After having recovered and getting back to full strength, Rydel reconsidered what just happened. First of all, what the fuck. He has never heard about fruit-themed beasts before, but it wasn’t impossible, this world was full of weird creatures. Now, fruit-zombies were beyond natural in his books. Zones filled with death generated yin energies, and those energies could have weird synergies to transform the corpses into undeads. For example, if enough resentment gathered, and with the help of yin energy, it’d eventually transform into a wraith. The classical undead zombie was just a corpse reanimated with yin energy too. However, those processes took years, decades even. His situation was more like a parasite that took over, than a real zombie. The problem was that Rydel didn’t know what the parasite was. It could be the rhino’s leader itself that parasitized its former companion. It could also be the beam that acted as an agent that activated the dormant parasite in the dead rhino. It was time to experiment with his recent loot to see what he could find. Rydel took the second rhino’s body, it's only injury was its detached head, so it was mostly intact. He strengthened his eyes and coupled with his high perception, it was like having magnifying glasses. If his perception was lower, the image would be blurred. He then took a knife and cut some tissues. He couldn’t see any living movement, he repeated the process with some random parts of the rhino and concluded that the parasite wasn’t anything physical. He made a fine tendril and brought it closer to the carcass and prepared to cut it off. After five minutes, nothing happened. It wasn’t a spiritual parasite either, Rydel was relieved with that, attacks made to the spirit were the most difficult to handle. As the last precaution, Rydel made a simple ritual. He made an incision in the wall to let the moonlight pass through and directly illuminate the carcass. He concentrated and used his spirit as a mantle to cover the whole beast. Rydel then willed the Moon to purge and clean the impure, and She responded. The carcass bubbled and the orange color of the skin receded leaving behind silver. A shrill scream filled with hate was heard. Rydel closed his eyes and put his hands on his ears, the sound didn’t damage him but it was extremely unpleasant, it was as if it was made to counter his very being. An orange gaseous cloud left the carcass, and a silver cloud was formed from the moonlight to counter it. It devoured the orange cloud, and Rydel could feel an emotion of contentment and approval being transmitted from the cloud, it vanished as it appeared. The cave was silent, and the only proof that anything happened was the silver rhino lying on the ground. Before having reassessed the situation, Rydel’s instincts screamed in hunger. The silver rhino in front of him was like a fine delicacy tempting him, Rydel was barely able to put up a resistance, just enough to not eat it raw. He took a big cauldron and made a fire below it. He cut the meat in slices and used the mercury-like blood as the base for a soup. The pumpkins had changed too, and turned into an ethereal silver color, he added them as garnish. He took and crushed the heart and let the organ flow into the cauldron. Finally, he spooned the marrows from the bones and closed the lid. Rydel did what his instincts told him and used spiritual energy to stir the cauldron’s insides for ten minutes. He was exhausted, not because of the cooking process, but because he was using his willpower to not indulge himself. After it had rested for ten more minutes, Rydel opened the lid. The soup was black, and the meat was reduced to dots that appeared like stars in the sky. The pumpkins joined together to form a silver spherical chunk, in this starry painting, it was the moon. Rydel seemed to notice some truths on it, and it’d give him some benefits to study it, but he was beyond caring. Rydel lifted the 2m long cauldron and swallowed the contents. Its flavor was plain, but his body felt more complete with each gulp. He felt pleasure from the depths of his soul like he was becoming a better version of himself. In just a couple of minutes, the cauldron was crystal clear, Rydel didn’t leave a drop behind. Rydel felt drowsy, he laid down as he felt his soul in peace and contentment. He slowly fell asleep. When Rydel woke up, he noticed that his clothes were drenched in a viscous liquid. Then, the smell came, the sweet fragrance of rotten eggs and sweaty socks. Rydel plugged his nose with spiritual energy, he took his clothes off and burned them. He made another room in his cave and scrubbed himself with water and a sponge. He left, sealed the entrance, and made another cultivation chamber 300m away. Only now did Rydel relax. The stench of impurities was unbearable, no matter how many times he experienced it. His body felt lighter, he weighed about 130 kg, and he has lost a couple of grams in the last session. He lost impurities and imperfections that plagued his body, making him denser without losing any strength. Each of his cells was also more vibrant, energetic, and ethereal, as the process bathed them in energy. Rydel couldn’t believe his lucky stars, to rid oneself of impurities was very hard, because the material used in the process lost its efficiency and even similar treasures