During the following week Quin did not cover too much distance on the road as he only traveled from morning to noon, then he spent the rest of the day in the woods, hunting or exploring.

It was not just the meat of the prey he used, -- just like that time with the bear -- he tried to leverage the animals’ entire body as well. Currently, he had quite a few fur clothes and each piece’s quality was better than the previous one, which made him quite happy. Quin could not wear that many pieces of clothing, however he did not have the heart to part with them. He did change his own clothes to these ones and although they were a bit warm and looked kind of funny he still liked them. It did not matter to him either that he looked like some savage barbarian in them.

It was a simple way of life, but it was still filled with excitement, fun and the feeling of being alive. The only issue he had that the animals around here did not seem to give him any kind of challenge lately. Killing creature without any effort, or struggle only to be able to say that he killed them, was not what he looked for. Quin looked for a fight, where he had to be truly careful and put all of his focus on the battle itself to be able to win. During these weeks, his pain seemed to lessen a bit for some reason, and though it was still hellish, it was enough for him to be able to maintain his control without a break for more than a week now.

He pondered a lot about why it was like that and his guess was that it was due to the increased physical activity. It may have been the very reason for his current condition, but after thinking through what Niohe said to him and what he had read about in the library, it did sound logical.

The pain he felt was the consequence of the wild, raw energy entering his body and filling his organs and cells completely. This kind of energy was something that all humans used: it was in their food or even in the water they drank and it was what fueled their body when they were not using their qi. However, the difference between Quin and the average humans was the amount of this energy they were exposed to. In Quin’s case, his cells were overflowed with it and that was one of the sources of his problem.

Exercises used up energy and by constantly doing them in greater amount, his cells naturally required more fuel than usual, which meant that his body was left with less of this wild energy. Of course, his pain did not disappear, as his body was not completely devoid of this energy. Besides it was not by chance that humans used their own qi as their source of energy instead of this wild energy, as it was harmful by its nature when overused.

The whole situation could be described by one metaphor: people needed the warmth of the fire on the cold winter days, however being too close to it could burn them.

He was not exactly sure whether it was better for his health or not, but he would not limit himself just to be careful and he honestly doubted that much worse could happen to him.

For the past few days, he had been searching for a creature called the Smiling Devil. Its appearance could be best described as combining a lion’s and a lizard’s body, but making its length the double of a lion’s and then putting a head of a snake on its neck. It had a leather collar around its head, which was covered by tiny spikes, that could be shot out at its target. The Smiling Devil was not covered by scales or fur, but by a black and red, slimy skin and its body ended in a long tail. It got the first part of its name because its mouth curved upwards at each side by default and thus looked to the humans as it was constantly smiling. While the second part of its name was due to its malicious nature: it was no stronger than an average adult and avoided them most of the time, however, what it hunted was often the small and defenseless children. More revolting was how it often did not hunt human children for food, but presumably for fun as it regularly left the corpses untouched. Its overall strength was about the first or the second level of the Qi Foundation and combined with its strange abilities it meant that Quin would probably find a decent challenge in fighting it.

Quin finally spotted one in the late afternoon when the sun was about to set. He had only seen it on drawn pictures, but in person it looked actually more repulsive.

The creature noticed him as well and for a long moment, they were just staring at each other, standing entirely still. Then the collar of the beast made a quick movement, and Quin knew that he needed to evade it, so he leaped diagonally left to get closer to the creature as well. He needed at least another step toward the Smiling Devil to get in range with his spear, however, he was barraged by those tiny spikes again.

He did not anticipate the creature to be able to shoot this frequently, and thus he was caught a bit unprepared. There was no time left to completely dodge the attack, so he only managed to turn his body around to some extent. He was able to defend his more vital parts, but his right arm and a few places on his back got hit.

Having been living his past weeks under an unearthly pain, these small tiny spikes barely registered in his mind, and besides, his right arm was the weak, injured one which he did not even use for powerful attacks. However, it did not mean that he was fighting with only one arm, just that his weapon-wielding hand was his left one.

His opponent’s attack did stop him, but only for a second, however the Smiling Devil thought that it was the perfect opportunity for jumping at him. Its plan ended in failure, though, as Quin was aware the situation and leaped away just in time. However, he simultaneously threw his right arm out and its contents at the beast. Although his right arm was weak and not fit for attacking, it was absolutely good for other things, like throwing sand into the enemy’s eyes.

The creature let out a terrible scream and shot out another barrage of spikes. Without his sight, he was not able to hit him and this time Quin took the initiative by thrusting forward his spear. The beast seemed to have a powerful hearing though and was able to react in time, as it heard the sound of Quin’s attack.

It lashed out with its long tail in revenge and hit him in his chest, making him flew a couple of meters away. That was its last attack, however, as just before he was about to be hit, Quin threw his spear at the creature’s head with all of his strength. It was too busy with its own attack and thus noticed the spear too late.

Damn, that was close! If I didn’t throw my spear in time, during the moments when I would have tried to collect myself from its tail lash, it would have certainly jumped on me. I don’t even dare to imagine what would’ve happened then...

It did take some time for him to be able to stand back up, but after examining his own injuries he concluded that fortunately he only had some bruises. He would gather some herbs and put them on his injured areas, but that had to wait, as at first he had to start working on the beast.

Its skin was not something that he found useful, so he simply burned it, however, the the meat underneath it proved to be quite high quality. It did take a while to prepare but the outcome was shockingly good. Perhaps he was just getting better and better at cooking, or he was just too hungry, but it felt that it was the best meal he had for ages.

Obviously, just like usual, he did take some parts as souvenirs and put them onto his necklace.

In the following weeks he continued his hunting, but always searched for prey which could give him a challenge. As the time went by, he spent more and more part of his day in the woods and less on the road. He started to lose his sense of time as he completely immersed himself in the role of the hunter. There was not much thinking when he was the predator, only the instincts that guided him to catch his prey.