After going into the portal, I felt as if I was being spun around as if I was in a washing machine. Some time passed and when I finally came to my senses, I found myself in an open area in a forest with Lu staring worriedly at me. I looked around me and saw that I was in a clearing with undisturbed forests all around me.

  I then went to check for everything on my body to see if everything was brought with me. When everything was accounted for a heaved a huge sigh of relief. According to some books I read while I was learning magic, there is a small chance of losing thing when going through portals. Especially when wearing space based items through portals. Although the technology has been far surpassed since then, accidents do occur rarely. Thankfully, it seems that my luck isn't that bad.

  Since Lu arrived here before I did, I decided to ask her what she knows of the current location.

  Lu: We are in one of the great forests of Egis. The map here is blocked so I can't tell where exactly we are.

  She then shows me a phone like device that had a world map printed on it. She handed the phone over and I went and looked through the entire map.

  The map is quite massive and contains a wide variety of different environments and pces. On the map are several dots pced all throughout the world. After tapping them, the phone showed the names as well as danger levels of each city.

  After I finished skimming through the map, I returned the phone before asking her what we should do now.

  Lu: First of all, since all of our supplies are accounted for, basic life materials aren't a problem. Next is to find shelter, so I would suggest we stay here in this clearing for now and use it as a base to search for civilized life.

  When I heard this I went into look through the storage ring with all of my supplies in it. After searching through them, I indeed found that there were tents and other materials to make a temporary base as well as a note that instructed how to use them.

  I took the tent out along with the instructions and the two of us were able to get it to work. After nodding to myself, I then turned my head to see if Lu had any other instructions on how to live here.

  Lu: Next would be searching for signs of civilized life, but I have already sent out ghosts and my origami soldiers to check all around. They are more fit for this role. You just need to wait for now.

  Seeing that that was the case, I decided to give Lu a pat on the head. When she reacted she quickly dashed back and looked vigintly at me. Are her ears at the top of her head sensitive? They did feel good to pat though.

  After a little pyful banter, I decided to take a walk around the forest since it was the first time I have walked into one. I picked up a stick and pced it vertically. I then released and decided to go the direction that the stick fell. When I decided my direction, Lu called me and summoned a ghost.

  Lu: Take this ghost, it can lead you back here when you want to return.

  I nodded and I took out my secondary red sword. Unlike by blood sword, this sword can't be released on the fly so easily so keeping it on me would be important right now.

  Time passed as I walked through the forest. While walking I stopped to look at all of the pnts that grew in the forest. I didn't touch any of them because they could potentially contain venom or other defensive measures. As I wandered around, I saw many different animals living their own lives. A while of searching ter I decided to return to the base and see how Lu was.

  I told the ghost of my intentions and it then led me back to the base where Lu had already prepared a stew with a fire on the side. After she found me, Lu went and put a bnket on the ground to sit on. After thanking her I sat down and waited as the stew was cooking.

  When the stew was finished, Lu pulled two bowls out of her own storage tool and poured a bowl for me first. After waiting for her to pour a bowl for herself, I said thank you and dug in.

  Although the stew wasn't the best it had a certain charm to it that made it special compared to the normal food I eat.

  Soon a few days passed and when I began to think that I had arrived in the center of the forest, Lu suddenly excimed out loud.

  Lu: They found signs of people!

  I quickly asked her what happened and she expined it to me.

  Lu: My ghosts have found signs of humans so they informed me. It is in this direction.

  She points over to the right of us. She then calls her other ghosts in other directions to head over there. Now we just have to wait for the ghosts to tell us about what they see over there when they have finished scouting.

  Even if humans are spotted over there, we can't be too careful when exploring and unknown pce like this. So it is better to scout out the people there to see if we can communicate with them.

  While I was waiting here, I took out the books that my mom had left for me in the storage space. Among them was a book that spoke about the precautions of entering an unknown world. Things like food water and shelter have to be obtained first. The next step is to build a base of operations whether it is building up a force from the ground up or taking over a native force. The final step is to begin collecting resources while your force slowly yet surely expands its influence.

