Having reached the edge of the red hyperion forest, Yune had to strain his neck just to see the top of the gigantean trees. Only now could Yune get a feel for the actual size of it. The tree's bark was reddish-brown and rugged with its leaves being a dark green, emerald color. The trunk of the was well over 10 meters in diameter and Yune could only estimate it to be 150 meters tall.
Putting his hand on the rugged bark, Yune felt insignificant next to the behemoth of a tree. This was really a sight to behold. It was beautiful compared to earth, which had all but been destroyed by the onslaught of monsters.
'If everything in this world looks like this… I can't wait to see it all!'
Yune's inquisitive nature had latched itself on yet another thing, wanting to explore everything this world had to offer. There didn't seem to be anything in the realm of the marked that didn't pique Yune's interest.
A big smile forming on Yune's face, he couldn't withhold his excitement anymore and excitedly activated his mana, running past the first line of trees.
Yune had entered the hyperion forest.
Yune's only purpose for coming here was to find the Blue Leilani flower, a small little flower that now almost seemed impossible to find in this colossal forest. If Yune wanted to find this small flower, he would have to maintain laser focused on his surroundings nonstop.
Luckily, Yune didn't have to worry about missing even a single Blue Leilani flower as his eyes were darting around in overdrive, almost jittering, as every step he took he saw something he had never seen before.
Setting his sights on each and every little detail in the forest, there was no chance Yune would miss anything he came across.
In the moment just seeing these new sights with every step he took seemed worth it even if he didn't find the flower he was looking for. Emptying his mind with any stray thought, Yune just ran through the forest without a care in the world.
He had never felt so free before.
Constantly using his mana to decrease his weight as much as his mana recovery would allow, Yune was dashing through the forest at an incredible pace. His smile was only widening as he set his sight on something new, seemingly every step he took.
There were plants he had never seen before, some even as tall as the hyperion trees, with colors as far as the spectrum could allow it. And there were even heaps of insects and little animals just like there would be on earth, only did these insects and animals looked completely alien. Some cute, some… not so cute.
With Yune having so much fun, he wasn't really keeping track of time, only looking at the sun occasionally to get a general grasp on the passage of time like he normally did while training at the orphanage.
But this had turned out to be the first mistake he would make on this little quest. With this being an entirely different world, the day and night cycle lasted for several days instead of a 24 hour night and day cycle.
But Yune was oblivious to this.
Already having run for more than 12 hours, Yune's perception was that he had run for maybe two hours at most while running at full speed.
Yune had planned to run for three hours in a straight line before turning back so that he could return to the academy on time for dinner.
So, if he didn't find a Blue Leilani flower in, what Yune perceives as another hour, Yune would turn around and head back. But then, after only a few actual minutes, Yune suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Having stumbled upon a lake in an open area of the forest, Yune's eyes immediately caught the sight of a beautiful, crystal looking, blue flower. And not only one, there were over a dozen flowers.
"Blue Leilani flowers!"
'The quest read that the reward was one tiny mana stone… per one flower. Does that mean if I bring all 15 flowers back, I will get 15 tiny mana stones?!'
Yune could hardly believe the rewards he would receive if he were to bring these little flowers back. 15 tiny mana stones would have cost a fortune on earth, but now in front of 15 small flowers, he would simply be rewarded them if he plucked these flowers.
The disbelief in Yune's eyes quickly turned into pure excitement. Running up to the flowers on the edge of the lake, Yune started picking one flower after another, careful not to damage them, though.
Yune was trying to grab them at their base and to quickly snap them off as cleanly as possible. After having picked a few flowers, this became just a mindless task.
Yune was already daydreaming about how much his mana would increase from fifteen whole tiny mana crystals.
But, with his head in the clouds, Yune was just one second too late to realize that something had touched his back. And suddenly, he was completely submerged underwater.
With the cold water immediately snapping him back to reality, Yune instinctually began flailing his arms around in a panic, desperately trying to swim back to the surface.
But no matter how much Yune tried, no matter how much effort he put into flapping his arms and legs, Yune was only going deeper and deeper. The only visual for this being the darkening of the water, becoming more and more devoid of light.
Yune was a good swimmer, so there was no chance he wouldn't be able to swim back up if he had fallen in.
Quickly realizing that he wasn't just going to be able to swim back up, Yune ceased his useless efforts to conserve as much energy as possible. Having regained a cool head in this terrifying situation that seemingly happened out of nowhere, Yune minimized his oxygen use and focused on thinking of a way out of this situation.
Luckily, it didn't take long for Yune to come to a realization. However, this realization made chills run down his spine. Yune remembered that, just before he was suddenly submerged underwater, he had felt something touching his back.
'…I am getting dragged down by something!'
Not giving this another thought, Yune started acting immediately as his oxygen reserves were quickly running dry. The situation was dire.
Without a second of hesitation, Yune reached his hand behind his back, which confirmed his frightening conclusion as he felt dozens of… strings? Plants? Tentacles?.. pulling him down.
Shocked by the reality that a monster was pulling him down, Yune let out a panicked scream, the little oxygen that was left in his body quickly abandoning him.
It wasn't much later that his mind was starting to get dizzy, and he didn't know If his sight was blackening or if he was just so far down that the light couldn't reach him, but whichever one it was, the situation wasn't good.
With whatever energy and consciousness that Yune still had, fear had also left his mind as he desperately started ripping off tentacle after tentacle from his back.
To Yune's surprise, he was actually able to pull the tentacles off! Whatever the monster was, it wasn't too powerful. But the monster didn't have to be powerful as it was cunning, taking the fight to its environment.
Each time Yune managed to pull off a tentacle from his back, a piece of hope came with it. But unbeknownst to Yune, this was just false hope. For every tentacle he pulled of, another one came in place of it.
