"Be careful out there, make sure to keep the compass and more importantly, yourself, safe." The old man warned, before waving the young Draylen off.

"Okay, I'll be back soon!"

-Raawr

Charcoal and Draylen walked away from the hidden cave, following a roughly cut path, overgrown with several different species of flora. Before leaving, the old man had explained to Draylen about something called the 'Deep Wood Pact'. Originally, there was a small community of Dragon Summoners that lived in the Deep Wood. They would train, socialise and trade with one another, exploring different paths of growth for the dying Dragon Summoner profession. How could such a powerful profession like Dragon Summoning be dying? It was because in the past, a small group of Dragon Summoners became corrupted by their power, wreaking havoc within the Auria empire and slaughtering several commoners. This group was known as the 'Fallen'.

After this incident, many officials voted to ban Dragon Summoning within the empire. Some of the official's families had been affected, whilst others were jealous of the profession which seemed to be innately more powerful than traditional summoning and thus used this event as leverage to get rid of the Dragon Summoners. This didn't last for long though, as the empire's summoners and military was not strong enough to defeat the ever-expanding number of Fallen Dragon Summoners and thus they withdrew the ban on Dragon Summoning.

Eventually, when the empire was on the brink of destruction, Dragon Knight Draaklen appeared and helped to fight back against the Fallen, successfully fighting them back and redeeming the Dragon Summoners. After this chain of events, members of the Dragon Summoning community decided to add a new requirement to the occupation, not only did they need to have higher potential and affinity with mana, but they would also have to be thoroughly tested to see whether they would misuse their power at higher levels or not.

Apparently, the old man had used a spell called 'Search Talent' in order to find Draylen, thus he found out that Draylen was both talented and good-natured. After the conditions for Dragon Summoning became higher, many people no longer fit the requirements. Many of the elders went into seclusion or decided to leave the empire to travel the world. This, coupled with the fact that it was already difficult to find a master to teach Dragon Summoning further pushed the occupation into decline.

The small community that remained in the Auria empire lived in the Deep Wood. They stayed here for hundreds of years but the sole apprentice of an elder was killed by a monster during hunting, causing the elder to fly into a rage and massacre the monster populace. Eventually, the elder came to his senses, and in order to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, he forced all sentient monsters in the Deep Wood to sign the Deep Wood Pact.

This pact made it so that all sentient monsters could not go onto human built paths or harm anyone who was on them, in exchange, the elders would give their children opportunities to become the familiars of Dragon Summoners. Although this seemed unfair, becoming the familiar of a summoner would accelerate the monster's strength and growth rate, allowing them to travel new paths of evolution. To monsters, this was an incredible deal as in the Deep Wood, only strength reigned supreme. To harm the family of monsters directly related to a Dragon Summoner was like jumping off of a hundred metre high cliff.

Thus, the Dragon Summoners learned to live peacefully with the monsters. Learning more of the history of Dragon Summoners made Draylen's blood boil, as he learned of his occupation's ancestry. In a way, it was both a blessing and burden; it was a powerful job but making a big mistake could lead to serious consequences and put Dragon Summoning's reputation and existence at risk.

Whilst it wasn't possible for any kingdom or empire to erase the existence of Dragon Summoning, they could definitely take extreme measures to deter citizens from taking the job up or even coming in contact with them.

"Hurry up Charcoal, I'm eager to find the place!" Draylen shouted whilst hopping energetically.

The baby dragon let out a joyful cry in response whilst darting forward, flapping it's tiny wings.

The pair moved at a fast speed through the forest, and by the time it had turned noon, they had already reached the place which the old man told them about. They had followed the magic compass which he had given them and now found themselves at a mana vein. Mana veins were cracks in the earth which were created due to large amounts of mana gathering in a certain area with high mana concentration. After a few hundred years, the mana would crystallise into a solid substance and break through the ground, greatly increasing the mana concentration in the area and greatly benefitting the growth of any creatures and plants nearby.

These beneficial properties made mana veins monster hotspots, hundreds of monsters, regardless whether they were carnivores or herbivores would gather to train. The flesh eating ones would leave the area briefly to find other creatures which were not training at the mana vein to prey on whilst the herbivores would directly feed on the mana-invigorated flora near the vein.

This was where Draylen and Charcoal had come to train. They would focus on cultivating their fighting skills and also mana. The mana vein lay in a large valley, with large red Blood Trees which swayed in the wind. Hundreds of monsters lay down in the shade that these grotesque trees provided, occasionally grabbing a red fruit and chewing on it.

These fruits were called 'Heartichokes', well known and sought after by many summoners and warriors alike. They could improve the quality of one's mana through ingestion but were rare and extremely pricy.

"Lucky us!" Draylen said aloud, playing with Charcoal's ears.

As he walked into the valley, nearby monsters glanced at him before returning to their own cultivation. It seemed that all creatures were welcome to train here, as long as they didn't disturb the peace.

