Tracking every of the faintest sounds that the approaching monsters made, Sebian prepared himself for what was about to happen. And as genius as it might potentially be, there was a hell of a pain to suffer.

'If only there was any other way,' Sebian thought while a grim grin surfaced on his face. Not even a single bead of sweat could fall off the alchemist's forehead before another group of beasts pounced on his body.

This time, the death was longer. As peculiar as it might be, the former ruler of the world got used to the excruciating pain rather quickly. With all the ordeals and forced breakthrough in cultivation that he survived through in his past life, just having his arm thorn apart by a group of ravenous birds while his guts were gnawed at by another feline beast…

As hellish as this experience was, Sebian had no problem getting used to it.

Sadly, his first death wasn't the end of the torture.

As soon as the new alchemist saw the light of the world for the first time, he noticed that something was wrong. Since when there was a huge, triangular shadow on the local sun? Was it something that he didn't notice? Or maybe…

Before even a second idea could appear in his mind, the shadow turned into an enormous gryphon. This time, at least, the death was quick. With his entire body slashed in half with just a single cut of the gryphon's tail resulted in an instant shock. At least this time, he didn't feel almost any pain at all.

Sebian's third shot still wasn't lucky enough. Right as his sensory experiences returned once again, a herd of wolf-like predators pounced on him. Out of all the previous encounters, being torn apart by a group of big dogs seemed to be the worst death out of them all.

Then, by the fourth time, everything was over.

Whether it was the gut, accident or just coincidence, when Sebian awoke to the world for the fourth time, there was only silence. No growling of the beasts fighting for the spoils that today's fight left scattered across the forest. No low gnarl of the beasts preparing for an ambush in the near grass.

Prompting himself up, Sebian instantly looked at his internal state.

'At least my cultivation stays the same.' Just like right before the dying fiesta began, Sebian's cultivation was at the initial stage of the third step. With his flesh cleansed and infused with mana, he only needed a vast amount of unrefined energy to absorb in order to quickly get stronger. But unlike the first two stages of bodily cultivation, this wasn't a process that could be finished in one day. Or rather, no one at that level would be able to obtain enough resources to push for the breakthrough in a short amount of time.

Thankfully, that logic didn't apply to Sebian. As mortifying experience as it was, the alchemist was now in the middle of a cemetery. Every few steps, a corpse of a monster was slowly wasting away. And rather than despairing over the hardships of cultivating, Sebian moved into action.

First, he reached the place of his second death. At first, navigating through the forest appeared to be a problem. Thankfully, even though there were barely any natural paths between the huge trees, there was a single trail that Sebian could follow. The path of the destruction.

'If my guess is really right…' Pondering over the issue, Sebian shook his head. All the while he was running, his eyes were scanning the area in search of the valuable medicinal herbs. Sadly, while there were some of the interesting bits growing around, most of them would be simply too difficult to properly prepare in the middle of the forest. Outside of just a few strands of a plant with a clearly energetic aura that Sebian consumed to restore his strength, this forest was as barren as one would expect from a place crawling with beasts.

Soon, the alchemist reached the place he desired. With just a few moves of his hands, the small treasure he hid before came back to his hands. Moving the knife to his hand before grabbing the entire loot, Sebian could finally let his greed rein free.

Moving a few steps forward, he would stumble upon a corpse of a beast fallen in the massacre that his strange curse caused. Dropping down the bloody packages on the ground, Sebian made a short work of the fallen beast, extracting more valuable parts of meat and the magic stone. As hopeful as Sebian was, the haul turned out to be only average. The stone was simply too small to be of any use to him! That is if he could only rely on cultivation alone.

Hiding the small stone to a special pouch cut out of the monster's ass, the former ruler of his home world stood up and grabbed a few bloody sacks worth of meat and bones.

'What a disgrace it is…' As exhilarating the idea of properly redoing his cultivation was, there was no denying one fact. That damned idiotic god that sent him here, was truly heartless!

"You dropped me here without a single hint, right in the middle of the fucking forest," murmuring under his nose, Sebian forced the curses from his lips back down his throat. 'There is no use bothering with that damned being now. For now, there is still a lot of work to be done.' Raising his gaze, Sebian looked at all the corpses that glistered in the rays of the setting sun. Just a single look at the feathers of a nearby fallen bird-like beast was enough to prove how expensive they had to be. Such an exquisite material…

'Wait, setting sun?' Startled by the sudden realization of what it actually meant, Sebian frantically looked behind. Just as the previous observation suggested, the rays of the local star were already turning red, indicating that lady night would soon replace her brighter sister.

'Damn it, I need to hurry!' Hurrying himself in his own thoughts, Sebian rushed forward. Skipping on the smaller prey, he decided to focus only on the stronger-looking corpses. As useful as the small magic stones were, Sebian simply couldn't make any use of them right now!

Thankfully, the battle here was great. Even while ignoring the smaller or less important targets, Sebian was still nowhere close to gutting all his targets. And as if to spit his already ill fortune in the face, the local sun seemed to fall down at an even faster rate than back in Sebian's home!

"Fuck!" Unable to hold his curses anymore, Sebian finally decided to drop the chase after materials. In the end, he still managed to reach near the limit of how much he could carry or consume over the next few days.

And as annoying as it could be, as soon as he could assimilate more of the energy from the magic stones, his cultivation would soar!

The one thing was, that in order to avoid mana poisoning, he couldn't use a single stone for at least two more days!