Thud.
A body fell down on the cold ground of the forest.
It bled heavily and soon, a pool of blood appeared beneath it, slowly joining with the rest of the blood that was flowing in the area.
The monster was not the only one that had died, there were about 5 more monsters nearby that had all fallen down dead.
"Good job, your skill with the ability is slowly improving," Lyle said to Adam who nodded gratefully before clenching his fists.
For the whole week, the two did nothing except for fighting monsters and sparring.
They had even started going out to the forest earlier and the guards were able to watch them spar a couple of times.
Seeing Lyle, who was wearing his Khilman disguise, beat up Adam each time made them all grimace as they could almost feel the pain that Adam felt, but after seeing the young man get up time and time again, all of them found respect for him.
The improvement that Adam had when it came to fighting was another thing that made the guards, and even some of the royal soldiers surprised.
With each day, Adam was becoming stronger and better at fighting.
The complete beginner that clearly had no experience when it came to fighting had turned into a solid combatant in just a week. Even the royal soldiers who were able to get into the royal troops had to admit that the kid was talented.
Of course, none had seen Adam or Lyle go all out.
Adam could now do more things with his ability other than simply make blasts from mana.
It was still the strongest attack he had, but there were other ways that he could use the ability now.
One was to focus and limit the blast to his hands. The blast would get weaker that way, but it would blast enemies away, instead, it would add more power to Adam's punches and it would deal internal damage to the enemies as well.
He was also able to infuse his blasts to his kicks as well, which would deal incredible damage if he managed to hit the enemy from above.
His proficiency with melee combat had increased and he no longer did any thoughtless things during a battle.
He lost the nervousness that was present early on and could initiate a life-and-death battle at any time.
Lyle was quite proud of what Adam had turned into after only a week. He had managed to get to level 32, while Lyle currently stood at level 38.
The difference between them had become smaller when it came to raw power, but Lyle was still far more powerful compared to Adam when it came to fighting.
During the week, the two had managed to find about 7 more goblin bases, 3 kobold camps, breeding and nesting areas, and nesting for Omnars, which were grotesque monsters that looked like bits and pieces of other monsters that they killed.
An Omnar at the early stages was a weakling and was easy to kill, most monsters and people of the same level wouldn't have an issue dealing with one, but after an Omnar becomes more powerful and kills enough monsters, it starts changing.
They are able to change their body by consuming the body of their victim.
An Omnar could usually only change one part of its body by using a foreign body and would need to kill and consume more in order to change the other parts. That led to the Omnars all looking very different from one another.
Some had two legs, some had three, four, or more. One could see an Omnar that even had multiple heads as well.
They were dangerous creatures that if left alone, could grow to become incredibly powerful.
The soldiers and the higher-ups of the city were very pleased that Lyle and Adam had taken care of so many bases and nests that belonged to different kinds of monsters inside the forest.
They already knew that Lyle would soon be leaving the city, and as such, the commander, with the permission of the prince, gave them a reward.
The reward was 30 000 gold coins and a full set of armor and battle gloves for Adam who was overjoyed after seeing it.
He was only a student of a Khilman, not a Khilman himself, and could wear anything he wished to wear.
The commander knew that Lyle would probably not take any reward they would give him, so they decided to give it to Adam.
As expected, Adam gladly took the items, as Lyle had told him previously to do so.
He now had good armor and a fine weapon that were all Tier I and would serve him well before reaching the realm of a Silver Knight.
Lyle still wasn't satisfied by how powerful he had gotten, but he had managed to get a capable servant, so that would be enough for now.
One other thing that happened was that he now had another spot open for a servant.
After reaching level 20, there was yet again a class change.
Of course, since both Lyle and Adam had their respective classes, that didn't influence them, but it did however strengthen Lyle's class and bloodline and allowed him to have 2 servants now.
He wouldn't be taking an additional servant right now as he didn't need one. There would also be a need for him to train the new servant and get him equipment, and right now, Lyle simply wished to focus on bringing his strength up.
He would have enough time to get servants later after all.
The duo left their suite and went out, trying to locate a caravan that would take them to Orsvald, but they, unfortunately, had no luck with that.
Instead, Lyle found a caravan that would stop at Linston, a medium-sized city of the empire that was along the way to Orsvald.
Upon reaching the city, Lyle and Adam could find a caravan that was going to Orsvald as the two cities were relatively close and had many trade deals Linston was an important city thanks to the high number of dungeons around it.
Oh yes, dungeons were one of the most integral places for the adventurers guild and well, for everybody that wanted to become more powerful.
Dungeons were created by powerful mana veins that lay deep underground.
The mana veins would enrich the area and soon, monsters would either begin living nearby, or they would suddenly appear thanks to the mana vein before creating enormous tunnels and structures that lay underground.
Those would be the normal dungeons where adventurers and knights would go to.
The monsters that could be found inside a dungeon were almost endless as no matter how many were killed, more would appear soon.
Nobody knew exactly how dungeons had formed in the world.
Some speculated that the powerful mana of the mana veins was what created the monsters as a defensive mechanism, others believed that the mana would create some kind of portal that would continuously spawn monsters at the location.
Even after conquering some dungeons, nobody had managed to obtain anything from the mana veins.
Empires would sometimes conquer a dungeon and use the incredible power of the mana veins to build incredible defensive arrays or structures that would be used to defend the empire, but that was only present at powerful empires, the Golden Lion Empire for example had no such thing in its territory.
One thing it did have, was a mana vein that could be found below the capital city.
Most kingdoms and empires would choose to build their capital on top of a mana vein.
Even without doing anything, they would obtain large benefits from the mana vein.
Monsters that lived in dungeons almost never went out and would stay inside for most, if not their whole lifetime.
More powerful empires would make arrays that covered the whole capital, and some would fuse the mana vein with the palace…
The Golden Lion Empire used a more primitive method. They created a tunnel to the mana vein.
The tunnel was located inside the royal palace and it allowed for the mana that was overflowing from the mana vein to get out and enrich the whole capital with mana.
Training and gathering mana in order to strengthen oneself inside the capital was more effective compared to most places in the world while training right beside the tunnel would bring incredible benefits.
There also existed more powerful dungeons in the world.
There were dungeons that were split off from the world and upon entering them, one would find themselves in a completely different area that was cut off from the rest of the world completely.
Those dungeons were classified as dungeons of the second order and only silver knights and above could enter them, for anyone else, it would be the same as a death sentence.
Such dungeons existed in a spatial plane that was somewhat independent of the world and only a handful of powers in the world could use them to gain benefits.
There were even more powerful and dangerous dungeons, but Lyle knew very little about them since they didn't exist in the empire.