  That is the standard progression when entering a different world according to the book. Also included in it are various traps you should not fall into and various things of note to remember such as always expanding your intelligence through various means. In explorations, intelligence is key.

  We waited for the ghosts for a day to send back information about the intelligent life they found. When they returned, they conversed with Lu. After a while, she reyed the information back to me.

  Lu: The ghosts reported that they found a path in the forest. After following the road, they found humans living rural farm lives before reporting to us. Now there are some left to keep watch over them before we head over. What should we do, miss?

  I thought for a while before finally asking a question.

  Celine: Can the ghosts find out any more information?

  Lu: Sorry, my ghosts don't have that level of intelligence. The most they could do is determine the species they see and whether they are dangerous. According to my ghosts, the farmers give off no sense of danger.

  Hearing this, I decided that we should still keep in hiding while trying to learn more about the people here. Even if the people here seem to be not dangerous, interacting with them may lead to various circumstances which may result in our exposure.

  One of the most important things about exploring other worlds is to hide your self. Since we are not naturally born natives in these worlds, the world itself naturally repulses our existence. The more we interact with the world, the more we will be repulsed. Even in the worst case scenario, the world itself will create a child of fate to quickly grow and subdue the invader while constantly harassing the invader with misfortune.

  Although I say all of this, the actual situation isn't nearly so dire. The world only starts to suppress invaders once they deem an action of ours as a net negative for the world itself. Most invaders hide and do things secretly so the effects of the world's suppression won't be so violent.

  I then go turn the blood magic book that I am currently reading. After a while, I found out the page I was looking for.

  Celine: Blood magic summons... This should do it.

  I then grab a ft stone like surface and begin painting on the ground with an ink made of blood. Every once in a while, I look back at the book to confirm the pattern that I drew is consistent with the image on the page.

  The page is beled, Blood Summoning - Blood Eyes.

  It is a page that details the exact methods to summon a Blood eye to your location and the various abilities it contains. The reason I chose it is because it has a special ability to share its vision and hearing with their contractor. They also have the ability to hide their aura and shrink to a minuscule level. If someone is not paying constant attention and there is no barrier in its way, it is one of the more concealed methods to obtain intelligence.

  According to the book on various precautions, summons of eye variety are useful in gathering intelligence. Therefore I had my eyes on this summon to help gain intelligence.

  When I finished drawing the pattern, I double checked it with the book before nodding and looking through the ring again.

  What I was doing now is considered a contract summoning. I call a specific race using a ritual and pce an offering on the pattern. A creature of that race will take the offering and a contract will be signed where I pay a certain amount and type of resource to call upon their assistance. This kind of contract is different from the summons from my technique in this way.

  Although it may sound worse than a summon like from my technique, there is an advantage that you can summon creatures of a significantly higher level than your own as long as the offering is enough and that the strength of the creature does not exceed the limit of the world.

  For a blood eye, the most liked offering for them is blood crystals. We vampires happen to live on an area with several blood crystal veins so most blood based creatures favor having us vampires as their contractors. It is for this reason that we vampires are also known as the children of blood.

  When I finished pcing the blood crystals in the center of the pattern I then closed my eyes and began the chant to call the blood eye here.

  Celine: Oh blood, hear the echoes of time, come to my side and fight alongside me!

  As I finished the chant, the sigil on the ground glowed a crimson glow. Before long, a blood red eyeball with wings on its sides appeared from the center of the circur pattern. After it fully emerged, a paper-like contract hovered between us. On it was the summoning contract between the two of us. We both input our energy into the paper and it split into two energy orbs. One orb entered through my abdomen while another entered the blood eye's big eye.

  When the orb phased into my body, I could feel a vast existence appeared and gnced upon each of us before disappearing.

  After the presence disappeared, I gave a sigh of relief. That being, according to one of the books on magic I read, is known as the lord of contracts. They are an extremely powerful being that oversees all contracts. They make sure that all contracts are completed. Those who fail to fulfill their side of the contract will be marked with the shame of failing a contract while also paying a certain price for failing their end of the contract.

