It was early morning, a slight glow of the sun was already in the horizon. Kaden leaped from tree to tree as he usually did. The noises he heard were close. He was not only one being attracted to the sounds. Kaden could sense several beasts making their way closer too.

Eventually he landed on a tree. He perched on a branch and looked at the distance. To his surprise it was a human within some kind of a glowing sphere. More accurately, a human corpse inside a sphere.

The sphere was roughly few meters in radius and contained the corpse sitting against a rock.

Lots of beasts were around it, but could not penetrate the sphere. They would claw at it, slam at it, bite, but nothing penetrated it. From the signs, it seemed that it had been going on for quite a while. Some beasts had fought each other too so there were blood trails and other signs of combat.

Kaden looked more carefully at the corpse with the help of his magnifying sight. The dead human seemed like someone he had seen before. He did not really remember the face, but the partially damaged clothes were familiar enough. After thinking for a moment, he remembered!

“That’s the fellow I passed in that saint camp where they were building the formation to trap Anuu”, Kaden muttered. He couldn’t remember his name, but those pomous rich man clothes he did remember. “How did someone like that end up here dead?”

This was, in fact, one of the first signs of how much time had passed since the events. He was pretty sure that sphere was hastily created. A formation? The person was formation master, right? Despite its likely shoddy construction, its defensive power was beyond the beasts surrounding it.

Kaden went closer. The beasts were too low level so unless they attacked him all together, he wouldn’t be in danger. Even in that case he should be able to escape.

He made a few leaps towards the sphere and then landed at the edge of the opening. Beasts noticed him immediately and they growled at him. Kaden confidently walked forward. He knew he was stronger than these beasts and he wanted to show that. Beasts respected strength.

One of the beasts, a rodent, about the size of a large dog, did not get the hint and leaped at Kaden, hissing. Kaden snorted and released his core. With speed that was far beyond what the rodent could deal with, he clawed at it and pressed it against the ground. He tore its neck apart and started burning it before it was even really dead.

Other beasts had already stopped growling and took steps backwards by the time Kaden had released his core. They could sense his aura. They took even greater distance as Kaden casually started eating the charred corpse of the rodent right in front of them. He left behind some and went to check the sphere. Some beasts with greater courage took the chance to tear rest of the rodent apart among themselves. Kaden didn’t care, it had barely been filling at all.

As for the sphere, Kaden touched it. It made his hand tingle. He tried to press it a bit, but found it to be extremely solid. He could see things on the corpse he wanted. First of all, clothes. Some part of him did not care, but the other part did… a lot. Then there were objects on the belt too. There was even a book just under the corpse’s hand.

As for the corpse itself. It was in a surprisingly good condition. It only had some wounds, but none of them looked fatal to Kaden. Why had this person died?

Kaden stepped back and jumped onto a tree nearby. He was going to take his time to observe. There were things under the formation he wanted and would be difficult to acquire in the forest otherwise. No way have would willingly give up this chance.

Beasts decided that Kaden didn’t care about them so they continued their squabbling.

While patiently watching he noticed the sphere grow slightly dimmer over time. Formations needed power, he knew that. It would run out eventually. It had been there for quite a while and since it was hastily made, no proper fuel source could have been prepared. It was supposed to be a temporary shelter for the person, but did eventually become his temporary tomb.

He didn’t want to wait around too long. Perhaps the formation would break in hours or perhaps a week? He didn’t know so he thought of draining its power. Kaden leaped down and the beasts gave him room again.

He struck at the sphere with quite a bit of strength and observed the effect. He did notice his attack cause a ripple and slight dimming. He had no way to truly estimate how long it would take until he could pass through, but there was at least a visible effect. Kaden guessed there was not much power left. Many beasts must have tried attacking it over time.

Kaden slammed his claws at it once again, again and again. As he was observing the effects again. He heard shuffling from nearby bushes. Enormous cougar with strange fur pattern appeared! The weaker beasts backed away from it just like they did from Kaden.

A dire beast!

The cougar roared at Kaden and was closing the distance.

“Damn it!” Kaden cursed. He pulled full output of mana from his core and extended both of his hands to his sides with the phantom claws a visible as possible. He puffed up to look as big as possible and even that plume hair was glowing. He took a stance to prepare for a fight. He also let out sound that almost resembled a screech.

Kaden still felt weakened due to his slightly damaged core, but he was now thinking of replacing some of the lost power with potential from his mana channels. Reach and greater precision.

The dire beast cougar was probably the dire beast that owned the area. It was close enough to Kaden that they would likely eventually meet anyway. It was clearly interested in the corpse too and had noticed someone strong was messing around at the sphere while it had been casually waiting for a chance. It only made sense for it to come check what was going on.

The cougar roared and it released its aura too. Its fur stood up and went similarly to position to start a fight. Then without warming it charged at Kaden who in turn replied with similar move.

The two began tearing at each other. Clawing, biting, using magic. This was his first true fight against a dire beast!

Kaden noticed that dire beasts were indeed strong, but, against this specific cougar, he was able to defend himself at least! He was not sure, if he could win, though. The cougar was far more experienced and a bit stronger. Then again, Kaden was more intelligent and had some special attributes to himself so it was not one sided matter. Both of them received wounds, but not major ones.

