Throughout the night Ben remained motionless on his bed while focusing on his cultivation. He did not stir once until the muffled voices from the people out on the streets drew his attention to the fact that morning had arrived and the people of the small fortress settlement were beginning to wake up.
'I don't need to be back to the store for a few days and it will also take four to five days for the Mythril to restock. The money I have from the store is also beginning to dwindle away so I can't do much building. I could go into the forest to hunt and look for more spirit plants. Athena has also upgraded a few times since I was last out in the forest so my build zone as expanded further. Hmm, that's what I will do then I'm going to head into the forest and extend my road and see if there are stronger profound beasts near the forest center. I can level up a few skills and make some money instead of just sitting around here waiting.'
Ben stood up after deciding what to do and equipped his custom-made Mythril armor and his weapons. He quietly left the fortress waving to those that he passed who were running their early morning errands.
Before continuing he stopped momentarily outside the Gatehouse to examine the work which had been completed. The small gap between the road and the gatehouse was now cut out down to the valley floor and he could now complete the moat.
The entire plateau was now encircled by a twenty-foot deep moat making it impossible to place ladders against the cliffs to climb up to the walls.
"Alright, off to the forest now." he said to motivate himself while walking down the inclined road.
When Ben reached the lower valley farming area he activated his [Whirlwind Technique] and shot off toward the southern forest. A few minutes later he had reached the small tower he had built on the edge of the old build zone.
He brought up the road tool and marked out a straight concrete road through the forest on the overhead map the menu was displaying. The blue mist began to eat a wide trail through the forest dissolving anything in its way and leaving behind a smooth concrete road in a matter of a few minutes
While walking along the road like last time he continued to build wooden walls on each side of the road to keep the profound beasts from entering the roadway. Every so often he would also add wooden Gatehouses on each side to allow him or his troops access to the forest outside the roadway.
Once he stopped to think about how long this would take him to walk over forty miles building these walls and Gatehouses in sections Ben decided to mark out the entire wall length on each side of the road on the overhead map image and place a wooden gatehouse every mile. When he had drawn out what he wanted the wall to look like he finalized it.
He had got into the habit of building these walls in sections because he never had to build over a mile of them and now had realized it would take him a full day to build the walls in this fashion. By drawing out the entire wall in the same way he did the road the full length of the walls and gatehouses would be built all together only taking at most fifteen minutes.
Ben saw the blue mist stretch out into the distance and clear out an area for the walls that slowly rose up from the ground to begin to take shape.
'I would have wasted a full day on building these damn walls and Gatehouses. Now let's see what type of critters live inside of this never-ending forest.'
Activating Whirlwind Technique again Ben flew down the new concrete road and found the boundary of his build zone after a forty-five-minute run.
He activated [Enhanced Hearing], [Herbalist Aura Vision], [Chameleon], and [Silent Movement]. With his bow in hand, he melted into the forest vegetation now camouflaged and silent all that could give him away was his human scent.
Walking south for just over ten miles Ben found more spirit plants and plenty of strong profound beasts. As expected as he traveled deeper into the forest he came across creatures with higher cultivation.
It seemed the stronger creatures had claimed territory closer to the center of the forest. The weaker creatures were pushed toward to outskirts of the forest and would have to deal with the occasional party of humans who hunted along the perimeter.
These stronger creatures brought more money from the system store, but Ben had to be smart about how he hunted them and tried to not get into close quarter fights. He made good use of his bow and attacked vital areas from long distances while using his [Bowman Sniper] skill. Once the creature was on its last legs he could then move in to finish it with his sword.
[Notice] [Skill: Bowman Sniper has increased! Bowman Sniper Level 6!]
[Notice] [Skill: Sword Mastery has increased! Sword Mastery Level 4!]
[Notice] [Skill: Herbalist Aura Vision has increased! Herbalist Aura Vision Level 9!]
[Notice] [Skill: Enhanced Hearing has increased! Enhanced Hearing Level 20!]
[Notice] [Skill: Chameleon has increased! Chameleon Level 15!]
[Notice] [Skill: Silent Movement has increased! Silent Movement Level 4!]
Near the end of the day, he had leveled up the skills which were mainly activated throughout the hunt. Ben made a good amount of gold off of the profound beasts he killed and even had a few more spirit plants to add to his spirit farm back home. All in all, it was a prosperous hunt and most importantly he remained vigilant and uninjured.
Casting the [Zoom] spell Ben teleported to the Spirit Plant Farm and scanned the newly found plants and herbs into the farm's database. He also opened the warehouse while waiting on the scans and took out a few mana recovery pills which the Pharmacist had been producing from the spirit plants grown here. He swallowed a handful of them and began to make his way toward the upper gatehouse.
He wanted to continue his hunt tomorrow morning so Ben needed to replenish as much mana as he could before then.
He ate a couple large meals at the Restaurant even though he rarely felt hungry anymore the QI and Mana from the food would help him recover what he spent today.
Once again he spent the night cultivating without sleeping and had returned to the forest just as the sun began to cast the first rays of light across the wilderness.
The next day progressed much like his first day of hunting as he gradually made his way further south. Because he was on such high alert to any surrounding dangers Ben saw a strange outcropping through the trees off to his right some distance away from his location.
'Is that a...stone wall?'
Ahead of him through the trees, Ben spotted what appeared to be a stone wall. It was difficult to make out through the trees and bushes so he changed direction and pressed forward to investigate.
He soon stood next to a ruined stone wall that was built sometime in the past. The wall had collapsed in a few areas and there were vines and ivy growing up and over it.
