"...Well, this place is dull" Alexis commented, the duo had teleported to the entrance of the Beast forest.

And for as far as he could see, the forest and the empire was separated by a giant wall made of an unknown material.

"Indeed, but that's where you'll be going..." Philip said and continued,

"If you are wondering what these walls are, let me tell you, these walls were built eight hundred years ago during the time the Tier 9 beast attacked the Empire, it was recorded in the book I told you about. The walls were made to prevent another disaster from happening in the future, right after the beast was defeated!" He ended his speech and pushed Alexis towards the entrance.

"Master, you don't have to push me, I can go on my own!" Alexis complained as he walked upto the entrance, there was no gate or nothing... he could see the forest right infront him.

But then he saw it!

'There's a barrier...' He mumbled inside his head and threw a pebble at it which was let in through the barrier and knocked on a tree inside the beast forest.

While Alexis was observing the barrier, Philip got a little impatient and used a wind magic spell and threw Alexis deep into the forest and left.

-●-●-●-

"...Ouch" Alexis said and rubbed his head which knocked on a tree.

Now that he realised it, he was quite deep in the forest and there were only trees all around him, he then decided to walk into the forest...

It was a very dark place, even the trees were darker than usual, he would frequently hear unknown screeches of certain beasts and occasionally hear roars of powerful beasts and would avoid going closer.

"Am I lost?" He asked himself.

"(Brat, in two years time you will see a flare in the sky, follow it and if you survive the journey I'll take you back home! Remember, 850 days! Not one day less or I'll show you something worse than a Tier 9 beast!)" He got Philip's telepathic message.

Alexis sighed and walked further into the forest, not that he knew where he was going...

He stopped infront a flowing river and bent down to collect some water, while his bottle was filling up, the water became murky so Alexis quickly jumped away with the bottle in his hand, he quickly closed it and put it inside his ring.

He made a good call since a Tier 4 aquatic beast bit into the area Alexis was just standing on just a few seconds ago.

It looked like a mythical sea serpent from his otherworld knowledge.

Green, smooth scales, a head of a snake with razor sharp teeth, with whisker like protrusions on the sides of its elongated face.

The beast's eyes were like rubies and had no pupils...

It had a length of around twenty meters and when it raised it's head it was about three meters tall.

The beast was huge as Alexis now realised why mages of lower tiers would die facing facing it!

It hissed at Alexis who was observing it.

Alexis ran at the beast while his palms had two red magic circles forming at light speed.

The serpent slithered and whipped it's tail at Alexis in immense speed and strength, the ground cracked wherever it struck and left small craters, but he was struck, Alexis would turn into paste!

He dodged the attacks of the beast and jumped on its head and touched the magic circles on the head.

"Dragon's breath!"

Fire erupted from the magic circles, it looked like his hands were flame throwers.

The snake hissed in pain and shook its head violent as Alexis lost balance and had to jump down.

The beast wriggled in pain and rolled on the ground but the flames proved to be stronger and deadlier and killed it before it could reach the river...

He still sprayed the serpent with his flames until it no longer moved.

"Well... that was very anticlimactic..." he said and took out his knife from his Spacial ring and cut open it's head after confirming it was dead...

"Hmm... so this a Mana core!" He mused while sticking his hand into the serpent's brain and took out a Dark Green orb that was the size of an apple.

It had a glassy texture and cold to the touch, probably because it's body was cold too as it is a snake that was underwater...

Alexis then washed the core and afterwards cut the meat from the dead burnt beast he stored the two items inside the ring.

'It is truly very easy to store items!' He thought and walked away from the area feeling some powerful presences coming towards the burnt snake...

-●-●-●-

Aurelius was seated on his throne and signing countless numbers of papers while sighing sometimes...

"Ugh..." he groaned and rested his head on the table, there was too much paperwork!

*zwoom*

A light flashed infront of Aurelius, revealing itself to be Philip who looked at Aurelius with no emotion whatsoever.

"Uncle!" Aurelius was shocked and shouted, Philip nodded in acknowledgement.

"W-Wheres Alexis?" He asked his uncle who shrugged and replied.

"I don't know, last time I saw was when I pushed him into the beast forest a few hours ago..." Philip crossed him arms and sat on one of the sofas.

"YOU WHAT!!" Aurelius shouted at him, fear overcame him and then anger.

"Uncle, how could you do something like that?!" He shouted and glared at Philip who was silently seated on the sofa.

"Calm down nephew, he'll be alright!" Philip said and proceeded to fill a cup with tea and drank it silently.

