The next morning arrived far quicker than Grey appreciated. His body was stiff, and there was a deeper ache within him that he was not used to. Ki quickly explained that, like muscles, his power needs to be trained. With his prolonged use of his powers for the first time without sufficient training, his soul was under strain from overexerting himself. Although it left him feeling fatigued, it also explained one major fact which pleased him greatly.

  He could get stronger.

  After fighting the alpha night wolves, he had been worrying about how he would even begin to compete with the light zealots, but learning that he could train his powers to get stronger left him feeling lighter despite the stiffness and fatigue.

  He and Akasuba enjoyed a hearty breakfast of stew warmed up from the night before. He proceeded to step outside and soak in the morning sunlight streaming through the trees. Taking a deep breath of the fresh morning air mixed with a tinge of rot and blood from the corpses, which looked like something had taken a couple of bites out of, he finally felt some sense of a plan forming.

  Akasuba was knowledgeable about the boundless forest that he knew. He also seemed to have travelled far searching for his ‘path’ as he had called it. This would also mean that he would be knowledgeable of the world around him, such as the various countries and continents which it was made up of. He would be a perfect source of information for Grey.

  However, Ki never let Grey forget why he was here in the first place. To combat the light zealots and ease the grip they have on this world. This meant that while he was learning from Akasuba about the world he now resides in. He would be hunting and fighting monsters in the boundless forest, using his powers to get stronger. Ki also said that he had barely touched the true power of the Umbra, and Grey was deeply curious how far he would have to go to reach that point. He questioned Ki once more what else he would be capable of, but as he had before, the shadow inside of him remained silent.

  The plan was simple. Learn everything that he could about the world from Akasuba. Train until he felt that he would be strong enough to leave the fairly isolated forest and then begin the war.

  It sounded easy in his head, but he also knew no plan ever truly went smoothly, and he would have to face the first bump in the road straight away. He would have to get Akasuba to agree to teach him without revealing who he truly was and where he came from.

  It was a risk allowing someone else to see how na?ve he truly was about the world, but one that he and Ki had agreed was just one he would have to take. It would take far too long for him to do everything alone. If things didn’t go to plan, he could also always just kill the man.

  Taking one more deep breath, he headed back inside the trunk to speak to Suba. He walked into the trunk and found him whittling away at a branch while humming a tune from a foreign song. As he entered, Suba looked up at him.

  “How’s it look out there? Those two night wolf bodies still look like they have anything salvageable? We’ll fetch a pretty penny for their hide and teeth, but it will be a mountain of work gutting them.”

  “Eh seems like something had a little nibble at them, but they seem pretty alright to me, but I’m no expert,” Grey said while scratching at the stubble on his chin.

  “Listen, Akasuba, I think it’s about time you and I have a proper conversation, He said with a sigh. He immediately noticed the way Suba’s body stiffened and once more looked up at him standing at the edge of the doorway.

  “A conversation, Grey? Haven’t we already had plenty of those?” Suba said, feigning confusion, but he already knew what this conversation would be about. This would either end in a fight or a deal. You don’t survive alone in the boundless forest without having your wits about you, and he had survived alone for a very long time.

  “Look its no secret that we both have secrets; I am also not unaware of the fact that I haven’t told you anything about me and where I come from. That won’t change, but I am willing to explain a few things,” He said with a serious tone and took a deep breath before continuing. “I am not from here. I won't ever say where I am from, but I come from a land far away from here. So far, you probably haven’t even heard of it, so I don’t see a point in you even knowing. I also know that you’ve noticed my powers.”

  “Your powers?”, Suba questioned. “Do you mean your skills and affinity to dark magic?”

  So, they aren’t powers but skills. He also didn’t even know what this whole affinity thing was, but it would have to be one of the things he would learn.

  “Yes, that. I can already see that you understand that they are unique.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Unique?”, Suba basically shouted. “We haven’t seen anyone this side of the sea with a darkness affinity in a millennium. You aren’t unique, Grey. You’re an anomaly.”

  This complicated things for him. He would have to now factor that into his every move because once he left the forest, the light users would be able to sniff him out in a second if his abilities were so rare and people saw him using them.

  “I understand they're rare,”, he lied. “This is why I would need absolute discretion from you about what you’ve seen me do. This also leads me to my next point. I need a teacher.”

  “A teacher? What can I teach a master of the dark? You guys are prodigies in your own right.”, Suba said

  “That’s the thing. I had to flee my own home out of fear for my life. Picked a direction and just kept going. I fear I have no idea where I am.”

