Luke stood in the middle of the forest. A week had already passed, and his kukris were still sealed inside Tsukumogami no Me. He was outside the Spore Forest. In his hand, he held a sheet of paper containing a map of the region, copied from the temple wall. His goal was simple: find out whether the information on it actually matched reality.

  While studying the map, he heard the sound of a fierce battle nearby, or at least, fierce for the ones involved.

  The young wyvern was locked in combat with a boar.

  “Witness the power of my roar, rat!” Franky shouted as he activated [Wyvern Roar].

  The little wyvern let out everything he had in that dramatic bellow… and the boar only stared down at him, confused.

  “Don’t laugh at me, human!” Franky snapped.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “That mighty roar wouldn’t scare a two-year-old,” Artemis sighed.

  The boar lunged, ramming Franky with its head and sending him rolling backward. The wyvern jumped up again, furious.

  “I can’t believe this. How has someone as powerful as I am been reduced to this?” he growled, then sprinted and leapt onto the boar’s back.

  “You’re not a snake. Why are you pouncing on a boar like that?” Luke asked.

  “It’s going to work!” Franky insisted.

  The boar thrashed wildly, squealing as Franky bit into it, then bucked hard enough to throw him to the ground. As it charged again, the wyvern fired a fireball, then another.

  Franky ran in circles, spitting small bursts of flame while the boar stumbled through the flickering explosions. The wyvern spread his wings, leapt forward, and sank his jaws in with Wyvern Bite. After nearly ten minutes of chaotic struggle, the boar finally collapsed.

  “I did it! I, the mighty Jormungandr, hunted my own prey!” Franky declared triumphantly, standing atop the corpse.

  “Congratulations. What was that, a level fifteen boar? Careful, everyone, terrifying creature,” Artemis muttered.

  Franky ignored her and began tearing into the carcass. “Mock me all you want. One day I will be great and powerful again.”

  He strutted back to Luke and spat a boar’s leg at his feet. “Here. I’ll share a piece with you, human, since you insisted and were clearly amazed.”

  “I… was not insisting.”

  Once the wyvern finished eating, they continued their route around the region. Luke had been doing this for days now, mapping the terrain, and he always brought Franky along, the wyvern still couldn’t enter the Spore Forest.

  “This is humiliating,” Franky muttered, glaring at the poisonous haze drifting over the treetops. “Me, of all beings, a serpent, forced to fear poison in the air.”

  “Stop complaining. I’ll take you back to the temple,” Luke replied.

  He dismissed Franky, sending the wyvern back into his soul, and moved on through the forest.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  ***

  Luke moved slowly down the corridor, studying the carvings along the walls. Every mural showed the same scene: a group of shadow-black demons working a colossal forge. Some of them were connected to strange creatures at their side by a thin cord that extended from their abdomen, as if those beasts were living assistants tethered to their masters.

  Angie walked up beside him. Over the last few days she had thrown herself into learning the craft of smithing with almost religious determination, but there was still no sign of a profession awakening. A profession could appear through effort and mastery, or through a catalyst artifact… the same way Luke had awakened his through Mother Freya’s book.

  “At some point, if I keep working at it, I’ll get there,” she said quietly.

  “The servant system may look similar, but it still isn’t the same as a normal one,” he replied. “When I meet Azazel, I’ll try asking him about professions.”

  They kept walking until they reached another mural, this one carved in the shape of the region’s map.

  “The answer is right here.”

  “To the riddle?”

  “Not the riddle… the location of the Demon Smith’s temple. Do you remember the concept of Pangaea?”

  “Yes. In your world, before the System integrated Earth, all the continents were once a single land mass. Then something happened and they split apart. Maybe the System interfered somehow. Either way, that was Pangaea.”

  “Do you remember how Angelica learned about it? I heard about it in school, when I was still a kid.”

  “The same for Angelica.”

  Luke traced a finger along the carved map. “There was a simple exercise. They gave us cut-outs of the continents and asked us to fit them together, like one of those shape-matching toys for children.”

  He pulled his hand back.

  “And to everyone’s surprise… the pieces actually fit.”

  He took out the copy he’d made of Cassandra’s temple map before beginning the journey. "I did the same thing with both maps, and the drawings really do match up. I thought there might be a chance that each map only showed the area around its own temple, but they’re large enough to line up with the map from the other temple."

  He overlaid the two drawings.

  They aligned almost perfectly.

  “If I can get all four temple maps,” Luke murmured, “I might be able to pinpoint the location of the final one.”

  ***

  Inside his room in the temple, Luke was fully focused on brewing healing potions.

  “Looks like you’re really going to try recreating that little… ‘night-combat potion,’” Artemis said, her tone deliberately suggestive.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Luke replied, stirring the cauldron with a large wooden ladle while several others floated around him under telekinetic control. “But if I were theoretically making that kind of potion, you should know I’d only be doing it for magical research. Purely academic. And for the experience points you get from creating a new potion.”

  “Oh, of course. A service to humanity. Especially to all the men suffering from erectile dysfunction,” Artemis said, her voice dripping with fake gratitude.

  “I’m not making that potion.”

  “But I saw you messing with those mushrooms and laughing like a cartoon villain.”

  **You have successfully crafted a potion!**

  **You have successfully crafted a potion!**

  **You have successfully crafted a potion!**

  **Your profession [Guardian Botanist of Mother Freya] has reached Level 77! (+5 Strength, +3 Agility, +4 Vitality, +4 Intelligence, +12 Free Points)**

  The other cauldrons finished at once, flooding him with more experience.

  [A profession skill is evolving…]

  He barely had time to process it before the system opened in front of him.

  It’s happening.

  [Your Profession Skill Basic Potion Crafting has evolved into Advanced Potion Crafting.]

  He tapped the notification and compared the old skill to the new one.

  [Basic Potion Crafting (Common)]: By mastering the natural reactions and magical interactions of ingredients, the herbalist can now combine herbs, liquids, and catalysts with precision, turning raw materials into functional potions with various effects.

  Beneath it, the upgraded version appeared.

  Hey everyone, how’s it going? Just stopping by to let you know that today we’ll have a bonus chapter going live in 12 hours, where you’ll finally get to satisfy your curiosity about Charlie’s new skill.

  https://discord.gg/znGSjCxhkR