As soon as he left towards the depths of the forest, Kaden noticed a slight problem. As he used any more than slight amount of mana, his core would trigger and supply him with a flood instead. He had planned on jumping over a fallen tree, instead he leaped high in the air and far too great speed.

Kaden almost screamed as he noticed himself fly towards a tree. Yet, instead of slamming against it in ridiculous manner, Kaden somehow grabbed onto it. It wasn’t even hard. How was he holding onto the tree? He wasn’t holding onto any branches. What? His fingers were digging into the wood. It was almost like he had dim phantom claws. Mana? Kaden stopped using mana and he no longer could hold onto the tree and fell to the ground.

What just happened? External mana? He wasn’t at Channel Opening yet. He pondered for a moment and realized something that he had not thought about. His core. Dire beasts had a core and they were equivalent of Channel Opening stage human. Dire beasts probably could use mana externally due to sheer volume a core could give out mana. Kaden wasn’t actually too aware of matters related to beasts and their advanced stages. It did make sense, though.

Kaden could control his core to an extent, but he had noticed it worked mostly automatically. Whenever he did anything, it would activate. Instead of wasting unused mana, it simply circulated inside him and only the part he used was gone. Was this the existence of beasts? Their core was like second heart or lungs. It worked alongside them over their entire lives and whatever they were doing.

Thinking of this, Kaden made the core release slight stream of mana. As little as possible. He felt it activated, but nothing odd like the phantom claws. Then he increased the volume. At this point the phantom claws apeared.

“So thats how it is”, Kaden muttered.

Realizing how cores worked, he decided to ignore its workings for now. He would let it do its thing until he needed to interfere.

Still that was not the last time Kaden would notice something new about himself. This one was much sadder affair. He felt terrible loss and felt like he was missing something.

As he leaped between the trees he noticed a feeling. It was as if his mind was telling him “why are you on the ground? Fly!”. He wanted to fly, but he had no wings. Perhaps he was feeling like a crippled bird. At least his physical abilities were good enough that he was easily able to travel on the ground.

He did not run into anyone or anything during the day. He had heard some sounds a few times, but he had no idea of distance. Kaden decided he had to familiarize himself with his physical abilities very soon. It was a big problem, if he didn’t understand what his body was even doing. As for the sounds, he saw nothing and he knew his sight was probably far beyond human. He was probably safe.

When sun was setting Kaden climbed up a tree where he was planning to spend his night. He somehow was able to find a comfortable position and felt like he could sleep there. As it became darker, Kaden wondered how long time had passed since he met Anuu. How long did he spend in the egg? It was still summer so it probably wasn’t too long. Or maybe he had been there for an entire year! He decided that this matter too was irrelevant.

Kaden didn’t feel cold at all despite his lack of clothing. In fact, he felt constantly warm, not hot, not cold. Just comfortable warm. Kaden decided to ingore yet another oddity of himself. Then he realized he had already ignored one oddity, his lack of clothing. It had not bothered him the slightest. He cursed for a moment and wondered, if he had become a natural exhibitionist. Yet, where would he find clothes?

He had planned on sleeping, but he got to learn something important about living in area with no beast control. There were sounds everywhere. Many beasts came out during night. Kaden even got to meet one of them.

“Another damn wolf. What is it with me and wolves. Are they offended that I wear a member of their race. That mangy wolf was so pathetic they should be happy I killed it. I’m not going to throw away these boots even if that was the case!” Kaden cursed as he noticed a gray furred canine going in circles at the bottom of his tree.

It was very large and seemed strong. Probably not a dire beast, though. Kaden could see pretty well in the dark. He wasn’t sure, if it was nightvision or something else due to some kind of glow, but it made things pretty visible. He didn’t notice more wolves. Why was this one alone too? It was strong, it should be a pack leader. Did higher ranked wolves act different way when compared to weaker members of their species.

Kaden didn’t intend attacking it. The dumb wolf could stay there as long as it wanted. He was out of its reach and he had not had good experiences about fighting wolves.

Then the wolf started jumping up. Noticing it did not get high enough. It started slamming against the tree. This was almost a dire beast. The force it could exert was very large. The tree shook and eventually even started cracking.

“Shit!” Kaden cursed and realized there would be a fight. No sleeping in trees either. He would need another solution.

He leaped down and tried to land on the wolf, but it was quick and dodged. Immediately afterwards it leaped at Kaden. In such a situation Kaden felt his core trigger at max. Power filled his muscles. Some part of him made him rush at the wolf instead of defending. Kaden somehow avoided the wolf and its bite. Then he grabbed the wolf with his bare hands. His clawlike fingers sunk into the wolf’s hide and then he slammed it onto the ground with a crunching sound.

