Three hours later—
Solaris was running through the forest at full speed.
Branches blurred past him like streaks of green light as he leapt from one tree to another. Each landing was silent, precise, as if the forest itself had accepted his presence. His long silver hair flowed behind him like a river of moonlight, dancing wildly in the wind created by his movement.
Sunlight pierced through the dense canopy above, scattering golden fragments across his path. Leaves rustled violently every time he passed, yet within seconds everything returned to silence—as if he had never been there at all.
His cyan-blue eyes glowed with unwavering determination, sharp and clear like priceless jewels catching the light. They scanned everything—the terrain, the shadows, the movement of distant creatures. Nothing escaped his notice.
As he moved through the forest, Solaris recalled what Wadsworth had explained earlier.
"Grandpa Butler is waiting on the other side of the forest entry gate..
And according to him..
There were several types of forests where monsters could be encountered, and understanding the difference was essential for survival.
The first and safest was the Monster Forest.
Anyone could enter a Monster Forest, as long as they stayed within their limits. These forests followed relatively stable rules—monsters lived there like ordinary creatures, hunting, nesting, and protecting their territories. The danger depended mostly on how deep one went. A Monster Forest could range from as little as ten layers to as many as ten thousand layers, each layer growing progressively more dangerous.
It was dangerous—but predictable.
Then there was the second type.
The Dungeon Forest.
At first glance, anyone could easily mistake it for a normal Monster Forest. Trees, rivers, monsters—everything looked natural. But the difference between them was vast.
A Dungeon Forest… was not simply a place.
It was a Dungeon.
A living existence.
Formed from condensed mana and countless souls, the entire forest possessed something close to a will of its own. Paths could shift. Terrain could change. What looked safe one moment could become a deadly trap the next.
Inside, travelers could find hidden traps, ancient relics, lost treasures, or items beyond ordinary understanding. But those rewards came at a cost.
Because in the simplest words—
the entire forest itself was the monster.
Dungeon Forests were far larger than ordinary Monster Forests, ranging from one hundred layers to over one million layers, with some legendary ones said to be even bigger, stretching beyond human imagination."
As Solaris ran forward, he felt a chill of excitement.
---
The third type was the Dimensional Dungeon Forest.
At first glance, it sounded almost identical to a normal Dungeon Forest—and in many ways, it was. The core difference was location.
A Dimensional Dungeon Forest did not exist within the same world.
It existed in another dimension… or sometimes on an entirely different planet.
Access to these places was possible only through Dimensional Dungeon Gates, mysterious portals formed naturally by the laws of the Realm itself. These gates would appear unpredictably.
However, not all gates were natural.
Some were created manually—crafted through advanced dimensional magic by the strongest magicians in the Realm, individuals powerful enough to tear open space and anchor a path between worlds.
The scale of Dimensional Dungeon Forests varied wildly. Some were relatively small, starting from around ten layers, while others expanded to unimaginable sizes—spanning multiple planetary layers, vast enough to feel like entire worlds trapped inside a single dungeon structure.
In such places, the rules of nature could change completely.
Gravity, time, even mana itself might behave differently.
---
He continued running,
"And right now… I'm inside a thousand-layer Dungeon Forest."
His expression twisted into frustration.
"And not even a proper monster-type Dungeon Forest… It is an undead Dungeon Forest."
He leapt over a broken branch, landing softly on another tree trunk before pushing forward again.
"I'm just a totally normal—ordinary boy," he muttered to himself, dead serious. "Yet for some reason, like every typical father and mother in the world, mine keep tricking me into doing the most unusual things imaginable."
His silver hair waved behind him as he grumbled under his breath.
---
With a long sigh, Solaris shook his head.
"I know I'm still way too weak compared to Father… Even though I'm already a B-Rank adventurer, for some reason he keeps giving me the easiest quests available for my rank."
He jumped across another branch, muttering under his breath.
"And because of that, people keep whispering that I'm not normal… that I'm not an ordinary boy."
He frowned slightly.
The irony was that those whispers didn't come from weakness.
It was the opposite.
People said those things because he wasn't weak at all—because his abilities were far beyond what someone his age should possess. To others, he looked less like a talented child and more like something unnatural, monstrous.
---
Solaris let out a quiet sigh as he moved deeper into the forest.
"Even now… I'm almost at the fifth layer, and I can barely sense any high-level monsters."
He pushed off another branch, preparing to jump—
Then suddenly the tree moved.
Its trunk twisted unnaturally, and thorned vines shot toward him like living snakes, trying to wrap around his body.
Solaris reacted instantly.
In a single blink, his sword was already in his hand.
Lightning flashed.
One clean motion—
The vines were sliced into thousands of pieces before they could even touch him.
He landed perfectly on the ground, knees bending slightly to absorb the impact. Without even sparing the monster a second glance, he simply began walking forward again as if nothing had happened.
Behind him, the monster tree tried to move once more.
But the moment it did, countless thin cuts appeared across its entire body. For a heartbeat it stood still—
Then it collapsed, falling apart into small, lifeless pieces like perfectly chopped firewood.
Solaris didn't look back.
"They're everywhere in this forest," he thought calmly. "I guess it's normal to run into low-level monster trees like this in a thousand-layer forest."
His eyes scanned the endless greenery ahead.
"But how far do I have to go to find hundred high-level monster trees?"
He continued walking, unaware of one small detail.
The thing he had been searching for—
was already lying behind him, neatly cut into pieces like firewood.