Chapter 59: The Forbidden Forest and the Magic Ranks

[You know you can’t trust anyone, don’t you?] one of my other personalities sneered at me.

“Hey, believe me! Please! Tell me what I have to do to make you trust me!” She pressed her chest hard against me.

“Ugh… Sis, some things… you can’t change them just by wanting to.” I turned my head away awkwardly.

So she really can hear my personalities’ voices, huh.

“Ugh…” She huffed in displeasure.

I snuggled against her chest, reflecting on how absurdly fast this relationship was developing.

Having been in this world for so long, I genuinely couldn’t trust people anymore…

Though I couldn’t guess what Anna’s goal was, with her doing this, I probably had nothing to lose.

Sigh… suddenly getting a girlfriend has me so excited…

[Me too! I’m excited too! I want to do all sorts of things with you right now,] she said in my head.

“Sis, I’m begging you, can you calm down?! And can you stop reading my mind every single day?!”

[But I want to understand you better.]

Her words left me speechless. Well… it made sense. A girlfriend who wants to understand her boyfriend would try every method…

Fine, I’ll give you 103 points for that reason!

“So do you know the Princess and everyone else in this country really well?”

When I asked that, her eyes grew a little hesitant. Like it was a question she wanted to avoid?

[They’re all at fairly high levels, and they carry mind-protection stones on them, so I can’t read them. If I tried to read them, the stones would warn them. Well… honestly, they all hate mind-reading… Sorry, I won’t read them anymore.]

Her voice sounded as sad as an unhappy little kitten. It made me feel bad, so I said offhandedly, “Then read me whenever you want. Just so you know, I’m a guy. My thoughts tend to not be so proper.”

After I finished speaking awkwardly, a strange silence hung in the air. For three seconds, neither Anna nor I said anything.

After the brief silence, Anna said, [Mm! It’s fine. I won’t mind anything you think. You really are different from other people.]

The blissful look on her face was truly captivating.

Well… I couldn’t deny what she said. After all, even I thought I had some mental issues right now.

But looking at it from another angle, being mind-read wasn’t all bad. On the contrary, it meant I could prove I wasn’t a spy or a Nocturnal without giving any explanation.

So in that sense, being mind-read was a good thing. A chance to clear my name.

“So where are we now?” I asked.

I only just remembered to ask this now! My god… so love really does make people stupid!

“Impossible. Jiushi, you’re so smart. How could you be stupid?”

“Alright, forget it. Where exactly are we?” I didn’t know what to say about Anna’s mind-reading anymore. It really was convenient!

“We’re probably…” Anna lifted the curtain and looked outside. “…probably at the Forbidden Forest. I can’t believe we got here so fast.”

“Wait, Forbidden Forest? As in ‘don’t go there’ forbidden?” I tensed up. The name didn’t sound right. Why was it called the Forbidden Forest? This was messed up! Why would we come to such a dangerous place?!

“It’s fine. I’ll protect you. Yes, ‘don’t go there’ forbidden. The demon beasts here are all level 5 or above, so ordinary races rarely come here. Even our Red Demon clan rarely sets foot here.”

‘Level five? This world has levels?! Like cultivation? God…’

“Huh? Hubby, you don’t know about levels?”

“No, I don’t. I remember you saying yesterday that resurrection magic requires four level-7 elven elders. Also… please don’t call me hubby.” I said helplessly.

“What?! How can that be!” Anna glared at me with a playful pout.

Faced with Anna’s dreamy, childish sulking, I could only lower my head in defeat.

Anna then began to explain this world’s magic level system to Jiushi.

The “magic levels” were originally divided into ten ranks, called simply by numbers. Different ranks had different numbers of segments. For example, levels 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 only had three segments, while levels 4 and 5 were divided into five segments. The number of segments for levels 9 and 10 was unknown.

Two hundred years ago, many people referred to their magic level by saying things like “level 6, third segment” or “level 4, fifth segment.”

But later, the Red Demon clan discovered an ancient relic known as the awakening device, which could awaken ancient species with no magic ability into adventurers.

From then on, the Red Demon clan made a simple change to how magic levels were named.

Low Tier: Star-Crossing Heaven, Star-Seizing Heaven, Star-Sea Heaven. (Levels 1, 2, 3.)

Mid Tier: Azure Heaven, Golden Radiance Heaven. (Levels 4, 5.)

High Tier: Holy Light Sea, Sunset Sea, Sea of Gods. (Levels 6, 7, 8.)

Beyond Tier: levels 9 and 10.

The reason for these names was, first of all, the sight a mage beheld when gazing into their own mana space. More importantly, the unit “tier” had been added on top of the original “level.”

Between tiers, there was an insurmountable gap.

Anna conjured a piece of paper out of thin air and presented it to Jiushi as she explained.

