“Woah…”

The map was a piece of art, and the level of detail was unbelievable. At first glance, Max had a feeling that this was going to be one of the most valuable pieces of information for his survival and future growth. It also cleared up a lot of the ambiguity he had about this world. Having only been in this forest since he got here, Max was still oblivious of anything outside the forest aside from a small town that was at the edge of his vision.

The map was huge, easily over twenty by twenty feet. At first, he was unsure that his spiritual space could even contain it.

“If this was the eccentric pair’s personal map, then they must have been very well-traveled.”

The Ye couple was also been kind enough to mark the dangerous areas around the map with skulls. Somehow some of the skulls felt more intimidating than others, he made a mental note to definitely not go anywhere near those places.

Scanning the map, there was a tiny circle with a forest inside it and to the right of it, there was also a small body of water. Not seeing any other circles on the map, this was likely his current location. Fortunately, there weren’t any symbols of skulls nearby, the closest one looked to be two or three feet south of his current forest.

“But then again, what the Ye couple thinks is safe could still be dangerous for me.”

If Max interpreted the symbols right, there was a city that was somewhat close to the forest. The city was only an inch from the forest, possibly less. It was north of him, in the same direction as the village, but likely way past it. As for the village itself, it wasn’t even marked on the map. Ye Zhong had mentioned that things could have changed a lot during their time in the jade, so it is possible that the city is no longer there.

Near the center of the map, there was a place that had a drawing of a sky on it. The drawing consists of a sun, half-covered by clouds, and a few birds that were drawn as flattened m’s. This reminded him of the Ye couple’s sect. When Max had heard the name of the sect, Ye Tian, he had kept it untranslated. But if he were to translate the word “Tian” it would be “sky”.

“Is this where the sect is located? That would make sense especially since it was near the middle of the map and had a picture of what looks to be a sky.”

There were characters next to the drawing, but of course, it was unfamiliar to him. From the circle, the sky icon was about five feet away, above it to the left. But without knowing the scale of this map, he couldn’t be sure. The forest he was in, didn’t seem to be much bigger than a fingertip, so these five feet could be thousands of miles if not more. Plus it doesn’t take into account if the forest expanded or shrunk during the time the husband/wife pair were sealed away.

Along the way from the forest to the sect, there were several cities and a few rivers, and a huge ocean, that was about one by one foot. Thankfully it looked like it wasn’t directly in the path, but if he wanted to get to the sect he would still need to pass through it or take a detour.

“If my guess is correct, then I am pretty far from the Ye Tian sect. Most of the beasts in this forest could kill me, not to mention all the unknown dangers from here and there.”

Max felt dejected, he didn’t see a realistic way for him to get to the Ye Tian sect in any reasonable time. But he was reminded of all he had accomplished in just the last five days. It hadn’t even been a week and he was so much stronger than he had been when he arrived.

“Okay, one step at a time.”

Max noticed the majority of the map was highlighted in a light green color and the names of each city or landmark were also in green. However, at the outer edges, the map was highlighted in different colors. It looked like the green landmass was surrounded on three sides, yellow on the top left, blue on the bottom left, red all along the bottom, and gray on half the right side. The last edge seem to be devoid of landmass and was mostly water and small islands.

Looking at the colors, he suspected that each color represented a different faction in this world and the Ye Tian sect belonged to this green faction. Unfortunately, the map was mostly centered around the green landmass and so he didn’t have much information on the colors, which was fine since he didn’t have plans on joining any factions just yet. He just had an in with the Ye Tian sect, but that didn’t mean he had to take it.

After his mind was made up, he closed his eyes and let himself pull backward back into his body.

Slowly opening his eyes, sensations returned to his body. He felt a weight on his right knee. Looking down, the little wolf had fallen asleep with its head was propped on his knee.

It looked like he was in his spiritual space for longer than expected. The timer on the Greater Enhance Regeneration showed that four hours had passed, which would put them around dinner time. After giving Ma Erk a tap on his snout, the young wolf woke up immediately.

“Wanna eat?”

