After Zeris finished his meal, he quickly disperse the fire before it attracts beasts toward them. In normal circumstances, he would’ve tried out his skills on them.

After taking out the fire, he took out the note that Ray had given him. On it, there were many ingredients that he has to collect before leaving the plain mountain.

“Hide of the shadow leopard, Red-eye hawk’s talon, Grey-hound wolf’s fang, Grasslight herb, and a soul essence…”

Zeris muttered out the things he needed to collect. All the ingredients were normal except for one. Soul essence.

He’d never heard of a soul essence so how could he get it? He even checked on the note where Ray had left many handicaps on how to fight the beasts. Yet, there was no mention of soul essence.

Zeris wears a grim expression as he thought about the time he’d left. There’s only a month left till the festival starts.

His plan at first was to train in the mountain and gather the things that Ray requested. Now, there was an anomaly in his way.

It might not be a big problem if he comes back with everything besides the soul essence, but in the long run, it might not be so good for him.

Zeris wanted to satisfy the blacksmith and build a good connection with him. If he couldn’t even do this much, why would Ray even bother with him then?

So far, the only thing he has checked out is the Grey-hound wolf’s fang. Thanks to Celia, he didn’t even need to go search for it as there was a whole pile of it behind him.

Zeris fell into deep thoughts as he suddenly remembered about the other person that was a few feet away from him.

Cough! Cough!

Celia got out of her meditative state from the abrupt noise just to see Zeris eagerly waiting for her attention.

She tilts her head and looked at him confusingly which was extremely cute to Zeris. Celia had regained her composure from earlier though her face was still a bit red.

“Have you ever heard of soul essence?”

Celia widened her eyes and looked at him as if he was an idiot. Soul essence is the purest energy left behind by a beast that is many times more valuable than crest energy.

A single soul essence orb can be said to equal 10,000 crest energy orbs. It could only be obtained by killing a beast that is at least a dark yellow core, which is equal to someone that had already unlocked their 3rd core.

This was also something that everyone knows, all except for one, Zeris. She didn’t mind much about Zeris’s knowledge and explained it to him.

After the explanations, Zeris felt like going back and pulling Ray’s beard off. He, who can’t even use mana has to hunt down a yellow core beast…

Even though it was still out of reach for him at least he knows what it is now.

Celia noticed this and tapped lightly on her ring. The ring on her finger was a dimensional ring that could store things inside of it.

An orb appeared out of thin air and into her palm. The orb was emitting light that was bright enough to lit up the small den.

Seeing the ball of light, Zeris instinctively knew that it was a soul essence orb. Aside from the light, there were wolf figures engraved on it.

This also means that among the wolves that Celia had killed, there was one at the dark yellow core already.

He watches it intensely till Celia suddenly threw it at him.

“This is payment for saving me earlier.”

She only mentions the saving part but not the process. Before going back to her meditative state, she made a barrier around her.

Even if Zeris was the one who saved her, she still didn’t feel safe around him.

Zeris wasn’t bothered by this action and went back to the orb in his grip.

The purest energy from a beast… he could feel his heart bleeding when he gives this to Ray.

Sigh…

He would’ve absorbed this already if he could. After seeing the corpses of the Grey-hound, he finally realized how behind he was in the race.

If a random person that he encountered was already this strong, then how strong would other be?

In his eyes, Celia was just another average or maybe above the average person, at least in strength. If he was to talk about another subject, then she would no doubt be first.

The only advantage he has was his well-polished skills. If he didn’t reincarnate with his memory, then it probably would’ve been impossible for him to even survive in this world. He comforted himself.

Since there was nothing left to do and hunting at night was basically impossible for the current him, the only option was sleep.

Zeris would need to be at his top form unless he wants to be a meal to the beasts. He laid down on the bedsheet and passed out almost instantly.

He didn’t even feel dangerous sleeping next to another stranger. Perhaps he was already charmed by her or something was making him feel this way.

…

Rumble! Rumble!

Sounds of a beast could be heard walking slowly toward the den where Zeris and Celia were residing in.

It was following the trail of blood left behind by the Grey-hound wolves. The anti-beasts candles had already been used up.

The beast could now easily hear the sounds of their breath and heartbeat. On its way, no other beast dared to show up.

The strength and overwhelming aura made all the other beings in the forest flee away from its path.

This beast was the king of this plain mountain, the Void Tiger. It was a fierce creature that only comes out when an opportunity arises.

Since Celia was still injured and Zeris was unable to utilize mana, this was the perfect time to attack them.

The tiger arrived in front of the den and stopped. Because of its size which was almost over 6 feet long, there was no way for it to move around much in the den. This would be a big problem since its other specialty was speed.

Although it can’t enter directly, it has many ways to hunt. The reason why it was called the Void Tiger was that it can manipulate the space around it.

On the tiger's dark purple skin, there was mana leaking out of its body. The dark mana entered the den, creating a passage that was connected to the tiger.

To be exact, the tiger was tricking the space around it. By purposely letting mana seep out of its body, it can connect the mana to its source. It’s mana core.

Once the dark mana reaches Celia and Zeris, all it needed was to ignite half of the mana forcefully. This would make the space distort and the tiger can use the remaining dark mana to cover the two inside the den.

When the connection is made, it can wrap its remaining mana to the beast. Since the dark mana is covering Celia and Zeris they would also be transported to the tiger.

The beast tried to send its dark mana to the two but luckily Celia had already expanded the barrier to cover the entrance of the den.

As the dark mana tried to break the barrier, Celia was alerted. She quickly woke the sleepy Zeris up and explained the situation.

Both their expression was grim as they thought of a plan. There wasn’t much time left.

If the tiger was unable to break the barrier, then it would destroy the whole den, burying both of them.

“How strong is it?”

“At least the light yellow core stage. Fighting it is out of question. We’ll only be seeking death.”

Celia firmly informed him.

“Then do what? Are you confident enough to escape from that giant thing?”

She couldn’t help but grit her teeth. She knew this was the truth. There was no way they could both escape from it.

“Do you have a plan to beat it then?”

Zeris smiled and nodded.

“Whether this plan works or not totally depends on your strength.”

“What?! How am I supposed to kill?!”

“Calm down, I’m not telling you to kill it. You just need to destroy both of its eyes. Though it can still recover from it, the tiger won’t be able to chase after us. Also, I’ll get its attention so just be prepared.”

Celia had no choice but to agree to this absurd plan. Given their current conditions the void tiger could easily outspeed and kill both of them in instant.

Since Zeris confidently told her that he had a way to attract its attention, she could only comply.

From the outside, the tiger was slowly getting impatient. After a few more barrages of mana attack on the barrier. It decided to charge in and break the whole den along the process.

But before it could do that two figures charged out. A male and female. The male was holding two blood-red daggers while the girl behind him hiding her weapon.

“Remember, we only have one attempt. Whether we live or not will depend on this gamble…”