While Damon and Emilia headed towards the poacher’s camping ground, Damon checked his status screen.

Damon Asmodeus LVL. 6 (135/1480)

• All humanoid language acquisitions
• Arithmetic’s Lvl.6/7
• Black magic Lvl.2/10
• Dark magic Lvl.2/10
• Dark spirit communication Lvl.2/10
• Detect diseases and viruses through smell Lvl.3/5
• Earth magic Lvl.2/5
• Improved memory Lvl.2/5
• Medium disease tolerance
• Night vision
• Telepathy Lvl.3/10

After eighteen months in this world Damon reached the sixth level, surely a few months after Pythias, who didn’t have to contend with necromancy, and alchemy.

All that aside Damon determined that dissecting corpses, before and after battles helped increase his intelligence, however, if he wanted to gain more than that, he’d have to set up traps. Perhaps the poachers would be good practice and experience points.

Three days later Damon found carriage tracks. The pair followed it for a day.

“I see a fire in the distance,” said Damon. Since Emilia couldn’t see well in the dark, he took the lead at night. “There’s a small hill to the right. It’s dense with bushes, so it should serve as a good hidden spot.”

Emilia accepted Damon’s suggestion and followed him. Since the clouds were thick and the moonlight couldn’t pass through the dense grey leaves Damon felt that he could probably assassinate a few of them without being noticed.

“These aren’t beasts,” said Emilia, “you don’t know that there isn’t another dark elf or a magician with some means to notice you. Do you remember what I said, mage vs. mage combat isn’t something you can plunge into without experience or information? Do you have any enchanted equipment to protect you?”

Damon nodded, he understood that he’d become too conceited, beasts would never compare to cerenoids. He’d never even seen two people fight, much less two mages.

“Conceal yourself the best you can and come back when you’ve counted the number of poachers and identified their cargo.”

Damon activated his three concealment spells at the intensity of twenty mana points per five minutes.

“Unfortunately, the return on mana expenditure isn’t linear,” said Emilia a while back. “However, increasing the mana expenditure fourfold would still increase his spells effectiveness by two. Any more than that would be a waste.”

Damon went with Emilia’s recommendation.

His agility now at around twenty-six instead of twenty-two made him looser and nimbler; however, he still couldn’t jump from branch to branch. As such he navigated as quietly as possible through the densest parts of the forest towards the poacher’s campsite.

There he saw five men who slept next to two wagons. Two others stood at attention next to them and he could see five other poachers roaming the surroundings. He walked to an area which faced the back of the wagon and tried to peek inside. He could see metal bars; however, the contents were hidden behind the back board of the carriage. He looked around the area for another five minutes but had to retreat when his mana went down to twenty. He ran back to Emilia.

“There were twelve men, and two wagons. Although I could peek inside, their contents were hidden. I just saw the top of two metal cages.”

Emilia nodded. “Sleep for now, you need to recover your mana and I need to set something up.”

Damon climbed a tree and laid down on a thick branch. However, before going to sleep he decided to observe Emilia’s actions. He followed her with his gaze as she walked to an area a few hundred metres in front of the poachers. She crouched down and started to insert small glass tubes into the ground in a straight line in the direction the poachers seemed to be heading. To cover up the area she spread a few fallen leaves, twigs, and branches over the traps.

“What were those?” asked Damon when she came back.

“Small glass vials, I turned the ground around them into mud so that when the mud is displaced by the weight of those wagons, the glass vials get crushed and release their content.”

“And the liquid?”

“It’s a monster attractor. When the poachers stop to get their wagons unstuck, they’ll be attacked by whatever comes. We can clean up the rest.”

Damon nodded and went to sleep.

The next morning Damon awoke with the sun. The poachers had already started to prepare for departure. Half an hour later they started to move. They were rather well organized, two men stayed in each carriage, one led the way in the front, three followed close behind and two people stayed on the right and left sides of their small caravan. This made twelve, he probably hadn’t missed anyone last night. He wondered if his perception skill would shoot up after this. Unfortunately, he still hadn’t got an opportunity to dissect anything in the rustling leaves forest due to the other troublesome beats which resided there.

When the caravan approached the area Emilia set up last night, the first wagon started to sink into the ground. The poachers took out shovels and wooden planks and got to work. They dug out the surroundings of the wheels and placed wooden planks under them to push them out of the mud. However, soon after they managed to push the carriage a few feet out of the mud howls of wolves and the growl of bears resounded in the area.

Unfortunately, there weren’t any highly dangerous creatures in the area, so they’d need to deal with a few of the poachers personally.

The poachers were quick to act. The eight men outside the carriages made a semi circle around the carriage towards the left side, where most of the beasts were located. The four men inside the carriages came out and took the other side. They probably figured that something didn’t feel right as they seemed to scan the area.

“Don’t approach,” said Emilia. “Their cautious, I can’t let you participate this time, wait here.”

