The carriage was shaking intensively as it rolled over the badly paved road through the forest. Rild was very happy about the fact that he had no motion sickness or else this ride would have been a nightmare for him.
After he sneaked away from the old mages, he bought himself a place in a caravan, which was about to leave the town to the west. Although the caravan did not go all the way to the Kingdom of Sulios, it went to the neighboring city-state.
The caravan master has most likely overcharged him completely but Rild did not care about it when he bought his seat. The way from the compound was quite far away from the city and had drained all his strength. He just wanted to sit somewhere down. Shortly after Rild was inside the carriage the caravan set off.
Although it was already night, the inside of the carriage was dimly lit by a crystal in Rild's hand. Before he left the old mages he “borrowed” quite a few things from them. A refined magic crystal was one of them. The one in his hand was silvery white. Rild was trying to control the magic inside the crystal in order to be able to use it when he gets a staff. Unfortunately for him, he could not grasp the energy in the crystal at all.
“Damn. Why is it so difficult? I never had any problems controlling the crystal on top of Atsurio” Rild was cursing as he remembered the staff of the worldmages. Rild knew, that the crystal upon Atsurio, which he controlled, was something special, but he couldn't believe he was unable to tap into the power of the crystal in his hand. What he didn't realize was just how far apart the crystal in his hand and the crystal on top of Atsurio were. Not even the worldmages knew what the crystal was exactly or why it was so easy to control it. Unfortunately, Rild did not even think, that just because he could control Atsurio's crystal it didn't mean he could control any other crystal just like that. Rild thought that the other mages described the control of the crystals as difficult because they were not as talented as he was and not because it really was difficult, so he vehemently tried to manipulate the magic energy inside the crystal.
After a few hours, Rild gave up dejectedly. He started cramming inside the backpack he took from the mages until he found the bottle of “Soul Ripper” he purchased when he went with Neln, Solana, and Fors into the town of Wolfwood. The bottle was only half full. Rild sighed as he stared at the clear liquid inside the bottle.
“A shame I had to waste half of the bottle in order to avoid the detection spells of the mansion in order to sneak out.”
Rild opened the bottle and started drinking the liquid. No normal mage would do something like this since it would force out the elemental essence from a soul but Rild had no elemental essence in his soul right now so it did not matter to him. The young mage was drinking it because of a different reason. The so-called “Soul Ripper” was actually no poison at all. Actually, it was quite the opposite. It was just because no mage experimented with it nobody knew what it really did. Of course, there were a few people who knew exactly what it did. The worldmages were part of these people. In fact, the worldmages had a completely different name for this liquid. They called it “Soul Nectar”. What the liquid actually did was to return the soul to its most natural state, which is one without any magic essence in it. The liquid is used quite heavily by worldmages at the beginning of their training in order to heal their souls when they are split since it also jad healing properties. They also later used it once they had opened the sixth gate of magic in order to progress faster.
After Rild drank about half of the liquid he closed his eyes and entered his soul hall in order to recover his soul a bit faster. A day passed.

“How big is this forest?” Rild asked the coach driver as leaned out of the window. They had been already traveling for one and a half days and the forest made no signs of stopping.
The coachmen laughed as he answered as he looked at the setting sun.
“Young man, didn't you travel into it?”
“You could say I was unconscious when I traveled into it”
Rild did not say he was being resurrected in a crazy ritual by the most powerful mages of the world since he knew nobody would believe it.
“Ah... Well it's two more days then we are out of the forest.” replied the coachmen.
Rild was lamenting his fate of not being able to just teleport wherever he wanted to as he was watching out of the window. He could not gather any magic essence since it would interfere with the soul nectar, so he had a lot of free time at his hands. He started to review his plans. First, he had to get to the Kingdom of Sulios in order to get to his teachers grave. Rild was planning on using his teacher's body in order to improve his current one. As the world mage needed to master all elements, Rild was in a bit of a predicament, since with his current body he couldn't reach the fifth gate with at least one element.
“If I only had one bone from my old body... Just one bone... I could reconstruct this body into my old one.” lamented the young mage.
After that, he would need to gather enough essence to open at least a few gates of magic in order to survive the Silent Mountains.
