Exo followed behind me, he skinned the hide off of the bull and brought it with him like I asked, the hide was good for armour and would fetch an expensive price when sold, this and the materials you could collect from the magical beasts were a main income source for some high ranked mages or warriors.

I found shelter in a small uninhabited cave, it was damp and you could tell not even the magical beasts wanted to stay in this shabby cave, it was also away from the caves that powerful beasts lived in, it was surrounded by trees and well camouflaged.

Within this cave I spent a couple hours meditating, the fusing of mana to my body was used to heal my wounds at an accelerated pace, this time I had to heal quickly, I couldn’t afford to attract any beasts, after all some predators were sensitive to the smell of blood in this wilderness.

When my wounds were finally healed and patched up enough to start training I headed back out, it didn’t take long until I found another magical beast of the B rank, this time it was a yellow tiger, yellow tigers are from the family of tiger magical beasts, they are the weakest among the tiger family, the lowest is rank B, supposedly the blood red tiger was the strongest of the tiger family tree, they ranged anywhere from rank A to rank S, incredibly powerful!

This yellow tiger was strolling cautiously in a dense wooded area, it must of been hunting for food when it spotted me through the trees.

Seeing me this yellow tiger instantly ran at me, it must of been thinking “Haha! easy prey!”, the tiger was the fastest of the magical beasts I’d seen so far, in a few strides it was in front of me, growling with it’s head lowered and then it pounced towards me with it’s razor sharp teeth, the tiger was a so fast all I could see was a blur, it was much faster than me!

However, this time I was totally prepared, I’d built up my fighting experience and now I was adapting myself to fighting these magical beasts who were superior in all aspects!

Instead of dodging to the side like I did when fighting the other magical beasts this time I went backwards, quickly getting out of the range of the attack, luckily this was effective, the tiger landed where I was standing previously and then met my eyes once again, this time with a louder growl.

Using its superior speed it recovered from it’s miss and flew at me once more, this time even faster! like an arrow fired from a bow it was instantly in front of me, I had no time to dodge or put up defence so I attacked with all my strength and betted on one blow, just as the tiger was about to bite, a 1 meter pronged spear appears in my hand, the tiger has no time to dodge, it’s already invested into this attack! using the tiger’s speed against it the spear lodges straight into it’s mouth and out of it’s head, an instant kill!

Haha! I’d actually killed a B rank yellow tiger with just one attack, that goes to show experience and planning is key!

I skinned the tiger and took it’s claws and teeth, they were used in some weapons and potions so they were valuable and I could make money from them.

The rest of the day carried on like this, fighting with B rank beasts, as I went along the pace got faster and faster.

After a couple weeks of being in the wilderness B rank magical beasts were easy pickings for me! They no longer posed a threat, from the constant life and death battles my body got stronger and stronger, the cultivation seemed to speed up my progress by ten-fold.

with my new found confidence I ventured further into the wilderness when I reached the mountain that I saw always looming in the background, it was one mountain in particular on the ridge that was the most profound, it’s peak almost piercing the heavens.

I hadn’t seen a single magical beast since entering the clearing near the mountain, it was devoid of any activity, I thought this was extremely strange and the atmosphere was eery, there was something strange going on, but stupidly I tried to brush it off.

near the bottom of the biggest mountain i saw that there was a little entrance, a small rift in the rock, seeing this, curiosity got the better of me, I knew I shouldn’t of gone in there, the signs were all there, no magical beast dared to come close to this mountain like it had an invisible barrier around it and the place eerily quiet and dense in mana, but I didn’t have the innate ability to sense danger as well as these magical beasts who grew up here, how could I of known this was a bad idea?

I walked into the small, dark rift in the rock and followed it in for a couple hundred meters, the passageway was incredibly small and I had to shuffle and walk sideways sometimes just to get through, I could hardly see in front of me, it was extremely dark, as I walked further and further in I reached a dead end.

Hmmm, a dead end? As I thought this I reached out my hand and touched the wall in front of me which was blocking the path, well, I tried to touch the wall, to my complete astonishment my hand went straight through the wall! I cautiously pulled my hand out and looked it to see if anything was wrong, nothing happened, my hand was completely fine.

I cautiously went further into the wall until my whole body was in, as I came out the other side of the wall the path continued further into the mountain but the path got larger and I was able to walk normally now, the little rift in the rock had actually housed a long path like this, I wonder why it showed no signs of magical beasts trying to enter?

Other than that weird illusion magic that showed a dead end I would of thought that magical beasts would of at least been curious of this place, it was well hidden but surely it has been discovered by the local beasts.

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Thank you for reading ^_^