Damon understood that he wasn’t much more than a child with his level, so he decided to be content with watching.

Emilia created a large fog over the entire battlefield. In the confusion Damon heard a man scream, he’d probably been bitten by a wolf. She proceeded to flood the area which made the mud become like quicksand. The men fighting the wolves and the bear started to be overwhelmed, as they sank into the mud which restricted their movement. Three of the four men who stood guard got stuck in the mud as well; however, the fourth one launched himself into the air with an air blast and landed atop the closest carriage.

A wind mage. Thought Damon, he guessed that Emilia's previous attacks were meant to discern their abilities.

The wind mage created large wind pulses in all directions to clear the mist, yet just as the mist seemed to part, it came back. Although Damon couldn’t tell his rank, if he was second ranked mage, and Emilia stood at the sixth. This guy probably occupied the fourth or fifth rank.

The man stopped wasting his mana. In desperation he condensed more air under his hands and feet to launch high in the sky, perhaps in hopes of spotting the enemy. Unfortunately for him, Emilia increased her output of fog. This made anything on the ground invisible to outside viewers.

The wind mage decided to start shooting out wind blades in all directions. They cut down trees and his own men. However, none hit Damon nor Emilia. When he landed on the carriage, a wall of water engulfed him.

Unlike the other beasts, who drowned within seconds as water tried to rush into their orifices. He created an air bubble around his face and tried to air blast himself out of the water pillar, but it was to no avail. Strong water currents pushed him back to the middle of the water formation. After a minute his mana depleted, and the air bubble collapsed. Water rushed into his lungs and drowned him. Perhaps it even blew up the man’s lung. Blood came out of his mouth and dyed the wall of water red. Emilia released her magic.

Damon had stayed far away and had a stupid look on his face. He now understood that he couldn’t act rashly, Emilia was at the sixth rank, this made her just slightly better than an average mage. He could only imagine what a ninth or tenth-ranked mage could do. He wasn’t ready to adventure outside. He wondered how Pythias managed to stay alive for so long. Perhaps he could head to the capital in fifty years, but not now. Now he had to train and get his magic skills level up.

Emilia hadn’t moved far away, Damon thought that maybe she didn’t need to move at all, and only did so to avoid the risk of getting him caught in the crossfire.

“Damon, I’ll let you take care of the beasts.”

Since the fog had cleared up, Damon could see the rest of the battlefield. The people who had been stuck in the mud were no more. A few beasts remained; however, they had lost most of their energy trying to get out of the mud.

On the matter of the mage’s three companions. Two of them had perished under the razor-sharp wind blades launched by the mage, and the last one had given up. His hands were on his head in resignation.

Damon used his earth flattening spell to walk above the mud. He decided to finish off the animals first. When they were in range, he used his earth spike to kill the bear and the last four wolves. At last, there was one human left. He begged in the mud; Damon hesitated.

“The crime for poaching in this kingdom is death, don’t bother, no ones going to label you a criminal,” said Emilia.

Damon thought back to the goblins and trolls, they were all social animals who lived in groups, some were just more advanced, perhaps with time goblins would also make skyscrapers and spaceships, the only difference was time. Weren’t humans once, no different than the goblins and trolls, did they not live in caves and fight with clubs. But perhaps Damon thought of this, not out of humanity but out of the will to create a living dead. Anyhow, he wasn’t even human anymore, he was a dark elf, a different species altogether. And wasn’t the goal of life to spread one’s own species. He shouldn’t see humans as equals anymore; they were an just another race, another species.

He impaled the criminal through the stomach. His guts hung to the top of the spike, and piss mixed with mud.

Then Damon remembered something of great importance.

“Should we wait here to let you recover your mana?” asked Damon.

“Yes, that sounds good. I still have some left but if you can do some studying it’s fine.”

Damon carefully pulled of the body from the spike started to dissect it on flattened ground. He carefully peeled off the skin and compared it with that of goblins and trolls, he looked at the muscle and joint insertions. They were similar but not the same. He noticed that some bones were different, and the organs weren’t positioned the same way. He kept doing this till he got to the bones.

When finished, he went to Emilia who used her water magic to clean his hands. While he studied, she’d already taken the ingredients she required, however, when he went back the other way where he dissected the body, he noticed a few organs missing.

“Did something come here?” asked Damon. He went on guard.

Emilia laughed, “you’ve improved a lot in this past month, I just took some ingredients. You were too concentrated so you must not have realized. You’re very studious, you’ll make a fine black mage.”

Damon thanked her for the compliment, but it still felt slightly off. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. He still hadn’t fully accepted what he did. Perhaps in a year he’d no longer care for anything at all. But right now, he still felt slight remorse. If it weren’t for the fact, they were criminals he wouldn’t have done it, but he knew that Emilia didn’t have such limits. And perhaps, he too shouldn’t have any either.

They left for the Tree.