'This is really cool.' The overexcited boy thought.

Charcoal jumped down from his shoulders, stretching and yawning. He then looked around curiously, before his eyes locked onto the blood red Heartichokes. He then looked at his owner, with an expression that said 'I want one'.

As if Draylen understood what Charcoal wanted, he nodded and laughed. The baby dragon charged toward the closest unoccupied Blood Tree and leapt up impressively high, yanking a heart-shaped fruit down before munching on it in a satisfied manner. Then, without any instructions, he lay down and curled up, beginning to cultivate.

Draylen copied the baby dragon's actions, taking and eating a fruit for himself before sitting down in a lotus position. He focused his mind and began to revolve his mana, out of his heart and through his bloodstream. The mana soaked into his muscle and bone, slowly strengthening the cells before it made its way back toward the heart.

Each time he completed a revolution, Draylen felt a minor qualitative change in his body and also his mana. After a few revolutions, a strange foreign energy entered his body through the pores. It merged into his bloodstream and also with his own mana, increasing it's quality several times over.

'Must be the mana in the environment, or maybe even the mana vein itself.' Draylen mused, before continuing his cultivation.

He could feel the speed of each revolution increasing slightly each time more of the foreign mana was integrated into his system. The foreign mana was a lot more dense and rich than his own, thus he had to revolve it around his body several times before it broke down and merged with his mana.

When Draylen had entered and started cultivating in the forest, it was noon but now the sky had turned orange and it was almost evening.

"Time flies. Wake up Charcoal, let's go get some food." He urged, slowly standing up and evaluating the changed in his body.

-Groaaawrr

The dragon baby got up groggily before slowly climbing onto Draylen's shoulders. The boy began to walk deeper into the valley, greeted by a few stares from different beasts here and there. The further he walked into the valley, the stronger the monsters seemed to become. It seemed that even the peaceful mana vein valley (I'm calling it that now) had a hierarchy of sorts.

A monster that looked like a giant lion with bat wings and several horns and eyes slowly approached, it looked at Draylen with unfriendly eyes but upon realising that the boy had no intentions of cultivating, it returned to it's tree to resume with it's cultivation.

'It seems that the weak aren't allowed to cultivate in the valley's deeper parts.'

Draylen came across an underground spring, from which water was trickling out. He directly scooped handfuls up and drank from it, as it was 100% clean. This was because mana directly purified everything it came in contact with. Even if the water had not been purified, Draylen would just have had to inject his own mana into the spring to cleanse it.

Charcoal also drank some water, before returning to his owner's shoulders. Then, after drinking, Draylen walked at a leisurely pace out of the valley. He didn't want to hunt in the valley because all of the monsters there were too strong for him, a newbie who had never fought before and also because the other monsters would probably not welcome him in to cultivate if he did attempt to attack them. Although he had also come here to train, he didn't mind leaving the valley to find more suitable foes to fight with.

Eventually, he came across a herd of deer-like monsters. They each had small horns poking out of their foreheads and bony plates coming out of their bodies in certain areas.

'The adults look too bony to eat. I'm not sure if I could even defeat one, let alone the entire herd. It's better to go for the plump younglings and then run.' He thought, rubbing his chin.

'But how to lure them out? If I went in directly, they would probably kill me in an instant.'

'Let's try this...'

Draylen slowly picked up a small stone from the ground, careful not to make any noise. Then, when he was sure that none of the deer monsters were looking his way, he tossed the stone with some force toward one of the younger deer standing near the edge of the herd, before ducking down behind a large tree.

-Eeeyooow!

The deer began crying out, making strange honking sounds. The deer which Draylen had hit fell over, blood coming out of it's neck. He then activated his armament and weapon spell, causing him to be shrouded in a dark glow. The armour and wrist blades appeared in a puff of smoke, whilst Charcoal, who had been there just a minute ago had vanished.

-Shiing

The blades slid out of the gauntlets, letting off an eerie light. Draylen then picked up a second, heavier rock and threw it with all his might in a direction away from where he was, creating lots of snapping noises followed with the sound of the rock hitting the ground with a thump.

The deer cried out again and bolted, whilst the young deer attempted to follow them, only to be hindered by it's wound.

"Yes!" Draylen silently cheered for himself before jogging over to the downed deer.

He then raised his arm and cut cleanly through the deer's neck, making a clear snapping noise. Blood dribbled out of the deer's headless body.

"Alright, now I just need to skin it and prepare it. It's getting dark and might become unsafe, I'll go back to the valley to sleep for the night." He mused aloud, before turning around and walking along the rough path toward the mana vein valley.

Unbeknownst to Draylen, a pair of slitted green eyes glowed in the dark. They had observed the entire scene of the hunt. The eyes watched the young boy in black armour walk away, before disappearing into the night.