"ALRIGHT?! HE'S IN THE BEAST FOREST!" Aurelius roared as guards suddenly barged into the room.

"He will be alright, I trained him everything I knew and he absorbed like sponge! Should he succeed this endeavour, he will come back as a Divine Duke Mage!" Philip said getting a bit angry at his nephew who didn't seem to appreciate what he had done...

"My goodness! A divine duke!" One of the guards gasped but quickly regained his strict persona and kneeled infront Aurelius.

"Your highness, urgent news!" The guard said.

"Speak!" Both Aurelius and Philip said at the exact moment.

"Yes!, The Satellian Empire requested for a ceasefire treaty!" He said and gave the enveloped letter to Aurelius who took it.

He then tore the envelope and read the letter.

"I see... atleast it's in two years time." Aurelius mumbled and sighed.

Philip then took the letter from him and nodded.

"Nephew, I'll be coming aswell... take little Alexis aswell, We don't want any "accidents" in the meeting..." he said with narrowed eyes.

"Send a small force to keep peace in Satellia, and take this letter and give it to the Satellians..." Aurelius said and pulled out a black envelope from a drawer...

The guard nodded and left immediately.

"Uncle, what was that talk about Alexis becoming a Divine Duke?" Aurelius asked.

"Like I said, Alexis could potentially become a Divine Duke by the end of his time in the beast forest..." Philip said and continued.

"If not, give him a few more years and he will become a Divine Duke..." he stopped talking and left.

"He won't die, I gave him a Spacial ring that has a emergency teleportation sequence." He said while walking out of the room...

Aurelius sat down on the throne and massaged his forehead.

"As long as nothing happens to him I'm fine uncle..." he mumbled and continued signing papers...

-●-●-●-

*thud*

An enormous beast fell on the ground dead, it was so big and heavy that the floor beneath it's body cracked!

"Well... there goes another one!" Alexis said and took out his knife.

It has been nearly a year and a half since Alexis was thrown into the forest literally...

At some point, his red hair was too long so Alexis decided to cut it short, that was an year ago.

Now his hair reached upto his chest and Alexis also grew significantly taller and stood at around four feet four inches, he didn't really know how tall he was compared to other ten year olds but he was sure he stronger than any ten year old there ever was in the world...

Alexis noticed that his muscles became firmer and bigger, normally he would be quite happy but he was quite annoyed when his clothes couldn't fit him anymore...

Alexis was now wearing beast skin as his makeshift clothes and looked like a small nomadic kid except for the fact that he can kill gigantic beasts and can do magic...

He gasped tiredly and fell flat on the ground and drank water from his bottle.

"Master said his target was to make me a Divine Duke... but I'm still a Saint Knight..." he muttered...

If someone heard what he said they would cough blood and slap him.

Even if the four nations had extremely high concentrations of mana in the atmosphere, it doesn't mean that they have hundreds of thousands of Divine tier mages and millions of Saint tier mages...

Only a couple thousand were Divine tier in the Empire...

While Alexis was disappointed at himself, he didn't necessarily think on the fact that he still had the body of a pre pubescent child!

He got up and went to a nearby river and took a bath...

No beast approached him as he had killed so many that they had decided not to cross his path, the other reason was the dense bloodlust unconsciously emitted by Alexis after killing them.

Once he was done with that, he took out some clothes, these clothes were his old clothes that didn't fit him so he decided to stitch some beast skin on it so that they would once again be worn...

He wasn't bothered enough to cut beast skin and make clothes by himself because that took too much time.

"A few more months and I can get out of this hell hole..." he said while putting on his shirt.

His back was covered with scars that would make even a veteran soldier look twice and wince...

His chest was well defined but there was a deep but healed scar running from his right shoulder down his left waist...

Once he put on the shirt, he went to a huge boulder that was mostly covered in moss except for one place.

Alexis took a sharp stone and scraped on the clean area...

There were one hundred and twenty seven groups of four small lines and one big slash going through the middle at an angle...

It represented the number of days he stayed in the forest, currently there were six hundred and thirty eight lines...

He now added one more.

This world had two extra months according to its calendar and exactly thirty days in each month...

He deduced that this world was bigger than Earth hence the longer year.

Anyway, he would now have some slight sleep and continue training tomorrow...

-●-●-●-

The next day Alexis decided to venture deeper into the forest.

The inner forest was eerily quiet and and the trees were darker, almost black but he could make out the brown on it...

Alexis then continued walking cautiously until he came to a stop.

He was shocked at what was infront of him...