Unlike any other day, this morning, when there's still no signs of the sun coming up, even when Isaac is still snuggled up in his bed with his blanket on. Lily already walked into the twins' bedroom and woke them up.
"Come on boys, you don't want to be late for your first expedition right?" she said as she nudged them both to wake up.
Surprisingly, the first one to wake up was Aiden, he quickly got up and sat on his bed with a really annoyed look on his face. Isaac woke up a bit later, rubbing his eyes and stretched before he also slowly sat up on his bed.
"Good morning mom!" Isaac said.
"Good morning Isaac, good morning Aiden."
"Morning," Aiden answered while still having an annoyed look on his face, "and mom, can I ask something?"
"What is it Aiden?"
"I know we will be going on an expedition, but why should we do it so early in the morning? Even Isaac still hasn't woken up properly. Since we'll be camping, isn't it the same whether we depart early in the morning or in the afternoon?"
"I don't know if the answer will make sense to you, but if it can help erase your frowning eyes and annoyed look then I will tell you why." Lily then continued, "There is a reason why departing early in the morning is important when going on an expedition, when you're going on an expedition, you will first have to go to the expedition site, then you will have to find a place to set up your camp there, before going into the main reason why you are going on the expedition in the first place."
"When you depart early in the morning, that means it will give you more time to do all the things I mentioned while the sun is still up in the sky. When the night comes, magic beasts will become more active and you may also encounter bandits along the way to the expedition site. In conclusion, you want to depart early because you will get more sun to do all the preparations first and minimize the danger."
"But mom, the expedition site is literally only past our backyard!" Aiden grumbled.
"No buts, in the future you guys may also have to do these kinds of things. So getting used to it early is a good thing to do."
"Alright, mom…" Aiden finally gave up on his argument.
"Since you two are already up and Aiden already lost his annoyed face, go and wash yourselves up first."
"Okay mom," The twins replied as they got up from their beds.
After they finished washing up, Lily called them to go to the dining room. When they arrive, Mark is already there sitting at one of the chairs while waiting for Lily to finish cooking. Mark's face looks really sleepy and tired with both his hands placed on the table supporting his head.
"Good morning dad!"
"Morning dad."
"Morning boys," Mark said while yawning.
"I will go help mom cook." Isaac then went straight to the kitchen to help Lily prepare their breakfast.
"It's rare to see you awake this early dad."
"Come on Aiden, I will surely accompany you guys before you go on your expedition."
"Well, I actually needed some more sleep right now," Aiden said as he also put up his hands on top of the table before slowly putting his head on top of them.
But before Mark and Aiden return to their dream world, Lily and Isaac come back with their breakfast. After smelling the delicious fragrance of bacon egg sandwich, Aiden and Mark lift up their heads and took their plate and utensils before grabbing the sandwich that Lily and Isaac made and started gobbling them down.
After finishing their breakfast, Lily helped them prepare their clothes, equipment, and tools for the expedition. Since the camp will be made using earth magic and they will be cooking with a campfire, they only needed to bring the basic equipment and tools such as sleeping bags, knives, water pouch, a map, and some other stuff.
Mark also gave them the list of magic beasts that he wanted them to hunt and the materials from the beasts that Mark wanted them to collect. The list is are like this,
-1 rank 3 magic lion (Claws)
-2 rank 3 magic gorilla (Furs)
-3 rank 3 magic viper (Fangs)
-1 rank 3 magic turtle (Shell)
"I'm sure you guys will be able to get this mission done easily. Just remember to check their characteristics first in the beast encyclopedia before engaging them in a fight. If you found other mutated magic beasts, please make it your first priority to avoid them, even if they look weak. I won't be there to save you guys if you guys are in danger. So please you two be extra careful and don't underestimate your opponent. Especially you, Isaac." Mark said while yawning from time to time.
"I understand dad, don't worry, I won't make the same mistake twice," Isaac reassured his dad. Mark then nodded in response while he used his hand to cover up his yawn.
After making sure that everything is ready, the family then goes out of the house, and finally, the twins are ready to go on their first expedition into The Forest of Beast.
Before they left, Lily said once again to them, "Remember everything that I said to you guys last night, okay?"