The Silent Mountains were an extremely large mountain range which was stretching from the southwest of the continent to the middle. The Silent Mountains were largely unexplored. This was not because there was no interest in the mountain range. It was quite the opposite since there were very rich supplies of magic crystals and other precious minerals inside, but because the Silent Mountains had very peculiar phenomena. It was impossible to use any kind of magic inside. No matter if one chanted or drew magic circles nothing would come out. This in itself was no reason to abandon the exploration of the mountain range and all possible profits from the resources inside since on could just send normal people to mine the precious minerals and create golems to mine the magic crystals. Unfortunately, the mountain range had two major problems aside from the inability to cast magic inside. The first one was the beasts that started to mutate due to being exposed to the uncountable magic crystal veins. One has to know that mutated beasts are extremely aggressive and hostile to anything and anyone that comes near them. Even if one sent a knight platoon inside in order to combat the beasts and protect the workers they would get obliterated by a 3-meter tall goat, which will be jumping around the rough terrain like it didn't exist at all while the knights would be struggling with every step.
The second is the extremely bad weather inside the mountain range. It was always either raining or snowing. An expedition would need to dress very warmly in order to survive, but thick clothing is not good for mobility which is needed in order to survive the previosly mentioned beast.
The big mountain range also served as a natural barrier between the church in the south and the mage families in the west. It was the main reason, why they never fought a real war against each other since they would need to move their men and resources around the range in order to invade the enemy. Since the mage families and the church were nearly equal in power it would just be a colossal waste on money to do so, since one would not be able to overpower the other on their home turf.
So why was it needed that Rild went directly into this mountain range? Simply because right in the middle was the so-called Mountain of Oaths. On this mountain, the very first worldmage swore to serve the goddess and protect the world. Only around this one mountain was magic usable, but it was also the most dangerous part of the mountains.
Rild did not care much for the oath since it was only a formality for him, but he cared greatly for what was inside the mountain. Since this is where their order started, their first castle was also built there. The castle which protected the scar was build later.
Since most of the worldmages resided inside the castle which protected the scar, the first castle just became a storage room for the experiments of the worldmages. This was also the place, where Rild teleported everything valuable.
As of right now, Rild has cursed himself multiple times for teleporting everything in such an inaccessible place, but in the end, he did not overly regret it. If he left everything in the castle of the scar, then half of it would have fallen into the hands of the church and then it would be completely inaccessible. Rild did not even for a moment think, that the church would let go of any artifact in order to save the world since this would mean, that they would give a powerful artifact to someone who wasn't them which in turn meant a loss of power for their side. In Rild's eyes, the church would rather see the world die than not being controlled by them.
Besides the heaps of artifacts inside, there was also something Rild needed desperately. The essence the old mages used in order to resurrect him was six-element essence, which is why his current body had no affinity towards space and void. In order to reconstruct his body as perfectly a possible, he needed eight-element essence which is probably only found inside that castle.
Rild sighed over this hurdle. Even if he used his teacher's body to rebuild his own, he still had only access to six-element essence, so space and void would still be unusable. It would still be better since he could then open the available element up to the fifth
Thinking about this he closed his eyes in order to get some sleep.

Rild did not know how long he has slept when he was woken up by an extremely loud howling. Rild's eyes snapped open as he carefully looked out the window. Although the caravan was well protected by mercenaries, Rild was no the person to trust in another person's capabilities. For some unexplainable reason, he had a very bad feeling. Although he did not believe, that a pack of wolves would attack such a big caravan he still grabbed the dagger inside his Robe, not that it would be of any use in his hands.
Contrary to his believes the uneasiness around his hearth did not ease up but became stronger. Once again Rild cursed his helplessness. If he were his old self he would not fear some wolves. Even if the entire forest would be consisting of no other animal than wolves he would be easily able to slaughter himself a path through, but right now he had collected only a few meager drops of magic which were not even refined into a specific essence. He could only use some fundamental non-elemental spells, but none of them had any attack power or range.
Just when Rild was thinking he heard the screams of the rest of the caravan. When he looked out of the window his jaw dropped. Right to the left of the caravan was an army of wolves. A literal army. The wolves stood in rows and columns in two blocks. Between these two blocks was a gigantic ash-grey wolf with shining blue eyes. It towered completely over the other wolves and was even bigger than some of the smaller and younger trees. Rild estimated the height of the beast to around 3 meters. For one moment Rild could only look at the scene flabbergasted. He and the big wolf locked eyes and Rild could clearly see the intelligence inside the beast before the wolf looked on.
The next moment he immediately took the rest of the Soul Nectar and poured it over himself. He did the same when he escaped from the compound. The Soul Nectar would merge his presence with nature itself like this. It was useful in order to fool detection spells, but Rild had no idea if it would be enough to hide him from the wolves, especially from the big one. Nevertheless, he did it, since at the moment it was his best bet on surviving. Rild did not believe for a second, that the mercenaries would be able to fend off whatever the hell that weird wolf army was.
