Chapter 136: First training… Survive

As the days passed, the 10th of August arrived. I had been having sex with Lilith Nix Kaos for days, but I had to stop on the 8th because I had matters to attend to as the Demon King, like signing papers.

Zephyra was kept imprisoned, receiving the treatment of a common prisoner. I even considered visiting her, but she must be punished, so I gave up on going there.

Now it’s around 7 in the morning, and I’m waiting for Elena to take me to where the Librarian is. I follow Elena through the corridors as she leads me to a teleportation circle.

There are several teleportation circles in the castle. I wonder where this one is going. I step onto it along with Elena, who then activates the magic circle.

“…Where are we?” It seems to be a mountain, as I can see the clouds below the view is beautiful, but I don’t know where this place is.

Soon, a gigantic floating island starts approaching the mountain we’re on. The sight is somewhat magnificent.

The island descends a bit, connecting to the mountain and forming a walkway. On the surface of the island, I see a massive structure made of some kind of entirely white material with golden details.

“Wow…it’s incredible,” I say, admiring this wondrous location. I then walk along the walkway, but it’s very long, and it takes almost 30 minutes to reach the door.

’Where’s the convenience?’ In front of the door, there’s a blue-haired boy with a serious expression.

’…I had heard about it, but it’s strange that the Librarian seems to be a child, especially with that expression on his face.’

“Good morning, I am Pandora, the King…”

“No need to introduce yourself, I know who you are. My time is valuable, so we’ll start immediately,” he says in a cold tone, then snaps his fingers, and Elena disappears.

’…’ It wasn’t arrogance, his tone was just cold.

“I understand. May I call you Thalruk?” The Librarian’s name is Thalruk Acheron, apparently with some symbolism behind it, but I wasn’t interested in researching it.

“No, call me Master,” he says as he opens the library doors and enters without inviting me. I follow him as he goes somewhere.

I look around and see many books and scrolls organized to perfection, some with numbers and dates engraved alongside titles, indicating they are important historical records.

’Much of this was stolen from other races…I wonder why the Master protects this place, as a evolved monster, I don’t see why he would have a reason for it.’ I’ll treat him as ’Master’ since he’s the one who will teach me to control my monster form and how to enter it.

“Master, how will the training be?” I ask, but I’m completely ignored by him as he simply continues walking to some destination. This goes on for at least 4 hours.

Now I’m just irritated. I’m sure we’re walking in circles because I’ve seen those records more than 27 times.

“I think I’ve figured out what to do with you,” the Master stops walking and speaks to me.

’Finally?’ I was getting annoyed with this, I was expecting to be training, not walking in circles.

Suddenly, the island seems to tremble as the speed at which it moves increases dramatically, but then it stops.

“It’s not appropriate to train you here at the Ayestra Library, so your first training will be in another place.”

’So that’s the name of the library, it seems to be an ancient language, I wonder what it means.’

“Come,” he says sternly as he starts walking towards the library door. After a few minutes of walking along the walkway, we reach the edge of the island.

’This place is… the Mana Dead Forest in the south of the continent…we’ve arrived here absurdly fast.’ This island has an incredible ability to move to have reached the southern side of the continent so quickly.

“Master, what are we going to do here?” I look at him and ask.

“You’ve become too accustomed to comfort, you need to connect more with what you truly are, so you must survive here for…15 days…not, 20 days.”

“And if I die?” I ask, knowing how difficult it is to survive in this place, based on what I’ve read in the books. In my case, I only researched a little, and it said there were a lot of monsters, so I lost interest since it’s just a monster area.

“If you die, it’s because you were a useless one who never should have received the position of Demon King. Now go,” he says as he kicks me off the edge while watching me fall. The height at which the island is located is above the clouds, an extremely high fall just to drop.

I try to make wings to try to descend gently, but my wings are soon destroyed. I observe and see him aiming a magic circle at me, and when I try to make the wings again, he destroys them.

’How do I survive this fall?’ I try to stay calm and think. Flying won’t work, and strengthening myself with mana would be a cost I can’t afford, considering I need to survive in this place for 20 days.

’I won’t die because of this…’ I wait until the distance is drastically reduced, with only about 100 meters left to the ground.

“[Black Sphere] [Neutral Barrier] [Divide]” I use these three spells along with the [Time Path] ability, slowing down the time around me while protecting myself from the impact with the black sphere.

The neutral barrier absorbs the rest of the impact, and the divide was used to use the wind to further reduce the speed and force of the impact on the ground.

