The mission Mercury chose was a high F rank mission, almost breeching into E rank, not because it was dangerous, because it was hard.
The mission was to collect a purple flower called the devil’s lily, Mercury was an alchemist and knew from his memories what this flower can do.
It was used to as a detoxifying agent in antidotes and can also be used to cure curses.
He knew because he had tried using it before to remove his own curse to no avail, as for why the mission was so hard.
Finding it was incredibly hard, they were rare and took nearly 3 years to reach maturity, as such, there was no time limit to the mission.
’ Perfect, this way nobody would question it if I disappeared for 2 months.’ Mercury couldn’t help but grin.
He already had the devil’s lily so technically he could complete the mission right now but why would he do that.
He signed the mission on the counter and left, his destination was the red wood forest north of the capital.
Beyond the forest was the eternal sea but he had no intentions of going that far, the outer region of the forest will do fine.
It took him two days to reach the forest after having to cross multiple fiefdoms. " Red wood forest."
Although it was called that, the trees weren’t actually red, at least most of them, there was a grove of red trees at the centre.
But that was too far for him, not to mention there were rumours of an S rank monster living there.
Mercury took a deep breath and entered the forest and so, his two months training officially began.
The forest was teeming with monsters, he was barely a few hundred metres in when he met his first monster.
’ F rank horned rabbit.’ Mercury was not worried, although he’s never faced monsters before, even the previous Mercury had never fought a monster.
They’re always described as very weak, even amongst F rank monsters, ’ I can do this.’
He told himself, the horned rabbit turned its head and faced him, they were 30 metres apart.
" Bolt." Mercury created a fist sized fire bolt in front of him and fired it at the horned rabbit.
The horned rabbit’s hind legs flexed and hardened, it jumped to the side dodging the fire bolt, BOOOOOM, the fire bolt exploded.
The rabbit kicked off a tree leaving dents on its trunk and lunged at him like a brown spear.
’ It’s too fast.’ Mercury had not expected a rabbit to move that fast, he barely had time to react and raised his hand to block.
" Earth bolt." A ball of earth appeared in front of him, the rabbit pierced through it with its horn and stabbed his hand.
" Ahhh." Mercury gritted his teeth and grabbed the horn, the rabbit was a bit too heavy.
It tried to pull back but he held it firmly, a blue glow surrounded his body strengthening him beyond his normal limit.
He rammed the rabbit on the ground, created an ice bolt, shaped it into a sword and stabbed the rabbit in the neck.
" Damnit, being wounded by a monster considered amongst the weakest is embarrassing, I can’t let anybody know of this."
Mercury used his wood element to heal himself then sat down and reviewed the battle.
" One thing for certain I underestimated this thing but my reaction speed is also a bit too slow.
Although I could clearly see its movements my body could barely keep up, I also need to improve my casting speed."
He skinned the rabbit, made a fire and roasted it, while roasting he continuously cast bolts.
Casting itself was not his issue, changing its form was the problem. " Right now I can only cast about 12 bolts at once.
However casting different elemental bolts at the same time is still hard and takes longer, changing their forms takes even longer.
Not to mention." He looked at his body, a faint blur light surrounded him making him glow.
" My mana skin is too weak, the rabbit easily pierced through it like it was nothing, I need to make it denser."
He decided that was going to be his focus from now on, ’ Having high offensive power is great but being a glass cannon sucks.
I need to focus more on my defense, plus the mana skin can enhance my physical stats across the board.’
In actuality, mana skin acted like armour, it doesn’t strengthen Mercury in the traditional sense.
It’s like using a mech suit, only one made of your mana and you can control with your mind.
He spent the whole day practicing to control his mana skin, by the following day it had grown a bit stronger.
Mercury moved deeper into the forest, before long he met another horned rabbit, it was a metre tall and covered in brown fur.
Mercury didn’t wait for it to attack, instead of firing a fire bolt he made an ice sword and lunged at it.
Mercury covered 20 metres in a single second, the horned rabbit reacted, instead of attacking it turned and ran.
Each hop took it a dozen metres, it opened the gap between them, ’ I can’t keep up even with my mana skin, let me try that.’
Mercury changed his mana skin from pure mana into light mana, his body felt lighter and warm.
The trees blurred around him and he found himself 50 metres away in the blink of an eye.
Mercury stood the frozen, " Tha..that’s way too fast." He looked at the rabbit, it too looked surprised.
" I need to work on controlling this speed." He fired a lightning arrow at the rabbit and pierced its head.
" Light and lightning are the fastest elements, using them on my mana skin will increase my speed.
What happens if I add other elements?" Mercury wondered, he was getting excited, he thought to the tournament in two months.
Mercury ran through the forest like a blur of light, bang, he ran through a tree and rolled on the ground.
" I still can’t control this speed, changing directions is still incredibly hard but I’m getting the hand of it."