Rild took his backpack and immediately opened the door on the right and sprinted like a madman away in the hope the carriage he was in would provide visual cover. He could hear the sound of battle behind him and the dying screams of both wolf and man, but he just sprinted forward with everything he got. Unfortunately, his body was still pretty weak so his sides began to burn pretty fast, but he nevertheless just continued to run through the pain. After a few more minutes he felt, that his strength was leaving him. Rild stopped running for a moment. He had not heard anything chasing him so he was pretty confident he was safe for a while.
“Damned! The caravan is gone. How will I now get out of this forest?” Rild cursed under his breath. He wanted to look behind him. He knew he wouldn't see it since he ran pretty far, but he wanted to check if some wolves were on his tracks.
When he turned around he froze in shock. Not even 5 meters away from him five wolves were sitting in a row. The giant wolf in the middle and two smaller ones at either side. Rild just stood there with open mouth without moving. Then he finally looked into the eyes of the big wolf. Rild instantly understood that the wolf was grinning in his mind.
“Great now I'm being ridiculed by an animal. Oh, how low have I fallen.”
Rild gnashed his teeth as he looked in fury towards the wolf. Rild was not afraid of death. He had no doubt that even if he died, the goddess would just somehow find another way to send him back. That what made him furios was the wasted time. He had trained his body and collected a few drops of magic all for nothing. The time he spent in this second life will be completely wasted and time was his most scarce commodity.
Rild screamed and charged at the big wolf. He wanted to get it over as quick as possible. Rild took out his dagger mid-run and sliced the front leg of the sitting giant wolf. The wolves just silently watched at Rild without doing much.
Rild's dagger finally reached its target but contrary to Rild's expectations it did not wound the leg of the big wolf. Rild who only had experience with magic and no with weapons whatsoever looked perplexed at the dagger in his hand. The wolf on the other side looked down at the human at his feet and growled shortly. Rild immediately woke up from his stupor and looked up expecting to die now. He looked the into the blue eyes of the wolf and closed his own.
One of the wolves started moving when their leader growled he jumped to Rild and... body tackled him. The young mage let out a pained cry as she was tossed to the ground.
“What the hell!?!” he cursed in his mind,”what's wrong with these assholes?”
Just as he wanted to get up he saw another wolf positioning himself to jump at him. Rild instinctively rolled away. The wolf missed him and when Rild was about to celebrate he felt something slam him from behind. The young mage was bombarded from the tackle onslaught of the wolves and after some time he felt pain all over his body. The wolves inflicted a lot of hurt and bruises, without doing a lot of damage since they didn't use their teeth. One time Rild tried to retaliate, but he noticed that the dagger was flung out of his hand and was nowhere in sight.
When the wolves stopped their attacks Rild could finally look up to the big wolf who has not participated in all of this. The wolf seemed to be waiting for something. Rild did not know what it was and he didn't really care, he got up and started running away. Trough his running he wanted to provoke the wolves into finally killing him in order to escape this senseless torture. The wolves just silently followed him without attacking him further. Rild could run only for a few meters before his bruised body started to give in.
Heavy breathing and slowing down, but not stopping Rild started going through his backpack until he finally found what he was looking for. It was one of the two healing potions he took with him. The other shattered through the tackles. Rild did not know how this one survived, but he was thankful nevertheless. Although Rild was prepared to die and already wished for it, he wanted to ease the pain even for a little. He hastily drank the potion and stopped running for a few seconds. As he closed his eyes he felt his body getting lighter and the pain wash away slowly. The wolves just watched this all happening without interfering.
Before the potion could unfold its full effect, Rild heard the leader of the wolves growl once again. The young mage's face paled, as he remembered what happened last time the big asshole growled. He immediately started running without even looking at the wolves who immediately started following him. Rild was forced to run like this for about an hour. Once again his body ached because of the exercise. One time Rild tried to turn sharp left in order to provoke the wolves through a sudden action into ending him and although he did provoke them, it was only into tackling him back onto his previous path. Up until now, Rild thought, that sadism was something only humans possessed but he was no longer so sure of it. What Rild could not understand was what the plan of the wolves was. By now he has realized, they were leading him somewhere, but he did not know where or why. He still couldn't believe this was happening at all, but the pain body tackles from his tormentors proved this all was real.
“Are they specifically targeting me? Or was I just unlucky enough to run in their intended path?” the young mage was racking his brain over these questions. If someone was specifically targeting him, then who? Who besides the old mages knew he was alive again? And who could control the wolves? Especially the big ash-gray one. Rild was sure this wolf was not something normal. He even had the suspicion the wolf is not a mutation through magic crystals but something else. Since there was nobody who could answer his questions Rild had no other options but to run forward or getting body tackled by the wolves.
By now he was dead tired, but he could no rest since stopping would just earn him a body slam.
As Rild ran he noticed a gigantic stone wall in front of him.
