The drop is heavy and the landing rough. My body tears through leaves and branches like a hole puncher. When I finally reaches the bottom, I try to soften the blow using parkour skills. Thrusting my body parallel to the ground at the time of impact.

It doesn’t exactly work.

At such high speeds, your body is going to take a significant amount of the energy no matter what you do.

But it worked a little.

This is where my healing aura comes in. Almost instantaneously at the point of impact, my body reforms and I run through the impact in a roll.

This buys me a good 3-4 seconds to get ahead of the giant feline.

My movement and combat scan are in Overdrive.

I’m pushing it just up to where I may start having issues. However, with this amount, I’ll be able to keep going continuously and it will allow me to move through this jungle pretty quickly and safely.

But it’s not good enough.

The Panther has home field advantage.

They can move through this even quicker than I am, even with my ability to see the optimal path for myself. With a body optimized for short and long bursts of speed in tight locations, they can thrive where I have to burst through.

So, the only way for me to get out ahead of them is to go through areas that I can survive and they would struggle.

I dip and dive through layer after layer of vines. Since I can’t see that far in front of me, I have to rely on my scan to determine where and what to do next.

It’s what’s been saving me, as in this jungle you cannot trust your eyes.

Just before me, as soon as I ran out, there appeared to be an open area which I could dive into. My scan instead told me to run through the brush to the right of it and go around it.

Seconds later, the Panther does the same, albeit more gracefully.

That open clearing was actually a trap where the vines that I went through would actually reach out and grab whatever went through that area. By going directly through it, its sensors do not go off.

In another step, I jump above a perfectly normal piece of ground.

Beneath this area is a tunnel ready to collapse. The insect tunnel traps I had found earlier are very close to what I just avoided.

Funnily enough, the Panther actually falls into this trap. Its front paw breaks through the ground, as its full weight went down on it.

Like a cat, it attempted to spring up and away from the danger. The power of its spring allowed it to quickly pull free from the collapsing area.

Inside the ground, countless ant-like creatures could be seen swarming around, trying to catch anything that fell in.

The scariest part about this trap is that it is just one of many that any creature could fall into. Even the Panther, which has crossed this area countless times and probably stepped in that same place multiple times, could not anticipate where the trap would be laid.

However, even if it got caught in the trap, it would be able to quickly get away, as it is strong enough to simply crush and shake off any creatures that attempted to get to it.

All of this that has happened has bought me another 5 seconds. Crucial time I need to set my own trap that could get me out of this situation.

The chase continues, going through different areas.

Another five minutes of fast-paced running has gotten it closer to me.

Despite my constant push forward, it knows this place far better than I and can see the signs to get away.

Not only that, but it’s now avoiding the ground as it can see the pattern of me trying to lead it to such areas as the trap that it fell into earlier.

It is now leaping from tree to tree. When necessary, it even does side wall jumps on the tree trunks just to stay away.

Why is it chasing me this intently? I can see a look of excitement on its face in conjunction with the anxiety I had seen earlier.

Because of my scan, I can basically read its expressions as if it was human. It is enjoying this hunt more than anything else.

But I’m clearly trying to get it killed.

… Maybe that’s part of the thrill. Like the hunters from my world, the aspect of danger is worth the risk.

I’m I think I have to up the ante for it.

I quickly change directions, losing precious seconds and allowing it to catch up even closer to me.

A clear sense of confusion and disappointment crosses its face, as I had been only doing optimal actions earlier. Such a misstep must be less interesting for it.

What it doesn’t know is that I’m leading it into an even worse trap than it could imagine I would go to.

It gains and gains on me, as I have to go through even more dense terrain.

I begin to having to use the trees themselves as leverage, similar to how Panthers doing themselves. I adapt my running technique to be leaping and springing from place to place. Definitely not as efficient as the Panther, but it allows me to move over certain areas a lot easier. And even better, I can punch through the dense area even quicker rather than having to swipe things away.

It would be easy to think it would be trivial for someone of my strength to go through things like this, but this dungeon of a jungle is not simple.

Even in a lower tier area such as this, the Qi is thick in the air. Thus, the plants are much hardier, stronger, and sometimes have a mind of their own.

If my body wasn’t automatically recovering, I’d been worn down within the first 10 minutes of trying to do what I’m doing.

It’s a bit silly to think of, but the spiritual pressure that I had born from old lady… elder song, has allowed me to bear through the impacts that my body is going through now.

Such spiritual pressure training doesn’t really help me with strength as much as it does impact and physical pressure resistance. Basically, I can absorb a hit a lot better, but that doesn’t mean I’m able to leverage that strength as well in other areas.

Nonetheless, I get closer to my destination and I pause.

The air around me is greenish purple and swirls with the maddening glint. In fact, it has been for some time. Just becoming stronger and stronger the closer we got to this area.

A kilometer away to me is a giant plant, nestled between two large trees and hidden away, unless you knew it was there. It’s from here that the air has been corrupted and poisoned.

The Panther seems to have already known to avoid this place, as it was growing more and more distressed the closer I was getting to this area. In fact, it was moving faster and faster, trying to catch up to me before I got here.

But now it has stopped and staring at me, it’s eyes clearly watching carefully around this area.

It must know that if it follows me any further that it too will get poisoned. But it seems wary to lose its prey.

‘What does the poison do?’, one may ask?

It weakens and paralyzes creatures up to at the high end of the Qi cultivation realm. For creatures without cultivation, it paralyzes and kills them quickly.

Even this far away from the main plant, my healing constitution is struggling to fight it. Compared to the poison that that young assassin woman who was diced in the alleyway gave me, it only comes a little close to the stuff I’m breathing in now.

Which makes sense. Why would an organization waste high end materials on someone of my status?

If I were to get even closer, I’d have to use my healing aura to combat it directly.

For this Panther before me? Even now, it looks a little weaker and is truly considering how much it wants to come after me.

I look strong, almost unaffected by the poison.

This is one of my strengths.

One that I should leverage more and almost learned a hard lesson without.

With frustration in its eyes, it slowly turns away. Moving back into the normal jungle.

But this is just a temporary reprieve, as this creature in particular has no need to only hunt at night.

It’s a simply preference for it. And it does not need to sleep. Not for the amount of time I’ll be here, at least.

And I get the strong feeling that’ll be stalking me this whole time.

Looking for the opportune time to attack.

I start by setting up another treehouse here. The only issue is that I can’t keep any ingredients here, as the poison will taint them in the air. Not only that, but my body is still fighting it.

While this is great for training my healing constitution and improving my body against even bigger poisons, I’d like to not be placed in a worse position, in case something else happens. If attacked by the creatures that enjoy residing in this area, my body will have to switch to handling that besides the poison.

Even with the healing aura, I’d like to not push it too far, especially this far from any sort of help.

But I can use this chance to find out more about this stalker of mine. And perhaps, gain some ingredients while I do so.