Chương 15

''Hey there, buddy,'' Ethan said, leaning close and matching the beast's curious stare. A moment later, he bit his lip and narrowed his eyes. It didn't seem hostile toward him, but it was still a peak tier-1 beast. He wasn't in a great condition to fight right now. In the end, he shook his head and dismissed the thought. No one deserved to be treated like this. Searching the room quickly, he found the keys to the cage, unlocked it, and took a step back.

Tentatively, the mantis walked forward and got out, eyes locked on him.'' Go on, then,'' he said, waving his hand.

''You're free. Go start your world domination or whatever.'' It tilted its head before straightening again, its gaze lingering on him. Then, pressing its little scythes together, it bowed a little before flying away. Amused by its antics, Ethan returned to his treasure hunt with a chuckle. From the shaman's quarters, he picked up four different weapons. Other than a small knife he planned to use for butchering animals and preparing meals, the rest were only good for selling later, if he ever got the chance.

They were all decent, but the quality of his tier-3 monster part daggers surpassed them, even though they were a little awkward to wield. Other than that, he found a piece of white fabric with a faint trace of mana. Upon closer inspection, the source of the mana turned out to be two cleanly cut stones inside. With no idea what they were good for, he stored them along with all the fabric he got. He'd find many uses for the latter, such as making his makeshift bandages or wiping his bloody daggers.

The more he found, the better. Licking his lips, he resumed his exploration with anticipation in his chest. The underground part wasn't as large as the upper floor, but it was still huge. After some time, he ended up in their kitchen area. It was abandoned in haste with the goblins either rushing to kill him or escaping after witnessing his days-long slaughter. The place still had many beast carcasses, but he found some human body parts as well.

Grimacing at the scene, he left to look for any possible hostages, but there were none. No one was left in this place but him. At least he confirmed that this world had humans, albeit in a disturbing way. Despite turning the place upside down, he couldn't find any heavenly treasures as he'd hoped and eventually reached the point where he was happy to find a bucket and a few large basins so that he could store large amounts of water in his ring. Unsurprisingly, these goblins were dirt poor.

They didn't have any cores, and even the accessories the shaman wore on her body were absolute junk. Though he got a few more weapons from some of the goblin warriors he'd killed. Still, it didn't feel like a waste coming here, as he almost got three levels in three days. Done with the search, he cultivated to his top condition and started his thousands of miles long journey barefoot. That annoyed the hell out of him at first, but after a few days, he realized it wasn't so bad.

His high Endurance stat made his skin tough enough to ignore sharp rocks and small thorns, and he liked being in contact with the earth all the time. There was a subtle feeling of freedom to it. On the third day, while he was opening holes under his bucket for an improvised shower, the prodigal son returned. The mantis had somehow managed to find him. Perched on a tree bough, it watched him creepily. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Ethan gave a weak wave with the dagger in his hand.

''Congrats on the tier up. Hmm, is it just me or did you get taller?'' As it kept staring at him without a word, Ethan chuckled and shook his head. He was pretty sure it'd grown a few inches taller. If its size continued to increase at every tier, it would become something terrifying in the future, or rather, more terrifying. As for where it had been till now, he had a creeping suspicion that it was tracking and hunting the goblins who had escaped. Not that he judged. A man's gotta collect his debts.

It's a male, right? He squinted at it. No clue. I'm just gonna assume he is. Done with the bucket, he filled it with water and hung it on a tree branch before taking the most uncomfortable shower of his life, ready to [Blink] away and call his daggers at any moment. Though the mantis didn't seem to have any intention to attack, content with being a spooky voyeur. Still, he couldn't sleep that night and decided to cultivate.

He was already curious whether the cultivation could be a replacement for sleep or not, since he always felt refreshed and rested afterward. With the uninvited guest around, he thought it was a good time to put it into practice and see for himself. The next day, while he was fighting a mid-tier-2 bear twice his height, the mantis joined the fray as well. It had a brutal fighting style built around speed. Its short and thin wings weren't good for long flights, but they were perfect for taking sharp turns in the air.

