Benoit had made the journey to the portal easy enough. While the forest held beast-type monsters with keen instincts, such as wolves, bears, and giant bats, they did not have the perception to find him in the shadowy world under the canopies.

  Well, the bats did. But he moved too quick for the bats to get a lock on him with their echolocation, and even if they had managed to attack him, the bats would not be an issue for him to kill.

  He approached the portal, only to find it occupied by an army camp. The emperor must not have liked that a challenger escaped, and an army camp occupying the portal was the natural action to take.

  "How can someone who rules the world be such a foolish man?" Benoit spat on the ground as he thought of the high and mighty emperor. He had no respect for fools, especially if the fool in question had true power.

  What would a normal army camp stop? If the challenger and his allies had killed a templar, this army was trash in comparison. Benoit melded with the shadows of the great portal and moved silently closer through the camp.

  No soldier turned his head in his direction; they were all below level 50 and were all relaxed, letting their guards down. Benoit quickly moved closer to the portal.

  As he arrived, he saw two guards that were a slight bit better. They looked to be in their 70s or 80s in level. One of them turned his head and looked straight towards where Benoit was standing.

  "Oi! Stalric! Did ya just see that shadow move?" The guard said to his more inattentive colleague.

  "What the fuck are you talking about? You been drinkin on the morning shift?" Stalric answered.

  Benoit's knife found Stalric's carotid artery and slit it in one smooth, silent move. Benoit then quickly shifted with his shadow movement over to the guard who had spotted him and cut his throat. It had taken no more than a second, even though the guards were almost ten meters apart.

  Benoit slid his knife blade across the leather sheath to clean the blood off and then sheathed the long knife in its sheath and moved into the portal.

  The feeling was familiar to Benoit. The travel through the portal felt as if he was standing in darkness and a foreign world was being sucked towards him. This was how he felt when he used his shadow movement. The portal was, of course, on a grander scale, but the underlying concept seemed to be the same.

  He stepped out on a grassy hill and looked at this new world. For as far as he could see, there were no cities. He had never been a good tracker and had no illusions that he'd get lost if he just walked off in a random direction in search of the challenger.

  However, the portal did make a rather conspicuous sound as it activated, so he was quite sure someone would come to look for him. He took out his weapons and held all of them in one hand. He sat down and kept the weapons above his head.

  He did not have to wait long until a large individual approached him cautiously. It was a large, green man. No, not a man. Some other type of creature, with fangs in his bottom jaw and a build that would put the strongest humans to shame.

  "Greetings, traveler. What is your name, and why have you come through the portal?" The creature asked.

  Benoit was not sure if this was an ally of who he was looking for but had no other choice but to explain his circumstances.

  "My name is Benoit. I come looking for a refugee from the world across the portal. Some sort of plant, if my father was right."

  "Why do you search for this plant?" The creature asked, and it looked quite confused.

  "The plant is a challenger, and my father wished for me to help it."

  From the forest came an arrow; it grazed his cheek before Benoit could even react. The power of the arrow brought a gust of wind after it. Benoit touched his cheek, where a needle-thin wound had appeared along his face.

  He did not arm himself or try to flee. By the arrows' speed and power and the fact that he could not spot the archer, he knew that he was outmatched in a fight.

  The creature spoke up again, with mirth in his voice:

  "As you suspect, that was a warning. We can take you to the "challenger" you speak of. But if you have hostile intent, you are already dead. Do you wish to follow, or should we fight here?"

  Benoit threw his weapons over to the creature and said,

  "Bring me to the challenger. I have no bad intentions and see no reason to fight."

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  ---

  The three orc dukes gained the initial version of [Royal Blood]. That is to say, they simply gained stats depending on their own territories' population, but at a worse rate than Jod. Jod became something else entirely.

  First, his [Royal Blood] evolved into [Royal Body]. The new effects were that he no longer needed to eat, sleep, or drink water. He was immune to most diseases and lower forms of poison. His lifespan was lengthened; however, the skill did not add to how long. Mafu had theorized that he was, for all intents and purposes, immortal unless killed.

  Jod felt strange, as if his body were both light and heavy at the same time. If he didn't control his newfound strength, he could seriously hurt someone while doing everyday chores. His connection to Mafu grew ever stronger, but now he could handle the feeling better.

  He felt less human but more connected to everything around him. His hearing had become better; he could smell things he hadn't smelled before.

  "Is this the end of this skills evolution, or is there more?" Jod asked Mafu.

  "I do not know. I suspect it is not the end, as with just over a thousand subordinates you cannot truly call this a kingdom yet. What bothers me more is that the emperor should have a similar system. How strong is he, with an entire world's population under him?"

