It had been two days since Max parted ways with Ma Erk and the relative safety of the cave. He had told his little friend about the Midnight Dew and how it could help him recover if he was ever injured and that it might also help with his cultivation. When he had left, they didn’t know if the Midnight Dew would increase the little guy's cultivation. Just like how eating the Spirit beast didn’t help his cultivation, the Midnight Dew might not have the same effects for Ma Erk.

Max had helped refill the water tub and told Ma Erk to stay inside the cave until he had fully digested the Hawk. At least by then, the little wolf would be strong enough to defend himself from most other beasts in the area.

Max had fashioned his poncho shirt into a backpack. In it, there were some berries, two fish, three skewers of Hawk, two unsharpen claws, and the pelts of the three wolves that he had slain.

Before leaving the cave, he had crafted three more spears which were then fastened to the outside of his backpack. He made a wooden sheath for his dagger that was tied to one side of his hip. Aside from the mundane objects, he had the spatial bottle, with 20 drops of the Midnight Dew, in a chest pocket on the inside of his robe. And lastly, the Bracers were clipped onto each of his arms, both underneath his sleeves.

Max had been nervous the first couple of hours of travel. He knew that there were beasts nearby and some of them might still be stronger than him. It would be troublesome if they ganged up upon him.

The direction the smoke was coming from was north of the cave, whereas Ma Erk’s old pack was west of the cave. Knowing that he felt a bit better about his safety. There could still be other packs and bears that were unaccounted for.

Max had deliberately set a slow pace since he didn’t want to alert any beasts in the area of his presence. It had paid off when he saw a pair of wolves in the distance. The wolves hadn’t spotted him yet and before they could he took cover. Peaking over the boulder, he saw the pair of wolves walking off. They didn’t look that big, maybe even smaller than Ma Erk. There was also a distinct feeling that they were much weaker than him. His danger senses weren’t firing nor did he feel a pit in his stomach like when he saw Ying Hou.

‘Are they that much weaker than me now that they aren’t even a threat?’

Even with this newfound confidence in himself, he waited until the wolves were out of sight before proceeding. There was no need to cause trouble. After the first encounter, Max picked up the pace. With his now enhanced Perception, he was able to hear and see the wolves before they could notice him.

The first day passed in a similar fashion, every couple of hours, he would run into a pair or small groups of wolves. What was interesting was that with each consecutive encounter, the wolves felt like they got weaker. The further from the cave he went, the less threatening the beasts were.

By nightfall of the first day, Max guessed that he had only traveled 14-16 miles the entire day. It had been slow going the first half of the day, and even with his higher confidence level, the forest had gotten denser which had hindered his progress. That night, he forwent the fire and ate the fish cold and the berries raw. After having dinner, he found a tall tree that had a good vantage point and settled in for the night.

Max had woken up before first light and continued his trek to civilization. Not long after, he ran into an entire wolf pack. There were eleven of them in the group but not all of them were fighters. But even the biggest three and the one that he had identified as the alpha looked weak to him. Quickly using Analyzed on the alpha, he was pleasantly surprised when he got back some information.

Ever since he absorbed some of Ying Hou’s spiritual energy, he’s been able to gauge the strength of the beasts weaker than him.

Analyzing…

Alpha Wolf

Status: Alive

Cultivation: Body Tempering 3rd Stage

After using Analyze on the rest of the pack, he learned that the two other larger wolves were both in the 1st Stage of Body Tempering and the rest were all regular animals with no cultivation.

Even against a group of wolves, Max felt good about his chances of defeating them if they were to attack. Slowly the pack of eleven wolves surrounded him. As they did, Max drew his dagger into his dominant right hand and lowered his center of gravity. He raised his left arm so his forearm was parallel to the ground. If any of them attacked him, he could use the Bracers to block any bites.

He was ready and kept his eyes on the three most dangerous ones. All three of them had chosen to stick together, they had positioned themselves right in front of him. The one on the left of the Alpha charged, but the others had stayed behind, likely letting the first wolf test him. From Max’s perspective, it almost felt like it happened in slow motion, he had ample time to react. When it was two to three feet away from him, he stepped forward and tensed up his right leg. With a sharp kick, his foot made contact with the wolf’s neck.

Through the cloth shoes, he felt a crack. In the next moment, the wolf went limp and fell to the ground. Its momentum carried it a couple of feet forward. It lay paralyzed on the ground. Seeing their brethren felled so quickly by the human, the rest of the pack scattered and retreated, leaving the down wolf.

‘Hmm, that was a lot easier than I thought’

Max had no desire to pursue them. They were just following their natural instincts and he wasn’t some crazed killer or had it out for wolves. In fact, he can confidently say, his best friend in this world is a wolf.

The downed wolf was breathing heavily. Kneeling, he placed his hand on where his foot had impacted the wolf's neck.

‘I think I might have broken its neck, I’m surprised it’s still alive.’

“I’m sorry.”

Upon hearing the human’s words, the wolf was surprised that it could understand them. But it didn’t have the chance to say anything before darkness overtook him.

Max drove the dagger in and out of the head of the wolf with one swift motion.

