Chapter 2: Umbral Forest.
I reached the Skyrail station faster then expected, thanks to me getting lucky with an empty taxi on the way.
Within 10 minutes I was at the station. The station looked like a giant tower, at least as tall as a 50 floor building.
I got up the building on an elevator, which took 30 seconds to reach the top.
The top looked exactly like any regular train station. The only difference being the glass doors protecting the civilians from falling off the building through the train's path.
I went up to the ticket counter and booked a seat to the 'Umbral Forest' which was 650 km away from my residence. Although it was so far away, with the train, I would reach the place within 1 and a half hours.
I boarded the train and got myself a comfortable seat beside the window. As the train started moving, I admired the modern city passing though beneath me.
As I was admiring this scene, I thought about the plan to get myself the huge powerup that would probably end up being the main thing keeping me alive in the later chapters.
The power-up I am talking about was a skill book, of which only one existed in the world, or at least that was what the novel said. The skill book would grant me 'Gravity Magic', one of the most powerful skills in the novel, which would have been originally used by a villain, who would get in the way of the protagonist.
'Well, I'm gonna take it. I don't really care much about the main storyline honestly. That skillbook is simply the quickest way for me to get extremely strong very quickly.', I thought to myself.
'Although its not strong enough as the main protagonist's skills... If I grow myself well, maybe I can stand as equivalent with the protagonist.'
I reached the destination in just under 1.5 hours. I got out of the train, left the station, and booked a taxi straight towards the forest's entrance.
The Umbral forest was a forest that was originally a part of the Amazon Rainforest. After the emergence of mana, the size of the forest grew drastically and it became the biggest forest on earth. It was also the place where I would find the gravity magic spell book.
I know that I will have to fight some monsters on the way, so I was prepared. My energy magic was pretty much the most average type of magic to deal damage. It was basically non-elemental spells like 'Magic Arrow' and 'Magic Net', etc. That being said, not many people in the world had proficiency in non-elemental magic. It was probably the reason why Samuel got accepted into Nexus Academy.
In the novel, one of the main cast would get their hands on energy magic, but quickly dismiss it as an 'useless' skill.
The most useful spell under Energy Magic would be 'Reinforcement'. Although, it doesn't apply to living things and its effects wouldn't last very long. There are enchantments which are better than that.
Still though. It was the only thing I had at the moment, and I had to use it to the fullest.
The taxi stopped before a border with a fence gate in front of us and a small two-Storey building beside it.
The building had some Hunters in them who worked for the government. They saw my student ID, congratulated me for it, and let me inside the forest.
"Be careful, though. Even if you are a student in Nexus, the are still very dangerous areas and monsters inside the forest. Keep clear of them, alright?", said a male hunter before I departed.
I agreed with him and left.
'Sorry, bro. I won't be heeding your advice today.', I thought to myself as I went deeper inside the forest.
Initially there were some dirt roads on the ground, which were created by people travelling on them for many years.
After about an hour of walking, I deviated from the paths which were starting to get narrower and narrower.
I knew that the villain who got the power had came inside the forest from that same entrance, walked for an hour in this path, and then deviated form here and just followed the setting sun.
Well, it was still noon, and the sun was nowhere near setting, so I just followed west after looking at the compass in my smartwatch.
I walked for more than two hours. I didn't find the landmark mentioned in the novel.
There was supposed to be some kind of stone building, and inside it I had to find a skeleton holding the skill-book.
While travelling and sill following west, I came across some monsters. Nothing too big, just a few red wolves. This part of the forest were apparently infested with wolf-type monsters, and Red wolves were extremely common here.
There were 4 of them. I casted Magic Net while aiming at a pair of them when they were standing right next to each other. A medium sized white magic circle appeared on my right palm, which was aimed at the wolves, and soon a luminescent white fishing-net like thing shot out of the magic circle. The net flew towards the wolves, and before they could react, they had been trapped inside the net.