…

Ma Erk had finished all his food so Max decided to share some of his. He had also made a fire and cooked the fish they had caught earlier in the day. There were a lot of bones, but he was used to eating fish at home. It had been even less of a problem for the young wolf. It had tossed back his entire half of the fish bones and all.

“Ahh, wasn’t that nice? Eating something different every now and then.”

Hearing his pack leader’s wisdom, Ma Erk totally agreed and started furiously nodding.

After dinner, Max started his training, but before did, he removed the covering off the trap by the entrance. He should have done this before he had delved into his spiritual space, but had forgotten.

Tonight, instead of simple bodyweight workouts, he would follow the movements in the martial arts manual that Ye Zhong gifted him. Since he had already memorized it, it wasn’t hard for him to get in the right pose to start going through the movements. He also had some experience with it in his spiritual form.

The movements were odd, to say the least. It had a big focus on his upper body. Especially in his chest and arm area. It barely requires anything from his lower body.

Recalling the movements, he held his palms in front of his chest. Max took in a deep breath and as he exhaled, he thrust his hands up over his head while keeping his palms together. Holding them there for a second, they came apart and his fingers pointed in opposite directions. Closing his hands to make fists, they came back in front of his chest. Leading with the elbow, he raised his right arm. Once his elbow was pointed up, the forearms went up next, and lastly the fist. He then whipped the entire arm downwards in a quick motion. The same actions are repeated on the other side.

…

…

…

Over the next five minutes, the only thing that could be heard from the cave was his breathing and the sounds of his arms rushing through the air. By the end of the demonstration, he was out of breath and could feel a tightness in his back. He had done so many wide pushups in the last couple of days, but not once did he feel this kind of tightness.

Max gave himself a few minutes to catch his breath, have some water, and stretch out his back. Once he felt like he was back at an optimal level, he went through the martial arts again. By the end of the second workout, not only did he feel like he did an hour of cardio, but his back was stiff as a rock. When he extended both his arms forward in an attempt to stretch his back, he could hear loud cracks coming from the upper spine. After the crack, it was much better, but the muscles still felt tight.

‘How is this so hard? I went pretty slow this time and made sure to breathe in between each movement. Something is not adding up here. Damn, I really wish I could read the manual.’

Out of habit, he opened his character sheet. To his amazement, his stamina had dropped to 75/81 and his cultivation progress had increased from two to three.

‘What is going on here? Even when I went hard on the other workouts, my stamina wouldn’t drop this fast… On top of that, when I checked my progress before the workout, it was 2/200, how did it go up in just ten minutes of workout?’

Max waited until he was fully rested, before running through the movements, but this time he took off his bracers. While they were only about three pounds each, it was possible one of the hidden features might have caused this.

Five minutes later, he was huffing and puffing. The lack of extra weight from the bracers might have helped, but it was only marginally. The strain on his back was especially bad.

‘Okay, it definitely had to do with the martial art, there is no way I am getting this tired just going through some random motions for five minutes. But it’s working, so I am not going to complain.’

Normally, it would take him an hour of extraneous workouts to progress one point in his body cultivation. But now, every other time he ran through Ye Zhong’s “gift”, he would see the cultivation increase. Adding in his rest time, he could go through the forms about four times before the hour was over.

After three more hours of practicing the martial arts, Max lay on the ground of the cave. His back muscles were so strained that they were cramped up. Never in his life had he gotten a cramp in his back, it was awful, worse than a leg cramp. At least with a leg cramp, he could massage it and let it slowly go away. But with a back cramp, if he even tries lifting his arm, it would exacerbate the problem.

For some reason, Max could imagine a mad cackling coming from his left shoulder, where the brand was on his spiritual body.

Max was able to squeeze out one more hour of workout that was primarily focused on his legs and abs before calling it a day.

‘Can’t come to a whole new world and still only have chicken legs.’

The pair was safe in the confines of their cave, but just outside, the forest was filled with battle cries of the wolf packs and the hawks and occasionally the roars from some unknown spirit beast mixed in.