Eric moved through the forest in a dire state.
His soul was pale, and his body was covered in wounds.
Yet, despite his condition, he was in a very good mood.
He had just defeated an awakened beast.
The beast had possessed an advantage over him.
Its core was already fully formed, since beasts did not need to use their cores to form their bodies.
Eric, however, knew that once he improved his skills, he would be able to perform much better.
After walking for a while, Eric found a cave where he could hide and rest.
By then, his soul had already mostly healed itself, and his body was in much better shape.
He sat cross-legged and willed the surrounding mana to change its form before absorbing it into his soul.
His soul, in turn, used the energy to heal his body.
He continued the cycle for thirty minutes until he finally returned to his peak condition.
“Time to assess where I am.” Eric closed his eyes and spread his senses.
He could mostly sense awakened beasts, along with a few Ascended beings scattered throughout the forest.
He immediately made a mental note to avoid those areas.
Eric was about to withdraw his senses, wary of being detected by the Ascended, when something appeared at the very edge of his perception.
Someone?
Something?
He wasn’t sure.
The creature’s soul was strange—a mixture of human and beast.
Then it stood.
The creature gazed into the forest.
No.
It was gazing directly at him.
Eric quickly withdrew his senses and opened his eyes.
Only one thought remained in his mind.
“An Ascended beast-human.” Eric sat down in the cave, lost in thought.
“That was new.
A mixture between human and beast—a hybrid, to be precise.
How does that even work?” Eric was understandably curious, but he was also wary.
That thing was an Ascended—person, beast, whatever they were called—and Eric was merely a newly awakened cultivator.
Instead of pondering over matters he knew nothing about, Eric decided to cultivate.
He converted the mana in the environment into breath and absorbed it into his body, which in turn enlarged his core.
Meanwhile, Reshel sat cross-legged in an open area of the Sung mansion.
She was surrounded by three Transcended women, all gazing at her expectantly.
One of them, a beautiful middle-aged woman with dark red hair, reached into her robes and brought out a vial filled with a golden substance.
Reshel took the vial from her hands and stared at it with nostalgia.
This was the very vial that had stood between her brother and his dreams for all his life.
And now, it was being given to her for free.
“For the price of using me, at least,” she mused.
She looked up at her spectators, who were all giving her the same expression: Hurry up and drink it.
With nothing else to do, Reshel downed the liquid in one gulp.
At first, nothing happened.
Then she felt a warm sensation in her chest.
Like a trigger had been pulled, the warmth suddenly transformed into unbearable pain.
Her blood evaporated, while arcs of lightning cracked across her skin, burning through it as though countless insects were devouring her flesh.
Reshel tried to scream, but her body refused to respond to her commands.
It was as though the connection between her mind and body had been severed.
Through it all, the three Transcended women merely watched her with cold, indifferent expressions.
As the last remnants of Reshel’s mortal body gave way, leaving behind only her soul and shadow, the arcs of lightning surrounding her suddenly embraced her.
They began rebuilding her body from scratch.
Then, her soul expanded, encompassing a wide yet limited area around her.
Suddenly, information about the surrounding living beings flooded into her consciousness.
Eric stood up from his cultivation and decided to investigate the demi-human.
He hadn’t sensed any malice from the creature while observing it, so he assumed he was relatively safe.
“Is this one of those times I wish Night Hunter were around?
I mean, he must know about these creatures, right?
This is his boss’s territory.” Eric moved quietly through the trees, occasionally glancing around as he searched for the creature.
After moving unobstructed for an hour or two, he finally came to a stop in one of the massive clearings.
There, he saw a massive white snake wrapped around a defenseless green fox.
Normally, Eric wouldn’t have stopped for such a mundane situation.
But the moment he saw the fox, he felt a strange pulse of energy seep into his mind.
Something was drawing him toward it.
“Why do I feel like I need to save it?” Eric couldn’t tell whether the thought was his own or whether something was influencing him.
“I’m just going to save it and leave.
Nothing problematic.” Still confused by his own actions, Eric sighed.
“Fuck it.” He leapt downward and materialized a short dagger from the weapon given to him by the Mistress.
As he descended, he made a mental note to give the weapon a proper name later.
The moment Eric landed in front of the struggling beast, the white snake released the little fox and bolted out of the area.
Eric narrowed his eyes.
Everything about the situation screamed suspicious.
Instead of staying there to investigate, he picked up the little fox and raced back toward his cave at full speed.
After reaching the cave, Eric placed the fox gently on the floor before sitting down beside it.
The fox was so small that he could probably have stuffed it into a bag if he wanted to.
Yet despite its size, it was far from weak.
It was an awakened beast.
Eric was still lost in thought when he suddenly felt two eyes staring directly at him.
The sensation snapped him out of his thoughts.
The fox slowly stood up and limped toward him before settling down in front of him.
Throughout the entire movement, it never once took its eyes off Eric.
Eric easily noticed the injury on its hind leg.
He gestured toward the wounded limb.
To his surprise, the fox obediently stretched out its injured leg.
Eric raised an eyebrow.
“It actually understood me?” He gathered the mana surrounding them and converted it into breath before directing the energy toward the wound.
The breath seeped into the injured flesh, and within seconds, the wound began to close.
Eric watched silently as the injury healed completely.
The fox lowered its leg but continued staring at him.
Eric became increasingly suspicious.
There was something strange about this creature.
He cautiously spread his soul sense, attempting to probe the fox’s soul.
However, the moment his soul sense touched the creature, an invisible force erupted from its body and blocked his probing.
Eric’s expression hardened.
“What kind of insidious power does this creature wield?”