The cougar then stepped back and roared again. Kaden let out a few flashy bursts of flame in return.

“I see, this was a test”, Kaden thought and took a few deep breaths to calm down. “A dire beast is intelligent enough to try their opponent before commiting to a true fight.”

The cougar had simply tried to make Kaden flee. It was not worth it to battle to death over the corpse. Even, if you did win, you would suffer wounds. Not worth it.

Kaden too took steps backwards and reduced his mana output a bit to show that he didn’t intend to fight to death either.

The cougar circled around a bit and then decided to go lie down on opposite side to Kaden, who also did the same. They would wait together.

This was an interesting lesson to Kaden. He had thought beasts would not act this way. Perhaps a high beast would, but not a dire beast. They were not almost mindless until higher stages like humans used to think. In fact, now that he thought about it, the weaker beasts probably had not acted purely on instict or fear either. He wondered for a moment just at what level beast intellect was. Underestimating beasts was bad.

Despite wanting to avoid any further conflict with the cougar, Kaden still did not want to waste too much time. He went back to the sphere and started clawing at it. The cougar also came closer, but did very little otherwise.

“Slacker”, Kaden muttered and continued.

He did not continue nonstop so that he wouldn’t exhaust himself. Eventually the cougar came to claw the sphere too. Perhaps it figured out that it would open quicker.

Still, Kaden was there all day until next evening when he found his claws finally dug into the formation. At that point he started attacking with full strength. Eventually the sphere tore open like paper and started to disintegrate.

Noticing this, the cougar finally started to growl at Kaden again. A dire beast did not understand speech so he couldn’t tell it he only wanted the clothes and the items. A beast would have no use for them.

The cougar wasn’t intending to wait. It went to bite at one of the corpse’s arms and attempt tearing it away. Kaden watched it for a moment. The man had very high cultivation so the body was tough. A lot of mana would remain in body even after death. Some bodies would possibly be even more valuable dead than having it alive. For the cougar, the body and its easily consumable human type mana was a treasure.

He stood and watched the cougar finally, after huge effort, be able to tear off the arm. He considered it courtesy to the area’s owner to let it have first pick. This gave him to see something that was ... strange.

It was not odd that the body had not rotted yet at all. This was also due to the cultivation level. Yet, blood still flowed out from the torn arm. That is, if you want to call it “flowing”. The blood was like gel. Kaden was pretty sure that wasn’t normal. Even the ribbons of flesh that the cougar had torn, snapped in sluggish manner as the cougar pulled it harder.

Perhaps this had something to do with the persons’s death. He was one of the saints so Kaden didn’t mind. He was not going to eat the man either. He shuddered for a moment when that thought came. It had come because he got the feeling it was dangerous. Not because it was human. Kaden decided that it would be cannibalism to eat humans. Whether he was human or not, he at least used to be one before. He would not eat humans.

As the cougar was concentrating on chewing on the arm, Kaden picked the book, belt and pants. The pants were slightly gaudy, yet not too much unlike the jacket, but that was shredded apart so he wouldn’t use it anyway. The dirt and damage hid most of the gaudiness anyway.

Kaden put on the pants! Finally something to wear!

He took rest of the things and decided he had all he came for. The cougar could eat the body for all he cared.

Just as Kaden was about to leave, he heard strange sounds behind him.

The cougar was clawing itself. Almost like it was chocking. Did the gluttonous beast choke on its food? How ridiculous. Becoming a dire beast and then choke to death on the food you eat.

At any rate, it was in pain. Its eyes almost bulging out as it desperately tried to get rid of whatever was blocking its throat.

Kaden thought a bit. He looked at the corpse and then back to the cougar. “I guess there is more to this than seems. Perhaps poison?”

The question of how the formation master had died was still open. No external signs, but poison would fit the bill.

He looked for a moment and then leapt towards the struggling cougar. It was nearly defenseless. Kaden would not give up on such chance. The cougar tried to fight back, but its effort were pathetic. It couldn’t breath, it was suffering. Kaden tore at it, not giving it the slightest chance.

Despite its state, it was still a dire beast and it managed to claw at Kaden few times, but they left only shallow scratches. Its hide was also tough. Much tougher than beasts Kaden had killed so far. It took much longer to tear it open and drag its innards out.

Soon it lied dead. Kaden wasn’t planning on eating the cougar, no matter how much he wanted to. If it had eaten poison that was enough to kill the formation master, who should be pretty powerful, the poison must be strong and its effect lasted all the way until the cougar ate it. The formation master had at least been building a formation to trap someone like Anuu. So perhaps Condensation stage? Kaden would not be able to deal with poison strong enough to kill a Condensation stage practitioner!

“It’s a shame about the meat”, Kaden muttered and thrust his hand inside the beast’s body. He soon found the thing he was looking, the core. “This should have most of the cougar’s mana anyway. I’m not going to risk anything else.”

After this he left, but he did not return home or look for where the cougar had lived. He went straight away to a stream nearby and washed himself. He believed his only risk had been to stick his hand inside the beast. What if the poison had already moved through its body and would seep into him through blood? Once he had washed away the blood, he inspected himself for a while looking for any problems. He felt fine so he figured everything was okay.

Only after that he returned to his home cave to examine his loot.