Chapter 51 Gaia

While at first, it might have seemed like the storage skill had no weakness, this was far from the case.

After talking with Blanca for a bit about my storage space, I informed her how it worked without talking about the system or indicating where it came from.

After telling her that I could only store 4 things within my storage, she quickly moved around the corpse and grabbed 4 of the things that we would need to be whole rather than broken into pieces or ground into dust.

'I should have probably made a leather bag... In my defense though, it would have probably ripped by now and would have become extremely useless.' I nodded to myself while watching Blanca move around the corpse and collect all the things we might need.

With my arms still crossed, I moved my right hand to scratch my chin, just for a realization to hit me.

'Is there a weight or size limit? Appraisal!'

[Appraisal complete]

[Storage/inventory: Does not have a weight limit but does have a size limit. Nothing above 7.5 meters cubed can be stored within one of the boxes]

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'Sounds reasonable.' I let out a sigh of relief and went back to watching Blanca collecting all the items.

In the end, I had 4 items in front of me that I would need to store, while the rest would be stored within Blanca's storage ring? Whatever that meant.

I climbed onto Blanca's head once again after having stored all 4 of the items in my inventory.

"Where do you want to go?" the snake asked me, causing me to pause for a second and begin thinking about what I wanted to do next.

All this time I had simply moved the way life was drifting me.

First I moved through the previous forest because I wanted to find food, an example being the golden fruit that I still don't know the name of nor its function. Another example would have to be how I was forced to move away from the forest alongside all the other beasts there to get away from the fire that I had accidentally caused.

After dying, I had landed in this mysterious forest where everything seemed a little easier due to the beasts her being a lot weaker, probably due to the abomination's existence. Alongside having entered this forest, I stayed here because I found good shelter, something I probably would have chosen to not leave for months or years if not for the beast horde.

'Where do I want to go? My main objective is to reach the elven civilization, but then what? Would I try to get revenge for something that hadn't even been done yet? Should I go and cry my sorrows somewhere else? Would I try to infiltrate their society to break them down slowly and painfully...

What was I supposed to do? There was no correct answer to the question since doing one thing would always create another problem. The real question is if you are willing to deal with that problem or not, and whether it is worth the sacrifice or not.

"How strong are the elves right now?" I asked the snake that was looking around with me still on its head.

"The elves? Hmm. I'd say that they are the most powerful bipedal species on this planet. Their leaders should be close to reaching the peak of the Astral plane so they might be asking Gaia to take down the limiting formations." The snake replied, causing me to raise a brow in confusion.

"You just answered my question with as many unknown terms as possible... I literally don't know what half of what you said means." I snorted, but the snake who still hadn't gotten used to my attitude tried to roll her eyes just to fail miserably.

"The elves are a species of bipedal creatures that inhabit this planet. After something happened to their planet, they moved here and were warmly welcomed by Gaia who is the spirit of the planet. Since there were tight restrictions on the planet, Gaia agreed to loosen the restrictions and allow anyone within the Astral plane or below to enter the plane." The snake explained and caused me to nod slightly.

"What do the planes mean then?" I inquired further, yet all that I got as a response was an angry retort from Blanca saying-

"What!? Have you been living under a rock for your whole life? Ugh... I and you are in the Mortal Plane, and while I am higher than you in the mortal plane, I am still from being the strongest in the mortal plane. That form you went into before however seemed to be on the same level as someone in the high, if not the peak stages of the mortal plane..." Blanca once again explained before inwardly adding-

'Since that attack alone could have split mountains... Good thing it aimed for the sky. I doesn't seem like you yourself know what kind of power you are holding within you...'

"How strong is the average elf?" I asked

"The average elf reaches the peak of the mortal plane by the age of 18 to 20. But as long as they are in the mortal plane their aging process doesn't slow down. That's why those who fail to reach the Astral Plane before the age of 40 always die before reaching 150 years of age."

"How would anyone even reach that plane? You aren't explaining much in terms of the process." I replied while crossing my arms.

"While usually..." The snake paused for a second before continuing "Usually, someone has to do this thing called cultivation. They take energy from the environment and pull it into their bodies. Then they turn it into either energy that will refine their body or energy that will refine their mana. Those are called body or mana cultivators respectively." The snake explained, causing me to perk up and straighten my back in the hope to get the snake to teach me such a method.

However, just a second later, my hope had been thrown to the ground and made to shatter with the use of one sentence.

"Don't get riled up just yet, since from what I've seen of you so far, you cannot cultivate... Or at least not the normal way."

"Wha-" My hopes had immediately shattered like a glass plane being smashed into an iron hammer. How was I supposed to even think about beating beings like the elves without being able to cultivate?

It was only then that the last part of Blanca's sentence registered within my brain, causing me to calm down and try to listen to what she was trying to tell me rather than jumping to conclusions.

"From what I've seen of you so far, instead of normally cultivating by absorbing energy from your surroundings, you use that red runic pattern that travels down your arm to suck the soul core out of someone and absorb part of their power.." The snake clarified, instantly making me smile brightly at her words.

Before I could get riled up again, Blanca tried to shoot me down by stating "This however is just a theory of mine. Don't get your hopes up too much since I might be wrong. Also, the energy takes a bit of time to settle into your body so there is always a chance that you will still have to do something different to stabilize that energy rather than allowing it to go rampant within you"

However, even with those words echoing within my mind, I could not help but still get extremely excited. For the first time since I had come to this world. I had finally found a reliable way to get stronger without the use of missions that would come around once in a blue moon.

"My end goal is to get to the elven civilization, but for now I want to become stronger... Or at least strong enough to hold my own against some of their strongest?" I let out a wide grin that caused the snake to shudder as the memories of having looked into my eyes resurfaced.

However, instead of mulling over the past, the snake decided that the best course of action would be to deeper into the forest rather than go into the outskirts once again, and the reasoning for this was simple...

The beings of the forest got more powerful as you delve deeper inside, and the only way for a person to get stronger in this world was to constantly go through life or death battles.

I was no exception...

***

Unknown dimension.

An emerald beauty sat on a large throne created out of a hundred if not thousands of minerals, rock fragments, and ores.