  The contract's completion meant that I can now summon this blood eye whenever I need them for reconnaissance. My parents have already prepared for the situation where I would need several contracted summons. In the storage ring that they gave me, there is enough resources to even summon a gold level summon for a while. This means that for maintenance for a blood eye my level is child's py.

  Now that the contract was complete, I commanded the vampire on to its first mission, spying on the humans. As the eye was flying over, I looked through the magic book and went to a page that described a spell called Blood Mirror. It is a spell that puts whatever you see and hear onto a mirror made of blood so that others can also view what you see.

  After reading and completely understanding the spell's requirements, I chanted the spell and created a blood mirror. Even if it was my first time casting this spell, I was able to complete the spell on my first attempt. Although the mirror was quite foggy, so I decided to go a few more tries until I made a blood mirror that was clear enough.

  As I was casting the spell, the blood eye had already gone nearby the human farmers and was already in stealth mode. After sneaking closer, I was able to tell that those people are indeed farmers with no signs of any other race. Through the blood eye, I could also tell that they were completely powerless ordinary people.

  Just because humanity was able to make a name for themselves as one of the greatest races in our universe does not mean that individual humans are scary. In fact, quite the opposite. Humans are generally quite weak among the various races. The reason that humans were able to develop and compete with the other races is due to their adaptability and numbers. Because of their numbers, there will always eventually be a talented human among the seas of average. Mifune is also one of them.

  Those talented few, while not as strong as our race's geniuses, are able to adapt to almost any power system to various degrees. Because of this, they were able to develop and perfect the almost universal mage css. Magic is a byproduct of spiritual energy undergoing changes through accepting various elements. Because of this, the mage css can simute almost any other race's special abilities. So the other races had to develop their own mages and magic systems while making a racial alliance to keep humanity from ballooning out of control.

  This is the main reason why my parents were so worried and sent me off to another world. If the werewolves and the human Church of Light have worked together, does that mean that the werewolves have given their special abilities to humanity? If that is the case, then the invasion is more a conspiracy to quickly take down various races in our racial alliance in order to give humanity an opportunity to expand quickly.

  I quickly shook my head. These problems must have already been known to the higher level vampires, so I shouldn't need to pay so much attention. When I asked Lu, she said that my family had already blocked the power of this pne from the outside world, so the opponents we have to worry about all can not ask for reinforcements from outside the pne.

  It is because the world is so completely isoted, that my parents saw it as a complete safe haven for me to grow in.

  While I was thinking in my head, I suddenly remembered that I had to pay attention to the farmers and their nguage. After listening in on their conversation, I found that they spoke in common speak with a heavy accent. I went and gnced through the books on exploration and after skimming several books, I found what I was looking for.

  On one of the books was a history of exploring where it told of a legend that all the worlds were originally part of a single super world before eventually all breaking off and becoming how it is today. Even is they are now separate, all the worlds once were one and so all nguages spawned from the basic nguages that are used currently.

  Because the nguage they spoke was in common, I was able to understand their conversations quite easily.

  Farmer 1: Have you heard, the church seems to be recruiting personnel. They are paying quite highly and the work seems quite leisurely.

  Farmer 2: You know that they won't choose old men like us. They want the young ones because of their youth.

  Farmer 1: Who knows, it doesn't hurt to ask. Maybe us two old heads could be lucky and get in the quota?

  The two then went back to farming while only occasionally chatting about small things. Long story short, the church is recruiting young people and there have been some disturbances from the dark races. Other than that, it was just some small talk and gossip about the vilge they lived in. According to them, this is Rot Weed Vilge which is named after an uncommon herb that grows here. Because of this Rot weed, the vilge is considered above average in size and strength. Every once in a while, people called adventurers come here and harvest the herb. Although they are called adventurers, they are different from the adventurers in our world. I guess it is all part of the fact that all of these worlds were all one.