“Oh! So that’s how it is… Like an RPG? Like cultivation? Climbing one level at a time?” I was truly sick of cultivation stuff.

After all… in cultivation, if you’re not the main character, how are you supposed to climb?

“Say, why weren’t the Beyond Tier names changed? They’re still called levels 9 and 10?” I asked curiously. That didn’t make sense.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure either. When this was established two hundred years ago, there were no names for these two levels, so I don’t know.”

“Oh, then what level are you at, Sis?”

“I’m level 5, fifth segment.”

“Wait, that low?!” I said, looking disappointed. That was way too far from what I’d guessed!

“What?! (QAQ) Jiushi! What do you mean by that?!” Anna glared at me angrily. With her puffed cheeks, she was absolutely adorable. So completely different from that arrogant princess.

“Uh… isn’t level 10 the max? Level 5… is that actually high?”

“Sigh, just as I thought. You don’t know anything. You couldn’t find eight mages at my level in the entire Tianxia Continent (the Red Demon clan)! Getting to level 5 was really hard work!” Anna said proudly.

‘What? Level 5 was hard work? Why? Is this world really that difficult? Usually it’s levels 8 and 9 that are super rare, right? Why is level 5 already so rare here?!’

Anna looked at me with a doting expression, her eyes seeming to say, ‘Oh dear, you don’t know anything at all. Fine, I’ll reluctantly explain it to you.’ She explained, “Heh, levels 8 and 9… anyone at levels 8 or 9 is definitely not human. They’re either dragons, vampires, or demons! At the very least, they’re beastmen or elves.”

“Wait! So the levels in this world are directly tied to your race?! Then what’s the highest a Red Demon can reach?” I was shocked. This… this setting is insane!

“Most Red Demons are level 4. Only a very few can reach level 5. Even the Princess is only level 5, fourth segment. One segment less than me.” Anna puffed out her chest proudly.

I played along, gazing at Anna with admiration, and asked in my head, ‘Sis, how high can the Black Feather clan usually reach? If I use the awakening device, would I be able to use magic too?’

I deliberately acted cute as I asked, feeling like a little girl sitting on her big sister’s lap.

‘Hehehe… yuri…’

‘AHH! What am I thinking?!’

“Hehe.” Anna smiled sweetly. Then she pushed up her glasses, her eyes going unfocused as she seemed to search through the millions of magic books in her mind.

She was silent for a while. Suddenly her brow furrowed slightly, and she smiled at me, saying, “I don’t really know much about the Black Feather clan’s levels. But based on my speculation, the Black Feather clan is at least a high-tier race, so their level should be at least 6 or above. And if you were to awaken… you should, perhaps, maybe… be able to use magic…”

The more she spoke, the less certain she sounded. It made me uneasy.

‘What? Even after awakening, I might not be able to use magic?? Huh? My luck can’t be that bad, right?’

Honestly, I felt pretty disappointed. But for some reason, I laughed out loud at that moment.

‘Forget it. I won’t think about it anymore. If General Yun said even ancient species without magic can become mages, there’s no way I can’t.’ I consoled myself (flag).

Then another question came to mind. If Red Demons could only reach the mid tier, how did they know what high-tier mana spaces looked like?

And right after, I came up with the answer myself. It must be that other races told them, just to show off, to brag, to act smug. After all, the Red Demon clan was one of the lowest races in this world, stuck in the mid-low tier alongside the beastmen, the Bangu clan, and the demi-humans (goblins and giants). Other races would naturally flaunt their power to intimidate.

Hearing my thoughts, Anna gave me that same funny, doting smile again. It made me feel both grumpy and shy. She chuckled. “Hehe, what you said is true. But the level system and the mana space stuff wasn’t originally known to us, and it wasn’t told to us by others either. It was written in the awakening device’s instruction manual.”

“What?!” Wait, what? An instruction manual?! I stared at her with a pair of utterly disbelieving eyes, wondering if this was the Middle Ages.

How is this even possible?! What exactly was the Black Feather clan about? Why would a medieval magic world print an instruction manual for an ancient device?!

As if she had been waiting for that exact moment of my meltdown, Anna suddenly hugged me tightly and stood up.

As my body dangled and swayed, I could tell. Anna was absolutely treating me like a plush toy!

“Absolutely not! I just want to hug you like this while you’re still a kid. Because a few years from now, once you’ve grown up, I won’t be able to hug you like this anymore.” She said happily. Maybe it was because my shocked expression earlier was so cute that Anna did this?

‘Heh. I really freaking don’t want to admit that I’ve become like this.’ I felt conflicted, and my mood suddenly sank.

Sigh… I didn’t even know if I could survive another year… I hope this ruin drops an ultra-high-grade mind-calming gem.

Even if I didn’t survive the year, getting a girlfriend was worth it!

But no matter what, once this adventure was over, I was going to awaken! What if my talent was especially strong?!

That was my plan.

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