Its sudden bursts of movement and rapid, calculated jumps drove the bear mad and offered him many openings. Even without him, the little terror seemed to be able to handle the giant beast himself as its sharp scythes cut the enemy in a blur, and the bear became blood soaked after a short time. Admittedly, the injuries were rather minor, but they were adding up. Its shortcoming was its fragile body. If those big claws had pounded the mantis even once, he'd guess that it would be out of the battle.

Thankfully, they ended the fight before it came to that. Just like that, his new travel buddy started to gain his trust gradually in the coming days. Ethan named him Beet, short for blood-eyed evil tyrant. Since it was also small and purple, the name fit perfectly. Amidst the daily battles to the death, it felt nice to have a companion to yapp, but while it was a great listener, communication was a slow process for Beet.

Short instructions like 'come, go, attack, run' were possible, but discussing battle strategies was still beyond his new friend. The problem wasn't a lack of intelligence, but the language barrier. Still, it was learning slowly and surely. When that tier-4 snake noticed their presence, for example, it learned the word 'run' on the spot. In comparison, it took way longer to teach him how to give fist bumps with the back of its scythe. Days passed as the duo carved a bloody path forward in the ancient forest.

They weren't together all the time. Beet would disappear sometimes and return after a few days. Ethan didn't pry and respected his buddy's private life. Other than the constant battles, he focused on his skills. He spent almost every night cultivating and pondering his skills. Almost. Sleep was still in the picture. After a week without sleep, he found himself a little disoriented and moody. It only got worse after that, but sleeping for half a day fixed the issue and brought him to his best state.

Nevertheless, not having to sleep every day was pretty cool. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Sadly, his meditations didn't yield any result in the skill department. He was lacking too much context. Despite calling themselves an academy, the bullshit cultus didn't have the courtesy to leave him with some simple books like Cultivation 101 or Introduction to Void Magic. He was treading a path in darkness and had no idea if there was any progress.

The best way to get familiar with the skills was using them, but with his limited mana, training was only possible during the actual battles. If only Ani could run simulations and let him spam his skills non-stop… His leveling pace also slowed to a crawl. As time passed, his darts became rather useless, and he used his poison only for the tough fights, but it wasn't enough. Killing beasts around his level barely gave any Exp, and while killing higher-level beasts offered a faster pace, they weren't that common.

Well, okay, they were common. This forest was packed with monsters, but nowhere near as densely as the goblin settlement where he'd killed his way unceasingly for days. If he wanted speed leveling, he had to find better hunting grounds. Regardless of that, slow and steady grind still added up in the long run. On a beautiful day, under the soft morning light filtering through the deep green trees, Ethan bent his upper body backward with unnatural grace as a dire-wolf snapped its jaws where his head had just been.

He spun through the air and slashed his dagger across its throat. The beast started to choke on its own blood, spilling it everywhere and ruining his desperate attempt to keep his hair clean. He stood up with a groan, and the large beast collapsed next to his feet. Then, he threw his dagger with a [Fabric Tear] and pierced the skull of another dire-wolf that was thrashing around on the ground far away. Soon after, Beet landed lightly on his right shoulder.

Looking at the scattered corpses of the small dire-wolf pack, Ethan stored his dagger and raised his left fist to his shoulder, receiving a gentle bump from a blood-dripping scythe.

''Good fight. Did you see how effective cutting off their paws was? You gotta use those sharp blades where it matters. And it keeps you away from the long fangs.'' As he limped away to receive his dagger and start collecting their cores, Beet jumped over a big rock and started watching him over.

''I keep telling you. You should hide behind and ambush them swiftly when you have the opportunity. Then, retreat immediately and look out for the next chance. With how small and fast you are, it's easy to lose your sight, especially when I'm grabbing their attention. Though I have to give you credit. You're learning to attack from the blind spots pretty fast. Just need some more practice.'' Beet probably didn't understand half of what he'd said, but that was fine. He was also talking to himself.

It had been about two and a half months since he'd left his training cave, and after nearly four months of isolation, he was slowly losing it. He wasn't a stranger to solitude, but back on Earth, there was always the option of connecting with his friends via Ani. If his solo camping trip extended, and he was getting bored, he'd simply enter VR at night and have a cold one with a friend in a cozy pub.