Ben jumped over a collapsed section and found what had once been a small settlement. In the center of this settlement grew an enormous tree that dwarfed the size of the Sequoia Redwood trees.
From outside the wall, it was difficult to tell just how large this tree had been because it was growing up out of a deep crater. The crater had multiple tiers encircling this giant tree resembling steps which descended to its base.
As Ben walked around he found each descending tier had stone structures built on them. It seemed that whoever once lived here had made this incredible tree the focal point of their settlement.
'It is hard to believe people were actually able to live in this hostile forest. This place is obviously man-made or made by 'something' of intelligence. From the design of this settlement and the architecture of the buildings, this must have been a beautiful place back when it was inhabited. What I find strange though is why they would excavate these descending tiers into this crater by hand? Even with modern machinery, it would take some time to "tier" this crater as they have. It seems like a huge undertaking just to be close to this tree.'
The area inside the stone walls had all been dug up forming a large crater and the buildings built around the tree were on tiered steps. There were ten rings that the buildings were on all at a height higher than the next ring.
Ben walked down a large staircase that led from the top tier to the lower area near the base of the tree and found the buildings were larger down there. He went into the largest building and found it was not just one floor they had made a staircase that went underground. The first floor only held weathered and ruined furniture so Ben went over to the staircase.
Activating [Night Sight] and taking out his sword Ben carefully descended the staircase to the lower level. Behind a wooden door, he found a large room that had been undisturbed for decades Ben found wood shelves lining the walls with handcrafted wood boxes covered with thick coats of dust.
Ben walked over to the closest shelf and opened a box and found stacks of animal skin parchment with writing on them. Ben pulled out a page and found he couldn't read it.
'Athena, I thought that I could read and understand any language of this world why can't I understand this writing?'
*Ding!* [This is seems to be an ancient language no longer used. It may have died out with the people who once inhabited this settlement. Please place the parchments in the box on the table near you and allow me to scan them."]
Ben picked up the box and laid out about fifty parchments stored within it across a dusty wooden table and looked at each of them until Athena asked him to move on.
She was soon able to translate them when she had scanned enough of the words from the displayed writings.
*Ding!* [Translation complete. Do you wish to learn how to read this language? It may prove useful from what I have scanned these people seemed to be nature based magic users.]
'Yes, give me the ability to read it.'
Ben felt a slight pressure in the front of his skull and the words which looked like gibberish now appeared to him as written in English.
'Wow, now this is cool. Instantly learning a language within seconds. People would pay a fortune for that back on Earth.'
Ben took out his chair and began to read through the papers and began to discover these people were attuned with nature. They even wrote about the gigantic tree that they built their settlement around. They thought the tree had special powers and was what gave this section of the forest its vitality.
From what he read the forest wasn't as hostile back then as it is today. At some point in time, Mana and Qi were introduced to this world somehow. Once the Mana at Qi were present it began to alter every living thing.
Plants, animals, and even humans began to change over time. Even without knowing how to cultivate these people found their bodies were growing stronger and they were living longer. It seemed like a blessing until it was discovered not only were they becoming stronger but so were the forest animals.
Somehow the creatures were able to instinctually cultivate the newly discovered QI while they slept. It was not long before they changed from the docile man fearing animals they once were into hostile profound beasts that would attack on sight.
These forest dwelling people were forced to constantly move due to the increasing creature attacks until they discovered this tree that they built around. For reasons they were uncertain of the profound beasts would not approach the area around this tree.
When these people had found this huge tree they discovered there was a border around it that kept these profound beasts from approaching. They at first made crude shelters around the tree and began to live once again without being attacked unless they left the tree's protection zone. Over the years of living near the tree, they were able to farm and send out hunting parties for resources they needed and soon were able to build a new home.
Those years of constantly being enveloped by the tree's aura provided more than security. From what they could tell this tree had allowed them to recognize the Mana surrounding them and it wasn't long before they learned how to manipulate it.
A century of living huddled around the tree allowed them to begin to develop spells to harness the surrounding nature and use it to create or destroy when needed.
As their power grew they were able to leave the shadow of the tree and set out to take the fight to the profound beasts who had now claimed the entire forest.
Years of constantly killing the profound beasts allowed them to secure a large section of the forest was clear of threats. People were able to once again leave the tree's protection and walk through the forest without fear of certain death.
It seemed that these people would now begin to live happy lives without the struggles that their father's and grandfather's dealt with in the past.
But as the saying back on Earth went, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop".
Internal power struggles began between the rising factions within the settlement. These struggles slowly built into life and death battles that left a trail of dead in their wake.
The population that had grown during the centuries of safety was whittled down so low there wasn't anything left to fight over. The settlement was thrown into a slow decline. A few factions split off from the community to try and begin settlements that followed their beliefs.
After this, their recorded history was no longer documented as thoroughly as it once had been. Ben could only assume that over time the remaining people died off without leaving enough descendants behind to repopulate the settlement.
The threat of the profound beasts had brought these people together and allowed them to thrive and multiply and once that threat was dealt with they turned against one another by using the magic that this special place had gifted them to destroy everything they had built.
'It's crazy how people can band together to fight against a common danger that threatens their survival and then turn around and kill one another in times of peace.'
Sighing outwardly Ben placed the recording of the settlement's history back into the boxes and placed them into his inventory. Instead of leaving them here to rot away Ben thought he could use his [Printery] workshop to turn these loose records into proper books one day.
Ben brought over more boxes and continued to read and learn more about these forgotten people and was soon distracted by his flashing notification icon.
[Notice] [You have learned a new skill! Photo Reading!]