The drop from the top of the cave to the ledge was enough excitement for him for one day. The “thump” that he had made when he impacted the ground, the subsequent shake was loud enough to wake Ma Erk up.

Padding over to his pack leader, the young wolf asked “Boss, you doing?”

With a slightly shaky voice, Max answered, “Nothing, man. Just doing some …sightseeing. Ma Erk, have you seen humans in the forest before?”

Without much hesitation, the little wolf nodded his head. “Yes. Boss. Humans, like you.”

‘Humans? As in more than one?’

That surprised him, knowing how young the little wolf was and how Max hadn’t seen any clues left behind by humans except for the cave and what was in it, his guess would have been no. That was also why he hadn’t asked the questions before.

“What happened to them?”

“Eaten, food.”

“Oh…How many of them were there?”

“Two, on hunt.”

“Hunt? What were they hunting for?”

The little guy shrugged, at least what Max interpreted as a shrugged.

After seeing and having heard all that, Max now had a new goal. The forest was all well and good, but he missed sleeping in a bed and eating something aside from meat. He was never that great of a chef and the limited ingredients made it worse. Looking back to all those times he complained about being bedridden when he was in the hospital, he couldn’t help but feel there was some epic karmic irony here.

Having an actual conversation with real humans would also be great. Occasionally, Max had noticed that he would start talking to himself and that was probably not a healthy sign. It was nice talking to Ma Erk and learning about the forest, but he had come to this whole new world, with fantasy cultivations and he would be damned if he was going to be stuck in a forest this entire time.

That reminded Max that he had to ask the young wolf about the new memories that he unlocked when he had reached the first stage of Body Tempering.

His little chat with Ma Erk had helped him move on from the near-disastrous fall. Max went over to the cave and got a sip of water. Water was one of those things where he didn’t know how good he had it until he lost it.

Feeling mostly better now, Max started building a fire. He was going to reheat some of the meat he had cooked earlier in the day and roast some more berries. While he was building the fire, he asked the little guy about the memories that he had unlocked. Seeing that Max was making a fire, Ma Erk brought over some of his meat as well and asked for it to be cooked.

The young wolf didn’t know much, rather most of the new memories were still very jumbled. By the time the food was done reheating and “meat” had been cooked, Ma Erk had already described everything he knew.

His unlocked memories were scant in details, but it did confirm some of his theories about cultivation and as always led to a few more questions.

Ma Erk had said that all animals in this world had the ability to cultivate, but when Max asked whether that was true for humans as well, the little guy didn’t know, his memories had only pertained to animals. That was a good thing to keep in mind, he could use what Ma Erk knew as a foundation to build on and make some more inferences.

The first stage of cultivation was Body Tempering for animals and from his character sheet, that was also the case for humans. To start cultivating, a catalyst is needed, something to stimulate the body. The catalyst provides the body with enough energy to spark the body’s latent potential for cultivation. The catalyst is also important because when the body absorbs it, it also takes on some of its properties. The body is most malleable before cultivation begins and when the animal is young, however in most cases the effects are extremely minor and not worth mentioning.

When he learned about this, he wondered if he had taken up any of the properties of the “Space-attributed” Chi Stone that he had absorbed to start his cultivation. And if he had, what type of effects it would have on his body.

‘What does “Space-attributed” even mean?’

He also wasn’t sure if it was normal to break through multiple ranks using the catalyst. From what the young wolf had said, it sounded like the catalyst was only used to prompt the body to start cultivating. Ma Erk’s catalyst was likely the Midnight Dew and he got two drops, which equates to about 10 points in cultivation progress for him.

‘That would make sense why Mar Erk didn’t have any additional cultivation breakthroughs. So because he used the Midnight Dew, does that mean he has some kind of faster regeneration?’

Max scrolled back in his notifications to the description of the Midnight Dew.

Item: Midnight Dew

The Midnight Dew is a natural treasure that only condenses in darkness. Its primary property is health, stamina, and chi regeneration. It can also aid in the cultivation of weak individuals. The dew will evaporate in direct sunlight.

Max had totally forgotten about the evaporating in the sun part of the description.

‘Fuck… Is that why he is always sleeping? To conserve his energy for healing? Did I create some kind of vampire wolf?’

It seemed to be a pretty big jump in logic, but Max wanted to be sure. Interrupting Ma Erk’s explanation.

“Why are you always sleeping?”

