Staring at the yellow slits that inspected him with fear and apprehension, Shane couldn't even suppress his sly smile to have come up with a brilliant idea.

The [Mortal-(Trash)] leather bag appeared in his hand, which he secured to his belt.

It was still raining and even more annoying to walk over the sloppy mud than a few hours before but the young shadow snake made a big mistake which incidentally helped him a lot.

The shadow snake youngling averted its gaze from him and tried to dig deeper into the mud to avoid seeing him, thinking that Shane wouldn't notice him as well.

This was definitely beneficial for him as he saw the Shadow snake's black scales below the soggy soil.

The mud above the Shadow snake was at most 5 centimeters thick and separated it from the surface.

Shane came closer while trying to prevent making any noises before he stood roughly above the spot where he thought his prey would be.

With his hands already open ready to grip the shadow-snake that couldn't sense him due to his concealment potion, Shane leaned forward, waiting for the perfect opportunity to hunt his prey.

5 minutes later, the snake youngling's tension receded a little, and Shane sensed his opportunity.

His hands shot towards the ground, digging through the mud, which did not show much resistance. He felt his left hand grip a thin yet tough, moving body, while his right hand slipped past it.

The shadow snake was shocked and began to thrash around, trying to free itself from Shane´s firm grip. But its strength was at most equivalent to a low 2nd rank of the Mortal stage and not enough to break free of Shane´s grasp that had the strength of a 4th Mortal stage physique

With both hands, he gripped the snake´s head firmly, to avoid being bitten, and gently placed the ten-centimeter long Shadow-snake into the small leather bag hanging on his belt.

Its efforts were futile and after the shadow snake was inside the leather bag, Shane tightened the ropes around the rim. He could only faintly hear a weird sound emitted by the Snake, causing him to tense up.

'Ohh F**k' was the only thing he could think of, as the shadow snake youngling continued to emit the weird sound. Shane retrieved his dagger from the spatial ring before he began to ascend the valley hurriedly.

Behind him, Shane could hear the hissing of multiple snakes and he frowned deeply.

'Why?' he lamented as his leather bag was tossed around on his belt, making his climb slightly more difficult.

Hearing the youngling's cry, multiple shadow snakes appeared in front of Shane and he began to curse out loud when the first few began to obstruct his path.

They shot towards him and Shane could barely evade them due to the loose mud he was standing on.

Had he been on firm ground, he would have fought the snakes through minute movements, which he had been taught by dozens of renowned martial artists, Cultivators, and his family in recent years. Unfortunately, the ground below him was not firm and it decreased his efficiency in evading the snakes by a huge margin.

With that in mind, Shane severed multiple shadow snakes and ascended further, only to see multiple shadow pythons ranging from 80 centimeters to 1.5 meters, advancing towards him from below.

Gritting his teeth, he shouted in his mind

'[System] purchase a [Mortal-(Trash)] prismarine-luminous crystal, the smallest available [Mortal-(Trash)] mana stone, and a mana Initiator'

[Carry out the purchase worth 1 Gold? Permission required]

"YES!" Shane shouted out loud when the shadow pythons were only five meters away from him.

Suddenly, he saw a few items appear within his Spatial ring, which was almost filled to the brim with Nightshade flowers. These items consisted of a white crystal, a pebble-sized blue shining stone, and a small seven-centimeter-long grey machine with a single vacancy.

Taking the mana initiator and the pebble-sized mana stone out, Shane was only able to remain relatively calm due to the [Hunter´s Mind] supporting his mind.

Nevertheless, his hands couldn't help but tremble slightly and it took him two tries before he could press the small pebble-sized mana stone inside the initiator´s vacancy.

Shane immediately activated the Initiator, and it released a faint hue of mana, though Shane couldn´t see it as he didn't have any mana.

He relied on the system, hoping that the device would work as a white crystal appeared in his hand, which he pressed down on the Initiator.

Holding everything together with his right hand, he raised up his arm and the prismarine-luminous crystal began to glow faintly before the intensity began to increase slowly.

The shadow python tailing him was only two meters away and he increased his speed even more, which was growing difficult, as his body wasn´t shaped to climb a muddy slope, where snakes obviously had an advantage.

'FASTER!!' Shane shouted in his mind. Suddenly, a radiant white glow lit up the surrounding, causing him to slow down by a small degree. He kept his eyes firmly shut against the blast of light and relied on his other senses to climb further.

A dry smile appeared on his face as he heard the Shadow snakes and pythons hiss in pain, as they couldn't endure the obtrusive bright light radiating from the prismarine-luminous crystal.

Without looking back, Shane ascended the slope, and a quarter of an hour later, the bright glow subsided, when he almost reached the top of the valley.

The small mana stone he had utilized was already completely used up, as the prismarine-luminous crystal wasn't able to absorb all the mana released by the Initiator.

Nevertheless, Shane was happy that everything had worked, and the tension around him had decreased by a marginal amount.

Not wasting any time, he opened his eyes once again and charged towards the top, hoping the shadow snakes and pythons had better things to do than follow him. While the shadow snake youngling in the leather bag was completely exhausted due to its utmost efforts to break out of the imprisonment.

At the top of the valley, Shane sighed in relief but did not stop in his tracks as he searched his way out of the Soul-Onyx-Jungle.

30 minutes later, he stepped out of the Jungle, when his eyesight dimmed slightly.

'Oh' Shane thought as he noticed the potion effects dissipate. Now, he had to rely on the moonlight to find his way ahead as he walked through the dark-green grass.

On a small patch, he saw the lights emitted by the shelter walls and he roughly remembered the way back to the BlackSoul shelter.

As such, he didn't even think about purchasing another Nightsight potion and slowly strolled closer to the gates of the shelter.

The Guards were still the same as before and they eyed Shane weirdly. They had seen him walk out of the shelter in clean and crisp clothes though now he looked shabby and unkempt, covered in dirt from head to toe, except the long black robe which was still spotless.

The robe alone signified that he belonged to an affluent and powerful family, but his mud-smeared face made the guards think otherwise.

Not many wealthy descendants would readily jump in dirt and mud. They would hire someone else to do the dirty jobs, while they did something easier.

Shane smiled at the guards, who smiled in return before he followed the standard protocol like showing them his name and race from the status.

With that, humans could prevent races like the 'Shifters' from infiltrating their shelter unnoticed.

[Shifters] were one of the many races annoying humans, and a dozen other races due to their ability to transform into all kinds of living beings.

It was said that they only needed one drop of blood to transform into a completely different being for 48 hours. During this time, they were even able to use their strength and skills to a certain degree, which shocked Shane to a great extent.

Humanity had lost their first Basic shelter and Dimension Portal due to this race and they had to pay a huge price, owing to their negligence.

One's status panel couldn't be changed and one could only purchase an alias that was directly connected to one's name.

Meanwhile, showing your status to someone else had to be admitted by the host.

Shane only gave the guards permission to see his name and his race, nothing more and the guard let him through, after asking what was inside his leather bag.

'These guards are really careful' Shane thought, and he stated that it was a Shadow-snake youngling he wanted to test out his taming skill on. He stated that with a smile lining his dirty face, confusing the guards even more.

__________________________________

W E B N O V E L= https://bit.ly/3xrU5Yx

[If you like the novel, please support the Author with your powerstones]

__________________________________