Feeling the excitement, Lorian moved his dagger as a feint, deterring the beast from attacking. Neither of them advanced nor retreated.

Finally, Lorian intentionally showed an opening, lowering the dagger as if not on purpose. The snow wolf instantly pounced at him.

Lorian landed a precise kick on snow wolf's jaw, flinging it half a meter away.

Growling fiercely, snow wolf turned its neck to glare at Lorian in anger, but seeing the dagger flying at it, it jumped back.

The dagger plunged into the soft snow and almost disappeared into it. Lorian followed up and slashed down with his sword. The snow wolf once again dodged agilely and bit his thigh, but before its teeth could pierce further, it jumped back once more to dodge another attack. This beast was quite cautious. Gray wolves would definitely act differently, fighting to the death, not retreating and trying to tear the prey apart as soon as its jaw caught the meat.

Snow wolves were more prudent in their actions and would weaken their enemies with their frostbites. Its fangs projected weak ice poison in prey's body. If one was injured by frostbite over and over the poison would become very dangerous, sometimes even crystallizing wounded flesh, which would then break off. Obviously, star warriors had higher resistance and wouldn't fear a mere frostbite of snow wolf, but for mortals large contents of ice poison are deadly.

Lorian groaned in pain while feeling bitter in his heart. What use was there to attacking if it didn't land?

From bitten wound, a chill was spreading, turning his movements rigid. He couldn't afford to lengthen the battle.

Lorian acted decisively and threw his sword away. The snow wolf instantly lunged at him. Lorian held out his left arm and barely kept himself from screaming in pain. He fell in the snow. The fangs were mercilessly plunged in his arm. Blood overflowed. Lorian kept himself awake and searched small snow hill with his right hand. His right hand instantly caught the dagger he had thrown earlier.

The beast was flailing its head, about to take a chunk of his meat, but its greedy teeth had almost plunged on the whole hand of his, along with arm bone, so it wasn't that easy to tear.

No matter how cautious it couldn't change its innate nature - greed.

Feeling his opponent losing the threat it possessed, the snow wolf threw the caution to the wind, so this time, in this situation it couldn't easily free itself.

- Aaaaahhh~

Lorian decisively pierced the dagger from below its lower jaw, dying his right arm red with blood, but this time the blood belonged to the snow wolf.

The wolf tried to free itself and succeeded, but before it completely dashed away, Lorian once again plunged his dagger into a snow wolf's right eye.

- WOOOOOOOO~

The snow wolf howled in pain as it staggered away. Lorian forcefully kicked the wolf once again, making it fall in the snow. The snow wolf and the snow was dyed red with its blood. With crazed eyes, Lorian pierced down with all his strength. The dagger pierced through snow wolf's skull, eliminating it.

- Owwww, fuck, it hurts!

He never felt so much pain in his life. His left arm was almost wasted. He could only treat the wound with basic bandaging currently as there was no time.

In his condition, there was no way to dismantle the snow wolf pelt that was needed for his task, yet he also couldn't dawdle as blood would attract the beasts.

- Damn it!

He could only abandon the place, hurriedly mounting and leaving it in hurry.

3 more days have passed. He didn't meet more danger as he found some abandoned cave by luck and decided to recuperate. The horse couldn't handle the weather and froze to death. Lorian never thought the weather would change this abruptly. Even if he knew, there was no escaping from renting a horse for traveling, but he couldn't afford the ones that were of higher quality.

He didn't know exactly where he was at, but according to the map, there were many camps and paths left by traveling merchants that could guide him, thus he wasn't too worried as to how to find his way back. After all, he wasn't the only one to accept the task in this location.

Instead, something else was worrying him immensely.

The wounds he received were starting to crystallize. He was trembling because his temperature fell. Fortunately, the infected area was small and only tiny parts of his flesh were crystallized, but it still felt painful and chilly.

His left arm was still in terrible pain and almost half useless, which was the most worrying.

Having to abandon the spoils and receiving such injuries made his mood fall to the bottom, but he could only bear with aftermaths. The only reassuring things were system notifications that appeared after he killed the snow wolf.

Battle Exp +80 General Exp +11

The snow wolf wasn't stronger than the snake that he finished off at the circus, but he received more exp from killing it. Clearly, his involvement in the battle was the determining factor of exp obtained. Obviously stronger beasts he hunted, the more exp they would be worth, but if his contribution in battle was low, the obtained exp would be lower...

Currently, his status looked like this...

Lorian Ellins (Weakened)(Poisoned) Warrior (Level 0) (272/10,000) General Exp: 0 Battle Exp: 0 Titles: - Innate trait: Anti-poison body (Level 0) Skills: Basic sword mastery (Level 1) (6203/10,000)

Attributes:

Spirit: 1.1

He still had no way to determine what spirit attribute signified. Neither did anti-poison body show its usefulness, which made him depressed because he was currently poisoned.

Another astonishing notification, which made him puzzled was this...

Instances unlocked

The first level has been constructed.

When he appraised the instances option this popped up

Instances

First floor: Snow Wolf

Difficulties:

Easy

Normal

Hard

Nightmare

Hell

Currently, his condition was too bad for challenges, so Lorian dismissed this for a time being.

Another 3 days have passed, but Lorian still didn't dare to come out of hiding at his current condition.

But changes occurred. To his astonishment, the crystallized bits of his flesh reduced in size. They were small in the first place, but he knew that they would not disappear so easily. What happened? Was this the doing of the anti-poison body?

Then how did it work?

After a deep contemplation, he came to a bold hypothesis...

- Could anti-poison body be kind of talent that adapts to poisons and after familiarization automatically creates antibodies to fight against the poison to suppress it, thus increasing my immunity?

If this was so, then it would be too terrifying. But to increase his immunity he would need to consume many poisons and if the poison was deadly, he would die faster than his body could adapt. Lorian perspired upon the thought of willingly consuming poisons to increase his immunity, but wouldn't the results be worth it?

Other than tempering his poison resistance Lorian couldn't find any use for this innate trait of his and currently didn't value it as much.

If other knowledgeable people knew of his thoughts they would die from anger. His constitution was the heaven-sent gift that would help one in learning poison arts without the threat of disfigurement. Unfortunately, even if he knew, he would not be interested and at present, he had no way to get his hands on such products anyway.

Lorian decisively stayed in the cave for several more days. Currently, half a month had passed out of the current 2 months deadline limit, but he had no progress in his task at all. Outside the snow had reached up to 1 meters above ground.

His wound was deep, but after applying some holy water it healed to the state where he could use his arm again. The holy water that church sold was very, very diluted and its effects were far cry from the original, but it was still enough to heal mortals' normal injuries. Lorian only had a bottle of this diluted holy water and had to use third of it on his wound, which caused him to be depressed. After all, the amount was limited and it cost him quite a lot to purchase it.

When he got stronger, holy water of this content wouldn't be enough to heal this type of injury. He would need the more potent version of it, which would cost a lot higher...

After recovering somewhat, Lorian decided to check what kind of thing the instances offered before stepping out for hunting.

Entering the instances panel, Lorian pressed on easy mode with his mind.

After doing so, his eyes lost focus and his mind was transferred to an unknown place...