KingSilver Looking back at chapter 3's poll, it seems that many of you think that I will add your dad in, followed by dragon. I will add dragons as this is a fantasy genre, but I'm not sure whether to use it as the mc's companion. So I'll add a poll again. P.S. There's going to be a few info dumps below.
Boreas POV
"Are you sure you want us to drop you here?" the merchant asked as he dropped us in front of a path leading to a dark forest.
I glanced up at the towering trees, their gnarled branches casting ominous shadows on the forest floor. This place was known by locals simply as the Shadow Woods...what a creative name by the author. The Shadow Woods is said to house many dangerous creatures and I did some research about it, and one interesting thing I've learned is that most of the creatures have now moved outward to the outer edges and running away from the center.
Meaning that it's now recognized as a danger zone since most people would die just by stepping foot in it if they're not careful, that's how dangerous it was.
So now, why would such a thing happen? It's obvious, there's an alpha. Dangerous creatures of this world would instinctively respect the unwritten law of hierarchy, so their running away from the center would mean that there's something or someone so dangerous in the center that they're running away and that someone could only be the sword saint.
The sword saint, Wiles Alexander Griffin, is a 100-year-old man, who is said to be around 180cm tall, looks as if he's in his mid-60s, has dark-blue eyes, and well-trimmed hair and beard. He's also said to be afflicted by an incurable disease, the mana-stasis syndrome. Basically he can't expel the mana that is inside his body into magic.
He does have regular benefits from having the mana within his body, like better longevity, higher regeneration, better resistance against spells...etc. But everyone has that as long as their magic is of a higher rank, that's why some people can live close to 200, the higher the rank, the better. And as a rank 9 person, he should live for at least 40 years more.
To earn the title of the sword saint while not being able to expel magic out of his body, that's just how good it is.
And as if the stereotypes of sword masters couldn't get any more cliche, he was born blind. Now, in a word of magic, you can definitely heal or create organs and limbs. There are a lot of rules to it, but long story short, he can be granted the gift of vision, something that most commoners like him could only dream of growing up due to it being an expensive treatment, but the sword saint lived with it through most parts of his life and got used to it, and once he was given the gift of vision, it affected his skills, so he chose to go back being blind.
Now, he has disappeared about 15 years ago, and this forest's migration thing happened about 10 years ago. But during those times, he made a few appearances here and there, only to fully disappear around 5-8 years ago, as there are some claims by some colleagues of his, but there's no full proof of that.
Now, even with Mari here, it's still dangerous, but I just need to get close enough to the center to have the sword saint sense me and come to my rescue. For that...flying above the forest is a no-go, we're just too disadvantageous there, so we're just going to have to make a run for it. So we're just going to fly through the forest at ground level as fast as we can.
Mari then created a large ball of air surrounding us, so we're now in this sort of wind hamster ball hovering over the ground. We then flew toward the forest and hurtled forward at incredible speed. And once we got to the forest, we didn't slow down, we only sped up. All sorts of monsters emerged from the shadows with their eyes gleaming with hunger as they lunged towards us from every direction. But we paid them no mind, our focus fixed solely on our goal as we flew through the forest with reckless abandon.
With a burst of speed, we hurtled forward, the ball of swirling air propelling us through the forest with incredible velocity. Trees and branches blurred past us in a dizzying whirlwind as we swerved around the trees. The sound of snapping branches echoed through the air as we raced through the dense foliage, our makeshift barrier protecting us from harm as we dodged and weaved through the maze of trees. We broke a couple of them and alerted the monsters, but we just kept going.
I applied sound magic on my fingers and did a thunder snap every once in a while as some monsters were just outright the manifestation of death, like a 20m tall fire-breathing boar. And then, with a final burst of speed, we emerged from the dense foliage and into a small clearing, where I spotted a small cabin, which we were about to crash into. Mari stopped the spell and we fell and rolled on the ground.
Luckily no more monsters were chasing us. It means that this is the sword saint's territory.
"I can't believe that someone would have a house here." Mari commented as she brushed herself off
"Well, like I told you, only some guy like the sword saint would."
"Do you plan on staying here?"
"No, I plan on having him come with us. Besides, the empire would also thank us as the dangerous creatures would move to the center, allowing them to forage from the outer parts of the forests again."
I went to knock on the door and waited there for a while, and sure enough, a blindfolded man stepped out with a cane. Knowing the cliches, that cane is the sword underneath.
"Hmm...a child and a water spirit...a nymph...quite an unusual pairing." the sword saint commented as he scratched his beard, "How did you get here?"
"We flew."
"I see, and how may I help you?"
"I want to ask you to teach me about the blade, and to come with me to my village."
