As soon as I woke up, I took a shower, changed into a clean set of clothes, and headed to a nearby dining shop.
I ate a proper meal for twenty copper coins before buying enough food and water for another fifty copper coins.
After today, I planned to stay in the Monster Forest for at least a full day.
Everything I needed went straight into my space ring.
Without wasting any more time, I headed toward the forest.
The guard at the gate was different from the one I had met before.
After seeing that I was an Awakened preparing to hunt, he simply nodded and let me pass without asking any questions.
I ventured deeper into the forest, searching for monsters.
If I wanted to survive in this world...
I had to become stronger.
Along the way, I spotted a group of Awakeners.
I immediately changed direction.
In this forest, the most dangerous creatures weren’t the monsters.
They were other Awakeners.
If they discovered I was alone, there was a good chance they’d kill me and take everything I had.
I wasn’t interested in becoming someone else’s loot.
After avoiding them, I continued deeper into the forest.
Soon, I came across another group of Corrupted Beasts.
Standing at the front was an especially large and fat one.
It was clearly their leader.
I observed the surroundings before noticing a massive rocky hill about a hundred meters away.
A grin slowly spread across my face.
Perfect.
I’d lure them over there.
After all...
It would be a shame if they didn’t receive the honor of dying by my hand.
What a kind man I was.
Even while killing them, I was thoughtful enough to make sure they had a memorable ending.
I condensed darkness into a tiny black bullet and fired.
The projectile pierced the head of one of the weaker Corrupted Beasts.
It collapsed instantly.
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 6 Corrupted Beast.]
[You have gained 60 EXP.]
The rest of the pack immediately noticed me.
Without hesitation, I turned around and sprinted toward the rocky hill.
The Corrupted Beast Lord roared and led the entire pack after me.
I quickly climbed onto the rocks.
The fat bastard couldn’t reach me, so it ordered the others to spread out and surround the hill.
Watching them, I couldn’t help but laugh inwardly.
What an idiot.
Now I can deal with them one by one.
I fired several Dark Bullets at the monsters below.
Although I managed to wound a few of them, none died.
Now that they knew where I was, they remained alert and constantly watched the rocks.
Clicking my tongue, I stopped attacking.
There was no point wasting my mana.
Then...
An idea crossed my mind.
I quietly moved to the opposite side of the rocky hill.
Just as I expected, the Corrupted Beast Lord gathered several of its strongest followers and charged toward my position.
A smile spread across my face.
I condensed the largest Dark Bullet I could create.
Then...
I fired it directly into the base of a gigantic boulder.
A loud crack echoed through the forest.
The massive rock broke free.
The Corrupted Beast Lord looked up just as the enormous boulder came crashing down.
BOOM!
The giant rock crushed the fat monster into a bloody paste, along with several Corrupted Beasts beneath it.
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 15 Corrupted Beast Lord.]
[You have gained 300 EXP.]
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 9 Corrupted Beast.]
[You have gained 160 EXP.]
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 5 Corrupted Beast.]
[You have gained 40 EXP.]
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 8 Corrupted Beast.]
[You have gained 100 EXP.]
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 6 Corrupted Beast.]
[You have gained 60 EXP.]
[Congratulations!]
[Level Up!]
[Level: 4 → 5]
[Reward: 5 Free Attribute Points.]
A huge grin spread across my face.
"Ha! Take that, you ugly freak!"
"How does it feel to get flattened by a rock that’s almost as big as you?"
"You couldn’t even run because you were too fat."
"Next life, try eating a little less."
"You might actually survive another day."
I laughed so hard I almost lost my balance.
The remaining Corrupted Beasts roared in fury and rushed toward me after watching their leader die.
Unfortunately for them...
Without their leader, they were nothing more than small fry.
I drew my new sword.
Then I charged.
One slash.
Another.
Then another.
One after another, the Corrupted Beasts fell.
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 10 Corrupted Beast.]
[You have gained 180 EXP.]
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 8 Corrupted Beast.]
[You have gained 100 EXP.]
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 7 Corrupted Beast.]
[You have gained 80 EXP.]
...
[Congratulations!]
[Level Up!]
[Level: 5 → 6]
[Reward: 3 Free Attribute Points.]
After the battle, I walked around the battlefield and looked at the corpses.
It was time to see what I could gain from them.
I placed my hand on the first corpse.
"Devour."
The familiar sensation appeared.
The monster’s essence began flowing into my body.
[Absorbed 0.5 Agility.]
[Absorbed 0.5 Strength.]
[Absorbed 0.5 Mana.]
I moved from one corpse to another.
The amount I absorbed depended entirely on the strength of the monster.
The weaker Corrupted Beasts only gave small amounts.
But when I reached the corpse of the Corrupted Beast Lord...
I immediately felt the difference.
A much denser energy entered my body.
[Absorbed 3 Strength.]
[Absorbed 2 Agility.]
[Absorbed 3 Vitality.]
[Absorbed 2 Mana.]
A satisfied smile appeared on my face.
This ability...
The stronger the enemy I defeated, the greater the reward.
It wasn’t some ability that would allow me to become powerful by endlessly hunting weak monsters.
No.
To grow stronger, I had to challenge stronger opponents.
And that was exactly what I planned to do.
I opened my status screen and looked at my attributes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ATTRIBUTES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: 11 → 13
Agility: 12 → 13
Vitality: 9 → 10
Mana: 11 → 12
Spirit: 10
Intelligence: 8 → 9
Perception: 7 → 9
Luck: ???
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
FREE ATTRIBUTE POINTS
Available Points: 0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
After using all my free attribute points, a wave of power spread throughout my body.
It wasn’t some overwhelming transformation.
But I could feel the difference.
My strength had increased.
My mana had grown.
My senses had become sharper.
Every small improvement mattered.
A satisfied smile appeared on my face.
This feeling...
It was addictive.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t struggling just to survive another day.
I was actually becoming stronger.
Originally, my goal was only to reach Level 6 before the academy trial.
But I had already achieved that.
So why stop now?
The more power I gained, the better my chances of surviving in this world.
I stored all the monster cores inside my space ring and continued deeper into the Monster Forest.
This time...
I wasn’t hunting just to survive.
I was hunting to grow.