  Jod felt a shiver down his spine. He had forgotten about the end goal of Mafu to invade his homeworld. It was not that he did not agree with it, but as Mafu said, they were so ridiculously far behind the emperor and his templars and soldiers.

  Jod had not even gotten to level 50 yet. He was 48, almost 49. He would need to be at least level 100 before they could cross the portal again. Probably even more, so he decided to ask Mafu:

  "What level do I need to be for us to invade through the portal, in your opinion?"

  "Hmm. Most likely level 200. Maybe more."

  "Level 200?! No one in my homeworld has become level 200. Is it even possible?"

  "It should be. If not, then we have to go the way of technology. We need to make it so even a level 50 can beat a level 100 through weaponry and other technology."

  "Can a level 50 beat a level 100? The mana difference alone should make the level 100 invulnerable."

  Jod felt confusion emanating from Mafu. It took a few seconds, then Mafu asked:

  "What's the difference? Why does mana matter? If you have two warriors fighting each other, mana should not matter that much, right?"

  Jod looked towards the central mushroom with a stupefied look on his face. After recollecting himself, he said,

  "No, mana is at least 50% of what matters in a fight between warriors. Without the mana to spare, you are vulnerable?"

  Mafu was confused again, and Jod felt like they were talking past each other in some way.

  "Explain." Mafu ordered.

  "Without mana, your body can only be protected by armor and skills and will eventually accumulate irreversible damage."

  "Mana protects you?"

  "Erm... no one has explained to you how mana works?" Jod was honestly a little bit embarrassed; this was something kids learned at a young age.

  "No, I have only used my mana vision and basic understanding of the world around me to learn." Mafu continued.

  "Okay. When you have nearly no mana, such as a young kid, it circulates inside of you like your blood. It concentrates around organs and important parts of your body."

  Jod cleared his throat subconsciously.

  "When you gain enough mana, it starts to expand, circulating in your skin. This mana acts as a barrier, protecting you from wounds and impacts. It protects you more against magic and skills that require mana to activate. So if someone throws a fireball at you, your skin will absorb it and your mana will be reduced by a certain amount. You might be a little bit singed, but no grave wound will be inflicted."

  Jod took a pause to let Mafu digest the information and then continued:

  "Warriors, for example, learn to use their mana to block physical attacks as well. It can never be as efficient as when blocking magic, and when you use it to block physical damage, the resistance against magic decreases. For example, a sword might inflict a small wound, but a fireball will now burn you badly. It is called [Manaskin], but it is not always a skill. Even those who do not have the skill benefit from its effects before attaining it. Those who have attained it can freely control the mana and can focus it to block specific parts of their body."

  Mafu was now deep in thought. He had no such skill; in fact, the mana he possessed was circulating through his mycelium and mushrooms but provided no such benefits. And he was confident that he had much more mana than what a single individual creature had.

  Was this a weakness of his origin of "mushroom"? He knew through looking at his statistics screen that his resistances were all okay, except for resistance against physical damage.

  "I do not seem to benefit from this [Manaskin]. Is it only available to humanoids?" Mafu called Taressa and asked her.

  "No, my ants also use mana to protect themselves, although their mana is very low, so it is not very effective."

  Mafu was exasperated. Why was he excluded? Jod gave a reasonable explanation.

  "From what I've seen, all things must have a balance. As I said, warriors trade magical resistance for physical resistance. You seem to have an almost endless mana supply, so the system might not allow you to use that to make your 'body' immune to damage."

  Okay, Mafu thought, that made more sense. Also, his survivability was more focused towards his split soul anyway, so he was not all that envious of [Manaskin]. But it was good to be mindful of.

  Also, this explained somewhat why the empire had a standing army. Mafu had thought it ridiculous to field an army of low-level soldiers that would just get erased by a single wide-area spell. But if that was the case, the mage who cast the spell would run out of mana before the spell did its expected damage.

  "Oh, by the way, Jod. You have to think up a name for the kingdom."

  "Huh? Isn't the name [Fungal Fief]?"

  "That was a joke name, a placeholder. Come up with a better one. Also, you are the king of the kingdom, so you will have to rule it. I will help you, but you and the people should decide most things for yourself."

  "Hey, that wasn't the job I signed up for?"

  "What did you think being a king was?"

  Jod looked panicked. He had accepted the kingship, assuming he'd be Mafu's spokesperson. Mafu tried to calm him down by saying,

  "Hey, you can lean on people. You don't have to do it yourself. Just get together with the orc dukes and people who you want to work with and come up with something. It is better to start now, with a few people, rather than later when the population increases."

  Jod did not calm down. In fact, he looked panicked the entire way to his tent.