Ma Erk was thrown off by the question and just answered “Boss so good. So much food. Eat full. Heavy. Sleep.”

Max nodded to that. ‘Phew, it was just a food coma’. That made him laugh at himself, what a nonsensical thought.

The young wolf continued his explanation.

Ma Erk also talked briefly about exceptions to the catalyst requirement. The offspring of powerful spirit beasts are often born with some level of cultivation. Ma Erk seemed to have a deep-seated fear of them and wouldn’t speak more about them even after prodding him. Seeing that the little wolf was feeling uncomfortable, Max didn’t pursue the topic, he didn’t think he would be meeting the offsprings of powerful spirit beasts anytime soon, at least he hoped he wasn’t.

According to the little guy, the Body Tempering Realm is focused on strengthening the body, which is aligned with his prior theories. Each time he had increased in cultivation stages, he would only gain stats in his physical attributes. For Ma Erk, the primary cultivation method at this stage is a combination of devouring other spirit beasts like the Ling Wolfs, and similar to humans, they also could use some “exercise”.

Max also learned that the innards and guts of spirit beasts are especially nutritious for the young wolf and is likely why he had been eating so much of it lately. Knowing this, Max planned on preparing the other two bodies for the glutton when he was done. Judging from the size of the pile, Ma Erk would finish eating it in another day or so if he kept up this pace. That begged the question, could he also increase his cultivation by eating what Ma Erk ate. It didn’t take long for him to decide against that. He already had the Midnight Dew, so no need to steal Ma Erk’s food. And the little guy deserved that, it was his reward. He played an important role in taking down Rik-re.

When asked, Ma Erk didn’t know how many stages there were for Body Tempering nor what was after that stage. More accurately, his memories of that information were still jumbled up. Over the next couple of minutes, most of his questions were answered with shrugs and “Don’t know, Boss.”, it became evident that the little guy had told Max everything he knew.

The two of them enjoyed their meals. Although it had been less than a day since the wolf attack and a total of three days since he came to this new world, Max had started to find his rhythm. He accomplished a lot today. Having a source of water for him was huge. He also planned on making some weapons from the talon as well. Lastly and most importantly, he had confirmation that there were humans in the world and even saw what seemed to be a village in the distance.

Max did end up trying some of the innards, the cooked ones, and it didn’t taste terrible, just unpalatable. There was a mental barrier that he had a hard time getting past when it came to eating more of it.

As per usual, just moments after Ma Erk finished his food, he made a few circles in place and curled within himself, and promptly fell asleep.

‘I wonder what cultivation stage he’s at now that he’s eaten this much. I should have asked him before. Oh well.’

Taking advantage of the last few hours of sunlight, Max began working on his weapons. He took out the talon, there were three claws roughly the same size. Initially, they looked around the same size as the smaller Chi-Infused rock in terms of length. But, after peeling away the skin and finally dislodging the actual claw part, Max learned that they were actually closer to the size of his forearm, likely just a bit smaller. They would make good short daggers, the pointy edge was sharp and also seemed to be fairly sturdy.

While it was a good stabbing instrument, it didn’t have any sharp edges that could be used to cut or slice. It would make the weapon much more limited if Max could only stab with it. He wasn’t sure if it helped, but he got some water and wet a relatively smooth rock, and started grinding. By filing along the long side of the claw, the claw would be sharpened into a blade. He only needed to grind the thinner half of the claw since he was going to use the other half as a handle.

His new claw dagger could cut through what’s left on the skin of the talon with some difficulty. It is much easier compared to when he was using the Chi-Infused rock. Overall, Max was very satisfied with the work. He just hoped that it had enough flexural strength and wouldn’t break while he was fighting.

Once he had finished the first claw, it had already gotten dark. Max woke Ma Erk up and cleaned up the cliff and moved into the cave. Max was getting tired, but there was still one more thing he wanted to do before sleeping and that was to create some spears. He took the thick branches that he had collected and used the Chi-Infused rock to roughly carve a pointy end on one side of the branch. And with his new dagger, he shaved it down and made it as sharp as he could without breaking it. He was able to make a total of five of them before finally going to sleep.

As Max headed down to the hole, the little guy was just waking up from his short nap between coming into the cave and now.

“Ma Erk, you’re on guard duty. Wake me up if you heard anything, just like last night.”

Before going to sleep, Max threw a quick Analyze at the Midnight Dew and saw he had accumulated a total of 12 drops. Ten were from today and two were what he had left from the day before.