"Okay, mom!" Both of them said before going into a group hug with the four of them. After that, the twins walked away into the forest while waving their hands to Mark and Lily, and before disappearing into the forest, Isaac said
"Just wait for us mom, dad, we'll be back soon enough even before you start to miss us!"
Seeing Isaac and Aiden already walking deep into the outskirts of the forest, Mark's expression suddenly changed. His droopy eyes turned sharp, his sleepy face changed into a serious one.
Mark then looked at Lily and said, "Let's do it." Lily then replied with a nod and then they returned back into the house.
---
Faust and Angra each carry a backpack as big as half of their bodies. Since their luggage is minimized because magic can replace a lot of things. Faust sure if they really went on an expedition like this back on earth, the baggage they will be carrying will be twice as tall as their current bodies.
Faust already called over the zombie crew and Pat Kai to catch up to them by sending his intentions over through the mental connection he has with his undead and his undead is able to feel where Faust's location is so he didn't need to pick his undead army up.
When the undeads arrive, the first thing that Faust does is to give his backpack to Pat Kai and attach it to Pat Kai's body using earth magic to make some type of hitching post.
Although Faust's luggage is not that much, he is sure that in a long period of time, he will get tired faster because of the extra luggage. If Pat Kai had a proper saddle and a soft body, Faust would surely ride on top of Pat Kai's body for the whole journey. But since Pat Kai's body is only made out of bones, he doesn't want to do that.
"Come on Faust, don't be lazy and train your body muscles a bit."
"I don't want to be tired if we have any fight, Gra."
"Tired? How? We had unordinary strength as our hereditary skills you know! Even without my attribute boost from eating all those souls, I can still handle this much weight." Angra said as he pointed at his back where he carried both his new halberd and backpack at the same time."
"And shouldn't you be training your fusion skill? You don't want to accidentally get one-shotted again right?"
"I will, Gra. But can I please start tomorrow? I didn't get any sleep yesterday! And we also woke up so early in the morning. I'm not in the mood to do tiring stuff yet. Besides, The Zombie Crew is already able to deal with rank 1 and rank 2 magic beasts just fine. Let's just take it slowly today to level up the zombie crew while we get into the deeper parts of the forest."
"Aren't most of them already on the second rank and almost reaching the third rank?"
"Well actually, 4 of them are already on their third rank. The ones that are still in the second rank are Robin and Edgar. I told them to go hunting all day long after I woke up from the white lion incident. I wanted them all to be stronger since I realized that even I can get one-shotted if I'm not careful. Then it means it is more dangerous for the zombie crew."
"Edgar is the ex-mage right? How is he doing? Is he able to use magic yet?"
"So far he wasn't able to, but his mana sense skill has leveled up and if my hypothesis is right, he should be able to use magic again when he ranks up to the third rank, so I want to rank him up before we fight the third rank magic beasts."
"Don't worry Faust, we have a lot of time to rank him up and to train yourself in using fusion magic. This is still the first day of our expedition."
"Ugh…"
---
-Husk-
Race: Zombie Thief
Rank:3
Level:2
Skills:
-Unordinary Strength 5-
-Weapon Mastery 5 (Dagger)-
-Silent Steps-
-Create Trap 2-
-Robin-
Race: Advanced Zombie
Rank:2
Level:9
Skills:
-Unordinary Strength 3-
-Weapon Mastery (Dagger) 2-
-Zayn-
Race: Zombie Thief
Rank:3
Level:0
Skills:
-Unordinary Strength 5-
-Weapon Mastery (Dagger) 4-
-Silent Steps-
-Create Trap 1-
-Mark-
Race: Zombie Thief
Rank:3
Level:0
Skills:
-Unordinary Strength 4-
-Weapon Mastery (Dagger) 2-
-Silent Steps-
-Create Trap 1-
-Ben-
Race: Zombie Warrior
Rank:3
Level:1
Skills:
-Unordinary Strength 6-
-Weapon Mastery (Halberd) 3-
-Charged Strike 2-
-Edgar-
Race: Advanced Zombie
Rank:2
Level:9
Skills:
-Unordinary Strength 2-
-Mana Sense 3-