The ant problem was quickly exterminated after the isekai was taken care of. Just a few strategically deployed high leveled individuals had taken out the hives and captured the queens and princesses. The baron had plans for them in his private arena. As for the cleanup? There were several new quests in the adventurer’s guild that paid quite handsomely.

Speaking of handsome, Micky himself was a sorry figure. He had earned the [Toughness] skill among several others. Yolanda was of course, not satisfied. She had also wanted him to learn [Tenacity] among others. For Micky, at least his [Pain Resistance] among several other new resistance skills had leveled up from [Tolerance] which unlocked a whole new system tab. Of course there was only [Pain Resistance] in it right now though.

In addition to the physical skills that Micky had acquired he had also been practicing with his magical ones, to an even greater extent. Yolanda had been pissed that Micky hadn’t wrecked the floor with those goblins. Of course, that was partly because he wasn’t a fireball spewing pyromaniac but she wouldn’t let that be an excuse!

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“So the guild is going to open up a secret realm, and we are going to be there.” Said Yolanda.

Micky did not respond but his dead eyes were looking at her in understanding from his position on the floor. At this point even breathing was a labored response so he just mildly wheezed above a whisper. Yolanda took that as acknowledgment and moved on.

“But before we do you are going to have to develop your mind a bit more. Secret realms are no joke and you need to have a solid will before entering one.” She finished. Micky blinked, Yolanda didn’t like his sass and continued his training even more intensely.

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Standing before the secret realm Micky looked into the portal. Then he stared back at his instructors to listen to their briefing again.

“This is a secret realm, this one leads to a pure magic world. There will be no system there to guide you. And before you ask we know, yes, no system.” The head instructor paused and looked over the class. Nobody said anything as this was somewhere between the fifth and tenth briefing. It was kind of hard to tell after listening to the same exact thing over and over again from the class, the hike over here, and finally now. This speech had more become the instructor’s mantra than a real lecture at this point.

“You will focus on yourselves and maintain a sense of self throughout. Remember that a pure magic world is based off of two things concept and will this is opposed to the pure technological worlds space and time. I will repeat myself for as may times as it takes, do not think about random things. You must only think about yourself and leave the rest of your shit behind. This is actually the most dangerous dungeon we will be in. This is where we expect to lose the most of you, and we won’t even know why most of you suddenly disappeared. Others will simply be lost inside the never ending plane of the world, unable and incapable of getting back. So ‘stay with the group’ do not let your minds wander and for the love of the system stay focused.” Said the instructor.

Yolanda stood next to the instructors as a ‘special instructor’ here to visit and help. She was going to do that to a moderate degree but mostly her and Micky would peel off to do some individual training. Micky had asked how they were going to do that if they were going to stay with the group. She told him they weren’t. Micky then asked how they were going to be safe or get back. She told him she had her ways. Micky wanted to question more, she thought she had beaten any questions he had of her out of him, she found she had more work to do…

The group jumped through the floating hole in the air by a cliff. They did not miss. Missing would be a very painful ut short life lesson about not missing the target that is in the air by a cliff.

The inside of the portal was wierd. Micky had heard of dimensional magic and what he heard said that it would have caused him vertigo and other things. This had not caused anything at all. It was no more effort to get here then it was to walk somewhere in his world. If anything there was a sense that he had gone uphill. Or maybe it was downhill? It was some kind of dimensional hill that he just walked across and it wasn’t a very big hill at that.

Micky looked around him and found himself standing on nothing. Literal nothing that he could not describe because it was the concept of ‘nothing’. However it was a very solid nothing that clacked with the high heals of some of the students and staff. It was very odd.

Looking around he saw a flat plane that eventually ended up in fuzzy mountains. They were not very visible from where he was. Also, they were actually fuzzy mountains. Like there was actual white fur on the mountains that Micky could see. But his attention was quickly brought to the instructor as she cleared her throat.

“As you can see concepts in magic worlds are real, and the only thing that matters. This is why you must keep a stable mind and we have been training you in meditation and mental techniques for the past few days. In this world if you think that you are a dragon you will become a dragon, it is not a good thing.” She said as she started to grow scales, these scales started to disappear again as she fought them down. The fight appeared to take a bit of effort on her part but she eventually won. The class looked at themselves and wondered why they themselves did not have scales before the instructor continued.

“I’m sure you are wondering why you don’t have scales right now? That is because you don’t have the will to fend off the stronger minds in the region. As I stated before the stronger the concept and the will is the only way to create things in a magic world. Since you are weak you cannot create concepts willy nilly. I am much stronger than you so things that affect my mind will cause effects around the world much more easily. As you can see by those mountains however this is not always the case. Yes, those mountains are actually fuzzy. This is an effect of world corruption that has happened because ever student that looks at those mountains simultaneously thinks of them as looking ‘fuzzy’. Over the years as people have flooded the world with the concept the world responded. In this way the weak minded are capable of changing the world just as much as the strong. In this world quantity is literal a quality of it’s own. So be very careful here as you are both weak and outnumbered. However, this is a very important place for you to experience as secret realms are one of the many places with the most valuable dungeon materials.” Said the instructor. She then split up the class into groups to go off with the different instructors.

Micky was pulled off with Yolanda alone. “If we aren’t going to be with a group how are we going to get back to them? Or get back period?” Asked Micky.

“I have my ways, us old folks have been in secret realms enough to know how to navigate in unknown worlds before you ask. So I am the least worried of anyone here. This world is even dangerous to the instructors due to it’s special physics. It may even be more dangerous as they are strong enough to effect the world as you have seen with that little instructor there. Now we have some training to do and some healing to do.” Said Yolanda.

Micky looked at her in confusion. What the heck did she mean training and healing? Micky was still convalescing from his wounds but he had mostly healed. What could be healed had been healed by his caregivers Merry and the rest.