KingSilver Looking back at chapter 3's poll, it seems that many of you think that I will add your dad in, followed by dragon. I will add dragons as this is a fantasy genre, but I'm not sure whether to use it as the mc's companion. So I'll add a poll again. P.S. There's going to be a few info dumps below.
Boreas POV
"Are you sure you want us to drop you here?" the merchant asked as he dropped us in front of a path leading to a dark forest.
I glanced up at the towering trees, their gnarled branches casting ominous shadows on the forest floor. This place was known by locals simply as the Shadow Woods...what a creative name by the author. The Shadow Woods is said to house many dangerous creatures and I did some research about it, and one interesting thing I've learned is that most of the creatures have now moved outward to the outer edges and running away from the center.
Meaning that it's now recognized as a danger zone since most people would die just by stepping foot in it if they're not careful, that's how dangerous it was.
So now, why would such a thing happen? It's obvious, there's an alpha. Dangerous creatures of this world would instinctively respect the unwritten law of hierarchy, so their running away from the center would mean that there's something or someone so dangerous in the center that they're running away and that someone could only be the sword saint.
The sword saint, Wiles Alexander Griffin, is a 100-year-old man, who is said to be around 180cm tall, looks as if he's in his mid-60s, has dark-blue eyes, and well-trimmed hair and beard. He's also said to be afflicted by an incurable disease, the mana-stasis syndrome. Basically he can't expel the mana that is inside his body into magic.
He does have regular benefits from having the mana within his body, like better longevity, higher regeneration, better resistance against spells...etc. But everyone has that as long as their magic is of a higher rank, that's why some people can live close to 200, the higher the rank, the better. And as a rank 9 person, he should live for at least 40 years more.
To earn the title of the sword saint while not being able to expel magic out of his body, that's just how good it is.
And as if the stereotypes of sword masters couldn't get any more cliche, he was born blind. Now, in a word of magic, you can definitely heal or create organs and limbs. There are a lot of rules to it, but long story short, he can be granted the gift of vision, something that most commoners like him could only dream of growing up due to it being an expensive treatment, but the sword saint lived with it through most parts of his life and got used to it, and once he was given the gift of vision, it affected his skills, so he chose to go back being blind.
Now, he has disappeared about 15 years ago, and this forest's migration thing happened about 10 years ago. But during those times, he made a few appearances here and there, only to fully disappear around 5-8 years ago, as there are some claims by some colleagues of his, but there's no full proof of that.
Now, even with Mari here, it's still dangerous, but I just need to get close enough to the center to have the sword saint sense me and come to my rescue. For that...flying above the forest is a no-go, we're just too disadvantageous there, so we're just going to have to make a run for it. So we're just going to fly through the forest at ground level as fast as we can.
Mari then created a large ball of air surrounding us, so we're now in this sort of wind hamster ball hovering over the ground. We then flew toward the forest and hurtled forward at incredible speed. And once we got to the forest, we didn't slow down, we only sped up. All sorts of monsters emerged from the shadows with their eyes gleaming with hunger as they lunged towards us from every direction. But we paid them no mind, our focus fixed solely on our goal as we flew through the forest with reckless abandon.
With a burst of speed, we hurtled forward, the ball of swirling air propelling us through the forest with incredible velocity. Trees and branches blurred past us in a dizzying whirlwind as we swerved around the trees. The sound of snapping branches echoed through the air as we raced through the dense foliage, our makeshift barrier protecting us from harm as we dodged and weaved through the maze of trees. We broke a couple of them and alerted the monsters, but we just kept going.
I applied sound magic on my fingers and did a thunder snap every once in a while as some monsters were just outright the manifestation of death, like a 20m tall fire-breathing boar. And then, with a final burst of speed, we emerged from the dense foliage and into a small clearing, where I spotted a small cabin, which we were about to crash into. Mari stopped the spell and we fell and rolled on the ground.
Luckily no more monsters were chasing us. It means that this is the sword saint's territory.
"I can't believe that someone would have a house here." Mari commented as she brushed herself off
"Well, like I told you, only some guy like the sword saint would."
"Do you plan on staying here?"
"No, I plan on having him come with us. Besides, the empire would also thank us as the dangerous creatures would move to the center, allowing them to forage from the outer parts of the forests again."
I went to knock on the door and waited there for a while, and sure enough, a blindfolded man stepped out with a cane. Knowing the cliches, that cane is the sword underneath.
"Hmm...a child and a water spirit...a nymph...quite an unusual pairing." the sword saint commented as he scratched his beard, "How did you get here?"
"We flew."
"I see, and how may I help you?"
"I want to ask you to teach me about the blade, and to come with me to my village."
