“Go hunting for profound beasts?” Kiron looked at Robin with a surprised look on his face.

“Yea, if we can get our hands on some profound cores, we might be able to break through to the next rank! If you break through to the 2nd ranked and I get to the 6th, the chances of us being recruited by one of the sects is much higher!” Robin said.

Kiron was staring at the wall for some seconds before finally opening his mouth, “But, there aren’t any profound beasts around here, the kingdom has killed all the nearby profound beasts.” Kiron said in a low voice.

“You’re wrong about that! Recently, a lot more profound beasts has started showing up in the mountains! Although finding one will be hard, they can be found!” Robin had a smile on his face, it was obvious that he really wanted to get another core.

Kiron looked at Robin for a second before saying, “Alright, let’s go into the mountain forests and look for a profound beast once we’re done eating!”

…

Kiron and Robin finished their meal. It was now time to head towards the mountains.

It was a bit darker now than when they had first started walking towards the city, and the weather wasn’t as hot as it was some hours ago. Kiron and Robin were walking in a grass field, talk and laughter could be heard from them.

“There it is! We’ll start climbing the mountain from over there!” Robin said as he pointed towards a specific point. Kiron took his new iron dagger out of his bag and put it in his pocket. “Alright, let’s go!” Kiron start running slowly towards the mountain.

After running for a couple of minutes, they arrived at the forest within the mountain.

They were walking around cautiously, they didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention. If there are any high ranked profound beasts nearby, they would be killed….

Kiron stopped, “Quiet… You hear that?” He pointed towards a cave, there seemed to be some sound coming from it. “Let’s go check it out.” He said in a low, gentle voice.

Kiron start walking, slowly, towards the cave. He stood next to the entrance, peeking into the cave. When he peeked into the cave he didn’t see anything.

“There’s nothing inside the cave…” As Kiron said that he entered the cave, with Robin following behind him. When they entered the cave, something came running towards them. It was a small squirrel… “Really?” Robin sighed.

Robin was kind of sad about there not being any profound beasts within the cave, but Kiron just laughed it off.

After investigating the cave for a bit they left and continued looking for profound beasts, occasionally encountering small animals, or just animals who hasn’t entered the Profound Practitioner Realm and formed their core.

“Uhm, Kiron come here” Robin was looking at the ground with a frown on his face.

“This is the squirrel from earlier?” Kiron looked at the squirrel. Half its body had been torn off. “No regular animals should be capable of doing this. There must be a profound beast nearby!” A smile appeared on Robin’s face as he said that.

They started following the blood trail on the ground. “Hey, if we encounter any profound beasts above the 1st rank you should stay back!” Robin looked at Kiron with a look of worry as he said that.

Kiron nodded.

“When we encounter the profound beast we should surround it, that way it can’t run away” Robin continued, “I’ll go in front of it, and you’ll go behind”

They continued following the blood trail, until finally “There, it’s in that cave!” Robin continued, “Since there’s only one exit, it will be even harder for the profound beast to run away!”

As they entered the cave, the first thing they saw was a Silver Wolf. The Silver Wolf noticed that something was staring at it, it turned around and saw the boys standing there, staring at it.

The Silver Wolf growled, then it started walking towards them, slowly.

“Damn, the Silver Wolf seems to be at the 2nd rank of the Profound Practitioner Realm” Robin said with a frown on his face.

Since the wolf was at the 2nd rank of the Profound Practitioner Realm, its core would only be a low ranked one. And a Low Ranked Core would almost be useless for someone of the 5th rank.

The wolf jumped towards Robin, but a Silver Wolf of the 2nd rank versus a human at the 5th rank… There was no hope for the Silver Wolf.

Robin stood there with a short sword in his hands. He slashed his sword towards the Silver Wolf, and just like that, the Silver Wolf had died.

“Hey Kiron, you want the core? It should be located near its chest” Robin looked at Kiron as he spoke. “But you’re the one who killed it! Even if the core might not be useful to you, it can still be sold for 100 gold coins!” Kiron didn’t want to take something that Robin had earned himself.

Robin sighed, “Consider it a loan then. I’ll give this one to you, then you give me one in the future!” Robin continued, “Also, you’ll need to increase your strength if you want to enter one of the sects. And the core will be a great help for that!”

Kiron hesitated for a moment before nodding in agreement.

He took the iron knife out of his pocket and walked towards the Silver Wolf. Kiron put the knife into the Silver Wolf’s chest and cut it open, inside there was a small black core. Kiron took the core and cleaned it with his pants, then he put it into his bag.

“Hey Kiron, you know why people don’t like hunting for profound beasts, right?” Robin looked at Kiron, who responded, “Where there’s one, there’s many!” Kiron looked back at Robin with a look of excitement on his face. “Correct! And especially wolves, they rarely hunt alone! They rarely hunt alone, so there’s bound to be some other wolves around here!” Robin’s smile grew even wider.

“Anyways, it’s getting late. We should head back home, we can come back tomorrow and search for other profound beasts.” Robin started walking out of the cave, Kiron followed.

Just as they got outside…

“RUN!” Robin screamed at the top of his lungs before starting to run. Kiron with a surprised look on his face, looked to his side… Silver Wolves. At least 20 of them, all staring at Kiron.

Kiron shot out like an arrow, a horrified expression on his face. The Silver Wolves looked inside the cave and saw the corpse of the Silver Wolf that Robin had just killed. The wolves immediately started chasing after Kiron and Robin.

His face had gone pale, his heart felt like it was going to explode. “Up here!” Kiron looked up, seeing Robin climbing a stone wall. Kiron immediately started climbing.

The wolves saw Kiron and Robin climbing the wall, then they started running in another direction.

…

Kiron finally arrived at the top of the stone wall. “Haha, that was too close... I’ve never run that fast in my life” Robin was laying on the ground, looking at the sky. Kiron laid down on the ground, *pant* *pant* *pant*. He was completely out of breath.

“The wolves… They went somewhere else… They might appear here” Kiron forced out a couple of words. The stone wall was perhaps 200 meters tall, being only at the 1st level of the Profound Practitioner Realm, that’s extremely an extremely hard wall to climb.

Robin looked at Kiron, “Hey Kiron, you’re already at the peak of the 1st rank, if you refine the Low Ranked Core, you should be able to enter the 2nd level of the Profound Practitioner Realm,” Robin continued, “You’ll have some World Qi in your body then. Climbing walls like the one we just climbed will be much easier compared to now.”

The first rank is all about strengthening the body enough to be able to absorb World Qi. If someone tried to forcefully absorb the World Qi without being strong enough, the World Qi within the body would go berserk, killing you in the process. The same rules apply to spiritual energy. Only when at the absolute peak of the Profound Practitioner Realm 10th rank can you start absorbing spiritual energy. When you absorb spiritual energy for the first time, you will break through to the Profound Spiritual Realm.

Having World Qi to strengthen your body, it was truly different than training on your own. Your strength and defense would be multiplied by 10 upon absorbing World Qi for the first time.

“Then, I’ll refine it tomorrow.” Kiron had a smile on his face. Thinking about entering the 2nd realm was enough to make him happy.

… Some hours passed by, it was already dark by now.

“Hey Kiron… You weren’t wrong.” Robin said. You could hear the fear in his voice.

Kiron was about to speak, but as he turned his head towards Robin, he saw the same Silver Wolves who had chased them earlier.