Sure, it was all fake, but the social interaction was enough for him to unwind before waking up alone in his tent by the mountains. It also helped that his life wasn't in constant danger back then. Using his foot against the wolf's head, he wrenched his dagger free and began dressing the carcass. This one was tier-2, but there had been two mid-tier-3s in the pack, and he had only a single bite mark on his thigh to show for it. With a smug look, he took another glance at his status.

Tier 2 - Level 20 Health: 589/700 Mana: 410/800 Stamina: 308/600 Vitality: 70 Strength: 52 Endurance: 60 Agility: 80 Intelligence: 80 Perception: 30 *Available stats: 0 Skills(Rank 1): [Blink], [Void Wrap], [Fabric Tear], [Mana Sense] He finally reached the next tier about a week ago, getting the sweet bonus stats and another ridiculous boost on regeneration rates. Though it was only half of what he'd gotten at tier-1.

Even if it continued like this toward the higher tiers, this kind of regeneration wouldn't help much in battles, unless he had some huge mana pool and a bunch of low-mana cost skills. It was still pretty great for cutting his resting time between fights. However, after all the battles in the past week, including this one, he was barely halfway to the next level. It seemed that the required Exp for the next tier would keep increasing significantly, but he wasn't too worried.

So far, his speed was satisfying, and he finally had confidence in himself to survive in this perilous fauna. It would be a whole other story if he was still in the nightmare village, but here, they only saw one tier-5 creature, and a handful of tier-4s after so long. They even clashed with one of the early tier-4s and lived to tell the tale.

Well, Beet wasn't a great storyteller, but he'd make sure to exaggerate for both their sake and to keep the details, like how he'd almost been one-shotted by some kind of miasma beam. Speaking of the little terror, he was still early tier-2, but it wouldn't be long before he advanced to mid-tier-2. The problem, and the reason Ethan wasn't worried about the dripping Exp, was that Beet didn't have any skills, and he himself was still nowhere close to advancing his skills to rank-2.

That meant peak tier-2 was the end of the road for them, if nothing changed. Though he wasn't sure if that was really the case for Beet. Maybe some beasts didn't even need skills to advance and had a different kind of system in place. If not, he'd make sure to get some skills for the little fiend as soon as possible. As for himself… tutoring, perhaps? Maybe there were special places like cultivation rooms that would help, or maybe people had affinities in this world, and he didn't have a good one.

''Or maybe I'm just too stupid,'' he murmured and stood up, hobbling toward the next wolf.

''I bet Wu Qian is having a blast right now with this cultivation shit, already working on her rank-3 skills. Ugh. I'll never hear the end of this when we meet, will I?'' Concluding the butchering soon after, he sat down and propped himself up on his hands behind his back, ignoring the coppery smell of blood and listening to the whisperings of the leaves.

'Any changes with the nearby biochips?'

'The closest one is still in the same area, about 1000 miles away. Some new signals appeared, but some of them also got lost. The total number is now 32.'

'I see. Any nearby individuals or groups around the closest one?'

'Two new biochip users appeared close by, but didn't make any contact yet. There is a group of nine, but they are almost 8000 miles away.' Ethan cocked an eyebrow. Appeared? Did they turn their signals off and on, or is it something like long-range teleportation? That would make it a lot easier to regroup. I wonder what they'll do after reassembling? With Ani and the ship gone, the diplomatic mission turned into survival of the fittest in an instant. Everyone is on their own.

It's too soon to tell, but I doubt there is anything we can offer to locals of this world anyway, and I deeply doubt the godlike tier-9 locals will listen to a bunch of low-tier self-proclaimed otherworlders or treat them with any respect. If they are any smart, they'll keep their heads down and… Beet's shenanigans broke his train of thought.

Standing on a tree branch high up, it rubbed its scythes together and looked between him and someplace else frantically, acting like its latest virgin sacrifices had just arrived. Curiosity got the better of him. He jumped to his feet and [Blink]ed twice, arriving next to the little menace. When he failed to see anything, he used the [Mana Sense] on his eyes and noticed some movement in the distance.

Far away, in the middle of a small meadow, a human girl and an elf boy were making love, lost in each other's company and oblivious to everything else. Ethan's eyes opened wide, and a totally not creepy smile stretched on his face.

''People. Finally!''