Leonel's thoughts accelerated. A moment later, he understood where this feeling was coming from.

In the past several months, he had learned quite a lot about Force Crafting. In that time, how could he not look into his Quasi Bronze chain necklace? After suffering the barrage of several bombs, it had suffered a few minor cracks, but Leonel could tell that those 'minor' defects actually decreased the strength of the treasure by as much as 10%.

​​

During his studies, Leonel had learned about the type of treasure his necklace was. As an energy based defensive treasure, it also came with several downsides.

One of those downsides was an inability to function in the presence of Force disrupting towers. This was something Leonel learned personally, much to the sadness of his shoulder. But, most importantly, it was incredibly fragile when meeting higher level Force types.

What did this mean? It meant that whatever was in the process of attacking him now had grasped a Force Strengthening Deviation.

Whether or not this Force Strengthening Deviation was powerful or not compared to other didn't matter. All that mattered was that it was at the very least a level beyond normal Force.

'Dammit. Aren't these deviations supposed to be rare? How the hell did I randomly come across one like this?'

As Leonel continued to fall to the ground, he couldn't help but lament his bad luck once again. At the same time, he caught the faint inkling that though this 'Project Hunt' provided good opportunities, it could very well create new enemies for Earth as well.

If there were other beasts this powerful… Let's just say Leonel didn't want to think about it.

Just as the black light was about to collide with his chest, Leonel's right sole lit up and he stamped down hard, sending him shooting off to the side.

As he did this, he couldn't help but shake his head. First it was the chariot, now it was this weird creature. When he chose these treasure shoes, he had never thought that instead of using it to glide through the air, he'd always be using it to escape a sorry state.

Luckily, he had already upgraded his treasure shoes. Now, the cool down on their activation was only 30 seconds and they also provided a boost to his leaping ability.

The moment he gained some distance, Leonel took out his two pistols, firing four rapid shots, two from each.

SHUU! SHUU! SHUU! SHUU!

Unlike a normal gun, the sounds of Leonel's shots were no different from whistling wind. However, even compared to a gun of the 25th century, though the range was at most half a kilometer, Leonel was confident that the piercing power and lethality was a few levels higher.

Four pellets of white energy shot forward, spinning so quickly that they left spirals of air in their wake. For the span of the blink of an eye, it seemed like they were the center of their own miniature hurricane.

However, before they could even land on their mark, Leonel's eyes widened.

The line of black energy vanished into thin air, blinking away before the energy spheres could hit it.

PUU! PUU! PUU! PUU!

The four bullets tore through the opposing tree, leaving the same number of small holes in its bark and easily tearing their way through the other side before disappearing into the foliage.

The rustle of leaves of sounded as Leonel disappeared into the dense canopy of a tree he had kicked himself toward. He landed on a branch with a dull thump, the wood beneath him swaying up and down beneath his weight.

'… It disappeared?'

Leonel couldn't help but think back to Xinghai's blink ability. Could it be that this weird beast both had such an ability and access to a Force Strengthening Deviation? Wasn't this too exaggerated? If it had been any other youth who came across this creature, they'd likely already be dead.

The greatest trouble was that Leonel's Internal Sight was seemingly having problems locking onto the target, almost as though it was able to hide from the fluctuations of his Soul Force. This made this beast a hundred times more complicated to deal with.

'This is at least an SS-grade threat…'

Leonel silently waited for the beast to strike again. When facing an enemy like this, the worst thing he could probably do would be to move about randomly and allow it a chance to find an opening. It was best he stayed still, raising his awareness to its maximum and keeping his reflexes primed.

As Leonel did this, he began to concentrate his Internal Sight into a smaller radius. This was a technique he learned in Force Crafting. It was usually used so that a crafter could maintain quality control of their craft by increasing their observational ability, but Leonel now realized that it applied perfectly to combat as well.

He never thought there could exist something that could hide from his Internal Sight, but now he had been taught a lesson. He really had to be ready for anything in this new world order.

The sharp range on Leonel's Internal Sight was continuously compressed by him. It took a toll on his spirit to do this, but he didn't have any other choice. How else could he deal with an enemy he couldn't see?

200 meters became 100. 100 meters became 50. 50 meters became 25. At this point, Leonel had reached his limit and as much as five minutes had already passed. But… there was no sign of the beast that had attacked him.

Leonel clenched his jaw and continued to wait, not moving even after half an hour had passed. But, there was still no sign of the creature.

With sweat pouring down his forehead, he had no choice but to release his Internal Sight, allowing him to gasp deep breaths. He knew by now that the likelihood the creature was still stalking him was low.

'Was it scared away…?'

Leonel had always heard that animals were more afraid of humans than humans were of them. But, he didn't really know if this was true or not. At the very least, it seemed that this beast was gone.

Jumping down from the tree, Leonel soon landed on the ground. After taking a look around and realizing that the creature really wasn't going to attack him, he began to approach the center of the island with more caution.

Leonel flipped his palm over, causing a silver disk to appear.

"What Force Strengthening Deviation did that beast use?"

[ *Ping* Replying to Seed, there are fluctuations of Dark Elemental Force in the air ]

Leonel didn't react much to this, but this was only because he wasn't aware of just how unlucky he was. Dark Elemental Force was just as rare as Light Elemental Force. Yet, he had actually been marked by such an entity.

**

At that moment, on the other side of the island, another ship could be found anchored. A group of youths jumped from its side, swimming toward the shore with ambitious glints in their eyes.

However, neither those youths from the Eastern Lookout, nor the youths that came with Leonel from the Southern Lookout, was aware that there was a third gathering taking place as well.

Nearby a large lake on the island, a gathering of beasts was taking place. Though none of them exchanged words in a human sense, there eyes seemed to tell a different story.

From an outsider's perspective, all that could be heard was a series of grunts and growls. However, if one paid close attention and removed themselves from their preconceived notions…

These animals seemed to be having a meeting.