connecting to another tree.

Victor crept closer toward it, slowly, and then jumped.

Swoosh!

Thud!

His feet landed on the branch.

The branch swung downward. He bent forward, leaning on all fours, grabbed the branch with his hands, and crawled toward the shaft.

He hugged the trunk with ragged breathing and smiled as the adrenaline rushed through his body.

He repeated a similar process, jumping from one tree to another.

After an hour of running around at the outskirts of Swamp Forest, he stopped with a ringing noise of the system notification in his ears.

Ding…

[+1 Agility]

Victor's eyes widened as he looked at the notification. He exclaimed, "I can increase my stats by doing something like this?"

Splash!

Victor's eyes snapped downward.

As his eyes fell on the swamp water, they opened wide.

In the swamp water, two crocodiles were fighting.

Their back was covered in shiny black scales, and their belly was a lighter grey color.

Their jaws snapping around each other, black ink-like blood dripped from their several shallow wounds.

Victor crouched down on the branch without making a sound.

He took out a small sword, he got from the Shop earlier with 10CP.

As the two corrupted crocodile monsters fought with each other, Victor waited for the chance.

He didn't know the level of the monsters, but he hoped that they would be at a lower level, around 3 or 2.

Victor was somewhat sure they were lower-level monsters because in the outskirts of Swamp Forest, it only had weak monsters.

To buy the appraisal skill, you have to open the Celestial Shop first, reaching level 3.

Snapp!

One of the Crocodile's jaws snapped around the more injured one, holding its head in its mouth, as the teeth slowly sank into its skull, its flapping and convulsions increased.

Victor's muscles tensed, 'This is it, I have to kill it before it can kill the other one, and recover completely by leveling up.'