I immediately casted the Magic arrow, with my left hand, and luminescent white arrows shot out from a small white magic circle that appeared on my left palm, towards the trapped wolves, penetrating one of them, and gravely injuring one of them.
I then turned my attention to the other two wolves who were already charging at me. I waited until they got close enough, and casted Magic Spike right after they jumped in the air and were about to land on me. Two white magic circle suddenly appeared on the ground beneath the wolves and from the magic circle, came out two white luminescent spikes, impaling the two wolves and killing them on the spot.
The last wolf struggling inside the net was the last one left. I killed it using a Magic Arrow.
'Everything went according to plan... I would have stood no chance if the wolves had spotted me beforehand...', I sighed inwardly while thinking.
I continued walking for one more hour and finally found the stone building. It looked like a 2-storey brick house. There was a lot of vines and creepers growing on the walls of the place.
I walked inside the building and immediately spotted the skeleton wearing purple robes, holding a purple book tightly with its bony hands.
I strangely didn't get flustered after seeing this scene. I had expected to feel something along the lines of discomfort or even fear, but I felt...nothing.
I walked over to the skeleton, snatched the book from its arms, breaking them in the process, and I also made sure to the take robes it was wearing as well. Taking off the robes were a more difficult task as I had to practically destroy the skeleton entirely to get the robes off of it. It also smelled like rotten corpses, so I definitely had to wash it before I got back.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Xeanos
Xeanos Gravity mage should be interesting, right?
Chapter 3: Nexus Academy.
I got back home quicker than I had anticipated.
I washed the purple robes in a small stream I found on the way back from the building.
The robes actually looked really nice. They were almost entirely purple, with some black details and runes. The robe's special effect was also pretty neat. It was a weightless robe, meaning it felt as light as air when I wore it after getting back home. The robes should also boost Gravity magic significantly, since its part of the set, and was created by the same mage who created the gravity magic skill-book.
In the novel, the robes also had a hidden ability, which was flight. The villain discovered it in the middle of the battle with the protagonist, which proved to be very annoying for the protagonist to counter.
'But that's far in the future... I should increase my proficiency with both my magics and train hard to increase my stamina too.', I thought before I fell asleep.
The next day I woke up to the sound of my alarm ringing loudly. I had half expected to actually wake up in the real world, my world, but it seemed to not be the case.
I got up, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, changed into light clothes and went to the living room.
I had a plan to train both my gravity magic as well as my stamina at the same time.
I would use a spell called Dark Press to increase the gravity in my surroundings and try to stay standing.
The technique seemed to work.
For the next two weeks, I would train like this. With only sleep breaks, bathroom breaks and food breaks.
I would usually cook my own food in the small kitchen this room had. It seemed that the original Samuel was also a pretty decent cook, just like me back on my world.
****** 2 Weeks Later ******
Absolutely nothing special happened during the 2 weeks that I trained. My stamina did increase, but not by much. Whereas my gravity magic went from Lvl.1 to Lvl.2. It wasn't a crazy jump, but it still made me feel accomplished.
'Today is the day I go to the Academy...', I sighed inwards while packing up my bag. I still hadn't gotten my uniform yet, so I was wearing my usual black shirt, black trousers and black shoes.
Black just goes with any mood, y'know. And it helps that my hair color is now black too.
I cleaned up my apartment, locked the door and left to go the academy.
I reached the Academy's Skyrail station within an hour. The train was filled with students, most probably going to the same place, the Academy.
'Breathtaking...', was the only word that came to my mind. The sheer size of the academy was like a whole city. Which was actually true, the inside of the Academy really is like a city, starting from shopping malls, to electronics stores, it had everything inside it. The whole building's exterior kind of looked like a fortress, although a lot more stylish from traditional, medieval fortresses. The walls were white, and had blue LED lights going all across them, making crisscrosses.
Truly a sci-fi place to be in. 'I should look at the whole academy once I have some spare time...', I thought.
I still had to take an exam after getting into the academy, since it had to rank students based on their ability.
There was a written exam and a practical one where you would have to showcase your power to some judges.
