Journey to Darnassus

Andy entrusted Uncle Niwa to look after his father, packed the meager rations the neighbors had scraped together—mostly dried fish—and set off with his conviction held high, heading toward Darnassus!

Where did such a young boy as Andy get this confidence? The neighbors all harbored this question in their hearts.

What did Andy have to rely on? Naturally, he relied on his adult soul and his familiarity with World of Warcraft.

Only when he truly stepped onto the road to Darnassus did he realize that there is always someone better, and he learned just how much the damned World of Warcraft had simplified the world of Azeroth!

In the game, there was only a purple portal between Rut'theran Village and that ridiculously massive World Tree, Teldrassil, followed by a short path leading to Darnassus.

However, all of this was bullshit! It was completely and utterly fake! Where was the portal? Where was the path? According to a neighbor who had been to Darnassus once, the journey from Rut'theran Village to the outskirts of Teldrassil would take a small frame like Andy's two full days and two full nights if he walked!

Two days and two nights! No eating, no drinking, no resting—two days and two nights! It was truly going to be the death of him! But for his father's sake, even if it took twenty days, Andy had to keep going. The key wasn't just the long distance; it was that traveling at night carried not only the risk of getting lost but also the danger of being attacked by nocturnal beasts!

Andy now relied solely on his past-life experience and that unreliable Monster Spirit.

"Spirit, which way should I go?" Andy asked in his heart as he stood at a fork in the road.

"Straight ahead!" The Spirit's tone was always so icy. "Did you not see that signpost?"

Andy looked up. On a tree at this intersection hung a signpost that hadn't been maintained in who knows how long. It hung crookedly, and the writing on it had long since been eroded into illegibility by wind and rain.

"You call that a signpost? I can't even make out the words!" Andy muttered.

Complaining was one thing, but Andy still obediently followed the Monster Spirit's instructions. He knew that this system, which seemed like a cheat, wouldn't lead him astray.

Andy walked for an entire morning; he didn't even know how far he had gone. The only thing he knew was that he could gauge his remaining journey by watching the massive canopy of Teldrassil, judging his progress by how much clearer it became.

After a rest, Andy continued on his way. His mediocre passive skill, Beast Tracking, remained active the whole time. Although he knew that by the time he actually spotted a beast, it might already be too late, it at least provided some psychological comfort.

Andy rested whenever he was tired, and he didn't idle during those breaks; aside from eating, he practiced his Kick skill. By evening, Andy was still in the middle of nowhere. It seemed that camping in the wilderness at night was inevitable, but he didn't know if the beasts that hunted at night would be interested in a scrawny little elf like him.

While there was still a bit of daylight, Andy hurried to gather some dry branches. By the time everything was ready, the sun had completely set and the sky had turned pitch black, especially in the forest where the darkness was even more profound.

Andy quickly sprinkled fish oil on the branches and lit a campfire. It could provide warmth and also deter beasts. He roasted a few pieces of the dried fish he had brought and began to enjoy his first dinner in the wilderness.

"Strongly suggest the host spend the night in a tree!" the Monster Spirit reminded Andy at the perfect moment after he finished his meal.

"In a tree?" Andy was full of questions. Why on earth would he need to climb a tree?

The Monster Spirit seemed to read Andy's mind: "Spending the night in a tree is just an extra layer of insurance. Some beasts won't be afraid of your little campfire, but fortunately, none of them can climb trees."

After hearing this, Andy looked at the surrounding trees. Each one was thick and sturdy, but his child's body couldn't even wrap around the trunk—how was he supposed to climb it? After picking and choosing, he selected a decent tree, spat into his palms, and began the arduous task of climbing.

Fortunately, Andy had been practicing his basic skills these past few days, which had improved his physical coordination and agility. Even so, it took every ounce of his strength to climb up to the lowest branch. Andy used a grass rope he carried to tie himself to the branch; he didn't want to roll over in his sleep, fall, and break his neck.

Once the first rays of sunlight appeared on the horizon, Andy set off toward Darnassus again. Because Andy traveled by day and rested by night, he needed twice as much time to reach Darnassus. Fortunately, thanks to the Monster Spirit, he had passed three nights without incident. With one more day of travel, if he moved a bit faster, he could reach Darnassus by evening. He could gauge this distance by the increasingly clear and larger canopy of Teldrassil.

In the early morning, sunlight shone through the gaps in the treetops onto Andy's face. He rubbed his eyes and woke up. Carefully, he climbed down the trunk to the ground. The campfire from the night before had long since burned out, leaving only wisps of smoke.

Andy thoroughly extinguished the fire and glanced at the distant Teldrassil canopy. Although he was exhausted from the past few days, he felt full of strength and confidence today. Because in one more day, he would reach Darnassus City and find those practitioners.

Andy cheered himself on, turned around, and prepared to step toward Darnassus. But just as he turned, a black shadow flickered before his eyes, and he heard a howl that sounded like a tiger or a leopard.

The shadow dazzled Andy, and when he focused his eyes, he was terrified! A beast with bared fangs and white stripes, looking like a cross between a tiger and a leopard, was growling at him.

"What is that?" Andy felt a surge of panic. "Why didn't my Beast Tracking detect it?"

"Sabers, a Level 2 beast, possess the Shadowmeld skill, which can completely bypass the host's Beast Tracking skill," the Monster Spirit explained indifferently.

"Stop explaining and just tell me if I can beat it!" Cold sweat beaded on Andy's face as he roared in his heart.

"Based on the host's current abilities, I am sorry to say, no!" the Monster Spirit replied. "And the probability of a successful escape is basically less than or equal to zero!"

"What the hell? Less than or equal to zero?" Andy began to curse in his mind. "This is just asking me to die! You can't play with people like this!"

In his heart, Andy greeted the ancestors of that old creator for eighteen generations, regardless of whether the old man even had ancestors, and he didn't care that the creator hadn't given him any powerful ultimate skills or artifacts.

"Then you have to give me a strategy! You can't really expect me to just wait here to die!" Andy shouted in his mind.

The Saber faced Andy, beginning to circle him step by step, growling from time to time as if to intimidate him.

"Evaluating, calculating, please wait patiently, host!" The Monster Spirit's words almost made Andy want to commit suicide.

"Wait patiently? How can I wait! This beast is going to kill me for sure!" Just as Andy was speaking, the Saber finally lost all patience. It pushed off with its hind legs, opened its mouth with two large fangs, and lunged at Andy's neck.

"It's over, my life is finished!" Andy screamed, covering his head with his hands and crouching down.

"ROAR!"

"Awoo..."

"Hm?"

Andy didn't feel any pain; instead, he heard two strange cries. Andy opened his eyes and nearly fainted. Good heavens, this was truly not letting a person live—standing opposite the first Saber was another Saber. The difference was that this one was even more robust and vicious than the first.

It turned out this second Saber had come to fight the first one for its meal!

Forget it, I might as well just kill myself! Being fought over by two Sabers was simply humiliating!