James slowly came out of the tower and was heading towards the training grounds through a creepy hall when suddenly he noticed foot steps coming and he quickly hide himself behind a pillar.
He peeked from it and saw Mr. Stern patrolling the hallway. James thought, "What do I do now? I need to go to the training grounds, but if I get caught by Mr. Stern than things will not turn out good".
James suddenly remembered something and thought, "Well, I do need to test it and a field test would be better than a practise test". Then he took a deep breath and casted, "Dark Arts, Movement technique, Shadow Leap". Suddenly a black magic circle appeared under his feet and his body started to submerge in the circle. He imagined the area near the forest and he emerged from the shadow of a tree far
away from the forest. James said, "Wow! I actually did it. It was a weird feeling for the first time, but it was fun". James decided not to teleport directly to the training grounds as who knows someone might be there training in the middle of the night. He slowly started moving towards the training grounds when suddenly he saw a silhouette of a person far
away entering the forest. James decided to ignore it, as it might be just his imagination. Then he entered the training grounds and just as he suspected, there was Adam practicing with his scythe.
James slowly approached him from behind and suddenly Adam swung his scythe in James's direction.
James was also not a fool; he already unsheathed his sword and blocked Adam's
attack. Adam than apologized and they then have a friendly chat. James said, "Adam, what is inside that forest near the academy?". Adam replied, "The forest is full of magical beasts and spellbooks".
James inquired about the spellbooks and Adam replied, "A spellbook is actually
naturally generated where there is huge amount of mana, and where is huge amount of mana, magical beasts also lurk in those areas". They were chatting when they noticed a group of goblins coming from the direction of the forest. They both started casting spell. James casted fireball, and the same fireball of the
size of a soccer appeared and he kicked it in the direction of the goblins. Half of the goblins got hurt and they fainted with there burnt out bodies. Then Adam casted, "Dark Arts First verse, Dark Handling". The goblins after seeing the magic circle underneath his feet dispersed but their
efforts were in vain. As several shadow hands manifested from the circle and grabbed the goblins. The hands also had a poisoning type effect as the goblins were clearly suffering. Then suddenly Adam leaped forward and swung his scythe and the goblins were cut in half. James thought about the merciless way of Adam and the look in his eyes when Adam said, "Don't think too hard about this James. This world is all about kill or be
killed". After a moment of silence James asked, "Sooo, does these beasts usually come out of the forest in the middle of the night?". Adam, after piling up the goblin's corpses said, "No, this usually does not happen. Unless someone disturbs them during their hunting time aka night". Then suddenly Mr. Stern came running after hearing the goblins screaming. He said
in a crude tone, "What is this and what are you both doing here in the middle of the
night?". After explaining the things to Mr. Stern he said while lighting a cigar, "Hmm, so that what happened". He than said, "I will take care of the corpses so you both go back to your dorms and we will decide your punishment tomorrow". Tomorrow, after having breakfast, they were both taken to the headmaster's office. Fortunately, the headmaster decided to let them go with a warning as they didn't tell them not to wander in the night. Mr. Stern had a dissatisfied expression on his face but could not go against the words of the headmaster.
Thus, they were spared. Then James remembered the silhouette that was entering the forest. "That might be the reason why the goblins exited the forest" thought James while heading towards his classroom.