The wolf released some sounds of terror. It had not expected that the weird looking naked human that was wearing something that smelled like its kin was so strong. It howled in desperation. That would not save its life.

Kaden almost screeched as he clawed at the wolf, tearing its side to shreds. He stopped once the wolf was clearly dead. Blood and innards was spilled everywhere. Kaden was covered in it from head to toes. This also did not feel anything odd to Kaden. He was mostly amazed how strong he was. That had been easy. Effortless. The wolf had not been a dire beast, but he likely was one himself. The wolf never had stood a chance. It had only attacked because Kaden had seemed weak. A lone naked human.

This was Kaden’s kill. His prey. He felt there was something to do. Soon he realized what it was. Kaden released large amount of mana from his core, but it was something he took out from deeper. Red and yellow mana concentrated on his hands and claws and burst to flames. He used it to burn the wolf’s body charred black.

Kaden felt the blacker and more charred it became, the more he wanted to eat it. Eventually he could not hold back and sat down next to the smoldering wolf and began eating it. Somehow this posed no difficulties. He could easily bite through the charred flesh.

The wolf meat had that crunchy charred external layer and then still raw insides due to just getting burned outside, not cooked. Somehow this felt the right way to eat things. It even tasted very good.

Kaden did notice this oddity, but ignored it. He assumed phoenixes eat their food like this and it was indeed the correct assumption. They liked to burn their food.

There was some mana inside the wolf meat, but not as much as he had hoped. There was no core either. The little mana he did gather entered his core.

He did not have much time to eat. There were howls coming from nearby. Looks like the wolf had not been alone after all. Maybe it was scouting and made a mistake?

Kaden was not too unhappy, though. He did get to eat some and he was not even that hungry. The egg he had eaten earlier seemed to have been nutritious and he didn’t feel too hungry. Despite his strength, he did not dare try fighting entire wolf pack. Perhaps the wolf he killed was not even the strongest member. There was no reason to take foolish risks.

He leaped to a nearby tree and ran away. Hopefully less scent would be left around for the wolves to follow, if he touched ground as little as possible. That seemed to work since he did not notice anything being after him once some time had passed.

Kaden wasn’t sure, if he should even sleep. He was pretty sure he would be able to keep going extremely long period of time before needing rest. His mistake for picking resting place, not understanding how the wolves worked, all of it pointed to his glaring lack of understanding how to live in the forest. Perhaps he should observe first and find out how and when beasts rested. That and how they lived in general.

There was another problem. While he was deeper in the forest, he still was not that far in. Stronger beasts should reside deeper. He probably should not go too far until he knew what was in there.

Instead, he found a quiet place and did not sense anything nearby. He sat down and prepare to attempt creating that mana channel. If he was already considered a dire beast, he should be able to reach Channel Opening too, right?

He lacked information. Kaden only knew the general idea, but he had never tried creating a mana channel – at least not consciously. Somehow he should extend one channel from that ball through his skin. It was made from mana, so mana channel’s were not solid things. No actual hole would be left behind, but more like a easy to move path for mana. Only creating it would hurt a bit, but if you are strong enough, you can finish it and then it will balance with outer mana and your mana storage.

Kaden’s channel ball around the core was an oddity. It should not exist as far as he knew. Perhaps his channels would be different too.

Only thing he could do was trial and error from what he knew.

Kaden gathered mana within the ball and then core triggered. He received a painful backlash as he had been trying to confine the mana in the channels. Kaden cursed. Perhaps human and beast mana cultivation were incompatible. He wouldn’t give up. It was just his first try.

After several failures he did find a way he was pretty sure would work. The thing is, as far as he could tell, he didn’t have enough mana. Specifically mana in right place and form. Mana from core came from there and returned there. While out of core, it was flooding and was difficult to control with precision. As for mana that was not in core, there was quite a bit of it. He could adjust the flow of mana from core to pass past his channels so it wouldn’t interfere, but the remaining calm human style mana was not enough.

Kaden’s body was tough. That calm mana had to pass through it somehow and it ran out too soon. He had been able to start constructing mana channel, but it was only about sixty percent complete at best.

Once he ran out of mana, the channel crumbled and he most of the mana in use was wasted. He would also suffer a backlash, but he knew that was normal upon a failure. He would then wait to restore the lost mana. Absorbing chaotic mana was only slightly faster.

That was also a problem. His mana system didn’t seem to work properly. It did work, but was even more inefficient than before. Kaden sighed as he came to realize it was made for humans. He was not exactly entirely human anymore.

Sun was rising by the time he ended his attempts. He was pretty sure he could progress with human mana cultivation, but for now he wasn’t sure how to do it. If it truly ended up being impossible, he still could follow the beast path.