  This was an obvious lie to both, but Suba was interested as to where this would lead now, so he asked him to continue.

  “I need you, Akasuba. You’ve been living in the boundless alone for a long time, it seems. I need you to teach me about the forest, the monsters, how to fight them, and where I now find myself.”

  Grey could see that he was not yet convinced, but pressed on, “I can see that you need more from me, so I will say this. I did flee my home out of fear for my life.” He thought back to the men chasing him in the forest and how it led to him being here. “But I’ve also come here for another reason. I am about to go to war. I’ll be fighting for my life every day against an enemy so large that their resources will seem endless, and their power is immeasurable. So, I don’t just need to learn about this place because I find myself in a new land. I must do it to survive.”

  Suba stood up after that and walked outside without another word. Grey knew he would come back inside with his decision, and there was nothing else to be said in the moment. After some time, he returned.

  He looked at Grey with a deadpan face, “Ok, Grey, I’ll teach everything you want to know, but after this, our debt is clear. The only reason I’m going to help you is that you saved me from those fucking slavers, and because without you those alphas would’ve made me mincemeat. But after this, I’m done. I want no part in your war.”

  With that, Grey walked towards him, and they clasped hands, “Thank you, Akasuba.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, you’ve just decided to live in one of the most dangerous places in the entire kingdom, you fool, and we sure do have our work cut out for us if you don’t even realise that,” Suba said.

  “And the name is Suba, for friends remember,” he now said with a smile.

  Grey was immensely relieved, the first part of his plan had gone smoother than he had expected. He had honestly thought he would have had to kill the man right then and there, but it would seem the world had different plans for both.

  After that conversation, they immediately got to work skinning the night wolfs and moving the remains far from their camp as Suba said the forest waits for no one. The rest of the day was spent securing the opening in the tree with Suba. They used their combined strength and Suba’s wind affinity to move a large boulder in front of it. They would be able to slip it into place during the night, securing his temporary home from the night walkers. Which he found out was the name for all-night monsters.

  No one really knew how they came to be, but it seemed that the boundless forest was crawling with these evolved creatures. They didn’t just come out at night, but due to their colouring always being various shades of black and how active they are at night, they were named night walkers. He would also find out they were not the only monsters in the forest, but seemed to be the majority.

  The next few days were spent in a routine. The two would sit around in the morning, and Suba would allow him to ask as many questions as he wanted about the forest. They would then spend the day moving around the forest hunting small monsters and animals for food and materials. Grey didn’t want to fight anything stronger just yet, as there was still so much he had to learn. However, with every passing day, he grew more accustomed to Ki and the usage of his skills. He practiced and used them continuously all day long. Training, he called it. He was strengthening the muscles of his shadows.

  With each day, he was growing to trust Suba and his words more. The wall he had built around himself began to ease, although it was a slow process. They began to lightly spar in the mornings, Suba with his short sword, while Grey used his shadow gauntlets with minimal power. What usually followed was a body weight workout he used to perform in his old world, then the education would begin.

  He learnt so much in a very short period. The boundless forest belonged to no one, he found out. It was an uncontested territory that was so large that there were still parts of it that had never been mapped. It had never been claimed because, for some reason, the magic of the world interacted with it differently, and it was a breeding ground for monsters. When he questioned why they just didn’t kill all the monsters, he found out that not everyone in this world had magical abilities, to his relief, making it a daunting and expensive task, which no kingdom had truly been willing to take.

  The part where he now found himself was closest to the kingdom of Deeplock, ruled by King Chivaleux. This kingdom was where Akasuba was from. He said that the royal family had ruled since the formation of the kingdom over two thousand years ago, when it had just been a few powerful city-states that the family had brought under their rule in a ten-year-long brutal military campaign. The royal family seemed to have some special magical affinity that no one truly understood, allowing them to retain power even after all this time.

  He learned it was ruled by a medieval feudal system, and although they seemed technologically behind, it had more to do with the magic of the world than with a lack of innovation. Magic solved most of the problems of the world, allowing people to complete tasks that would’ve forced change in their old world. Some healers could cure diseases with a touch, carpenters who could work faster than any machine, and stonemasons who could lift huge blocks of stone with their bare hands.

  This routine would carry on for a few more days before Grey felt that he was finally ready to take the next step. It was time to go hunting. It was time he started learning how to be Umbra.