It worked, although the sound it made was thunderous, as I essentially plummeted from the sky like a meteor crashing into the ground.

I didn’t convert mana into any element because it would have been too costly, and I was running out of time to think. I’m glad it worked, and I came out unharmed, though a bit dizzy. As soon as the barrier dissipates, I start running, as the loud noise has undoubtedly drawn the attention of dangerous things.

And I don’t want to be here when they come to see what caused the sound.

’It shouldn’t really be that difficult to survive here…it’s humans who said it was difficult…although it’s not good to underestimate…I think I need a shelter first.’ The place where I am now is a forest with very large trees.

But the trees don’t have leaves, and the ground has no grass, just dirt and stones. I start looking for a cave, which is probably the best shelter I can have for now.

The place is strangely silent. Even with my enhanced hearing, I can’t hear anything.

I walk through this silent forest where there is no sign of life.

“Urg? I-It hurts?” I feel a strange pain. I soon look at my hands and see black marks tracing my veins. I tear my clothes to get a better look, feeling intense pain throughout my body.

I see several of these black marks all over my body, while I have difficulty breathing. These marks are exactly where my veins are, and they are gradually growing.

’W-Was I poisoned? How? Where? There’s no way this is poison, I should be able to withstand almost any kind of poison.’ I fall to the ground in agony, my body contorting.

I try to think of what this is. I only know that it hurts a lot, and these black marks are perfectly overlapping my veins.

“M-Mana?” The only thing I can think of is a failure in the mana path itself, as the mana path runs extremely close to the body’s veins.

I try to look at my mana with the utmost clarity, and what I see slightly scares me. My entire mana is a mess and is extremely unstable.

It’s as if something is corroding my mana and my body at the same time. I try to hold back the moans of pain while doing my best to try to fix my mana in the best way I can.

But it’s very difficult. When I try to stabilize it, the pain only gets worse, and the black marks on my body become even more prominent.

My mana is normally smooth and calm, but now it’s chaotic and is hurting my body, as if my mana is tearing my body apart from the inside.

The black marks soon reach my heart. I hold my chest and squeeze it while feeling an unbearable pain, but I still try to stabilize my mana. If this continues, I’ll die.

“AAAARRRGGG” I stick my hand in my chest, rip out my heart, and throw it away. I then stick my hand in the hole where my heart was and try to use my mana. I did this to bring my mana closer to the center.

There are 3 points in the mana paths where mana accumulates more easily: the brain, the heart, and the uterine region. With my hand inside my body where the heart used to be, I try to stabilize the mana. The pain is unbearable.

I feel like I’m going to pass out from the sheer pain, which is not normal at all because I have a passive that drastically reduces any physical or mental pain I feel.

I breathe with difficulty while doing everything I can to control my messed-up mana. Slowly, I’m able to stabilize it at least a little, which reduces the pain.

But I can’t take my hand out. If I do, it will all start again. My mana is still not fully stable; I just prevented it from collapsing. It’s like trying to glue a shattered glass cup with glue.

I crawl with my hand still inside my body and lean back against a tree, breathing with a bit of relief. My body can live without a heart, so it’s not a very serious problem, it just harms me a bit.

’W-Why did this happen? Why did my mana suddenly become like this?’ I’ve never had any difficulty controlling mana. I don’t understand why it became like this. Moreover, even if the mana went out of control, it’s not normal for it to do this to the body.

It was destroying me from the inside out.

’Maybe… the Mana Dead Forest…this name is literal…’ I try to see the mana of the environment, and all I see is a chaotic, irrational mess of dark energy. The mana of this entire place is a chaotic and irrational mess.

To the point where it’s unusable. Trying to absorb this mana will only end up destroying your own mana, and it happens that mana absorption is a natural thing for all beings.

Every being absorbs ambient mana, the difference is the rate. As the Demon King, I absorb absurdly fast, but I couldn’t notice what was happening until it got really bad.

“Haha, son of a bitch…couldn’t even warn me.” If my ’Master’ had warned me, this wouldn’t have happened. I almost died. My condition is so bad that if it had taken just a few more seconds, I could have died.

To try to solve the problem, I create a core with mana. Some monsters have cores, so I got the idea. As soon as I create the core, I remove my hand from my chest, which begins to regenerate.

Soon I feel my new heart regenerating. The core is inside the heart and will only last a few minutes, but it’s enough for me to manually stabilize my mana, so I don’t need the temporary core anymore.

I begin the process of stabilizing the mana so I can get out of here as soon as possible.

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