Thinking that it was working, Yune was determined to keep ripping these tentacles off his back. Even when most of his consciousness had dissipated, Yune was still pulling off the tentacles from his back as it had become ingrained in his very being.
But this also began slowing down quickly.
Soon after, Yune had become completely motionless as he was being pulled down. His mind becoming weirdly tranquil as all thoughts of worry, fear and doubts also left him.
With his mind completely empty, his remaining senses also started to falter one after another until it was only a small piece of his consciousness that remained.
'This is it, huh?'
Yune's whole body had given up, there was not more fight left in him, physically and mentally. He was waiting for certain death.
It was at that moment that one sense didn't betray him, a sense that had not even been with him for 24 hours. And even though his other senses had left him to die, this sense came in the time of need.
His body flaring up with an unmistakable warmth, Yune's faltering consciousness fully awoke for a second, and then, in an instant all the warmth vanished again.
In this one split second of consciousness, Yune had used up every last particle of mana that was inside his body.
Immediately, his body felt lighter, and an unbelievably strong pull upwards started battling against the pull of whatever was dragging him down.
This small feeling of hope reignited Yune's will to survive, his body shooting in action, swatting his arms behind his back, hitting whatever was pulling him down.
What he now hit wasn't anything he felt before. The limp tentacles that Yune had to muster up all his strength to pull one off, were now fully tensioned, and with a small brush of Yune's arm, every single the tentacles was immediately ripped off his back.
In that moment, the downward pull instantly vanished, and Yune was now quickly ascending. But what he saw in next few seconds, his consciousness quickly fading again, didn't give Yune hope. All he could see was pitch black darkness, without any hint light in sight.
But, not willing to give up now that he was so close to surviving, Yune desperately hung onto his fading consciousness and resisted against the growing urge to open his mouth gasping for air. For as the moment he did that, it would be his last.
His conscious on the cusp of completely fading out, still in the darkness of the water, Yune was about to lose his mental battle.
Loosening the muscles that were holding his mouth shot, Yun could no longer resist the need for oxygen, defeatedly opening his mouth to take a deep breath in. But, at that very moment, Yune felt the pressure on his head suddenly fading.
His head had broken through the surface of the water.
Instantly, Yune's mouth greedily opened as he took a deep breath. His lungs filling with oxygen, distributing it to every being of his body, part of his rationality returned because of the oxygen.
Almost primally, one thought popped up in his head:
'Danger?'
Yune quickly opened his eyes to see if he was still in danger. And the first thing Yune saw was… nothing. It was still pitch black.
'Am I dead?'
This stupid thought quickly leaving his mind as more oxygen made its way to his brain, Yune came to the conclusion that he was just somewhere without any light.
That meant that he wasn't at the place he entered the water from. He wasn't at the lake on the surface.
It being pitch black, Yune couldn't see where he needed to go, but the thing he did know was that he needed to get out of the water, and fast. Taking action quicker than he could make a decision, Yune just started swimming forward.
It didn't take long for his flailing arms to hit something hard. He had reached the edge of whatever body of water he was in. Feeling this stonelike texture, Yune couldn't be faster to pull himself up.
Even when Yune had made it out of the water, he kept crawling on his hands and knees just to get away from the water and whatever danger may still be in there, careful not to hit anything in this darkness.
After a minute of crawling Yune had hit a wall with his hand made up off the same stone-like material. This was the first moment since being dragged into the water that his heartbeat started calming down willingly.
Yune finally had the feeling as if he wasn't in imminent danger anymore.
Taking a deep breath in, Yune sighed it all out a second later.
'What just happened…?'
Even thinking about it again made a shudder ran down his spine. He had just encountered a monster and got away with it unscathed - well, not unalive.
But when Yune shifted his thoughts to how he got away, all fear suddenly left his body, only to be left with utter excitement. His inquisitive nature had once again taken over.
'I used up all the mana inside my body all at once! Previously when I tried, I could only use a portion of it at once… but how did I do it?'
Yune didn't know if he could do it again or if this was just a one-off thing in this near-death experience, but what he did know is that this was a very fruitful accidental experiment. When Yune realized that his weight was still decreased, a minute not having passed yet, a lot more question popped up in his head as he felt that his only decreased by around 20%.
'It should have been way higher with the amount of mana I used, though…'
This question repeated in Yune's had a few more times, and he quickly came to a conclusion.
'Is the mana requirement exponential?'
Yune couldn't wait to find out more about this, and hopefully confirm this thought. But his mind quickly wandered as he got excited about another discovery.
'When I used my power underwater to decrease my weight, I got pulled up. That means my density became lower than the density of the water!'
Using his powers, Yune's body had instantly become lighter, better said Yune had decreased the effect that gravity had on his body. So, while his mass remained the same, his weight decreased, becoming lighter than the density of the water. So, Yune had become buoyant.
'That. Is. So. COOL! I hadn't thought about that at all, but that can be useful in so many ways!'
Being excited about this, theorizing many more ways that he could use his powers that he previously didn't even think of, a few minutes quickly passed.
At this point Yune's heartrate had returned to normal and his body felt energized again. Yune's eyes had also become accustomed to the dark, now being able to slightly see in front of him.
With his limited sight, Yune could finally confirm where he was, which was not really the best situation.
Yune had made his way into a cave system.
In this situation, Yune was weirdly excited. Of course, he knew that it might be dangerous here, but this feeling was trumped by other thoughts Yune had, fueled by curiosity.
'Will a cave in this world be different than on earth?'
'Has anyone even discovered this cave yet? Am I the first to have discovered this cave?'
'Okay, then there is no helping it… I will explore it!'