Chapter 29: Nora. Back outside the border

Chapter 29: Nora. Back outside the borderNora’s family was leaving the city!

These words constantly rang in Alex’s mind for some reason as he made his way toward the border, he was already in his Mr Chen getup and was about to go explore.

About Nora’s family leaving. Alex had asked if there was a reason, but the chubby girl didn’t know; she had been informed not long ago by her parents that they had to leave.

She guessed that it might be because her father got a job in a different city so they needed to relocate since they wanted their family to stay together.

Alex thought that it was reasonable, but what he found unreasonable was when Nora asked him if he wanted to come with her.

....

"Run away with you and your family? Are you crazy, why would I do that?" Alex had asked in surprise at the girl’s suggestion. S~eaʀᴄh the Novelƒire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

"Eish, don’t say it like that. You know you’re my only friend here, and I’m your only friend as well; who will keep you company if I leave? You’ll be all by yourself with no one to spend time with. That’s why I asked you to come with me.

You can bring your family along, too; I will convince my dad to help them settle down in the new city."

Nora had explained earnestly with hopeful eyes that she really wanted Alex to come with her.

...



Alex shook his head as he remembered their conversation. In the end, he had turned down her offer. He couldn’t simply get his family to move just because he wanted to follow Nora, that would be a sick joke.

Pushing the thoughts of Nora aside, Alex set his mind on his exploration.

He had left the academy not long ago, and it was already in the middle of the afternoon with the sun blazing on a corner of the sky above Balon City; he had limited time to hunt for magic beasts; he had to be quick if he wanted to make this trip worthwhile!

Alex didn’t go to the union building this time before heading out to explore, as there was no need for that; he would only go there when he needed to sell beast corpses and mana cores or if he wanted to buy something.

Reaching the border, Alex found lots of Union officers with weapons guarding as usual.

"Hmm?"

However, Alex noticed something strange. There were more officers here than the last time he came, there were almost twenty people!

None of them were mages, though; they were all ordinary people.

Alex didn’t think much of this and quietly approached them; the officers immediately spotted him after he got close, and like the previous time, they called out for him to stop.

Since he had already experienced this before, Alex silently took out his explorer card and showed it to one of the officers, who then proceeded to inform his colleagues, and they made way for Alex.

"Pardon me, Mr explorer. But even though you’re a mage, I advise you to be careful while exploring.

I think something has happened outside the border; one of the elders of the Union branch and a sub-elder had taken teams of Union explorers to go check outside the borders.

That’s also the reason why the number of officers here has doubled." The officers said seriously.

Alex paused for a moment and nodded at the man while grunting before continuing to walk.



He passed through the border and arrived at the familiar empty space outside with the forest in the distance, Alex immediately dashed forward without wasting time.

He used his full speed as a mage at the core rank and was like a black shadow as he sped through the empty land that separated the border and the forest.

Last time, it had taken Alex a few minutes to cross this place but now that he was moving at top speed, Alex reached the forest in just one minute and some seconds!

Satisfied with his speed, Alex didn’t stop after he reached the forest. He stomped on the ground hard and launched himself into the air.

Boom!

The sound of a small explosion sounded as Alex shot off the ground and landed on a gigantic tree branch, he then jumped to another and repeated the action, moving deeper into the forest.

Despite how fast he was moving, Alex’s robe didn’t flutter in the slightest. The indestructible robe shielded the wind while remaining perfectly straight.

Not long after Alex entered the forest, he came across some people in black uniforms.

They numbered up to seven, and it looked like they were waiting for someone there.

Alex realised that they must be the Union explorers that the officer at the border had talked about; he had seen people in similar uniforms at the Union building before.

After observing them closely, Alex realised that most of them were in the Adept mage rank while a few were in the core rank.

"Their strength is not very high," Alex mumbled to himself, forgetting how difficult it had been for the previous Alex to improve his rank.

Some people took years just to break through from the Adept rank to the core rank and it was even more difficult when wanting to reach the expert rank. Entering the rank above the expert rank only meant that the person was very talented as many people spent their entire lives in the expert range while some would stop at the Master rank.

Going higher than the Master rank would require one to be very talented and a large number of resources would have to be spent; only the first two ranks of the mage power system were relatively easy to cross.

To put it shortly, talent and resources were required to make even the slightest breakthrough once one reached the Adept mage rank.



After observing for some time, Alex didn’t bother with them and kept moving.

Since he was high up in the trees, they didn’t notice him. Coupled with the indestructible robe that didn’t produce any sounds, it would be very hard for anyone to spot him unless he wanted to be discovered or the other party had very sharp senses.

As Alex moved deeper into the forest, he came across more and more groups of Union explorers with their average strength still being around the Adept and Core rank.

However, this made Alex frown. He wondered what could have happened that would make the union send so many mages here. He had just a few hours to farm exp, but the presence of these people was going to be a problem.

Additionally, he had not seen a single magic beast since he entered the forest and the reason was pretty obvious.

Now annoyed, Alex kept moving deeper into the forest.

After moving at high speed for several minutes, he finally stopped seeing the Union explorers.

This made him sigh in relief, looks like they didn’t come this deep. He was already starting to worry that he was going too deep into the forest and might encounter powerful magic beasts.

Finally, after some time, Alex came across a magic beast!

His eyes lit up as he stopped on top of a rather thin tree branch and gazed down at the beast.

The beast had the appearance of a deer with a single large horn poking out from the center of its head.

"It’s a Sonic deer!" Alex gasped in surprise.