Chapter 8 Finding A Place To Cultivate

Lyrian was happily surprised at what he saw. Now, he could track his progress verily without having to worry about whether he was getting stronger or not.

Right now, he had around double the stats of a normal six-year-old body due to his increased intelligence, giving him greater control over his body, and also his training and mana cultivation.

After taking a shower and putting on some clothes, Lyrian decided to head out into the city for a breath of fresh air and also to look for a place to cultivate.

He had been looking for a while now, but there was no place that wasn't extremely crowded, or that wasn't covered in civilization.

This time, he wanted to go even further out in hopes of a cultivation area. From books, he had learned that Ilstria was a smaller city than most, being on the outskirts of the kingdom where not many resources reached.

Yaltas consisted of two different regions, the Outer District and the Inner District. These names referred to the district inside of the wall surrounding the kingdom and the district outside of that wall.

Ilstria was outside of the wall. Therefore, Lyrian knew that if he went far enough, he would be able to get out of civilization, eventually.

As long as there wasn't a wall to climb over, he could just walk straight out.

He walked for a solid hour before the surrounding city slowly began to change from a bustling city to a quieter village.

Tall buildings made of stone and clay began to fade into smaller, more humble homes with not many merchant stalls.

The cobblestone streets began to fade into dirt, and people began to lower in population as well.

Before he knew it, Lyrian was in the middle of a place that looked like a village, rather than a city.

Finally, he found an opening where he saw a large hill and went that way. At the top of the hill was a large tree that he rested under, seeing the view of the city below him.

The hill was secluded from the city, as it was a few hundred meters away. The view was breathtaking, however, as Lyrian took a moment to take it in.

It was almost too good of a location to be so isolated.

After resting, he walked over to the other side of the hill to find the entrance to a large forest down below.

"Eade forest."

It was a popular mass of land that stretched from shore to shore of the continent, unconquered by any empire but known by all. The mother of all forests, they called it in the books.

There had been attempts to conquer it before, and some were even successful, but eventually, all civilization that dared to build inside of it was ruthlessly ravaged to dust by the various dangerous creatures that lived inside.

The outskirts didn't harbor any such monsters, but the further you went, the more dangerous it became.

Lyrian sat down on the back side of the tree, facing opposite to the city so that no one could see him, and crossed his legs in a lotus position before beginning to use Gale.

[Gaining 0.000012 mana per second]

The mana gain looked to be a little better as he was closer to nature, but not enough to take note of.

Lyrian knew he had to get home by sundown, so he continued to cultivate.

As the sun finally began to set, however, he began to hear some voices nearby, immediately alerting him and shocking him out of Gale.

He was slightly annoyed, but more so, he was wary of who was there.

The voices were getting louder, so they were definitely getting closer, but then Lyrian noticed that the voices were of children.

ραndαsnοvεl.cοm Before he could do anything, a group of three kids around the same age as him ran up the hill and faced him.

"What th–who the hell are you!?" a fat one on the left shouted.

"Wait... I think I know that boy. Isn't he the son of the mayor's younger brother?" A red-haired kid in the middle said.

"Oh yeah, it's him! I always see him walking around mindlessly all alone. What a loser!" Another one on the right, tall and lanky, yelled before laughing.

Lyrian stood up. Most likely, he had been caught in the act of mana cultivation.

"What the hell was he doing up here, anyway? Doesn't he know it's my area?" The fat one said.

"Our." Red hair interjected with an angered look.

"Oh right! Right! Our..." Fatty said nervously.

Red hair's face twisted into a sneer as he looked Lyrian up and down. "Hey, loser. Get the hell out of my sight. This place is ours," he growled in a serious tone.

Lyrian was taken aback by the hostility in the boy's voice. He seemed to be the leader of this little rag-tag group, so Lyrian answered him with a calm tone, trying to diffuse the tension.

"Leave? Can't we share? I won't be here all day, just–"

"Didn't you fuckin' hear me? You're a loser. I don't want to be seen with you. Don't you know who I am?" Red hair interrupted him, his voice rising in anger.

Lyrian looked at the boy with a confused expression, which only seemed to irritate him further.

"I'm the son of Galvian Greystone, Cedric Greystone!" he proclaimed as if that should mean something to Lyrian.

"Huh?" Lyrian replied, not recognizing the name.

"You–! Haven't you heard of the Greystones!? We are the highest-ranked noble family within Ilstria behind the Theagards!" the boy yelled, clearly angry at being ignored.

"Greystone..." Lyrian tried to think if he had ever heard that name before, but it didn't ring any bells.

Seeing the loser start to realize who he was speaking to, the red-haired boy felt a bit more relieved.

"Nope, never heard of ya'. But, liste–" Lyrian continued to try to negotiate, but he had pissed off red hair far too much.

"Are you making fun of Cedric? You? A noble only by name?" the lanky boy spoke out, trying to defend his friend's honor.

"A noble only by name? Isn't that what a noble is though?" Lyrian said, genuinely confused as to what the boy meant when he said that.

"That's it... I was going to forgive him and forget this, but it looks like he thinks we are just a bunch of clowns that he can make fun of," Cedric paused, his face twisted into an expression of pure malice. "Fuck him up."

As the boys moved closer to him, Lyrian's heart began to race for some reason.

He had never been in a fight before, and the only physical situation he had ever experienced was the abuse in his past life.

He wanted to be stronger, but he had never thought about what he would do if someone attacked him.

But Lyrian was not one to give up without a fight, and he knew that he had to defend himself.

Just then, another message from Gear appeared out of nowhere.

*Ding* [New quest: Defeat the three bullies]

[Quest completion reward: +1 on all stats]

[Quest failure punishment: -10 on all stats for one day]