The Place Where Everything Begins

"Of course, I know. They are Rachel, Clinton, and Floyd respectively," replied Morgan after putting in some thought before continuing,

"Well, those rankings are not up to date, though, whereas they should have changed by now from today's scouting missions. Unfortunately, when I went to report the camp leader, I forgot to ask him about the current rankings."

In fact, Morgan wasn't quite sure about the other rankings because the kill counts were only one or two kills apart from one another. Such numbers could be crossed easily just by undergoing one battle so that the rankings might have switched by now.

However, for the first ranking, Morgan was pretty sure that it was owned by Rachel. At the end of the day, that woman was a killing machine.

'Hmm... So, those the first three rankings are still more or less the same if those three people are still alive and kicking.'

Jeremy thought briefly to himself after having heard Morgan's recount.

Simultaneously, Jeremy nodded his head towards Morgan in understanding. To be honest, he remembered those three people from his past life pretty clearly. After all, they would become somewhat famous within the human kingdoms in the future.

Especially, one of those three that would achieve an even higher status than the other two...

That person was...

"Rachel... Do you know how many she had killed so far?" asked Jeremy.

"Hmm... In the past two days, she had killed exactly ten kenkus. As for today, I'm not sure if her group had encountered any kenku's scout team or not. If she had faced one, it means that her kill counts should be around fourteen or fifteen by now."

Morgan replied with an awed expression after thinking about how the woman named Rachel fought.

There had been a rumor being talked about extensively that Rachel had the skill number 182, [Markmanship], which boosted her accuracy significantly.

People felt suspicious that Rachel might have that skill because she rarely missed her target whenever an arrow left her bow.

Nevertheless, Rachel, the referred person, had never come out or spoken anything regarding the rumor surrounding her; she just let it be as it was.

'If the story plays out like in my past life, she will get one Rare-ranked bow in the near future...'

Jeremy thought to himself as he raised his head to look at the dark night sky where darkness reigned over.

For this second stage, it appeared that the cupids had even added stars in the vast sky as countless dim lights were illuminated from those small stars, shining dimly on this camp and the surrounding temperate forest.

After seeing it was almost the time for him to do daily meditation, Jeremy spoke up to Morgan,

"Should we go back?"

"Sure, let's go to the canteen to eat our dinner first. After that, I will bring you to get some new clothes from the warehouse before bringing you to your assigned tent," said Morgan as he dragged his feet towards the canteen area.

Even though Morgan acted tough on the outside, he appeared ready to drop to the ground at any time. After all, he had been traversing within the vast forest the entire day; his stamina had long depleted from the long and arduous adventure.

Soon, the two people walked away from the Crystal, going back to the small lane where they used to come here.

The two people's silhouettes gradually disappeared as they walked further and further away.

...

One hour later...

Jeremy, disguising as a middle-aged man, Tommy, was wearing a new set of clothes, which appeared to be pajamas made of casual lightweight cotton.

Morgan had told Jeremy that the various regular clothes were given to them daily by the Crystal. They would be summoned at 8:00 a.m. sharp inside the prohibited areas alongside other materials used to fortify this fortress.

Recounting to one hour ago, Morgan had brought Jeremy to the canteen, warehouse, bathroom, and the latter's assigned tent, respectively.

Along the way, Morgan also introduced Jeremy to many people. Two of those people happened to be the scout team leaders named Eddie and Mitchell. Unexpectedly, the duo was assigned to be the leaders of different teams.

Jeremy met them at the canteen, seeing the two eating dinner together with some other acquaintances from the first stage, such as Bob, Joshua, Lucas, William, Grayson, and Derek.

When Jeremy and Morgan met the two scout team leaders, Morgan introduced Jeremy to them briefly, telling them that Tommy was a new guy in Morgan's team, who had just arrived at the camp today.

Undoubtedly, when Mitchell heard that Jeremy had just arrived today, the former furrowed his eyebrows almost unnoticeably, but Jeremy could obviously spot such a thing easily.

It appeared that the paranoia Mitchell might feel somewhat suspicious of the newly arrived Tommy's mysterious background.

At the time, Jeremy only nodded his head with a light smile plastered on his face as he didn't want to talk for fear that those people would recognize his voice.

After that brief encounter, Jeremy hadn't met with another complicated situation anymore as he proceeded to get new clothes, take a shower, and come into his assigned tent.

Currently, Jeremy brought a soft cushion out from his left glove before sitting cross-legged on it.

Shortly after, Jeremy meditated, entered the dark world, and eventually accessed his own sea of consciousness.

Jeremy felt that he could achieve the tenth stage of meditation, tranquility and equanimity, faster and easier than before. He knew that such a result was due to the two skills, Calm Mind and Greater Focus, combined with his newly acquired talent, Serenity of Magic.

With all those three abilities altogether, with Jeremy's talent in magic, he only needed to spend less than twenty seconds to enter the dark space where countless energy particles flew all around. Such a short timeframe used to enter the dark space had almost broken the records set by Jeremy when he was the sage in his past life.

Accessing his sea of consciousness this time would be the third time Jeremy came here. After this time, he estimated some days ago that he only needed two more times before his sea of consciousness returned back to normal once again.

After arriving within his sea of consciousness, Jeremy started repairing and mending the cracks right away.

Unbeknownst to Jeremy, a pleasant surprise was waiting for him and would give him quite a shock.