After helping to collect the imps, the girls started meditating. Luan, on the other hand, was dismantling the imps.

After finishing, he sat down, and for half an hour he meditated. Although it was not enough for him to become stronger, he managed to have a significant increase in his strength, almost having a breakthrough... Before Luan got up, he saw that his strength had risen to 43 times stronger than an ordinary man.

'Oh...' Luan didn't expect it to happen like that, but he wasn't too surprised. After all, he was very close to getting stronger.

Because Ingrid had absorbed the blood essence of the imps, she was able to increase both her body strength and Qi. Now, she was 24 times stronger than an ordinary man with her body and 37 times stronger than an ordinary man with Qi.

As they walked, the forest grew higher. The mountain in the forest was made up of trees, plants, herbs, and stones. Luan took everything he found valuable and kept it in a travel backpack.

"Luan, isn't that a monster?" Ingrid stopped walking and pointed to the peak of the mountain.

Luan seemed interested in the monster and tried to discern its size.

As the creature ran up the mountain, Luan said, "It's a monster in the Second Order!"

Luan only noticed when he recognized that the monster was very big, running extremely fast and killing a zombie lion with just one kick and reducing the zombie lion to meat paste.

The monster, which was as big as a giraffe, had the appearance of a gorilla with the head of a bear and when it noticed Luan and his group, it ran towards them with an alarming speed.

Because of the armor they wore, even Catharina was close to the Second Order if she used Qi, but still, she would not be able to deal with a Second Order monster since she still lacked fighting experience.

As the mutated bear-gorilla monster approached, it looked bigger. It was scary, with blue fur and a scar on its right eye and sharp teeth that were very close together.

"ROARRR!"

The monster roared and drool flew everywhere.

"Stand back some," Luan warned and moved forward. His left hand once again turned into white dragon claws, and he counterattacked the large hand of the mutant monster that came towards him.

*Bang!*

Luan's hand, despite appearing small compared to the mutant monster's hand, the power of his punch deepened in the mutant monster's fist.

"URHGHGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The mutant monster screamed terribly, with an expression of pain and looked resentfully at Luan.

By hitting his big hands on the ground hard, making the ground shake, the monster didn't even care about the pain anymore and attacked again, disregarding everything. It was as if he had lost all senses and just wanted to kill Luan.

Luan did not dodge the punches that came in his direction; he counterattacked and still got an advantage. Even when the mutant monster thought of retreating when it regained its senses, Luan cut with the sword and the big arm of the mutant monster was cut.

*Thud!*

"ROARRRR!"

The mutant monster raised the blue hair and his eyes turned blood-red. He lost his sanity completely and attacked using his feet and the remaining arm, but everything was easily repelled by Luan and one leg was cut.

*Thud!*

The leg of the mutant monster fell to the ground, and the place was completely destroyed. The mutant monster fell to the ground too, losing his balance, and Luan cut off the mutant monster's head with his sword.

*Whoosh!*

"Wow! Even such a monster did not manage to hurt Big Brother!" Cristina said with her eyes shining with admiration.

"Yes, I thought he was going to have some difficulties, but it seems that I had worried over nothing," Maira smiled.

"It's not like I had no difficulty," Luan said, "It turns out that I was very well prepared. If I didn't have the armor and sword, it could have taken longer."

The size of the mutant bear-gorilla monster was large enough to create many Second Order weapons. Luan worked with even more care when dismantling and removing the bones. Even the leather would make a good outfit, especially if Catharina learned to control her Origin.

The mutant monster's teeth were also useful, as they were so tough and sharp.

"A Monster Core!" Luan was pleasantly surprised that this mutant monster had a core. Luan wiped it down well, drawing off the blood, and kept it in his storage ring.

"Wow! This is something very rare, right, Luan?" Catharina asked.

"Yes, it is even rarer than magic stones," Luan replied.

It took 3 travel backpacks to store all the bones, skin, and teeth of the mutant monster. Luan also drained all the blood in large pots and kept it in the storage ring. With Luan in the lead, they continued to walk. Luan also took the remains of the lion that was killed by the mutant monster.

After an hour, the five reached the peak of the mountain. The top of the mountain was a little flat, and there were also some monsters nearby, even very large snakes reaching 5 meters or more in length.

There were a lot of trees on that mountain, so it was difficult to locate many of the monsters on the mountain.

Only creatures like snakes and monkeys, or even birds, were easier to find, so the group of five people saw more snakes than other monsters.

The moment a snake tried to sneak attack, Luan drew his sword and cut the snake's head cleanly and precisely.

"Luan, are you looking for something?" Maira suspected.

"Yes, I want to see if I can find the core of this dimensional crack. Basically, all cracks have a core that supports and energizes the dimensional crevice. Without this nucleus, the gap no longer exists," Luan told her.

"So you intend to find and take the core of this dimensional crack." Maira asked, "But wouldn't that be dangerous? I mean, if you do that, are we also not at risk of dying?"

"No, if the core of this dimensional crack runs out or disappears, the dimensional crack will cling to the nearest world and will merge," Luan explained, "So, being close to earth, we will stop back at earth. However, this will release the monsters that live in this dimensional crack in the earth. To prevent this from happening, we will kill all the monsters before destroying this dimensional crack."

Hearing Luan's explanation, all four understood his intention. They understood that there was someone strong targeting them, and so Luan felt a sense of urgency to become stronger, and because of that, they had nothing against what Luan intended to do.

Perhaps it was good luck that while Luan talked to them he noticed the presence of another powerful monster that was also in the Second Order. It was a very big buffalo.

The buffalo was too big to be ignored. It was a gray buffalo the size of a bus, climbing the mountain, destroying the trees that were in its path.

Despite its large size, the gray buffalo was climbing at high speed with its four feet. Luan did not hurry over to fight it but decided to watch.

The gray buffalo had a pair of horns curved from the bottom up like a hook, and looking closely at the buffalo's coat Luan realized that it was worn out... or rather, there were eaten parts. It was clear moments later that it was a zombie buffalo.