  After a while, the farmers finished their farming and went back together. I let the blood eye follow them and we went to the vilge in the distance. When they entered the vilge, everyone in the vilge greeted them. Some time passed and they finally went to the only stone building in the vilge. Most of the other houses are made of wood so this one stood out especially. When they entered, I found that the building was a small chapel and had a few people praying. At the head was an older priest. The two farmers went and listened to the priests sermons. After they were done, they followed the priest outside and finally asked him about the recruiting.

  Priest: Oh, apologies gentlemen, the quota has already been met this time. You will have to wait till there is another vacancy before you can sign up.

  After giving a sigh in regret, the two left. I kept the blood eye on the priest as he went about his day. Since the two I was following were just farmers, they were likely not in contact with any special beings. The blood eye followed him as he went about his business. He went about blessing others in words while preaching the whole day. When the sun finally set, he returned to the church and entered the backroom of the church. After a while of waiting, I found that the priest only read their church's bible before writing about what to preach about tomorrow before resting.

  I was a little disappointed that there was nothing out of the ordinary with the priest. I even checked the entire room for hidden rooms and found nothing! After some more checking about, I found nothing wrong with the priest and sighed. Don't those protagonists in various novels always end up encountering special situations on their path to the top? Am I not a protagonist?

  Since there was nothing wrong with the priest, I went ahead and checked around the whole vilge. The most concerning thing in the vilge is that there is a pharmacist with a hidden underground b. As I got excited, I only then found out that the underground b is just where the pharmacist experiments.

  In the end, I found myself worrying a little too much. This vilge did not have anything particurly special going for it. Because of this, I turned to Lu to say we can go ahead and enter the vilge.

  But, she interrupted me first.

  Lu: We should wait for a while first. The tents we have have a spatial expansion spell on it, so interacting with them would not benefit us much. Rather than exposing our position, we should wait. Since there are adventurers coming every once in a while to harvest herbs, we can just wait till they arrive and follow along with them.

  I thought about it for a bit and agreed. Although we haven't found any dangers in the vilge, there is no need to go to the vilge anyways. Besides contacting the vilge for directions to a bigger settlement nearby which might arouse their suspicion. Although rare, there are indeed silver level characters in this pne. Since the priest there is most certainly a part of the church of light, if they inform the headquarters of anything suspicious then it might be troublesome.

  Because of all of these considerations, we decided that we should just stay hidden in the woods for now. Since we are going to stay here for an extended period of time, we should improve this base of ours in terms of stealth and convenience. Lu went and searched for a more hidden location to call a base, while I took out the item that may help us in this venture.

  My mom is highly obsessive with my safety and quality of life, so she had already prepared many devices for a variety of different situations. Among them was a base creator, that was able to easily dig through stone and dirt and is easily able to make a hidden base almost anywhere. Mages have long since created technology to convenience life, although a little expensive, each gadget has been made to perfectly deal with various different situations no matter the circumstance.

  Lu then reported that she found a solid cliff face that could serve as a good hidden base, there are a bunch of vines covering the cliff so the entrance can remain hidden from any passerby. We first tidied up the clearing and Lu went and erased our traces to hide the fact we were here. We then walked over to the cliff and I opened my blood wings and flew to a nice position on the cliff.

  Ever since I awakened that transformation skill, I was able to learn how to transform my body. Although it is only to the extent that I can sprout wings from my back or grow cws over my fingers. The sprouted wings are combined with a spell that boosts my speed to achieve the effect of flight in short distances. Because of this, the base can be considered secure as the only way to reach it would be through climbing and flight. Flight is naturally a rarer ability, especially below the gold level and climbing itself is a slower process so this new base would be inherently difficult to attack.

  When I found the right spot, I quickly brushed away the vines and pced the device on the cliff. I went back down as the device will take some time to calcute the perfect room space on the cliff that wouldn't colpse the cliff. Lu and I stayed at the bottom of the cliff as I called my blood eye again.

  After giving it the required blood crystals, it headed out to watch the vilge again. Since there was nothing strange found in the vilge, I decided to start mapping a rough map of the surrounding terrain. Since we do not have an official map, we have to make do with making one ourselves. So we proceeded to search around and map out the area. Lu chose to stay and watch the device while also preparing food.