became useless. It came to a point that even if you had thousands of pills meant for purification, it’d be useless, and not even an iota of impurities would leave their body. It couldn’t be manually extracted either, impurities were interconnected with your entire being, if you tried to remove them, you’ll leave behind hidden injuries and you could even cripple yourself. Besides, Rydel had a suspicion, his instincts didn’t scream like that even on the other two occasions that he rid himself of impurities. He took the other rhino’s carcass and repeated the ritual. The same thing happened, the carcass became silver after the orange cloud left. Rydel was ecstatic when his body had the same reaction. He stored the corpse and went to the previous cultivation chamber, knowing well the result of his next meal. This time, his body was more used to it and didn’t immediately fell asleep. In Rydel's opinion, it was horrible, he had to experience how his pores opened and mud-like substances slowly left his body for half an hour. Rydel was dizzy from the odor, even after having his nose plugged, he still had to breathe and it was pure torture. Rydel cleaned himself again and went to the other cultivation chamber. He felt even lighter, he had lost another couple of grams worth of goo. Rydel’s skin that had always been pale, became even paler, and he gained a thin lock of white hair. This sense of freedom was intoxicating. Rydel was urged to go out and breathe the night air. Rydel sensed that the moonlight was different, more profound and mysterious. It had always been there, but he had been ignorant to it. He had taken off a blindfold that he didn’t know that he was wearing, his connection was more stable and he was allowed to use more of Her power. Rydel used his Mantle of Night, a royal cape made of the starry night covered his body, little white fireflies danced to the song of his heartbeat and his presence was reduced until almost disappearing. Rydel traveled in the direction of the mini-moon until he encountered a small herd of pumpkin rhinos. It was led by a middle E-grade rhino, just like the last one. He stood a couple of meters next to them, but they didn’t notice him. Rydel stood next to the head of an early E-grade, made a slash, killed it, and put the carcass in his spatial ring in a smooth motion. He repeated this process four more times, always being careful to not be in the visual field of the leader. At his sixth kill was when the rhinos noted the missing members, they all stomped the ground and growled searching for the culprit. That said culprit was calmly leaving the way he came and tried not to make any noises. Rydel entered his cultivation chamber and exhaled. He was tense the whole time, he was confident in his abilities but it wasn’t until he was there doing it that he knew that he could pull it off. He was the hunter of the night, a predator, he takes what is rightfully his. Of course, if he saw a late E-grade beast he wouldn’t even approach. But, against low-leveled beasts? He would take advantage of his stealth to continue consuming this marvelous cultivation resource until it was no longer effective. Rydel spent the next week repeating the ritual and ridding himself of impurities. He discovered that his body was only able to consume three black-soups a day, after that he became lethargic and only wanted to curl up and rest until the next day. After 21 meals, he weighed 2kg less. Rydel was motivated as he still didn’t feel his limits, so he went on a killing spree of a few dozen rhinos to enter seclusion. And it wasn’t enough, only after the hundredth black-soup did the effect stop. A month has passed since he started his rounds of purification, and he had lost a whopping total of 10 and a half kilos. Rydel felt light like a feather, his effective attributes had increased a lot. Even his control of spiritual energy was more natural and refined. But it wasn’t enough, Rydel had become addicted to rapidly growing for the first time in his life, and he didn’t want to stop. He had a theory that wanted to check, and he immediately went to look for red-strawberry cows. They were harder to find than the rhinos that dominated the cave, but not to the point of being rare. Before doing anything rash, he looked at how they reacted to danger. Rydel transformed and used the Gate of Lunacy on one of the furthest strawberry cows of the herd. This species appearance-wise were red cows, they had green mane in the form of a stem, and their coarse skin had a strawberries’ pattern. When the lunacy took hold of the cow, it angrily mooed. Its green mane started to spin, the cow floated and it flew away without looking back. Rydel blankly stared at this phenomenon, he didn’t expect it. The rest of the cows continued grazing without a care in the world. He observed that they were mostly peaceful, used his Mantle of Night, killed one of them, and returned to his cultivation chamber. He did the ritual again, this time, instead of an orange cloud, what left the cow was a red cloud. The cow turned silver, but Rydel was confused. The ritual was a success, but his instincts were muffled, he desired something from the cow, but it wasn’t its meat. After a couple of minutes, his desire vanished. Rydel thought for long and decided to try another approach. He’d milk a strawberry cow.