“Most likely our destination”
The wall was made out of some sort of brown stone. It was clear from the first look that the stone wall was ancient, but for some reason, there was no vegetation upon it despite it standing in a forest.
When the group finally reached the wall, Rild noticed a crack inside it. The crack was barely enough to fit a human through. The wolves positioned themselves between the crack and Rild.
“You want me to go through? I don't even know what exactly is on the other side. Who the hell are you even? For what purp... ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT I'm going.”
The young mage started panicking when he saw one of the wolves preparing himself to tackle him once again.
Rild started to squeeze himself through the crack but was unable to do so due to the backpack. Not wanting to be tortured by the wolves again, he left it behind. As the wall was surprisingly thick it took some time. Before he reached the other side. Before he had the chance to look around he fell to the ground. Everything hurt and he was dead tired. Before he could do anything else he fell into sleep.

Rild did not know how long he was asleep but when he woke up the sun had already risen. He forced his aching body in a sitting position with his back pressed to the wall, he came through and took a look around. In front of him was a plaza. For some reason, it was not very overgrown. The grass was not that tall and Rild could see some stone slabs through the green. The entire plaza was surrounded by the wall and Rild could see a collapsed gateway on the left side of the place.
“Hmm... I don't think I recognize the building style, but it looks like that collapsed gate is the entrance. But to what?” Rild looked to the right end of the plaza and his jaw dropped.
On the right side, there was a gigantic construction. Rild did not know how he had not noticed it right away when he looked around. Since Rild did not know the construction style he could not recognize, what purpose the building served. It was also very difficult to find out the purpose of the building since it had largely been destroyed. A tree of truly titanic proportions skewered the building. It looked like it was rammed by some unknown force right into the building. Rild could see from that distance that the tree was dead.
“Most likely this is my destination. I don't think the wolves will let me leave before I find or do, whatever they want me to do.”
Forcing his aching body up Rild made his way to the destroyed building. There were no doors into the big portal facing the plaza. Rild suspected they just turned to dust.
“Looks like only this strange stone is everlasting. Hmmm... The size of the door and the wide open place inside might suggest, that this was once a temple.” analyzed Rild as he walked inside.
The entire floor was littered with the rubble of the destroyed roof and then the big tree was stabbed diagonally through the middle of the building so Rild could not see the other side. Slowly but surely Rild made his way through the rubble and past the tree. This took longer than he anticipated since he was too weak to just climb over some parts of the rubble and had to walk around. Finally, he made it to the other side. What greeted him there made him sure of his conjecture, that this building was a temple. Right in front of him was an altar. It was unlike any altar Rild ever saw. An altar for the goddess was made out of white materials and had a rhombus form. The one before him was perfectly round and made half of black and half of white stone.
“And that is most likely my goal here!” Rild looked upon what lied on top of the altar. It was a completely rusted sword. One could only recognize this as a sword, because of its shape. Everything else from the handle to the pommel to the point was rusted.
Rild took the clump of rust into his hands and tried touching what should be the edge.
“This thing is beyond any saving measures. Even if it was some sort of artifact it is useless now. Although I'm no weapon expert I think this thing is completely unsalvageable. But I don't think the damned wolves will let me leave without this thing.” grumbled Rild.
After taking the sword into his hands he once again looked at the altar. His curiosity about the strange place had been piqued. He could see the carvings of some figures upon the altar. One on the white side and one on the black side. Unfortunately, the time has taken its toll on the altar and the carvings nearly disappeared. Sighing Rild started to make his way back before he noticed something peculiar. It seemed, like the big tree skewering the temple was not entirely dead. Rild could see a branch with a few leaves on them. What's more, the branch was the perfect size for a staff. Rild made his way over and after some effort, he could break off the nearly perfectly straight branch off.
“This should do for the moment. Later I can order a master to process it or just buy a new one. But for the moment this is my staff!”
With his two new acquisitions, Rild went back to the crack after looking around some more.
He was hoping for an alternate way to exit in order to avoid the wolves but was sorely disappointed. There were a few places of the wall destroyed enough so a normal person could climb over, but Rild was just too weak.
“Do I really want to go back? Not that I have a choice. My entire food is in the backpack.”
Sighing Rild started squeezing himself through the wall until he reached the other side. The only thing that greeted him was his backpack. The wolves were gone. As one can understand Rild was not overly sad over this development. He took out a compass out of his backpack and headed once again west. He did not even hope to find the road again which the caravan was taking.
He did not notice that from atop the wall he left behind, the big gray wolf was looking at him as he walked further and further away. Or better to say the wolf looked at the staff in the young mage's hands. His eyes did only leave the staff after Rild disappeared from his sight. The big wolf stood up and soundlessly headed north.