  Before, the clearing was already quite a ways from the vilge so the trees in the forest easily blocked the view of smoke. The cliff is even further away so unless we encounter someone going out of their way to explore deep into the woods, I think the new base would be quite safe.

  I went ahead and walked with the ghosts to map out the area. Unlike the ghosts, I was more seeing the terrain itself and how I would move around in it. Since I had the time, I proceeded to get back to my schedule where I woke up and washed up before training and eating until the day was over. Each match against my summons would be pced in different areas so I would not get used to the terrain.

  Time seemed to slowly pass by as a few weeks had passed since the base was completed. Since Lu can't fly on her own, I take her when she needs to go up or down the cliff. With the forest slowly being more and more mapped out, an adventurer finally arrived at the vilge.

  From a visual inspection, she is probably a rogue type css from her light leather armor that covers only her vitals and has a sling with potions and a backpack that is likely filled with survival supplies.

  The blood eye can sense that her strength is only at the level of Bck Iron, even lower than me. In the vilge, the priest and the pharmacist are the only ones on this level. The other farmers and hunters are all unranked in strength.

  After seeing her appearance and strength, I had the blood eye follow her while she went searching for the rot weed herb. If I see them harvesting the pnts, I can know the pnt myself when I am exploring around and find it on my own.

  I watched as she trekked into the forest while watching for traces and looking all around herself. After a few hours when the sun was setting, she found a more open area and built a tent. After eating some dry food, she then quickly spread a powder that likely acts as a bug repelnt. She then rested in her own tent as I called back the blood eye.

  The next days passed as I kept on training while Lu kept paying attention to the adventurer through my mirror. After about 3 days, she finally found what she was looking for and harvested the so called rot weed. After taking a gnce at the cluster of weeds, I made sure to take note of it's general characteristics so I wouldn't forget.

  When the harvest was completed, she then looked around a little more before camping. The next day she returned to the vilge before heading back from where she came from. As she was going back, I had already asked the blood eye for an extended surveilnce of the adventurer so I was still able to watch the adventurer go all the way back.

  So we kept track of her, mapping the road while watching the exact path she walked. As an adventurer, she must have her own way of traveling so following her path can decrease the chances for trouble. In addition, we are just monitoring her with the blood eye so any problems she encounters will be known and prepared for when we decide to go on that road.

  The tracking kept on going until a week ter. When Lu was keeping an eye on the mirror, she suddenly saw the outline of a town in the distance. She then quickly came to me while I was training.

  Lu: Celine! She finally arrived in a town!

  Since we have been together for quite a while, Lu has stopped being so scared of me. Although she is sometimes nervous, she can now talk to me face to face and even interrupt my training.

  I stopped my skeleton swordsman and recalled him before transforming wings to fly to the base. When I arrived at the entrance, Lu quickly showed me the mirror. Although I could keep an eye on the adventurer through my own connection with the blood mirror, it would require a spell to connect vision. In contrast, the blood mirror already has the magic attached so I chose to look through the mirror.

  When I looked through the mirror, I saw the adventurer's final destination and showed a small smile. Since we know the position to this town as well as a path over, I knew it was time to head out. Lu and I began taking back various devices and prepared our st meal at this base for the foreseeable future. Although we were leaving, we decided to keep the actual space intact so that we could return here at anytime.

  We finished our meals and began our trek over to the town. Lu kept on sending summons to accurately map out the area while we followed the general direction of the road the adventurer took.

  On the way, we sometimes encountered the homes of various beasts. Since we did not prepare anything to hide our scents, some of the beasts on the road approached defensively. Due to our bronze level strength, most beasts chose to go around us. Rarely, some idiotic beasts chose to attack us. The result is that we easily wiped them out and explored their homes. Since they were stupid to hunt us, they should know that the winner gets the spoils.

  Because of this, we found the remains of many weak adventurers and obtained this world's currency as well as a diary that helped illuminate us on this pne. We walked along this road while checking out the information in the diary. We collected the adventurer's cards on their corpses and pnned on returning them to the guild. Most of these adventurers only had bones remaining so we buried them before finally arriving near the town.