This year, 5000 students were selected from all over the world to attend the exams. Only 1000 of them would actually be able to cross the test and start attending classes in the academy.
I was sure to pass, since I would most probably get perfect scores on all written tests, because of the skill 'Concentration'. The skill literally just concentrates your mind, removing most emotion, and forces you to focus on the task at hand. Its a pretty busted skill. The only problem was that after using it, I would get a head-splitting migraine right afterwards. But still, I continued to use it to absorb the learning material provided by both the academy and the internet.
Also, during the 2 weeks of training and idle time, I figured out a very important thing. I am not that rich. In-fact, I can barely support myself. I came up with an idea of making money quickly. I wasn't going to invest in stocks or some bullshit like that, no, no, no. I was going to plagiarize music, manhwas, mangas, and other pieces of entertainment from earth and release it here. I know for a fact that those don't exist in this world, because I searched them up on the internet, only to find nothing. I actually already released some popular anime in the form of webnovels, like 'Two Piece' and 'Blackend Clover'.
The money was already starting to roll in.
I made sure to use different pen names and accounts to post the stories on different websites, or else people might get suspicious as to who in the world had so much creativity, haha!
Anyways, I went into the academy's premises, and looked around a bit.
There were a lot of students. 5000 to be exact. All of them had a worried face and almost all of them were revising their study materials, and others were talking to each other.
All of a sudden, a loud shout could be heard.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHRRRGGGRHH"
I turned my head and saw a student fall on the ground on all fours, clutching his chest and gasping for air.
The student had dark navy-blue hair, irises the same color as his hair, and an extremely handsome face.
'Ah. He must've just returned.', I thought to myself as I recalled the starting of the original novel.
This student on the ground, his name is Julian Asher. He is the main protagonist of the novel. He was isekai'd to a fantasy world where he had rose to power and slain many powerful enemies. After 10 long years of constant fighting in the other world, he had finally returned to earth, in the exact moment when he had been isekai'd. Right before his entrance exam to the greatest academy on earth.
'He must still be in an overwhelmed and shocked state. After all, he died right before this, in the other world.', I thought.
Thats right. Julian had died in the other world, which made him return back to earth again. He was killed when he got outnumbered by a horde of high-level demons.
Julian slowly got up from the ground, and quickly scanned the surroundings. His eyes suddenly widened in disbelief and soon started to overflow with tears. He had finally returned from that hell-like place, back to his home planet.
A girl walked up to Julian, seeing him in that state. She had platinum-white hair, and equally white eyes, pale skin, slightly shorter than Julian, and had a well-developed body.
'Sophia Evergreen.', I recalled.
Sophia Evergreen was the main character's first love interest. She was introduced like this in the novel too. Everything was just as I remembered. She was also the daughter of the GuildMaster of one of the highest ranking guilds in the world, the 'Dominion Guild'
"Umm... Excuse me, sir. Are you alright? do you need any assistance?", she asked Julian. Her voice was mesmerizing.
Looking up to see the girl, Julian's tears stopped flowing. He quickly started to wipe his tears as soon as possible, and then replied, "Ah... yes, please... could you point me to a direction where I can sit down...?", his voice was still shaking, probably because it was the first human he had seen and talked to in years and he was feeling confusion and disbelief. He still wasn't sure if it was all just a dream or not.
"Haha, sure. Follow me.", Sophia smiled and took Julian away.
'Its all exactly like the novel...', I thought as I too walked away from the scene. I already knew what will happen to the two of them, so I don't really care.
The two of them will run into Sophia's toxic childhood friend and also a villain while going to the resting place. His name is Curtis Red, the son of another bigshot GuildMaster of a guild called the 'Crimson Ember Guild'.
Julian and Curtis will become rivals from there on, and Curtis will eventually betray humanity and sign a deal with the demons.
But that's all their problems. I don't care about them. Right now, my priority is to secure a good position in the written and practical exams, so I can get the luxury of getting a good quality dorm room.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Xeanos
Xeanos
Introduction of the cast.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
0 Power
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