Enemy killed. You gained experience.

+10 experience points

“A quick and painless death is all I could offer you.”

With an injury like that, there was almost no way for it to recover without outside intervention. If he hadn’t ended the wolf’s life, it would have suffered a long time before it died, or maybe something would have come along, and eaten it alive.

After that was done, he wiped the dagger on the grass to clean off the blood. Max hung the wolf on a nearby branch and let the blood drain from it. While this was happening, he grabbed a few leaves and crushed them for water.

It was also time for him to eat breakfast. he had never been the type of person to eat as soon as he woke up and usually waited until after he got something done first before having breakfast.

Roughly 15 minutes later, he was done eating and the puncture hole in the wolf’s head had stopped leaking blood. The body was flipped upright and tied to the Pancho backpack.

Having seen the level of beasts in this area, Max became more liberal with his actions. Yesterday, his speed had been in the one to two miles per hour. With this new confidence, he decided to triple his speed to a fast jog. If this was before he tempered his body, he would be lucky to keep this pace up for five minutes, especially in this terrain. But now, he was barely breaking a sweat.

The day quickly passed in this matter, there had been no more interruptions. He had stopped for a few minutes to get some more water and eat a small lunch. The sun had started its descent and Max had to wonder if he was going in the right direction. It had been over fourteen hours since his increased pace. Plus the distance he covered the day before, he must have traveled at least 75 miles and there was still no town.

…

…

…

According to his “Greater Enhance Regeneration” another hour had passed, and it was going to be dust soon.

Suddenly, Max heard the sound of metal on metal in the distance. It was coming from ahead of him to the left. He increased his jogging pace to a full sprint, as he got closer, the sound of clashing metal was accompanied by shouts and grunts. He was still too far to make out what they were saying. It took him over five minutes to finally arrive at where the sounds were coming from. His increased perception, not only improved his eyesight, but his senses of hearing as well. As a result, the sounds were a lot further than he had initially thought.

Two minutes ago, he had heard something about bandits, but the words were drowned out by the fighting. Bursting through the treeline, he found himself in a clearing. In the distance, he could see his goal, the town, but he didn’t have time to focus on that.

Max was stunned by the fighting unfolding in front of him. Just from a glance, saw seven bodies laying unmovingly on the ground. He had never witnessed this level of violence in person. Compared to this, his struggles with the beasts can be described as tame. Whether it was a swing of an ax, a stab of a sword, or a slash of a saber, each move was aimed to kill or maim the other person. Seeing the situation, he backed up into the treeline.

There were two groups of people, initially, they looked the same to him. But upon closer inspection, he had noticed some subtle differences.

The group that was mostly attacking had a hardened edge to them, their swings were wild and lacked any discipline. They also looked like they were having fun, he had even spotted one sticking his tongue out and licking the blood off his blade.

The defending group was more coordinated; they had formed a semi-circle. Behind it, there were three youngsters, maybe in their mid-teens. The teenagers were scared, one of them was even weeping. Aside from the teenagers, the expression on each of the men’s faces was unsightly.

From this quick scan, Max had a pretty good idea the attacking group were bandits and the defending group was likely villagers from the settlement up ahead. While the villagers were putting up a good defense, they were clearly the losing group. Including the boys, there were around 14 of them whereas, there were 18 bandits. Taking another look at the bodies on the ground, most of them were wearing similar clothes as the villagers.

Max had been watching the fight for a couple of seconds now, but no one had spotted him yet. Most of his body was shaded by the trees. The bandits were facing away from him and the other group was too busy guarding against attacks to look in his direction.

The combatants didn’t feel that strong. He got the feeling that some of them weren’t even in the body tempering stage. Among both groups, roughly half of them were non-cultivators. But even the strongest two cultivators only felt slightly stronger than Ma Erk. Unfortunately for the villagers, the two strongest fighters were both bandits.

With his higher Perception stat, he saw the moment when one of the villagers tripped over a rock and fell. The bandit that was fighting him laughed and swung down with his ax. But to the villager’s credit, he had scrambled back far enough for the swing to only nick him on the chest instead of splitting his head open.

The bandit had already started raising his ax for another swing. If Max were to act, this was his chance, but he was still conflicted. It was one thing defending himself from beasts, it was another attacking other humans.

In his moment of hesitation, he locked eyes with the fallen villager. The man and his attacker were roughly the same height, so Max was blocked by the bandit’s frame, but now that the man was on the ground, he saw Max between the gaps of his opponent’s legs.

“Fuck it.”

Max dropped his pack and yanked one of his spears free. The spears were very well made, it was as straight as an arrow and the tip was sharpened with his bone dagger. Holding the spear in one hand, he pulled his arms back and aimed. With one swift throw, the spear sailed through the air and fell short of his target by about five feet. He was about 50 yards away from them. For his first throw, it was pretty good. Now with a mark on the ground, he picked up another spear. This time he put a bit more power into his throw. While the spear was in the air, the man had blocked a blow from the bandit with his sword.

This time, the spear flew true and drove itself deep into the back of the bandit’s knee. The villager used this momentary distraction to thrust into his attacker’s stomach which sealed his opponent's life.